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DC Universe Online: The End is the Beginning
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The title says it all in MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy's latest DC Universe Online Weekly column. Bill starts with a discussion of last night's beta-ending event and moves on to stand atop the soapbox for a few cautionary words for fans and detractors alike. Check out Bill's words and them weigh in on the discussion in the comments below.
The Battle of the Legends took place last night, Wednesday the 5th, across the beta’s many servers, and was basically a way to say thanks and goodbye to the beta and its testers. Essentially the idea was to hearken back to the intro cinematic which shows the heroes and villains killing one another as Brainiac invades and takes over Earth. This time however the invasion included not only the iconic DC characters (even that nifty future-armored Batman) but the players as well. I took part in that epic hero versus villain battle from the cinematic. It was mass-chaos in Metropolis’ Centennial Park and in Gotham’s Botanical Gardens as heroes and villains fought one another not knowing that Brainiac’s forces were on their way.
Read more Bill Murphy's DCUO: The End is the Beginning.
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Comments
The promise of "new content every month" is coming from the same company that suddenly and completely altered an MMO without much player feedback (if any). If you are willing to believe what they promise, then go for it. I'll wait and see, because right now, even with the addition of crafting, the game doesn't seem deep enough or content rich enough to warrant a standard subscription.
While I like the game pretty much I tend to be in the "not worth the sub" crowd but I still do hope that DCUO can prove me wrong and find a nice healthy population that is satisfied with the content updates and the speed in which they are released but we'll have to wait a few months to see how that pans out.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
yeah man, i was trying to kill that huge brainiac robot thingy. i was getting hit by villians and ran into dev lex luthor who attacked me.
lopsided...also freaking villians spawn is by the park.
it wasn't pretty.
Well Bill, I wish you lots of fun in DCUO, hope the game turns out like you hope.
Personally I don't trust SOE with any game as long as the existing management stays in place. That opinion is not just based on SWG, it is based on all their games. Consistently saying one thing and doing another.
I wish all of you who intend to play this game good luck and hope for you that SOE does not use the old knife in the back trick on you for a while. It is only a matter of time before they do. The only thing that SOE cares about is money, they could care less about the players.
Go get'm Bill! I agree. With a BIG company like this, it is easy to scream that they suck or they aren't doing their part. At the same time, Beta has shown that they quash stuff as fast as they can (sometimes not fast enough in our opinion but we don't see the little cogs working in the background).
I sadly had to work lastnight but the Beta was a blast and I hope to see all ya'll (behind my back helping me or at the other end of my fist while I pummel the goodie-two-shoe out of you) in game at launch!
In regards to the lack of downtime stuff argument, I'll agree that there is not much, but what is there is rather time-consuming and rewarding.
There is a fun little diversion in-game dealing with collecting various bits of information. As you are doing missions, you'll come across green "!" floating here and there. When you examine these, you'll get a little bit of story information to go along with the current mission arc that you are on. Once you have collected all 6 (usually), you get a new piece of gear in the mail. Most of these are easy to spot while doing the missions and thus, they are easy to complete.
Also, while running around the world, you will find blue "!". The blue "!" are extraneous story elements that add some depth to the overall lore of the DCUO universe. These range in size from 4 to 6 to complete the story and earn a reward. There are even additional rewards for completing multiple blue story sets in a larger set.
But wait, there's more. Also scattered throughout the cities are yellow "?" collectibles. Completing a set of these also grants a new style or piece of equipment. These are usually quite large, ranging from 6-10 pieces to complete the set. And, like the blue "!", there are sometimes sets within sets to award even more styles. These are randomly generated when you examine them, so it takes some time to get a full set.
I wish I could figure out how to post screenshots here, because I have completed a few of the collections and got some nice gear. I earned a nice set of "divine" wings for one collection, an "Arkham Riot" pouch belt, "Jester" shoulders and backpack (which looks like a jack-in-the-box box) and some other stuff that I personally didn't want for my character.
There is also the vault which can be run daily for new styles including "streetwear" like hoodies and ball caps with hero/villian logos on them. Also in the vault are some nice trinkets which turn you into other things like a Toyman doll or a Manhunter robot. I managed to get a pair of speed boots and a Joker's Jetpack that allowed my speedster to fly while it was equipped.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
I LOVE this game! I'm 37, and I've been getting tired of the run of the mill MMO for a while now. This game is just fun to play. Yes I'd love more power sets, yes I'd love to see more costume options, yes I'd love to see more content added, but I have faith these things will come in time. As it is though DCUO has a very strong base to build on.
I was in Gotham last night for the event, was looking forward to having it out with Future Batz... unfortunately it was a crash fest. I couldn't walk two steps before getting an error and crashing out. Later on I read on the forums that if you hit ignore it helped, but by that time it was winding to a close.
Still I'm not letting it discourage me. I'm sure they learned from it, and the next event I hope will be more stable.
It's an interesting game and it's fun for a while, but I think it's easy to burn through the content they currently have. You can easily get a character from 1-30 in just a few days.
Then from that point on, until new content is released, you're stuck running weekly raids and doing dailies.
Since you can't get rewards more than once a week from raids and you can only do the post 30 solo content once a day it, along with alerts, leaves you grinding duos for marks, even after you're locked out from gaining gear from the duo bosses.
It just seems this game leaves you with a very high probability of being burned out on it pretty quickly.
It'll get better when there's more content, but the longevity of the game is going to depend, fully, on whether or not SoE can make good on monthly content that has some sort of depth to it.
The crafting issue does not really bother me. Champions Online has crafting and it is so very dull and lackluster it'sbarely worth mentioning. It's in there only because Cryptic said that people wanted crafting in City of heroes. if you aren'y going to take the time to create a fun and meaningful crafting system and just plop garbage in or try and squeeze it in because you think players want it, well I would rather companies just did what SOE did here.
What an annoying condescending article. I swear this site is getting worse and worse in terms of writing. They say they will have content every month and maybe they will but i'm not going to shell out 50 bucks and 15 a month to SEE if this is true knowing the track record of promises in countless MMO's that have been broken. Secondly, the comment about everyone saying that crafting is the only reason this game should scratch its 15 a month is groundless and juvenile.
Seriously mmorpg.com get your act together
Playing: PO, EVE
Waiting for: WoD
Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO
Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
lol crafting
Yeah i want my super hero inspired super toon to knit sweaters.
No thanks.
I also love this game.
sup
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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You know as someone who was only casually interested in this game I think you've just about sold me. Well truth be told I loved CO so picking this one up seems only logical.
As for the "not worth the monthly fee comments", *shrug*, I will pick it up play until I get bored with it and stop subscribing after that. If it only lasts me a month, well 1$ a day seems a pretty good bang/buck ratio. If SOE doesn't hold up their end on making it worth my 15 after that point I simply won't pay to play. By that point Rifts should be about out and I might be up for trying that.
This isn't like cell phone service (don't get me started), I can quit anytime and their is no penalty. If it isn't worth a sub then it will be a much like any other beatable single player RPG we play these days (Dragon Age, Mass Effect), play till bored then quit.
The one thing everyone seems to agree on is its "Fun" if only for a little while. That's really what I want. Talk to me in a month about it being worth a sub after that.
Well cosidering everyone is hyping about Rift and how thats the 'next big thing' I very much dought we'll really see any postive comments from the userbase of this site in general, considering the game is very very much for the RPer the 'end to endgame and gain top teir epix' crowd will not enjoy this game at all - guys if you are looking to do 'new content' the month this is out, please do SOE a favour and do not buy this game otheriwse you'll be just clogging up the servers and forums with your complaining.
This game is for RPing mostly and having fun, esport raid fans please just leave us alone
Bring on the WARRRRGGHH!
And this is where I have to get on my soap box a little bit. I know I've been clamoring about this game for a while, and I've just as much tried to offer my critiques on it. I know it's not perfect, I know there are areas that need some work. But it's incredibly fun for me, and I'll gladly drop my $15 a month on it. What confuses me is how people can claim it's not worth the subscription because you don't have crafting... that's essentially the argument I'm seeing. It boils down to the fact that it doesn't have crafting or "down-time" stuff to do. That may be what some folks need out of their subscription, but when I hear a company promise significant monthly content updates, that is more than enough reason for me to sign up for a subscription. There will be something new every month.
ah yeah Thats how i see it also, see!
Why have downtime when you can always have uptime? I dig it.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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Do MMOs need ingame downtime activities? I mean, when I get bored to kick ass, I log out. That's my downtime.
Would crafting fit the IP? Well yes, some superheroes and villains do like to fiddle with stuff in the comics. Would it fit a fast-forward-in-yo-face action game that DCUO is? Hell no. Dev team is better off spending their time on bug fixing, class balancing and more of that awesome content.
Wow, if only there was a game that offered consistent monthly updates... oh yeah Asheron's Call did this like 10 years ago. It was one of the original 'Big Three.' It happened to be Turbine's first game and it's still up and running after all this time and still doing 'mostly' monthly updates.
Do I have faith SOE can do the same? Absolutely not. I'm a SWG player so I am used to SOE bending me over.
Played: Asheron's Call(still the best fantasy MMO!), EQ1, EQ2, Vanguard, DAoC, Horizons, City of Heroes/Villians, WoW (crap), LOTORO, D&D Online, Eve, Anarchy Online, and still playing SWG daily.
It's already begun for DCUO. A day long beta event became a 1 hour catastrophe where devs weren't even able to login for the PS3 events. Beta keys were meant to be sent to people on Jan 4 who got their receipts in before Jan 2, I didn't receive mine, nor did quite a few people posting on the forums and facebook/twitter pages. There wasn't even any communication as to why the beta keys weren't sent out, barring a post stating that they weren't sure if the keys that were meant to be sent were actually sent, and they would look into it. Suffice to say, there were no further posts on the subject.
I really want this game to succeed, the idea of monthly content updates sounds mighty nice, but its tough to believe a company that can't even keep its word to people they want as future customers. I'll still be slapping down my cash come 11/1/11, but I'm not under any illusions that what the devs promise will actually come to fruition.
Amen, I don't think I have seen even one no crafting complaint. A more accurate summary as to complaints why it's not worth a monthly sub is lack of player interaction, customization and replay ability. The authors nod to dismiss critics with such a blatantly biased alteration of fact should remove him from any forum that is even attempting to simulate journalism. Patently unprofessional.
I say that as someone who admits that the game has alot of good points and if you like superheroes and particulary DC and don't mind buying it as a single player game that you can occasionaly go back to it probably is worth it the money.
I agree. I really wanted to like this game, but after having played it a bit, I got bored. The missions are fun, but the existing low-end content seemed awefully shallow. I wanted to be a super-hero genre gaming fan, but after experienceing what I already did, I bailed; I thought the game I experienced, which was admitedly early, seemed awfully shallow. Uninstalled, cancelled.
This is one that I'd really wait on, 3-6-months down the line as we get more player feedback.
This is all over this forums and not going into it again but there are several failed games by SOE or games taken over by SOE and released well before they should of been. At age 20 frankly you haven't been around long enough to make a claim about SOE's history. Just for the record I had stopped playing SWG years before NEG.
There were lots of complaints in beta about what the game is lacking and why it's not worth $15 a month for some people. To me it seemed it was a very small minority that mentioned crafting. Most people didn't feel it was worth it because it has a horrid UI, an extremely lackluster character creator, WAY too few power choices, very little within each power tree to make every ability seem different than the other powers in that tree, and a fear of not enough content. I saw a LOT of posts regarding those concerns and only a few regarding a lack of crafting.
It seemed the general consensus was that the game was fun, but was just being fun good enough to make up for every other aspect it lacked in.
If you loved CO you might be very disappointed with DCUO. The combat is fun, but in every other feature it is years behind CO. I think I'll wait a few months to see what their idea of "monthly updates" are. And then I'll wait another month or two to make sure they didn't just plan for a few months of updates before giving up on the idea.. hehe.
Like you though I try and keep the mindset that these games are just like single player games I might otherwise buy. So I'll probably buy it just to play it for a month and be done with it. If they make huge strides and changes to my liking then I can always subscribe.
lol Years behind CO.
You can see the major difference and superiority of DCUO the second you enter the world.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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I agree with you 100%. DCUO surpasses CO in just about every way possible. The quests are lightyears ahead of CO and the graphics make CO seem like a game that was 10 years old. dcuo just runs smooth on any setting where CO your playing with every graphical option just to find that right visual look and good fps.
The animations in DCUO are lightyears ahead of CO and most other MMO games out there. The smoothness of flying around the city just looks and feels like you are really flying.