Author Topic: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?  (Read 23279 times)

princezilla

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Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« on: July 26, 2017, 04:41:46 PM »
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.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2017, 05:12:21 PM by princezilla »

Kaos Arcanna

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2017, 09:36:36 PM »
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

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2017, 11:12:32 PM »
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

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2017, 12:24:34 AM »
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

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2017, 01:49:15 AM »
Same here, only right now I flip between Mechwarrior Online, Tera, and Final Fantasy XIV

princezilla

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2017, 04:52:28 AM »
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.

I was counting H&V, they haven't given any indication that they are abandoning the project so there is no reason not to. and I said roughly the next two years as a best guess.type thing given their average projections.

You are right about CO's character creator, it's insanely good, but it's also the only big draw for the game beyond PvP as it still has no end game and adds new content at the speed of a geriatric snail. I do strongly hope one of the successors borrows from it's creator though.

CoT definitely looks like it is the most ambitious but that's also caused it to progress a bit more slowly then the other projects which could hurt it if another arrives first and steals it's thunder.

Valiance seems to be the closest to completion but SoH has made very impressive progress in a very short time, one of them will probably be finished first.

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.

It's a simple matter of people and money. Regardless of what differences they have they are all still going to be in direct competition with each other and most people will not play them all due to limited time and/or money. There are only so many people who will play them particularly if a lack of investment in advertising leads to little new blood being brought in. The fact is, whether you want to admit it or not, it's almost impossible that all will be successful unless they all somehow bring in thousands or more new people who have never played Superhero MMOs before, the existing customer pool simply isn't big enough to support all these games.

Gamegod

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2017, 12:34:48 AM »
SOH will do the best because it is the most similar to the original. SOH offers almost everything that COH did and the kicker being the unreal eng 4. What all true Cox players want is the same game with updated graphics SOH does this and it is why they will flourish.

LateNights

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2017, 12:44:17 AM »
SOH will do the best because it is the most similar to the original. SOH offers almost everything that COH did and the kicker being the unreal eng 4. What all true Cox players want is the same game with updated graphics SOH does this and it is why they will flourish.

Are they the most like CoH?

I'd heard they used alot of placeholder art that was ripped from CoH, but none of that was going to be in the final release.

saipaman

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2017, 02:36:22 AM »
What all true Cox players want is the same game with updated graphics SOH does this and it is why they will flourish.

I could care less about new graphics.  Sure, that would make the game 'the new shiney' for a few weeks, but the players that are attracted to that kind of thing aren't going to stay around.

downix

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #9 on: July 28, 2017, 06:49:03 PM »
What all true Cox players want is the same game with updated graphics SOH does this and it is why they will flourish.
The "No True Scotsman" fallacy I see

princezilla

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #10 on: July 28, 2017, 08:11:25 PM »
The "No True Scotsman" fallacy I see

Indeed. I think most would be satisfied with something which recaptures the feel rather than any specific bells or whistles. They want a game which let's them recreate the favorite heroes with a reasonable degree of faithfulness, and that is fun to play often without getting stale, the details are not hugely important.

downix

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #11 on: July 29, 2017, 01:46:26 AM »
The main problem for all of the successors is actually that CoH is shut down. Without a direct comparison, people's memories will be more nostalgea than solid, with the frustrating or less than ideal areas forgotten and the good portions remembered as far better than they really were. The 800lbs gorilla in the room for all of us is that we are competing against a ghost far more than we are each other.

This is a big reason why I will praise the other projects when I can. We have enough of an issue competing against a phantasm. We don't need to add antagonism to that as well.

Vee

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #12 on: July 29, 2017, 03:47:24 AM »
Gimme a game without the holy trinity, with coh-style enhancement rather than a constant gear grind, where different archetypes/sets actually play differently and where travel and the auction house UI aren't intentional time sinks and you can do pretty much anything else you want.

princezilla

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #13 on: July 29, 2017, 02:38:02 PM »
The main problem for all of the successors is actually that CoH is shut down. Without a direct comparison, people's memories will be more nostalgea than solid, with the frustrating or less than ideal areas forgotten and the good portions remembered as far better than they really were. The 800lbs gorilla in the room for all of us is that we are competing against a ghost far more than we are each other.

This is a big reason why I will praise the other projects when I can. We have enough of an issue competing against a phantasm. We don't need to add antagonism to that as well.

It is true that people are dramatically idealizing CoH and erasing its flaws, but that shouldn't prevent us from having a frank conversation about the successors and their advantages and disadvantages against each other. They are all going to be in direct competition with one another and it is unrealistic to expect that all of them will do well and we need to be able to look at which ones have the best chance and which have the worst and why.

Kaos Arcanna

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #14 on: July 29, 2017, 05:07:51 PM »
The main problem for all of the successors is actually that CoH is shut down. Without a direct comparison, people's memories will be more nostalgea than solid, with the frustrating or less than ideal areas forgotten and the good portions remembered as far better than they really were. The 800lbs gorilla in the room for all of us is that we are competing against a ghost far more than we are each other.

This is a big reason why I will praise the other projects when I can. We have enough of an issue competing against a phantasm. We don't need to add antagonism to that as well.

Yeah, and everyone is going to remember COX as it was at the end when we had lots of content, numerous zones, and lots of powersets. None of the successors are going to rival COX for those things when they go live.

princezilla

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #15 on: August 02, 2017, 06:43:21 AM »
Yeah, and everyone is going to remember COX as it was at the end when we had lots of content, numerous zones, and lots of powersets. None of the successors are going to rival COX for those things when they go live.

This is true but the big thing is having enough content so that players don't run out of shit to do and get bored before the first major update, if they can do that then the fact that there is less then CoX had at shutdown won't matter, people don't complain about the water being to shallow if they can't reach the bottom.

I think the biggest pitfall is going to be the lack of advertisement which could lead to critical underpopulation at launch, it doesn't matter if you've created the best game in history if no one knows it exists. That can easily lead to a death spiral where people stop logging in because they have trouble finding people to do stuff with when they do which further reduces the population making the problem worse... To my knowledge none of them have an ad fund or a publisher to spend money on ads.

Super Firebug

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #16 on: August 02, 2017, 02:39:16 PM »
That can easily lead to a death spiral where people stop logging in because they have trouble finding people to do stuff with

That sounds like players who absolutely must team in every game session. I can't imagine that there are very many of those. I, for one, would be very happy to explore and play the new games, and what they have to offer, all by myself.
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Castegyre

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #17 on: August 03, 2017, 01:18:53 AM »
I think a bigger problem than not having people to group or guild with is simply feeling like the world is dead. I solo in most games most of the time, but I still like to know there are other people in zone with me or see other people chatting away in different channels. I know my wife and a couple of the people we sometimes game with are the same way. I don't need to be doing raids all the time with other people, but I like to know those other people are there. When the game feels like it's empty I'd rather just go play a single player game. It's just as lonely, but less disappointing. I think having a certain mass of players is necessary not just for the health of the game's financials, but for the health of an online community even if we're all mostly soloing together.

princezilla

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #18 on: August 03, 2017, 05:11:54 AM »
I think a bigger problem than not having people to group or guild with is simply feeling like the world is dead. I solo in most games most of the time, but I still like to know there are other people in zone with me or see other people chatting away in different channels. I know my wife and a couple of the people we sometimes game with are the same way. I don't need to be doing raids all the time with other people, but I like to know those other people are there. When the game feels like it's empty I'd rather just go play a single player game. It's just as lonely, but less disappointing. I think having a certain mass of players is necessary not just for the health of the game's financials, but for the health of an online community even if we're all mostly soloing together.

Exactly. And on top of that Massively Multiplayer is right in the genre name, the social experience is inheritly part of it and there are always chunks of content which just can't be soloed.

downix

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Re: Who will claim Paragon's throne... And who will die?
« Reply #19 on: August 05, 2017, 05:38:26 PM »
Exactly. And on top of that Massively Multiplayer is right in the genre name, the social experience is inheritly part of it and there are always chunks of content which just can't be soloed.
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