Who's gonna try out DCOU?

[VyralPandemic]

Gear

Yes there is gear in DCUO. Some pretty neat armor upgrades as well, something akin to Epic Weapons. You can find videos of them on youtube.
From what I have seen there are items you can loot and buy in game that are not available in start up. So you set up and make your hero look how you want, and you can lock those looks so new items dont change your appearance. Some items look real nice though and you may end up wanting them to show, like some nice large spiked shoulder pads, gloves with thorns, or a ... I guess it was a jet pack I saw for a cloak slot ( had jet tubes sticking off the back at a down angle, like you may see on an anime mech warrior type - was pretty sweet.
Oh weapons too of course, you can buy nice little upgrades once you get out of the training/ship, for better looks. Loot items (weapons/armor) can drop from just about anything you kill. Found a nice cloak and staff for myself and I am only lvl 5.
i've seen some nice looking heros while exploring the base and tower. Once I figure out screen shots I will post my own toon and some of the neater looking ones.
==============================

Found a thread on Steam that has some of the looks people have posted, thought I would put it here if anyone is interested. I am sure there are tons of posts like this around.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1713964

 

[thez]

You can get different outfits for different things. For example, there is faction-based armor that requires you to get a certain amount of faction in each city to buy. For Metropolis, it's the "Angelic" themed armor (for Heroes). The storyline quests in the city unlock Demonic themed armor.

I'll take some screenshots of different looks.

Also:

The MMO's class system is nearly identical. If you happen to take something has huge as a class system in a genre as specific as "Super Hero MMOs"

That's fucking stupid. Seriously fucking stupid. With genres like this, you're going to have a nearly impossible time making a different class system. I didn't hear anyone bitching about the similarities in the WoW and EQ.

WoW: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, Death knight

EQ: Druid, Ranger, Mage, Paladin, Cleric, Rogue, Shaman, Necro, Warrior, Shadowknight, Enchanter, Bard (and several more, but having MORE classes than the imitator is amusing).

Guild Wars: ---, Ranger, Elementalist, Paragon, Monk, Assassin, Ritualist, Necro, Warrior, ---, Mesmer, Dervish

Nope, no similarities AT ALL. Thank god the fantasy genre has so many possibilities to it that can't be locked into fixed...oh.

Let's look at what DCUO does for character individuality:

Hero/Villain -- Pretty impossible to skip this one. Whoops.

Powers: Fire, Ice, Mental, Nature, Sorcery, Gadgets -- Well, this is pretty interesting. Fire and Ice are tanking classes, Mental is a DPS class, and Sorcery is a healing class. Those are not what I'd consider typical. The class system is also set up so that once you hit level 10, your character has two "roles" -- for Sorcery, it's a choice between healing and dps -- and armor that is specific to that role. You can switch between roles while out of combat, and have different spell bars based on your role. Your current role also causes added effects to most of the abilities -- healing roles cause more healing, DPS roles can cause more secondary effects from abilities. Show me something similar to this mechanic from CoH.

Weapon Style: There are a bunch of these, I'll restrict myself to hand blasters, as that's what I've been using. I don't remember CoH having much in the way of weapon specialization, though it's been a while. I've also NEVER played a game where the weapons were such a huge part of combat for everyone. I'm a damned healer, but I need to be going fucking nuts with my combo attacks during combat, because your "mana" bar regeneration is tied to how awesome your combos are / how long your hit streaks are. The more you hit the bad guys, the more "mana" you get. Let me tell you -- I really like this mechanic now that I've got a bunch of combos going. As in, REALLY like. It makes me feel like even though I'm focusing on healing, I can't be doing my job as a healer properly if I'm not also attacking. That's a huge change for me from other MMOs I've played, and is due to the focus on the weapon system.

Movement mode -- Like powerset types and hero/villain, this one is kinda hard to do. How do heroes get around in comic books? They fly, use acrobatics, or run. There are certainly more specialized types, like Spiderman/Venom/Carnage with webslinging, but thats the wrong comicverse, and when you generalize everything, it falls under one of those three categories.



The more that I play DCUO, the more I like it. This game feels a lot like EQ did right after launch: lacking some polish, certainly, but with the potential to be a game that people play for a long time.

 

[Morx]

Sounds pretty fun, and there has been a lot of positive feedback. I'll be giving it a try soon.

 

[thez]

Further thoughts:

I rolled a Hero/Flying/Staff/Fire/Meta last night. I spent a while on the costume design, trying to make him look as much like Aang from "Avatar: The Last Airbender" as possible with the costume customization. It's not perfect, but it works decently well. I'll post some screenshots eventually.

The gameplay style has been completely different. Switching from hand blaster to staff has required a bit of a mental shift -- the staff is definitely *NOT* long range, and requires me to get up close and personal with the baddies in order to do some damage. I've also found that flight can actually hurt my ability to effectively move in combat. The way that you ascend while in combat is so slow that I generally run, rather than fly, to targets who have agro'd from a distance. The attack style, however, is pretty fun. Playing with fire has been a joy for someone who normally plays a DPS class. While I've enjoyed my sorcery character, I've been playing it as a healer and the difference shows. Fire has fireballs (the first purchase I made, to balance the lack of range on my staff, and I'm glad I did), AE knockdown (awesome when doing quests that require you to kill tons of guys), spells that make you (and your weapon) light on fire, and a bunch of other neat tricks. I'm certainly not as durable as my Sorcery character (the lack of healing spells hurts a little when soloing), but I'm having a blast and enjoying the differences. It may inspire me to respec my Sorcery character into a summoner, just to give it a try.

 

[VyralPandemic]

Class Combos

So far I have really liked my Staff/Mental/Acrobat for offensive. Mental powers are real nice for control. I never cared much but now its nice. Mentall hanging someone 20 feet off the ground so you can beat on their buddy is nice, and the ranged DPS on Mental is real nice to help even out the staff melee offensive. I have read that Fire/ Staff is a great way to go also, I may try it but really liking my next character too much to make another alt to test out just now.

Personal fav so far has been Martial Arts/ Ice/ Flying. Ice defensive abilities are very nice, the melee combos on the martial art look great as you whoop on on groups of mobs. Byusing the Storm side (tree) of Ice lets you pull and push entire groups of mobs around. I can pull a group in to me, hit em with AE cold self buff that does damage and opens them up to 35% more damage for 5s, then after a few second of ass kicking I AE blast them all away and pick off the survivors.

I thought about opening up a new thread for this type of talk, but since Thez and I seem to be the only ones playing I figured no one woudl care if we derailed this thread to be a general "DCUO" thread.

 

[Nidic]

Thinking about playing... how big is the game world ?

How would you rate the possible long term future of the game ?

As far as the equipment, is there a lot of choices, or basic cookie cutter stuff like staff +1, staff +2 kind of thing ?

 

[VyralPandemic]

Thinking about playing... how big is the game world ?

How would you rate the possible long term future of the game ?

As far as the equipment, is there a lot of choices, or basic cookie cutter stuff like staff +1, staff +2 kind of thing ?

The world seem large to me, I mean the maps are big, and the areas are very detailed I cant complain about there.
The end game, I dont know, I dont have anyone high enough to check out out, but I read on some PS3 post about the game thet SOE plans on adding content quite often. Someone said "every other month" but I couldnt find anything official by SOE to back that up... I didnt look too hard.

Long term... I dont know, until i play more I really just cant be sure.

My one complaing, is the story line forcing you to wotk their main quest line. Leveling is largely linear; everyone has to work the same missions in the same areas to progress. While I only had a few delays in fighting others for mobs, it was never too bad for me. Down side is that its linear and you really are not free to hunt in some area like EQ. At any given level you could hunt in a number of zones to xp. Or it used to until the number of players at low levels dropped and the HOT zones started bringing people to the same zones so you could find groups.
The linear thing means when you hit a point where you need a group, you can find one pretty easily. Or at least that has been my experience. Not the most fun way to go about it, but thats who most of them do it today.

Gear, I dont know. I still get all my gear from quests, and it has all the stats you would expect. AC, Power( mana), other stats. Nothing so D&D as Hand-to-hand +1

I recommend you check out their videos on the official site, or check you tube. I saw once nice on that showed about 8 min of game play while someone did a mission. Not the best but gives you an idea of how the missions are. As for the bigger missions ( called Alerts) you can find tons of those videos online.

I do not see this as a threat to EQ, at least not yet, maybe if they keep adding content, but the class combos are limited. Mostly in the fact that some combos just plain suck, while others are FAR superior. [ This changes in the PvP arenas since you can change roles (Defensive, control ( crowd control) and Healer) -everyone can do damage, some better than others, but all can dish it out otherd put out more but get hit harder, others less but get hit less or can heal. Basic class balance. Some just are not fun to me.]

Wont replace EQ but it is a nice low key escape from EQ with some really neat graphics and interesting game play. I recommend it if you are looking for a break from EQ for a little while. There is no replacement for EQ yet, thats why we all keep coming back.

 

[VyralPandemic]

Video

I found the video I mentioned, about 8 min of gameplay. Its not exciting so dont base it on this. Its basically someone recording a single player mission, but it gives you an idea of this the game plays. If I find a good one of an open zone mission I wil share it as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=054U8cr653w

 

[Remianen]

I'll start playing after the one month anniversary. I play everything at least for a month, to see whether I like it. But the thing I hate about playing at launch is, everyone's so up on the game and you make/join a guild and after the free month is over, 90% of the guild goes inactive. So I'll let the tourists have their 30 days before I jump in. Preordered and have my box, installed and everything, I'm just not signing up for another couple weeks.

I will say that I don't like the various concessions made to support console users (I had hoped they would offer control schemes specific to each platform but the manuals say nothing about that being the case) but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

Oh and thez, no one complained about the similarities between EQ and WoW because pretty much everyone expected it to be 'EQ minus annoyances and most timesinks and a helluva lot more polish' (which is essentially what it was). And the class info you mentioned isn't very similar to CoH. It is, however, awfully similar to Champions (which, according to Cryptic, is the "spiritual successor" to CoH. laf!). I don't think anyone with a brain actually expected DCUO to innovate, since just moving the Super Hero niche forward a step is more than enough. It's an alternative to the done to death fantasy style, with characters people are familiar with (for the most part. They do have some awfully obscure characters on both sides and from the listings I've seen, they're missing ALL of Jim Lee's Wildstorm characters. But maybe they'll be added later).

As for the long term future of the game, this is a major title for SoE. They're going to coddle it for a year or so (just like they did with FreeRealms), if not more. I think STO has more of a chance of being shut down than DCUO, honestly. TOR would have to literally obliterate their subscriber base for that to change, in my view (and that's not likely to happen). You're looking at five years, minimum, for this game.

 

[VyralPandemic]

WoW and EQ

I think its funny how often I have seen that comment about how "nobody complained that WoW was a lot like EQ." Seriously guys, Everybody whined that WoW was a lot like EQ. And I mean EVERYBODY. It went on for almost 2 years or more.

I dont see it as all that similar now, but at the time when EQ was the first Massive Multi player to go Fantasy like that, and WoW followed up a few years later it was considered a copy-cat game too. Now everyone can clearly see the differences and most people only know WoW as being in the same genre' (sp) as EQ. If they both last long enough CoH and DCUO will be looked at in the same way. DCUO is much more strictly action based than CoH which at least ( so I am told) feels like an MMMO RPG. DCUO I would not really consider and RPG, just fantasy based FPS with some RP aspects, but thats a pretty loose correlation.

DCUO is a fun game, and I look forward to seeing how it is at end game... though I am tempted to look into CoH now that I have heard and read so much about it.

 

[Remianen]

Well honestly, the only complaints I remember about WoW pre-release were from people playing EQ who couldn't quite express in words the concept of 'polish'. WoW, at release and since, did things EQ should have done (like quest based progression, given the game's name and a player to player marketplace that wasn't a trick to boost concurrent login numbers, and let's not even mention tradeskills). Mind you, I was one of those people playing both at the time and the difference was startling. Then again, by that time, I had played almost two dozen MMOs and had seen how various concepts that seemed the same, were often implemented differently.

DCUO is a fun game, and I look forward to seeing how it is at end game... though I am tempted to look into CoH now that I have heard and read so much about it.

Just give a holler and I'll PM you a trial code or something. I've left and returned to EQ multiple times over the years but I've only let my CoH accounts lapse once (WoW launch until I hit 60) and never again. The game's fun in a 'fire and forget' kind of way. If you like to think while you play, stay away from CoH. But if sheer mindless superhero/supervillain action is what you're after, I highly recommend it. It does not, however, have an end game. CoH proponents (read: fanbois) say "City of Heroes has no 'end' game, it's 'all' game" which is the same as saying it's a 'journey', not a 'destination' game. The Incarnate gameplay has opened some doors and given folks new reasons to play their max level toons but it's still doing pretty much the exact same thing(s) you did at 1 and 10 and 20 just with higher level mobs and better/more valuable drops (pretty much like XPing in most other MMOs, I guess). If you look at Incarnate gameplay as similar to grinding out AAs, there are a lot of parallels. I soured on Champions after I ponied up for a lifetime sub based on open beta and headstart gameplay and, well, you've probably heard what happened (the infamous launch patch).

I don't like how they wussed out on Power Girl though. The screenshots I've seen make her legs her most noticeable feature which, uh, isn't true outside the game. *cough*

 

[skluv]

I really wanted to try this game, its disappointing that there is a 14.99 a month subscription fee even for console users. Maybe eventually it will go FTP like eq2 did or emulated servers will pop up, i just cant see myself paying for another mmo

 

[Morx]

Looked for a buddy key for a few days, and then just said forget it, and bought it last night off Amazon. Cool thing about that, is that you download the game from them. Unlike Steam where you have to download it from their servers. SoE servers are much faster. Was up and playing within a couple hours.

Me and a buddy started at the same time. I started an Ice Brawler. It's been pretty fun, but because I chose Superman as my mentor, and my buddy chose Batman, we started in completely different areas. I didn't realize that it would make that big of a difference, and so now I'm considering re-rollling with a Batman mentor so that I can be over with him and leveling up with him.

Probably go with a Healer type since he went Fire tank. Healer types look really cool. I think I'll spend more time customizing my character this time as well.

I think this game will last a while. There is literally so much stuff to do. Maybe at some point it'll all run out, and I'll be bored, but with so much to do, I can't imagine that they won't release more content before then.

First impressions are certainly awesome. Just the first part of the game, getting out of the ship was really awesome.

 

[thez]

Looked for a buddy key for a few days, and then just said forget it, and bought it last night off Amazon. Cool thing about that, is that you download the game from them. Unlike Steam where you have to download it from their servers. SoE servers are much faster. Was up and playing within a couple hours.

Me and a buddy started at the same time. I started an Ice Brawler. It's been pretty fun, but because I chose Superman as my mentor, and my buddy chose Batman, we started in completely different areas. I didn't realize that it would make that big of a difference, and so now I'm considering re-rollling with a Batman mentor so that I can be over with him and leveling up with him.

Probably go with a Healer type since he went Fire tank. Healer types look really cool. I think I'll spend more time customizing my character this time as well.

I think this game will last a while. There is literally so much stuff to do. Maybe at some point it'll all run out, and I'll be bored, but with so much to do, I can't imagine that they won't release more content before then.

First impressions are certainly awesome. Just the first part of the game, getting out of the ship was really awesome.

It makes a little bit of a difference -- he'll get weapon upgrade quests in his city and you'll get them in yours. However, once you complete the intro quest (Scarecrow in Gotham, Ape General in Metropolis) you guys will be able to do the same quest lines. You can easily get back and forth between G & M by using the watchtower, which is sorta like PoK and lets you teleport between all of the different areas. However, if you want to reroll, go for it. I've already got a level 24 blaster/sorcery and a 22 staff/fire -- leveling is pretty fast.

 

[thez]

Also, in terms of longevity: I'm not sure yet. There's a lot of potential by making the endgame so dependent on PvP -- Everyone's going to want to be competitive. They also seem to be planning to roll out new content to fit with marketing of other things. For example, I was reading that they're planning to roll out the Green Lantern Corps content right around when the Green Lantern movie is coming out.

 

[Morx]

Ya, figured out last night that I could use the Watchtower to get around. My buddy hadn't killed Bane yet, but I had already killed Queen Bee, so I just went to Gotham and started doing all those quests.

One thing that really sucked is that I got locked out of the Bane fight. Buddy went super speed ahead and the event drops the gates on the room, so I was locked outside. Kind of sucked, but I did get the Feat for using no consumables.

Right now I feel like I'm stumbling through the game though. Fumbling my way through the quests, without much direction other than what they tell me. It's kind of hard to explain, but typically, in games, I'm thinking all day about what I'm going to do next, or man I can't wait to get the next level, to get the next ability. For this game, I have none of that interest.

I think it has to do with not knowing my abilities, or not caring. So far, I could of beaten everything with my basic attack. Special powers are not needed to win. I'm getting new gear, but just random drops. I have no idea about instances, or other ways to get gear, so I have no urge to get home so I can "run" an instance.

I think lack of knowledge of the game, and how you can be a total noob, and still stumble your way to mid-teens or higher is really hindering my enjoyment of the game.

 

[VyralPandemic]

Right now I feel like I'm stumbling through the game though. Fumbling my way through the quests, without much direction other than what they tell me. It's kind of hard to explain, but typically, in games, I'm thinking all day about what I'm going to do next, or man I can't wait to get the next level, to get the next ability. For this game, I have none of that interest.

I think it has to do with not knowing my abilities, or not caring. So far, I could of beaten everything with my basic attack. Special powers are not needed to win. I'm getting new gear, but just random drops. I have no idea about instances, or other ways to get gear, so I have no urge to get home so I can "run" an instance.

I think lack of knowledge of the game, and how you can be a total noob, and still stumble your way to mid-teens or higher is really hindering my enjoyment of the game.

I know what you mean man. Its always like that when you jump on a new release, the information is just not out there. So you are running around in n00b mode and it sucks. After playing EQ for so long, even when I leave for a year or 2 at a time when I come back I feel behind, but I havent felt like a complete newb since EQ launched, and even then there were a few great sites up with info and a ton that followed after launch so you could look it all up. With this, even when I search for information on a mission, I cant usually find it. Very frustrating, but almost nice too.
I walk into a mission for the first time and I have NO idea what to expect, where to find anything special such as the extra feats like releasing prisoners, or putting out all the fires in Mdme Xanadu's, its all new, and with no web info to be found yet, its like wearing blinders. You cant plan for what you are doing next because you dont know what your options are. I've been trying to make notes so I can start some of this stuff. I've started taking screen shots of my map locations when I find the collection pieces on the street or the news bits things so that I can make a map and save tons of time fumbling around on later toons.
So far I cant even decide which method transportation I like best. I havent done super speed yet, but I dont like the idea of being stuck to the ground, at least with Acrobatics you can run on the street and find the "?" and "!" at street level and then climb and glide to find others, but Flight is by far the easiest imho, but still limiting. I have to sly around at street level to look for those clue thingys.
"?" and "!" are now officially 'clue thingys' in my book... until I learn what I should be calling them. See even a noob at talking about aspects of the game. This is a sad day.

Truth be told, I do actually enjoy going out and fumbling my way though missions and wasting TONS of time just exploring and actually listening to and reading the game for the storyline and quests. Something that we don't do in EQ because you can read it all on line or you can bypass it all by just looking up the keywords in the [word] brackets. Not that I find much of it that interesting but they did a decent job of keeping the story lines in line with what I know and expect from the comics.
Once I learn my way around a bit; how to advance levels faster, and which give the better gear, and find and learn to use a class combo that I really like, I think I will make a toon on the PvP server. Watching all the villains running around my city cop killing and such without being able to put the heroic smack down is surprisingly irritating.

 

[Morx]

Haha! heroic smack down! That's awesome. Just last night while doing the Bane quest line, I was in an area that had a lot of villains. I wanted to just PvP and kick all their butts!! haha. I could only imagine the area on a PvP server would be a hotbed for open world PvP activity.

It's amazing what a little knowledge will do for my addiction factor. I just spent a bit of time on the forums. Reading about "things all newbies should know" threads, and also reading more about Ice Tanks, and the Brawling weapon type, and now all I want to do is get home from work so I can login and try all this stuff.

Ahhh.. it's been so long since I've been a noob in a game, and I think it took a while to get used to it again!!

Love this game! Love the addicted/fiending feeling. Like I gotta get home right now to play!

 

[VyralPandemic]

Haha! heroic smack down! That's awesome.

Yeah, chuckled a bit when I wrote it. =)

I just spent a bit of time on the forums. Reading about "things all newbies should know" threads, and also reading more about Ice Tanks, and the Brawling weapon type, and now all I want to do is get home from work so I can login and try all this stuff.

Where'd you find the newb post? I would love to read it.

I have an ice tank. I went with Martial Arts instead of Brawling. I love being able to pull them all into me and drop some AEs and that circle of ice. I also just got a smoke bomb effect so I can AE stun now, and cant wait to test that out.

Though, ith what I have seen duel wielders do to groups of mobs, I may have to go duel / ice. I love that for $500 in game you can respec, so I can just blow some cash and try duel wield without having to roll a new one and level them. Will need to think about weapons before I do that though, my new katars are real nice.

 

[Morx]

I'll find the link again. It was in someone's sig on the SOE forums.

As far as I know in regards to weapon respecs, is that the weapon you choose during character creation, you have a free point in it. But in the end, 1 point isn't going to make a huge difference. So you can respec into other weapon types. But also remember, the quest rewards have all been weapon based, for some of them, and that'd suck to have to find all your weapons through drops/instances, instead of a few key placed weapon quest rewards.