Havint tried the PvP in DCUO all i can say is it instantly brought me to early WoW flashbacks on chain stuns and CC effects dominating the landscape.
Its frantic and crazy, but thing slike the picky camera for acrobatics users, the amount of chain CC that gets thrown about (yes you can break it easily, but that still stops you from being on the offensive.) and some other minor gripes such as having NO clue what your iconic PvP character actually does!
For example in beta you get to play either Harley Q. or Robin very early on, sounds awesome right, it is until you get into the match and relaize you ahve to "figure out" what each ability actually does as there is no way to check on them nor are there descriptions for them. I was shocked at how disjointed the Iconic PvP felt. Open world PvP however..is actually a LOT of fun. even if your getting beatdown during a mission you dont get as frustrated as you would in other games as the penalty is minimal.
All I can truthfully say is the game is a blast to play and hopefully they will have quick releases post launch for some key power sets that are currently missing.
After being bored to death by lvl 12 with CoX and utterly disguesting with all of CO (aside form character creation, CO is still the best out there in for customization) I think I've finally found a hero MMO that has some real staying power with me.
Yah, this game is awesome!!! SOE really got down this time. As the OP said, it is increadibly addictive and I have seen myself start different characters just to check out their powers. THe world PvP is one of hte best parts for me. Since its a matter of kill X and Y and its the same for villains and heroes, you usually see massive breakouts between the 2 factions for mobs and it turns into a straight up brawl.... LOVE IT!!!!
I tried DUO a couple of times and its ok, nothing to write home about. YOu choose an iconic character, be it robin, batman, or the joker and fight ina 2v2 style battleground. The team that kills the enemy team 10 times wins. YOu do get access tot he iconic powers for the specific char you got but besides that its ok nothing great.
At least with a sub game they know that people won't tolerate bullshit and leave. With anet we have no recourse but to buy our own lube so our assholes don't get too stretched out from getting bent over a table at Anets will. - Hrimnir
“Travel and Iconic power sets don't start to become available until around level 10.”
You have to wait all the way to level 50 before you can fly? What went wrong at the design meeting didn’t they get the memo from the CEO about handing out every perk in the game at the lowest level possible? Oh sorry you can fly at level 10 they did get the memo.
“So while everyone can serve as a DPS class, you will wind up needing some healers in the later instances and raids. Fans of support classes, you can breathe easy knowing you're still necessary in an action-based MMO.”
So reading between the hype, you can solo to top level and only then will a support class be needed in a group.
“Nothing major, nothing too difficult for those who fear the notion of "combos", but they add flavour to the combat experience that's not like anything else in the genre.”
Well that’s alright then all the fun of combos without the difficulty of…combos. This was written by a staff writer and not a PR guy from DCUO right?
“This is all done with your "communicator", so very rarely will you ever need to run back and forth. It does happen with some of the lesser, as I call them, "supplemental" quests but for the most part everything is handled via your communicator.”
No mention of how such a device might stop interaction between players. From what we have been told you might not need to leave solo questing for anything other than repairs. No appreciation here that MMO’s are about playing with other people. A communicator is what I would want in a solo game, not here.
“Basically, that means get to a safe spot and open your menu to continue the next quest. No running back and forth between quest hubs, none of that. You're a super villain for crying out loud.”
Same again this is applauded by Mr Murphy when it makes the game a solo experience.
“The game's not all about solo-play either, though I've had no issues doing just that.”
I think we had already guessed that! Ok now all the solo fans have been told what a great game it is we need something to make the grouping fans think it is a great game for them otherwise they might not buy it. But what do we get for groupers? Apparently you can join another persons quest if you see them doing one on screen, I got no sense a group was formed, you just joined in. Would you remember the guys name you bumped into, I doubt it. Do you go on to do more quests together, well a group was not formed so you just part ways until you bump into the next random stranger. But a piece of MMO hype like this article is not going to point that out to you.
The only things that are negative in the article are that some of the quests are partially repeated from other quest lines. Mr Murphy tells us he 'is confident' any other issues he mentions will get fixed before launch. Oh and we are told it is a theme park MMO but that's actually a bonus!
Overall I have had a lot of respect for the balance in Mr Murphy's articles but he seems to have lost his super balance power here. Was it stolen by that nefarious super villain organisation that goes by the name of SOE?
It's just a preview, dude. He'll do a balanced review when it comes out. Right now he's enjoying it. Shouldn't that be a good thing? I hate reading pessimistic "everything's not perfect so this game suck" stuff that gets thrown around here. Maybe he didn't illustrate his point very well, but he said he grouped and he said he met other players in the random do missions at the same time SWAT truck bit.
“Travel and Iconic power sets don't start to become available until around level 10.”
You have to wait all the way to level 50 before you can fly? What went wrong at the design meeting didn’t they get the memo from the CEO about handing out every perk in the game at the lowest level possible? Oh sorry you can fly at level 10 they did get the memo. Level 30 is cap, you can fly/acrobat/superspeed at level 1, but you can't put points into powers within those trees until level 10.
“So while everyone can serve as a DPS class, you will wind up needing some healers in the later instances and raids. Fans of support classes, you can breathe easy knowing you're still necessary in an action-based MMO.”
So reading between the hype, you can solo to top level and only then will a support class be needed in a group. Yes, you can solo to top level, but most group content done before max still requires the use of roles.
“Nothing major, nothing too difficult for those who fear the notion of "combos", but they add flavour to the combat experience that's not like anything else in the genre.”
Well that’s alright then all the fun of combos without the difficulty of…combos. This was written by a staff writer and not a PR guy from DCUO right? So he shouldn't have mentioned that combos aren't the old-school <^>AA^AB>AA fighting game combos that most people associate with?
“This is all done with your "communicator", so very rarely will you ever need to run back and forth. It does happen with some of the lesser, as I call them, "supplemental" quests but for the most part everything is handled via your communicator.”
No mention of how such a device might stop interaction between players. From what we have been told you might not need to leave solo questing for anything other than repairs. No appreciation here that MMO’s are about playing with other people. A communicator is what I would want in a solo game, not here. The communicator is for being contacted by your mission-givers. It simply wouldn't fit a modern-set world in which you constantly had to run back and forth to complete missions.
“Basically, that means get to a safe spot and open your menu to continue the next quest. No running back and forth between quest hubs, none of that. You're a super villain for crying out loud.”
Same again this is applauded by Mr Murphy when it makes the game a solo experience. So nothing in an MMO is allowed to be soloed?
“The game's not all about solo-play either, though I've had no issues doing just that.”
I think we had already guessed that! Ok now all the solo fans have been told what a great game it is we need something to make the grouping fans think it is a great game for them otherwise they might not buy it. But what do we get for groupers? Apparently you can join another persons quest if you see them doing one on screen, I got no sense a group was formed, you just joined in. Would you remember the guys name you bumped into, I doubt it. Do you go on to do more quests together, well a group was not formed so you just part ways until you bump into the next random stranger. But a piece of MMO hype like this article is not going to point that out to you. Group content that cannot be soloed: Alerts, available at level 10; DUOs and Raids available at level 30; Legends PvP arenas, available at level 6.
The only things that are negative in the article are that some of the quests are partially repeated from other quest lines. Mr Murphy tells us he 'is confident' any other issues he mentions will get fixed before launch. Oh and we are told it is a theme park MMO but that's actually a bonus! Yes, we know, you are a sandbox guy; this game is not a sandbox.
Overall I have had a lot of respect for the balance in Mr Murphy's articles but he seems to have lost his super balance power here. Was it stolen by that nefarious super villain organisation that goes by the name of SOE? Once again, the writers here are not allowed to like anything, we get it.
Dude, really? This is an intial impression piece from a beta experience. Wait for a full review before you cry foul.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
A game by SoE? Smedley involved too? Not a chance long time players with good memories will even think of playing it. "Fool me once, shame of you. Fool me twi..... anyway you get my meaning.
There are still some tings that need work, chat and social for sure. I know the update was suposed to make the social somewhat better, however I think it needs some more tweeaking.
Interseting article. I have a few things to say about it, are we sitll under nda?
It's multiplayer -- as in I can *see* other players. But in my 2 hours of play last night, I was unable to figure out how to team with them or do much. The chat interface needs to be scrapped and rebuilt. It's pretty counter-intuitive. Pretty much EVERY other SOE MMO I've played had a better interface. I want to be able to move my mouse over to click on 1,2,3 if I want to. I want to be able to right click on a nearby person and invite. I can figure out WTF I am doing in it based on the tutorials and tips. I'm sure I could ask or read the forums for answers but I'm trying to give them good honest feedback on their average new player experience. It's beautiful but shallow. Right now, it might appeal to a console gamer but as a PC gamer who looks for a community to join, I'm considering cancelling my pre-order.
“You can fly at level 1, flying powers (those in addittion to flight) start at level 10.”
So the designers did get the memo from marketing which said ‘no learning curve, no power curve, no achievement, let them have everything from first level.’ Not even lobby games like LFD are designed like that, where is the progression, the sense of you becoming a hero rather than starting as Superman?
“The communicator is for being contacted by your mission-givers. It simply wouldn't fit a modern-set world in which you constantly had to run back and forth to complete missions”
Good point, but a reason can be made up e.g: “We can’t use the communicators on this mission, the super villains have hacked into the comms network. Hell Brainiac could have infiltrated the entire comms network so no one uses it. This was a game play decision not an IP background decision. They don’t want you even having to spend one minute flying back to where you might actually bump into other players. You could spend the whole game in an instance by the sound of it.
“So nothing in an MMO is allowed to be soloed?” “Group content that cannot be soloed: Alerts, available at level 10; DUOs and Raids available at level 30; Legends PvP arenas, available at level 6.”
It should be a balanced mixture, grouping a requirement every so often. Good to hear about that grouping content, but as you say ‘available’; is their no grouping content you need to do or want to do because of the rewards?
I am not a sandbox guy, but I like some sand in with the theme park wrapping . It is good that the review found positives, I saw a lot to interest me. But it is the way the negatives were ignored or we were told everything will be fine by launch, that’s what made the review so unbalanced. I don’t buy into SoE being a an issue either, you live or die by how good your latest product is, not by what happened historically. Look at Cryptic, CoH was brilliant, on that basis everything they then produce must be fabulous, then we get Champions. Judge each release on its own merits.
From what Samhael is saying it is designed for consoles, but those sort of control issues can be sorted, I would not be too concerned about that, also UI is one of the easiest things in a MMO to change. It is the grouping and community that concerns me Samhael, never pre order, I would say that of any game no matter how good it seemed to be.
It's multiplayer -- as in I can *see* other players. But in my 2 hours of play last night, I was unable to figure out how to team with them or do much. The chat interface needs to be scrapped and rebuilt. It's pretty counter-intuitive. Pretty much EVERY other SOE MMO I've played had a better interface. I want to be able to move my mouse over to click on 1,2,3 if I want to. I want to be able to right click on a nearby person and invite. I can figure out WTF I am doing in it based on the tutorials and tips. I'm sure I could ask or read the forums for answers but I'm trying to give them good honest feedback on their average new player experience. It's beautiful but shallow. Right now, it might appeal to a console gamer but as a PC gamer who looks for a community to join, I'm considering cancelling my pre-order.
I agree the chat user interface is a terible mess. Most folks just run around and ue the /shout command. I have yet to really figure out the chat chanels. It is the one thing tha needs the most work. I also agree it apeals more to the console gaming guys, wihtout going into to much depth without breakign the nda.
I am lucky i did not buy the pre order to get into beta,and I am happy I did not pre order.
Targetting, and control in general, is a very mixed bag on the PC right now. Plenty of discussions going on in the beta forums about them, but it's a hybrid of tab to 'lock on' to a mob but you have to be facing the mob to fight. This gets to be a pain sometimes as you can easily get surrounded by mobs and it's hard to tell where it's coming from. You have to be facing a mob to 'lock on' (I use that in quotes cause it doesn't seem to ALWAYS lock on properly.) if your skill set is 'brawling' which really is the only one I've messed with so far (only been in a week or so now) it's very easy to pull a combo and go shooting way past where everyone is you are supposed to be fighting, and if there are other mobs where you end up, now you have them to deal with as well.
Also, you have to face directly inside a tight 'cone' to be able to talk to NPCs, even if you are standing on them. Same with 'collection points' There's a ton of investigation or collection points all over the place (if you are familiar with EQ2's glowies, the same principal really, but they REALLY stand out) and it can be hard to get lined up right to get them to work with the controls as well.
In short, PC controls are still quite wonky, and despite what the article says, I've seen a ton of problems with kill stealing etc... everything for the quests seems to be on a VERY quick respawn rate, but one that's so quick that it will likely be abused when the game goes live, so I expect it to be dialed back a bit. There are parts where you have to disable a mob and then E him (E is the 'perform action on' button) and after I defeated someone, had another player come in and E him and I did not get the credit. This is no way indicative of what a 'live audience' might be like, but it seems that kill stealing and ignoring of 'I'm already working this spot even though there's a big area to work in' happens a lot. Lack of ettiqute I guess.
This all sounds like I'm not having a good time with it, but that is not the case at all. The action is fast and fun and it is NOT like CoH or CO. Whatever they end up saying is the final min requirements are, scale it up just a bit as well. If you are struggling with playing semi-current MMOs , DCUO will bring it to it's knees. Mouse lag, horrible 'raid' lag, ground textures not loading in quick enough and then falling thru the world (and getting stuck under the ground) has happened to me QUITE a bit with a rig that by all acoounts shouldn't even be running it really, but I have heard the same complaint with people with state of the art rigs as well (although not as much as I have it.) This still is beta with a long ways to go towards launching, so I suspect a lot of that will be ironed out by then.
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.
There are still some tings that need work, chat and social for sure. I know the update was suposed to make the social somewhat better, however I think it needs some more tweeaking.
Interseting article. I have a few things to say about it, are we sitll under nda?
NDA has been lifted. Fire away!
Here's the post from the beta forums:
Beta Players,
We’ve played together in DCUO’s closed Beta for months. We’ve posted back and forth, voted Up or Down, and shared this new universe together. Now, it’s time to take a step closer towards launch.
Thank you all for your play and feedback. We appreciate that despite the challenges presented by a game in Beta, your feedback in these forums has continued to help us understand the game from a player’s point of view. Your thoughts, critiques, opinions, and suggestions have given us a wealth of perspective to draw from. DCUO is a far better game today because of your efforts.
Today, December 6, 2010, the NDA will be dropped across the game.. Our conversations, and our game, will be shared with the world. So keep playing, keep posting, and keep talking about DCUO.
You’ve helped us make a good game great. Let’s keep that going as we finish out Beta. Thank you.
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.
“You can fly at level 1, flying powers (those in addittion to flight) start at level 10.”
So the designers did get the memo from marketing which said ‘no learning curve, no power curve, no achievement, let them have everything from first level.’ Not even lobby games like LFD are designed like that, where is the progression, the sense of you becoming a hero rather than starting as Superman?
You start out with movement powers but you upgrade them as you go. You can get a double jump and a super fast super speed mode. You can get a jetpack and zip lines for acrobatics, etc. Each movement set has its own power selections.
“The communicator is for being contacted by your mission-givers. It simply wouldn't fit a modern-set world in which you constantly had to run back and forth to complete missions”
Good point, but a reason can be made up e.g: “We can’t use the communicators on this mission, the super villains have hacked into the comms network. Hell Brainiac could have infiltrated the entire comms network so no one uses it. This was a game play decision not an IP background decision. They don’t want you even having to spend one minute flying back to where you might actually bump into other players. You could spend the whole game in an instance by the sound of it.
Though you can't as most missions are done in the open world. There is no kill stealing in DCUO which means even if you aren't grouped, you work with players to accomplish mission goals if they are in your proximity -- which happens a lot.
“So nothing in an MMO is allowed to be soloed?” “Group content that cannot be soloed: Alerts, available at level 10; DUOs and Raids available at level 30; Legends PvP arenas, available at level 6.”
It should be a balanced mixture, grouping a requirement every so often. Good to hear about that grouping content, but as you say ‘available’; is their no grouping content you need to do or want to do because of the rewards?
Grouping is a matter of perspective. I've grouped with numerous teams to help them take down world bosses. PvP is also a great reason to group especially open world PvP. Every now and then I put together feat hunting groups and run through the stuff I've already done just to help other players, and I know of a number of my league members who do the same. Alert, raid and arena events are all separate reasons to group. Every now and then you'll see new players that just need help with their missions. Some open world missions have mobs that respawn very quickly or are in densely populated areas and it helps if you have some players there .
I am not a sandbox guy, but I like some sand in with the theme park wrapping . It is good that the review found positives, I saw a lot to interest me. But it is the way the negatives were ignored or we were told everything will be fine by launch, that’s what made the review so unbalanced. I don’t buy into SoE being a an issue either, you live or die by how good your latest product is, not by what happened historically. Look at Cryptic, CoH was brilliant, on that basis everything they then produce must be fabulous, then we get Champions. Judge each release on its own merits.
From what Samhael is saying it is designed for consoles, but those sort of control issues can be sorted, I would not be too concerned about that, also UI is one of the easiest things in a MMO to change. It is the grouping and community that concerns me Samhael, never pre order, I would say that of any game no matter how good it seemed to be.
I'm not one to focus on negatives if the game is widely playable, but in my review I painted a very big picture on the positives and negatives. The negatives were exacerbated by the recent patch though some things were fixed, the game isn't remotely ready for launch within the next month at least. With the way the patches have been going, this last one was a big step backwards in the scope of stability.
There are still some tings that need work, chat and social for sure. I know the update was suposed to make the social somewhat better, however I think it needs some more tweeaking.
Interseting article. I have a few things to say about it, are we sitll under nda?
NDA has been lifted. Fire away!
Here's the post from the beta forums:
Beta Players,
We’ve played together in DCUO’s closed Beta for months. We’ve posted back and forth, voted Up or Down, and shared this new universe together. Now, it’s time to take a step closer towards launch.
Thank you all for your play and feedback. We appreciate that despite the challenges presented by a game in Beta, your feedback in these forums has continued to help us understand the game from a player’s point of view. Your thoughts, critiques, opinions, and suggestions have given us a wealth of perspective to draw from. DCUO is a far better game today because of your efforts.
Today, December 6, 2010, the NDA will be dropped across the game.. Our conversations, and our game, will be shared with the world. So keep playing, keep posting, and keep talking about DCUO.
You’ve helped us make a good game great. Let’s keep that going as we finish out Beta. Thank you.
Well I posted in the other guys post, however I have to say the chat functions are still very broken. If your ranged you got to be facing the target and the way things move in taht game taht can be a problem. One thing Im not sure I covred on is how very loud combat is lots of booms and smashes some days thats ok, some days its a headache. I think other folks have covered other things.
There are still some tings that need work, chat and social for sure. I know the update was suposed to make the social somewhat better, however I think it needs some more tweeaking.
Interseting article. I have a few things to say about it, are we sitll under nda?
NDA has been lifted. Fire away!
Here's the post from the beta forums:
Beta Players,
We’ve played together in DCUO’s closed Beta for months. We’ve posted back and forth, voted Up or Down, and shared this new universe together. Now, it’s time to take a step closer towards launch.
Thank you all for your play and feedback. We appreciate that despite the challenges presented by a game in Beta, your feedback in these forums has continued to help us understand the game from a player’s point of view. Your thoughts, critiques, opinions, and suggestions have given us a wealth of perspective to draw from. DCUO is a far better game today because of your efforts.
Today, December 6, 2010, the NDA will be dropped across the game.. Our conversations, and our game, will be shared with the world. So keep playing, keep posting, and keep talking about DCUO.
You’ve helped us make a good game great. Let’s keep that going as we finish out Beta. Thank you.
Well I posted in the other guys post, however I have to say the chat functions are still very broken. If your ranged you got to be facing the target and the way things move in taht game taht can be a problem. One thing Im not sure I covred on is how very loud combat is lots of booms and smashes some days thats ok, some days its a headache. I think other folks have covered other things.
Chat and social are still very much horrible at this point. Some dialouge boxes are still 'temp art' like the apply and close buttons in the options menu (can't even tell if it took your input)
The issue of ranged fighting has not been solved yet either. I take this from a myriad of posts since I've not tried a ranged combat toon yet, but they say the the last patch has made it even worse. It seems they are still really struggling with making the PC controls more workable (without making them an easy button) while not breaking the PS3 controls. One big for instance with that is there is no 'descend' key. To fly down, you have to aim towards the ground and fly towards the ground. A button to just descend altitude is much needed and there is apparently a way to do this with the console controller but not the PC yet.
The whole travel powers at first level is a good thing in my book (I'm a super hero, I should be able to fly, not grind up to be able to 'hover' and then grind some more to be able to really fly etc...
Right now, it seems as though flying is the only real choice of travelling power, at least on my PC. Even while playing on my not dinosaur computers, super speed boils down to 'vastly overrun your target and turn around and do it again.' The acrobatic travelling is basically Spiderman mode, which with the wonky controls is really hard to get used to. Using super speed even in the tutorial ship is difficult (need to run down this long shaft to go down. I always ran about halfway down and then somehow ended up running right back up to where I started. I ended up just jumping down this stupidly long hole but thankfully didn't take damage as it should have killed a level 2 toon. So, as it stands right now, and this might be highly subjective, flying is the only travel power that works for PC players. The others just seem to make the wonky PC controls stand out even worse. Also, one of your first upgrades to flying is 'super sonic' but it really feels like it's about the same speed as you already were going.
And they do indeed need to work on the audio levels. Sometimes the fights are extremely loud and you can't hear the voice overs and during some VOs it seems like the background noises get amplified even. It's like they tried to make the voices clearer, but turned all the sliders up on accident.
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.
There are still some tings that need work, chat and social for sure. I know the update was suposed to make the social somewhat better, however I think it needs some more tweeaking.
Interseting article. I have a few things to say about it, are we sitll under nda?
NDA has been lifted. Fire away!
Here's the post from the beta forums:
Beta Players,
We’ve played together in DCUO’s closed Beta for months. We’ve posted back and forth, voted Up or Down, and shared this new universe together. Now, it’s time to take a step closer towards launch.
Thank you all for your play and feedback. We appreciate that despite the challenges presented by a game in Beta, your feedback in these forums has continued to help us understand the game from a player’s point of view. Your thoughts, critiques, opinions, and suggestions have given us a wealth of perspective to draw from. DCUO is a far better game today because of your efforts.
Today, December 6, 2010, the NDA will be dropped across the game.. Our conversations, and our game, will be shared with the world. So keep playing, keep posting, and keep talking about DCUO.
You’ve helped us make a good game great. Let’s keep that going as we finish out Beta. Thank you.
Well I posted in the other guys post, however I have to say the chat functions are still very broken. If your ranged you got to be facing the target and the way things move in taht game taht can be a problem. One thing Im not sure I covred on is how very loud combat is lots of booms and smashes some days thats ok, some days its a headache. I think other folks have covered other things.
Chat and social are still very much horrible at this point. Some dialouge boxes are still 'temp art' like the apply and close buttons in the options menu (can't even tell if it took your input)
The issue of ranged fighting has not been solved yet either. I take this from a myriad of posts since I've not tried a ranged combat toon yet, but they say the the last patch has made it even worse. It seems they are still really struggling with making the PC controls more workable (without making them an easy button) while not breaking the PS3 controls. One big for instance with that is there is no 'descend' key. To fly down, you have to aim towards the ground and fly towards the ground. A button to just descend altitude is much needed and there is apparently a way to do this with the console controller but not the PC yet.
The whole travel powers at first level is a good thing in my book (I'm a super hero, I should be able to fly, not grind up to be able to 'hover' and then grind some more to be able to really fly etc...
Right now, it seems as though flying is the only real choice of travelling power, at least on my PC. Even while playing on my not dinosaur computers, super speed boils down to 'vastly overrun your target and turn around and do it again.' The acrobatic travelling is basically Spiderman mode, which with the wonky controls is really hard to get used to. Using super speed even in the tutorial ship is difficult (need to run down this long shaft to go down. I always ran about halfway down and then somehow ended up running right back up to where I started. I ended up just jumping down this stupidly long hole but thankfully didn't take damage as it should have killed a level 2 toon. So, as it stands right now, and this might be highly subjective, flying is the only travel power that works for PC players. The others just seem to make the wonky PC controls stand out even worse. Also, one of your first upgrades to flying is 'super sonic' but it really feels like it's about the same speed as you already were going.
And they do indeed need to work on the audio levels. Sometimes the fights are extremely loud and you can't hear the voice overs and during some VOs it seems like the background noises get amplified even. It's like they tried to make the voices clearer, but turned all the sliders up on accident.
WEll the last toon I rolled in beta was a batman build. It uses the acrobats, so basicly your like spider man climbing on walls, i find myself having to togle it on and off as I get hung up on some objects.
I think the game has a lot of potential, however I sitll say the worst thing about the game is the social and chat options the last patch did make it worse. I guess ill just finish beta up running around using the /shout command.
Hopefully a lot of this will get addressed, however this game is unfinshed at this point and there going to prety much roll with it as is. That is a problem there is way to much that needs to be fine tuned. However a lot of games release in states worse than this.
There are still some tings that need work, chat and social for sure. I know the update was suposed to make the social somewhat better, however I think it needs some more tweeaking.
Interseting article. I have a few things to say about it, are we sitll under nda?
NDA has been lifted. Fire away!
Here's the post from the beta forums:
Beta Players,
We’ve played together in DCUO’s closed Beta for months. We’ve posted back and forth, voted Up or Down, and shared this new universe together. Now, it’s time to take a step closer towards launch.
Thank you all for your play and feedback. We appreciate that despite the challenges presented by a game in Beta, your feedback in these forums has continued to help us understand the game from a player’s point of view. Your thoughts, critiques, opinions, and suggestions have given us a wealth of perspective to draw from. DCUO is a far better game today because of your efforts.
Today, December 6, 2010, the NDA will be dropped across the game.. Our conversations, and our game, will be shared with the world. So keep playing, keep posting, and keep talking about DCUO.
You’ve helped us make a good game great. Let’s keep that going as we finish out Beta. Thank you.
Well I posted in the other guys post, however I have to say the chat functions are still very broken. If your ranged you got to be facing the target and the way things move in taht game taht can be a problem. One thing Im not sure I covred on is how very loud combat is lots of booms and smashes some days thats ok, some days its a headache. I think other folks have covered other things.
Chat and social are still very much horrible at this point. Some dialouge boxes are still 'temp art' like the apply and close buttons in the options menu (can't even tell if it took your input)
The issue of ranged fighting has not been solved yet either. I take this from a myriad of posts since I've not tried a ranged combat toon yet, but they say the the last patch has made it even worse. It seems they are still really struggling with making the PC controls more workable (without making them an easy button) while not breaking the PS3 controls. One big for instance with that is there is no 'descend' key. To fly down, you have to aim towards the ground and fly towards the ground. A button to just descend altitude is much needed and there is apparently a way to do this with the console controller but not the PC yet.
The whole travel powers at first level is a good thing in my book (I'm a super hero, I should be able to fly, not grind up to be able to 'hover' and then grind some more to be able to really fly etc...
Right now, it seems as though flying is the only real choice of travelling power, at least on my PC. Even while playing on my not dinosaur computers, super speed boils down to 'vastly overrun your target and turn around and do it again.' The acrobatic travelling is basically Spiderman mode, which with the wonky controls is really hard to get used to. Using super speed even in the tutorial ship is difficult (need to run down this long shaft to go down. I always ran about halfway down and then somehow ended up running right back up to where I started. I ended up just jumping down this stupidly long hole but thankfully didn't take damage as it should have killed a level 2 toon. So, as it stands right now, and this might be highly subjective, flying is the only travel power that works for PC players. The others just seem to make the wonky PC controls stand out even worse. Also, one of your first upgrades to flying is 'super sonic' but it really feels like it's about the same speed as you already were going.
And they do indeed need to work on the audio levels. Sometimes the fights are extremely loud and you can't hear the voice overs and during some VOs it seems like the background noises get amplified even. It's like they tried to make the voices clearer, but turned all the sliders up on accident.
I normally play a super speed character on the PC, or I'll play acrobatics.... flying is rarely ever an option, its just not that much fun to me to fly around and doesn't mesh with my skills very much.
Super sonic has to be activated by pressing the numlock key, it is nearly twice as fast as the normal flight speed and just under super speeds, speed force power. Ranged is tougher to use now for the most part in comparison to the game play prior to the patch, but I think they are aware that some things were broken and they'll get around to fixing it.
Well it's took me almost 8 hours to download it was well worth it glad i waited for minor patches to fix bugs but overall SOE Austin did a great job Thanks mmorg folks for the beta key . P.s need to link with Facebook .
Comments
One thing gets this game major geek points in my book.
Superman? Voiced by Adam "Animal Mother" Baldwin.
The JOker? Mark freakin' Hamill
Batman? Kevin Conroy from the old 90's animated series.
I'm sorry, that's like having a transformer's MMO that was fully voiced and having Peter Cullen, Frank Welker and all the rest on the payroll.
Havint tried the PvP in DCUO all i can say is it instantly brought me to early WoW flashbacks on chain stuns and CC effects dominating the landscape.
Its frantic and crazy, but thing slike the picky camera for acrobatics users, the amount of chain CC that gets thrown about (yes you can break it easily, but that still stops you from being on the offensive.) and some other minor gripes such as having NO clue what your iconic PvP character actually does!
For example in beta you get to play either Harley Q. or Robin very early on, sounds awesome right, it is until you get into the match and relaize you ahve to "figure out" what each ability actually does as there is no way to check on them nor are there descriptions for them. I was shocked at how disjointed the Iconic PvP felt. Open world PvP however..is actually a LOT of fun. even if your getting beatdown during a mission you dont get as frustrated as you would in other games as the penalty is minimal.
All I can truthfully say is the game is a blast to play and hopefully they will have quick releases post launch for some key power sets that are currently missing.
After being bored to death by lvl 12 with CoX and utterly disguesting with all of CO (aside form character creation, CO is still the best out there in for customization) I think I've finally found a hero MMO that has some real staying power with me.
When in doubt, get more explosives.
Yah, this game is awesome!!! SOE really got down this time. As the OP said, it is increadibly addictive and I have seen myself start different characters just to check out their powers. THe world PvP is one of hte best parts for me. Since its a matter of kill X and Y and its the same for villains and heroes, you usually see massive breakouts between the 2 factions for mobs and it turns into a straight up brawl.... LOVE IT!!!!
I tried DUO a couple of times and its ok, nothing to write home about. YOu choose an iconic character, be it robin, batman, or the joker and fight ina 2v2 style battleground. The team that kills the enemy team 10 times wins. YOu do get access tot he iconic powers for the specific char you got but besides that its ok nothing great.
At least with a sub game they know that people won't tolerate bullshit and leave. With anet we have no recourse but to buy our own lube so our assholes don't get too stretched out from getting bent over a table at Anets will. - Hrimnir
Hooray for the Cedar Point plug! I love the Mantis! One of the most fun rides ever.
“Travel and Iconic power sets don't start to become available until around level 10.”
You have to wait all the way to level 50 before you can fly? What went wrong at the design meeting didn’t they get the memo from the CEO about handing out every perk in the game at the lowest level possible? Oh sorry you can fly at level 10 they did get the memo.
“So while everyone can serve as a DPS class, you will wind up needing some healers in the later instances and raids. Fans of support classes, you can breathe easy knowing you're still necessary in an action-based MMO.”
So reading between the hype, you can solo to top level and only then will a support class be needed in a group.
“Nothing major, nothing too difficult for those who fear the notion of "combos", but they add flavour to the combat experience that's not like anything else in the genre.”
Well that’s alright then all the fun of combos without the difficulty of…combos. This was written by a staff writer and not a PR guy from DCUO right?
“This is all done with your "communicator", so very rarely will you ever need to run back and forth. It does happen with some of the lesser, as I call them, "supplemental" quests but for the most part everything is handled via your communicator.”
No mention of how such a device might stop interaction between players. From what we have been told you might not need to leave solo questing for anything other than repairs. No appreciation here that MMO’s are about playing with other people. A communicator is what I would want in a solo game, not here.
“Basically, that means get to a safe spot and open your menu to continue the next quest. No running back and forth between quest hubs, none of that. You're a super villain for crying out loud.”
Same again this is applauded by Mr Murphy when it makes the game a solo experience.
“The game's not all about solo-play either, though I've had no issues doing just that.”
I think we had already guessed that! Ok now all the solo fans have been told what a great game it is we need something to make the grouping fans think it is a great game for them otherwise they might not buy it. But what do we get for groupers? Apparently you can join another persons quest if you see them doing one on screen, I got no sense a group was formed, you just joined in. Would you remember the guys name you bumped into, I doubt it. Do you go on to do more quests together, well a group was not formed so you just part ways until you bump into the next random stranger. But a piece of MMO hype like this article is not going to point that out to you.
The only things that are negative in the article are that some of the quests are partially repeated from other quest lines. Mr Murphy tells us he 'is confident' any other issues he mentions will get fixed before launch. Oh and we are told it is a theme park MMO but that's actually a bonus!
Overall I have had a lot of respect for the balance in Mr Murphy's articles but he seems to have lost his super balance power here. Was it stolen by that nefarious super villain organisation that goes by the name of SOE?
It's just a preview, dude. He'll do a balanced review when it comes out. Right now he's enjoying it. Shouldn't that be a good thing? I hate reading pessimistic "everything's not perfect so this game suck" stuff that gets thrown around here. Maybe he didn't illustrate his point very well, but he said he grouped and he said he met other players in the random do missions at the same time SWAT truck bit.
Jeez.
You can fly at level 1, flying powers (those in addittion to flight) start at level 10.
Zerackus the Bane
Son of Myrkul
Undead Lords
www.undeadlords.net
Dude, really? This is an intial impression piece from a beta experience. Wait for a full review before you cry foul.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
A game by SoE? Smedley involved too? Not a chance long time players with good memories will even think of playing it. "Fool me once, shame of you. Fool me twi..... anyway you get my meaning.
There are still some tings that need work, chat and social for sure. I know the update was suposed to make the social somewhat better, however I think it needs some more tweeaking.
Interseting article. I have a few things to say about it, are we sitll under nda?
It's multiplayer -- as in I can *see* other players. But in my 2 hours of play last night, I was unable to figure out how to team with them or do much. The chat interface needs to be scrapped and rebuilt. It's pretty counter-intuitive. Pretty much EVERY other SOE MMO I've played had a better interface. I want to be able to move my mouse over to click on 1,2,3 if I want to. I want to be able to right click on a nearby person and invite. I can figure out WTF I am doing in it based on the tutorials and tips. I'm sure I could ask or read the forums for answers but I'm trying to give them good honest feedback on their average new player experience. It's beautiful but shallow. Right now, it might appeal to a console gamer but as a PC gamer who looks for a community to join, I'm considering cancelling my pre-order.
“You can fly at level 1, flying powers (those in addittion to flight) start at level 10.”
So the designers did get the memo from marketing which said ‘no learning curve, no power curve, no achievement, let them have everything from first level.’ Not even lobby games like LFD are designed like that, where is the progression, the sense of you becoming a hero rather than starting as Superman?
“The communicator is for being contacted by your mission-givers. It simply wouldn't fit a modern-set world in which you constantly had to run back and forth to complete missions”
Good point, but a reason can be made up e.g: “We can’t use the communicators on this mission, the super villains have hacked into the comms network. Hell Brainiac could have infiltrated the entire comms network so no one uses it. This was a game play decision not an IP background decision. They don’t want you even having to spend one minute flying back to where you might actually bump into other players. You could spend the whole game in an instance by the sound of it.
“So nothing in an MMO is allowed to be soloed?” “Group content that cannot be soloed: Alerts, available at level 10; DUOs and Raids available at level 30; Legends PvP arenas, available at level 6.”
It should be a balanced mixture, grouping a requirement every so often. Good to hear about that grouping content, but as you say ‘available’; is their no grouping content you need to do or want to do because of the rewards?
I am not a sandbox guy, but I like some sand in with the theme park wrapping
From what Samhael is saying it is designed for consoles, but those sort of control issues can be sorted, I would not be too concerned about that, also UI is one of the easiest things in a MMO to change. It is the grouping and community that concerns me Samhael, never pre order, I would say that of any game no matter how good it seemed to be.
I agree the chat user interface is a terible mess. Most folks just run around and ue the /shout command. I have yet to really figure out the chat chanels. It is the one thing tha needs the most work. I also agree it apeals more to the console gaming guys, wihtout going into to much depth without breakign the nda.
I am lucky i did not buy the pre order to get into beta,and I am happy I did not pre order.
Targetting, and control in general, is a very mixed bag on the PC right now. Plenty of discussions going on in the beta forums about them, but it's a hybrid of tab to 'lock on' to a mob but you have to be facing the mob to fight. This gets to be a pain sometimes as you can easily get surrounded by mobs and it's hard to tell where it's coming from. You have to be facing a mob to 'lock on' (I use that in quotes cause it doesn't seem to ALWAYS lock on properly.) if your skill set is 'brawling' which really is the only one I've messed with so far (only been in a week or so now) it's very easy to pull a combo and go shooting way past where everyone is you are supposed to be fighting, and if there are other mobs where you end up, now you have them to deal with as well.
Also, you have to face directly inside a tight 'cone' to be able to talk to NPCs, even if you are standing on them. Same with 'collection points' There's a ton of investigation or collection points all over the place (if you are familiar with EQ2's glowies, the same principal really, but they REALLY stand out) and it can be hard to get lined up right to get them to work with the controls as well.
In short, PC controls are still quite wonky, and despite what the article says, I've seen a ton of problems with kill stealing etc... everything for the quests seems to be on a VERY quick respawn rate, but one that's so quick that it will likely be abused when the game goes live, so I expect it to be dialed back a bit. There are parts where you have to disable a mob and then E him (E is the 'perform action on' button) and after I defeated someone, had another player come in and E him and I did not get the credit. This is no way indicative of what a 'live audience' might be like, but it seems that kill stealing and ignoring of 'I'm already working this spot even though there's a big area to work in' happens a lot. Lack of ettiqute I guess.
This all sounds like I'm not having a good time with it, but that is not the case at all. The action is fast and fun and it is NOT like CoH or CO. Whatever they end up saying is the final min requirements are, scale it up just a bit as well. If you are struggling with playing semi-current MMOs , DCUO will bring it to it's knees. Mouse lag, horrible 'raid' lag, ground textures not loading in quick enough and then falling thru the world (and getting stuck under the ground) has happened to me QUITE a bit with a rig that by all acoounts shouldn't even be running it really, but I have heard the same complaint with people with state of the art rigs as well (although not as much as I have it.) This still is beta with a long ways to go towards launching, so I suspect a lot of that will be ironed out by then.
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.
NDA has been lifted. Fire away!
Here's the post from the beta forums:
Beta Players,
We’ve played together in DCUO’s closed Beta for months. We’ve posted back and forth, voted Up or Down, and shared this new universe together. Now, it’s time to take a step closer towards launch.
Thank you all for your play and feedback. We appreciate that despite the challenges presented by a game in Beta, your feedback in these forums has continued to help us understand the game from a player’s point of view. Your thoughts, critiques, opinions, and suggestions have given us a wealth of perspective to draw from. DCUO is a far better game today because of your efforts.
Today, December 6, 2010, the NDA will be dropped across the game.. Our conversations, and our game, will be shared with the world. So keep playing, keep posting, and keep talking about DCUO.
You’ve helped us make a good game great. Let’s keep that going as we finish out Beta. Thank you.
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.
I'm not one to focus on negatives if the game is widely playable, but in my review I painted a very big picture on the positives and negatives. The negatives were exacerbated by the recent patch though some things were fixed, the game isn't remotely ready for launch within the next month at least. With the way the patches have been going, this last one was a big step backwards in the scope of stability.
Well I posted in the other guys post, however I have to say the chat functions are still very broken. If your ranged you got to be facing the target and the way things move in taht game taht can be a problem. One thing Im not sure I covred on is how very loud combat is lots of booms and smashes some days thats ok, some days its a headache. I think other folks have covered other things.
Chat and social are still very much horrible at this point. Some dialouge boxes are still 'temp art' like the apply and close buttons in the options menu (can't even tell if it took your input)
The issue of ranged fighting has not been solved yet either. I take this from a myriad of posts since I've not tried a ranged combat toon yet, but they say the the last patch has made it even worse. It seems they are still really struggling with making the PC controls more workable (without making them an easy button) while not breaking the PS3 controls. One big for instance with that is there is no 'descend' key. To fly down, you have to aim towards the ground and fly towards the ground. A button to just descend altitude is much needed and there is apparently a way to do this with the console controller but not the PC yet.
The whole travel powers at first level is a good thing in my book (I'm a super hero, I should be able to fly, not grind up to be able to 'hover' and then grind some more to be able to really fly etc...
Right now, it seems as though flying is the only real choice of travelling power, at least on my PC. Even while playing on my not dinosaur computers, super speed boils down to 'vastly overrun your target and turn around and do it again.' The acrobatic travelling is basically Spiderman mode, which with the wonky controls is really hard to get used to. Using super speed even in the tutorial ship is difficult (need to run down this long shaft to go down. I always ran about halfway down and then somehow ended up running right back up to where I started. I ended up just jumping down this stupidly long hole but thankfully didn't take damage as it should have killed a level 2 toon. So, as it stands right now, and this might be highly subjective, flying is the only travel power that works for PC players. The others just seem to make the wonky PC controls stand out even worse. Also, one of your first upgrades to flying is 'super sonic' but it really feels like it's about the same speed as you already were going.
And they do indeed need to work on the audio levels. Sometimes the fights are extremely loud and you can't hear the voice overs and during some VOs it seems like the background noises get amplified even. It's like they tried to make the voices clearer, but turned all the sliders up on accident.
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.
WEll the last toon I rolled in beta was a batman build. It uses the acrobats, so basicly your like spider man climbing on walls, i find myself having to togle it on and off as I get hung up on some objects.
I think the game has a lot of potential, however I sitll say the worst thing about the game is the social and chat options the last patch did make it worse. I guess ill just finish beta up running around using the /shout command.
Hopefully a lot of this will get addressed, however this game is unfinshed at this point and there going to prety much roll with it as is. That is a problem there is way to much that needs to be fine tuned. However a lot of games release in states worse than this.
I normally play a super speed character on the PC, or I'll play acrobatics.... flying is rarely ever an option, its just not that much fun to me to fly around and doesn't mesh with my skills very much.
Super sonic has to be activated by pressing the numlock key, it is nearly twice as fast as the normal flight speed and just under super speeds, speed force power. Ranged is tougher to use now for the most part in comparison to the game play prior to the patch, but I think they are aware that some things were broken and they'll get around to fixing it.
I enjoyed the game i am lvl 18 and my chars looks really funny more like a cooky cutter char it was not meant to but it does.
other than a few bugs here and there its rather enjoyable
Games I will be playing are: TES V, SWTOR, ME 3, TSW
Well it's took me almost 8 hours to download it was well worth it glad i waited for minor patches to fix bugs but overall SOE Austin did a great job Thanks mmorg folks for the beta key . P.s need to link with Facebook .