All I want is a Great Superhero Game...
By
Angry_Angel,
Posted on: 2012-09-18 13:08 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I, on the other hand, HATED Diablo 2 for its convoluted build system and points system that ensured EVERY character I ever made in that game sucked and was gimped. Diablo 3 may have been brown, badly-written and hugely disappointing... And painful at 60 Euro, we can't forget that... But at least as a GAME, it didn't piss me off as much. It's still gear-driven, but at least I can't gimp myself as easily.|
Originally Posted by Thunder Knight
On the other hand, I really liked Diablo 2 and was pretty meh on Diablo 3, so maybe I'll give it a shot. If there's a Mac version. (Of course there won't be)
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*edit*
And I if I want to play as Marvel heroes, I'll play Marvel vs. Campom, thank you very much. Not Marvel vs. Capcom 3, however, as I don't own a console.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I have yet to try CO.
I downloaded DCUO on my PS3, played it a bit, and I found it enjoyable. The travel powers were spot-on in my opinion, and I like you eventually get special abilities with each one. But other than that, it felt like most other console games I might play, and the problems with those are that they rarely have staying power. (Hence why I stopped playing them: $60 for 2-3 weeks worth of play before I had beaten the game and gotten bored was digging into my wallet.) I may pick it up now and then, when I think, "I actually want to play as a sidekick of Batman. Screw Nightwing, I'm the new guy!" But those impulses never last long.
Marvel Heroes... *sigh* why do I have to play as one of them?! I LOVE Marvel's characters, but I do not want to be one-of-several Spidermen slinging my way through Manhattan. There is something to the "unique snowflake" theory in MMORPGs, and it was achievable in CoH. Even if I ended up on the same team/league with someone with the same power sets, there were a large variety of things that could set us apart (travel powers, costumes, gender, origin/story, power customization, etc.)
City of Heroes is one of a kind. I can only hope it remains to be so.
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
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If by "great" you mean "terrible fantasy knock-off", then sure, DCUO is great.
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Originally Posted by Starsman
Lets be fair: You can also be a hero in DCUO and Champions. Both are "great" in their own ways. They just happen to be so different from CoH that it would take a lot of time to get into either.
The art direction on both is also very different from the one we have. But given a chance, and by that I mean more than a week of gameplay, then you may be able to appreciate them better. I personally love a lot of aspects on DCUO, only dislike the character creator and male face/body/facial hair+head hair design choices. |
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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I don't think Marvel is gunning at CoH or the traditional MMO market. I think they are gunning at the Leage of Legends model. The game will likely launch with a roster of characters and over time they will sell you "digital action figures" to play with inside the virtual world.
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Originally Posted by Winterminal
Marvel Heroes... *sigh* why do I have to play as one of them?! I LOVE Marvel's characters, but I do not want to be one-of-several Spidermen slinging my way through Manhattan.
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It's not really a MMO. The Diablo comparisons seem to be spot-on. The gameplay videos could be Diablo or Torchlight, but with superheroes.|
Originally Posted by Winterminal
Marvel Heroes... *sigh* why do I have to play as one of them?! I LOVE Marvel's characters, but I do not want to be one-of-several Spidermen slinging my way through Manhattan.
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The primary point of the over-arching game is to create a collection of Marvel Heroes and then take them into generic sorts of missions like "Clean up Hell's Kitchen", at least from the look of things.
Gazillion also created Super Hero Squad Online, and if you account for the cartoony kid's orientation of it, that's essentially what you have already in that game. You collect heroes, you level them up, you play through instanced missions, solo or with your friends, and you use the rewards (or dollars) to buy upgrades and more instances to fight in.
From the standpoint of the overarching game that wraps around the combat instances, I'd expect it to be a lot like Guild Wars. The city zones are really just lobbies where you meet friends and form teams. It wouldn't matter that there would be twenty Spider Man characters running around in the lobby because you don't actually do anything in the city zone except manage your hero collection and form teams to run instances.
Superhero Squad has a built-in TCG that's kinda fun to play with. If Marvel Heroes incorporated an existing TCG like VS or Overpower into itself then I could probably be suckered into it even if the primary game wasn't really my cup of tea. There's no indication at the moment that such is the case, but Gazillion has already got the infrastructure to support it.
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... so it's Marvel Ultimate Alliance Online.
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Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
It's not really a MMO. The Diablo comparisons seem to be spot-on. The gameplay videos could be Diablo or Torchlight, but with superheroes.
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My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
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Yup. There are many things to like or not like about DCUO. Personally I tried the Brawling/Ice armor tank, and (once I made some character-build compromises) found that the conceptual shoe-horning wasn't a deal-breaker. The game's lack of depth was the deal-breaker, ultimately.|
Originally Posted by Slaunyeh
That was such a weird choice. "So, uhm, Superman is a super strength/ice armor tank, right?" You guys realize you've created a system where you can't even create your own most iconic character archetypes, right? What were you thinking??
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But man. Making the "inspired by Superman" build into a flying ice block? That's just hilariously bad. It'd be one thing if it were a generic superhero MMO or even a Marvel MMO, but who in his right mind would even think about designing a DC MMO without providing effects-lite or physical-invulnerability defensive powers? It should have been the very first thing on the list.
And last I checked, that gaping omission remains even now. DCUO has released at least three new power sets since it launched, AFAIK: two of them were elemental sets (Electricity, Earth), and the third was a green lantern set -- all of which are fine, but wow.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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No capes, no tights, no flights = No superheroics.|
Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord
You can be a (super) hero in The Secret World. IMO, it's the closest MMOG to City of Heroes, in both features and community. Sure, you don't wear spandex, but you can assume a codename, have superpowers, and fight evil. The only thing you're really missing, or at least I am, is travel powers. For that, there's DC Universe Online.
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And as much as I'm a slavish DC fanboy (probably even more so than you, Celestial Lord), I've no interest in playing a console game that was ported to the PC. Hell I even have a friend who worked on DCUO when I was in development...and still have no interest in playing. I've seen my nephew on his PS2 with DCUO...he wants to *play*, which is fine. I, on the other hand, want to be a SUPERHERO.
Not the same.
- Green Lantern
"Say, Jim...woo! That's a bad out-FIT!" - Superman: The Movie
Me 'n my posse: http://www.citygametracker.com/site/....php?user=5608
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As I mentioned: it was in their list. They just never seemed to be able to shoe-horn the concept into their power structure, at least not with the time they had. How do you make a full Invulnerability tree that has an advancement similar to the other types? How do you turn it into an offensive tree?|
Originally Posted by Obitus
Yup. There are many things to like or not like about DCUO. Personally I tried the Brawling/Ice armor tank, and (once I made some character-build compromises) found that the conceptual shoe-horning wasn't a deal-breaker. The game's lack of depth was the deal-breaker, ultimately.
But man. Making the "inspired by Superman" build into a flying ice block? That's just hilariously bad. It'd be one thing if it were a generic superhero MMO or even a Marvel MMO, but who in his right mind would even think about designing a DC MMO without providing effects-lite or physical-invulnerability defensive powers? It should have been the very first thing on the list. |
This is not guessing, they actually said it in beta.
I also remember the lame answer: "just pick any set, ignore the special powers and use iconic pool to build your supermanish clone for now."
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| And last I checked, that gaping omission remains even now. DCUO has released at least three new power sets since it launched, AFAIK: two of them were elemental sets (Electricity, Earth), and the third was a green lantern set -- all of which are fine, but wow. |
Oh another grudge with DCUO: no power customization! Really?!
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Yeah, I wasn't in DCUO's beta, but I'm familiar with the devs' purported reasoning for the omission. The excuse rings hollow, though; if your powers' framework doesn't allow you to emulate the most iconic character type not just in comic books generally, but particularly with respect to your own IP -- then maybe your powers' framework should have been scrapped before you started on it.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
As I mentioned: it was in their list. They just never seemed to be able to shoe-horn the concept into their power structure, at least not with the time they had. How do you make a full Invulnerability tree that has an advancement similar to the other types? How do you turn it into an offensive tree?
This is not guessing, they actually said it in beta. I also remember the lame answer: "just pick any set, ignore the special powers and use iconic pool to build your supermanish clone for now." |
Just a thought. In fact, the excuse is almost funnier than the problem the excuse is designed to explain away: with all the time and effort that goes into designing an MMO, how do you even get past the on-paper conceptual stage with a powers' framework that doesn't allow players to emulate, at least in broad terms, Superman? Think of all the well-educated people who must've been in on the project. Someone actually sat down one day and said to himself, "Yeah, we'll make the 'Inspired by Superman' option in the character creator default to an Ice-covered yeti. That'll be great!" And someone else approved that idea!
It's a head-scratcher of epic proportions.
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| I am shocked they have not done it yet. It's hard but not impossible to come up with answers to what I said above. Nit pick: the light set is obviously derived from green lantern, but not meant to be related. It's supposed to just be light. |
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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My guess: they didnt realize how unfriendly it would be until they got too far along development. By then, there was no way to change things enough to accomodte it. I think thats part of why they ended up creating the Iconic power pool.
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Originally Posted by Obitus
Yeah, I wasn't in DCUO's beta, but I'm familiar with the devs' purported reasoning for the omission. The excuse rings hollow, though; if your powers' framework doesn't allow you to emulate the most iconic character type not just in comic books generally, but particularly with respect to your own IP -- then maybe your powers' framework should have been scrapped before you started on it.
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I'd use different words, but that's where I am. Without the style and narrative of City of Heroes, there really isn't much to draw me in conceptually. I'm not interested in secret conspiracies and secret identities, I'm more after an open-ended world that lets me define my own concepts, and the Secret World basically takes that away from me from the very first moment of creation when it transpires that I got my "powers" by swallowing a magic fly.|
Originally Posted by GreenLantern68
No capes, no tights, no flights = No superheroics.
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Also, that whole "you were a regular before you got powers" angle just doesn't work for me. I'm tired of playing regular people, or those who were regular people once. Give me aliens or demons or robots or something weird like that.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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That's the most likely explanation. Don't get me wrong; I understand how it happened. I just don't understand why it was allowed to happen. You'd think they'd realize that their powers framework wasn't flexible enough beforehand. All of that stuff you talked about earlier -- how to create offensive powers that fit the theme of invulnerability and whatnot -- should have been fleshed out at the conceptual stage, shouldn't it?
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Originally Posted by Starsman
My guess: they didnt realize how unfriendly it would be until they got too far along development. By then, there was no way to change things enough to accomodte it. I think thats part of why they ended up creating the Iconic power pool.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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Maybe some one had a conceptual idea on how it would fit in the game. Maybe the original idea was never for survivability to be tied with the powers at all, that your survivability would be entirely gear based.|
Originally Posted by Obitus
That's the most likely explanation. Don't get me wrong; I understand how it happened. I just don't understand why it was allowed to happen. You'd think they'd realize that their powers framework wasn't flexible enough beforehand. All of that stuff you talked about earlier -- how to create offensive powers that fit the theme of invulnerability and whatnot -- should have been fleshed out at the conceptual stage, shouldn't it?
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Their concept of single-element might had worked fine in another game, but it's hard to see why they stuck to it for DCUO, where they have heroes like Superman commanding multiple elements (Wind, Heat and Cold on top of strength.)
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Right, and that's actually part of what's so frustrating about the whole thing. Ice's main schtick (for lack of a better word) was that using any Ice power basically doubled your itemized defense, for a few seconds at a time. In other words, if your equipment gave you, say, 30% damage resistance, then as long as you used Ice powers every 12 seconds or so, you'd end up with 60%ish damage resistance. (Up to a cap, which off the top of my head was at around 74%.)|
Originally Posted by Starsman
Maybe some one had a conceptual idea on how it would fit in the game. Maybe the original idea was never for survivability to be tied with the powers at all, that your survivability would be entirely gear based.
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Ice also had various defensive effects tied to particular powers. Some of them were extremely powerful; some of them weren't. But the upshot of my little digression here is that the exact character of the powers you use isn't as important (from a defensive standpoint) as the arbitrary side-effects the developers decided to tie to your power set.
Someone decided that the side-effect for Ice (one of two tanking sets, at the time I played) was that double-resistance thing. The side-effect for the other tanking set, Fire, was that using powers massively increased your max HP and healing modifier. Obviously, Fire and Ice play differently -- sorta like Regen versus Invuln -- but you could easily swap the side-effects without changing much else, powers-wise (you'd have to give Ice's shields to Fire, and Fire's heals to Ice, but aesthetically/conceptually the powers wouldn't have to change much if at all).
Anyway, you could easily create a power set that has Ice's double-defense side effect without any of the extra perks. It wouldn't matter what the powers look like or even what they do; the act of using them regularly would raise your survivability drastically. And that's the main (mechanical) problem with the Iconic power pool; not only are the powers weaker, but you get none of the usual powerset-specific perks as a side-effect of using them.
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| Their concept of single-element might had worked fine in another game, but it's hard to see why they stuck to it for DCUO, where they have heroes like Superman commanding multiple elements (Wind, Heat and Cold on top of strength.) |
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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The creators of DCUO appeared to believe the patron power pools made up for the the lack of a proper Invulnerability set. I think they believed the myth that developer intentions equals player reactions. That's pretty common in MMOs and especially with DCUO (from what I can gather).
Somewhat related, IMO, are claims by various developers to have designed a "classless" or "level-less" system that actually works in an MMO environment. Many people believe removing levels and classes removes the artificial "boxes" that limit character design. To me, they just change the nature of the box, and usually in ways that squander resources. DCUO has this issue because its "powersets" unlock two trees. For example, the "Nature" powerset encompasses both Plants and Animals. What this means is my Plant concept character somehow ends up needing to turn into a giant wasp to function. Her box was reshaped by the illusion of flexibility, and resulted in something significantly less satisfying than Plant Control or Nature Affinity would have delivered.
The Secret World is another interesting one to watch. I have a gut feeling that without major changes its skill system is going to cause the gameplay to collapse within 6 months to a year. There are other issues, but the skill system sticks out in particular. The game would work okay as a non-MMO, but MMOs require a stream of low level players. In TSW there is no reason to have a second character, because your "main" can get everything and respec into any build at any time. The only thing seperating you from anyone else is ultimately your gear, which in that game breaks down into predictable Tanker, Healer, and DPS roles.
This issue of infinite respec-ability without consequence brings up something else. Infinite respecability means the barrier to top performance in any situation is your willingness to respec for it. The issue with that is, respeccing itself is often inconvenient from a GUI perspective. So at that point your game is balanced around a player's ability and willingness to manipulate the respec GUI to change builds as situations occur.
[The game Civilization 4 had an interesting version of this issue. In that game, which is turn based, you move troops around and build cities and so on. You have the ability to enable mutually exclusive "civics" for your nation that granted certain bonuses, for example, Free Religion gave a happiness bonus, Piety gave another kind of bonus, etc. With most nations, changing civics caused a turn of "anarchy" where you were unable to do anything else that turn, ie there was a penalty. But a few nations had a special ability that allowed them to change civics at any time with no consequence. The result? To play optimally, the player is incented to review the benefits of civics on every turn and change them if the benefits would be better for this turn. Unit about to generate? Switch to Military Code for one turn to get the bonus. And so on. That portion of the game was literally balanced by a player's willingness to deal with the frustration of changing civics every turn.]
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Traveller...man, that takes me back! When I got my first starship in Star Trek Online I immediately renamed it to the USS Kinunir because of Traveller |
Originally Posted by Gaming_Glen
I'd love to play in a science-fiction setting that's more sandbox oriented, as well as person and not SHIP (e.g., Eve) oriented. Maybe I'll give STO a try sometime after November. My other option, although I suck at being a game master, is running a pen & paper scifi RPG (fav: Traveller).
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Alas, there's no Traveller online - and no Tabula Rasa of course (damn, I still miss that game...) - but there is Firefall. Or will be soon at least. It's currently in beta, due for release in 2013
http://www.firefallthegame.com
F2P, and the classes are gear based, so technically one character can be all classes, they just have to swap the battleframe they're wearing for one from another 'class'.
You know, I remember rumors about a Traveler-inspired game at some time in the past few years. I wonder what happened to that?
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Firefall has Orson Scott Card writing for it. Automatic fail. Firefail.
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Originally Posted by Turjan
Traveller...man, that takes me back! When I got my first starship in Star Trek Online I immediately renamed it to the USS Kinunir because of Traveller
Alas, there's no Traveller online - and no Tabula Rasa of course (damn, I still miss that game...) - but there is Firefall. Or will be soon at least. It's currently in beta, due for release in 2013 http://www.firefallthegame.com F2P, and the classes are gear based, so technically one character can be all classes, they just have to swap the battleframe they're wearing for one from another 'class'. |
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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I dont know. I dont think CO is bad. It's fast pace, dont require a team all the time to level effectively, the customization is great. They have powers and weapons that was said to "Cant happen" here in this game (i.e the jet thing, the scythe, chain whip powers,) and models of enemy that said was probably not going to happen here that was suggested as ideas, like the bear model and even dinosaur models. While the power color customization isnt as great but you can build a toon to fit what ever role you want it to. You can build a tank that blast things, or a melee/healer or anything in between with mostly imagination being the limit. |
Originally Posted by Anti_Proton
" Both are "great" in their own ways"
So if I squint, they might be appealing. |
The more comic style is different, and other things but I kind of like it. Plus every little thing isnt based on luck or rolls and etc.
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
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It's pretty clear the DCUO devs had no connection to superheroes the way CoH's did and do. They spent at least $50 million making DCUO and the game is basically -- at its heart -- merely a generic fantasy game with different skins. Unsurprisingly, it seems most of the devs were from fantasy MMOs, such as lead dev Chris Cao who came from EverQuest. How you spend that much money. miss your deadlines and have a beta that abbreviated and still turn out a lame game is beyond me.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
The creators of DCUO appeared to believe the patron power pools made up for the the lack of a proper Invulnerability set. I think they believed the myth that developer intentions equals player reactions. That's pretty common in MMOs and especially with DCUO (from what I can gather).
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It LOOKS great, and the travel powers are pretty decent (although acrobatics was a pain to use), but it is incredibly cliche in terms of gameplay. Especially when you stack it up against CoH. The backstory was more attractive to me than the all-singing, all-dancing Magic Wishing Well this game was turned into, what with a time-travelling Lex Luthor using advanced tech to turn millions of regular folks into superhumans... even if it was far too limiting for original concepts.
Oh well, at least it features some of the coolest short films Blur Studio has ever made. I would log in to the game simply to watch those.
Part 1: http://youtu.be/-2ZA1D3GHOQ
Part 2: http://youtu.be/1DHND7rS35w
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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But not beyond Bioware.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
How you spend that much money. miss your deadlines and have a beta that abbreviated and still turn out a lame game is beyond me.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Well, as to that, all I can say is if you regard Nebula Award winning novels such as "Ender's Game" to be 'fail' then I only wish I had a writing career with that level of fail in it! |
Originally Posted by Ironik
Firefall has Orson Scott Card writing for it. Automatic fail. Firefail.
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I take it that Ironik isn't thrilled over OSC's politics/beliefs.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Details are sketchy but the downside is that it appears to be a game where you play AS one of Marvel's stable of heroes. That's makes it less an MMO than an online game that happens to feature Marvel Characters. I'm envisioning it as an adult version of Marvel Super Hero Squad Online.
One forum name, two members: Molly Hackett & Heliphyneau.
AE arcs:
27327 - Enter the Homunculi
176837 - Homunculi 2: Tectonic Boogaloo -- UPDATED