The Mild Mannered Reporter raised an interesting question today. Why doesn't City of Heroes have a sequel?
A lot of things have changed. The market for one. MMOs are usually FREE-TO-PLAY today. Such wasn't the case when City was first developed nearly 10 years ago. Further when it came out it was the ONLY superhero game out there. Now it is the first of 3, with at least one more , the Marvel MMO, on its way.
Any sequel is going to have a tough road to cover. IT is popular, but nowhere near the WoW glory day popularity levels that all MMOs seem to shoot for and dream about these days. All its competitors deal with known copyrighted characters. Even Champions characters have been around for a while. And as the problem with people wanting to do copyrighted characters in game will prove, people want to be like those characters be it Batman, Superman, Wolverine, or the Hulk. At its very essence, that is the whole appeal of a super hero MMO game.
While the graphics engine has seen some improvements like Ultra mode graphics, water effects,shadowing and more, it is still old technology. A replacement engine would have to be versatile indeed -- to handle all the myriad effects that customized powers from a large number of heroes could generate, and not slow to a creep as the current engine has in the past on some machines.
Such improvements could cover whole new aspects of hero costumes. Lets face it. This is one of the biggest attractions to City of Heroes. With the addition of Imperial Defense, Imperial Dynasty, Celestial, Roman, Elemental, and other costume sets, we've already got a rich selection. But KNOWING the importance this is to the players, they could add whole new features. Articulated hands with fingers for instance. Animated faces. Jewelry. Tattoos. New emote animations could be suggested by any of the above. I've always thought the lack of hanging necklaces and pendants a big gap. I can think of several comic book mages that have lots of stuff like this hanging of their necks. A collection of crystals, mystical and religious symbols would be good -- Less than the chest detail symbols in size.
One thing I'd like to see in a sequel would be season and weather effects. Having clear skies once in a while rather than the usual semi-cloudy skies would be wonderful. Not to mention the random rainstorm. Jokes about wet costume contests aside, Not ever seeing rain has always bugged me in City. The trees should change colors and lose their leaves during fall and winter. And if it is still based in Paragon City, let us see the occasional snowfall. Seeing Paragon covered in snow would be great.
The war walls should go. Going Rogue proved they are no longer necessary. Of course I'd think that getting rid of them in some places would still be problematic. Look at Steel Canyon-- bordered by Perez Park, Independence Port, Boomtown and Atlas. Without walls, these zones don't quite fit together easily. A big problem for the maps when the ends and corners don't mesh up with existing zone items. While the view might go on -- I suspect we'd end up with annoying invisible walls here and there...
If they wanted to start fresh, I'd like to see a WEST coast city get the limelight. Face it -- All the current MMOs are on East coast cities. Even a major CENTRAL USA city could be fun. Regardless it would still have to have an attraction of some kind to all kinds of heroes and villains. Whether that is just the people, or something else, its hard to say.
There might be resistance if they destroy Paragon to make way for a new game after all these years. But then with Statesman gone? Anything can happen.