Games I Beat: DC Universe Online

DC Universe Online
MMORPG
Massive amounts of players
System: PSN
Developer: Sony Online Entertainment
Year of Release: 2011
Reached End Game: September 1st, 2014

I don't want to get bogged down in this, but I do want to apologize for not writing more. I don't even know if I have an audience, but if I do, I love you. Honestly though I just haven't really been playing too many games lately. I did play through the Dark Souls II DLC but I'm not sure whether I'll write about it. With the final bit of DLC coming out soon maybe I'll whip something up about them or Dark Souls II in general, but no promises.

Unrelated anecdote's aside, for no real reason I decided to get into an MMO which ate up most of my time to play games. I've never seriously attempted to play an MMO before, I've tried some free to play ones on PC in the past, but I don't believe spending a couple months in Runescape really counts as experiencing an MMO. DCUO immediately caught my interest because I love comics, more specifically I love DC comics, and that single aspect is what's kept me interested in making progress. Oh and it's free!

The progression in DCUO seems really strange. Thirty is the maximum level and reaching it doesn't take a lot of time at all, like maybe a week or two or serious play, a month of casual. Once you hit level thirty, however, the game changes it's whole structure. Upon creation you choose your power, weapon type, movement mode and a mentor. Your mentor slightly alters the missions you go through but there's a lot of overlap from what I can tell. While leveling your mentor, Wonder Woman in my case, sends you on various missions throughout either Gotham or Metropolis. Missions typically see you heading into an area full of enemies and beating up enough of them or in a specific way or gathering an item. It's standard fare really, there wasn't a single mission that really stood out to me. There are certain bosses that have some unique traits which while appreciated don't push the envelope far enough to be praise worthy necessarily. However this was one of my favorite aspects of the game, why? Wonder Woman was bossing me around.

Look I swear that isn't a BDSM thing, I just happened to pick her as my mentor. I just mean holy shit, Dr. Fate just gave me a mission! I'm helping Nightwing beat up bad guys in an alley! Oh my God, they... they let me in the League Hall? Oh God, Joker's unleashed bombs on the city? We have to do something! You have no idea how badly I've wanted to experience superheroics first hand my entire life, even if this is being realized virtually through a video game it doesn't matter. This is one of the few games where it felt like I was a super hero working alongside fellow heroes, as opposed to taking a tour in the shoes of an established hero. I don't say that because the game is really engaging though, which is my biggest gripe with the game. But for me, they got enough right and referenced enough material from various DC comics to satiate my desire to keep playing. So yeah, basically they won me over with fan service. Not the sexy kind! I swear!

Once you hit level thirty though things kind of change. For the most part instead of physically exploring the world you choose your missions through a menu. It makes sense from a game play standpoint, you don't have to waste time flying to and fro, and you can easily see which missions you've got left to do for that week or month. The missions themselves are still a delight and the first time through it captures that awe of working alongside heroes to bring down some terrible villains. But the game's all about the grind at this point, and I guess that's pretty standard for MMO's (and several other genre's really) but it greatly diminishes the "magic" of the game if you well.

Instead of focusing on your character level your combat rating (CR) dictates how strong you are and that's based off your equipment. It's broken down into tiers, from one to six currently, and the first three are available in the free to play version. You earn Marks of Triumph, a sort of currency, from missions now based on the difficulty and amount of people in the mission. This let's you buy the post game armors, and the prices of these things go up exponentially. Still, the first three tiers are pretty easy to reach and don't take too much time, even for a free member.

This is about where the DLC starts being relevant. Pretty much all of them are designed to add more missions, and add more tiers. Most of these are a total disappointment in my opinion. For the most part they literally just add a few missions to your list of missions and a couple armors/weapons either as drops or for sale. That's it. Ten dollars a pop to grind more. There are a few that add whole new explorable regions, and while they're sort of neat they're tiny areas and act more like free roaming missions as you're supposed to visit them daily to complete new mundane tasks for yet even more Marks of Triumph. Sometimes new powers are thrown into the mix which are probably the coolest feature, but honestly the combat is so simplistic different powers don't really change it up enough to renew interest, at least for me.

As opposed to paying for each DLC individually you can also subscribe which lets you access everything as well as some other perks for a monthly fee. I decided to bite the bullet and actually paid forty bucks for a three month subscription. I don't regret my decision, and I still do play the game trying to improve my combat rating, I'm fairly certain by the time December rolls around I'll have played through every mission, I'm nearly done with tier five already. Honestly I won't subscribe again, at least not until another couple of DLC's drop, they're sporadic enough that maybe by then I'll be in the mood for more mindless grinding alongside some of my favorite fictional heroes.

Ultimately, I think I'm just not the target audience for this. I think the biggest draw is fine tuning your character, really understanding down to the second when to use which skills and how best to utilize your archetype in combat. I can respect that, but I just don't enjoy the game well enough to get that serious about it. I'm fairly decent at the game, but I have been kicked from a fair number of missions just because I wasn't doing my job to 100% proficiency. To me that just feels stressful, and it's definitely not what I'm looking for when I play a game. It was a fun experiment, and as I mentioned before I still play and may even return to it again after a time. But I really don't see myself suddenly becoming a huge fan of MMO's overall.

DCUO is not a bad game, but it does fall prey to some familiar MMO trappings (at least from what I've gathered), if you like MMO's give it a shot, if you don't this won't change your mind about them. If you like DC comics I'd say give it a shot (especially if you're a fan of the pre-New 52, this is the last bastion of that universe currently), if you couldn't give a fuck less about the likes of Batman well, I'm surprised you read this whole entry by a no name online about something you seemingly have no interest in! While I do have problems with the free to play model (in general and with this game specifically) you can play a decent chunk of the game for free so aside from time you've got nothing to lose by trying it out for yourself.