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

[Kageru]

Zero Punctuation review.

Not a bad one as it discusses some general and specific game mechanics in the process of skewering it.

[UnSub]

DCUO's first content patch went live. Lacking any player testing before it went live, paying players are discovering certain patch notes are wrong / didn't happen and that a number of stealth changes have been made. It seems that one of the stealth changes ended up deleting certain items out of player inventories without restitution, or changed powers without always refunding the character points invested.

In content terms, it looks like the Valentine's Day mission for heroes was broken at launch, with heroes often unable to collect hearts.

Best bug still in DCUO? Using certain powers from the Gadges powerset in PvP arenas crashes players out of the game.

[Pagz]

*Trigon’s Blood - The wheelchairs throughout the instance will no longer explode.

I thought that was a weird hospital 

[Gunzwei]

Best bug still in DCUO? Using certain powers from the Gadges powerset in PvP arenas crashes players out of the game.

The power that does this will crash the client in any instance (duos, alers, raids, or arena). The patch as a whole is a complete mess. Nature DPS is broken, some weapon combos do zero damage because of the frame canceling changes, and the AH has been eating some players items.

Also Chris Cao, DCUO Game Director, has been doing a series of interviews with PC Gamer http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/02/23/dc-universe-online-interview-part-3-characters-and-heroes/ with such gems of insight such as how to RP superman by taking the ice powerset and not using any of its powers (which would result in a severely gimped character).

[Kodan]

Well they lost me completely as a customer today.. In a way I am glad they did since they saved me the $200 I was seriously considering giving them for Lifetime. I had a quest issue and according to their policy they can advance quests that are bugged yet they refuse to do so. I expect a modicum of support from something I am paying for. I should have known that it was SOE and that they would break more with the patch and then leave us hanging for weeks while they break something else for us to wait for fixes on with that fix patch...

[Kageru]

SOE finds that trying to do rapid content development means the content tends to be buggy and untested. Further insights on the blindingly obvious expected later.

Seriously, SOE are hopeless.

[UnSub]

I've seen a number of die-hard defenders of DCUO say they are quitting after this patch. PvP exploits are still rampant - there's an Ice Bash bug that sees a 3x damage effect linger after PC death in PvP, resulting in multiple insta-kills on respawn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEu6HIzoNBA) - and the patch brought in things guaranteed to see players quit, like T1 / T2 items disappearing (so all that PvP farming disappears) or items vanishing in the auction house.

EDIT: And as Kageru states, SOE is yet to field a DCUO test server. It's hilarious to read the PC Gamer interview where Cao goes on about "quality, not quantity".

[Kageru]

Looking for some fireworks on the forums but I guess they're heavy on the moderation.

Did see this beauty, "so US 1 month sub is 14.99USD and AU 1 month is 19.99AUD". They're charging Australians 5$ USD (dollars roughly at parity) extra a month for an identical service? Sort of glad I had no interest in playing it.

[UnSub]

It's actually $5 to play a worse service, since we've obviously got greater lag, plus SOE uses Australian peak times to take the server down for maintenance.

Oh, and NZ is allowed to pay US$15 a month to play, but Australia doesn't get that option - it's a forced $AU20 option (which equates to a US$20 option).

On a pure conversion rate though, we are paying less than Sweden.

[ghost]

It's actually $5 to play a worse service, since we've obviously got greater lag, plus SOE uses Australian peak times to take the server down for maintenance.

Oh, and NZ is allowed to pay US$15 a month to play, but Australia doesn't get that option - it's a forced $AU20 option (which equates to a US$20 option).

On a pure conversion rate though, we are paying less than Sweden.

It's just another part of the punishment for whatever evil pact you guys made with Satan.  Australia's due some good luck soon. 

[climbjtree]

Any chance anyone's got a buddy key they'd like to give out? I'm interested in the game, but not full price interested.

[Nebu]

I've been keeping my eye on this game and am surprised that so little has been done by the developers to address the obvious flaws in targeting and the UI.  Is anyone playing currently that can speak to the recent updates for the PC version?  Has it improved much since release? 

DCUO is a fun game that I enjoyed for a few weeks in a "blow shit up for an hour" kind of way.  If they can improve the stickiness of it, particularly for duos, I may go back and give it some more money. 

[Venkman]

Yea that's where I netted out. The combat and travel powers are fun and the world somewhat interesting for explorers (though CoH felt much more like an alive city). And leveling speed makes WoW look like EQ1 pre-Kunark.

But the crazy balancing, the wierd ignored bugs, and the general lack of interesting story for an MMO based on such strong IP, eh.

[Khaldun]

Think I'm done. Gave it a shot, took time off. Was fun, but this is the problem: the fun that underdeveloped subscription MMOs deliver comes at a premium price and has more of a letdown than the fun of non-subscription games.

[UnSub]

I've been keeping my eye on this game and am surprised that so little has been done by the developers to address the obvious flaws in targeting and the UI.  Is anyone playing currently that can speak to the recent updates for the PC version?  Has it improved much since release? 

I'm not playing, just watching the forums.

Some things are fixed, but those fixes then break other things. Reports are that the PC servers are generally low population while the PS3 servers are at least mid-population.

The chat system is meant to be getting some tweaks in this update, which would have been called the March update, but SOE have all but admitted it probably won't launch in March and they can no longer meet the promise of monthly content updates. As an indication of the difference between planning and reality, this update includes the St Patrick's Day event that may start in April.

PvP exploits still exist, although a number have been patched out.

Content-wise since launch has seen some raids added (all in the Batcave), existing content repurposed for Duos / Hard versions and the Catwoman mission. Next update includes a Two-Face mission (that is meant to contain some kind of internal map randomisation effect - a coin flip dictates paths through - that could make it interesting for a while).

Why the issues?

My guess is that even SOE is finding it very, very hard to develop for both PC and PS3. It seems like the bigger hold up is on the PS3 side. For years I'd thought that it would be possible to develop a PC and console MMO that could stand side-by-side, but DCUO has proven that wrong.

The other issue is DCUO didn't sell particularly well on a per platform basis - likely less than 400k on each platform and the PC players aren't hanging around. It wasn't the hit SOE wanted, which can then impact on resources allocated to updates.

[Venkman]

Console MMOs are technical challenges for sure; however, I've always felt the bigger problem is the market.

Over the last 10+ years, MMOs have created a unqiue specific player type. MMO players will definitely play other games/genres/platforms. But other gamers will not definitely play MMOs. They're a different type of game that isn't nearly as mass market as other games.WoW does not disprove this rule. If anything, it really just shows how well Blizzard capitalizes(ed) on their unique competitive advantages.

The few MMOs on consoles haven't been wildly successful enough to compel more. That market doesn't automatically exist like it does on PCs. As such, it's also not understood what a console gamer wants in a persistent online world like it is for a PC (and even after 30+ iterations on the same core concept, it's still often debated even for the PC).

So the few tries at this have largely been about porting a PC MMO to a console UI. None of them have been as good as a normal console game that well understands its market.

It's good that companies keep trying. And to an outsider, SOE would seem to have a lot of edge here. But divisions in large companies don't automatically benefit from a shared name. And no well-documented/ understood/ socialized SDK in the world is going to solve for market realities.

On the PC side, DCUO also targeted a younger player for a market that skews older. It's something of a Free Realms/ Clone Wars Adventures problem. Ya really can't make a big-IP MMO and not expect your first beta players to be core MMO enthusiasts. And you don't want to anyway because the core MMO player has the cash and is willing to spend it in the hopes this time there's a good alternative to the dominating game of the day.

DCUO doesn't have enough compelling content for the market that most often sticks around.

tl;dr DCUO's problems seem rooted in chasing an unproven market.

[HaemishM]

My guess is that even SOE is finding it very, very hard to develop for both PC and PS3. It seems like the bigger hold up is on the PS3 side. For years I'd thought that it would be possible to develop a PC and console MMO that could stand side-by-side, but DCUO has proven that wrong.

It's certainly proven that SOE can't do it. 

[Hutch]

Sony merging DCUO into four servers.

Sony is calling it "Super Servers". 

The link goes to an article at Massively. I'd link to DC Universe Online, or Sony, but, well, those sites are down.

[UnSub]

The DCUO forums (when up) are a sad place to visit. Lots of arguments about the PC population being too low to support the game versus those who say that DC is a big budget MMO and every new MMO sees a little drop off post-launch.

The PSN issues are also kicking the PS3 side of the game, which was performing better than the PC. It's currently a group of first time MMO players experience of paying a sub fee for a game that they can't even log into. It's the true PC experience on the PS3. 

[Tannhauser]

Hell, I was doing that way back in UO, welcome to the jungle baybee!

I do hope they straighten this game out, I'd like to try it sometime.

[Hawkbit]

I'm holding out hope for a $20 game with a free month.  I'd love to check it out, just not worth $50 for me.

[Pendan]

The PSN issues have spread to the SOE PC games now. All of them shut down. As for the server merge in DCUO, I have not heard how they will be handling PvP. I had heard PvP servers were previously more popular than PvE but if everyone on one server what happens?

[Draegan]

Its a shame, this game is really worth the box for a week or two of good gameplay. 

It's definitely not worth a sub and more than a month of playing though.  Unless you like alts and repeating content.

[UnSub]

Reputedly PvP died hard in terms of popularity due to the exploits, unbalanced powers and then stealth / undocumented stealth power changes SOE implemented. There are still people playing it, but you need to cheat to win. Allegedly.

If DCUO goes F2P, it will recover, but it isn't worth an ongoing sub fee, especially since SOE's launch promise of "new content every month, guaranteed!" became "new content every 4 - 6 weeks, approximately, but don't hold us to that". DCUO's Easter event still doesn't have a launch date (and the truth is the last thing DCUO needs is temporary event content - it needs more permanent, replayable content).

[Venkman]

Lost a lot of notes over the years. Is this the fastest server merge in MMO history? Or did that go to WAR?

[Kail]

Lost a lot of notes over the years. Is this the fastest server merge in MMO history? Or did that go to WAR?

I think Auto Assault was faster?  Something like live in April, mergers in July, or something like that, unless I'm confusing things.  WAR had something like six months, I think.

[Nebu]

If that's the case, I bet Rift wins.  The game relies on population for core gameplay and the populations on many servers are pretty low after just 2 months.

[Nija]

So many issues could be prevented by using a single shared server model. Not sure why people don't do that. You'd have to allow for non-unique player names and have unique account aliases that could be used for messaging.

I mean, everyone instances something at some point so why not defeat all of the issues that crop up when you have a lack of population in one fell swoop.

[UnSub]

That worked very well for Champions Online. Even when player population was very low, the instanced environments still looked pretty busy.

[Malakili]

That worked very well for Champions Online. Even when player population was very low, the instanced environments still looked pretty busy.

Yeah, and it scales really well.  I played a bit of it when it went to free to play and the population seemed really high (comparable to the game's initial release almost).  I have some problems with the model, but if your game world doesn't matter anyway, there's no shame in it. (No one REALLY cares that there are 14 millenium cities, since you can't affect those zones anyway, and it does mean that the public quests with longer cool downs can be done more often.)

[Lantyssa]

That's the one thing I'll give Champions credit for.  Single-server while allowing multiple user names was a great move.

[Xanthippe]

So many issues could be prevented by using a single shared server model. Not sure why people don't do that. You'd have to allow for non-unique player names and have unique account aliases that could be used for messaging.

I mean, everyone instances something at some point so why not defeat all of the issues that crop up when you have a lack of population in one fell swoop.

I'm not a big fan of that, because the more people you have playing together, the less community matters.  I'd rather see discrete servers, allow transfers and, when necessary, merge servers, than have one huge server.

[Rasix]

If that's the case, I bet Rift wins.  The game relies on population for core gameplay and the populations on many servers are pretty low after just 2 months.

I think it was inevitable after they had to pump up the servers numbers so much during the launch.  While it helped stabilize short term server pops, there was just no way they'd keep full.  Heavy post launch contraction has happened to everyone since WoW launched.

[Draegan]

Rift servers are not that bad at all.  At least, all the EU servers are at medium right now.  US ones are down for a patch right now.

[Nebu]

Rift servers are not that bad at all.  At least, all the EU servers are at medium right now.  US ones are down for a patch right now.

What does "medium" mean, exactly?  I can't find anything that defines the Trion server load metric. 

I can tell you as someone that plays on two different servers at endgame that there are real population differences between US servers.  The PvE/RP servers have a must more robust player base than the non RP server I play on.  Also, not that I pay much attention to the white noise, but the Rift forums are ripe with threads begging for server transfers and consolidations.  That's not something players would beg for unless it was needed.