Category: DC Universe Online

Because I could use some distracting right now

I came to the conclusion this morning that I have the MMO itch again. I just don’t know how to scratch it. Short of going back in time and fixing it so that my beloved City of Heroes doesn’t get canceled (and that never ends well), I’m stuck looking at the old or trying to figure out the new.

(And, yes, my long-time correspondents are probably sick to death of this post, since I’ve repeated it periodically the last four years. Sorry, folk.)

On the “old” side, I’ve tried LotRO enough times to know that (a) it’s an amazing recreation of Middle Earth and (b) its gameplay just drives me nuts.

I’ve also tried WoW in the past, and it never quite gelled for me. Obviously it’s the benchmark for all things MMO, but in the long run we just sort of ran out of gas on it. It might be worth giving it another try.

We tried out WildStar, but for some reason it, too, didn’t the cut.

Star Trek Online? Nicely steeped in Star Trek lore, but more of a ship simulator in the ST universe than a role-playing game. Also not really suited (that I found) to duoing with someone.

DC Universe Online ended up feeling to button-mashing for me. And, again, it really didn’t seem to lend it self to partnered play (almost anytying but).

Is Champions Online still out there? Also a bit button mashy, not very duo-abled, and I found it tonally offputting. Also, the auction house was irksome.

What I am looking for from an MMO? Fortunately, I have some posts whining about that dating back (yeesh) a number of years. In sum (and roughly in order of priority).

1. Duo-friendly. A big part of my gaming life is playing with Margie. A game that makes it difficult for us (and usually just us) to play side-by-side, due to different start points, or poor leveling / sidekicking setups, or advancement requiring guilds / raids, or whatever, is going to be a frustration to us.

A game that actually rewards or scales properly to team-ups is a big advantage.

2. I need to feel heroic. Jogging everywhere in the world? Doing boring grind missions? Imperiled by battling three opponents? That’s not feeling heroic. (Note: this doesn’t necessarily mean “super-hero” or “comic book hero”.) I’m not looking to slay dragons on Day 1. I am looking to feel like I’m triumphing more often than not, and in a meaningful fashion. (This was an area where LotRO failed me.)

3. A variety of content / replayability. I don’t want to feel railroaded through just one course of action. I want parallel ways of gaining experience and exploring the world and so forth.

4. Well-written content. I don’t mind humor, but overall I want to take the story seriously. (One of my problems with Champions Online.)

5. A good resource / loot / crafting mechanic. Yeah, I know. I want to be able to play and advance without spending hours in a crafting room or haunting auction houses. Alternately, if I feel like doing that, having reasonably enjoyable / profitable mechanics for it are to be desired.

6. Soloable. Though we game together a lot, sometimes we like running solo, just to try something new, or because the other person isn’t around or doesn’t feel like gaming. (This tends to be tied a lot to #4.)

7. A reasonable, non-pervasive payment structure. I don’t mind paying money for a subscription (I know, how drolly 00s of me), but I’d like a chance to get my feet wet before I buy. On the other hand, I do not want to end up in a freemium game where it’s in my face all the time that only by spending my own cash on a regular basis am I going to get anywhere. I’ll pay for something special, but if I have to be regularly spending to play and advance, I’d rather have a monthly sub and not worry about it.

8. Alt-friendly. For whatever reason, Margie and I are both alt-aholics. Paper dolls are our friends. We like to try out different character types and combinations. We’d like to play something (in conjunction with requirement #3) that doesn’t require us to delete characters in order to roll up new ones.

9. Optional but available social options. Sometimes you feel like a PUG. Sometimes you don’t. A decent gaming community where there are options to group up when one is so inclined (e.g., when soloing) would be keen.

10. Instanced missions are keen. Because a bunch of PCs standing around waiting for the bad guys to respawn is kind of lame. And frustrating.

I also want a pony and a rocket ship and a Winnebago and peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

With the understanding that I’ll never find everything I want, and the CoH servers aren’t going to magically restart next weekend — anyone have some suggestions?

#gaming #boh

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So, besides mourning CoH, what else game-wise have I done lately?

The extended memorial service for City of Heroes, posted earlier today, aside, what’s new for me and online gaming?

Um … honestly, not a heck of a lot.

First off, it’s been a busy month or two. Margie’s been away on business. I’ve been away on business. Holidays and social butterflying and all that sort of thing. And the next month isn’t looking any better.

Secondly, yeah, I’ve been in mourning. Mercifully, Margie talked me into playing CoH one last time before it went away. But since then … really haven’t felt the yen.

And thirdly … well, I haven’t found … the thing. The game to take its place.  I’ve done some World of Warcraft solo and duoed, and likely will some more. But while it’s a decently pleasant passtime, I’m just not feeling the characters as such (something I became very aware of as I was crafting my endless memorials). There’s more variety (if of a less-rich nature) than of Lord of the Rings Online, but, honestly, I don’t feel invested in the characters in either game. With everyone wearing whatever they pick up, and the power/skill selection being fairly categorized, the players are (absent a strong social environment, which we’re not and not likely to get into) pretty much cookie cutter in nature.

(And that, I’m realizing, was one of the geniuses of CoH — that your fundamental appearance could be so different and unique, and the encouragement to have an origin story and a cool super-name to go with it, and that even your power selections could be tailored and tweaked and recombined and enhanced and respecced and recolored to make you completely individual. The focus was more on the characters than on the setting, though the setting was still pretty full of content.)

I’ve given Champions Online another go, and while some of those CoH advantages might seem to pertain, it feels both too mechanics-driven and too arduously neutral / balanced, to the point where every blast power is kind of like ever other blast power, and so forth.  And the setting starts to come into play again as feeling uneven and alternately goofy and grim. Plus, the whole game feels like a carnival in so many ways.

I haven’t retried DC Universe Online, or Star Trek Online, but I don’t recall much (or see much in current press) to make me feel they will fit any better.

Maybe we need to try D&D Online again / some more, since that has such character differentiation. There was something vaguely disjointed about what experience we had there, but we didn’t really drive things to any great conclusion.

I keep hearing encouraging words about Star Wars: The Old Republic — and highly discouraging words about it, too. But maybe that’s a possibility.

People keep suggesting to me Guild Wars 2, but aside from my fiery passion to not give another red cent to NCSoft, I hear a lot of trouble in that particular paradise, too.

So … what next?  I haven’t the foggiest. And, honestly, given the “firstly” above, I don’t expect to make any great progress until January. At least. At the earliest.

And that’s okay, right? Because it’s not like I don’t have eleventy-dozen other things going on. And while Playing Game with Margie is a lot of fun and doing-stuff-togethery, it’s not the be-all and end-all of our relationship.

I’ll — we’ll — find something that we enjoy together. And (assuming it’s a game), we’ll give it a try. And we’ll have fun. Or not, in which case we’ll move on.

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah,
La la, how the life goes on.

So, what about those other super-hero MMOs?

The super-hero genre is one that I enjoy a lot. It allows a lot of individual variation  in very dramatic fashion for the various toons. The thought did occur to me that, in moving from City of Heroes, I might think about shifting over to Champions Online or DC Universe Online again.

Then I checked my old posts on the blog:

Transitions (Mar 2010)

I just came the the realization that I have next to zero interest in ever playing Champions Online again. Which ticks me off to no end since (as I’ve said a dozen times) there are so many things about the game I like. I just find the overall experience an awful, not-terribly-fun grind.

Because occasionally I feel like I should post something other than tweets (Feb 2011)

Never signed up for DCUO after doing the beta stuff — bright and shiny but annoying non-instanced missions and overly combat-oriented.

Mr. Kiss-Kiss Bang-Bang (Dec 2011)

  • Champions Online: She was bright and shiny and promised so much but gave back so little.  We had some fun times, but ultimately she was never someone I could settle down with.
  • DC Universe Online:  Another try at rekindling an old relationship, but it was just too much of the same old grind.  I keep thinking I might give her a call some day, have some coffee, no strings attached, but I can never quite work up the interest.

    • Margie had an extensive post on CO experience here. And I had one here.

    So … for anyone who’s been playing those, has any of that criticism actually changed? Are these actual games we should consider picking up again?

    Mr. Kiss-Kiss Bang-Bang

    Via Doyce, from the Daily Grind a way to frame to your relationships with MMOs the way you frame your … “real” relationships:

    I’m sure you’ve heard of the classic “marry/kiss/kill” ranking game (or some not-so-PG version thereof) designed to rank your interest in a trio of human beings. So how about turning that upon MMOs today?

    Which games would you marry, would you kiss, and would you kill? By which, I mean:

    1. Marry: You’re in it for the long haul with this title, admiring the devs’ past and present efforts, and are confident that the future will hold great things. You plus this game equals “happily ever after.”
    2. Kiss: You’re interested — or currently involved — with a brief fling with this game, but you’re pretty sure that it’s not going to last. This is a title best left to brief flirtations versus long-term relationships.
    3. Kill: You are done with this MMO — or never wanted to get involved with it in the first place. You abhor the studio’s practices and products, and wouldn’t mind seeing the game thrown into the sun. Metaphorically, of course.

    Actually, kind of an objectionable way of framing it, but let’s see if I can tweak it a bit:

    Marry:

    • City of Heroes:  A first love, and still a best love.  She’s comfortable, pleasant, mature, fun to be with, a great sense of humor, still has plenty to explore … and she eve now manages some new surprises and unexpected presents now and again. My friends know her, which is nice.  There have been times we separated, though I always come back.  Lot of people think she’s over the hill, but I’m quite happy with her.

    Kiss:

    • Lord of the Rings Online:  Old, kind of crazy girlfriend I remember fondly and still occasionally socialize with. Things just never seemed to be going quite the way I was hoping, though, but I’m very glad she’s found other relationships.  Still occasionally think about another brief fling, since she’s free now, but it hasn’t happened yet.
    • Wizards 101:  I’m happy enough chatting with her while the kids are capering on the playground equipment. We were never close, but she always seemed good with children.

    Kill Don’t Return Phone Calls From:

    • World of Warcraft: We went on a first date, and I carefully thereafter blocked her on my phone. Never did see what people saw in her.
    • Champions Online: She was bright and shiny and promised so much but gave back so little.  We had some fun times, but ultimately she was never someone I could settle down with.
    • DC Universe Online:  Another try at rekindling an old relationship, but it was just too much of the same old grind.  I keep thinking I might give her a call some day, have some coffee, no strings attached, but I can never quite work up the interest.
    • Star Trek Online:  Met her at the con, seemed to share may of the same geeky interests as me, but eventually it seemed like that was all she was about.  The repeated conversations grew boring. I still play some of the music she lent me, sometimes.

    (Maybe I need to stay away from girls named “Online” … it ever seems to end well.)

    Ogle from Across the Room:

    • Star Wars: The Old Republic:  She’s hot, she’s new to the scene, she’s hot, she’s got everyone talking.  But she looks like someone who could take over my whole life, and I’m just not ready for that now.
    • EvE:  She’s mysterious, intriguing, and into some wild and different stuff.  I know folks who go on and on about how cool she is. Rumor has it she’s a tiger in the sack, but a very demanding mistress. Staying way away from her.

    Man, gaming relationships are complicated …

    CoH: WORLD of Heroes

    So I’ve not been hanging out in the forums and CoX site all that much of late … so I was a bit startled when I fired up the game this afternoon and …

    Hey … what are all those servers?

    I thought for a moment I might have been on Test, or else something awful had happened, but, no, Global Server Access has come to CoX. So now everyone can see not just the North American or European servers, but both.

    Which means one now has 15 servers to stuff alts onto …

    The Europeans take it a bit in the shorts here, since if there are @name conflicts, etc., theirs are the ones that get altered.  But aside from that — it’s pretty cool.  Better news than the “server consolidation” going on over in DCUO, alas (though, on the bright side, that article’s English is hysterical).

    (Actually, I’m expecting server consolidation to hit CoX sooner or later — Victory, where we do all our stuff these days, is nigh-on-ghost-towny.)

    Because occasionally I feel like I should post something other than tweets

    Even though there’s not a lot of News or Info or Interesting Stuff to post about.

    Um …

    Margie and I have been playing CoX (business trips permitting) pretty regularly over the last weeks.  We’ve been mostly running the cohort of 20ishes we grew up through Rogues, playing with new Tip missions vs Evil Duplicate missions vs Plain Ol’ Police Band missions vs etc.

    For a guy who hates crafting/auctioning, I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time at Wentworths (etc.) building up bankrolls by Buying Low and Selling High, mostly Special Enhancements and highly rare Invention Salvage.

    By the way, the recent addition of a new Salvage tab that requires scrolling over in order to see the Invention tab?  Highly irksome.

    So, not much more to tell.  Playing CoX. Having fun.  Booyah.

    Viz other games … well, never signed up for DCUO after doing the beta stuff — bright and shiny but annoying non-instanced missions and overly combat-oriented.  Haven’t done any STO in ages, either — it didn’t float Margie’s boat, and ultimately felt too repetitive (though what it was repeating was rather cool).

    We’re pretty much a CoX shop these days.  And, for the time we have to spend, that’s not a bad thing.

    Giving voice to the DC Universe

    This is probably old news to many, but Sony got a pretty damned impressive lineup of voice talent for DCUO.

    Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) announced today that two of animation’s most well-known talents lead a triple-A cast of voice actors in providing their skills for the upcoming online action game, DC Universe™ Online. Mark Hamill (Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: The Animated Series) will once again voice The Joker, while Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League Unlimited, Batman: Arkham Asylum) brings to life everyone’s favorite dark knight, Batman.

    This is full of win, of course.  Hamill is a splendid Joker, and Conroy is the modern voice of Batman (even Diedrich Bader emulates him in BBatB).

    But equally cool are some of the other voices (which haven’t gotten as much publicity):

    • Adam Baldwin as Superman: I’d prefer Tim Daly, but Baldwin’s pretty solid.
    • Gina Torres as Wonder Woman: Good pick.
    • James Marsters as Lex Luthor: Again, I’d prefer Clancy Brown, but Marsters works, too.

    Wow. That makes it look like a Joss Whedon production doesn’t it?

    • Michelle Forbes as Circe: And a bit of BSG goodness, too. She sould do a nice voice for Circe.

    Good stuff.

    Wherein Dave tries to demonstrate that he is, in fact, not just a Twitter bot

    Yeah, Blog of Heroes hasn’t been getting a lot of love lately.  But at least that annoying auto-playing CoH trailer got finally pushed off the front page …

    Things have been uber-busy the last month or two.  November was pretty much sucked up with NaNoWriMo — after hitting my 2K words, I had no energy for gaming.  December, thus far, has been mostly holiday prep, but Margie and I did get some CoH in over the weekend — mostly taking some of our newly-arrived Praetorians through their low-20 adventures, evil twins, all of that.

    I19 is out, of course, alas right about when I couldn’t talk about it at length (esp. having been in closed beta).  There’s just a whole bunch of nice QoL improvements, from trains that run everywhere (and tell you about where you’re going) to being able to sign out without logging off (though it’s a kludgy implementation, and buggy to boot).

    Over on the DCUO front, various beta keys are being given away, etc. and so forth.  Not that I would, theoretically, have any time to be playing with that, either …

    MMOs, the San Diego Comic-Con, and I

    City of Heroes

    We sat in on the City of Heroes “Going Rogue” panel, which was mostly interesting for being able to actually see what the various people looked like.  Panelists were Matt Miller (Positron), Melissa Bianco (War Witch), Jesse Caceres (Ghost Falcon), and David Nakayama (Noble Savage)

    They went through all the various new features of Going Rogue. They spent a fair amount of time discussing the alignment cycle (Hero becomes Vigilante; Vigilante can become Villain or return to Hero; Villain becomes Rogue; Rogue can become Hero or return to Villain).

    Vigilantes or Rogues can visit either Paragon or Rogue Isles, but the intent is not that people “stay” in these transitional forms (even though that means you can GET ALL THE BADGES, except for those that flip between Hero/Villain already).  The incentive to stay (or be) pure is access to custom lounges and extra merits  that give you access to Purple stuff.

    It all looked pretty darned cool, and the idea of a new starting zone is very attractive.

    The panel was asked by the moderator — Bryan Clayton, the head honcho at Paragon — if they had any comments on the news that NCSoft had registered a trademark for “City of Heroes II”. The panel read off in unison a nicely legalistic disclaimer that said they had no comment but that NCSoft was very proud of the game they had. It was amusing.

    One interesting comment  was that Paragon Studios has grown significantly in bodies and funding (such that they are running out of room in their new digs), which is letting them do a lot more stuff than they were able to do in the past.

    Margie also hung out multiple times at the NCSoft booth. We submitted some hero screen-caps (Torchielle and Kazima) into a raffle in the hope that they’d be rendered by David Nakayama, who’s the art director on CoX. Alas, they were not drawn (or, thus, drawn), but we had some nice chats with him anyway.

    We never did make it to the big NCSoft party the evening it was running; we had Prime Invitations, but since Michelle and Mary were not all that much (or at all) into CoH, it would have been kind of rude to drag them to it (since we were using Mary’s car).

    dcuoDC Universe Online

    We had a couple of exposures to DCUO over the weekend.  The “big” one was the, well, DCUO panel, which featured a cinematic of the “backstory” for the game universe (as written by Geoff Johns).  Marv Wolfman (who’s doing mission writing) and Mark Hamill (who’s doing the voice of the Joker, natch) were there, too.

    I didn’t sit through the full panel, as I had to run off to another line (Margie maybe can relate more).

    We also played the game out on the dealer floor — a PvP training scenario in “icon mode” (where you play actual DCU characters), in this case, a battle in the Batcave between Batman and Nightwing vs the Joker and Harley.  It was a bit difficult, mostly because the X-axis on the mouse was reversed (we were promised it would be fixed by release), but I ended up (as Harley) defeating Margie (as Nightwing). Go, me!

    The game looked pretty decent, but it was hard to judge too much from the limited exposure.

    We did pick up cards for beta keys, though …

    Marvel Super-Hero Squad

    This is a newly-announced MMO, based on the super-deformed Super-Hero Squad figures.  Margie and Katherine played a bit at the Marvel booth — it looks to be very kid-oriented (think Wizard 101) in design.

    The game is all browser-based — no client.

    Here’s a trailer:

    Overall, a pretty good MMO time at the Con. Not what I went there expecting to focus on, but …

    “So what did you do at the San Diego Comic-Con, Dave?”

    Well, I did a whole bunch, and some of it I’ll try to blog here tomorrow (being finally home).  But in the interim, I’ll offer up this cinematic, which premiered at the Con panel on the DC Universe Online panel.

    I would so pay for a full-length movie …

    I have no idea whether the game will live up to the cinematic (but some comments on our quick experience on it … well, as I said, tomorrow) — but the idea that they have folks like Geoff Johns and Marv Wolfman writing bible and content is … encouraging from that standpoint.

    (Cross-posted from DDtB …)