Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
DC Universe Online: Fight for the Light Interview
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
Drew Wood was on hand at SOE's Fan Faire this year for the reveal of DC Universe's first DLC pack: "Fight for the Light". After the initial presentation Drew had some time to chat with Creative Director Jens Anderson about the Green Lantern DLC, and what it all means for the game.
After the announcement of Fight for the Light at SOE Fan Faire this year, I took an opportunity late in the day to speak with DC Universe Online's own Creative Director Jens Anderson about the Downloadable Pack. I wanted to see if I could pry a few more specifics about the content directly from the man's mouth to maybe elaborate on some of the details for those of you out there who looked at Monday's announcement with a hint of skepticism.
Read more of Drew Wood's Fight for the Light Interview.
)
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
Ok, now I'm a bit hacked. I read: "we intentionally left stuff out of launch so that we can charge you more money for it later".
Am I the only one that read it that way?
I loved the game and had a ton of fun with it. I think I still could, but this? This is rediculous.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
so from the very start they claimed all updates to content will be free and they will have new updates/ new content each week or bi-weekly (fail) . Now you pay sub and they now want to charge for an update? $oe doing it again.
"The addition of the download packs will work alongside the continuous free content updates, the purpose is not to replace anything, but it's simply an additional aspect of the game that people can purchase to expand their experience."
yea right like i still believe this lol theres a reason i gave up on this game within my 1st month sadly.
SOE is building a reputation for dropping the ball over and over. Two most recent cases: FFXIV and DCUO. Add being hacked and having account information stolen...why would anyone invest in SOE products anymore.
If there is one thing SOE are experts at it's slow boiling their frogs.
Wow 9.99 for an adventure pack. You would have though that soe would not try that again. They tried that kind of bs with eq2 and it got old quick. They stopped doing it and went back to doing full blown xpacs.
I am not impressed that you going to have and adventure pack this close to launch that you got to pay for.
You know this is the kind of thing that keeps sony at the bottom of the list. I played the game in beta and was very put off by the power selections and the lack of powersets that should have been in the game from the start. I always said I would come back and try the game again when they put in the Green Lantern power set. I was wrong. I wont pay for the game, pay the monthly sub AND buy adventure packs. They tried that crap in eq2 and it failed big time!
I am telling you now sony, get rid of SMED and get good management in there and then you might have a chance at moving back up the mmo food chain. Keep SMED in there and you will stay at the bottom. It is plain and simple.
bought this game on day1, great game but lacking content and still lacking content. Now a expansion that will cost more $$$. Bye bye DCU RIP
interesting note if you look at the announcement for teh Fight for light pack, there is a red lantern in teh background
You'd figure they would be either:
a) throwing in some pay-for content only because they had switched to F2P
b) giving it free to their quickly dwindling DCUO subscriber base
Since A and B are obvioulsy not the case, I think this signifies SOE putting the nails in their own coffin.
In its 7 year history city of heroes has never charged for content lite packs that are gaming changing. Its a disgrace and another show of SOEs contempt for their customers. Only reason why you would play an SOE game is because you enjoy being beaten by a whip and your game being shutdown.
SOE has been stupid about this game from the start. Played it using a buddy key from a friend and I was bored with it before the 2 weeks was up. The combat was decent, but nothing that would keep me playing. I thought the character models were crap, especially the faces and hair. The power sets were unimpressive. The game environments were nothing special. The face animation for the voice acting was horrendous. The quests were the same ole same ole.
WORST depiction of Superman I have ever seen, I don't even think Adam Baldwin's voice fit the role and I am a fan of Adam Baldwin.
They started with a sub fee, which frankly was about $5 too much considering this game. Then they added a cash shop on top of that just to be a bit greedier. Now they are charging extra for minimal content that by all rights should be a free update? Pathetic and insulting.
It's a shame that DC ended up in the hands of SOE, because everything MMO related they seem to touch goes to sh*t, reverse Midas Touch effect.
They never claimed all updates would be free, and they certainly never said there would be weekly or bi-weekly updates. Good grief, people think they can just make up anything. What's next? "I heard they promised daily content updates, and they said they were going to give players cash bonuses for playing!"
They originally said there would be free monthly updates. They never said there wouldn't also be paid expansions. They weren't able to keep up with the planned monthly updates, so now they're just periodic updates. They dropped the ball on that by overestimating what they would be able to provide, and they've admitted as much.
yeah uhm haven't they learned from this economy? they need to use the Freemium model or this will be just another dead end game for SOE. from what i've read paying a sub and then being charged for the updates as well is just not a good model sony, tells me to steer clear of your games.
" I got to ask Jens about the motivation behind choosing the Green Lantern for their first download pack"
It is a film tie in, do they take us for idiots? Just like the Lantern Burger or whatever else is out the game has done a tie in. I dont think it is a bad idea as long at is done well. But dont dress it up as being the first release dure to story considerations or anything else.
What does FFXIV have to do with SOE?
$medley gave a blood transfusion to one of the guys who now works on Final Fantasy back in 'Nam.
Right; so instead of pumping out a monthly schedule of 'free' content, they took developers away from that so they could concentrate on packaging something to sell.
Nice.
It is pretty obvious that they withheld content. According to early beta testers, several power sets were removed during the testing phase. Not to mention, that the devs were dumb enough to leave some of the files of those power sets in the game's folder when the game intially came out.
This is a subscription based MMO. You're already paying $15 a month. Unless it is a full fledged expansion pack, they should not be charging you for any content apart from vanity items.
Anybody defending this business practice is just as much part of the problem as those who are enforcing it.
Quite possibly, yeah. I'm not defending SOE. Just saying, if people are going to criticize, they should at least try to keep the facts straight and not just starting making stuff up.
http://techland.time.com/2011/01/14/sony-to-offer-free-monthly-updates-instead-of-paid-dlc-for-dcuo/
And, no. This is not an expansion pack at all. It's nickel and diming of the worst kind.
A game with such limited content to start with, the original review of this game said that it was important for them to deliver on monthly content updates. The monthly updates were used to justify the $15 monthly fee. Monthly updates are now more like every other month, and the first major content after 4-5 months isn't part of the $15 monthly package, but an extra $10.
The game population has crashed. Oh well, I guess the developers can claim victory by seducing MMORPG.com staff into writing over-the-top game reviews and softball questions on interviews so as to lure potential new buyers of this game. I mean, seriously, this isn't an interview, this was a glorified press release.
If you follow Techland's link to their source, an interview with Eurogamer here:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-01-14-mmo-in-tights-will-dc-universe-change-console-gaming-interview?page=3
you can see that Smedley didn't actually say what Techland says he did. He says there won't be a charge for the monthly updates (which didn't end up happening monthly), but also says there may be paid expansions: "In the future we may have expansion packs, but if you're talking about the regular monthly patches then no, we won't be charging for those." Obviously, they consider this an expansion pack.
Again, I'm not defending them. I have a lot of problems with the way they've handled DCUO, I'm not playing the game any longer (I played for a couple of months after release), and I won't be purchasing the Green Lantern pack. IMO they should've gone free-to-play with DCUO from the beginning, as I'm sure they will sooner or later.
There's plenty of reasons to criticize them — don't get me started on Superman's ice powers and Wonder Woman's mental powers — without claiming they said things they never actually said.
And therein lie the danger of a movie tie-in. Unfortunately the GL movie got horrible reviews and did nowhere near the business it was expected to (it's already at the dollar theater in my area).
I recently logged in after being away for a while and frankly, I was shocked at the low pops across the PC servers. I was half-expecting tumbleweeds to go bouncing by.
This was my first SOE experience. Looks like the horror stories were true. A real pity - the game world still looks amazing. But as I've learned, a beautiful-looking game does not a MMO make.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. - Marie Curie
I really dont understand their marketing team on this..
They released the game in a beta state. Made multipule promises they could not keep (monthly content updates).
Within 3 months (and i played for 3 months wasted money i know) lost 80-90% of their player base to the point where they no longer even have enough players to properly fill 1 server.
Then they add a cash shop? On top of a monthly sub? and charge 10 bucks for a mini content update? Wow... just... wow....
I figure they would have been much better off going ftp... or at very least offering every piece of content they can for free to reaquire atleast some of their users that they lost.
Although like many here i imagine i shouldnt be suprized. its not like any of this is "new" in the world of soe on any count.