I would have given it an 8 as well. I had more fun in DCUO than I did in most of the mmos I've played in the past 5 years. This is because the parts that they have right in the game are so right that the slight misfortunes really have no effect. I also played through multiple builds of the game so seeing it take its final form was a great experience.
I aggree that it might FEEL like content is non-existant, but once I got to 30 and saw that I had more quests open up than I had from 1-20 combined, I was surprised.
I agree leveling is really fast, but this is neither a pro or a con for me. As long as I have fun reaching the level that I'd like with little or no problems, I see that as a win for the devs. This includes any game no matter what the grind. I had fun leveling in L2 and SWG (when it didn't have levels.. ) and a slew of f2p mmos. There are a large variety of leveling rates between what I've played.
DCUO is a console style MMO. It plays and feels like that in every way. There was not one moment where I was unhappy with it.
Now all of this aside, I will not be buying the game because, while it is fun, it doesn't have what I'm looking for. It's designed to be a pick-up-and-play game, which means... community interaction is secondary most of the time.
If you're scared about content, that will always be added. What is harder to fix are core gaming mechanics, which seem well designed for what the game is. Not to mention the want to make numerous alts like in CoH.
Thank you really for link. If I had it at hand before purchase guess would think twice before buy. After trying it for (I admin) short, I think they were even too generous with 2. And as binary_0011 wrote is really terrible if some reviewer gives to this .... thing ... 8 for I guess sole reason "I just love punching people in the face.".
But no matter my or others disliking I'm sure there will be many enjoying. But, no offense intended, mainly small kids on PS3 (and for sure not on PC) that enjoy just mashing buttons even not knowing for what end.
I must admit my mistake in to rush judgement after only first hour of gameplay. After playing for aprox 2 days there are many good aspects I ignored at first. For sure for me is still big button masher. But the worst (not for everybody of course) and that made me so disappointed at first is, that game is genuine console game. And this usually spell disaster for PC game. But i have managed with a lot of adjustments from inside game options and both with my keyboard and mouse that both support macroing, profiles, ... to make this game play as much as possible to PC standards. Still is just terrible only tab is usable to selecting targets. With many targets and other objects on screen selecting with a mouse is a must. And this unfortunately can not be emulated here as there is no cursor to click on objects. And tab many times just select some mob from group very far from one currently being engaged aggroing even more. Sometimes one must press 10 times tab to target right one.
About good things I wish to note so far to repair to my mistake for too bad first judgement (guess will post next after few weeks of gameplay):
Customization is not bad, not at par with CO, but very good
Realistic graphics (do not want to say I do not like pure cartoon look of CO)
Look and feel when in city is like being in movie many times
Travel powers are excelent, despite being only 3 (as have discovered so far; in comparison CO have much more but 95% are useless; I just wish in CO superspeed or acrobatics would allow to run up walls like in DCO where this is great)
All in all game is much more fun then experienced at first (I know, »fun« is matter of personal taste).
Thank you really for link. If I had it at hand before purchase guess would think twice before buy. After trying it for (I admin) short, I think they were even too generous with 2. And as binary_0011 wrote is really terrible if some reviewer gives to this .... thing ... 8 for I guess sole reason "I just love punching people in the face.".
But no matter my or others disliking I'm sure there will be many enjoying. But, no offense intended, mainly small kids on PS3 (and for sure not on PC) that enjoy just mashing buttons even not knowing for what end.
I must admit my mistake in to rush judgement after only first hour of gameplay. After playing for aprox 2 days there are many good aspects I ignored at first. For sure for me is still big button masher. But the worst (not for everybody of course) and that made me so disappointed at first is, that game is genuine console game. And this usually spell disaster for PC game. But i have managed with a lot of adjustments from inside game options and both with my keyboard and mouse that both support macroing, profiles, ... to make this game play as much as possible to PC standards. Still is just terrible only tab is usable to selecting targets. With many targets and other objects on screen selecting with a mouse is a must. And this unfortunately can not be emulated here as there is no cursor to click on objects. And tab many times just select some mob from group very far from one currently being engaged aggroing even more. Sometimes one must press 10 times tab to target right one.
About good things I wish to note so far to repair to my mistake for too bad first judgement (guess will post next after few weeks of gameplay):
Customization is not bad, not at par with CO, but very good
Realistic graphics (do not want to say I do not like pure cartoon look of CO)
Look and feel when in city is like being in movie many times
Travel powers are excelent, despite being only 3 (as have discovered so far; in comparison CO have much more but 95% are useless; I just wish in CO superspeed or acrobatics would allow to run up walls like in DCO where this is great)
All in all game is much more fun then experienced at first (I know, »fun« is matter of personal taste).
When I was targeting i just turned it on WASD mode or mouse mode i forget which in options. This way when I targetted something and need to change targets I could just while moving. It was pretty painless. I also never actually "locked" on.
Also it appears that that review isn't even done very well. The guy never even found out how to actually play the game. It's not like it's hard to get out of stuns quickly...use the block button (which is displayed on the screen when you are stunned). I have had 4 characters get abouve 20 in the beta and never was stun locked by mobs... PvP can go either way if you're skilled enough.
But just like everyone says, the game plays and feels like a console game, and I won't be paying for it. Gamespy's review just seems poor. They can give it a 2 if they want, but it's written like a whinny teenager and not so much like a professional.
If you want a good review then i'd always look at gamespot first:
its a great single player console style game with options to group (but grouping is DEF not required). However its not much of an MMO, sorry sony.
Completely disagree with this. I'm not even sure where I stand with DCUO after 100 hours or so of playtime, but I know that you are mistaken. You must have avoided alerts, raids, duos, wanted missions, and pvp- which is about the equivalent of only questing solo in WoW, and ignoring other content.
Leveling to max solo is fairly standard mmo fare- DCUO is no different. Just faster and streamlined.
Yes this game shows some promise but it doen't deserve a score of 8. You can do everything solo so the only use for other people that I have found is to steal your gathering quest items while your fighting the mobs that were protecting it. The game also feels way to much like a ported console game to me. The UI needs a lot of work for the PC version not to mention the social options. There isn't a search option for people. A global friend list would also be a huge bonus. If the person is good enough for my friend list why would I not want to know when they are online with a different toon. The only way to see a list of other people is to look on a list that only shows the people around you. Something you can acomplish by simply looking around. Plus everything is done with / commands since you have no cursor.
I am hoping that they fix and improve many things when I give this game another shot in about 6-9 months. Until then I would give this game a 6, fun for the button masher in me but kind of lack luster for the MMO person in me.
A good review. But I would have scored it a 7 tho. When you look at the Cons, they really do weight rather heavy on the Pro's.
For a company like SOE who brought us EQ2, there is simply no excuse for the current UI and Chat interface they deployed in DCUO for PC users. No excuse AT ALL!
And so far there has been ZERO communication from SOE if they ever gonna address it nor when they gonna address it.
The current sorry state of the whole chat interface makes PC users just not willing to team up nor making Alerts any fun excersise at all! As people do not communicate nor play their role. Everyone just does their own thing solo, even in Alerts.
It really hurts the community and community feel overall ingame.
And sadly, it's already showing, as it wasn't even 2 weeks after launch and the 2 EU servers that were queue'ing and always full during primetime are already down to Medium during primetime.
SOE really need to get their heads out of their arses and communicate and tell us they gonna fix the horrid UI and Chat interface for PC users! Or this game is gonna bomb fast and not many will be around anymore after the first month is up.
Actually, if you had been keeping up to date with all the news and announcements as well as the Dev Tracker for their forum replies, you'd see that they have been responding about and are in fact working on totally re-vamping the UI (just to name one thing).
Great review William Murphey, perfect score in my opinion.
First update was a week late (February update). Created more glitches/bugs than it addressed. More fixes promised in the March update (yeah, ok...wait a month to actually fix bugs/glitches that are killing gameplay..ok). Game director begins backpeddling on the monthly update promise, which was a selling point to many subscribers...change content update from monthly to numbered updates. Forums lack any DEv/CM interaction..player base posting frustrations daily, but threads locked or deleted. March update (err..update 2) now very late, even though Mr. Cao claimed in early Feruary that all content had been completed through May... still no update today, even though the Community manager says it's in final approval...and now this news of closures and layoffs that in fact do affect San Diego (support) and Austin (DCUO Devs).
And we knew the game was rushed to release. Look at the sales numbers...(210k in the US since release... thats pretty sad.), considering the servers having been moving into ghostown status since the first 30 days free was up. They continue to try and spin it in the forums and with the interviews, but i think the cracks are begining to really show on this hack job. And glossy reviews like this one helped players buy into what really should have been a 5 or 6... oh well.
Dude, The Game still has bugs since its newly release and the leveling thingy's its very easy and fast since i played the game for 1 whole week i reached level 20. They should fix the experience gained from leveling ASAP!!! But still for early gamers who pioneered in this game they will be godly. I RATE THIS GAME an 8 from now.
Comments
Wow... what crazy comments... and text colors.
I would have given it an 8 as well. I had more fun in DCUO than I did in most of the mmos I've played in the past 5 years. This is because the parts that they have right in the game are so right that the slight misfortunes really have no effect. I also played through multiple builds of the game so seeing it take its final form was a great experience.
I aggree that it might FEEL like content is non-existant, but once I got to 30 and saw that I had more quests open up than I had from 1-20 combined, I was surprised.
I agree leveling is really fast, but this is neither a pro or a con for me. As long as I have fun reaching the level that I'd like with little or no problems, I see that as a win for the devs. This includes any game no matter what the grind. I had fun leveling in L2 and SWG (when it didn't have levels.. ) and a slew of f2p mmos. There are a large variety of leveling rates between what I've played.
DCUO is a console style MMO. It plays and feels like that in every way. There was not one moment where I was unhappy with it.
Now all of this aside, I will not be buying the game because, while it is fun, it doesn't have what I'm looking for. It's designed to be a pick-up-and-play game, which means... community interaction is secondary most of the time.
If you're scared about content, that will always be added. What is harder to fix are core gaming mechanics, which seem well designed for what the game is. Not to mention the want to make numerous alts like in CoH.
I must admit my mistake in to rush judgement after only first hour of gameplay. After playing for aprox 2 days there are many good aspects I ignored at first. For sure for me is still big button masher. But the worst (not for everybody of course) and that made me so disappointed at first is, that game is genuine console game. And this usually spell disaster for PC game. But i have managed with a lot of adjustments from inside game options and both with my keyboard and mouse that both support macroing, profiles, ... to make this game play as much as possible to PC standards. Still is just terrible only tab is usable to selecting targets. With many targets and other objects on screen selecting with a mouse is a must. And this unfortunately can not be emulated here as there is no cursor to click on objects. And tab many times just select some mob from group very far from one currently being engaged aggroing even more. Sometimes one must press 10 times tab to target right one.
About good things I wish to note so far to repair to my mistake for too bad first judgement (guess will post next after few weeks of gameplay):
Customization is not bad, not at par with CO, but very good
Realistic graphics (do not want to say I do not like pure cartoon look of CO)
Look and feel when in city is like being in movie many times
Travel powers are excelent, despite being only 3 (as have discovered so far; in comparison CO have much more but 95% are useless; I just wish in CO superspeed or acrobatics would allow to run up walls like in DCO where this is great)
All in all game is much more fun then experienced at first (I know, »fun« is matter of personal taste).
When I was targeting i just turned it on WASD mode or mouse mode i forget which in options. This way when I targetted something and need to change targets I could just while moving. It was pretty painless. I also never actually "locked" on.
Also it appears that that review isn't even done very well. The guy never even found out how to actually play the game. It's not like it's hard to get out of stuns quickly...use the block button (which is displayed on the screen when you are stunned). I have had 4 characters get abouve 20 in the beta and never was stun locked by mobs... PvP can go either way if you're skilled enough.
But just like everyone says, the game plays and feels like a console game, and I won't be paying for it. Gamespy's review just seems poor. They can give it a 2 if they want, but it's written like a whinny teenager and not so much like a professional.
If you want a good review then i'd always look at gamespot first:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dcuniverseonline/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;read-review
MMORPG.com and Gamespot structure reviews pretty well. Notice how most reviews are similar between a 7 and an 8.5.
its a great single player console style game with options to group (but grouping is DEF not required). However its not much of an MMO, sorry sony.
Completely disagree with this. I'm not even sure where I stand with DCUO after 100 hours or so of playtime, but I know that you are mistaken. You must have avoided alerts, raids, duos, wanted missions, and pvp- which is about the equivalent of only questing solo in WoW, and ignoring other content.
Leveling to max solo is fairly standard mmo fare- DCUO is no different. Just faster and streamlined.
Yes this game shows some promise but it doen't deserve a score of 8. You can do everything solo so the only use for other people that I have found is to steal your gathering quest items while your fighting the mobs that were protecting it. The game also feels way to much like a ported console game to me. The UI needs a lot of work for the PC version not to mention the social options. There isn't a search option for people. A global friend list would also be a huge bonus. If the person is good enough for my friend list why would I not want to know when they are online with a different toon. The only way to see a list of other people is to look on a list that only shows the people around you. Something you can acomplish by simply looking around. Plus everything is done with / commands since you have no cursor.
I am hoping that they fix and improve many things when I give this game another shot in about 6-9 months. Until then I would give this game a 6, fun for the button masher in me but kind of lack luster for the MMO person in me.
Actually, if you had been keeping up to date with all the news and announcements as well as the Dev Tracker for their forum replies, you'd see that they have been responding about and are in fact working on totally re-vamping the UI (just to name one thing).
Great review William Murphey, perfect score in my opinion.
~Ra Hallowel
So lets see:
First update was a week late (February update). Created more glitches/bugs than it addressed. More fixes promised in the March update (yeah, ok...wait a month to actually fix bugs/glitches that are killing gameplay..ok). Game director begins backpeddling on the monthly update promise, which was a selling point to many subscribers...change content update from monthly to numbered updates. Forums lack any DEv/CM interaction..player base posting frustrations daily, but threads locked or deleted. March update (err..update 2) now very late, even though Mr. Cao claimed in early Feruary that all content had been completed through May... still no update today, even though the Community manager says it's in final approval...and now this news of closures and layoffs that in fact do affect San Diego (support) and Austin (DCUO Devs).
And we knew the game was rushed to release. Look at the sales numbers...(210k in the US since release... thats pretty sad.), considering the servers having been moving into ghostown status since the first 30 days free was up. They continue to try and spin it in the forums and with the interviews, but i think the cracks are begining to really show on this hack job. And glossy reviews like this one helped players buy into what really should have been a 5 or 6... oh well.
Dude, The Game still has bugs since its newly release and the leveling thingy's its very easy and fast since i played the game for 1 whole week i reached level 20. They should fix the experience gained from leveling ASAP!!! But still for early gamers who pioneered in this game they will be godly. I RATE THIS GAME an 8 from now.
For me this is the best MMORPG Game ever