An Early Look At DC Universe Online 60
Joystiq got the opportunity to spend some time playing an early version of Sony's DC Universe Online . Though the MMO won't be released for perhaps a year, the developers seem to have created a solid foundation for an entertaining and innovative game. GameDaily is running an interview with Marv Wolfman, a comic veteran who recently joined the DCUO team. From Joystiq:
"DCUO is very much an action MMO, with few game mechanics decided by the roll of the algorithmic dice. The game controls much like most third-person action titles, with standard light and heavy (charge-sensitive) attacks, a jump action and an interact button (notably, used to pick up cars). Super moves are mapped to the same four face buttons (when using the PS3 gamepad; a keyboard and mouse will be compatible with the console version, too) and are activated using L2 and R2 toggles. In total, up to eight super moves are easily accessible at any given time. Our character could fire ice balls and freezing rays at opponents, melee them with blocks of ice, or conveniently freeze them inside larger blocks, for example. A simple targeting mode (accessed by holding R1) locks the game camera onto an opponent for focused attacks. ... DC Universe Online isn't trying to strictly clone today's success models. SOE is making genuine efforts to build what could be the best superhero game ever conceived, and we're excited to watch it grow."
Re:This game is certain to fail (Score:3, Informative)
Ya I won't touch any MMO from Sony these days. They seem to have a team of people dedicated to fucking up their products. Galaxies is an excellent example. I actually left long before their new game content because even back then, they seemed intent on breaking their game. I really liked the idea overall, and it had some cool stuff. First MMO I'd ever seen where housing was actually useful, and not just a random place to store your shit. You could build whole player cities that would appear on the world map and everything.
However they seemed to be determined to take out anything that was fun or useful, and ignore anything that was problematic. For example their response to cheating was the most erratic you've ever seen.
In one case, some players found a way to exploit the militia system to gain experience in game. Now this matters like not at all the experience (or was it called skill, I can't remember) was very easy to get. You didn't spend hardly any time leveling. However Sony immediately removed the militia feature. So no long could militia members flag people causing trouble and run them out of the city (or shoot them if they didn't leave). This of course lead to tons of people who wanted to cause trouble doing so without recourse. So they were willing to make the game much worse for many people, to stop a cheat that had essentially no impact on those that didn't use it.
However then in another case people figured out a way to produce items far past the game's intended limits. This made them effectively invincible in PvP combat. This took Sony weeks to even acknowledge the existence of, longer to actually stop, and they never actually removed the items even at the time I left nor banned the players. Likewise players that figured out ways to cheat at shoot at things from longer ranges weren't banned.
However the militia system was never fixed and reinstated, while all this went on.
The event that caused me to leave was when the city I was in fell under attack by cheaters. We tried to mount a defense, but they were invincible. Well someone actually got a hold of a CSR who came out, saw this, and told the cheaters to stop and that their accounts had been marked and that if they did it again, they'd be out. Well, a couple hours later the cheaters were back. The same CSR was gotten a hold of... And he wouldn't do anything. I logged off and canceled my account.
That's what I mean by "people dedicated to fucking up their products." They'll screw over large parts of the player base for little reason, but then refuse to deal with real problems.
Between that and me Everquest experience, I've written SOE off. Unless I have a friend tell me that one of their games is an awesome, must play title, I'm not going to even give them a look. I've just no faith in them as a company.
Re:This game is certain to fail (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting. Someone needs to mod you up.
I won't touch a Sony MMO either after bad experiences with their prior games. They're competent programmers, but incompetent managers, and they seem to have palpable hatred for their users.
If you want to play a good superhero game, try City of Heroes. It's a fantastic game and it keeps getting better, with 2-4 new content releases a year for free. The CoH team have made it their goal to produce what the players want to see. It's sad that catering to the users is such a novel concept for an MMO.
Champions Online has some of the developers from CoH working on it, so it's worth watching. We'll see if they can make lightning strike twice.
Re:Bots are hardly a metric (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This game is certain to fail (Score:3, Informative)
I don't see anything these new super-hero MMOs are planning that CoH doesn't already have, and has already polished.
Well, according to someone I was playing with in CoH, Champions Online is going with an entirely new powers system. For starters, there are no archetypes or classes. So you can pick and choose exactly what powers you want. However, there are "better" powers, and "lesser" powers, and you have to use the lesser powers... a LOT... to build up to use the better powers. He described it as a mad click-fest of clicking the lesser powers over 30 times, and several times a second to be able to use the better ones. (Yuck!) Also, it's first and foremost being developed for consoles, and you know what that means for the PC version. Granted, this is all just stuff I got second-hand from someone who said he's playing the beta, so take it as you like.
That said, CoH rocks. I dare you to find me ANY online game that lets you do the extreme stuff you can in CoH. (My stone tanker made my druid in WoW very jealous, back when I used to play him...) And yet they do a good job of keeping it all balanced.