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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.
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!
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.
Ya I won't touch any MMO from Sony these days. They seem to have a team of people dedicated to fucking up their products. Galaxies is an excellent example. I actually left long before their new game content because even back then, they seemed intent on breaking their game. I really liked the idea overall, and it had some cool stuff. First MMO I'd ever seen where housing was actually useful, and not just a random place to store your shit. You could build whole player cities that would appear on the world map and everything.
However they seemed to be determined to take out anything that was fun or useful, and ignore anything that was problematic. For example their response to cheating was the most erratic you've ever seen.
In one case, some players found a way to exploit the militia system to gain experience in game. Now this matters like not at all the experience (or was it called skill, I can't remember) was very easy to get. You didn't spend hardly any time leveling. However Sony immediately removed the militia feature. So no long could militia members flag people causing trouble and run them out of the city (or shoot them if they didn't leave). This of course lead to tons of people who wanted to cause trouble doing so without recourse. So they were willing to make the game much worse for many people, to stop a cheat that had essentially no impact on those that didn't use it.
However then in another case people figured out a way to produce items far past the game's intended limits. This made them effectively invincible in PvP combat. This took Sony weeks to even acknowledge the existence of, longer to actually stop, and they never actually removed the items even at the time I left nor banned the players. Likewise players that figured out ways to cheat at shoot at things from longer ranges weren't banned.
However the militia system was never fixed and reinstated, while all this went on.
The event that caused me to leave was when the city I was in fell under attack by cheaters. We tried to mount a defense, but they were invincible. Well someone actually got a hold of a CSR who came out, saw this, and told the cheaters to stop and that their accounts had been marked and that if they did it again, they'd be out. Well, a couple hours later the cheaters were back. The same CSR was gotten a hold of... And he wouldn't do anything. I logged off and canceled my account.
That's what I mean by "people dedicated to fucking up their products." They'll screw over large parts of the player base for little reason, but then refuse to deal with real problems.
Between that and me Everquest experience, I've written SOE off. Unless I have a friend tell me that one of their games is an awesome, must play title, I'm not going to even give them a look. I've just no faith in them as a company.
Interesting. Someone needs to mod you up.
I won't touch a Sony MMO either after bad experiences with their prior games. They're competent programmers, but incompetent managers, and they seem to have palpable hatred for their users.
If you want to play a good superhero game, try City of Heroes. It's a fantastic game and it keeps getting better, with 2-4 new content releases a year for free. The CoH team have made it their goal to produce what the players want to see. It's sad that catering to the users is such a novel concept for an MMO.
Champions Online has some of the developers from CoH working on it, so it's worth watching. We'll see if they can make lightning strike twice.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
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
I dunno where a whole lot of people get the idea that I want a combat system with all the variety of real life. Things can be simplified for a game without being repetitive. Currently, MMOs pretty much have a correct action to take at any given moment. There's an optimal order to use skills in and battles against the same type of creature will require the player to use the same skills in the same order. Thinking in terms of a tabletop RPG, there usually isn't a clear-cut correct choice, there's some give and take. You don't know exactly how a given creature is going to act so you can't fire off the same list of skills. In MMOs you don't make choices at all. It's classic game theory, there's a dominant choice and so everyone is going to always make that choice.
I don't see anything these new super-hero MMOs are planning that CoH doesn't already have, and has already polished.
Well, according to someone I was playing with in CoH, Champions Online is going with an entirely new powers system. For starters, there are no archetypes or classes. So you can pick and choose exactly what powers you want. However, there are "better" powers, and "lesser" powers, and you have to use the lesser powers... a LOT... to build up to use the better powers. He described it as a mad click-fest of clicking the lesser powers over 30 times, and several times a second to be able to use the better ones. (Yuck!) Also, it's first and foremost being developed for consoles, and you know what that means for the PC version. Granted, this is all just stuff I got second-hand from someone who said he's playing the beta, so take it as you like.
That said, CoH rocks. I dare you to find me ANY online game that lets you do the extreme stuff you can in CoH. (My stone tanker made my druid in WoW very jealous, back when I used to play him...) And yet they do a good job of keeping it all balanced.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Honestly, based on what I've heard so far, I don't think either of them will do better than City of Heroes. The downfall for both of them will be making them for consoles. I'm sorry, but MMOs just do NOT lend themselves well to consoles at all. You're much too restricted on what type of combat and powers system you can use.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.