Marvel Heroes Omega

If you're a Marvel Heroes fan, you may be delighted to know that the game is back through an emulation effort by the MHServerEmu team.

Remember Paragon Institute and it's IndieGoGo campaign called Marvel Heroes Rebirth? You may recall its hope to talk Disney in to buying up the assets from the now-closed Marvel Heroes Online? If so, you'll be fascinated to read MMOFallout's discovery when trying to track down the Institute and its owner. While nothing outright fraudulent appears to be going on, there are more than a few red flags raised with regard to the "Institute" itself, as well as the credentials of its founder.

A new IndieGoGo campaign has started from a group called Paragon Institute, a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit, that wants to buy Marvel Heroes Omega with an initial goal of $450,000. Once the needed funds are raised, they will be used to found ElderMage Studios "as a learning lab to partner experienced professionals with aspiring game developers" and includes a secondary mission to "preserve games that are no longer supported so that those who licensed them may continue using them".

Microsoft has finally provided XBox One users with additional information about the refunds they're entitled to as a result of the closure of Marvel Heroes Omega. Players who purchased DLC between September 1st and October 30th will receive store credit. Players purchasing DLC between October 31st and November 29th will see a refund applied to the "payment instrument". All refunds are expected to be processed prior to January 31st.

As I’ve been playing games for decades, the red flags of what Gazillion did were stark, and often. As we currently live in an unprecedented era of gaming, and by unprecedented I mean an era of gaming where monetization is affluent, in many cases, when the game is not only unfinished, but these days monetization happens with nary more than an idea or grasp of a game is apparent, I still believed that brand integrity meant something. Oh, how wrong I turned out to be.

Massively is reporting that they have received a tip from a "credible former Gazillion employee" that told them that most, if not all, Gazillion developers have been let go, that the company has shuttered completely and that the game will cease operations on Friday, November 24th, not on December 31st as indicated in last week's announcement.

After last week's announcement that Marvel Heroes Omega will be closing, the number of players asking for refunds is growing. Kotaku has culled a number of sources where players are asking for refunds. Console players are particularly frustrated since the "Omega" version of the game only launched earlier this year.

The Marvel Heroes Omega Facebook page has been updated with a new post to thank players for their commitment to the game since its launch and to inform the community that the game will cease operations on December 31, 2017.

Kotaku is reporting that Disney and Marvel have cut ties with Gazillion Entertainment, developers of Marvel Heroes Omega. According to an email received from Marvel, the company wrote, "We regret to inform our Marvel Heroes fans that we have ended our relationship with Gazillion Entertainment, and that the Marvel Heroes games will be shut down. We would like to sincerely thank the players who joined the Marvel Heroes community and will provide any further updates as they become available."

Marvel Heroes Omega and Gazillion Entertainment have been pretty quiet lately. So quiet, in fact, that players and fans are beginning to speculate what might be going on behind the scenes, none of it good either. According to Massively, an October 20th update has yet to be deployed, a Halloween event, usually a big ticket in-game happening, didn't fire off and at least one employee has written that he's moving on.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece highlighting the terrible implementation of Omega Prestige in Marvel Heroes. Prestige, a system originally designed as a fun activity meant for personal achievement or showing off dedication, was now tied to endgame progression, forcing players to participate if they wanted to get the most out of their heroes.

For a while now, Marvel Heroes players could optionally Prestige (re-level) their heroes up to six times, each time earning its own special color nameplate as a reward. Cosmic, the final tier of Prestige, required something like 25X the normal experience to level from 1-60, but your name would show up in yellow, the color of Cosmic rarity items in Marvel Heroes. It was something to do for fun or to show off your dedication to a particular hero to other players.

To celebrate ABC's Marvel's Inhumans, Gazillion Entertainment has announced that a playable version of Black Bolt will arrive "to make some noise" in Marvel Heroes Omega.

Marvel Heroes Omega for consoles has been updated with Apocalypse Awakens that reintroduces Apocalypse and cloned X-Men to serve as the Four Horsemen. Jean Grey (Death), Storm (Pestilence), Psylocke (War) and Magik (Famine) will bring new challenges to all heroes at level 11 and above. In addition to battling the Four Horsemen, players can also unlock versions of each in Apocalypse Loot Boxes or as part of the Apocalypse Event Omega Pack.

Item sets are finally coming to Marvel Heroes with the Omega patch in November. We take a look at the Omega item redesign and some big changes coming to the overall item game with the patch.