Diablo Creator Leading Development of Marvel MMOG

[Keane Ng]

Diablo Creator Leading Development of Marvel MMOG

Ex-President of original Diablo developer Blizzard North David Brevik is leading development of the Marvel Universe MMOG, developer Gazillion Entertainment announced today.

The Diablo development diaspora continues to spread as former Blizzard North president and director of the defunct Flagship Studios David Brevik takes on a key role at MMOG developer Gazillon Entertainment, where he'll spearhead the development of the studio's recently acquired [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/90244-Marvel-MMO-Re-Licensed-to-Gazillion]Marvel Universe MMOG.

Though information about Marvel Universe remains pretty scarce, interested parties can take Brevik's appointment as a promising sign. His list of credits and credentials runs long: at Blizzard North he was a key player in the creation of Diablo I and II, for which he served as Project Lead, Design Lead and Lead Programmer. Brevik also helped launch the original Battle.net and "multiple game and technology projects" at Blizzard in general.

So, from Diablo to Hellgate and now to Marvel? Can we expect to see Captain America whacking legions of bad guys hoping for a rare superhero rune to drop? We can't say for now, but Brevik seems to think that his new employers are on to something.

"I'm a huge fan of comic books, Super Heroes, and MMORPGs, so the chance to lead the creative efforts for the Marvel Universe MMO is an amazing opportunity," he said. "Gazillion's mission to bring MMOs to the mainstream while maintaining the depth in gameplay that enthusiast gamers demand is something that deeply resonates with me."

More info on Marvel Universe's sure to spill out later this week during Comic-Con, where Brevik will take part in a panel on MMOGs, so hopefully we'll get a better picture of how the game fits into the increasingly crowded superhero MMOG sphere.


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[Radeonx]

I wonder how a Marvel mmo is going to work. It would probably be similar to City of Heroes, but even so, hopefully this will come out nice.

 

[samsonguy920]

Now if they can just get Jim Lee for the visuals.....yummy.

 

[New Troll]

I had no interest in the Marvel MMO till this bit of news. Now there's another game to keep tabs on for awhile.

 

[HobbesMkii]

Gazillion strikes me as a really poor choice of name for a studio. It's a made up number, so it just sounds goofy when it's said. Well, I'm sure the man's qualified, although didn't Hellgate do rather poorly?

 

[Torque669]

Hmm this MMO could turn out to be pretty good after all. Hmmm ... Must watch for anymore news on it.

 

[squid5580]

Sweet last I heard Marvel MMO was dead in the water. This is great news indeed.

 

[Therumancer]

The original guys who had the Marvel Liscence were the dudes who did City Of Heroes. They had a falling out with Marvel however, and procured a differant liscence (Champions) using the code they were using for the Marvel MMORPG. This is basically what Champions Online is.

The disagreements were largely about the use of Marvel's intellectual properties, I do not know the specifics however. Given how Marvel tends to act in certain respects it's a bit unknown if this will be another attempt that will go down in flames halfway through the process.

That said, I think they are horrendously insane in who they are using. This is a guy who designs generic loot/fragfests. Hellgate London (which I did play) was a trainwreck despite some neat ideas.

There is a certain appeal to the whole top down/isometric game where stuff runs at you and explodes in loot piles while you hope to be blessed by something uber from the RNG (Random Number Generator).

However Marvel already went here more or less (enemies explode, but into health orbs and "money" not into loot directly) with Marvel Ultimate alliance which was a great game (and the sequel looks promising). However I can't see that sustaining an actual MMO even if it works for a single player game. We've seen varios attempts like that Sword Of The New World game (where you played a party of four, I played it for a while, but hated their business model and felt it got too repetitive too fast. Can't even remember the name for sure), Dungeon Runners, and others and it more or less doesn't work on a massive scale. MMOs like that at the best turn out like Hellgate where your basically paying to kick back with a few buddies doing online multiplayer, something that has so far (and should be) a free feature.

If he doesn't design a game like that, his experience is more or less irrelevent since it's all within that genere.

I like the idea of there being another attempt at a Marvel MMO, but I feel it needs to be in the vein of a City Of Heroes (greatly expanded and improved upon given the passage of time), not "let's hook up Marvel Ultimate Alliance into something like Battlenet and make people pay for multiplayer of a type we should have polished up and provided for free with the game woo hoo!".

Simply my thoughts.

 

[hansari]

Hellgate London (which I did play) was a trainwreck despite some neat ideas.

Are these the same guys? Cause Hellgate London was done by a random assortment of ex-Diablo developers ranging from the lower ranks to high ranking executives.

This guy may have led Diablo, but did he also lead Flashpoint to the ground when it made Hell Gate London?

The original guys who had the Marvel Liscence were the dudes who did City Of Heroes. They had a falling out with Marvel however, and procured a differant liscence (Champions) using the code they were using for the Marvel MMORPG. This is basically what Champions Online is.

Bah...City of Heroes...Champions Online...do we really need another superhero MMO?

 

[TsunamiWombat]

A little late out the gate, Marvel. Your going to have to pull something spectacular and different to stand out from Champions - DC online doesn't seem to stand out at -all-...