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Jim Lee To Direct DC MMO 59

Posted by Zonk from the omg-bbq dept.
Kotaku has a press release stating that Jim Lee will be Executive Creative Director for SOE while they develop a DC-branded Massively Multiplayer game. Jim Lee is best known for his work on Batman and the X-Men series of comics. From the article: "SOE will be developing and publishing a game based on the DC Comics universe for next generation gaming platforms and the PC. It is expected that Lee will serve as Executive Creative Director on the game, bringing his artistic flair and talents to the world of online gaming for the first time ... said Jim Lee; 'The truth is that I love gaming as much as I love drawing and telling stories and look forward to bringing the DC Universe to life for players and comic book fans all around the world.'"
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Jim Lee To Direct DC MMO More

Jim Lee To Direct DC MMO

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  • So they're making a cheap knockoff of City of Heroes, banking on the DC name to sell it? No thanks.

    • Re:Cheap knockoff (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ch1a ( 168446 )
      Wasn't City of Heroes a cheap knockoff of the DC universe in the first place?
      • No, it was a cheap knockoff [wired.com] of the Marvel universe.
        • Actually it wasn't a cheap knockoff of either.

          In the case of the Marvel suit basically Marvel employees logged into COH and then made copies of famous heroes and then claimed that COH were infringing trademarks. This isn't actually true of course. The system allows you to build pretty complex heroes (although Hulk doesn't require much thought). It got thrown out because of that.

          Although COH if you do break copyright/trademarks or impersonate a real person they blank your character and give it a genericHero1

    • Re:Cheap knockoff (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dc29A ( 636871 ) on Sunday February 26, 2006 @02:01PM (#14804470)
      So they're making a cheap knockoff of City of Heroes, banking on the DC name to sell it? No thanks.

      This is made by the company who was too incompetent to capitalize on the Star Wars franchise. With EQ2 SOE has proved that it has lost contact with gamers. When EQ2 came out, it had many glaring gameplay issues and retarded rules like party member death penalty is shared by group. So if you had a dumbass in your group, you all paid the price. Not to mention it was a grind fest and you were forced to group. Star Wars Galaxies ... well ... it's pretty much dead. EQ is dying. EQ2 is stalling, no new growth. Matrix Online (they picked it up) is pretty much dead too.

      Why would any franchise holder trust this company is something I don't understand.
      • This was my first reaction as well. I'd love another superhero game. I loved CoH but ultimately exhausted the game's content.

        CoH had a difficult premise to pull off and succeeded beautifully in creating superhero-ish combat(while IMO failing in the other gameplay aspects like missions and loot). They pulled out a huge variety of powers that were each useful and continued to be useful throughout a player's life. The attacks you begin with are still useful in the end-game. Upgrading a power wasn't just leveli
      • Why would any franchise holder trust this company is something I don't understand.

        The age-old reason: the decisionmakers have zero personal contact, experience and understanding with the subject matter.

        You can run a commodity business like that, but not an pure entertainment business.
      • I think it's because people tend to think of all this as a business. As long as players like you and me log on to see what the game is like, they can show off that much more new users, making the MMORPG an attractive business venture. Think of it this way: at least games have gotten harder to beat, now that you even have to handpick your team members... :)
      • IMO, SOE does have one diamond in their rough: PlanetSide. I know this will stir up a hornet's nest with the fanboys of CS, UT and the like, however it's by far the best multiplayer FPS experience I've ever had. Nowhere else will you find tanks, delivery/support vehicles, planes and ground forces all controlled by separate players, with battles that can have literally hundreds of players.

        Yet you never, ever heard about this game. They never advertise or promote, online or off. Yet despite keeping it u

        • I used to play some planetside and it was a very interesting experience. I had some of my best MMORPG and FPS experiences there. The problem was that they were seperated by long stretches of dull play and one side easily routing the other. I'm glad I played it, but have no regrets quitting.

          By best two experiences were:

          1) There was a sprawling conflict on a continent. I got in with an infiltration team that was harrassing an enemy base that was serving as a support and staging area. We snuck in, capped the
        • I played PlanetSide in beta as well as for the first couple of months. It is fairly successful at copying the tiered strategy present in other unusual MMOs like Shattered Galaxy, but two serious faults caused me to cancel my subscription.

          1) There's not enough emphasis on balance. While occasionally even numbers will meet at a specific spot, that is the exception rather than the rule. Why should I spend 75% of my in game time either getting steamrolled by superior numbers or having to hunt for enemies to
  • ...on Batman!
    • All right, I'll be The Living Tribunal. Wanna PVP?
      Actually, nevermind. You'd probably have the anti-Living-Tribunal spray in your starting kit....

  • DC MMO (Score:5, Funny)

    by Distinguished Hero ( 618385 ) on Sunday February 26, 2006 @01:41PM (#14804399) Homepage
    When I read the title, I thought they might be talking about Washington, D.C. In fact, I think that might actually be a better idea for a MMO.
    • It'll just be filled with the standard "deliver campaign contributions to white house from Halliburton" fedex quests that we've come to know and love.

    • Re:DC MMO (Score:2, Funny)

      by supabeast! ( 84658 )
      You've apparently never been to Washington. A Washington, DC MMO would mostly involve drinking coffee while talking about politics with ivy leage grads, boring cocktail parties, and avoiding the urge to shove tourists down escalators.
      • Why avoid the urge? That sounds like the most fun part of the game!
    • Ooh, I wanna be Marion Barry! ...Or drag up, as the perennially ignored representative voice Eleanor Holmes Norton!
    • Washington D.C. already is an MMO. Except for the O.
    • But only if I can create a character in the mold of Judge Scalia [salon.com]!
  • Making stories and making games are on opposite ends of the creative continuum. I predict failure. And more failures as long as traditional story-based entertainment conglomerates continue to think they can cross over into games without seeing the radical differences.
    • I disagree. I think the best games incorporate a meaningful and involving story AND a fun gaming experience. Take for example some of the more successful RPG's on the NES and SNES consoles like the Final Fantasy series. What made these games great was not just the game play, but the drama and excitement of wanting to know how the story line was going to be advanced. Nothing was quite more exciting, for example, in Final Fantasy IV (that's II here in the US), to find out that Golbez is Cecil's brother.
  • The thing that made City of Heroes a good game was that their world was set up under the premise that super heroes were EXTREMELY common. In the DC Universe, while heroes aren't exactly rare...they are unique. They are personalities. This problem came up with the Star Wars MMO as well...you can't have everybody running around as Luke or Vader. Unfortunately, I don't really see this game succeeding unless they can address that problem or have a REALLY cool power system that blows CoH out of the water.

    • > This problem came up with the Star Wars MMO as well
      > ...you can't have everybody running around as Luke or Vader.

      And, worse, simultaneously you can't not have everybody running around as Luke or Vader. Being a Jedi is 95% of the attraction, with the remaining 4% wanting to be Boba Fett (like my son), or, for very old-school RPG'ers like me, the remaining 1% being an "Exquisite Leotard" dancer just for the pure novelty of it.

      Yeah, you can't let everybody be a Jedi, but you can't not, either. Bad ch
  • How do you make it the 'DC' universe? In the case of Star Wars, there's lots of attendant setting stuff and other trappings to make it recognizable. But DC is a modern-era 'verse (for the most part). The thing that makes it recognizable is the characters, which leaves two possibilities: the canonical characters will have all sorts of story and stuff going on around them, making the PCs secondary, OR we have a case where the most powerful players are these giant Mary-Sues that go out and save Superman and
    • > Also, hero density is going to be an issue. The DC 'verse has, what,
      > a few dozen heroes on the entire bloody planet? Few enough that
      > crossovers are a special event ... "uh", indeed. Not to be picky, but have you actually READ any DC titles?

      There are a few dozen heroes who just tried out for the JLA's last recruitment drive. AND they spun off a reserve. The Titans have a record of "a few dozen" in their own historical ranks. According to the DC1Million, there'll be a dozen Supermans alone in the
      • It does sound like an issue already. The thing is, it sounds like it's already getting pretty silly.

        Here's the thing, though. The 'DCverse' is going to have a wider draw than people who read a fair number of comics. I mean, it's Supes and Batman. Everybody knows them. But what a lot of them /don't/ know is how crowded the 'verse actually is, because for a fair number of people, their main experience with the characters is probably via movies or TV. So it will feel screwy to them. I'm just not sure
        • it sounds like it's already getting pretty silly

          Wait until you see just how gay those costumes look when you actually have to wear one. What looks great on a stylish comic book page will look like a Village People costume in a MMO.

          -Eric

          • Oh man. Now I'm seeing this whole line of B-grade superheroes, stretching from horizon to horizon, their costumes as manifold and as eyesearing as the stars in the sky... and then they all start to dance. Augh.

            o/~"We suck too much to be in the Juu-uuustice League..."o/~
            • > Wait until you see just how gay those costumes look
              > when you actually have to wear one. What looks great on a stylish comic book page

              I beg to differ. Rogue's green-and-yellow clownsuit (especially with trenchcoat (!?!?) over it), or Wolverine's blue-and-yellow monstrosity are hardly fashion statements on actual comic pages.

              Wolverine vs. The Thing, The Actual Version
              (Imagine underline characters here that don't violate the lameness filter)

              The Thing claps his hands together, WHAM! Wolvie falls unco

  • Go DC! (Score:2)

    by SyniK ( 11922 )
    A Dreamcast MMO! AWESOME! Those crazy hackers will never let it die!

    DC? DC Comics? A DC Comics MMO? Bullocks!
  • Why did I think that DC stood for dreamcast, I gotta move with the times I guess.

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