Just a thought. Maybe a good one, maybe a bad one, I'm not sure, so just throwing it out there.
With the rise, dominance, and current industry push for Superhero movies, I wonder if, while retaining the soul of a comic book, CoT should try to assume more of the look and feel and market themselves as, when the time comes, a Superhero movie based game.
This may seem like unmeaningful semantics, but I really don't think it is.
While I am an old-school bronze-age comics nerd, in our day and age I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of people who eagerly go to Superhero movies have never read a comic book--but they do play video games. They would see the value in a Superhero movie based game more readily than in a comic book based game.
Most of us on these forums have requested a relatively more realistic art style and graphic anyway, and MWM is using an amazingly powerful engine that nonetheless generally gives good performance, so this shouldn't cause a problem. It really wouldn't be a major change in much--just a bit of a mental and marketing shift.
While this may not seem like any big deal, or at most a subtle distinction, I have a gut feeling it could do really good things for the success and future of CoT without degrading the spirit of the game at all. Perhaps even enhancing it.
Anyway, good? Bad? Irrelevant? What am I even talking about? What's the difference between this and what is planned? What exactly would this mean?
I have some ideas, but I'd like to see what y'all think.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Yes, what exactly is diffrent than what is planned?
Personally I hope they don't make the gfx to realistic. I like the toony gfx that CoX gave us, it sorta gave that comic book effect.
I understand that THAT is what you don't want?
However there are a lot of aspects that come with the comicbook-like style that just make the game fun. There are a whole lot of 'serious' MMO's out there, which can be beautiful.
But as we look at CoX which was toony it had a lot more playground, things could be awkwardly stupid, things could be amazingly epic.
With a more serious gfx style you lose some of those options.
In my opinion a comic like gfx style would be more accesible even tho I know this will not be the choice.
Sadly enough I indeed do have to agree with you, with this hype of superhero movies compared to the small public of comicbook fans I'd be the smart move to just have it epic and serious all the time.
If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.
The avatar on the far right is my best representation of Solarverse, as lo0ng as the body styles can be adjusted to the way I want them, and not some preset body style selections, and as long as I can at least come close to Solarverse's uniform, I honestly wouldn't care if it were done in comic book style, or movie style. Although, as far as costumes go, I have yet to be a big fan of the costumes they have used for most of the movies...too far off from the comics IMHO.
So basically, either way is fine with me. Three things matter most to me in hero games...the look of my character, the way the powers look (I love big flashy powers) and the way they sound. I loved how they sounded in City of Heroes....especially how abilities had a sound stacking affect, the more enemies your powers hit...that was one of the first things I noticed about CoH that really grabbed my attention and made me feel as though I was almost actually in the game.
[b]SOLARVERSE[/b]
[img]http://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac221/Wraiven/500f9ca9-c235-47de-a1ba-bdfe4396e5c3_zps41207a6f.jpg?t=1414857764[/img]
I generally hate spandex style costumes and 'm huge fan of Ultimates 2/Supreme Power/MCU & Dark Knight Trilogy Movie style costumes so I strongly prefer costume pieces in that style
*I've liked all the MCU costumes except The Avengers 1 Cap America suit, I hated it, though I can see why 616s may have liked it
Issue 0 CoH player barely let my subscription lapse before NC Soft called it quits; my incarnate gear *Sniff*
Global: Chance Jackson; Triumph: Liege Cheetatron X, Fight of Your Life, Down Right Fierce, Infernal Samurai, Time May Change Me etc
I never really thought of CoH as a superhero comic-book game, and always had a twinge of annoyance when it was marketed primarily as such or when certain players insisted on comic books being the defining factor in how CoH development should proceed. To me it was simply (and elegantly) the best customizable superhero game; one that allowed my characters to exist as major players in their own right, rather than making me subservient to some existing lore superstructure (DCUO, I'm looking at you). Trying to design and market CoT as a mostly superhero comic book game *or* as a superhero movie game both seem too limiting to me. Fans of both genres should be welcomed, ideas and styles from both should be included and developed, except where they conflict. Perhaps some content or costumes will feel more influenced by one genre than the other, and that's fine.
If I've read the OP correctly, it's mostly noting that CoT has a lot to gain by marketing toward the superhero movie audience, and suggesting development of at least some elements in CoT which would appeal strongly to that huge potential playerbase - and I agree with that. What those elements would specifically be, I don't know (and would like to hear), as I am not slanted toward either genre. Perhaps it's already being done. As the OP states, the distinction could be subtle, so at this stage of development it might not be very visible to me, even if CoT is trying to lean toward one particular genre over another.
[color=#FF0000]Why so Serious?[/color] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_5dP_83O7o
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
[img]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm106/hinata1032/Kitsune.jpg[/img]
Empyrean brings up a valid point, so I'll jot some thoughts down related to it.
What's the appeal of the movies vs the comics, and what can we use? Discarding the things that are obvious or non-transferable to a video-game format, a big thing I can think of is that the movies have to work harder to earn the audiences willing suspension of disbelief. This results in spandex generally being avoided, and a "heavier" (for lack of a better word) feel to the action. You can't "POW!" an audience of a movie or video-game, they have to see it, hear it, and imagine what it feels like without having to think about it.
If we want examples of good marketing for this audience, we need to look at how Destiny was marketed, how Halo: Reach was marketed, how many of the Call of Duty games are marketed. Look at the trailers for Age of Ultron. Hulk-buster gets whacked by hulk, Some messed up android (Ultron?) crushes the head of an Iron Man suit.
We need a heavy, brief, action cinematic where the audience can see the blows connecting, bullets flying, and bodies crashing against each other.
We can't cut to the heroes facing the villains and fade for logo. We have to give the audience a brief glimpse of a fist hitting a face, a man engulfed in flames tackling an oppenent, and a gunslinger letting loose a volley of shots.
We need people to watch and think "I don't know wtf that is, but it looks awesome!"
On that note, for non-marketing design, I hope you guys have a really good sound team. Sound is probably among the most underrated aspects of visual media.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Good points. And, though they are a bit dated now, I thought the CoH cinematic trailers were awesome for their time--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkzauZV4x2I, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRSvPOdeX4s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbHzrYN8P1k (made me a little sad to watch). Even this weird one made specifically for marketing to Asian audiences--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvopCMDtFnU
DCUO used the same approach, but it's more recent and with, well, Sony money behind it--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Nf-m6WGl4
I'm a comics guy at heart, and when I get my hands on the creator, it'll be mostly 3 color spandex that I shimmy into. I just want the game to succeed, and the superhero movie and action game market are just crushing comics right now, and the major studios seem fully committed to taking the movies even further.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I think the OP's distinction is a meaningful one, and that CoT would lose part of the essential flavor of CoX if it adopts photorealistic avators and NPCs.
I think it was Brad Bird of Pixar (the Incredibles) who pointed out that the degree of photorealism in an animated feature communicates something about the setting and story universe, and that some kinds of characters and plots just work better with a less-than-100% realistic rendering of the graphics. My own feeling is that more realistic avatars would begin to take away from the light-hearted, playful sense of a superhero game and could undercut the more fanciful, exaggerated character designs.
Movie plots are carefully constructed to make it appear that the events of the story flow quickly and inevitably from one to the next; but in reality the actions and choices of the characters are tightly controlled. The more simplistic, rambling style of comics - or the movie serials of the 30's and 40's - is more suited to the open-ended gameplay of a superhero MMO, so IMHO the game's graphics should also be 'tooned' to convey that kind of story setting.
Good point, and I'll ad that not all "toon" is created equal. CoH had a very comicbook style art which people seem to greatly preferr (I do) to the "Cartoon Network" look of Champions.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)