DC's new MMORPG a rip off?

So it was brought to my attention ( Ty G4 for still doing SOMETHING) that DC Comics has decide to venture in to the world of MMORPG's. No, you can't play Batman or Wonder Woman. From the looks of it, I am afraid to say, it looks like a knock off of City of Heroes and Villains. Just with a DC Spin as well as our favorite characters being NPC's in the city.

So, its my understanding. DC is expecting people to buy a game, already available for public consumption by a different name and has a dedicated fan base. BRILLIANT!! I never knew they could be so creative...Please pardon the sarcasm.

Now this is nothing new, as the original project was announced back in 07'. But the recent video I caught on G4, made me wonder what was the point? Why not link up with the Heroes and Villain's world - crafting a special edition server in which people can make characters suited for the DC Universe? Minus the else world versions, I'm sure.

I'm sure you could call this a bitch post. But in the economy right now, its a huge risk to ask people to invest in a game that doesn't change up anything that's not already found in CoH&V. I'm sure they will get their share of die hard DC fans buying it, but these are the same fans reeling from the R.I.P event that went - in my opinion - weird and wrong. The last issue in the arc NOT the last issue? Why didn't you explain that maybe FOUR months ago so that everyone was aware of the situation you were putting them in for.

Here I am though talking about a Comic Company that has yet to truly launch them selves in to movies like their competitors have done such a brilliant job doing. Maybe they hope to hit a home run by getting to the MMO play first before Marvel, I'm not sure. Here are some key points of the game thanks to MMOCrunch

• Highly customizable characters. You can even base them off of DC characters with 1 click of a button, then modify them if you want.
• PvP Combat in a Open World.
• Quests are called Cases and Capers depending if your a Hero or Villain.
• Fighting along side or against some famous DC characters. Superman, Batman, Joker, etc.
• Environment Manipulation, stuff like throwing cars
• Fast Movement/Traveling, depending on your powers

Now, I like the quest name change/creativeness. That's cute, something I'm surprised CoH&V didn't touch on. And while you can MODEL your character off a existing DC Hero of Villain, you can not PLAY that character. I doubt that will stop people from making a Trillion Batman, Superman, Jokers and Ra's al Ghul.

The world PvP is a concept that's decent, I base this more off what the fellows at MMMOcrunch theorize. As a Hero you make have to protect someone, yet as a Villain your Caper may be to kill that same person, thus allowing for PvP action.




How do they account for the Environment Manipulation? Someone throws a car, but it magically resets an hour later? Isn't this the issue that AoC ran in to when wanting to give players the ability to destroy the environment. They were unable to make it a reality. Blizzard has pulled it off and for the moment I think it may be the only way to do it without it glitching out horribly.

What they did for WoW was in the new area is a Zone in which ever couple of hours the Horde and Alliance fight for control. Destroying the apposing fractions stations, building on the Battle grounds they put in during Burning Crusade. It allows players to earn marks, and when there fraction has control over the zone buy things that they can not get anywhere else. Giving players a reason to want to control the zone. Once the battle is done I believe ( because despite being on a PvP server, I'm not big on PvP)the zone resets, in favor of the controlling fraction to allow for Vendors and such to respawn.

That being said, I can't even imagine how they are going to come up with an ability for throwing cars and such that doesn't kick people in the area/zone off or cause a massive server reboot so that items and objects can be returned to their coded place. While I'm curious to see it happen, the over all game doesn't pull me in. Without something that makes WoW, CoH&V and the already existing MMo's look like child's play, they may not cause any ripples at all in the community's established.

I'm not calling fails yet, simply I see the same thing happening with it as with so many. Curiosity seekers looking for something different giving it a nice starting charge, but nothing that lasts long once they (the players) realize that they are playing a game they've played before already, only it has a shiny new finish and different names for things. Stick to what you know.