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    DC Universe Online

    Game » consists of 7 releases. Released Jan 11, 2011

    An MMO for the PC and consoles that allows you to fight for and alongside the forces of good or evil from the DC Comics Universe.

    Oh, right. The Blog.

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    broda812

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    Edited By broda812

    Firstly, after reading the review for DCUO on this site, I lost most of my respect for Jeff.  This is one of the most complete launch MMOs that has ever been released, and it makes me wonder what he would have ranked WoW at release, as that game had a significant amount of game-breaking bugs, none of which are present in this title.  Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I've been having a lot of fun here.  I rebuilt my nature character under batman, so that I could play with my buddies, and shot through the beginning of the game.   
     
    I should mention that leveling in this game progresses significantly more quickly than in your average MMO, and relies mostly on questing, with almost no emphasis on grinding.  If you simply complete all the quests that are made available to you, you will quickly reach the level cap (30).  I was initially concerned about the amount of endgame content, as the beta only allowed progression to level 20, but was pleasantly surprised when I hit the cap.  Once you hit level 30, you are given a quest by your mentor that closely ties in with both the overarching Brainiac story, and the mentor's nemesis' story.   
     
    For example, if your mentor is Batman, you will need to fight your way through an army of the androids that Joker enlisted T.O.Morrow to build for him, before engaging in a fight with the Joker alongside Batman himself.  During this fight, you and your mentor will receive a message informing of a Brainiac incursion onto a STAR labs satellite.  Batman, who has been dosed with an enhanced version of Joker toxin, orders you to teleport onto the satellite and stop the Brainiac forces while he returns to the Batcave to find an antitoxin.  This mission culminates in the release of a Brainiac-Batman who immediately seeks out Batman, in order to replace him.  In the "Ultimate" battle, you team up with the Bat to take down the Robotic intruder, in a battle reminiscent of the Batman vs Robot Batman fight from the animated series episode "His Silicon Soul." (Yes, I'm a geek.  I actually have an account on Giantbomb, that should've been your first clue)  After you defeat this Batcopy, the caped crusader invites you up to the Watchtower, where he inducts you into the League.    

    After you geek out about that, you notice that being a league member unlocks access to a load of new material.  Some of this might seem familiar, such as the Daily Challenges, which have you replaying several of the instances from the earlier missions, but with all the enemies at level 30.  These are unnecessary, but quite fun, and can be used to unlock several unique sets of armour (No, that is spelled correctly, dammit!).  You will also find some unusual Toyman missions, which are quite different from the rest of the game, and more closely resemble obstacle courses.  Of more interest are the Duos, Hard Mode Alerts, and Raids, which provide new or reorganized areas with high level enemies and useful rewards.    

    The most basic of these, Duos, are reorganized instances from the game that have been retooled to require two players to win.  Currently, you can team up with a friend to take down Brother Eye, Queen Bee, Gorilla Grodd, and Isis.  The interiors of the instances have been reorganized with puzzles or challenges that require teamwork to complete.  Most memorable of these are the Nanosynth OMACs in the Brother Eye instance.  These enemies have the capability to shield allies within range, preventing any damage and healing those shielded.  The players will be forced to team up to drive pairs of these apart so that the shields are deactivated, allowing them to be defeated, a task more difficult than it initially sounds, as aggro must be balanced between the two players.  Successfully completing these duos, as well as Hard mode alerts, will grant the player tokens allowing them to buy Iconic armour, which is much better then the equipment that can be found elsewhere, and are modeled after famous heroes or villains from the DC universe (Steel, Batman, Robin, Mister Freeze, Metallo, Joker, etc).    

    With the exception of the Area 51 alert, which is given the same treatment as the Duos (more bosses, tougher patterns), all the hard mode alerts are completely new.  From quelling a brainiac-incited riot in the watchtower containment area, to cleaning up the aftermath of a doomsday virus test in smallville or a mass breakout in arkham or strykers, these alerts will test your teamwork and your effectiveness at your role (my main is a healer) while providing an interesting narrative to drive the mission.    

    Once you have acquired enough tokens to earn your first set of Iconic armour, you will be ready to begin raiding.  An effective raid requires 8 players to complete, unlike alerts, which only allow 4.  These missions, approximately 3 times the length of an alert, feature much more difficult enemies, but also much better (even better you say?) loot.  As well, the stories tend to be more relevant to the Main storylines.  The first raid, without giving to much away, involves Braniac breaking into the Batcave, while the next involves Black Adam raising all the dead in Kandaq in an attempt to bring back his wife.  If these taxing missions are completed, you will be given a new kind of token that allows you to use the mentor inspired armour.  I have yet to win any of these, I am a busy man, but they look amazing.  With new raids and duos set to come out later this month, as well as a new mission arc involving Catwoman and a new PvP area in Gotham, this game looks like it will be keeping me busy for quite a while.  Everyone, play well and don't hack.  Peace off.

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    broda812

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    #1  Edited By broda812

    Firstly, after reading the review for DCUO on this site, I lost most of my respect for Jeff.  This is one of the most complete launch MMOs that has ever been released, and it makes me wonder what he would have ranked WoW at release, as that game had a significant amount of game-breaking bugs, none of which are present in this title.  Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I've been having a lot of fun here.  I rebuilt my nature character under batman, so that I could play with my buddies, and shot through the beginning of the game.   
     
    I should mention that leveling in this game progresses significantly more quickly than in your average MMO, and relies mostly on questing, with almost no emphasis on grinding.  If you simply complete all the quests that are made available to you, you will quickly reach the level cap (30).  I was initially concerned about the amount of endgame content, as the beta only allowed progression to level 20, but was pleasantly surprised when I hit the cap.  Once you hit level 30, you are given a quest by your mentor that closely ties in with both the overarching Brainiac story, and the mentor's nemesis' story.   
     
    For example, if your mentor is Batman, you will need to fight your way through an army of the androids that Joker enlisted T.O.Morrow to build for him, before engaging in a fight with the Joker alongside Batman himself.  During this fight, you and your mentor will receive a message informing of a Brainiac incursion onto a STAR labs satellite.  Batman, who has been dosed with an enhanced version of Joker toxin, orders you to teleport onto the satellite and stop the Brainiac forces while he returns to the Batcave to find an antitoxin.  This mission culminates in the release of a Brainiac-Batman who immediately seeks out Batman, in order to replace him.  In the "Ultimate" battle, you team up with the Bat to take down the Robotic intruder, in a battle reminiscent of the Batman vs Robot Batman fight from the animated series episode "His Silicon Soul." (Yes, I'm a geek.  I actually have an account on Giantbomb, that should've been your first clue)  After you defeat this Batcopy, the caped crusader invites you up to the Watchtower, where he inducts you into the League.    

    After you geek out about that, you notice that being a league member unlocks access to a load of new material.  Some of this might seem familiar, such as the Daily Challenges, which have you replaying several of the instances from the earlier missions, but with all the enemies at level 30.  These are unnecessary, but quite fun, and can be used to unlock several unique sets of armour (No, that is spelled correctly, dammit!).  You will also find some unusual Toyman missions, which are quite different from the rest of the game, and more closely resemble obstacle courses.  Of more interest are the Duos, Hard Mode Alerts, and Raids, which provide new or reorganized areas with high level enemies and useful rewards.    

    The most basic of these, Duos, are reorganized instances from the game that have been retooled to require two players to win.  Currently, you can team up with a friend to take down Brother Eye, Queen Bee, Gorilla Grodd, and Isis.  The interiors of the instances have been reorganized with puzzles or challenges that require teamwork to complete.  Most memorable of these are the Nanosynth OMACs in the Brother Eye instance.  These enemies have the capability to shield allies within range, preventing any damage and healing those shielded.  The players will be forced to team up to drive pairs of these apart so that the shields are deactivated, allowing them to be defeated, a task more difficult than it initially sounds, as aggro must be balanced between the two players.  Successfully completing these duos, as well as Hard mode alerts, will grant the player tokens allowing them to buy Iconic armour, which is much better then the equipment that can be found elsewhere, and are modeled after famous heroes or villains from the DC universe (Steel, Batman, Robin, Mister Freeze, Metallo, Joker, etc).    

    With the exception of the Area 51 alert, which is given the same treatment as the Duos (more bosses, tougher patterns), all the hard mode alerts are completely new.  From quelling a brainiac-incited riot in the watchtower containment area, to cleaning up the aftermath of a doomsday virus test in smallville or a mass breakout in arkham or strykers, these alerts will test your teamwork and your effectiveness at your role (my main is a healer) while providing an interesting narrative to drive the mission.    

    Once you have acquired enough tokens to earn your first set of Iconic armour, you will be ready to begin raiding.  An effective raid requires 8 players to complete, unlike alerts, which only allow 4.  These missions, approximately 3 times the length of an alert, feature much more difficult enemies, but also much better (even better you say?) loot.  As well, the stories tend to be more relevant to the Main storylines.  The first raid, without giving to much away, involves Braniac breaking into the Batcave, while the next involves Black Adam raising all the dead in Kandaq in an attempt to bring back his wife.  If these taxing missions are completed, you will be given a new kind of token that allows you to use the mentor inspired armour.  I have yet to win any of these, I am a busy man, but they look amazing.  With new raids and duos set to come out later this month, as well as a new mission arc involving Catwoman and a new PvP area in Gotham, this game looks like it will be keeping me busy for quite a while.  Everyone, play well and don't hack.  Peace off.

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    sweep

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    #2  Edited By sweep  Moderator

    @ ___ @ 
     
     
    This seems to be a pretty decent blog but it REALLY needs to be broken down into smaller paragraphs. This wall of text is destroying my retinas! 
     
    EDIT: Ah, that's better :D 
     
    You aren't the first person to disagree with Jeff on his review, and you won't be the last, but he can only comment on the game in it's current state and if he had a bad experience then that's what he's going to write. 
     
    In terms of the bosses and enemies you fight, by "difficult" do you mean they have more health, or do they actually require a decent amount of intelligence to outwit? My favourite part of raiding in WoW was having to learn tactics to defeat bosses, having to react to each attack that they launched and generally adapt my playing style as a result. In contrast, Champions online usually resulted in me simply mashing my most powerful attacks repeatedly until the enemy fell over. How does DCU handle it?

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    KaosAngel

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    #3  Edited By KaosAngel

    YO THIS SHIT IS OFF THE HOOK!

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    CharlesAlanRatliff

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    It's nice to know there isn't a focus on grinding.
     
    In the future, it will make it easier for people to read your writing if you break your work into paragraphs.

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    broda812

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    #5  Edited By broda812
    @Vito_Raliffe: Yes, I should edit that.
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    broda812

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    #6  Edited By broda812
    @Sweep: @Sweep: Edited.  Sorry about your retinas.
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    CharlesAlanRatliff

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    @broda812: I think it would look better if you had an extra space in between each paragraph.
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    broda812

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    #8  Edited By broda812
    @Vito_Raliffe: An even better idea.  Done.
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    Claude

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    #9  Edited By Claude

    That's much better then when I first clicked. I will now read.
     
    I read it... kind of.
     
    Seems appropriate. Carry on.

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    @broda812 said:
    " @Vito_Raliffe: An even better idea.  Done. "
    Much better! Now you will get more replies to what you actually wrote, instead of people talking about how hard it is to read.  
     
    I've never made it to the end-game/max level of an MMO, but it's interesting to me that there seems to be so much content after reaching level 30. Do you still gain experience that would carry over to a level increase? Or is the focus on new gear?
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    #11  Edited By broda812
    @Sweep: In terms of boss fights, it varies depending on which mode you play.  First of all, in terms of combat, this game is more Champions than WoW in that, as an action RPG, there is button mashing.  That said, strategy is still involved.  This has been mentioned before, so I will try to explain some of the differences in the end game content.  In the challenges, the patterns do not change much.  The bosses have more health and stronger attacks, but they act almost the same as their lower-level counterparts.  With that in mind, if you fight at your level through the game and use your good equipment, bosses health at high levels tends to increase proportionately, so you shouldn't be spending much more time on the higher level bosses then you did on the low levels.  (Although I still had my ass handed to me a couple times when I'd just hit 30)  However, in alerts and raids, the boss fights tend to have more layers. 
     
    In example, a fight against a Brainiac robot boss at area 51.  In the easy alert, he is quite simple, and only has a few move sets to throw at you.  He can be taken down quite easily if your team is any good at all.  In the hard mode alert while fighting the same boss, he will have several new move sets, but there is also a brainiac ship whose shots you will have to avoid, and at regular health intervals, the bot will activate nearby shield generators, guarded by more robot squads, that you will have to deactivate before you can continue to damage him.  It lends to a considerably more involved experience that, while admittedly not as deep as WoW, still provides an interesting boss fight.  That said, by my recollection, the final boss in area 51 isn't that different in hard mode.  However, he was more complex to begin with, so maybe the devs just decided to keep him the way he was. 
     
    I'll try to update or post new entries, but I have a crazy schedule, and would rather play then post, so I don't know when those will happen.  I'd like to make a post about the game's PvP, which can be quite enjoyable, and the incentive to participate in the feat system, so I'll definitely try to get back on. 
     
    @Vito_Raliffe: The purple exp icons continue to be released by enemies post-level cap, so it is still being collected, however I don't now when or if they plan on raising the level cap.  For now, the focus is mostly on gaining better equipment and raising your stats through skill points, which you can get post-cap.
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    CL60

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    #12  Edited By CL60

    Most of the time Jeff already has his opinion on a game before he even plays it, and he'll stick to it. See RDR.

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    #13  Edited By sweep  Moderator
    @broda812 said:
    " @Sweep: In terms of boss fights, it varies depending on which mode you play.  First of all, in terms of combat, this game is more Champions than WoW in that, as an action RPG, there is button mashing.  That said, strategy is still involved.  This has been mentioned before, so I will try to explain some of the differences in the end game content.  In the challenges, the patterns do not change much.  The bosses have more health and stronger attacks, but they act almost the same as their lower-level counterparts.  With that in mind, if you fight at your level through the game and use your good equipment, bosses health at high levels tends to increase proportionately, so you shouldn't be spending much more time on the higher level bosses then you did on the low levels.  (Although I still had my ass handed to me a couple times when I'd just hit 30)  However, in alerts and raids, the boss fights tend to have more layers.  In example, a fight against a Brainiac robot boss at area 51.  In the easy alert, he is quite simple, and only has a few move sets to throw at you.  He can be taken down quite easily if your team is any good at all.  In the hard mode alert while fighting the same boss, he will have several new move sets, but there is also a brainiac ship whose shots you will have to avoid, and at regular health intervals, the bot will activate nearby shield generators, guarded by more robot squads, that you will have to deactivate before you can continue to damage him.  It lends to a considerably more involved experience that, while admittedly not as deep as WoW, still provides an interesting boss fight.  That said, by my recollection, the final boss in area 51 isn't that different in hard mode.  However, he was more complex to begin with, so maybe the devs just decided to keep him the way he was.  I'll try to update or post new entries, but I have a crazy schedule, and would rather play then post, so I don't know when those will happen.  I'd like to make a post about the game's PvP, which can be quite enjoyable, and the incentive to participate in the feat system, so I'll definitely try to get back on. "
    Cheers for the in-depth reply! I'll admit I was interested in DCUO but after hearing such mixed reviews I figured I would stick with WoW for a bit longer, but It does sound like it has a bit more depth than previously indicated. I will have to take another look.
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    #14  Edited By JokerFrown

    DCUO is truly an amazing game.  Granted SOE needs to do something about the alert queues and such right now, but there is no lack of things to do at the cap of 30.  I canceled my WoW subscription after two weeks of playing this game.  Truly a great MMO.  And if the monthly updates that SOE is going to release are anywhere near the scope of the one that is supposed to hit later in the month, then Ill be tearing up Gotham and Metropolis for a long time to come.

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    #15  Edited By cornbredx

    Great blog.
     
    I just wanted to say here: Don't lose respect for Jeff just because of his opinion. This site was founded on the idea that they don't want to give you so much a critical analysis as much as they want to share their experience with the game and give their opinion on it (as, when you really break it down, all reviewers really do is share an opinion based on their experience).
     
    Jeff has said that he understands the appeal, and what innovations this game brings to the genre (as well as not being as time consuming)- he just doesn't like the overall package (which he didn't like anyway- I've never known him to really like MMOs in general).  
    It's possible that discussion on the last bombcast (I believe it was)- was a reaction to how his DCUO review was received. You're not alone in saying you lost respect for him. A lot of people said that; which I feel is unnecessary based on the years of great/honest reviews. You cant lose all respect when he shares his opinion about an MMO. Clearly they just aren't his cup o' tea and there's nothing wrong with that.
     
    Anyway, I agree so far with your analysis on end game content. Thus far I have been having a blast as much leveling as I am now at level 30 getting into the current meat of the game. Feels kinda like the old days of wow, and how end game was when the game really started (which I like a lot). Now if only they fix the UI and the horrible chat system for PC and I'll be set.
     =)

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