[url=http://i.massively.joystiq.com/2014/11/28/the-daily-grind-are-superhero-mmos-too-niche/]The Daily Grind: Are superhero MMOs doomed to be niche?[/url]

As the title states, Daily Grind writer Brianna Royce posted a rather vapid article about the general topic of superhero MMO's. However, what made me post something here is the brilliant comment made by user charlesborner. You'll want to read the article first, of course.

Quote:

[b]charlesborner[/b]

No offense to you Bri. But I REALLY wish people would shut up about "WoW Numbers".

WoW is an anomaly. A mutant. A sport. It's not happening again. EVER. WoW was just a lucky confluence of timing, appeal, overseas release, etc, etc. So expecting tens of millions of monthly subscribers to some new product? Guess again. The industry is too different. The options are too diverse. And the various billing models just as diverse.

Before WoW, an MMO was considered Triple A with a few hundred thousand subscribers.

Now, if they're not grabbing MILLIONS of players, they crap and nobody wants them? Basically publisher and investor expectations have changed.

High Fantasy is prime for MMOs. Mostly due to technological issues. Fantasy MMOs are relatively simple in terms of mechanics. A decent superhero MMO is orders of magnitude more complex to implement if you don't want a very superficial game.

As such, fantasy games arrived earlier, filled the niche and flourished. The tech to do GOOD superhero stuff came much later.

Also, a lot of the superhero games either:

A) Aren't MMOs or

B) Are MMOs, but don't understand the personal nature of "character ownership".

Is it exciting to play as Superman? Or Spidey? Or the Hulk? Sure. But it gets OLD after a while. Your attachment to that character is superficial at best.

So you can design your own character right? In some games? Yes. In many? No. And worse, in games like DCUO? The game BARELY qualifies as a MMO, and relegates the player to "sidekick" status, instead of delivering a story where players either ARE, or by dint of advancement, can BECOME the equal of the canon world-beaters.

This was something City of Heroes got right. Out of the gate. You start out as a low power hero. And by the time you hit the level cap, you're an important and very powerful member of the superhero and international community.

People also talk about teaming. This is another area where City of Heroes had no equal at the end. Prior to super-sidekicking, you'd have to build teams using an elaborate and lengthy process of matching appropriately leveled characters to sidekicks so people could earn experience and rewards. Once SSK was implemented, teammates of lower levels were automatically bumped to the leader's level minus one. This completely destroyed the annoyance of "mentor tetris" and vastly VASTLY simplified teaming.

Teaming in just about every other game is a huge ordeal. Even Champions Online (effectively CoH 2.0) makes teaming about as pleasant as nails on a chalkboard.

At the same time, CoH also made it so that casual and solo-leaning players still had plenty to do. Seriously, 8 years of regular content additions game people a LOT to do. Teamed OR solo.

Also, something most of the other games don't allow you to do. Play villains!

Why would anyone want to play some evil, wicked, perverted miscarriage of the justice system?

Because, on occasion, being the Bad Guy can be FUN AS HELL!

Most modern games are all about gear grind. And compound the idiocy by making the gear affect how YOUR player looks.

CoH was unique in that enhancements had NOTHING to do with how your character appeared. And you could play the game just fine on common enhancements. You didn't NEED to raid your ass off just to acquire every stupid uber-item just to be able to hack normal game content.

Granted, if you did go for an uber-build, you were orders of magnitude more effective. But you weren't REQUIRED to do that.

CoH's big problem was that they had a marketplace for in and out of game items for YEARS before they implemented a market. And the parent company couldn't or wouldn't see/accommodate this. We were literally screaming "SHUT UP AND TAKE OUR MONEY!" and they wouldn't!

Nowadays, just about every game wants to rape you through their cash shop. Especially egregious are the PWE games and their lockbox gambling where the only way to open lockboxes (which are the only way to get most things nowadays) can only be purchased with real money and no way to earn the stuff in-game.

Are superhero games destined to be niche? Probably. Because only one company got it right. And their parent shut them down due to unrealistic monetary expectations and lack of marketing support. Pretty much every other player in the space nowadays is doing it flat out wrong or in the process of implementing it wrong.

All because they're poisoned by this idiotic idea that they're somehow going to be "the next WoW".

This man is my hero.