Game Informer - March Issue

[ghost-angel]

Got my latest Hero Store order in, and with it comes the March Game Informer.

Nice six page spread on the Champions MMO.

I didn't know they had playable demos already, the article writers got a crack at it - using a mix of XBox360s and PCs in one game.

And the little gem in the article I liked - I guess there was a Marvel Universe MMO planned between Cryptic, Microsoft and Marvel. Cryptic and MS both made comments about amicable partings with all parties involved - Marvel had no comment.

I'm probably way off base, but I'm gonna take that as Marvel did something that annoyed MS since MS was putting up the majority of the cash to that point. hehe. Their loss, our gain.

Anyways, apologies if info on the Game Informer article was already posted and I didn't see it. (I know it's been mentioned but I ddnt see anyone posted they'd read it yet.)

[rjcurrie]

Got my latest Hero Store order in, and with it comes the March Game Informer.

Nice six page spread on the Champions MMO.

I didn't know they had playable demos already, the article writers got a crack at it - using a mix of XBox360s and PCs in one game.

And the little gem in the article I liked - I guess there was a Marvel Universe MMO planned between Cryptic, Microsoft and Marvel. Cryptic and MS both made comments about amicable partings with all parties involved - Marvel had no comment.

I'm probably way off base, but I'm gonna take that as Marvel did something that annoyed MS since MS was putting up the majority of the cash to that point. hehe. Their loss, our gain.

Anyways, apologies if info on the Game Informer article was already posted and I didn't see it. (I know it's been mentioned but I ddnt see anyone posted they'd read it yet.)


It was the cover of this issue which appeared online a few days before DunDraCon which gave away the "Champions Online" thing -- it was mentioned in a couple of threads. The magazine came out at the Game Developer's Conference and a couple of boxes of copies of the issue were sent over for Hero and given out at the DunDraCon announcement.

Yeah, the Marvel Universe Online game was in development for a couple of years. From what I've heard, Cryptic being the designers of it grew out of Marvel's lawsuit against Cryptic over City of Heroes being able to produce characters that looked like Marvel characters. Microsoft was going to be the publisher (in the same way that NCSoft published City of Heroes). Rumors about that game's death seem to have started about last November and it was officially announced as dead about a week or so before Champions Online was announced. My guess is that Cryptic got Microsoft to delay announcing the cancellation until Cryptic was ready to announce their replacement.

I haven't heard the full story on the cancellation of Marvel Universe Online but it would appear from interviews given by a Microsoft executive that basically Microsoft didn't think the game would reach World of Warcraft levels of success (basically, think of D&D's place in sales in the RPG world) and decided to pull the plug.