The Battle of the Legends took place last night, Wednesday the 5th, across the beta's many servers, and was basically a way to say thanks and goodbye to the beta and its testers. Essentially the idea was to hearken back to the intro cinematic which shows the heroes and villains killing one another as Brainiac invades and takes over Earth. This time however the invasion included not only the iconic DC characters (even that nifty future-armored Batman) but the players as well. I took part in that epic hero versus villain battle from the cinematic. It was mass-chaos in Metropolis' Centennial Park and in Gotham's Botanical Gardens as heroes and villains fought one another not knowing that Brainiac's forces were on their way. The whole thing was sort of like the developers' way of saying that "Yeah, fighting each other is fun but sometimes you might need to work together or lose everything." It was a fun event, but there were definitely some niggling problems when putting that many heroes together in the same spots... crashes were abundant for me and others.
That said the event was a lot of fun. It was insane to see the kind of diversity in costumes with the hundreds-plus players crowding the area, and insanely hectic when the PvP broke out. In the end, I was sad to see my Ice-Brawler Hero go, even though I plan on going Villain come live. Still, knowing what's coming down the pipe I'm pretty stoked as we move into launch on Tuesday. Does the game have issues? Absolutely, and I've no doubt they'll be addressed swiftly, if the beta is any indicator. While the difficulty changes are probably set in soft stone at this point, I recently got to chat with Game Director Chris Cao about what's on deck for the game among other things.
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Folks who think the curve of difficulty got lifted a little too high will be happy to know that Chris and team are still taking in all the info they can to make sure that end-game encounters are tuned to be hard, but not "throw-your-controller" hard. We also got to chat about the Marketplace, and he assured me that it will always play second-fiddle to the subscription fee: meaning it'll be for cosmetic stuff and convenience fluff primarily. He also gave me some good insight as to what and how they'll be achieving their "New Content Every Month" promise. I'm pretty sure that if they pull off what they're talking about, DCUO will be one of the most content-rich games within its first year. But for the rest of the details, you'll have to wait until Tuesday when the interview goes up.
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And this is where I have to get on my soap box a little bit. I know I've been clamoring about this game for a while, and I've just as much tried to offer my critiques on it. I know it's not perfect, I know there are areas that need some work. But it's incredibly fun for me, and I'll gladly drop my $15 a month on it. What confuses me is how people can claim it's not worth the subscription because you don't have crafting... that's essentially the argument I'm seeing. It boils down to the fact that it doesn't have crafting or "down-time" stuff to do. That may be what some folks need out of their subscription, but when I hear a company promise significant monthly content updates, that is more than enough reason for me to sign up for a subscription. There will be something new every month.
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If they don't meet that promise, and consistently miss their target on adding new stuff? That's when you complain. But the way I see it the subscription fee will be paying for tons of added content. Specifics may still be forthcoming, but I don't think people will be dissatisfied. On the contrary, DCUO will be giving a lot of subscription games something to ponder if they can pull it off. I just simply cannot agree with the "not worth a sub" crowd. And that's okay, we're allowed to disagree. I just happen to be right this time. Insert smiley face with a wink here.
