DC Universe Online. First Impressions.

'Ello Jello!

Firstly bear with me in advance if this thread may start of a little vauge but I will do my best to give you as much information as I can about DC Universe Online and I will post pictures and a few vids up later today.

I managed to play the beta for a week or two before its full release and purchased it since I've been wanting to play a Superhero MMO for quite sometime now.

There is a great degree of addiction to this game, heh.

To sum up the plot real quick it goes like this: In the near future the villans and heroes make a final stand with each other, with Lex Luthor being the victor...or so he thought. Then good ol' Brainiac steps in and takes over but not before stealing his item(s) called Exobytes. He then travels to the past which is present day, releaseas them into the earth.

Here's the catch; The exobytes contains powers from both heroes and villans. When it is released into the earth many humans are bestowed powers. The future Lex Luthor warns the League about the upcoming threat before he takes his leave. Its up to the League to guide the people with their newfound powers and guide them in both use of their powers and to combat the threat of Brainiac as well as other villans.

At this point you start off with the character customization. It's easy in a nutshell though not quite as diverse as City of Heroes(coh) and Champions online(CO). You can make a custom to suit whatever you want or you can pick a premade set up based upon ispirational characters like Superman or Mister Freeze.

At that point you can select a weapons type (brawling, hand to hand, one hand, dual weild, etc), primary and secondary powers/skills. Keep in mind the powers you pick will determine your role, with your secondary powers playing a more active role as your primary will help you with traversing and combat. For example when I made one my first character I chose Staff/Acrobatics/Nature; a defensive healier. My partner on the other hand chose Two Hand*ex; great axe/Acrobatics/Fire; an offensive tank. As you progress you can manipulate your powers to be either offensive or defensive or something in between and you gain more abilities and skills along the way. Armor and weapons help influence your stats, much like how it is here on ffxi so you want to be wary of your role and the stats to make sure you pick the right weapons and armor needed of course.

Also, during the process you can choose which mentor to have and what allegence you want. The mentors are Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman for good, Lex, The Joker, and Circe for evil. Your missions will be different with whom you are with while some missions will be the same epending on the situations.

Once all this is set up, you start off trying to escape one of Brainiac's ships. You get a vocal advisor to help you get through the ship and off to freedom. Throughout the game you'll have many guides to help you and send you off missions like this. You will get rewards doing missions such as money, weapons and armor as well as a huge chunk of exp and you dont lose exp when you die. I forgot about that; the exp grind is very easy and freelowing, not like a grindfest that we would deal with. You can also do a majority of missions by yourself or with a friend.

There are two different types of servers; PVP and PVE. I'm only on the PVP since I want to enjoy the game without having some joeschmo attacking me out of the blue every 5 seconds on PVE whereas on PVP you can set up a match with a person and fight 1 on 1, 2 on 2, whatever. I have yet to try it out still but my partner tells me its great but you need to invest in PVP gear since your armor and weapons get damaged in the game. You can repair them though, and while it is not costly it can be if you decide to be hardcore. Thankfully the economy is not influenced by players like how we have the AH and that is influenced by players.

The only downside I've witness is a few minor bugs in the game such as not getting the credit for the some of the missions you would win which my partner has had a few problems with and has reported it to the developers and once in a while my character would get "stuck" if i did certain actions like lifting something but it has been fixed apparently over the last few days. I am sure the Sony and the DCUO team are fixing and addressing these issues as time goes on. I for one have been patient.

So far, the level cap is around 30 from the last time I checked and they have added some additional content. It is 15 bucks a month and you can make up to 6 characters per server with no additonal fees. You can also set up for a lifetime suscription of 200 bucks but personally I'd rather wait until how things play out much further with DCUO in the coming months before I shell out that kind of money. The first month is free to play but you have to buy the game to try it out rather than download a trial version, which I'm sure they will do hopefully.

So there you have it in a nutshell. I personally love the game, me being a comic book geek :-P At first I was going to try out CoH or CO but since this came out it made more sense to me to have a fresh start with something new.

I will be posting pictures up and a few vids me and my partner did up as well later in the day. Your thoughts and impressions are appreciated as well.

Peace.

Sounds like fun. Decent writeup btw. How are the fighting controls? Are they like WoW and FFXIV where you have to input a command for every action or like FFXI where you idle melee and have JA/WS type commands? I too am a comic book geek, but I have always been a Marvel fan. Show me an MMO for Marvel and I will be playing that in a heartbeat!

Glad you mentioned this as I forgot to add this to my OP. The battles are action oriented where you have to use button combos; kind of like street fighter but easier. You do gain more combos and special attacks as you progress. So for example if I wanted to do a special staff combo, I hit the button 4 times and hold it once to execute it where in other cases I would hold it down to charge something like an energy attack, things like that. It might sound a little tricky but I assure it is very easygoing and freeflowing. The only other problem we have is the chat system. A little cumbersome if you ask me.

I heard Marvel had plans on making an MMO of thier own but it didn't fall through. As far as I remember it is "pending" for now.

Reports are that so far, it's one of the technically smoothest MMO launches in history. Only extremely minor bugs that are already fixed within days of launch, and no major stability or overt congestion problems.

Aye, my partner and I have had no problems besides what I have mentioned. Whatever bugs we had during the beta have been noted and fixed as demonstrated when we got our copies :)

Anyone else a fan of Teen Titans Animated series, and stoked that Raven will be voiced by her original voice actor, Tara Strong? :D

Too bad Hynden Walch isn't doing Starfire's voice, though, and Robin's being voiced by the guy who did Aqualad's voice in Teen Titans. Cyborg and Beast Boy are confirmed to be in the game, but their voice actors are unknown as far as I know.

Yah, the Marvel game actually was scrapped and the developers (Cryptic, of COH fame) converted the IP into Champions Online. Which was...a neat launch, and has/had a lot of potential, but due to lots of bugs at launch and divided resources shifted towards the launch of Star Trek Online, the game suffered a bit and new content is regular, but spotty and not necessarily deep.

It's now incorporating a "free-to-play" version that co-exists with its subscription base (the free version has players using "archetype" classes, whereas the sub version allows for complete customisation) so I am not sure how long it has left as a cash-cow.

Sounds awesome, I'm thinking about getting it. Are there any subscription fees? I know Wikipedia said that there would be, but I'm curious how much and what kind of options the players have.

The OP stated the above, which is likely in USD, but given the current exchange rate, USD is pretty much identical to CAD.

Woops, must've missed that paragraph somehow >_<;

That's a pretty fair price. I'd definitely consider it, but like I said in an earlier thread regarding this game, I just don't feel right paying for two games at a time, and I still play XI. Though I might just make an exception here...

Understandable, totally. I'm pushing my budget as it is juggling both ffxi and DCUO and FF14 this month. But since im canceling 14, putting ffxi on hold for the next several months I will be in the clear when my free month is up on DCUO and I pay the 15 a month thereafter.

Unfortunately Cyborg and BB are played by two different actors, their names I don't know at the moment. They are not so bad though I do miss the old voice cast of Teen Titans too ;) Tara does both Raven and Starfire's voice in the game however :)

Ok. As promised some pictures and vids of DC Universe online.

My partner's Character.

Costume Change customizations.

As you go along the game you can "collect" the gear you obtain. What this means is even if you decide to sell it your menu "memorizes" what you have sold and you can therefore customize how you want your character to look even though you may have something else equipped. Its to generate a more uniqueness of your character while equipping the appropriate stats you may have.:


Fire Tanking. Though he died a few times he did last quite longer than most other job combinations, save Ice which I've heard, is another tank type you can use.



Mission demo. This was on the beta version, with my character here having some fun. Needless to say I was rather levid when I couldn't keep my character from the beta, I got lucky getting the Deadman Hoodie dammit lol :-P


TotalBuscuit's thoughts.
A person me and my partner subscribed too on youtube, a show he hosts. He's raised some really good points about MMOs in general and the beta, etc. It's a bit long but definitely listen to what he has to say; very sage words if you ask me.


I will be posting additional pictures later tonight sometime so stay tuned :)

OH GOOD!! :D (not according to Wiki, but I trust you more xD) Glen Murakami did mention that Tara and Hynden could easily voice each others characters, since they tried in the episode "Switched" :D They intended for them to just imitate the other girl's voice while "in their body," but sounded so similar that they were like, "ahh forget it." xD

Oh, and thanks for all of this stuff :> It's great~