Marvel Heroes is an upcoming free-to-play hack’n’slash RPG MMO. Just in case you were wondering.
I don’t exactly know to what extent its MMO claims reach, but to be honest that really doesn’t matter to me. I’m already a huge fan of the hack’n’slash action rpg genre (Baldur’s Gate: DA, Champions of Norrath, Titan Quest, X-Men Legends, Diablo, etc.) so any additional MMO elements can only add to the experience for me. I think having actual large, open environments with loads of people and all in an isometric view sounds pretty cool. Realistically I expect it to be about as “Massively-Multiplayer” as Diablo, but I don’t really want to get into that argument… again.
Any-who, I’ve been following the game ever since I discovered its existence a while back and I have to say that so far it looks pretty impressive. I’m actually really glad that they are just letting you play as the myriad of Marvel superheroes. The idea of seeing multiple copies of the same hero around seems odd at first, but when you think about it games already do that. In Diablo you can see multiple barbarians or several sorcerers and it isn’t such a weird concept. Not only that, but they could always explain it away with some kind of multi-universe/dimensional BS that we would all eat up. DCUO let you create your own hero but most people just tried to make their character as much like their superhero of choice anyways. Honestly I’d rather see Spider-Man running around than some dude in a red and blue sweatpants with web powers named “Spider-Dan.” Actually, wait… Nobody steal that from me; it’s awesome.
And as far as free-to-play goes, I’m not that worried. The devs have claimed that you will be able to experience everything for free and that you can’t buy power, blah blah blah. Take that for what it’s worth, but to be completely honest I’m tired. Tired of fighting against F2P and paid DLC of all sorts. I’ll let you in on a little secret, though. I gave up and waved the white flag a long time ago. It will be around forever and I’ve decided to just try and enjoy what I can, while I can. If the games are good, then they are worth investing time and money in. If they aren’t, then well they aren’t.
So back to what I was originally talking about… Marvel Heroes. I’m getting pretty excited from all the videos and stuff I’ve seen. Enough so to plop down $20 on one of the founders packs. I’m ready to Hulk out as soon as I can get my hands on the game.
I’m currently wrestling with whether or not to buy the founder’s pack. Graev has me wanting to try it with him.
The game seems interesting.
maybe I will get a basic starter pack.
But since the game is probably still under NDA there is no way to check what hero is fun to play as.
So I am not sure.
What about you Keen. What hero or heros do you want at the start?
I’ve always been partial to the X-Men and Iron Man. Not sure beyond that.
It’s all about HULK. HULK SMASH! RAWWAWARRGGLEBLARGH!
I have this problem where I like the villains better.
But if I have to pick a hero.. perhaps Collosus, Storm or The punisher.
It all depends how they play out. (I have no idea!!)
I only seen the xmen, spiderman and spiderwoman cartoons.
We do not have the comics here.
Did learn a lot from the marvel facebook game.
Yeah it was fun for a while. (had nothing new to play)
What I did notice from the current character roster is that there are so many heroes still missing.
I like everything that I have seen from MH so far and if they keep to the plan they have laid out in their dev videos I see it being a great grinder.
My main concerns are what the drop rates will be for things such as new heroes and new costumes. I know from the videos they have released that all heroes and costumes drop in the game as loot but are also available to purchase if you want to avoid the grind. My fear is that the drop rates will be so crazy you will have little choice but to purchase specific heroes or be faced with grinding the same boss over and over again in hopes of getting a hero drop.
I would like to see the option to use the credits you earn in game to purchase those heroes or perhaps something similar to what Gazillion already does with the prize wheel in Super Hero Squad Online.
Regardless, depending on how it plays I will most likely pick up a founders pack in the form of the Uncanny X-Men since I loved that X-Men team more then any other.
I have a couple of concerns about the ultimate pack.
How much of the game will revolve around finding other heroes or grinding for the credits to buy them? Will buying all of the heroes and their costumes effectively ruin the game for me? Is it like cheating?
I work a full-time job now, so I’m not able to play as much anymore. How much time will the permanent 5% exp and drop rate boost save me? How many credits would that save me if I had to instead buy individual boosts with the in-game currency as I needed them?
And it comes with 100% worth of in-game currency. How much of that will I actually need if I’ve bought all of the heroes, their costumes and have permanent boosts?
The other stuff in this pack is fluff and meant for bragging rights. Like, “Hey, look at me, I spent 200 dollars on this game before it even came out. How awesome am I?”, right? That doesn’t interest me in the least.
I don’t know, I’m just looking forward to this game and I don’t want to inadvertently shoot myself in the foot.
Edit to my first post: Meant to say $100 not 100%.
I did a bit more digging and read up on their FAQ. Apparently the permanent bonuses stack with the temporary ones, so you can still buy those. They never mention how much the temporary boosts are, though. And apparently, the first 2500 people to buy into the ultimate pack get closed beta access within a week of purchase. I wish they’d let us know how many people have picked that up; it’s not very clear if they’ve sold over that number already. And there’re four more heroes that were announced which aren’t available yet, but you’ll get them automatically as they do become available.
I’d rather buy the ultimate pack than any of the premium ones and I’d rather not buy anything at all than the starter packs. If that makes any sense…
I was all for MHO until they released the pricing structure. For some reason I am very leery of the prices. I guess I will just wait and see what you guys end up thinking about it. Usually when I buy founders packs I go with the largest package but $199, uh I think I will pass on that. Already wasted $40 or so on End of Nations founders pack and Mechwarrior Online, one of which hasn’t released yet and the other I only played a few times in closed beta.
I’d totally go with the Punisher pack.
All that said if I end up getting a pack it would most likely be the Avengers Assemble Pack. I am with Graev, Hulk Smash.
The $200 pack really baffles me. A large part of the game seems to be the hunt to collect all the heroes and costumes and by buying that $200 pack you basically eliminate that entire aspect of the game. You will have every hero at level 1 and every costume template to craft.. so you would effectively log in to grind for skill points only it seems.
Paying real world money for a F2P pre-beta? You guys must really love the Marvel universe! 😛
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/12/17/marvel-heroes-beta-preview-all-click-no-reward/
Wow, thanks for that link Gankatron. I didn’t know the situation was so bad. I guess I was just hoping since David Brevik was lead dev on this, everything would turn out okay…
The article Gankatron posted makes reference to a Rock, Paper, Shotgun post saying pretty much the same thing. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/12/17/hands-on-marvel-heroes/
The fact that the RPS article was written on Dec. 17th, just over a month ago, doesn’t make me feel very confident about the state of the game.
@Tudor Ok.. my urge to try this game is completely gone by now after reading the rockpapershotgun beta experience.
Guess I’ll play Path of exile instead for my D2 like experience.
I’d be more worried if they had any kind of release date soon. There is no way of knowing how much more work has been done or will still be done before the final game comes out. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt until I get to try it myself.
I stopped getting overly invested (financially and emotionally) prior to a game’s release after faithfully following the SWTOR release for 2 years…
I hope it is s good game, but I wait for you guys to tell me your in game opinion before I get involved.
I’m cautiously interested despite the business model. Unlike Skylanders/Disney Infinite, there’s no upfront cost for the game, it seems that all of the launch characters fit into one of five categories covered by the five free characters (i.e. you’re not locked out of major gameplay options), and it is at least theoretically possible to get some of the stuff as in-game drops. If the game is worth my time, it’s worth the $10-20 it will probably cost to swap out the free characters for ones I actually like.
That said, multiple previews and even the game’s website strongly suggest that you’re looking at reskinned versions of the same base character templates, with one added special ability. If I do decide to go in for $20 – it will probably be possible to get a single character outside of a bundle for less post-launch, but my guess is that the currency included in the single character starter packs will cover a second hero – it will be with the expectation that I’m going to play this thing once to see the content and consider it a win if I get that far.
That said, the previews I’m seeing aren’t entirely encouraging. It will be telling whether they are willing to take down the NDA before the prepurchase promo ends, and if not that will probably push me to the wait and see camp.
I have been in closed beta since week one, and regards to the link Gankatron posted, that was back in December and the game has come a long long way since then. The developers have really listened to feedback and made changes based on the communities complaints. It is a different game then it was in December, and def for the better.