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An Early Look At DC Universe Online
Joystiq got the opportunity to spend some time playing an early version of Sony's DC Universe Online . Though the MMO won't be released for perhaps a year, the developers seem to have created a solid foundation for an entertaining and innovative game. GameDaily is running an interview with Marv Wolfman, a comic veteran who recently joined the DCUO team. From Joystiq:
"DCUO is very much an action MMO, with few game mechanics decided by the roll of the algorithmic dice. The game controls much like most third-person action titles, with standard light and heavy (charge-sensitive) attacks, a jump action and an interact button (notably, used to pick up cars). Super moves are mapped to the same four face buttons (when using the PS3 gamepad; a keyboard and mouse will be compatible with the console version, too) and are activated using L2 and R2 toggles. In total, up to eight super moves are easily accessible at any given time. Our character could fire ice balls and freezing rays at opponents, melee them with blocks of ice, or conveniently freeze them inside larger blocks, for example. A simple targeting mode (accessed by holding R1) locks the game camera onto an opponent for focused attacks. ... DC Universe Online isn't trying to strictly clone today's success models. SOE is making genuine efforts to build what could be the best superhero game ever conceived, and we're excited to watch it grow."
It'd be nice to see them have some sort of success again. Or anyone, really. It's depressing to see only one large player in the market. Bring on the innovation. Anyone. Please.
I bet Superman could use Linux on the desktop, though. And Batman, he's pretty smart too, and rich, so he could support Linux development a lot more than Mark Shuttleworth. Martian Manhunter would probably rather use some Martian operating system, though, and I'm not sure Wonder Woman even uses computers.
Maybe this is a step in the right direction but I'm severely underwhelmed by what qualifies for "innovative" when it comes to games. I don't find WoW to be significantly more advanced than EQ1. Better graphics, sound, and animation but the gameplay is just as hollow and repetitive as any other MMO (all of them being a GUI on top of a landscape of random number generators). There's a lot of complaints about bots, but any game a bot can play is mind-numbingly simple, bots can't even play age-old board games like Go, Backgammon, or Chess very effectively. If a designer has done an even halfway decent job of designing an interactive 3D world, a bot shouldn't stand a chance at success. Anything in 3 dimensions should be far more complex than Go, because a 3d world itself can contain the complex board games. I think the designers forget about things like spatial awareness or presenting players with non-trivial decisions that require an understanding of morality, metaphor, or abstraction. Instead, every task in these damn MMOs is supremely suited to perfect repetition (e.g. use these skills in a certain order, on a certain number of creatures, repeat) and repetition is about the only thing computers/bots excel at.
Anyway, I just don't think this DC game is going to be as "innovative" as people believe. I'll be surprised if it's even 1% more advanced than WoW. I understand they're trying to do an action MMO thing, commendable, but I know somewhere down the line they're going to cave in and make the thing like DDO, all the drawbacks of a physics system combined with all the drawbacks of a dice-rolling system, none of the benefits of either.
I imagine Superman to be nearly incapable of tolerating the relatively low fidelity and sampling/refresh of modern displays and sound systems.
He may be able to use voice commands on embedded devices without going insane. He might have a prop Windows machine as part of his "mild-mannered" persona. He might pretend to use machines at the Daily Planet, too, which statistically would also be Windows.
Batman also strikes me as a Windows guy. He's rich enough that free as in beer means nothing; his fashion sense shows us he's not part of Apple's target demographic; and he tries to pass himself off as totally mainstream (except hopelessly rich) in his non-superhero life. Alternatively, he might have commissioned his own custom BatOS which is not based on any existing design for an Operating System and somehow none of the people involved in its creation spoke up.
Spiderman is totally a Linux user. I don't think any reasonable person could question that. ...I'm out of my nerd-depth for other superheroes.
There is a lot of room for super hero action MMORPGS. I used to look at the situation like the game Magic Carpet 2 where you could do a lot with destructible terrains. My favorite thing in Magic Carpet 2 was to summon a volcano, then tunnel a hole in it to fight someone inside. It is the scale of battling someone else at an epic level that really gives you a thrill. The problem will be balancing the thing for like PVP. Super heroes were never balanced which was painfully obvious the day Superman came to chat with Aquaman about how swimming isn't the same as flying.(just made that one up)
Anyway, I was in the run for making an action MMORPG there for a while, but I lost interest in the whole affair. I think another couple hundred hours of work and I could have released a Tekken style clone except instead of just 2 players, you could have 1500. I have very little interest in the artificial dice rolling of CRPGS anymore. The only reason the dice were in Dungeons and Dragons to begin with was they couldn't simulate an actual battle. Turns out computer games are good for simulating battles.
Bring on the action MMOGs! I'd even play PlanetSide 2.
God spoke to me.
Its the RPG element that would be the most awesome thing in superhero MMO. Being able to start as normal human and develop your unique powers in a very individual way!
Also, I would finally be able to be a SuperDentist! Normal people fear dentists, IMAGINE how they would fear the SUPERDENTIST!
You're nuts... Batman would obviously be a Slackware guy, he wants control over everything. Spidey I can see as an Ubuntu user, nerdy enough to use Linux, but he doesn't have the OCD to want to tweak everything in his distro. Plus, I'd bet money he dual-boots.
J
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
You know superman calls his IT department several times a week to ask about Windows antivirus...
Batman is just crazy about developers developers developers developers. (Yes, for his BatOS.)
I seem to recall seeing SuperDentist looking like plant food to Seymore and Audrey II?
"FEED ME SEYMORE!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGRN39oifsE
I'm not much of a comic book fan, but I do like MMOs, and if it steals market share from wow, then Its okay by me. If no one does anything, wow will continue to dominate the mmo landscape for decades to come.
Bots are hardly a metric, because:
A) _All_ that bots do is kill NPCs in a mindless loop. It's not like anyone made a bot which actually does quests for you or organizes a raiding guild or anything.
So basically you have _one_ aspect of the game which can be botted, the combat system. That's all. For most of us it's even the least interesting part of the game, we're in for the quests and social interaction actually.
So basically it seems to me that rejecting the whole game because the least important aspect of it can be botted, is on par with rejecting TV because a bot (PVR) can start and stop recording without your assistance.
B) If you actually made a game where combat is too complex for a bot, then it'll be too complex for the average human too. Most people lose badly to a chess program or even a Go program. If combat against an opponent was genuinely as complex and required such deep thinking as a Go match, 99% of the customers wouldn't even make it out of the newbie zone. They wouldn't survive the tutorial.
And doubly so for the casual gamer who just wants to jump in some game after work and spend some time mindlessly mashing buttons. There are plenty of people who play a game precisely to _not_ use their head. What makes you think they'd want to learn a system that complex?
I still can't convince mom to learn her abilities in WoW beyond the level of "click on whatever ability has recharged", for example, because frankly that's not what she plays the game for. What makes you think she'd be interested in something with the complexity of chess or go?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I get a bit tired of these ennui posts with regards to online games. "Oh they aren't as complex and varied as real life, they are so stupid." Please, come off it. They are designed to be fun, that's all.
As for your use of bots as a metric, that is a very silly one. For one, computer programs are EXTREMELY good at some of the games you mention. I can, for just $15, get a program for my computer that will play chess at the grand master level, should I wish it to (Chessmaster 11). That means that it'll beat the crap out of me, and just about anyone else out there. While there are players in the world who can play at that level and thus beat it reliably, they are few and far between. For most people in the world, the program can continually scale it's AI up to a level that is a challenge for them, and then to a level that they can't handle.
Now compare that to a WoW bot: The player moves their character to an area, gives the bots some basic parameters, and it then wanders around semi-randomly killing and looting monsters. They are screwed if they run in to another player, they can't fight with any efficiency. I've encountered glider bots before and they act as though I'm not there, unless I do something that the game identifies as aggressive. Then they proceed to treat me like a mob, which is useless and results in them begin dead in a hurry.
If this were taken in a chess world it's be like a program that shuffles around your pawns randomly. Yes such a thing is easy to make, doesn't mean the game is easy or that the program is any good at it.
WoW is extremely complex, as are other online games. There's a whole lot to it, including fighting against other humans. Especially when it comes to human interactions, you do get in to all sorts of complex situations. Some are related to game mechanics, like what do you do to counter various tactics. Others are related strategic considerations, like how to best deploy yourself to achieve an objective. Heck there's even social/moral considerations, like should I kill that low level guy or might he in fact have a level 80 druid character that will come and beat me up for an hour if I do? This is just all PvP (as in playing against other people) examples. There's plenty of PvE (as in playing against the computer) examples too. A spatial awareness one, since you mention it, would be a fight where dangerous goop spits out of the floor, and only part of the room is safe. You have to be aware of where you are and move as the safe zone changes, and do so while fighting the boss.
If you want a game that is as complex and varied as life itself, well then prepare to never be happy because it can't happen. Computers aren't that advanced, and there isn't the money to design and implement that sort of thing even if they were. However that doesn't mean that online games are a lot of fun.
Also the basic simplicity that leads to greater complexity is one of the things that a well designed game does right. Some of the all time classic games, computer and non-computer, are classic precisely because they are so simple at the base level but complex at the higher levels. Tetris or Go would be good examples. Not much to the basic rules, but a lifetime can be spent mastering them.
So that MMOs have simple aspects isn't a bad thing, it allows for players to get started easily. If you took someone new to WoW, or especially new to video games, handed them my login, put them up against other players, and said "go" they'd get overwhelmed. They'd have no idea what to do, how to play, and it'd all come too fast. However, strip out all but a couple basic abilities and have them go kill computer monsters that are highly predictable, well then can get started on that and learn.
There's plenty to good online games, if you are interested. However good ones, in particular WoW which is why it is so popular, also keep things very simple at the low levels. If all you want to do is some hack n' slash type gaming, but with friends in a persistent universe, well then it'll do that for you. If you want things that are more complex, well then go to it. There's lots there. You figure out the aspects of the game you like and the level at which yo wish to play it and do so.
Aquaman tops out at speak n spell.
Everybody seems to think I'm lazy I don't mind, I think they're crazy
SOE has been foundering for quite some time, and not just because of the Star Wars Galaxies NGE debacle (which cost them 200,000 subscribers). They also have shot themselves in the foot with EQ/EQ2 subscribers by opening up RMT stores (cash for items you can't get ingame) after promising that RMT wouldn't exist on any but the "Station Exchange" servers.
DCMMO is essentially seen internally at SOE as the "save the company" project. This is THE game that must achieve huge success so as to save the jobs of debris like John Smedley and Chris Cao.
So, senior SOE managers have taken to MICROmanaging this game's development. The effect has been a revolving door Dev team. They can't keep one. They are on at least their third producer and Lead Dev. They have been in such dire straits that the last two have been recycled from the grade D- Star Wars Galaxies NGE team. And I can tell you from experience, those guys would do well to thread their shoelaces properly, much less develop a decent game.
If you want a new superhero game, I suggest following Cryptic's "Champions Online". Cryptic has the experience, and the talent, to produce a good game in this genre. SOE hasn't accomplished anything but acquiring a deserved reputation for piss poor quality, and continual betrayal of their players.
Corporatism != Free Market
for content that matters.
Yes you can bot killing things, that is not hard to do. Any game can be run by a bot if it just involves monitor player health/power and killing things in the local area.
WOW's entire progression is to get people into doing 5 man content, instances and raids. This is not the realm of bots. Comparing EQ1 with WOW gives EQ much more credit than it ever deserved.
Your quote is laughable "Instead, every task in these damn MMOs is supremely suited to perfect repetition (e.g. use these skills in a certain order, on a certain number of creatures, repeat) and repetition is about the only thing computers/bots excel at."
So is real life. Every task in real life is supremely suited to perfect repetition. Just like in real life extraordinary events will require something other than a bot and those who cannot operate otherwise usually suffer.
For the most all games are the same. You can bot chess just fine thank you, last I heard a computer did just fine. Hence I don't think your argument is other than your bored and it is someone's fault other than your own.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
What is it with the trend towards designing MMOs with consoles in mind? Age of Conan supposedly was made with the idea of porting it to consoles... Champions Online is being co-developed for Xbox 360 and now this one as well, with the PS3 controller. Hell its even spreading to non MMOs, now Witcher is going to be redone for consoles, and they're having to scrap the combat system and redo it for controllers..
I think designing around such a model is going to hinder somewhat what you can allow in a game. But the console market is just a holy grail out there, everyone thinks if they can just combine the rampant success of World of Warcraft and apply that to the larger console market, they'll be crapping gold bricks for years to come...
Basically such interaction is going to mean being limited to certain numbers of active powers that you load onto buttons of the controller (whether or not it is an actual controller or they are mapped to keyboard keys) at a time (or adding a mortal-combat style combos to activate them), and having chat geared sharply to voice chat. Now, look, while I know voice chat has a big role in things like parties, raids, etc, general chat is not it. The idea of something like a barrens voice chat is just an abomination. You take out the focus of a text chat and it really hinders an important element IMO...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
No, it's not circular until you apply your own strawman in the loop. You seem to assume that everyone has the same tastes you do, plays for the exact same reasons and goals, and they need to be enlightened if they think otherwise.
Get this: if the combat system was that high on my list of priorities, I would play another game where it's better done. If I wanted something the complexity of Go, I'd still play Go. It's that simple. We play the games that match our tastes, don't warp the tastes to match some predestined game.
It's not like there aren't MMOs where you get more combat (e.g., Planetside), or games where more strategic thinking is involved (strategy games), or where you can change the world (e.g., by taking ownership of whole sectors like in Eve,) etc. Trust me, I know they exist. I still have MegaMek on my hard drive for a complex turn-based strategy game. If my priorities were that centered around combat, I already know where to go for that.
If you have different tastes, good for you, but spare me the bullshit postulates that everyone else likes or dislikes the same things you do, and for the same reasons.
Let me repeat it, in simpler words so maybe it gets through this time: No, I'm not playing MMOs for the combat. And if combat were the alpha and the omega and too complex even for a bot, I'd go play something else. Starting to comprehend yet?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Spiderman is totally a Linux user. I don't think any reasonable person could question that. ...I'm out of my nerd-depth for other superheroes.
And he's really good at surfing the Web...
Bruce Wayne would use a MAC and a Blackberry. Batman would be some *nix variant.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
*BSD for it's security.... he would use it under a special Batman Source Distribution *badump chhhh*
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
The only thing that beats Superman is green kryptonite but it puts a twist in his tights when MS Word crashes when he's got a deadline to beat at the Daily Planet. Superman runs Windows.
Batman...as Bruce Wayne, he's so rich, he doesn't own a computer at all. He has other people do that for him. In fact, he's got someone who runs his Blackberry because he can't be bothered.
However, in the Bat Cave, Batman runs a Beowulf cluster running a custom BatBSD.
Spiderman runs Mac. Sorry, but as a photographer, I'm just thinking he's a Mac guy. Plus with all those pithy zingers he flings while he swings, he's just that hip.
He needs to use the shower version though.
Daredevil definitely uses Windows. It has much better accessibility support for the deaf and blind than other OS's (and more third party programs available for it).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
DC Universe online is a nice idea, many are looking forward to a challenger to CoH in the genre but as attractive as the DC license is, its also their biggest problem to overcome. Most casual players are going to be disappointed that they cant even play a minor character in the real DC Unvierse. How many will be happy with the "Dial H for Hero" version of the DC Universe? My guess is that not many will be satisfied, since most gamers picking it up off the shelf will see familiar characters on the cover and expect that they can play as them. Star Wars Galaxies had the same problem earlier on and had to basically gimp the game because everyone wanted to be a jedi, its still struggling.
Champions Online is also coming out soon and will start off with no expectations since like City of Heroes it has no license, it also benefits from a decades long following in the RPG community. Two different strategies, it will be interesting to see which has more success.
Stopped reading right there. If these guys are doing it, I want nothing to do with it. I'm sure many others feel the same way.
I want to go to Earth-2 and Qward. That would be truly awesome. Wolfman did a great job with Crisis on Infinite Earths, it kicked the shit out of John's confusing rush job sequel, Infinite Crisis. It's a great injustice that Wolfman is now working around Johns' script, but I'm sure he can wring some goodness out of it.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Totally agree on Spiderman, he made his own costume, his own webshooters. :)
He'd definitely roll his own distro
This is the sig that says NI (again)
The Original Poster called with with Bruce Wayne using Windows and Batman using his own personal OS.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
I agree with the premise that since there's no competition you are going to get 100% of the people who want to play. However the question is, how many people is that? What I mean is consoles do not seem like they are a particularly large market for MMOs. I think developers may find that there aren't a whole lot of people interested in those kind of games that are console only or console primary gamers. There's also the issue of how many people are actually hooked up to the net with their consoles and able to play. Certainly a whole hell of a lot more than last generation (when it was next to none) but it isn't the near 100% of computer owners.
As a simple example I have a friend that plays console and PC games, he's got a 360 and a reasonable PC. He's a tech guy, so no problems with hooking things up and such. However, while his PC is on the Internet, his 360 isn't. He just doesn't see the need.
Now I don't know how the market is for MMOs on consoles, I'm just saying that we can't just assume that since there's no competition that the first game out there will sell tons. It may well not be the case. They may discover that despite being the only game in town, they are just selling something that the majority of console owners aren't interested in buying.
Obviously you didn't even both with the summary, which mentions keyboard and mouse support for PS3. Furthermore, most WoW players use voice-chat through third-party programs.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."