DC Universe Online

Hi Everyone!

I know that someone once before posted about DC Universe Online, but I was curious is anyone in the fleet running in closed beta right now?

I got my invite for it this weekend, and trying to see if anyone might be in the game to run with sometimes.

Thanks!!

Shane

:whistle:

A little late, but I got on the DCUO beta yesterday. After years on CoH/V and now STO, I'm having trouble adjusting to the control scheme. I wonder if it will be easier to grasp on the PS3.

First impression: the male toons have nice baskets and butts. :) (Sorry, but aesthetics are important to me.) Character creation is kind of limited. Only very coarse control over body type (XL, Med, Small) and hair (hair/facial hair combinations with goofy, non-descriptive names like "Tiberius"). Power sets are kind of limited, too. It's kind of like they're trying hard to be different from CoH in some ways (like you get a cape right away, but have to earn civilian clothes at level 20; in CoH you earn capes at lvl 20), but in other ways they're very similar (powers include fire, ice, mental, sorcery, etc.).

The animation is pretty good (considering it's in beta). Bright colors. But combat seems to favor (mouse) button-mashing over strategy. Maybe it gets better above level 4, and with experience (mine, not my toon's). Also the social aspect seems lacking, possibly because they built it to be both a PC and PS3 game.

I'm curious about others' opinions.

And I'm serious about the butts. They're nice. I wish STO had nicer butts, for the male characters.

The combat is faster-paced than CoX, but in some ways that's not a good thing. For the PC, combat moves consist of mouse/keyboard combos that may take a while to get right. As a player who also also played CoX, DC's controls are a bit on the clunky side. The chat system is absolutely terrible but I have read that they're in the process of changing it.

On the plus side the game-world is absolutely stunning. Currently the main areas consist of Metropolis, Gotham City and the Watchtower space station. Missions, however, can send you to locations like Arkham Asylum and Area 51. To be able to visit locales you've read about in DC Comics for years really adds to the immersion.

Right now the big controversy in the game has to do with the look of your hero. Currently you can only have 3 colors on your costume. Testers have been asking for 4 colors, or at the least select one color as a base then choose your 3 colors. I usually do a patriotic-themed hero (red, white, blue) and like to do gold accents for the costume but right now that's not possible. Looks like the devs are not straying from the 3-color max rule, and a lot of testers are not happy about it.

As for whether or not I'll be picking the game up when it goes live, I'm not sure yet. A big part of that would be if I was part of a League (DCU's term for supergroup). Some missions are very difficult to do solo.

Between finally finishing Dragon Age Awakening and checking out Season 3 for STO I haven't played DCU lately but will do so during the week. I'll keep you posted.

Ugh, they made it for console systems, too?

No thanks, devs always over-simplify their games for the console controllers effectively hamstringing PC users whose controls are also simplified to the crappy console limitations so the consolers won't feel as if they're not getting the full experience.

I've been checking my email since last month but still no beta key for me. :-(
I may cancel my pre-order since getting into beta was the main reason for the pre-order.

I did the pre-order, too, but then realized you have to have ordered by Nov 15 to be included in the beta. So then I got an email from FilePlanet offering access to the beta if you are a paid subscriber. I paid the $16 for a 3 month subscription, and got immediate access to the beta.

I may cancel my pre-order, too. I'll see how the beta goes, and if the game improves. I like the social aspect of STO, and that is seriously lacking from DCUO. Maybe I'll go back to CoH again for my men-in-tights fix. (Although I wonder if DC and Marvel will try to close down CoH again now that they're getting into the MMORPG business.)

Doubtful. Marvel tried suing Cryptic over City of Heroes a few years back for copyright infringement. Seems that players were replicating Marvel hero costumes and/or names. The lawsuit was eventually thrown out since it was the players copying Marvel heroes who were violating the end-user agreement, not Cryptic. In Cryptic's defense, part of the EULA (End User Liscense Agreement) states that players are not to replicate copyrighted material.

I'm sure Paragon Studios (the current owners of CoX) will be watching the subscriber count when DCU (and eventually Marvel Online) go live. What will happen? Maybe the count drop will be too much and Paragon will pull the plug on CoX. Or maybe it will go free-to-play. Or maybe nothing will change. Who can say right now?

I had read somewhere that one of Cryptic's attorneys, during the trial, had scrawled out a crude drawing of a marvel superhero and asked if he should then be sued for infringing upon Marvel's copyright.

Wasn't there some ridiculous attempt to copyright the word superhero?

Anyway, I was wondering if part of the court's hesitance to honor Marvel and DC's complaints against CoH was due to the fact that they were not competing in the MMORPG field. That's why I wondered if DCUO would change the legal playing field at all.

Seems to me that DCUO is more of a multiplayer console game, and CoX is a PC based MMORPG. I could probably be tempted back to CoX if they revamped it, gave it a graphics makeover (including 3D support), added new powers, and that sort of thing. But it seems to be pretty stagnant (or was when I left it a year ago).

Incredibly stagnant.

And they laid off a bunch of their devs.

I don't foresee any significant changes coming for them. It may be that NCsoft may not be allocating them the kind of budget that would allow for that kind of major overhaul. They may just not have the subscriber base for it any more. And the subs have left because of the staleness of the game. And if that's the case, it's because the devs didn't do anything to keep the game from going stale when they actually had the sub base. But now that they don't, they probably don't have the budget to do it now and bring them back.

It's an ouroboros. xD

Earlier this year there was a big to-do over someone registering the name "City of Heroes 2" for website usage. Not sure if it was a cyber-squatter but for a while there rumors were rampant that a new version of CoH was in the works. But since then, I haven't heard anything.

As much as I love CoX, I have to admit that even with the graphics "upgrade" a few issues back, it's still stale and not very realistic. C'mon - no busses? Or taxis? No children? Very few cars on the road for a city that size? Truth be told, I think "Going Rogue" will be the last major expansion for CoX. If there's something new coming down the pipe, I think it will be for CoH 2 but any announcement to that effect will be if or when Marvel throws its hat into the supers MMO ring.

Quote by Virgo59

Earlier this year there was a big to-do over someone registering the name "City of Heroes 2" for website usage. Not sure if it was a cyber-squatter but for a while there rumors were rampant that a new version of CoH was in the works. But since then, I haven't heard anything.

As much as I love CoX, I have to admit that even with the graphics "upgrade" a few issues back, it's still stale and not very realistic. C'mon - no busses? Or taxis? No children? Very few cars on the road for a city that size? Truth be told, I think "Going Rogue" will be the last major expansion for CoX. If there's something new coming down the pipe, I think it will be for CoH 2 but any announcement to that effect will be if or when Marvel throws its hat into the supers MMO ring.

Marvel tried, it's why Emmert broke away with the Cryptic name. He and Cryptic were going to develop the craptastical Marvel Universe Online. which was just an online multiplayer version of Marvel Ultimate Alliance. When that inevitably fell through, Cryptic decided it could still make a s#!77% superhero MMO for both console and PC and plopped out Champions Online.

Well MMORPG had a beta key giveaway but I couldn't remember my login. By the time I got it, they were gone.
I did snag a PS3 one by mistake. Not sure if it is transferable though.

Quote by Angelsilhouette

It's an ouroboros. xD

Hee hee. :)

I've tried (suddenly remembers non-disclosure agreement) I mean my friend has tried the beta on both the PC and PS3, and he prefers the control scheme on the PC, although it's been clunkified to make it compatible with a PS3 controller. The one thing he hasn't found is a "run" key, so traveling across town means holding down at least one button/key to move forward.

The game is somewhat engaging (he says), and the locations are very nicely done. But he wants to give it a rest so he can go back to the old familiar STO universe for a while.

He is still enjoying ogling all the buff guys in tights. :silly:

I hear ya. My friend likes the look of it too but is not too jazzed about the prospect of forced grouping in order to advance in levels. He says starting at level 18 or so the last mission in a story arc can't be completed solo. Even though the mission might have a AI-hero that fights alongside the player, the hero ususally proves to be less than useless as they seem to get defeated very quickly.

My friend said that when he first started playing he was definitely going to pick up the game. Now he's not so sure.

Just got an update from Amazon:

"DC Universe Online Standard Edition"
Previous estimated arrival date: April 07 2011 - April 09 2011
New estimated arrival date: January 19 2011 - January 24 2011

The game has been down for pretty much most of the afternoon for a new patch. PC version is 2.1 GB :blink: so you may want to check if console beta got updated as well.

I just got an invite this morning and to be honest I have no real interest in a superhero MMO and my eyes are fixed elsewhere but I'm downloading it now so will check it out :)