DC Universe Online

The Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) for the new game DC Universe Online (DCUO), currently in Closed Beta, was lifted yesterday. It is now safe to talk about the game. Unfortunately for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), this means that many of us in the closed beta can warn people away from this game.

When creating a game in a genre that already exists, most manufacturers look at their competition, do some data mining on what works and what doesn't work, and try to “one up” their predecessors by keeping what works and by fixing what doesn't work. Sony did not choose to do this in any noticeable way. So instead of a game that is incrementally better than either City of Heroes/Villains (COX) or Champions Online (CO), you have a game that has all of their faults and a few new ones of its own.

Ostensibly, DCUO was made as both a PC game and a game for the PS3 console system. However, those two clients will run entirely separately at launch. This means that PC users of the game will never play with or against PS3 players. What I find strange and interesting is that the programmers have forced a PS3-like interface on the PC users which, when using a mouse and a keyboard, makes for a really awkward, hard to manage, and non-intuitive interface for PC users. Due to lag during closed beta, I could rarely get the “combos” of taps and holds of the mouse key to work correctly to give me the bonus maneuvers that the game promises. Matter of fact, I usually got the same ineffectual maneuver rather than either of the two I wanted, because the game either read my attempt at “tap-hold-tap” as “tap-tap-tap” or as “tap-hold-hold”. I can only imagine how hard it is to get the rare five and seven combos to initiate.

COX has a large number of both player and villain archetypes you can choose from. Even at release, it had a decent collection of archetypes and powers, and each power set had both a primary and a secondary tree from which you could take powers. It had/has a strong story element that runs through all levels of the game. The character builder started as one of its strongest elements and has gotten stronger over the years... you can pretty much make any character concept you can think of in terms of costume and powers. Some of the negatives are that you have an Endurance bar that limits how often you can use your powers, you are locked into a specific archetype for the career of your character, you can only select limited abilities outside of the tree of Primary and Secondary powers listed for you. Many players who find such things important feel that the end game content is lacking (although the designers have continued to add more). Balance was decent, but still needed constant tweaking as the game started as City of Tankers, then became City of Blasters, then City of Scrappers. Now, with the exception of a few builds which most think are a bit overpowered, you can play pretty much any archetype or power set and a have a fair chance at completing the game.

CO was built by some of the same people who made COX, so many of the best aspects of that game were ported over. CO has a similarly strong character builder, allows for duplicate names, has Endurance/Power generation inherent in a character's first power, so you actually are able to gain power while fighting (as opposed to COX's way of only losing power/endurance during combat, unless you or an ally has some way of providing endurance). CO's combat also managed to feel faster than COX's (although when timing combats in both games, I found the actual result was roughly equivalent, it felt faster in CO). CO also introduced a system by which you could take any power available in the game and could inhabit just about any of the roles or archetypes of an MMO (Tank, Blaster, Scrapper, Support, Control). The graphics used new elements, so were a bit fresher than COX and the environment was semi-destructible. Balance during both closed and open beta, and then especially at launch, was non-existent. Because you can take any power in the game, you can build really interesting combos of powers that mean you can do hellacious damage AND be virtually invulnerable to incoming damage. Lastly, the story elements were much slicker and shallower than in COX, which meant, in addition to building your icon as able to withstand nearly any effort by the game elements to defeat you, that you could breeze through the game without ever teaming if you chose to.

After reading the above, and knowing that DCUO is a new entry in the same genre, you would expect them to resolve some of the issues and keep some of the positives from each of those games, and then throw their own twist or cool new thing into the mix. They didn't.

1. Interface. DCUO for the PC is very hard to control with non-intuitive mouse and keyboard setups. MMOs have existed for two decades+ now, and PC users have a rote way of doing things. You can tweak that a bit, but should stay close to that standard setup in order to make your game easy to manage and use for those who are used to the genre. This game did not, instead forcing the PC users to mimic a PS3 controller interface. This includes combos that often don't work due to lag or hiccups in the internet, menus that are hard to open, use, and close, an incredibly difficult chat screen, and menus that involve more clicking than is needed for one using a mouse or a keyboard.
2. Character Builder. DCUO made a horrible, non-intuitive, and difficult to use character builder. The Next button pretty much only takes you to the save and start game screen, while the Back button is used after you've made a selection to return to the previous screen and make a new selection (usually Back means ignore what you've done and return, not accept what you've done and go back).
3. Costumes. Related to the Character Builder issue, there are not a lot of costume options available when creating your character. This is because, although it is not stated anywhere in the game as you begin (at this time), you are expected to “flesh out” your character with costume drops from enemy defeats. This should be spelled out and made very clear to the user, so they aren't horribly disappointed in the minimal selections available.
4. Mentors. This is a new concept in DCUO, and should be very cool. In reality, it falls flat. Your Mentor is the hero or villain you want to emulate and “be like.” So, for example, if you want to be a Tank-type of character and a hero, you would pick Superman. This will set you up with his general costume design and colors (red, blue, yellow), give you the Fire power set (Fire and Ice are the two tanking power sets), and set up your fighting style as Hand/Boxing. You then have him give you your starting missions and you start in his starting area (Metropolis).
5. Powers. DCUO has chosen to partially do away with archetypes (Tanker, Blaster, Controller, etc.). They assume everyone is a “damage dealer” type, so they only have three roles from which you can choose: Tanker, Controller, Buffer/healer. However, as you gain levels and purchase new abilities, you can open up other roles and can switch your archetype to some degree. This is a good concept in theory, but the limited number of powers and the poor to non-existent explanation of what those powers do and how they work, mean that you don't necessarily know how your character will play in the actual game. For example, you cannot and will not be able to make the classic “flying brick” superhero that created the comic books. So if you want to be a “Superman-type” or a “Hulk-type” of character, you are out of luck. Or, let me correct that, you CAN do it, you just have to completely ignore your powers, and only use your fighting styles, for about 10 levels of play until you can start selecting Iconic Powers, which you can then use to very poorly mimic some of those abilities. The incredibly limited selection of powers, and the fact that you can augment these later in the game using the points you earn from defeating enemies and finishing quests is poorly explained, may turn off a lot of people coming from COX and CO and expecting to build their own character.
6. Story. The story here is decent, not as immersive as the COX story lines and not as light and breezy as the CO story. However, the content itself is so minimal that regardless of the mentor you pick during character creation, you have to run through pretty much all of the content in order to level to 30. This limits replay-ability as if you pick Superman with your first character, you have to run through Wonder Woman's and Batman's story arcs to reach then end. If you then start a new character with WW or Bats as your mentor, the only difference is that you run the missions in a slightly different order.
7. Endurance/Power. COX had an endurance bar that limited your play. A vast majority of players found that taking one tertiary power set that improved endurance regeneration pretty much mandatory in order to play their characters the way they wanted to. In the latest update to the game, they have given all characters that tertiary power set for free at level 2. CO allowed you to build endurance using one of your attacks, so actually being in a fight improved your ability to stay in a fight. DCUO has struck right down the middle. You have an endurance/power bar that only goes down, like in COX. However, the regeneration on the bar is incredibly high and some of the powers can return endurance to you during combat, sort of like CO.
8. Combat. This is one are where DCUO shines. Combat is fast and furious, the graphics are incredible and, if you can actually get the combos to work, you can do some amazing things with your character. If you use a gamepad or a PS3, I think you'll really enjoy the game. On a PC, the combat feels a bit out of your control and hard to maneuver. One thing I found particularly annoying was the auto target feature-- it rarely jumps to the combatant I am expecting or trying to hit and frequent targets someone off-screen or behind my icon, causing the screen to whirl around to face him and get me all confused. Manual targeting wasn't much better.
9. Destructible Environment. DCUO does have semi-destructible environments, allowing you to pick up cars, trash cans, light poles, etc. and throw or swing them at opponents. You can also damage buildings and the ground with powers and effects via a skinning effect layered over the actual environment. After a few moments, the skin disappears and the environment is back to normal.
10. Teaming/Player Interaction. People play MMOs for a reason. They want to play with other people. They many not always want to team up, but that is certainly an aspect of the game genre that is strongly held. DCUO has made a game where, for the most part, you can solo the entire game. There are a few quests and raids that require at least a duo and a few that require more people, but you can go from 1 to 30 without ever teaming and without missing much if you choose to. And you can do it pretty quickly, even with stopping and reading all the missions and paying attention to the story. And the chat system on the PC side is so hard to use that you pretty much cannot use it while traveling or for quick comments during combat or such, so you can't really interact easily with your fellow players. This leads the game to feel like a single-player action game that just happens to be online and the other heroes and villains are played by other people. There are few ways to build a community or create a “super-group” feeling in the game (including no way to create super-groups/teams/kinships/etc. or to have a house/base).
    
11. End Game. There really isn't much right now. You can quickly get to 30 and there there are only a couple of things to do, including re-doing missions you've already done on a harder setting. There are a couple of raids, but nothing great and nothing you want to do more than once.