DCUO- will be out November 2. Can apply for beta on main site now.

[rk47]

They really had no idea how big of an IP they're holding do they? I mean, there can't be zero interest in this. Champ O might be understandable. I mean, who the bloody hell knows about Champ O outside of gamers. But non gamers who're told DCUO is free would probably flock and indulge in some weekend fantasy of working with Batman etc. It's definitely a big IP that would require more than a single server to maintain.

[luckton]

They did things in the wrong order.  Had they gone F2P before merging servers, they wouldn't be in this situation.

Granted, they originally had delusions of grandeur thinking that this would be some kind of WoW killer and would never go F2P, but 

[Nebu]

I've said it before and I'll say it again... I enjoyed the hell out of this game.  All it needed was about 5 times more content and a more fleshed out combat system.  The month at I played gave me a lot of fun.  It just had no stickiness to it. 

[Ragnoros]

Holy bandwidth Batman! Downloading now, how can a 17gig game manage to have no content? FFS. I got 40+ hours out of Terraria, a FIFTEEN MEGABYTE GAME.

[Nebu]

Holy bandwidth Batman! Downloading now, how can a 17gig game manage to have no content? FFS. I got 40+ hours out of Terraria, a FIFTEEN MEGABYTE GAME.

It's purdy? 

[Rokal]

Played a bit more today and ran into a few problems. 2k queue to log in, saw a little bit of rubber banding, and eventually fell through the world and was unable to use portals (after teleporting to a police station). So.. not especially stable, but I still had fun.

[Lantyssa]

The appearance system is great!  It's like the best bits of CoH, Free Realms, and a collection game rolled into one.  Getting your movement power at creation is nice.  Not tying weapons to power sets was a good decision.  Combat isn't perfect, but a great improvement over other MMOs.

Unfortunately the number of power sets is really limited and same with the movement modes.  It'll also be a while before the game is stable due to the influx of us newbies.

[Amaron]

I redownloaded the game because it wasn't on steam at one point.   So I logged in and I couldn't look at the market because I didn't install from Steam.   

[UnSub]

Holy bandwidth Batman! Downloading now, how can a 17gig game manage to have no content?

It's fully-voiced content, plus it can be pretty.

There's content, but the unique missions per mentor are very limited. It's basically a console title spun out into MMO - you'll enjoy those 20 hours, but then you'll put it down and move on.

It also doesn't help that the early (and main) beta had a high concentration of DC fanbois, DC employees and those in love with just running around the DC universe. I think that process of testing stopped a lot of discussion about DCUO's flaws.

[Rokal]

Given the (apparent) lack of content, I'm also a little confused about their F2P business model. Unless I'm mistaken, the only content they are currently selling is the Green Lantern pack. Beyond that, their store offerings are mostly cosmetic items. That's nice and all, but players already have hundreds of cosmetic armor options for free. It seems like people can spend between $0-10 and be able to experience all the content in the game. How are they expecting to entice people to become subscribers, or keep the game profitable after everyone has made their initial $0-10 investment?

It's possible they're going to be much more aggressive about releasing new content (and charging $10 a pop to non-subs), but I'd be surprised if they really had that much content in development.

[Furiously]

5327 in queue.....

[Dren]

I only downloaded and started to play because it was F2P, otherwise, not even a glance from me.  It worked for them because I liked it and played enough to feel like spending 15 bucks for the first month and get legendary status.  Mainly it is due to the DC stuff being done really well and the PvP server being pretty fun.  Each quest is a wildcard with all the open world pvp going on....fun!

Anyway, all that is being crushed under the huge Queues that end in a permanent freeze at the splashscreen.....  It is hard to believe they felt they could handle the influx of f2p on just one server for US and one for Euro.  Plays well if you get up early and play off-hours...

[Kageru]

They know retention is going to be only a tiny percentage of the current load and new servers are expensive. Crime-craft had the same problem when they did a steam promotion. I'm not sure if it's possible for them to rent servers for short term use but that's pretty much what it would take.

[Bzalthek]

Meh, twice back to back I sit through a 5k+ queue and lock up on the loading screen.  It's fun, but not that fun.

[Furiously]

I'm not feeling the "fun" in the game. I love the costume system. But there is no soul to the game.

[Kageru]

I suspect SoE's management pretty much guarantee's that outcome.

[rk47]

I like it a lot. Peak server issues are preventing me from committing though. Well, hit level 10 and really want to come back. It's great.

[Dren]

I was able to get in during peak times this weekend just by trying over and over through queues and through the splashscreen freeze issue.  Annoying, but I was stuck at home doing  nothing but making sure my kids didn't trash the house.  So, once I did get in, I tried like hell not to ever log back out!

I'm fine with the $14.99 I paid.  For now, the massive amounts of open world pvp going on is what is the most fun for me.  Second is just the story arcs for the questlines.  I'm having fun with them. 

I do feel the game itself is pretty shallow.  The costumes are well done, but very limited compared to the other super hero mmo's.  I do like that you can lock your look, but that's nothing new.  The skill and power trees are well done from what I can tell, but I'm predicting that the number of stun and knock down abilities are doing to get old in PvP.  There is no crafting.  The travel powers are nice, but not sure I'd do anything but flight.  I'd go on, but don't have time.

I'm sure they'll expand with more things, so it remains to be seen how long I keep paying.  I figure I'll get enough outdoor raw chaotic pvp action to get my fill.  I think my main reason for accepting so much open pvp is that I am not in any hurry to get to endgame given the shallow nature of the game.  Why rush to 30?(I'm already lvl 15 on a toon I started that same day!)  Do you get bored 30's picking on lvl 5's?  Yep, but I've seen 2-3 lvl 5's take out a 30 too.  It is just part of the fun of having massive amounts of people playing the same area.  I've complained about that in other games, but for some reason, this one benefits from it.  I'll reassess 2-3 weeks from now.

[Tyrnan]

Did they ever address the issue with people using programmable gamepads and frame cancelling to hit people for ridiculous amounts of damage pretty much instantaneously? I only dabbled a little in PvP back when I played at launch but I remember it being a pretty huge issue back then and a lot of people claiming they were quitting over it.

[Dren]

I haven't experienced that myself, but that's a poor strawman to rely on.  I am not a forum jocky at all.  I just log in and play.

I could see that being an issue if you play arenas, which I haven't.  I'm just talking open/world PvP, which is really just done for fun considering there isn't any direct benefit in winning a fight.  I suppose people could get off on pissing everyone off by one shotting them, but that has to be a pretty low occurence.

The biggest issue is that you can chain cc with basically any build, which is why I suggested the shear number of stuns/knock-downs/snare abilities could become a problem long term.  So, I've learned to be extremely aggressive with world PvP.  If you see a red, attack and kill it.  You just can't assume they'll leave you alone because if two players are good, it is all about who starts locking down who first.  If a gang gets the drop on you, just die and come back.  Normally you can avoid this by looking at the map.  See a lot of red dots?  Best to be getting out of that area and/or find other green dots.

[UnSub]

Did they ever address the issue with people using programmable gamepads and frame cancelling to hit people for ridiculous amounts of damage pretty much instantaneously? I only dabbled a little in PvP back when I played at launch but I remember it being a pretty huge issue back then and a lot of people claiming they were quitting over it.

I can't guarantee it, but a lot of work went into removing those kind of massively unbalancing PvP quirks (like the above, or making your character go invisible).

[Minvaren]

"Zone unavailable - exit the game and restart."

Well, suppose that's better than the zone-hang thing EQ had going on...

Aside from the connectivity issues, it's a fun little game thus far.  We'll see about staying power in another 2-3 weeks, though.

[Dren]

I noticed the queues are down to around 1000 primetime weekday now.  That sounds large, but takes maybe 3-4 minutes to get through.  The splashscreen freeze has seemed to go away, but I'm guessing it has something to do with timing out after waiting on a 5000+ queue on the weekends.

It will be interesting to see the subscription stats through all this.  I'd like to know the real numbers behind F2P players to Sub players.  All I know right now is there are a TON of players everywhere with open PvP happening around every corner in a big way.  If you are into that kind of thing, get in for free while the fun lasts. (2-3 weeks?)

The only thing I've noticed from free to sub since I paid my 15 bucks is more bag space, more characters to make, and an unlimited cash pocket.  You can easily level from 0-15 without paying a dime and that's where the huge amount of open world PvP is happening right now.

Why did I pay?  I still believe in paying for playing if I'm a regular, even for a short time.  I also wanted to have the extra character slots for my kids to play around.  At a minimum they love to make their own heros/villains.  (It could be my own guilty pleasure too....just maybe.)

[Threash]

900 person queue took about a minute to go through, what was the point of that.  Having loads of fun so far, although the costume sets felt very limited compared to the other super hero games.  Is the pvp on this any good?

[Dren]

900 person queue took about a minute to go through, what was the point of that.  Having loads of fun so far, although the costume sets felt very limited compared to the other super hero games.  Is the pvp on this any good?

I felt the same on the costumes, but as you play you unlock more and more items to play with on your image set.  You can either let the items you wear change your appearance or lock certain things on your appearance tab.  You can mix and match anytime you want.

The PvP I've done is all just open PvP.  I haven't done arenas.  The open PvP is rather chaotic and fast paced.  It seems like button mashing at first until you get used to your character and the visual effects of spells.  You eventually get a feel for the fast paced combat and get better.  The big thing is to quickly realize when you are the  main target and how to break out of CC and start pulling opposing teams apart so others can step in to tear them down.

Remember, "Shift" is your break-CC friend.  Use it!

[Kitsune]

When I heard they were putting green lantern stuff into the game, I was really encouraged.  I thought it was a great idea; since the lantern corps has thousands of members it's easy to be unique yet still part of an established DC group instead of Generic Red Tights Man.

Then I found out that you can't actually join the corps or wear their symbol, you get to be a "reservist".   

[Soln]

anyone else get this?

1. Change Password
2. Try to login
3. Told to fuck-off:  "Wrong username or password."
?

Uh no.

Is there some magical wait period the new station name and pw to update?

[caladein]

No, I was able to go from changing my SOE password to using it pretty much instantly last night.

[Scold]

I tried rebinding my keys to the keys I like in every MMO.


You can bind the forward and back keys.

You can bind the side-stepping (strafing) keys.


You... can't bind keys to turn left and right?

What the fuck?

[Nebu]

I found it much easier to play with a controller if that's any help. 

[Soln]

ok getting weirder.  

I try changing my password, and still no joy.  So just to get playing I create a new Station account via the log in client.  Log in, works, download starts.  I stop it to check the location of the install.  Start it again, and won't let me log in.... with the entirely new account I just created.  W-T-SOE?  


EDIT:  HAHA just figured it out.  SOE in their magnificence requires 8-15 characters for a password.  I was using 16, but they never told me they had truncated it.  LOL Fawk.

[Cyrrex]

I found it much easier to play with a controller if that's any help. 

Definitely this.  Game is loads better with an xbox controller.

[Lantyssa]

EDIT:  HAHA just figured it out.  SOE in their magnificence requires 8-15 characters for a password.  I was using 16, but they never told me they had truncated it.  LOL Fawk.

I hate when the behavior of entering a password acts differently than the log-in.

[Zetor]

Same with all ncsoft games - your password is truncated after the first 13 chars, though at least there it's sorta-obvious (the 'password' field on the plaync site has a max length of 13).

Come to think of it, a lot of places on teh intarweb silently truncate your password and don't tell you about it. It's also why (all-lowercase) passphrases are not that good in practice.

[Threash]

Character power directly tied to achievement hunting? fuck, i know some people who would be gods at this game.