Former MMORPG.com Editor Dana Massey pens this hands on preview report from his recent trip to SOE Austin where they are making DC Universe

MMOs are supposed to be about escapism. The good ones allow players to forget their troubles and just enjoy some time in a land that is equal parts video game and imagination. Yet, as MMOs evolved and became more complex, this simplistic joy was filed down. Escapism isn’t about robust character creation or talking in Old English. It’s when players are allowed to enjoy a world in their own way.

If an early version of DC Universe Online represents what is to come, then this is something SOE has definitely gotten out of the way and let players enjoy themselves. Recently, they were kind enough to show me the game at SOE’s Austin studio. It is early and clearly there are miles to go before this is a full game, but the core experience is already there. Characters can run around at sonic speeds, beat the crap out of each other and take part in some archetypical missions. SOE definitely understood that less can be more and through a some simple, but important design decisions, have a game where players will truly be able to lose themselves.

Read Hands-On Preview

Hm...

It sounds not bad. But I am still at odds with the PVP-heavy concept. I am no fan of PVP, besides doing it once and then, and I am really unsure wether there really are so many who like Superhero games AND PVP. Not at all. PVP is a very special breed of gamers. With the Warhammer brand it was kinda logical, but with Superhero players? I dunno. I hope there will be servers were you can play PVP only when you positively activate it. In DAOC it was to capture keeps and terretories, but getting possibly ganked at every single step in such a game does not sound like a relaxing spare time to me. We'll see.

This sounds great, I'm waiting on this and Champions Online, I want to see which will be better :P

I'm not a HUGE fan of PvP, but I also dont shy away from it.  I just dont like the "ganking of lowbies" and people refering to it as PvPness.

I had written off this game when I found out that SoE was making it and that it had a large amount of PvP content, but as soon as the PvP system was likened to that of WAR I found myself interested again as I thoroughly enjoyed the RvR of WAR, that is saying something when your a confirmed carebear =).

I'm also looking forward to Champions Online but I'l add this one to my list aswell, I'm leanding away from traditional MMO's these days and want to get into a completely different theme and I've very happy that more developers are trying out new ideas, rather than the safe elves and orcs route.

 SOE was wise to pick up on the Public Quest design that Warhammer has implemented. Now, learn from the the missteps of the Public Quest system and make it better!

- Reward system - will you have a random loot roll which gives anyone the possibility of capturing the grand prize, no matter how much contributed to the event?

- Influence system - will there is a reward for dedication to the event even if you dont "win"

- Will the rewards be worth competing for?

- Will there be code to challenge smaller groups or do you need a raid for every event?

- How will you keep starting zones from becoming ghost towns six months or more down the road? Will an area have random hot spots flare up where villians and heroes alike can compete for their goals?

- Will the losing faction be "locked out" of the PQ progression or will they still be able to interfere with the enemy to try to stop them from achieving PQ completion? If I had my way, I would provide a boon to the winner of the PQ stage and let the loser try to thwart further progression of your PQ. By Boon, it could either be a temporary buff, a temporary power, a powerful NPC unlocked to fight the enemy, an environmental change which puts the enemy side at a disadvantage (example a building crumbles and the loser has to scour through the rubble to fight , maybe inhibitng flight, etc. Another example could be a blinding flash which causes enemy screens to blur for a minute or two, etc.

Good work, SOE, to make competitive PQs!

not a huge fan of superhero games....but this sounds very good thus far....i will have to keep an eye out on it

Originally posted by Elikal

Hm...

It sounds not bad. But I am still at odds with the PVP-heavy concept. I am no fan of PVP, besides doing it once and then, and I am really unsure wether there really are so many who like Superhero games AND PVP. Not at all. PVP is a very special breed of gamers. With the Warhammer brand it was kinda logical, but with Superhero players? I dunno. I hope there will be servers were you can play PVP only when you positively activate it. In DAOC it was to capture keeps and terretories, but getting possibly ganked at every single step in such a game does not sound like a relaxing spare time to me. We'll see.

I think that you are looking on PvP as too much  "forced fun that im not having". To me getting into a fight with another play should be the most fun someone can have in an MMO as long as its balanced. I think what really turns people off of PvP is the extremely unbalanced games like WoW. What if I posed this question to you, What if you could go into DCUO and have balanced PvP from the start where you and the enemy are on the same playing field and its all up to skill to determine the winner?

If you look at why people love FPS games so much its because, everyone starts out on the same playing field they all just have different ways of getting the kill. Some people run in close with a SMG, some stay far back with a sniper, and it stay like that through the whole game. Which brings up the issue of "Should level dictate how powerful you are?" which to me I say "Hell no!" but there are others who disagree.

If they have consensual pvp I'll play.  If PVP is forced on the player, they will NOT get my money.

Companies still haven't learned that nonconsensual pvp is VERY much a niche game. 

I believe thier idea of PvP will suit me well in that you will have a clear objective to aim for, and that this objective is going to be shared by everyone else who is in that area with you, so the randomness of PvP that you find in other MMO's is nearly eradicated.

Taking away the randomness of PvP and containing it within an area will enable more ppl to interact at the same time as yourself, thus taking away the possibilties of you being the old poor sod to face off against a horde of bad guys all wanting a piece of you, something most of us carebears are only too familar with in other MMO's.

 If this wasn't SOE I would be more intrested. SOE just has too much a rep of shooting themself in the foot for me to put any time into.

I have to admit this preview has piqued my interest. I love the concept of a superhero game and played City of... for a long time, but always felt constrained by the repetitive mission structure and the inherent limits of push-button powers. A simpler approach to the power (super strength makes you strong, it's not a menu of different "punches") along with a more complex relationship with the environment: picking things up, pushing things over, punching, kicking, grabbing... whatever makes sense, sounds like it might really be what has been missing from mmos.

This sounds like it's making a lot of thesame errors Warhammer Online made. The whole thing just sounds like it would get tired quickly.

This is actually starting to sound like it actually might be pretty fun. At the very least it sounds like they are willing to try new things instead of repeating the same formulas over and over again, which as evidenced in recent history, isn't as successful as a lot developers seem to think it it will be.

Plus I have to admit that, as a comic fan, I'm pretty enticed by the idea of being called on to do a solid for Superman or Batman, or perhaps Lex Luthor.

If anyone is at all interested in this game should try City of Heroes/Villians.  I recently came back to it after taking 3 years off playing every other mmo that came out.  COH/V is so far ahead of its time.  It does not have much pvp at all.  You really have to put effort into finding it.  Graphics are great.  leveling system and choice of powers and builds as you level is unlike any other.  Anyway, if you havent checked it out lately and this looks good to you, it sure wouldnt hurt.  Remember Cryptic does City of Heroes/Villians and still puts out recent content updates (read the latest news archetect 14).  Just a suggestion.  have fun.

Thanks Jon, sounds a little like the swappable ablities in MxO without the atrocious combat system (which they tried to fix, but was mostly unfixable). I am interested to see where they go with this title. Your 'hands on' article is enough to keep me interested.

Originally posted by Shreddi

 Remember Cryptic does City of Heroes/Villians and still puts out recent content updates (read the latest news archetect 14).  Just a suggestion.  have fun.

Shreddi, Cryptic left City of Heroes some time ago. It's now being updated by a new division of NCsoft being headed up by Positron. Cryptic let the game go back when the announced the Marvel deal which fell through when Microsoft backed out.

Cryptic is currently wrapping up development on Champions Online, and pushing on the Star Trek mmo.

Originally posted by jiveturkey12

Originally posted by Elikal

Hm...

It sounds not bad. But I am still at odds with the PVP-heavy concept. I am no fan of PVP, besides doing it once and then, and I am really unsure wether there really are so many who like Superhero games AND PVP. Not at all. PVP is a very special breed of gamers. With the Warhammer brand it was kinda logical, but with Superhero players? I dunno. I hope there will be servers were you can play PVP only when you positively activate it. In DAOC it was to capture keeps and terretories, but getting possibly ganked at every single step in such a game does not sound like a relaxing spare time to me. We'll see.

 

I think that you are looking on PvP as too much  "forced fun that im not having". To me getting into a fight with another play should be the most fun someone can have in an MMO as long as its balanced. I think what really turns people off of PvP is the extremely unbalanced games like WoW. What if I posed this question to you, What if you could go into DCUO and have balanced PvP from the start where you and the enemy are on the same playing field and its all up to skill to determine the winner?

 

If you look at why people love FPS games so much its because, everyone starts out on the same playing field they all just have different ways of getting the kill. Some people run in close with a SMG, some stay far back with a sniper, and it stay like that through the whole game. Which brings up the issue of "Should level dictate how powerful you are?" which to me I say "Hell no!" but there are others who disagree.

WAR has taught me one thing: its not so much a matter if its good or bad PVP, but PVP is just not my type of thing. It bores me, simple as that. Other than the PVP part the preview sounded good, so it remains to be see how the rulesets are going to be.

If the concept of PvP is based on the PQ's of WAR then I believe ppl can bypass that aspect of the game and lose very little in the way of gameplay, but thats only if the system is very similar to WAR, if the areas are much much bigger then perhaps that might pose a problem, other than that this carebear would still do a little PvP from time to time =).

Think that the mention of PQ is off.. PQ is about quest anyone can join from one side. , seems here its more of a PVP zone were the quest are given to both parties and that just creates conflict/pvp , "time sink" aka longer game play and supose to enchance the the experiance.
 

It strikes me that in this ghaotic writen preview I find manny things sound like the CO systems.  and  i personaly highly doubt soe has found the idea of  no Newby toons,

When playing checking out a preview its always more advance then starting out in a live game. and newby zones are ofthen build afther the game it self is made to minimize work / chance all the time.

I do think this game could become one of the better in SOE stables but i have more confidence in CO at this time.

I live, eat ,and breath PVP... when I found out this game was going to have a strong PVP element to it I was very very excited. I find it hilarious how many people are getting turned off from this game each time "pvp" is used in one of these interviews. Face it, PVP is the future of MMO's and I doubt you will ever see a game with strict Everquest PVE only gameplay released in the future.

You can claim you do not like PVP or PVP gets boring, however in reality it is either A) You suck at video games or B) You choke under pressure. PVP is the most intense part of MMO's and many peoples reason to even bother playing them in the first place.