This is not SWG trust me also Jim Lee one of the devs there is the comic artist responsible for the action style DCUO has, also if they decide its a good thing to add more content, crafting, loot, etc as time goes and they probably will I bet this game will be one of the top mmo's.
This for action and TOR/LOTRO for layback story for me
I'm not bashing the writer of this article or anything, but he was obviously very biased towards the game. A biased person TRYING to take an unbiased approach but obviously failing in the end because I guess the website forces them to tell you whether to buy it or not. I personally was not interested in this game, not disinterested. I got my hands on a beta key and played it extensively. I'm not really bashing the game than all the bias that is going around on ALL games from writers, it all seems very unprofessional. I don't know, maybe that's just me. Anyways, there is ALWAYS bias, it just takes talent to be able to take a true worldly view of any issue. Personally I found this game was a lot of the same, I loved flying around though. The combat was rather engaging at first, but the novelty quickly faded. Beyond that, the quests nor story really grabbed me, felt like directed questing where you just "Went here and got this. Went here and gathered that." The voice acting was awful, but there was voice acting at least. The graphics were nothing even close to stellar, but that's not why I was playing the game. I wasn't a big fan of the atmosphere though, which might have contributed in my lack of enthusiasm. I was just looking for the rebirth of the superhero MMO genre, and then I just got more of the same with action combat and costumes. The PvP is very fun though. I wouldn't pay a monthly fee for a game where I ONLY enjoy the PvP. That's why I waited for Global Agenda to go B2P and on sale.
I can see what you mean about the game lasting 70 hours or so. When you finish you can try different character configurations. I was astonished at how one character could destroy a major "boss" while another character configuration had me running around looking for those red barrels in order to stay alive. By trading "sides", you can play the game from an entirely different perspective.
I don't know about other gamers but sometimes I like to solo and be powerful on my own ... and other times I would like to heal but be strong enough not to die in a battle while I am with a group ... so having different characters is important to me and DCUO is the perfect game to do this.
I really enjoyed playing the game but there was no communication with other players. "There is no soul in the game" is what one player said about DCUO. I agree. Hopefully, with the launch, the game will have more connection with others ... instead of feeling like a superhero amongst a bunch of other superheroes. But, I did realize that trying to speak with a superhero who has superspeed ability is near impossible ... they move incredibly fast. No other game (that I know of) gives such spectacular abilities.
I give the game high marks. There are amazing things that you can do with your character ... things that I haven't done in any other game. The storyline is good. I would have liked to win better things after a battle but hopefully that will change.
If you played Beta I think you got a clear idea of what the game was about ... and its deficencies ... but any company that can produce a game like DCUO is right now then they will be able to fix problems and make the game better.
Does anyone know - is this game like City of Heroes/Villians in that good guys fight the bad? Or is this good vs good vs whomever?
I love the idea of faction vs faction - though arguably comics do show heroes fighting one another now and then (Green Lantern anyone?). I hated, however how Champions Online had no definitive good vs evil. For me, as a comic lover, and mmorpg player, it's all about the good vs the bad (or the bad vs the good if that suits you better).
Good write-up imho. I'm completely divided over the game, there are parts of it that are fantastic, yet there are other parts that almost ruin the game. The overall control scheme, UI and chat system is probably the worst I've used in all my years playing mmo's. The camera control with the mouse feels wrong, the UI has little to no customisation options, and the chat system is flat out broke as far as I'm concerned especially with regards to the 50 point font it uses and the completely over the top profanity filter which is currently rendering chat almost unusable especially as you cannot turn it off.
However, when I'm able to put these issues to one side it is simply a fantastically fun game to play, I think the combat system is a nice change from the more traditional approach, it is a bit of a click fest and as playing I was thinking 'cool, this is like the diablo of superhero games'. the problem is that the issues I have with the game are difficult to put to one side for long, I'm hoping some of them are issues that can be fixed in short order, I mean I am shocked that a company with the experience SOE has could even release a game with such a poor chat system. Then there are other issues which they may decide to never change. I hope they work on providing a much better UI for the PC version with many more options available to customise, but maybe they will stick to there guns and try to keep it a mirror of it's PS3 cousin.
Overall, despite the immense frustration I find with certain areas of the game, it will serve its purpose for me as a stop gap game to cover the 3 months till Rift is launched. If SOE do actually do some work polishing the PC version up a bit more as well as stay true to their word about new content then I could see me playing for longer. but then this is SOE and they do not have a good track record for staying true to their word imho.
I think it is definitely a game to research before purchasing, many of the issues I have will be meaningless to other players who might just want to plug in a pad and play, so after the first night of play I'm happy with my decision to play it for a while at least and it will be interesting to see where SOE decide to take it.
I think that was a good, fair assessment of the game, though I don't think it deserved that final "Buy It!" logo at the bottom.
I am certain that the big azz DCUO banner on the top of the MMORPG.com home screen (and the money that presumably paid for it) had absolutely nothing to do with the "Buy it" logo at the bottom.
Oh, wait....
(Not the worst game ever, but not worth $50+$15/mo + cash shop)
As hard has it might be for people to believe this is not true at all. We completely isolate our advertising people (me) from the content side of the site (Jon, Garrett & team). They have no idea who I am selling advertising too and I have no idea what their writing schedule or review scores will be. Feel free to ask any of our past or present writers if they have ever been asked to write about anything other than their honest opinions - I assure you they have not.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
I think the twitch based combat is just gameplay style. Sure some people won’t like it, but other MMO’s like DDO and AoC have it partially, so its not the first time this has been tried. A lot of players with concerns here will find they love it once they try it.
Of far more concern is a lack of content. 90% of the MMO experience is getting to end game, if that is rather short you are going to get to the 10% very quickly. There is always a pressure on designers to produce more for end and pre end game, that pressure will be intense here and its very hard to do enough to appeal to both sets of players. With less content on launch you have less time to get it right.
The targeting system is clunky and at times has your character attacking the air.
The powers are super limiting and Uncustomizable in color and detail forcing you to match your character to the powers.
The chat system is soo fucking bad it makes ANY other MMO created in the last 3 years look an amazing piece of work.
Quest at times don't display any form of difficulty, randomly in mid series of quest you will find yourself swarmed by NPCs.
Instances in the beginning feel chaotic and clumsy, latter they feel absurdly difficult and untested, its like hitting a wall, sure I managed to get though it with a full crew of people i knew but add some pugs in to that dungeon that just got done doing all the other instances and laugh at their misery.
I personally liked very much the combat and the action oriented feeling of the game, but sincerely couldn't stand the clumsy UI and the very limiting char creator options.
At the current state of the game, I'm personally not so much inclined to shell out 50EUR+13E/month.
If the game will live up to the "monthly updates" expectations, I'll probably give it a try. My personal wish list:
* more char body types
* (some) more costume options at creation
* some (more) powersets (electrical, invulnerability)
Good write-up. I am playing the game at launch and it is as fun as I expected, but so was WAR, AION, Star Trek, and many others that put a lot in the lower levels at launch and planned to put more higher level content in later, but alot of players left the game instead of waiting for the content to be added. The new games released games have to realize how quickly today's MMO players will reach the high level content. Some of your more dedicated players will reach that content for this game by next week if not sooner and what they say about it will be the difference with a lot of players staying with or buying the game. Hopefully, there will be enough to keep playing without meeting the deadend wall and just waiting a month for the next new content. I have my fingers crossed.
While I agree with most of the review, having played the Beta extensively, I have to say there are a few issues that could have been fleshed out a bit more...
The combat/controls system is both a positive and a negative. Yes, it's a great 'get right into the action" method, but it's also a button-mashing combo-fest, which can be frustrating. I found that it was harder to do the combos on the PC keyboard than it was using a gamepad controller, which does not sit well with me - if I wanted a game that favored a gamepad, I'd be playing it on a console. That and the odd automated targeting that requires constant lock-on interaction, it takes some real getting used to. The travel powers are pretty sweet, though... The pure speed feel of supersonic flight and superspeed travel are definitely positives, when compared to the other superhero MMOs.
As was mentioned, the chat system and teaming aspects need some serious work. They need to remember that the important "M" in MMO is Multiplayer... It seems almost kludged into the game, as an afterthought at times. An MMO should be a social experience, and the social aspect should be easy to access and pervasive throughout the game.
Content is the last thing I was disappointed in. But, to give props first, the world is gorgeous, and I absolutely love how seamlessly you can transition around the different areas of the huge maps. Compared to City of Heroes, this is pure poetry, just flying around a massive world and not having to zone into smaller sections constantly. The details are wonderful, the artistry captures alot of the comic feel and will appeal to fans of DC. So, all that said, the gameplay content is just... lacking. Every character starts out the same, the monotonous grind at the beginning just to get out of the intro area, then the feeling of sameness in the gameplay at early levels. As you leveled up to the 20s, things felt more open, you started feeling semi-unique as you chose your skills and such, but there is still that overwhelming sameness feeling lurking. The power/skill sets are restricted, and you end up feeling like everyone else who uses similar weaponry. There is not a great feeling of individuality and customization, which is one of the more base attractors to games like City of Heroes and Champions Online. You always just end up feeling like "Superman lite" or "Batman lite" instead of your own unique feel. They really need to change that portion up a bit, give some feel of ownership to your character. The fact that you can unlock and choose skills outside of your initial chosen genre is a great start, and maybe that will be enough for some. But it's not like there is much crossover, you can't wield a sword and a gun simultaneously (as far as I could get to work), or even switch between quickly. A quickchange method between alternate weapon choices would help, but not cure, the situation.
The bottom line for me is: It feels like a fun superhero action game, and is worth the initial purchase. But, as an ongoing monthly pay-to-play subscription product, I just don't feel it's worth the $15 a month. It feels more like a free-to-play game, and honestly it would probably make tons more with micro-transactions, since I can see many getting quickly bored and not feeling it's worth the sub fee. I mean, who pays monthly to play an action game?
er, thanks, but I think i'll pass until its been out a month or so, thats when the real truth will come out.
Even your "negatives" are flowerd with posatives, which rings the alarm bells for me. If you have negatives then say them.. grow a pair and dont be scared.
I think that was a good, fair assessment of the game, though I don't think it deserved that final "Buy It!" logo at the bottom.
I am certain that the big azz DCUO banner on the top of the MMORPG.com home screen (and the money that presumably paid for it) had absolutely nothing to do with the "Buy it" logo at the bottom.
Oh, wait....
(Not the worst game ever, but not worth $50+$15/mo + cash shop)
As hard has it might be for people to believe this is not true at all. We completely isolate our advertising people (me) from the content side of the site (Jon, Garrett & team). They have no idea who I am selling advertising too and I have no idea what their writing schedule or review scores will be. Feel free to ask any of our past or present writers if they have ever been asked to write about anything other than their honest opinions - I assure you they have not.
While this may be true on your part, it does not take a genius to know how the business works. Developers pay money for ad space, and can not expect to get bad PR at the same site, or they take their business elsewhere.
And then it goes to how many articles on DCUO have been done in the run up to release? It is management that hands out the number and topic of assignments, generally. The writers might not be told what to say, but 1: They aren't dumb, and 2: They like to get a paycheck. So, at best, you have writers softsoaping the truth to presumably make the paid advertiser (whose ads can be seen on the site) happy. And this gives rise to posts like the following in this very thread:
Punkre wrote:
Your post is very 'generous"
The Flaws are much more than you just stated:
The targeting system is clunky and at times has your character attacking the air.
The powers are super limiting and Uncustomizable in color and detail forcing you to match your character to the powers.
The chat system is soo fucking bad it makes ANY other MMO created in the last 3 years look an amazing piece of work.
Quest at times don't display any form of difficulty, randomly in mid series of quest you will find yourself swarmed by NPCs.
Instances in the beginning feel chaotic and clumsy, latter they feel absurdly difficult and untested, its like hitting a wall, sure I managed to get though it with a full crew of people i knew but add some pugs in to that dungeon that just got done doing all the other instances and laugh at their misery.
No matter the attempts to separate the "business" and "editorial" parts of the operation, it is exceedingly hard for writers to give objective reviews, when the site that pays them are paid advertisers for the products they review.
I played the game for the first time yesterday and must say I really enjoy it. It feels a little bit like Crackdown, but with better stories. That is not a bad thing in my eyes. I think the review was pretty much on point. My major gripe would be the social menu. It's a pain to use chat now, and it shouldn't be. People have to yell in /shout. There aren't any channels that I've noticed. Most people don't chat. At times it feels like a single player game. I think it is worth the price for a month's worth of play. I paid the same for Crackdown back in the day. However, I'm not sold on the monthly subscription yet. I'll have to play it for a couple months(yes, I realize I'll sub for a couple months) before I determine if it's worth a long(er) term investment.
DCUO wasn't ready for release, and it still needs more time in the oven. This article (after falling all over itself to spill praise) acknowledges this.
But throughout, William Murphy comes across as though he's never played a single MMO before DCUO.
"The game's character creator may seem slim when you're designing your first character, when compared to CoH or Champions."
Or any other game that lets you alter facial geometry or body proportions. I.e. a majority of all MMOs made in the last decade.
" the UI has come a long way in the past few patches leading up to launch"
And even on the last day of beta it was an unintuitive, clunky, and worse yet, ugly mess. From the menus to the icons, to the lack of descriptive text on everything, nothing about the UI or 2D art was done well.
"Finally, I’m hesitant to put this in as negative, as I’m not sure it will affect me personally, but there is concern over whether the game’s too short."
There's no "concern" the game is definitely "too short." Unless there's a significant change in XP rewards from beta, you could easily walk (not run) a character throuhg all of their story missions to 20 in one weekend. This isn't about powergamers buring straight to 30 as fast as they can, this is concern over there simply not being enough content to hold a player for more than a week. PvP isn't content, it might be fun, but it's not content.
Vindictus does "action" rpg combos and physics better.
CoX/CO does superhero powers and iconic superhero feel better.
DDO had click to attack, hold to block, tumble/roll to dodge years ago.
In the end, DCUO does nothing new, and does most things in a deeply mediocre way. The graphics are fantastic and some of the costume sets can make your character look better than characters in modern single player games. The voice acting is pure bliss, nothing beats Hamil's Joker. But the core game is simplistic and greatly lacking in content. The developers still have no clear vision on how the classes should work or what should be in the skill trees. Throwing everything onto "PvP" and "Endgame raids" is a devious bait-and-switch.
Just thought of one other issue that I'm hoping doesn't survive past the beta... Respawn rates in the streets were absolutely ridiculous. Now, I know that there is quite a lot of "kill x, gather y" grind missions in the game, and it becomes crowded with players in certain mission-specific locations... But the respawns were so bad, you could literally not sit still for more than 30 seconds after defeating an enemy, before another respawned right beneath you. And they tended to always respawn in the same places. There was no challenge, mystery, or even remote attempt to suspend disbelief at all. They just poofed into existence repeatedly. Quite offputting, honestly.
Is the actual released game displaying that same ridonculous respawn rate?
I think the twitch based combat is just gameplay style. Sure some people won’t like it, but other MMO’s like DDO and AoC have it partially, so its not the first time this has been tried. A lot of players with concerns here will find they love it once they try it.
Of far more concern is a lack of content. 90% of the MMO experience is getting to end game, if that is rather short you are going to get to the 10% very quickly. There is always a pressure on designers to produce more for end and pre end game, that pressure will be intense here and its very hard to do enough to appeal to both sets of players. With less content on launch you have less time to get it right.
See, that's where CoH differs, the journey is 90% of the game, the end-game content/play is only about 10% of the gameplay.
In all fairness, I don't think any MMO launches with an excessive amount of content, not unless they've been in development for several years. Launch dates are pretty difficult to push back as the duplication queue for the retail DVD's has a considerable scheduling process. You miss your scheduled duplication 'appointment' then your next available opening may be two months down the road. SOE by it's very nature of being, well... Sony, likely has their own in-house duplication. And they can probably jump the queue, though I'm sure there are still scheduling hurdles they have to go through.
Unless some truly game-breaking issue reared it's ugly head, then they were going to push DCUO live no matter the content. The monthly updates will continue to fill those gaps, and I'd likely expect the monthly updates of major content to become out less frequently, perhaps a year down the road. If the "monthly updates" start coming two months apart or more within the first six months of launch, then I'd say that would be some cause for concern.
As I commented earlier, I don't care for the console style play of the game. But I do wish it success. Because competition drives innovation.
If on the other hand, you need more world-like features such as crafting, housing, and the like to make an MMO your home, then it’s probably best if you skipped this one.
Comments
Yeah SOE is the first and foremost reason I did't buy this game today.
Remember, Remember the 12th of November... I always will.
7 letters: awesome
This is not SWG trust me also Jim Lee one of the devs there is the comic artist responsible for the action style DCUO has, also if they decide its a good thing to add more content, crafting, loot, etc as time goes and they probably will I bet this game will be one of the top mmo's.
This for action and TOR/LOTRO for layback story for me
I'm not bashing the writer of this article or anything, but he was obviously very biased towards the game. A biased person TRYING to take an unbiased approach but obviously failing in the end because I guess the website forces them to tell you whether to buy it or not. I personally was not interested in this game, not disinterested. I got my hands on a beta key and played it extensively. I'm not really bashing the game than all the bias that is going around on ALL games from writers, it all seems very unprofessional. I don't know, maybe that's just me. Anyways, there is ALWAYS bias, it just takes talent to be able to take a true worldly view of any issue. Personally I found this game was a lot of the same, I loved flying around though. The combat was rather engaging at first, but the novelty quickly faded. Beyond that, the quests nor story really grabbed me, felt like directed questing where you just "Went here and got this. Went here and gathered that." The voice acting was awful, but there was voice acting at least. The graphics were nothing even close to stellar, but that's not why I was playing the game. I wasn't a big fan of the atmosphere though, which might have contributed in my lack of enthusiasm. I was just looking for the rebirth of the superhero MMO genre, and then I just got more of the same with action combat and costumes. The PvP is very fun though. I wouldn't pay a monthly fee for a game where I ONLY enjoy the PvP. That's why I waited for Global Agenda to go B2P and on sale.
SOE makes lots of really great sounding promises...
The problem is 6 months or less down the road they take a crap all over the very people they made those promises too.
i got the game still wating on down loads .. but cant wai t to play it )
I can see what you mean about the game lasting 70 hours or so. When you finish you can try different character configurations. I was astonished at how one character could destroy a major "boss" while another character configuration had me running around looking for those red barrels in order to stay alive. By trading "sides", you can play the game from an entirely different perspective.
I don't know about other gamers but sometimes I like to solo and be powerful on my own ... and other times I would like to heal but be strong enough not to die in a battle while I am with a group ... so having different characters is important to me and DCUO is the perfect game to do this.
I really enjoyed playing the game but there was no communication with other players. "There is no soul in the game" is what one player said about DCUO. I agree. Hopefully, with the launch, the game will have more connection with others ... instead of feeling like a superhero amongst a bunch of other superheroes. But, I did realize that trying to speak with a superhero who has superspeed ability is near impossible ... they move incredibly fast. No other game (that I know of) gives such spectacular abilities.
I give the game high marks. There are amazing things that you can do with your character ... things that I haven't done in any other game. The storyline is good. I would have liked to win better things after a battle but hopefully that will change.
If you played Beta I think you got a clear idea of what the game was about ... and its deficencies ... but any company that can produce a game like DCUO is right now then they will be able to fix problems and make the game better.
Does anyone know - is this game like City of Heroes/Villians in that good guys fight the bad? Or is this good vs good vs whomever?
I love the idea of faction vs faction - though arguably comics do show heroes fighting one another now and then (Green Lantern anyone?). I hated, however how Champions Online had no definitive good vs evil. For me, as a comic lover, and mmorpg player, it's all about the good vs the bad (or the bad vs the good if that suits you better).
Thanks if anyone replies.
Good write-up imho. I'm completely divided over the game, there are parts of it that are fantastic, yet there are other parts that almost ruin the game. The overall control scheme, UI and chat system is probably the worst I've used in all my years playing mmo's. The camera control with the mouse feels wrong, the UI has little to no customisation options, and the chat system is flat out broke as far as I'm concerned especially with regards to the 50 point font it uses and the completely over the top profanity filter which is currently rendering chat almost unusable especially as you cannot turn it off.
However, when I'm able to put these issues to one side it is simply a fantastically fun game to play, I think the combat system is a nice change from the more traditional approach, it is a bit of a click fest and as playing I was thinking 'cool, this is like the diablo of superhero games'. the problem is that the issues I have with the game are difficult to put to one side for long, I'm hoping some of them are issues that can be fixed in short order, I mean I am shocked that a company with the experience SOE has could even release a game with such a poor chat system. Then there are other issues which they may decide to never change. I hope they work on providing a much better UI for the PC version with many more options available to customise, but maybe they will stick to there guns and try to keep it a mirror of it's PS3 cousin.
Overall, despite the immense frustration I find with certain areas of the game, it will serve its purpose for me as a stop gap game to cover the 3 months till Rift is launched. If SOE do actually do some work polishing the PC version up a bit more as well as stay true to their word about new content then I could see me playing for longer. but then this is SOE and they do not have a good track record for staying true to their word imho.
I think it is definitely a game to research before purchasing, many of the issues I have will be meaningless to other players who might just want to plug in a pad and play, so after the first night of play I'm happy with my decision to play it for a while at least and it will be interesting to see where SOE decide to take it.
This may be SOE...but it is also DC, and my love for DC outweighs my hate for SOE. Thus I give this title a shot.
So far I think it has been a smooth launch. Already a big change from 2010.
As hard has it might be for people to believe this is not true at all. We completely isolate our advertising people (me) from the content side of the site (Jon, Garrett & team). They have no idea who I am selling advertising too and I have no idea what their writing schedule or review scores will be. Feel free to ask any of our past or present writers if they have ever been asked to write about anything other than their honest opinions - I assure you they have not.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
I think the twitch based combat is just gameplay style. Sure some people won’t like it, but other MMO’s like DDO and AoC have it partially, so its not the first time this has been tried. A lot of players with concerns here will find they love it once they try it.
Of far more concern is a lack of content. 90% of the MMO experience is getting to end game, if that is rather short you are going to get to the 10% very quickly. There is always a pressure on designers to produce more for end and pre end game, that pressure will be intense here and its very hard to do enough to appeal to both sets of players. With less content on launch you have less time to get it right.
Your post is very 'generous"
The Flaws are much more than you just stated:
The targeting system is clunky and at times has your character attacking the air.
The powers are super limiting and Uncustomizable in color and detail forcing you to match your character to the powers.
The chat system is soo fucking bad it makes ANY other MMO created in the last 3 years look an amazing piece of work.
Quest at times don't display any form of difficulty, randomly in mid series of quest you will find yourself swarmed by NPCs.
Instances in the beginning feel chaotic and clumsy, latter they feel absurdly difficult and untested, its like hitting a wall, sure I managed to get though it with a full crew of people i knew but add some pugs in to that dungeon that just got done doing all the other instances and laugh at their misery.
My 2 cents.
I personally liked very much the combat and the action oriented feeling of the game, but sincerely couldn't stand the clumsy UI and the very limiting char creator options.
At the current state of the game, I'm personally not so much inclined to shell out 50EUR+13E/month.
If the game will live up to the "monthly updates" expectations, I'll probably give it a try. My personal wish list:
* more char body types
* (some) more costume options at creation
* some (more) powersets (electrical, invulnerability)
* rewards that encourage teaming
* UI revamp
Good write-up. I am playing the game at launch and it is as fun as I expected, but so was WAR, AION, Star Trek, and many others that put a lot in the lower levels at launch and planned to put more higher level content in later, but alot of players left the game instead of waiting for the content to be added. The new games released games have to realize how quickly today's MMO players will reach the high level content. Some of your more dedicated players will reach that content for this game by next week if not sooner and what they say about it will be the difference with a lot of players staying with or buying the game. Hopefully, there will be enough to keep playing without meeting the deadend wall and just waiting a month for the next new content. I have my fingers crossed.
While I agree with most of the review, having played the Beta extensively, I have to say there are a few issues that could have been fleshed out a bit more...
The combat/controls system is both a positive and a negative. Yes, it's a great 'get right into the action" method, but it's also a button-mashing combo-fest, which can be frustrating. I found that it was harder to do the combos on the PC keyboard than it was using a gamepad controller, which does not sit well with me - if I wanted a game that favored a gamepad, I'd be playing it on a console. That and the odd automated targeting that requires constant lock-on interaction, it takes some real getting used to. The travel powers are pretty sweet, though... The pure speed feel of supersonic flight and superspeed travel are definitely positives, when compared to the other superhero MMOs.
As was mentioned, the chat system and teaming aspects need some serious work. They need to remember that the important "M" in MMO is Multiplayer... It seems almost kludged into the game, as an afterthought at times. An MMO should be a social experience, and the social aspect should be easy to access and pervasive throughout the game.
Content is the last thing I was disappointed in. But, to give props first, the world is gorgeous, and I absolutely love how seamlessly you can transition around the different areas of the huge maps. Compared to City of Heroes, this is pure poetry, just flying around a massive world and not having to zone into smaller sections constantly. The details are wonderful, the artistry captures alot of the comic feel and will appeal to fans of DC. So, all that said, the gameplay content is just... lacking. Every character starts out the same, the monotonous grind at the beginning just to get out of the intro area, then the feeling of sameness in the gameplay at early levels. As you leveled up to the 20s, things felt more open, you started feeling semi-unique as you chose your skills and such, but there is still that overwhelming sameness feeling lurking. The power/skill sets are restricted, and you end up feeling like everyone else who uses similar weaponry. There is not a great feeling of individuality and customization, which is one of the more base attractors to games like City of Heroes and Champions Online. You always just end up feeling like "Superman lite" or "Batman lite" instead of your own unique feel. They really need to change that portion up a bit, give some feel of ownership to your character. The fact that you can unlock and choose skills outside of your initial chosen genre is a great start, and maybe that will be enough for some. But it's not like there is much crossover, you can't wield a sword and a gun simultaneously (as far as I could get to work), or even switch between quickly. A quickchange method between alternate weapon choices would help, but not cure, the situation.
The bottom line for me is: It feels like a fun superhero action game, and is worth the initial purchase. But, as an ongoing monthly pay-to-play subscription product, I just don't feel it's worth the $15 a month. It feels more like a free-to-play game, and honestly it would probably make tons more with micro-transactions, since I can see many getting quickly bored and not feeling it's worth the sub fee. I mean, who pays monthly to play an action game?
Sig? I don't need no stinking sig!
er, thanks, but I think i'll pass until its been out a month or so, thats when the real truth will come out.
Even your "negatives" are flowerd with posatives, which rings the alarm bells for me. If you have negatives then say them.. grow a pair and dont be scared.
While this may be true on your part, it does not take a genius to know how the business works. Developers pay money for ad space, and can not expect to get bad PR at the same site, or they take their business elsewhere.
And then it goes to how many articles on DCUO have been done in the run up to release? It is management that hands out the number and topic of assignments, generally. The writers might not be told what to say, but 1: They aren't dumb, and 2: They like to get a paycheck. So, at best, you have writers softsoaping the truth to presumably make the paid advertiser (whose ads can be seen on the site) happy. And this gives rise to posts like the following in this very thread:
Punkre wrote:
Your post is very 'generous"
The Flaws are much more than you just stated:
The targeting system is clunky and at times has your character attacking the air.
The powers are super limiting and Uncustomizable in color and detail forcing you to match your character to the powers.
The chat system is soo fucking bad it makes ANY other MMO created in the last 3 years look an amazing piece of work.
Quest at times don't display any form of difficulty, randomly in mid series of quest you will find yourself swarmed by NPCs.
Instances in the beginning feel chaotic and clumsy, latter they feel absurdly difficult and untested, its like hitting a wall, sure I managed to get though it with a full crew of people i knew but add some pugs in to that dungeon that just got done doing all the other instances and laugh at their misery.
No matter the attempts to separate the "business" and "editorial" parts of the operation, it is exceedingly hard for writers to give objective reviews, when the site that pays them are paid advertisers for the products they review.
I'm hoping that DCUO's ps3 sale's an success beats the pc version by 98% that'll be awesome.
Evil will always triumph because good is dumb....
I played the game for the first time yesterday and must say I really enjoy it. It feels a little bit like Crackdown, but with better stories. That is not a bad thing in my eyes. I think the review was pretty much on point. My major gripe would be the social menu. It's a pain to use chat now, and it shouldn't be. People have to yell in /shout. There aren't any channels that I've noticed. Most people don't chat. At times it feels like a single player game. I think it is worth the price for a month's worth of play. I paid the same for Crackdown back in the day. However, I'm not sold on the monthly subscription yet. I'll have to play it for a couple months(yes, I realize I'll sub for a couple months) before I determine if it's worth a long(er) term investment.
Stuff this game... It's about time they gave Vanguard some love... It would be the best game ever !!
I don't think the word "gushing" suffices here.
DCUO wasn't ready for release, and it still needs more time in the oven. This article (after falling all over itself to spill praise) acknowledges this.
But throughout, William Murphy comes across as though he's never played a single MMO before DCUO.
"The game's character creator may seem slim when you're designing your first character, when compared to CoH or Champions."
Or any other game that lets you alter facial geometry or body proportions. I.e. a majority of all MMOs made in the last decade.
" the UI has come a long way in the past few patches leading up to launch"
And even on the last day of beta it was an unintuitive, clunky, and worse yet, ugly mess. From the menus to the icons, to the lack of descriptive text on everything, nothing about the UI or 2D art was done well.
"Finally, I’m hesitant to put this in as negative, as I’m not sure it will affect me personally, but there is concern over whether the game’s too short."
There's no "concern" the game is definitely "too short." Unless there's a significant change in XP rewards from beta, you could easily walk (not run) a character throuhg all of their story missions to 20 in one weekend. This isn't about powergamers buring straight to 30 as fast as they can, this is concern over there simply not being enough content to hold a player for more than a week. PvP isn't content, it might be fun, but it's not content.
Vindictus does "action" rpg combos and physics better.
CoX/CO does superhero powers and iconic superhero feel better.
DDO had click to attack, hold to block, tumble/roll to dodge years ago.
In the end, DCUO does nothing new, and does most things in a deeply mediocre way. The graphics are fantastic and some of the costume sets can make your character look better than characters in modern single player games. The voice acting is pure bliss, nothing beats Hamil's Joker. But the core game is simplistic and greatly lacking in content. The developers still have no clear vision on how the classes should work or what should be in the skill trees. Throwing everything onto "PvP" and "Endgame raids" is a devious bait-and-switch.
Just thought of one other issue that I'm hoping doesn't survive past the beta... Respawn rates in the streets were absolutely ridiculous. Now, I know that there is quite a lot of "kill x, gather y" grind missions in the game, and it becomes crowded with players in certain mission-specific locations... But the respawns were so bad, you could literally not sit still for more than 30 seconds after defeating an enemy, before another respawned right beneath you. And they tended to always respawn in the same places. There was no challenge, mystery, or even remote attempt to suspend disbelief at all. They just poofed into existence repeatedly. Quite offputting, honestly.
Is the actual released game displaying that same ridonculous respawn rate?
Sig? I don't need no stinking sig!
See, that's where CoH differs, the journey is 90% of the game, the end-game content/play is only about 10% of the gameplay.
In all fairness, I don't think any MMO launches with an excessive amount of content, not unless they've been in development for several years. Launch dates are pretty difficult to push back as the duplication queue for the retail DVD's has a considerable scheduling process. You miss your scheduled duplication 'appointment' then your next available opening may be two months down the road. SOE by it's very nature of being, well... Sony, likely has their own in-house duplication. And they can probably jump the queue, though I'm sure there are still scheduling hurdles they have to go through.
Unless some truly game-breaking issue reared it's ugly head, then they were going to push DCUO live no matter the content. The monthly updates will continue to fill those gaps, and I'd likely expect the monthly updates of major content to become out less frequently, perhaps a year down the road. If the "monthly updates" start coming two months apart or more within the first six months of launch, then I'd say that would be some cause for concern.
As I commented earlier, I don't care for the console style play of the game. But I do wish it success. Because competition drives innovation.
Smed will ruin this game soon.
If on the other hand, you need more world-like features such as crafting, housing, and the like to make an MMO your home, then it’s probably best if you skipped this one.
Thx will do!