TOG - The Older Gamers

GiantDave7 · 7th December 2010, 02:56 PM

I know a few of you have been discussing DCUO and its release some time around 1st quarter (fingers crossed).

Now that the NDA has been lifted I though I might share with you all some of my impression from the Closed Beta.

First a note: I have been playing on the PC through the Beta. My understanding is that the PS3 Beta is still not available but I hope to give it a try when it is. That being said I will attempt to give an impression were I feel the PS3 version will differ.

Please beware of possible spoilers below. I try to avoid them but some may slip through.

Also, I have only been playing hero so far so I know little about the villain quest lines.

For anyone who has not seen the awesome cinematic tailer a little background on the story. Lex Luthor from an alternate future has come back in time to warn the heroes and villains of the world about an imminent attack by Brainiac that will end the world as we know it. In order to fast track the defence of earth, Luthor releases a plague of nanobots into the atmosphere that impart superhuman abilities. Hence you have thousands of super powered player characters running around preparing the world for Brainiacs arrival.

The tutorial and first 3 levels involves you escaping from Brainiacs ship.
This is where you get a first taste of the game and its controls. On the PC the controls are quite similar to most other MMO's. You have a skill bar labelled with the numbers 1-8 which mach the keys on the keyboard for use of special abilities an consumables like health cans.

Where controls differ is with the action controls. Unlike most MMO's there is no auto attack function. The left mouse button does a short range melee attack while the right mouse button is for ranged attacks. As you level up and start placing skill points, you will begin using click combos to pull off different attacks. After a little bit of adjustment this method of control became quite intuitive. It is also a point where I thought the game had been optimised for PS3 as I would imagine you would control LMB/RMB with the left and right triggers on the PS3 controller.

After finishing the tutorial I was deposited in Metropolis with 2 or 3 quests already in my quest log. This was one area that I was very confused with at first. When you brgin playing it feels like there are very few quests in the game as you have the 3 or so quests in your journal and you pick up another from the kiosk in the police station where you start. It was only after levelling a little further that I determined how quests were functioning in this game.

The main quest lines are added to your quest log automatically each time you level, so there is no need to wander the world and find the particular people you need to talk to to start a quest. There are also secondary quests that are given through interactions with the world such as the aforementioned kiosk which begins a series of quests that show you around the landmarks of the zones (for those that like the DC lore, Booster Gold drives you around these quests and each area you visit is accompanied by a nice little fly around and commentary by Booster Gold throwing in the expected Booster Gold product placement which I had to laugh at sometimes).

I should probably mention here that the game is fully voiced. Each time you start a main quest line a DC hero gives you a voiced over rundown of what is happening and why and then as you progress a voiceover of Oracle gives you updates. This was a very nice touch, particularly since they have the voice talents we know from the cartoons that we have come to expect such as Mark Hamill for the Joker, Kevin Conroy for Batman and Adam Baldwin for Superman. While not all the voices are in the game yet (you could pick where the Devs had used their own voices for stopgaps) it really added to the immersion and put the focus on listening to the story rather than reading quest text.

Once you begin a quest by clicking activate in your quest log, a nice arrow on the minimap drives you to the area you need to work in for the quest and a box shows you the general bounds of what you are looking for. This is nice as it means there is a minimum of driving on a map to find what you want. In fact I think I have only opened the map a couple of times since starting and then it was really just to find the closest police station or to go see a particular landmark like the Daily Planet (which is encased in a Brainiac bubble damn it).

Most times you will find one or two secondary quests from people standing near the areas you need to work in which you can take for a little bit extra XP.
The general flow of quest lines is A couple of open world kill these guys and take their stuff, followed by an instance with a minor boss then one or two more kill guys and take their stuff with a final instance and the boss which are usually DC characters such as Scarecrow or Bane.

Also, at times other DC heroes like Nightwing and Zatanna will join you for boss battles and instances so there is a constant feeling of being part of the DC Universe.

I’m going to leave my little preview here and come back later with some information regarding Zones, Wanted posters and skills.

Pure Mongrel · 7th December 2010, 05:07 PM

Thanks for the write up dude! +1

Do you think it will work on PS3 as well as PC? Will players from both platforms be able to play with each other?

Did you ever try Champions online? If so how do they compare?

As an unashamed comic art fan, I am eager to play this title.

Pure Mongrel · 7th December 2010, 10:53 PM

DC Universe Online Video Game, NYC Comic-Con 09: PS3 Controller Walkthrough (Cam) | Video Clip | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com

George · 7th December 2010, 11:13 PM

Nice one dave

GiantDave7 · 8th December 2010, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pure Mongrel

Do you think it will work on PS3 as well as PC? Will players from both platforms be able to play with each other?

Did you ever try Champions online? If so how do they compare?

As an unashamed comic art fan, I am eager to play this title.

I think it will work as well on PS3 as the PC version I've been playing. In fact, in terms of the interface and controls, it actually feels like the PC version is a port of a PS3 product. The only thing I wonder is how they will map the 8 button skill bar to the controller? I figure they will use the 4 button D-pad and then have L1 or R1 be a switcher between buttons 1-4 and 5-8.

I'm not sure how it compares to Champions but in terms of City of Heroes it feels more like you are part of a larger world simply from the constant reminder via interaction that the DC heroes and villains are running about the world and you interact with them quite a bit. In CoH I didn't feel this as much.

The art is awesome. You can definitely see Jim Lee's art style in the DC heroes of the world and other NPC characters.

I'll try to get around to wiritn gup some more today. Works pretty quite and my boss isn't around

Unfortunately WoW: Cataclysm (evil PC gaming

) is eating up my time at home with the fiancee.

Xavien · 8th December 2010, 11:24 AM

I could tell you alot about champions but unfortuantely i cant compare it to dc online as i was not part of the beta

Cadder · 8th December 2010, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GiantDave7

I think it will work as well on PS3 as the PC version I've been playing. In fact, in terms of the interface and controls, it actually feels like the PC version is a port of a PS3 product. The only thing I wonder is how they will map the 8 button skill bar to the controller? I figure they will use the 4 button D-pad and then have L1 or R1 be a switcher between buttons 1-4 and 5-8.

My guess is it would work the same way as weapon selection in Warhawk did. The Dpad could select diagonally as well as orthogonally.