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

[Minvaren]

I ran a few "challenge mode" missions last night and aced them, with only adding on 2-3 more skill points and one minor gear upgrade since my last inquiry. 

Acquiring badgers galore, now to up the rep with someone to where I can actually use them.  Toyman dailies seem far more doable in a group than solo.

[Hawkbit]

What are strong solo class skill/weapon combinations, with PvP utility to help with gankings?  I had a fire tanker, but ended up running him more dps oriented.  Around lvl15 he started feeling weak towards mobs, taking too long to kill. 

[Minvaren]

I only PvE, but my main is a gadgets/brawling sort.  Against most L30 mobs it's snare/pull ("get over here!"), whack whack whack dead.

[Dren]

What are strong solo class skill/weapon combinations, with PvP utility to help with gankings?  I had a fire tanker, but ended up running him more dps oriented.  Around lvl15 he started feeling weak towards mobs, taking too long to kill. 

I wanted the same and found the following:

The one I'm currently liking the most (tried 3 other combinations,) is a dual pistol / sorcery.  Decent range but with good melee escapes and nice AOE options.  I pick flying travelling option to help with keeping out of the main fights and help with surprise (chose a small body styel too for a lower profile too.)  Sorcery gives you decent healing and the pet options are nice.   I used their wiki to pick the right combinations for the skill enhancements.  Not all decisions for this are equal.  They do a good job at showing what combinations give you the best endgame benefits (min/max ahoy!)  Ultimately, I'm a healer and planned to fit that role in a group, but found this character choice was also great for playing both pve and pvp solo.

There are tons of other options just as good, but this seems to be a decent one-fits-all selection. 

[Threash]

My fire tank with dual wield has no problem soloing because of the self heals.  I've made it my goal to get the 65k healing in an arena match feat, best so far is 18k :P

[Kail]

Has anyone tried the new xpac?  Any opinions on if it's any good or not?  I'm still enjoying the game, but kind of reluctant to drop another ten bucks on an expansion just a few weeks after I bought the last one.

[Threash]

The new content is gated by gear score, unless you want to play with the new powers don't bother.

[Minvaren]

As mentioned in the EQ2 thread, today (12/17/2011) is triple Station points day, so $10 will net you both expansions with money left over.

[Kail]

Doesn't seem to work for me.  Spent $10, got 1000 points, bought the expac with one left over.  I thought that was the normal price?

[Minvaren]

Apparently they edited the terms of the deal to not include purchases made through Steam.   

[Rokal]

You can buy it through SOE.com, not that it helps you if you already bought points on steam.

[Threash]

Thats horrible.

[Minvaren]

Update.

We are working with Steam and want to ensure those affected that we will automatically credit the additional Station Cash earned during today's promotion.

Hopefully this works out for the best.

[Lantyssa]

We went out and bought cards.  Every Walgreens and CVS has Free Realms cards.  Though I didn't even know you could buy SC through Steam.

[Rokal]

If you downloaded the game via steam, and launch the game via steam, that's considered 'through steam' when you buy points. Steam gets a cut on microtrasaction purchases if you downloaded the game through them. That's why the more successful F2P games (LoL, LOTRO, etc.) aren't on Steam.

[Kageru]

.. I doubt that, I'm pretty sure if games run their own cash-shops they don't have to cut steam into it.

However steam has a "wallet" that can be used to buy points for the free games tied to steam. So since I'm happy to give steam my credit card details, and don't want to give it to dodgy asian free MMO (or Sony), I put value into the steam wallet and use that to buy points. And doing that today got a UI saying you'd get the 3x station points but didn't deliver.

[Rokal]

This was the entire reason that EA games fell off steam. Valve wanted a piece of the DLC revenue for EA games played through steam, and EA was selling the DLC directly through the game (DA2) without giving Valve a cut. This had been fine in the past, but Valve changed things to prepare for F2P games launching on Steam.

You're kidding yourself if you think Valve is posting a bunch of F2P games, advertising them, and fronting the bandwidth for downloads like EQ2 out of the goodness of their heart(s). Or that Riot games is simply oblivious to the free exposure/extended audience that Steam would net them.

[Kageru]

Wasn't that something entirely different? That was EA wanting to sell the base game on steam but their DLC only on Origin (according to EA anyway). That's EA offering a limited service for the product on steam.

Putting virtual currency into the game is quite different, and I very much doubt steam gets a slice of all money that goes into station cash unless it actually goes through their wallet system.

[Rokal]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/07/28/dragon-age-2-abducted-from-steam-ea-points-finger-at-restricti/

^The original story, which is that the game was removed because the DLC was sold in-game instead of through the Steam client.

Believe what you want, I suppose. Valve is definitely taking a cut of purchases made through Steam installs.

[UnSub]

The owners of content delivery systems are getting a cut of the revenue on what they deliver. Otherwise the F2P model is a run around paying for access to that system.

[Kageru]

I don't know I'd call DLC the same as buying in-game cash. But then the actual conditions seem to be fairly secret.

Certainly EA has been trying to deliver a game on steam and then siphon customers off to its own site. Just as Mass Effect had DLC content you could not get through steam, only through their site. It was really bloody annoying and I suspect steam considers it as being manipulative. If the content was also available through steam (where valve will get a cut) *and* through other sources (where they don't) I'm not certain if they'd care.

It seems unlikely they'd get a cut of SOE station cash bought through SOE as that is used freely on a wide range of SOE games only some of which are through steam. If it is bought through their wallet system on the other hand I am sure they are getting a cut, that's got to be their motivation for hosting f2p games.

[Threash]

You buy the DLC with ingame cash.  Everything I did went through steam, the store charged my steam account directly. 

[Kail]

Whatever the problem was, seems to be resolved now.  Logged in to find myself with the points I would have had if I'd gotten the sale, so that's nice.

[Minvaren]

So DCUO just patched in crafting today with their "Game Update 8" patch.

Might log in this weekend and poke at it to see what it's all about, in any case.

[Pagz]

A simple guide to the new crafting system:

Since super speeding around the cities was the most fun I had in that game it might be worth it to jump in and do some what is essentially treasure hunting. From memory isn't a lot of the higher level raid things gated by gear though? Really hope that that gear is "slot anything", or something like that, unless the new Combat Rating thing removed it all.

[Lantyssa]

Interesting.  Maybe this will help me finish leveling my character to 30.