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DC Universe Online: E3 2009 Preview
SOE had the game on the floor, hands-on to anyone who walked by. We took some time and ran through a Villain mission with Senior Producer Wes Yanagi.
For the first time publicly, SOE showed off DC Universe Online using a Playstation 3. It’s been known for quite some time that the game was headed to both the console and PC, but for this show, people could get a sense of how it worked with the controller in hand.
Unlike most MMOs, DC doesn't usually give the players 20 possible attacks in their hot bar at any given time. It's a simpler, faster experience and depending on the user's comfort with a console controller (specifically the camera), should be very familiar to that brand of gamer.
The bottom line is that the game looks and feels like a super-hero experience should. It's fast, things are exploding and flying around. There's nothing quite like a running street fight at 200 mph to make someone feel heroic.
;)
For a few more details on the game's nuts and bolts, check out this hands-on preview we did a couple months ago in Austin.
The demonstration showed what has become a hallmark of their game. Competitive quests with mutually exclusive goals for heroes and villains. In our demonstration, the villain group was tasked with stealing the source of a virus that turned regular people into mutants, while the heroes had to contain and cure it.
Naturally this all went down within the iconic Star Labs, a never-ending parade of bad ideas in the heart of Metropolis.
The mission gave them the chance to demonstrate some of the day-to-day gameplay. In this case, the villain characters had to help some iconic bad guys at each step of the way. It began with a stream of Star Labs mutated security that had to be knocked out and collared, with a special tool the Joker provided, to make them follow orders.
;)
Of course, the bad guys wanted to harness the mutants for their own evil ends.
On the way down the hallway, they showed us their rapid fire gameplay that uses the game’s physics to good effect. There were explosions, people zooming around and whizzing through the air. Even within rather tight hallways, the battle looked pretty heroic.
Eventually, the villains came up against a super-mutant who they had to defeat to capture the specimen. Again, iconic characters were around, but it was up to the player to fight along side them. In this case Bizzaro and others. Once defeated, the specimen itself, naturally the size of a small car, had to be carried to an end point where it could be nefariously put to use.
Luckily, the villain wasn’t just walking around with her pants down as she lugged the thing. It became a physics object too and she used it to slaughter a few bad guys, before continuing on her way.
;)
In the final encounter, the Green Lantern was on hand to try and take the villains down. These iconic characters can be defeated, but obviously never truly killed. Senior Producer Wes Yanagi mentioned that in true comic book fashion, that while the player may have to defeat Superman in a mission, there is usually some extenuating circumstances, such as a case of Kryptonite in the room. For example, when a player takes down Doomsday, he doesn’t just fall over dead. Instead, he is knocked out and they have to bind him and ship him off before he wakes back up.
Once victorious, they showed off a couple new systems. The player achieved a “Headline,” which popped up in old newspaper style to taut the achievement. They also got encounter loot.
In super-hero games, people spend a lot of time on the look and feel of their characters. SOE wants to preserve that hard work, but they also want loot and items to be an important element of the game.
In this case, the player received a new helmet. Like normal loot, it has intrinsic benefits and can be worn. The game automatically applies the hero or villain’s color scheme to it, so it fits right in.
;)
But what if you don’t want to have a helmet? No issue. Once you get it, what you wear and what you see are not always the same. People can hide the visual representation of that helmet and still hold the benefits. What’s more, if they later get another helmet with an even better bonus, but that would replace something they loved from before, they can equip the benefits of the new helmet, but still retain the option to look like they have the old one on.
It’s a flexible system that defies logic, but so does superheroes in tights.
At E3, DC Universe Online represented one of the most complete, visceral experiences available for hands on time. The game seems to be coming along quite nicely and while there is still a lot of development to be done, it bodes well when a developer is confident enough to leave those controllers open on the floor for anyone who passes by.
Ugh.
Dumbing down MMO UIs so they can be played on a consoles will be the death of MMORPGs. One of the best and striking feature of the MMORPG genre was the fact that ANY given fight you had to make a choice amongst 30-40 options. Choice=good. Choice=situational thinking. Lack of choice=dumbing down.
What a shame, the game appeared to have some potential. As did Champions Online. Too bad.
Oh good, yet another 1st / 3rd person action fighting twitch game,
success depends on how fast you can jiggle a joystick.
And oh ya, they have Pee vee Pee. BFD.
Mile Wide, Inch Deep.
Yawn.
Thanks for the preview and the details from E3. It sounds like the game still has a ways to go before it's even into beta.
Ugh.
My sentiments exactly when I read your post.
Yeah, you have 30 to 40 options and only 5 of those options are actually good.
Also, I would say that DC Universe is more about situational choice then any other MMO. With the action style combat and physics engine you can do things in DC Universe that you only wish you could in other MMOs.
One of those choices is detailed in this preview too: being able to pick up a fallen enemy and swing it around like a weapon.
Hmm sounds like you jump to conclusions too fast. It's the same reason why you don't have any friends. You don't get to know anyone before passing judgement. Same could be said about this game.
Just kidding... but I have a feeling I'm more right than one would admit.
Yup, CO going the same way as this 'console style' interface, where you can only ever actually have about 7 powers.
I certainly wont be buying either of them.
Hmm sounds like you jump to conclusions too fast. It's the same reason why you don't have any friends. You don't get to know anyone before passing judgement. Same could be said about this game.
Just kidding... but I have a feeling I'm more right than one would admit.
No he's quite right, Im in the Champions Beta and its exactly the same, while characters all may look different they are all using pretty much the same powers, its hideously boring. you get to level 15 and still only have about 3 powers.
You do have loads of gear options, but its worth noting that on CO you never get the option to view this gear its always invisible, so thats one thing which DC has.
But the critical point is MMO's being developed for consoles are nothing like proper PC MMO's, very boring, very linear and not the kind of games that you can play for months and months on end.
i wont be playing this so i dotn care or know if its been spoken about but how infantile is it to pick up busses and go smash. i mean really.
Good grief, I thought I had the prerogative for skepticism here!
Seriously, first it is WAY too early to bash this game, it is frigging Alpha. Pre Alpha actually. And then, I find the idea of a more action oriented combat cool. This classic MMO combat is SO overdone. The ridiculous was in which 120 bears are equally spread over some meadow, all standing there in idle mode, waiting for you and you hack hack hack 5 minutes on one bear, then move on to the next... that is so boring for me now.
And what good IS IT to have 40 attacks, really? I mean cool you can litter your screen with 5 quickbars full of attacks, and then press 1-40 all over. But looking at all the various attacks in EQ2, LOTRO or whatever, they are really usually only different in name and some weird stats. They dont really make a different feel in combat to me. I prefer to have few but cool and distinctive attacks over having 40 meaningless cookiee cutter "symbolic combat" attacks at any day!
I find the concepts of DCU - and CO, to make a more action oriented combat both the only fitting for a Superhero game, as well as highly needed. Which of the two will better in the end remains to be seen. Both seem to have their pros and cons, in comparision. It is still quite away it seems, tho. But for a pre-alpha stage I thought it looks quite alright. At least little to really already bitch about. ;)
*sigh* Cryptic really should have been more informative. So many false ideas about the game circling. Cant say more.
Champions Online will be using different interfaces for both the PC and Console
www.massively.com/2009/03/11/champions-online-console-launch-will-be-delayed/
release both games with completely different UI models to take advantage of the different platform types
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This glowing review seems to miss some huge roadblocks this game faces. It is going to be entering into a crowded hero niche. Seems the only thing SOE is aiming for is to garner the console market, except that the PS3 is at the bottom with a significant gap between it and the other console providers.
First off making a game playable by a console controller pretty much dumbs the game down to ridiculous levels. Secondly, good luck trying to pvp with a controller verses someone using a mouse/ keyboard.
Just another example of how out of touch SOE with the genre. Anyone thinking this game will bail out SOE is having delusions.
As a RPer I am not happy with the Arcade feel of the game so far. I will hold off any other judgements.
so according to your perceptions,
we should writeoff 3 upcoming mmos
-Champions Online
- Secret World
- Final Fantasy XIV
as being "dumbed down" because they will also be released on console?
I'll wait til I see a console mmo before I judge it
If the game is fun who cares if it is " dumbed down ". Click on a target and hitting a power on a hot bar is so complex.
Enough with the "I hack and the you slash" Type of game! I want speed and action! I think this is going to be like "Ultimate Marvel Alliance" but in a MMO!! That cant be bad!!
Ya know I grew up on comic books but as an mmo player I have no interest in what you are talking about or any of the others who complain about the forty or so attacks you get. For one what makes you think having three attacks during let's say 10 levels will come off any better then having 7 attacks by that point once you play these games you will see all the animations they have thousands of times and I for one would rather take the time using 10 as opposed to the three you are talking about. How many times will you be able to see yourself throw someone through a wall or hit them with a bus before it gets old?
I guess my point is a few of you are coming off as hyper critical of the opinion of old school players simply for having that opinion. If you are excited about this IMHO shallow game ot Champions good but valid points are being made from a MMO standpoint, maybe with these new offerings they will be able to tap into the "console" market with an mmo model and if so I'm glad for them but I'll stick to games like LOTRO (which by the way gives you a reason to use your different abilities often enough that you learn to use all of the abilities with traits) and hell even Conan.
The average mmo gamer isn't going to hang out in an arcade all day for pvp and I highly doubt many fans of hardcore mmo pvp will give this game much of a chance either, in regards to the game graphically it looks better than it did when they first started showing it and looks like it may run smooth(which is going to have much more to do with lack of options compared to most mmos) but these games are going to arguably be a small step above coh/v or a step below and though the game was fun that isn't saying much.
Only 1 Problem here. Three little words that tells me this game is a failure from the start.
SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT
No thank you, F* this game and F* Sony Online Entertainment. They ruin every game they get there hands on. Whether it's just publishing or not.