Plan Z: General > Plan Z: General Discussion

Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?

(1/8) > >>

princezilla:
Superhero MMORPGs have always been a bit more niche then other subgenres, for the first five years of it's existence CoX was the only one. When CO arrived on the scene they fully expected to push CoX under by virtue of their tech/graphics advantage and assume their position but while CoX did take a large hit to their playerbase when CO came online CO failed to retain the players due to vastly inferior lore and near total lack of an endgame and most of them returned to CoX after a few months when the shininess had worn off or they got to max level and realized there was nothing to do. DCUO made similar assumptions, expecting to dominate based on their IP recognition but although they did pull in some new blood with it they failed to make any noticable impact on CoX's population due to both increased customer loyalty and the fact that a lot of those who tried it never made it past the limited character creator. So the market has never had more than three games competing at once. CoX ruled the roost for virtually all of it's existence and though CO picked up a fair number of the refugees when it went down it once again failed to reliably retain them and with no Superhero MMORPGs being released since then we've been left with those two neither of which have been able to fill CoX's shoes.

That's about to change.

There are at least four new games, all designed as spiritual successors to CoX, being released in roughly the next two years. That will bring the number competing in the genre up to six, double what it was before CoX shut it's doors and triple the current number. It's extremely unlikely that the market will be able to sustain all of these at once and only one will be able to claim the top spot so we're gonna get Game of Thrones: MMO Edition. What are everyone's predictions based on what we know? Quality will not be the only deciding factor here, like it or not the first out the door will have a fairly strong advantage for several reasons and advertising investment will also play an important role, Massively and other similar publications give out a good amount of free publicity due to CoX vets on their staff but that can only do so much and isn't likely to bring in fresh blood.

My first prediction is that CO will be the Renly in our scenario, bright and shiny but ultimately without substance and though it intially attracted a lot of attention it will fall without much struggle as soon as it meets any serious competition. It's been struggling for the last five years just competing against Paragon's ghost holding on mostly because it's the only game where people can faithfully create/recreate their favorite characters which will no longer be true when the successors start coming out.

Kaos Arcanna:
Where are you getting four games in the next two years?

COT has a tentative 2018 release date and the last I heard Ship of Heroes had a plan to release a smaller version of SOH to start with. VO is getting ready for their first official alpha. if you're referring to Heroes and Villains I haven't heard of them having any kind of official release date announcement.

Beyond that, I think it's a mistake to count Champions Online out. They have been doing a lot of powerset revamping-- and while that does often annoy me-- it is a sign of developer commitment to the game. At this point-- barring a Champions Online 2 or perhaps a "Champions Online Legends ala the Secret World"-- I think the game will continue as it has been. Even though CO is sorely lacking in content IMO, I don't think any of the newer games will have more than it does when they go live. And quite frankly, the costume creator in Champions is severely underestimated-- there are things you can do in it that were impossible in COX and I am not altogether sure they will be possible in any of the successor games. At least, I haven't seen or heard of them offering the same variety of textures CO has or the ability to alter body proportions as much as CO does.

Beyond that, COT still has the largest pool of financial resources of any of the successor games to my  knowledge as neither VO or SOH were able to obtain their desired funding from Kickstarter. That gives them the edge over the others as they still have reserves left over to help them launch their game and pay for all the sudden surprises or unexpected expenses that may pop up.

VO's staff strikes me as being very determined to launch their game and I have been impressed by their livestreams.  VO has a very strong visual kinship with COX and that may weigh  heavily  in their favor with the COX vets.

SOH has impressed me with how much they have gotten done given how much later they started than the other successors. They have done very well with their PR  and I think they might have been able to succeed with a Kickstarter that had a lower target.


Ultimately I think the biggest factor in the success of any of the games will be who gets to market first. For better or worse, how well the first launch does will impact how people see the others. Right now, it's still too close to call IMO.

downix:
In general, we are looking at Valiance Online arriving early 2018, City of Titans is scheduled for late 2018, and Ship of Heroes is due for release in 2019. However, other than each being inspired by City of Heroes, with a similar template, these are very different games.

City of Titans is a modern day comic book movie setting.

Valiance Online is a near-future (2090's IIRC) sci-fi setting.

Ship of Heroes is a distant future space opera setting.

With such a diverse collection of settings, to say that one will dominate or destroy the others is utterly preposterous.

Kaos Arcanna:
I've contributed to all three successor games and hope they all succeed ... because I like to play a variety of different games. (For instance I would still play CO and STO if they even brought back COX. I'd just play 3 games instead of 2.)

downix:
Same here, only right now I flip between Mechwarrior Online, Tera, and Final Fantasy XIV

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page