DC Universe Online: Month One Thoughts

Looks sort of like a black Randy Orton.

What I noticed off the bat is that the customization is not as robust as City of Heroes. The models are more detailed but the options are simplified so I couldn’t make anything remotely close the characters I had in CoH. You’re allowed to use only three colors for the entire character. So I went with red ,black and white as you can see. The hair styles are few but they have a bunch of facial hair options with them. However as you find items in the game you can allow those items to change your appearance as you equip them or you can keep your look the same and just get the benefits from them. You do also get to unlock random articles of regular clothing to have a secret identity if you are into role playing or just having a day outfit.

Having a drink with Lady Ga-err Ghost Widow

While these being mainly cosmetic, the real core of the game are the super powers. I honestly did not know what to expect since I missed the Beta. While the PC games give you a ton of powers to work with, DCUO game gives you a few limited trees for super powers and attack powers. Since my brute in CoH was super strong and invulnerable, I tried to recreate that same magic. Sadly I couldn’t so I took fire manipulation (sounds a lot like my last relationship, get it? No? Awww) and brawling. With two powers you receive access to 3 skill tress; two for your super power one for your attack powers. Your travel power is already determined when you create a character (I chose flight). There’s also a set of Iconic Powers that are available to you starting at level 10. These powers are the DC superhero powers such as heat vision, bat-arang throwing, magic lasso,etc. What’s really cool about the power sets even though they are limited is that you’re not married to on specific tree. You’re free to pick and choose what you want to specialize in.The same goes for your attack powers, you may unlock all of your attack but at a certain level you can unlock the other trees as well and gain benefits from them. I think that is an interesting way of handling the limited power pools.

Rienfist and I take it to the streets

When it comes to combat, the game is very action packed. It’s the the traditional RPG with constant rolls and checks. All the values are check as you’re fighting so there is a chance for status to happen or not to happen, breaking free of holds, doing critical damage,etc. Unlike traditional MMO’swhere battles usually take place on the ground fights can take place any where which is a cool feature. I fought on the side of a building once against a super speedster. The powers have cool down times like traditional MMO’s but the regular attacks work on a combo system. So in theory you can combo into attacks and create strings and loops (for the fighting game players) or basic manual macros (RTS and RPG players). The combat itself does feel satisfying. You really feel like you’ve beaten a hero or villain. There have been times while playing PvP (player vs player) that I have been ambushed my multiple low level heroes and I have beaten them all. Sometimes I lose those fights depending on the power sets in that group of heroes that are attacking .

Phire and his Hateocracy hunting down Bane

Community wise it feels as if the villains are more mature and are better players but there aren’t many. While the heroes are just basically the stereotypical “Internet-kid”.  Heroes seem numerous and not quite as skilled. Villains tend to work lone wolf to accomplish some tasks teaming up for hunting big NPC’s or doing missions while heroes just seem to party up to just ambush villains while they do missions.

You don't know about the League brah?

I have a few gripes with the game already. My first problem is with the in game loading. There have been quite a few times where I’m flying through Metropolis or Gotham and everything is seemingly deserted, when I land I start taking damage and then I suddenly die. Then what happens is everything loads at once and I see not only 50 NPC’s attacking me but a hero or two. This also extends to the attacks by the what I call the “Shadow Men” characters both playable and non who have not loaded fully but are just shadows of models attacking you. They have their super powers but you cannot tell if they are a regular NPC or a player until a few minutes later. The rendering on buildings and your character at some points look terrible. Some days when I log in I feel like I’m playing a game with claymation figures. I don’t know if this is due to the strain on the server since every server is running high to full. Maybe the PC version is better with this.

Another issue I have been having is lag. Lag in PvP on the streets mainly. There have been the times where I could not heal because of lag. When I am defeated (not by Magneto) I heal then. Gee, thanks, my corpse was thirsty so it wanted to drink one of my sodas. My feeling is that when I play this game very late at night or early in the day when the server load is low, the game runs fine all of the issues I have aren’t present. So I figure once people have to start paying for the game some of these issues will fade away.

Helping the Hateocracy clean those streets.

Things that are wrong with this game so far that aren’t population problems are just the bugs, there are a ton of them. Glitching NPCs and missions top the list. Parts of the city sometimes that are unstable so you just fall through the ground constantly happens fairly often. The transition from attacking or being attacked to your travel power is very awkward. It looks like your either sitting down and flying away or walking really fast up a building. Buggy interfaces plague this game. Opening the map or just fixing your character can be an adventure. One night my whole entire menu locked out and I could not do anything. The social interface short cut needs work because it freezes at it’s own leisure.