Marvel Heroes (Omega) - Doing an MMO/ARPG the right way

PC General Discussion
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Don’t know if anyone played Marvel Heroes but that, pfew, that was an ARPG done right!

It was made by Gazillion Studios (lead by David Brevik at the time). It was an MMO/ARPG with Marvel characters, about 30+ playable ones…

This game had it all: multiple amount of uniques for each character to suit different builds, skill trees, tons of skins which you can also somewhat earn in-game (bit of a gamble at times but it was possible), decent balance and rewarding content.

Aside from the story, you could play Midtown madness (just whack stuff and get good loot, kinda like Helltides, but done better), X-Men mansion defence (fight waves while protecting the mansion), Holo-sim, raids (really good raids too), daily & weekly missions, seasonal events (no battle passes, that wasn’t a thing back then), one-shots and instances (dungeons basically with a mini-story)…

It was F2P game and the only thing to buy was convenience stuff or skins (awesome skins too). Was so invested in this game but eventually it got shut down after a “questionable” CEO was appointed and Disney didn’t want to associate with the guy so POOF gone Marvel Heroes.

Some things here in D4 kinda remind me of that, but a lot more bogged down and less rewarding. Mostly the uniques were a key point in M:H because of how they would actually lift your build up and gave that power surge that makes you keep going. For example, if you were playing Gambit, you can go for a full physical bo-attack build or a card-throwing build and you’d have several uniques per build as a choice…

And ofcourse boss specific uniques which you can only farm from certain bosses, like Surtur’s sword from the raid or Lizard’s necklace from the Midtown Zoo instance…

Oof, and the skins! So good and also not expensive since you get alot of extra with them too (extra stash tabs etc).

God I miss that game :frowning:

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Miss it too, had so much fun in that game… and new class every 1-2 month was awesome!

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Yes that game was pure awesomeness! Miss it too and was shocked when i found out it was abandoned :frowning:

One of the best MMO/ARPGs i ever played.

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Its shutdown had nothing to do with its “new CEO” and everything to do with the fact it was hemorrhaging money from the get-go. And that it underwent multiple rebranding attempts to lure in more players.

The game struggled to get and keep players. Which of course is a clear sign of “how to do it right.”

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Marvel Heroes?

Are you serious???

The same game whose GM’s banned anyone who so much as thought about criticism. Permaban, and from the game as well as the forums. Then designed a post voting system and auto moderation program to create a cult atmosphere and encourage bullying. Then they began to shadowban people.

The same company that begged its already obsessive forum community to reverse review bomb their game by playing to their sympathy (“no tens makes me sad guys”).

The game run so poorly that they needed to rebrand every year. The company (Gazilion) who was so inept that they failed to provide Marvel-wide events when even mobile apps did.

The same company that put all its efforts into overpriced costume sales and character packages.

That hemorrhaged players and money. Then turned to consoles. Ceased all support for PC players. Ignored all feedback over their huge update that everyone hated.

Then lost all support from Disney after it became known that the CEO was a sex pest and the employees purposefully hid the fact, so they wouldn’t lose the license.

The CEO of which eventually fired everyone several months before it was scheduled (the day before Thanksgiving) and never paid PTO. Some being owed several thousands in overtime pay. They were lied to repeatedly that everything was ok too.

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That was my favorite game ever. It wasn’t perfect, but it was consistently so much fun. I’ve been chasing an ARPG experience like that game since… I also loved how vibrant it was instead of grimdark like so many other ARPGS

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Did David send you here?

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And yet that game is dead and even Diablo 3 is still kicking.

Hmm.

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I dunno. I kinda liked the forum.

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The only reason D3 is still around is because they managed to save that PoS with the expansion and console release. Before RoS came out, it was pretty much dead.

And yeah, Gazillion had issues. Nonetheless, it was a fun game with alot of content.

I dont know where someone got the whole ignore feedback thing from because when players gave feedback, they often redesigned entire heroes from scratch with new move sets and everything…

It might have been a financial disaster, but damn was it fun and more importantly, it rewarded the players time.

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LOL Yup, that’s the one!

The game started off great, then every update was worse and worse. You’ve hit all the points as to why it imploded.

This hero worship of David Brevik is highly misplaced. The D2 team captured lightning in a bottle, and basically fizzled every project after. Hellgate: London, Mythos (vaporware), etc., etc. Torchlight is the only standout, and it was middling at best.

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Yup. It’s borderline disrespectful to developers who are actually GOAT’d.

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And? Doesn’t mean it was good

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Playing Silver Surfer in Marvel Heroes was a dream for me. I’m still upset that they shut it down.

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I thought Disney shut it down when they got the rights to marvel? They got like almost no notice.

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Yeah it’s easily my favorite multiplayer rpg. I can’t believe that the rights haven’t been bought yet. It was never boring with all the characters that you could play.

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It’s been slaughtered and pieced out - or that’s the short version anyway.

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Just going off forum logic here where “retention is king”. A dead game has no retention. Therefore, according to the Brevik shills who hate D4, Marvel Heroes must be a bad game because it has awful retention (it has retained 0% of its player-base).

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I played that game quite a bit and enjoyed it. I was sad to see they were closing it down. It was very unique and quirky and had a way of sucking you in.

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Actuallllllllly…that game was really active. I always saw a bunch of people on when I played. IIRC there was something to do with licensing or a conflict with a future game or something.