Dreams Of Noise

I've been following this game's development for a while and just want to warn you not to get your hopes up too high. It looks like it could be a corporate-directed hack job, where they have all of the elements they _think_ gamers want wrapped up in a half-done, rushed out too soon game that doesn't deliver. I hope I'm wrong, but they keep making mistakes and bad decisions that smell a lot like pointy-haired bosses who know nothing about gaming. For instance, the focus is on the playstation with the pc version as an afterthought, which makes for cool fights but little else. Also they ignore the mac which immediately eliminates 30% to 40% of their potential gamers (based on other MMOs and cross-platform AAA titles) so we're talking people with serious tunnel vision here. And then there's the active disdain for gamer feedback. Throughout the entire process they had the attitude of "You buy what we make and shut the hell up," so they're more inclined to dictate than respond, and that's never a good sign for a game that can only survive with a large and active player base.

Again, I hope I'm wrong, I'd love to see a really good supers MMO, but I've seen these warning signs before on many other games that were hyped as the most awesome gaming experience ever, only to disappear from the scene nine months later except when derided in angry forum posts.

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While I haven't followed DCUO's dev cycle, what you say sounds much like what happened with Star Trek Online. (Add in the fact that STO released a year earlier than it should have, and you get a lot of problems.) I was also concerned to see 'SOE' there, after their fiasco with the Star Wars 'expansion' that they'd done.

Well, I'm already deeply involved with City of Heroes, so I can't bring myself to go off to DCUO. I'm worried that DCUO will basically be a weaksauce supers game -- after all, you will always be second fiddle to the A-List, to say nothing of the 'trinity.' But I guess there needs to be a power cieling somewhere.

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I'm hoping City of Heroes "Going Rogue" comes out as good as it sounds. I played it for a few months but stopped because I was the only one of my online friends who played it. If it's as good an improvement as it looks I'll probably try it again.

Good point on DCUO about being in the shadow of the A-list, that could be a major buzzkill if they don't handle it right. Given how Sony handles these things in other games I doubt it. Right now they're trying to keep Star Trek from sinking by giving in to one or two players requests, but all those problems were pointed out during beta testing and ignored, so cross your fingers but don't hold your breath.

As for Mark Hamill and other nice touches, I've heard that was due mostly from the people at DC insisting over the objections of Sony who wanted all new voice talent, among other things, that they could control and claim ownership of. Like I said, a long list of corporate-type mistakes and bad calls make it hard for me to have much hope.

I'm still hoping that someday someone comes out with a multi-genre MMO so I can take characters from supers to retro-future to pirates to steampunk to lots of others with only one monthly fee. A GURPS MMO, yeah!

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Ah, actually, Sony has nothing to do with STO. Cryptic's the developer, Atari's the publisher. CBS controls the license.

But other than that you're right. STO is going through some rough times right now, mostly because they're fighting the perception that they're trying to milk/bilk the player base for every dollar that they can; at the same time that they're trying to build up enough content to make up for releasing the game a year earlier in the dev cycle than most games are.

As for a multi-genre MMO... that would be very, very cool! =) Though I still would like to see a pre-Atreides jihad DUNE MMO. 'I'm in ur Great House, stealin ur ATOMIIIIIICS!!!!'

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Ach! You're right! I should have remembered that. That's what I get for posting forum comments while watching Good Eats episodes.

As for the Dune MMO, that's why I like the idea of a multi-genre MMO so much. You want Dune, we can add Dune. The Foglios want a Girl Genius MMO, we can give them the tools to make it. In fact, why not include the tools with the game itself? We could have a world builder, an easy to use 3D modeler (like in Spore) for props, critters and buildings, and a quest maker like in City of Heroes. You could set up different levels of worlds, like say a bunch of us want to make a Tom Smith MMO, we could have one version set up so anyone can add anything, another that's judged by other players (based on votes cast in the free-for-all world), then a third world that only contains what Tom approves of. You think the Redneck Ninjas land needs more big box store raid instances, you can make it yourself, put it up in the open content world and see what other players think. Someone else thinks up a neat chain of quests that super villains have to run through after encountering The Waffle, they can make them up an submit it. I think it would be cool to have the Domino Death car as a mount (that you get only after delivering twenty pizzas while fighting off the Invading Hordes of Fenton) then I can make it and send it to Tom for his approval.

What other worlds would you like to see?

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Bwahaahha! "like say a bunch of us want to make a Tom Smith MMO." And the low-level omega hare is Fenton the Death Sheep. =D I love it! A Tom Smith MMO would be great!

Wow, let's see. I think one of the things I'd hoped to get out of STO was a spaceflight/combat sim that wasn't as user-hostile as EVE. STO does some things really well... and other things not-so-well. So a good spaceflight sim... heck, add a Firefly MMO to my list.

About the closest thing there is to the idea of a universal MMO is Second Life, but the MMO elements in various sims are hacked on with wet duct tape and bailing wire, are not compatible with one another, usually require additional expenditure, are not exactly seamless, and are labors of love, to wit, are really the best that a handful of dedicated devoted people can do. but admittedly pales in comparison to a large, dedicated, well-funded development team.

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Oh, yeah, you'd have to have a large team working on the game full time, developing new stuff and tweaking player's creations that are all kinds of nifty but needs a bit of polish, but if you make the world creation tools good enough you could outsource content creation to other groups. Like say you want to do a suburban horror/comedy world (Psycho meets Twin Peaks meets Addams Family in Stepford) you put out the word that you've got cash money sitting in bags waiting for the right content development team then sit back and review all of the proposals. Or a team of experienced game modders put up an ad "Want world? Will create!" so if someone like Jasper Fford can hire them to make and maintain a Thursday Next world.

As for other player created content that pales in comparison to the pros, from what I've seen there's two reasons for that. First and foremost are the tools. Most modable games don't have any tools and the players have to be really passionate to struggle through a complex procedure while having a job or going to school. Other games have really simplistic tools so the players are very limited in what they can do. But if you give them good tools and make them easy enough to encourage creations, then you'll get stuff like Spore (have you browsed the buildings and stuff people have made? Impressive!) and challenging quests like Little Big World.

The other factor is how you set things up to implement players creations. You could set up a sandbox world where anybody can make anything and other players rate it so only the highest rated stuff moves on to a proper gaming world. Or you could set up a panel review where players submit their stuff and select VIPs judge if it's worthy. Or anything else you might want to try.

But it doesn't stop there. Because the MMO is open to player created content other players can add on to what you build. Someone could make a Prisoner-like resort, others could populate it with mysterious eccentric spies, others could craft a number of brain-challenging quests, and so on. If a world becomes popular you'll have more gamers making more content, which will give players more to do, which makes the world more popular.

And you'll be collecting $15 a month from every one of them ;-)

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I hope you're wrong too. Trying to translate a game for both a game console and PC is difficult. I got a PS3, but all those buttons makes it hard to play. Give me a traditional keyboard and mouse any day. And how can you text messages on a council anyway?

SOE knows many people will buy due to the IP. It's why Champions and Star Trek got so many players. But at least STO is listening to the players. I hear they upped the level cap. I may have to start playing again.

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trav13369.livejournal.com

OMFG! this JUST might be the thing to get back into MMORPG's!!!!!

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janne.livejournal.com

I've been waffling about returning to City of Heroes or trying Champions Online, but now I think I have to wait for this one and see what the general verdict is. At least Wonder Woman had her old costume =)

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filkertom.livejournal.com

Yeah, I'd noticed that. Which just tells me that they figure her new one is gonna crash and burn. Which I think we all figured anyway.

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dornbeast.livejournal.com

That really depends on how long this game has been in production compared with her new costume, doesn't it?

I can see the DC Online people finding about the new costume, and saying, "Forget it. We aren't going to re-code all the cut scenes just to be up to date."

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filkertom.livejournal.com

Well, they don't have to. All they have to do is change her costume and rerender it.

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It's not really that simple. WW's new costume came out a couple weeks ago. This was a cinematic cutscene-quality trailer. It's non-trivial to re-do this sort of thing, and I very much doubt that WW's costume could be re-modeled, re-scripted, re-textured, and then the umpteen layers of it re-rendered in two weeks. Plus I imagine that this trailer was finished weeks ago, and was released on a tight marketing schedule.

Which is a shame, because I LIKE Diana's new costume.

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City of Heroes is releasing Going Rogue soon where your characters can switch sides. I look forward to bringing my Mastermind over. Maybe even make a new Mastermind. One of those new Demon Summoning powers so I can name the demons after Fox News talking heads.

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Damn, not even Star Trek Online could pull me away from City of Heroes (despite being 6 years old). This one just might.

I'm glad they got Mark Hamill to do Joker again.

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unclelumpy.livejournal.com

Sony Online Entertainment
We Hate Our Players, And It Shows!™

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enjis.livejournal.com

Ya know, they could forget about having to hire live actors to do super hero movies if they did them all like this. I'd watch that movie.
Not so much with playing the game, as I still like City of Heroes.

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