I think City of Heroes will bury any potential opportunity for DC Online. COH offers more costume options, frequent expansions that are free, a construction kit for roleplayers to make their own missions, and many events. With COH going free to play I'm afraid DC Online doesn't stand much of a chance even if the graphics are a bit dated with COH. With the original COH going free to play I also wouldn't be surprised if a COH 2.0 is eventually developed down the road since the original game centers around one primary city of Paragon with districts. City of Heroes 2.0 simply would need to pick a new main city and update the world and chargen graphics. I think DC Online is primarily just an alternate heroes game for those that dislike COH, the style of COH's gameplay, or are fans of the DC comic universe. DC Online isn't a bad game but I just think there are other games that offer more.
I think City of Heroes will bury any potential opportunity for DC Online. COH offers more costume options, frequent expansions that are free, a construction kit for roleplayers to make their own missions, and many events. With COH going free to play I'm afraid DC Online doesn't stand much of a chance even if the graphics are a bit dated with COH. With the original COH going free to play I also wouldn't be surprised if a COH 2.0 is eventually developed down the road since the original game centers around one primary city of Paragon with districts. City of Heroes 2.0 simply would need to pick a new main city and update the world and chargen graphics. I think DC Online is primarily just an alternate heroes game for those that dislike COH, the style of COH's gameplay, or are fans of the DC comic universe. DC Online isn't a bad game but I just think there are other games that offer more.
I wouldn't dismiss DCUO so quickly alot of DC fans I know are in their forties and aren't keen to spend money monthly on the game (even though quite a few of them spend hundreds on other DC based products monthly) they just don't tend to be mmo players but given the chance to play the game for free they may give it a spin.
Ironically for me I see the DC game as a less cheesy version of COH which makes me lean towards a willingness to play a free DCUO over a free COH but the built in lore surrounding DC shouldn't be so easily dismissed especially if it goes B2P.
You know why this game crashed? Because the "Light" set that they just released for "premium" was ORIGINALLY a powerset IN game during Beta. They pulled it just after the initial couple of Beta's with the SPECIFIC plan of adding it for the Green Lantern movie.
I forget the specifics but there were/are two additional powersets in the coding that just require being unlocked. The stuff is already there, it just requires enabling. You willing to pay 10 for each of those as well when they were included on the initial install disk?
ALOT of us tried defending this game. Week in, week out. It was like a massacre before our eyes. We pled for bugs to be fixed. We asked for SIMPLE resolutions and got silence. This game was the end of everything SOE for me. That's it, that's all.
I understand playing devil's advocate but you REALLY should be stating things that SOE could fix to return the game to popularity. Going into a game that was spending more time adding in game stores than they were about present regular PROMISED updates. In this day and age, it simply isn't enough to say something and not follow through. I think developer reputations are now being eyed as carefully as the reviews when it comes to people starting a new MMO. Too many of us have been burned too many times. Ask Maskedweasel how many times he had proof of bugs and submitted to recieve no info back. Not even a thank you.
I imagine that major IPs like Star Wars and DC will have fans that keep the game alive and I'm sure the game can improve. I just don't see a really big comeback happening. Too many combination of things and the Sony track record with games doesn't help. I hope for the sake of the fans that they are at least able to deliver the flavor of the DC Universe that the DC fans crave. I wonder if there is still a chance Marvel might break into the picture in the future. I believe Champions Online was meant to be Marvel but that fell through.
I expect DCUO could make a comeback, but I don't find it likely that they'll get back to their original subscriber numbers.
If they revamped the PC interface, went to some form of F2P/B2P and added more features (not content, but actual features) then of course they could get more players.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Wait...what the hell is this guy talking about? -Months- of active PvP goodness? That game was a ghost town after the first month when people realized how little there was to choose from in terms of powers.
And now they have the audacity to make us PAY for a seventh power set? They're out of their f*cking minds. Good luck, I turned my back on this game after the first month and never looked back. You sir, are full of sh*t.
I'm not really sure it will make a comeback just because of the 'Megaservers'. Whilst I'm sure it is good for those left playing the game it fails to address any of the issues that caused so many people to leave in the first place.
After the first month people weren't leaving because of population issues, heck the servers were bouncing with people at launch. No, people left because of a number of reasons such as:
Worst UI in any MMO ever.
Horrible chat system with a draconian filter that cannot be turned off.
Lack of open world (Non Raid/Alert/Duo etc.) content.
Time taken to address cheating.
I could go on, but the point is non of these issues have yet been addressed, the UI still sucks, the Chat system is still laughably bad and the 'Regular' updates just seem to keep adding raids/alerts/duo's by rehashing existing content and give add nothing much to the actual gameworld, and the glitches & cheating is still taking far to long to fix.
Shame really as it is a good game at its core imho, just seems to be ruined by SOE's dogged determination to stick to providing a universal interface and game experience across PC and Console platforms and their failure to add meaningful content aimed at everyone other than the remaining hardocre players who want to 'Raid' every night/week.
i loved playing this game since beta but, i got tired of waiting for raids (also fail raids) and grind for gears. i never got my 97dmg rifle I stopped my sub on june and never looked back.
but, i'll return when DCUO finally have a open dynamic events/environment or a open world missions like apb. these DLC/megaserver does not interest me anymore. a lil bit too late.
i feel sorry for the ps3 guys when they go up against a macro scrub.
One of the other things that is goingto be a big stumbling block is that, although they tried for an "Iconic" feel to the lore, what they ended up with was sort of mish-mash hybrid of bits and pieces that was semi accurate for the last 10 years or so.
With the DC "relaunch" there just isn't going to be any correlation between many of their characters, either in identity (Oracle, a main character in the game will be going nack to being Batgirl in th ecomics) to appearance (Costumes cjanging, such as Superman or Nightwing) or just the normal changes in the overall story of the universe (Cyborg being a core member of the JLA)
Once the ingame lore gets so far away from the comic lore, you're left with only appealing to nostalgic fans of the generic "DC Universe", people mistly in their 30s and up. While many of them may be gamers, there aren't enough to really support the game.
David011 -- you are kind of doing the very thing you accuse others of.
In effect you deem the gameplay shallow (with no evidence or comparisions) as well as incomplete and poorly designed calling it over all a very poor game.
I call this opinion based on personal observations and personal experience based off of his history of mmo playing. I know this because having been here since 2004, I have had a chance to see his posts along the way. My personal opinion? DCUO is very shallow. It is an action game with very little features as compared to the current lineup of MMOs and arguably some of the older ones as well. I base this off of my personal experience with MMOs going back to EQ beta and progressing forward from there. While my preference is sandbox oriented games with player housing and deep crafting - I did enjoy several years of City of Heroes. It too wasn't the deepest of MMOs but DCUO is still its lesser in the way of programming.
DCUO was pushed out too soon with a last minute change that ticked off the community. Those moments are recorded here in various posts. Unless you are a long time lurker, this being first day - it is understandable that you haven't had time to digest the massive amount of posts on the short history of this game.
As for being incomplete... how about the longstanding bugs and hacks that were documented quite well during beta (and yes, I did play in that) but were present at launch? This too has been documented by post and by videos leaked during beta and afterwards. The list is pretty impressive and in a way quite sad. Some of those bugs and "cheats" all but killed PvP on the game. Should you dispute this, I could suggest some links.
Then there is the matter of content. Monthly content that promised in order according to Smedley to justify the cost of the subscription. When holidays arrive late and linger around well past their month - it is no longer content. I would argue that it becomes an industry joke. Spot the St Patrticks Day lore in the screenshots made its rounds on the web well past other prominent holidays. This adds to my belief that DCUO is a very poor game.
Is that not Chastising? Is that not Gnashing your teeth? I can't speak for the PC, but the PS3 did not have as much of a deluge of players leaving the game like the PC did. Populations did lower, but I didn't notice people leaving 30 days in.
You didn't notice perhaps because it is a POV thing. While exact numbers are held tight by SOE, there are other ways to get a glimmer on the trends. A somewhat obvious way was using Steam numbers and watching the variances. While giving us only a portion of the data, it still showed dramatic dropoffs in the Steam community. It fell off the charts but comes back with updates for those who keep hoping that the game one day delivers on the promise that it once had. I will add that a while back someone did post pictures and videos of a serverwide event. The numbers varied depending on the person but in the end - it was determined to be a failure as compared to other mmo server events witnessed or attended by the readers here and elsewhere. 50 to 75 people do not a major server event make. Oh, and Daffid took a bet on one of those events. He logged in and went where he was instructed. And he took video. Its here on the DCUO forum .
Most people left DCUO when the PSN hack brought down the game. PC players had many options that day for MMO entertainment (some went and played RIFT, which I hear has it's own share of issues). Most people on the PS3 stayed with the game, there were a few leagues that broke up and my league got the lion share of the busted up players and now we are about 100 people strong (this is via personal recruiting and not just spam league invites).
I would argue that many had already left - all the PSN hack did was accelerate the departure of those who were sitting on the fence. Again, the trends in posts, screenshots and supplimental population data are there to support this claim. As for Rifts, you bet it has its share of issues. Account hacking, balance, server population imbalances and more. The difference between the two games though is nothing short of remarkable. While I personally didn't care too much for RIFT, its population surpasses DCUO in a very visible way. It even enjoyed the envy of the other mmo developers for a while. Its population is in flux and will stabilize to a core group. That core group at this time is sufficient enough to give its future prospects a healthy view and there are no whispers or articles about it needing to go free to play. As for the PS3, havent there been several statements released by SOE stating that the PC population is about equal to the PS3's?
I can tell you that if DCUO would have been a single player game, it would have had at least 30-50 hours of content on the disc on day one. That isn't a bad record and for all the crapping on SOE let's aleast commend them for getting things right on that standpoint. There are many other places this game shines with depth, that will not be apparent to someone who played it for a few weeks and stopped.
30 to 50 hours is a single player game hour count that you could reference to as well when speaking of old RPGs on outdated console systems. And when compared to say AAA mmos at launch, the touted number is something that I would say isn't one that I would be bragging on. No matter what spin on the whole niche game thing - DCUO was intended to be a AAA title and that comes with certain expectations. Your statement about the few weeks and stopped aspect, I feel compelled to ask you once again to review the posts here and perhaps abroad. Many players ran out of content in those few weeks as well - leaving them to PvP and that of course was flawed by the bugs and exploits. It would appear that these players missed this all too apparent game depth that oddly enough seems only to be mention here at this moment. Depth seems to be overlooked in the various game reviews as well say like IGNs.
I too know some things about game development and I am friends with developers who have worked for Sony, RockStar, Activision, etc. One of the things I have heard about MMO development is that the project never really leaves BETA.
I know only layman's knowledge of game development so name dropping won't be necessary here. Rather, I can only draw upon past experience here with other MMOs. While development continued with the titles I played, few left the gate like DCUO. Yes, I remember WoW's launch - hell I even remember EQ's (complete with pink cities in the first few hours and the overwhelmed login servers) but I would argue that DCUO was pushed out of the barn too soon and the bugs and exploits that ruined many aspects of the game could have been addressed. Instead, the launch occured and the bitter taste spread. Avoidable. And in present day, one wonders just how many devs are working on the game at this time. Monthly content out the window and patches seem to break one thing for everything fixed.
IMHO I think the PC MMO Community really has an ax to grind with SOE, these beefs may be completely fair based on their history. SWG updates didn't make everyone happy, I used to play PlanetSide back in the day and sometimes that game would be a mess after an update (which with that game was forgivable in my eyes because there was nothing else like it). The Matrix MMO went tits up too. Matrix, Star Wars and DC are all great IPs and they have a long history that is filled with expectations. SOE didn't have the benefit of making an MMO how they could then fitting a theme around them, they had to make an MMO that lives up to the IP at hand and that is no small feat. Think of how many failed Star Wars games there are vs how many of them got it right. Now how do you scale the ones that got it right into an MMO?
Back to POV. True, SOE has done much to be bashed so often from so many communities. That being said, this is about DCUO. For what it is worth, I am a life long DC fan. I was burned by SWG but I still eagerly wanted to play DCUO because it is the IP and setting that I most enjoy out of the myraid out there. They got the graphics right. The nailed the locations especially in Gotham. But they failed in terms of quality and depth. It comes off as a buggy Marvel Alliance with some better advancement features. My POV, of course.
DCUO is no different, I was never much of a comic book fan so perhaps I have less expecations about this title. That being said, I think the fast paced nature of this game gives it a very unique form of gameplay that you generally do not find in MMO games.
Very true. Fast paced has been DCUO's one unquestionable shining gem in its crown. Undermined by its other flaws but in the end offering up another facet to massive multiplayer online games - one that I think we will see improved upon by another title down the road.
You know the level cap will be busted soon, but in all honesty the way the skill trees work you can gain far more abilities after you reach level 30 without the level cap being raised, but of course all you guys complaining about DCUO already knew that right????
Heh, this will mean something to someone. But even the reasons behind this article all but show that it won't to far more than it could have.
I played the game from the start of beta. I love DC. My first MMO was City of Heroes so the Genre has a place in my heart.
I quit, and many others did as well, not because of SoE's lack of content. The game was awesome even if they were a little late for content updates but pissing off the 2 player bases (PvE and PvP) is what killed the game. Lets go into a little detail.
What caused the game's population to split, were the hackers and exploiters, SOE's lack of community relations on the subject, and finally the much anticipated content updates came after posted dates and were for the most part, underwhelming.
Lets start with the PvP problem:
Gankers are common to all games. However, when people learned how to exploit combos and even hack and cheat at the game, the community got pissed. It got worse there was no In-game support and at first no way to report cheaters so we were forced to post on the forums. Funny thing is they deleted threads posted about said hackers/exploiters. We would post screenshots of evidence and videos and they would not be acknowleged and thus they allowed hackers/exploiters to run off alot of their PvP player base. "Fixes" came weeks laters. Now i know little about coding, but this seemed incredibly long compared to WoW, Rift, and even Age of Conan hot-fixes for similar problems. They STILL never got around the problem with macro keyboards. Hell they barely got gamepads working again before the PSN went down due to hacks and it still wasn't even as good as in Beta when you could map any button to any command. So PvP died, and the DC world grew darker.
The long and short of the PvE part is that content came later than was posted and it really wasn't much of an add-on. You could complete everything new in an hour or two and it was still riddled with bugs (penguin robot comes to mind, as does doors sealing you into catwomans lair, although the latter sounds kinda kinky).
The punchline though is that in beta, there were folders for the Earth Control, Hard light, and electricity power sets. They couldn't perfect them before launch so they were dropped. Hard-Light aka Lantern powers were then added as paid DLC. Hah, after all the trouble SOE put us through, to charge its already pissed off player-base for content that was already IN the game but not implemented broke the Joker's Sanity.
As a DC fanboy, and a superhero MMO genre lover, i say to SOE: NO. You get no more of my money, or time. You failed. Do yourself a favor and throw in the towel and re-focus on your other games and make them good.
Side note: I'd like to thank DC and the fine people who make the game. Voice actors (ESPECIALLY Kevin Conroy for once again being the most bad*** Batman ever), character design, world design, everything. You guys did an awesome job. But management (the guys who tell staff what to work on after launch) you ^$%&ed up. Its your fault the game has ended up the way it is. You should be fired. Out of a cannon. Into the Sun.
SoulPlane 2: The Blackjacking is a American Movie Classic!
[1] David011 -- you are kind of doing the very thing you accuse others of.
[2] In effect you deem the gameplay shallow (with no evidence or comparisions) as well as incomplete and poorly designed calling it over all a very poor game.
[3] Is that not Chastising? Is that not Gnashing your teeth? I can't speak for the PC, but the PS3 did not have as much of a deluge of players leaving the game like the PC did. Populations did lower, but I didn't notice people leaving 30 days in.
[4] Most people left DCUO when the PSN hack brought down the game. PC players had many options that day for MMO entertainment (some went and played RIFT, which I hear has it's own share of issues). Most people on the PS3 stayed with the game, there were a few leagues that broke up and my league got the lion share of the busted up players and now we are about 100 people strong (this is via personal recruiting and not just spam league invites).
[5] I can tell you that if DCUO would have been a single player game, it would have had at least 30-50 hours of content on the disc on day one. That isn't a bad record and for all the crapping on SOE let's aleast commend them for getting things right on that standpoint. There are many other places this game shines with depth, that will not be apparent to someone who played it for a few weeks and stopped.
I too know some things about game development and I am friends with developers who have worked for Sony, RockStar, Activision, etc. One of the things I have heard about MMO development is that the project never really leaves BETA.
[6] IMHO I think the PC MMO Community really has an ax to grind with SOE, these beefs may be completely fair based on their history. SWG updates didn't make everyone happy, I used to play PlanetSide back in the day and sometimes that game would be a mess after an update (which with that game was forgivable in my eyes because there was nothing else like it). The Matrix MMO went tits up too. Matrix, Star Wars and DC are all great IPs and they have a long history that is filled with expectations. SOE didn't have the benefit of making an MMO how they could then fitting a theme around them, they had to make an MMO that lives up to the IP at hand and that is no small feat. Think of how many failed Star Wars games there are vs how many of them got it right. Now how do you scale the ones that got it right into an MMO?
DCUO is no different, I was never much of a comic book fan so perhaps I have less expecations about this title. That being said, I think the fast paced nature of this game gives it a very unique form of gameplay that you generally do not find in MMO games.
[7] You know the level cap will be busted soon, but in all honesty the way the skill trees work you can gain far more abilities after you reach level 30 without the level cap being raised, but of course all you guys complaining about DCUO already knew that right????
[1]
I said a game was shallow. Iruka was calling people pathetic and shallow. So no I don't think I am doing the same thing.
[2]
Calling the game shallow and incomplete is something that has been repeated over and over by many people. It has pretty much been the general concensus of the game since beta. See the game going from 26 servers to 4 servers as evidence enough of that.
[3]
SOE has stated several times that the population is almost identical between the PS3 and PC servers.
[4]
Both platforms were begging SOE for server mergers and character transfers before Sony was hacked.
[5]
I think if DCU was sold as a single player game or a stand alone game then fewer people would complain about it. Adding a subscription fee, micro transaction cash shop and DLC for a content starved game only multiplied the games problems. I really don't think it is praiseworthy to say that the big achievement of an mmo is that it had the base content of a single player game.
[6]
The PC community has had a lot of exposure to SOE and how they run their games. The PS3 community not so much. Call it an axe to grind if you want, but there is a lot of good reasons people criticize SOE for their games. DCU is a shining example of that. Lets not try to make this a problem of the players. SOE has earned its reputation over the years.
[7]
Perhaps the level cap might someday increase, but to what point? Perhaps people don't know or care about grinding the same reskinned content they did from level 1-29 to gain points, but what does that matter? Are you trying to suggest that is deep gameplay? I really don't understand why you are mentioning this.
I'm a soloer, and when I reached level 23, the quests stopped. I thoroughly enjoyed the game up unti then. But, I don't suppose the new plans include any content for me.
What improvement? Some instances, and a new powerset?
End Game still is nothing but repeating the same instances over and over for gear, then nothing, but repeated arena matches. There is no immersion into the game world after leveling.
They need to make the open world matter more. They need much more then 1 added powerset.
The game is rock solid, but dont compare it to a traditional mmo (UO, WoW, etc...). Many times i have thought when playing games like God of War that it would be awesome with farming items and playing with friends. That is exactly how dcuo plays. Be prepared to replay some levels to practice increased efficiency and speed. Also pvp is finally a real test of skill in this game. If you are better then the other player you could be 10levels below vs an epiced out beginner and barely loose any life killing him.
The problems with teh game why people left where not content or the game itself, which is excellent. The problem was rampant abuse of cheats and permenent crashing and freezing. All of this is pretty much fixed and neglegible (there is still some rare problems) atm and the game is at a point where you can enjoy it without the frustration parts.
I have played tons of mmo's to great extent and dcuo is a real breath of fresh air. Actually no comeback is really needed since the server pop in europe is plenty fine since the new update 4 (avg wait time for pvp instances for me last week: 3minutes) and the phasing servers are just making the outside world crawling with people again.
After reading all the comments i can just say haters never come to this game and leave our secret little gem alone XD.
I have always wanted to play this game but the bar for entry in my humble opinion is really high £19:99 for the client £8:99 a month then money for all your content updates and especially when the game is small or so it seems you should not charge to expand it that's what keeps the subs coming in
MMO's don't make comebacks until they go free too play.
Ever.
While games going from subbed, to F2P can often stop the 'rot' it rarely actually improves player numbers, in the long term at least... hopes of that helping DCUO... im not sure SOE can really afford that kind of a hit... Sony just took another hit when their sole UK warehouse was torched in the london riots this week.. Sony's run on bad luck ... knows no bounds..
Exactly what i thought when reading the post. The only truth in his post was the comment about it being a breath of fresh air.. here one minute, gone the next and hardly makes a ripple.
As it has always been and it'll always be. Again, again and again....
So lets brace ourselves and be ready for the coming of Planetside 2 and Everquest Next. We know they'll fail too, don't we ?
What's keeping SOE and Smedley afloat is beyond my understanding.
PS: DCUO quitter here. Another promising game blown out, as usual with Soe, by inexistant post-release support, development and community relations. Greed and incompetence are the only things they have in abundance.
As it has always been and it'll always be. Again, again and again....
So lets brace ourselves and be ready for the coming of Planetside 2 and Everquest Next. We know they'll fail too, don't we ?
What's keeping SOE and Smedley afloat is beyond my understanding.
PS: DCUO quitter here. Another promising game blown out, as usual with Soe, by inexistant post-release support, development and community relations. Greed and incompetence are the only things they have in abundance.
Im kind of hoping that Planetside 2 reverses their trend for failures..... Planetside is about the only decent MMOFPS i've seen... until they messed it up with the giant robots at least.. if they can overcome their tendency to mess things up/over complicate.. then maybe.. just maybe.. SOE can redeem themselves...
A game that plays better with a controller than a keyboard and has flawed social interfaces will never solicit the kind of community building that an MMO needs to survive.
Comments
I think City of Heroes will bury any potential opportunity for DC Online. COH offers more costume options, frequent expansions that are free, a construction kit for roleplayers to make their own missions, and many events. With COH going free to play I'm afraid DC Online doesn't stand much of a chance even if the graphics are a bit dated with COH. With the original COH going free to play I also wouldn't be surprised if a COH 2.0 is eventually developed down the road since the original game centers around one primary city of Paragon with districts. City of Heroes 2.0 simply would need to pick a new main city and update the world and chargen graphics. I think DC Online is primarily just an alternate heroes game for those that dislike COH, the style of COH's gameplay, or are fans of the DC comic universe. DC Online isn't a bad game but I just think there are other games that offer more.
I wouldn't dismiss DCUO so quickly alot of DC fans I know are in their forties and aren't keen to spend money monthly on the game (even though quite a few of them spend hundreds on other DC based products monthly) they just don't tend to be mmo players but given the chance to play the game for free they may give it a spin.
Ironically for me I see the DC game as a less cheesy version of COH which makes me lean towards a willingness to play a free DCUO over a free COH but the built in lore surrounding DC shouldn't be so easily dismissed especially if it goes B2P.
You know why this game crashed? Because the "Light" set that they just released for "premium" was ORIGINALLY a powerset IN game during Beta. They pulled it just after the initial couple of Beta's with the SPECIFIC plan of adding it for the Green Lantern movie.
I forget the specifics but there were/are two additional powersets in the coding that just require being unlocked. The stuff is already there, it just requires enabling. You willing to pay 10 for each of those as well when they were included on the initial install disk?
ALOT of us tried defending this game. Week in, week out. It was like a massacre before our eyes. We pled for bugs to be fixed. We asked for SIMPLE resolutions and got silence. This game was the end of everything SOE for me. That's it, that's all.
I understand playing devil's advocate but you REALLY should be stating things that SOE could fix to return the game to popularity. Going into a game that was spending more time adding in game stores than they were about present regular PROMISED updates. In this day and age, it simply isn't enough to say something and not follow through. I think developer reputations are now being eyed as carefully as the reviews when it comes to people starting a new MMO. Too many of us have been burned too many times. Ask Maskedweasel how many times he had proof of bugs and submitted to recieve no info back. Not even a thank you.
I imagine that major IPs like Star Wars and DC will have fans that keep the game alive and I'm sure the game can improve. I just don't see a really big comeback happening. Too many combination of things and the Sony track record with games doesn't help. I hope for the sake of the fans that they are at least able to deliver the flavor of the DC Universe that the DC fans crave. I wonder if there is still a chance Marvel might break into the picture in the future. I believe Champions Online was meant to be Marvel but that fell through.
I expect DCUO could make a comeback, but I don't find it likely that they'll get back to their original subscriber numbers.
If they revamped the PC interface, went to some form of F2P/B2P and added more features (not content, but actual features) then of course they could get more players.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Wait...what the hell is this guy talking about? -Months- of active PvP goodness? That game was a ghost town after the first month when people realized how little there was to choose from in terms of powers.
And now they have the audacity to make us PAY for a seventh power set? They're out of their f*cking minds. Good luck, I turned my back on this game after the first month and never looked back. You sir, are full of sh*t.
I'm not really sure it will make a comeback just because of the 'Megaservers'. Whilst I'm sure it is good for those left playing the game it fails to address any of the issues that caused so many people to leave in the first place.
After the first month people weren't leaving because of population issues, heck the servers were bouncing with people at launch. No, people left because of a number of reasons such as:
Worst UI in any MMO ever.
Horrible chat system with a draconian filter that cannot be turned off.
Lack of open world (Non Raid/Alert/Duo etc.) content.
Time taken to address cheating.
I could go on, but the point is non of these issues have yet been addressed, the UI still sucks, the Chat system is still laughably bad and the 'Regular' updates just seem to keep adding raids/alerts/duo's by rehashing existing content and give add nothing much to the actual gameworld, and the glitches & cheating is still taking far to long to fix.
Shame really as it is a good game at its core imho, just seems to be ruined by SOE's dogged determination to stick to providing a universal interface and game experience across PC and Console platforms and their failure to add meaningful content aimed at everyone other than the remaining hardocre players who want to 'Raid' every night/week.
i loved playing this game since beta but, i got tired of waiting for raids (also fail raids) and grind for gears. i never got my 97dmg rifle
I stopped my sub on june and never looked back.
but, i'll return when DCUO finally have a open dynamic events/environment or a open world missions like apb. these DLC/megaserver does not interest me anymore. a lil bit too late.
i feel sorry for the ps3 guys when they go up against a macro scrub.
One of the other things that is goingto be a big stumbling block is that, although they tried for an "Iconic" feel to the lore, what they ended up with was sort of mish-mash hybrid of bits and pieces that was semi accurate for the last 10 years or so.
With the DC "relaunch" there just isn't going to be any correlation between many of their characters, either in identity (Oracle, a main character in the game will be going nack to being Batgirl in th ecomics) to appearance (Costumes cjanging, such as Superman or Nightwing) or just the normal changes in the overall story of the universe (Cyborg being a core member of the JLA)
Once the ingame lore gets so far away from the comic lore, you're left with only appealing to nostalgic fans of the generic "DC Universe", people mistly in their 30s and up. While many of them may be gamers, there aren't enough to really support the game.
No, it won't.
I played the game from the start of beta. I love DC. My first MMO was City of Heroes so the Genre has a place in my heart.
I quit, and many others did as well, not because of SoE's lack of content. The game was awesome even if they were a little late for content updates but pissing off the 2 player bases (PvE and PvP) is what killed the game. Lets go into a little detail.
What caused the game's population to split, were the hackers and exploiters, SOE's lack of community relations on the subject, and finally the much anticipated content updates came after posted dates and were for the most part, underwhelming.
Lets start with the PvP problem:
Gankers are common to all games. However, when people learned how to exploit combos and even hack and cheat at the game, the community got pissed. It got worse there was no In-game support and at first no way to report cheaters so we were forced to post on the forums. Funny thing is they deleted threads posted about said hackers/exploiters. We would post screenshots of evidence and videos and they would not be acknowleged and thus they allowed hackers/exploiters to run off alot of their PvP player base. "Fixes" came weeks laters. Now i know little about coding, but this seemed incredibly long compared to WoW, Rift, and even Age of Conan hot-fixes for similar problems. They STILL never got around the problem with macro keyboards. Hell they barely got gamepads working again before the PSN went down due to hacks and it still wasn't even as good as in Beta when you could map any button to any command. So PvP died, and the DC world grew darker.
The long and short of the PvE part is that content came later than was posted and it really wasn't much of an add-on. You could complete everything new in an hour or two and it was still riddled with bugs (penguin robot comes to mind, as does doors sealing you into catwomans lair, although the latter sounds kinda kinky).
The punchline though is that in beta, there were folders for the Earth Control, Hard light, and electricity power sets. They couldn't perfect them before launch so they were dropped. Hard-Light aka Lantern powers were then added as paid DLC. Hah, after all the trouble SOE put us through, to charge its already pissed off player-base for content that was already IN the game but not implemented broke the Joker's Sanity.
As a DC fanboy, and a superhero MMO genre lover, i say to SOE: NO. You get no more of my money, or time. You failed. Do yourself a favor and throw in the towel and re-focus on your other games and make them good.
Side note: I'd like to thank DC and the fine people who make the game. Voice actors (ESPECIALLY Kevin Conroy for once again being the most bad*** Batman ever), character design, world design, everything. You guys did an awesome job. But management (the guys who tell staff what to work on after launch) you ^$%&ed up. Its your fault the game has ended up the way it is. You should be fired. Out of a cannon. Into the Sun.
SoulPlane 2: The Blackjacking is a American Movie Classic!
[1]
I said a game was shallow. Iruka was calling people pathetic and shallow. So no I don't think I am doing the same thing.
[2]
Calling the game shallow and incomplete is something that has been repeated over and over by many people. It has pretty much been the general concensus of the game since beta. See the game going from 26 servers to 4 servers as evidence enough of that.
[3]
SOE has stated several times that the population is almost identical between the PS3 and PC servers.
[4]
Both platforms were begging SOE for server mergers and character transfers before Sony was hacked.
[5]
I think if DCU was sold as a single player game or a stand alone game then fewer people would complain about it. Adding a subscription fee, micro transaction cash shop and DLC for a content starved game only multiplied the games problems. I really don't think it is praiseworthy to say that the big achievement of an mmo is that it had the base content of a single player game.
[6]
The PC community has had a lot of exposure to SOE and how they run their games. The PS3 community not so much. Call it an axe to grind if you want, but there is a lot of good reasons people criticize SOE for their games. DCU is a shining example of that. Lets not try to make this a problem of the players. SOE has earned its reputation over the years.
[7]
Perhaps the level cap might someday increase, but to what point? Perhaps people don't know or care about grinding the same reskinned content they did from level 1-29 to gain points, but what does that matter? Are you trying to suggest that is deep gameplay? I really don't understand why you are mentioning this.
I'm a soloer, and when I reached level 23, the quests stopped. I thoroughly enjoyed the game up unti then. But, I don't suppose the new plans include any content for me.
What improvement? Some instances, and a new powerset?
End Game still is nothing but repeating the same instances over and over for gear, then nothing, but repeated arena matches. There is no immersion into the game world after leveling.
They need to make the open world matter more. They need much more then 1 added powerset.
The game is rock solid, but dont compare it to a traditional mmo (UO, WoW, etc...). Many times i have thought when playing games like God of War that it would be awesome with farming items and playing with friends. That is exactly how dcuo plays. Be prepared to replay some levels to practice increased efficiency and speed. Also pvp is finally a real test of skill in this game. If you are better then the other player you could be 10levels below vs an epiced out beginner and barely loose any life killing him.
The problems with teh game why people left where not content or the game itself, which is excellent. The problem was rampant abuse of cheats and permenent crashing and freezing. All of this is pretty much fixed and neglegible (there is still some rare problems) atm and the game is at a point where you can enjoy it without the frustration parts.
I have played tons of mmo's to great extent and dcuo is a real breath of fresh air. Actually no comeback is really needed since the server pop in europe is plenty fine since the new update 4 (avg wait time for pvp instances for me last week: 3minutes) and the phasing servers are just making the outside world crawling with people again.
After reading all the comments i can just say haters never come to this game and leave our secret little gem alone XD.
MMO's don't make comebacks until they go free too play.
Ever.
While games going from subbed, to F2P can often stop the 'rot' it rarely actually improves player numbers, in the long term at least... hopes of that helping DCUO... im not sure SOE can really afford that kind of a hit... Sony just took another hit when their sole UK warehouse was torched in the london riots this week.. Sony's run on bad luck ... knows no bounds..
No it wont.
You're sthilly. *hand wave thing*
Exactly what i thought when reading the post. The only truth in his post was the comment about it being a breath of fresh air.. here one minute, gone the next and hardly makes a ripple.
Goodnight DCUO.
So, everything sums up to "SOE fails".
Again.
As it has always been and it'll always be. Again, again and again....
So lets brace ourselves and be ready for the coming of Planetside 2 and Everquest Next. We know they'll fail too, don't we ?
What's keeping SOE and Smedley afloat is beyond my understanding.
PS: DCUO quitter here. Another promising game blown out, as usual with Soe, by inexistant post-release support, development and community relations. Greed and incompetence are the only things they have in abundance.
Im kind of hoping that Planetside 2 reverses their trend for failures..... Planetside is about the only decent MMOFPS i've seen... until they messed it up with the giant robots at least.. if they can overcome their tendency to mess things up/over complicate.. then maybe.. just maybe.. SOE can redeem themselves...
A game that plays better with a controller than a keyboard and has flawed social interfaces will never solicit the kind of community building that an MMO needs to survive.