The Wizards of Technology

Reports are coming in from Sony's 2008 Fan Faire that both "The Agency" and "DC Online" might be our first second generation MMORPGs.

City of Heroes is another superhero game, but if you strip away the fancy costume, you are left with a standard MMO. All of your "powers" only effect your target, and not the environment. If you freeze someone, you get a nice animation of an enemy inside an ice block, but you can't do anything with it and it merely breaks on it's own. It's an animation, not a physical aspect. In contrast, in "DC Online", if you freeze someone, they assume the physical properties of ice. You can kick the block and it will skid across the street. You can tear off a lamp post and hit it and it will shatter. You can pick up cars and throw them. There are no recharge times. There are no shortcut bars. It's all action, with real powers, in a real environment.

"The Agency" doesn't have levels. You have ranks you can earn that give you things, but if you take a sniper shot to your head, you will be dead just as if you are a new player. You don't magically gain 1000 hit points and can take 50 bullets to the head because you are a higher "level".

Both games cannot be described in conventional MMO terms. There is no "loot" when you kill a "mob". Rewards are handled differently. Money is handled differently. Just about every standard MMO convention has been thrown out the window for these two games. This is what makes them truly Second generation if they can pull it off. Time will tell, but Sony may have finally broken the mold.

Craig Sanderlin
Contributing Author
Wizards of Technology