Gamescom 2009: DC Universe Online Impressions

Posted by MMO Reviewer

dculogo


Back at Gamescom, we were able to meet with Wes Yanagi of Sony Online Entertainment in order to take a look at the upcoming cross platform MMO DC Universe Online for PlayStation 3 and PC.DC Universe Online, Yanagi told us, was designed to be a fast-paced MMO experience from the very beginning of the development process, more in line with the action-style of God of War instead of World of Warcraft’s grind-heavy hotkey system. As he walked us through the character creation process, it was obvious that there’s a great amount of variation with which to customize your character; not only with regards to their appearance, but also how their powers manifest themselves in-game. When creating your avatar you have to select three variables to define your superhero characteristics in order to stand out from your fellow players.




  • Power: This dictates, rather obviously, what type of superpower your hero will specialize in. Will your hero have super-strength like Doomsday, or will they be able to fire out rays of cosmic energy from his bare hands?



  • Source: Where will your hero, or heroine, source their powers from? Could it be in the form of a ring like the Green Lantern, or a secret magical power conjured from the depths of Hell? That’s up to you to decide!



  • Movement Power: This one’s fairly obvious. You can decide to fly like Superman, be athletic like Batman or run with superhuman speed like The Flash, among other options.



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Another interesting feature with regards to your appearance comes in the form of dynamic co-ordination between your costume and the loot you acquire. When you collect a piece of equipment which would benefit your character; be it a new cowl, material or weapon, it’s automatically configured to match the rest of your outfit. The reasoning behind this, Yanagi tells us, is due to every character under level fifty in World of Warcraft having that ‘hobo’ look due to mismatching tunics and other equipped items. When you replace a piece of your costume with a newer acquisition, the older item is automatically stored in your lair, meaning at any point in the game, you can instantly relive what would essentially be your Golden or Silver Age if you so desire.


After you create your character, unique as they are in the DC Universe, you next need to choose your affiliation. If your personal aim is to one day become an honored member of the Justice League, you might shack up with the heroes. On the other hand, if your desires are more keyed towards personal gain and destruction, the Legion of Doom is probably better for you. Of course, you won’t start out as a member of one of these groups; instead, the higher you progress toward the level cap, the more superhero/villain co-op missions your respective agency will have you participate in. Basically, until you prove your worth to them as a credible asset, then it’s just going to be player factions for you.



The controls for the PlayStation 3 version can be mapped to either a DualShock 3, which was the demonstrated control method on hand here, or you can plug in a USB keyboard and mouse. This is a good feature, as there aren’t many titles on consoles that support the mouse/keyboard combination; not only that, but we were also informed the PC release will also have DualShock 3 support. It all sounds pretty impressive when you consider that it allows people to be able to play the way that feels most comfortable to them on either platform – if you’ve never played an MMO before, the Dual Shock option might be better, while more seasoned PC veterans might prefer to use the mouse/keyboard layout. For the DualShock layout, your abilities (like the aforementioned God of War) are mapped to the controller’s face buttons, with the L2 and R2 triggers switching between offensive and defensive layouts respectively. The currently selected mode, be it defensive or offensive, appears on your HUD at the bottom of the screen; this allows you to chain up your actions, switching back and forth between offensive and defensive actions, in order to kick some severe butt.


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Missions take place either as a ‘case’ or ‘caper’ depending on your alignment, and the demonstration shown at Gamescom took place in S.T.A.R. Labs with the Joker and Harley Quinn giving the player character a mission to complete. It seemed that a virus of sorts had been unleashed during some form of experiment and ended up infecting the scientists who needed to be taken out as a result. As we watched Wes plow through enemy after enemy, it became clear that DCUO has certainly nailed the combat aspect for an adaptation of the DC Comics license. When Solomon Grundy, Lex Luthor and Bizarro turned up to help his player character take down a large mutant boss, it was certainly an interesting moment. The Joker then gave another mission to Wes; he was tasked to deliver the item to a specific drop off point in what’s known as a ‘FedEx’ mission. Delivery missions in most MMOs are relatively easy, but when Hal Jordan (the Green Lantern, for those of our readers who aren’t up with the current DC lingo) turns up to try and stop you, you know it’s not going to be a walk in the park. Needless to say, Mr. Luthor made short work of Hal and that was it for the end of the mission.



We knew going in that the game was still in the pre-alpha phase; despite this, the level of detail within the title was really quite impressive. If it weren’t for the fact that the game is clearly not finished, the visuals were looking good enough for it to even release tomorrow. Wrapping up our time with Yanagi, we had a couple more questions to ask him regarding DC Universe Online. Most importantly, we made sure to check in and see whether or not the title will be subscription-based or free to play like so many seem to be doing lately. In his response we were given a very strong impression that they are leaning towards the expansion-pack business model, as opposed to the traditional subscription fee although such matters hadn’t been solidified at that point over at Sony Online Entertainment. In another, albeit unsurprising, move the game will feature completely platform-open servers; this means the servers will be cross-compatible between the PS3 and PC versions, no matter where you play. Whilst this is all well and good, Yanagi neglected to further elaborate on the means through which the game will be making its money. Whether it ends up with a Free Realms-esque microtransaction service or a more Guild Wars-inspired system of free play supported by numerous paid expansions, we’ll do our best to keep you updated as time goes by.




Champions Online - Game Review / Intro Guide

Posted by MMO Reviewer

An introduction of Champions Online by FTWGuides. This is just an overview. If you want the complete actual guide ensuring you are the top champion on your server, download here.

Introduction

Champions Online is a new super hero (and possibly soon to be super villian) themed MMORPG created by Cryptic Studios, who also brought us City of Heroes & Villians . The game is being developed for Windows and Xbox 360.


PvE

Gameplay

Players who've played any of the common MMORPGs will notice right away the PvE in Champions Online is an extremely fast paced experience. From level 1 to 40 the pace maintains a very upbeat speed which leads to some intense gameplay.

Another thing you'll notice is that every hero has nearly infinite energy (mana) or at least can regen it near instantly, which means there are no down times in this game , aside from the odd heal which is almost always a full heal.

You're able to go from group to group without stopping, and speaking of groups, another great thing about this game is there are hardly any times where you're fighting one mob at a time.

Every normal mob comes in packs of 2-3 or more depending on the area, so you really get the feel of being a super hero stopping petty criminals and the like, overall the gameplay is spot on for the theme of the game and does a fantastic job if you're into the hero genre.

Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

Quests

Questing in Champions Online is by far the fastest I've seen due to the fact that every quest is marked on your world map and mini map as soon as you accept it, and to make it even faster with your travel powers you're able to go from quest to quest almost instantly, even if it's across the map it will only take about 10 seconds to get there. This is a refreshing change from hour long traverses designed to suck your playing time (WOW I'm looking at you...)

However, as of now there's just barely enough quests to get to about 36-37 then you're pretty much forced to grind Open Missions or do instances, which isn't as bad as it sounds, the Open Missions reward you based on how much you participated and once one is finished, it will re-appear as soon as the timer ends (the timer varies on each Open Mission). Its rather similar to public quests in Warhammer Online, with more colorful spandex and muscles.

One thing I've noticed however is that a person with more AoE will end up gaining levels a lot quicker, it seems to be a pretty heavy AoE game, I've played a 40 Dex/Ego - Power Armor/Gadgeteer and a 40 Con/Str - Single Blade/Power Armor and the difference in extremely huge (and a bit unfair as of current), with my Dex/Ego character I was able to use Mini Mines to do about 3,500 (over 5,000 with crits) AoE damage every few seconds, however my Str/Con character was barely pushing about 2,500 on single targets every few seconds! The upside to Str/Con is that you're pretty much unkillable, so it evens out, regardless the pace of the game never slowed down for either char.


Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

Traveling the World

In Champions Online you have the ability to train 2 traveling abilities (one at 5, the other at 35) which include Acrobatics, Earth Flight, Fire Flight, Regular Flight, Hover Disk, Ice Slide,Jet Boots, Rocket Jump, Super Jump, Super Speed, Swinging, Teleport and Tunneling, each has their ups and downs, and some are a bit gimmicky, while others are almost a must, such as teleporting. Teleporting lets you bypass any nearly any mob (except Psis) without them seeing you, almost everyone I talked to started with Teleport for questing and then chose their last Traveling Power based on their heroes story or based on the fun value (swinging is probably the most fun in my opinion)

The downside to travel powers is once you start the game, at least from levels 1-5 you'll have to run everywhere which makes the world seem nice and huge, but in reality as soon as you get your first travel power, you realize that it's actually pretty small, although they will be expanding the game pretty soon, as of now you're able to literally go from corner to corner of every zone in the game in about 10 minutes with teleport.

Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

Economy

Money is Champions Online currency is called Resources, the actual names are Global, National and Local (most people just call it G/N/L), the need for Resources in Champions Online isn't very high at this point, the only real need for Resources is to re-train (Retcon is what they call it) your skills if you decide you want to use different abilities later, on top of that the only other real thing you would use it for would be to buy equipment off the auction house, which is actually used extremely well by almost the entire server.

Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

Crafting

Crafting in Champions Online is actually pretty decent, there are 3 main crafts which are Arms, Science and Mysticism.These 3 crafts they break down into 3 subsets which are mostly the same in each craft, but they have different items and different looks to suit your heroes look and story.

The items you make are actually really great and often are better than anything at the equal level that you would get from questing so no fear of wasting time on newbie garbage, and you're able to make even better items if you find or train rare recipes that allow you to control the quality of the item (from poor to major). As you increase the quality the requirement goes up as well.

From 1-200 crafting is a breeze, you're able to experiment (breaking the item) to gain crafting levels which also gives you materials based off the items quality, you're able to break down quest items as you go which makes it very simple.

From 201-300 it gets a bit more difficult, as you break down about 20 items a time you get about 2 points, so the best way to level it is to go out and hunt crafting nodes which give 1 level each.

Over all crafting is a great and profitable thing to do in Champions Online, if you put a lot of decent things on the Auction House, you will make lots of Resources.

Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

Instances and Raids

This is where Champions Online starts to lack for people who enjoy long drawn out instances and raids, as of now there's only a handful of instances such as Dr. Destroyer's Robot Factory in MC and Telios Tower in Canada, they're both around the same level (30ish) and are pretty fun if you can get a good group to do them (healer!).

If you do get a group for either of the two, you'll find that they are actually really fun and well scripted and require a lot of group effort to succeed.

For raids however, there aren't any yet sadly, aside from Grond who just jumps around the Desert smashing people, he requires about 20-25 level 25ish people to take down. Thing is, you can't form a raid yet, so you just have 5 groups of 5-6 people together, and only one of them gets exp/loot, it really makes things difficult when only the group you're in can see your chat.

I'm sure as the game progresses raids will be added, right now the only thing to really do at 40 is some of the UNITY missions which vary from solo to insanely hard 5-6 man groups.

Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

PvP

Hero Games

Ah, this is where the game gets interesting, Hero Games are a type of arena where you enter solo or in a group and you're put on either a red team or a blue team, and the two different teams fight in a sort of deathmatch area until the requirement is met, usually which ever team gets 15 kills of the other team or such.

The fun thing about it though, is that everyones characters are so different you never know what to expect. you might see a tiny character that's actually a tank, or a massive character that takes up your whole screen who's actually a squishy caster, the diversity in characters really makes you think about what you're doing instead of just jumping in and screaming at everyone to get the healer, because honestly, you don't really know who the healer is!

Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

Combat

The combat in PvP is probably faster than any other MMORPGs I've played, with people jumping around with super jump, disappearing with teleport or even running laps around the arena with super speed, it really adds a whole new dimension to the PvP gameplay. Currently however it's a bit unbalanced, a fully Str/Con character with Invincibility slotted can hold block forever and take 1 damage from just about anyone, where as the casters who were dominating PvE with their AoEs, are pretty much one shotting either each, like most things I'm sure future patches will fix these problems, but lots of people are re-training to go pure Str/Con until it's fixed.

Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

Others

Graphics

The graphics in Champions Online are meant to give you a comic book feel with dark heavy outlines and bright colours, the look of Champions Online is very pleasant and actually fun to look at for hours a day, the various powers in the game add a lot to the bright colourful graphics and add a whole level of detail on their own.

You have a huge say in how your details look, at the lowest it's almost an unreconizable game, but almost any computer can play it. On the highest details, it can slow down even the mightiest of computers, but it looks absolutely amazing... sort of a cell-shaded look.

When fighting some villians or worse they'll often have an image over their head when using their special skills like the old comic books had such as POW ZAP CRRRRRRK ERK! (note: these particular ones aren't in the game, but other funny ones are!).

Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

Community

Another thing that Champions Online could use some improvement on is the community, as of now you can solo from 1-40 without meeting or grouping with anyone else, in most MMORPGs you see people running around towns, or grouped together in certain areas, but in Champions Online, they added the 3rd dimension of Travel Powers, so often people are in the sky or underground even, and are sometimes hard to notice.

However because of that, I have to say that the chat is extremely nice, unlike mostly MMORPGs, the global/region chat in Champions Online is used maturely and is actually used the way it's suppose to, it really gives the game a nice community feel.

Even though you can change instances to any of the different ones per area, the chats are always linked, so if you're in instance 1 and your friend is in instance 90, you will both see the same chat, so it really is handy for looking for groups and what not.

Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

Pros

Amazing character creation

Awesome story

Intense high speed combat

Fantastic community

Cool nemesis feature

Every champion is different

Cons

Lack of instances/raids (soon to be fixed)

Some powers need a bit of tweaking

Respeccing needs to be cheaper

Needs some more zones

Click here to get the complete guide by FTWGuides

Final Notes

Overall, I'd certainly rate Champions Online to be one of the fastest paced, fun MMORPGs that have come out this year or even last year (Sorry AoC/War!), the depth of the game could use some work, which they are already working on btw, but the over all game itself really rates high as has been becoming more and more popular each day that passes. It's not the kind of game you'll slave over for hours and months, rather its a fun and fast paced break from the grind games that are out there.

If you'd like to really experience the game on another level, Get yourself the complete Champions online guide from FTW Guides.

Champions Online - Basic Powers Free Guide

Posted by MMO Reviewer

This is a quick guide to the powers in use at Champions Online. This was written before the release of the actual game so it may seem outdated but rest assured the contents of the guide are upto date and solid. Champions Online is rapidly gaining speed and has tremendous potential as far as MMOs go. This is because of it's unique positioning in the MMO industry. A superhero genre to the MMO, that has got to be a lot of fun for sure. No one can deny that ..eh?

Champions Online is shaping up to be an excellent addition to the super hero MMO genre, and with it's release later this summer you can bet there will be enough spandex and super powers to satisfy even the most particular comic book fan. One of the key elements of any good MMO game is giving players enough options to customize their character to their personal play style, allowing them to feel absolutely unique.

The Ten Ton Hammer staff had the opportunity to get some hands-on time with Champions this weekend, and we're going to provide you a quick look at some of the powers available and how they'll fit together. Without going into too much detail on character creation (which will come in a later article), players are allowed to choose a "framework" for their characters, basically giving them a particular theme, like "Martial Arts: Dual Blades" or "Supernatural." I've grouped the 18 framework types into categories, but if you are a big fan of total control, you can create your own custom framework. Also keep in mind that, as you level up, it's possible to mix and match powers from different frameworks.

Elemental

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Champions has your obvious options for the elements in here including Fire, Ice, and Electricity. Instead of doing things the easy way and making all the powers similar, Cryptic opted to really flesh out each path and added flavor to each. The larger Fire and Electricity attack for example hit multiple targets, while the Ice seems to only affect a single for more damage. Each element will allow players to not only solo effectively, but the also appear to make an amazing support class. With powers like Chain Lightning, Fire Strike, and Ice Blast you can expect this power group to be a player favorite. I also look forward to how many variations of the word "pyro" can be generated by the community for the names of their player characters.

Technology

This was my personal favorite and encompassed Archery, Gadgeteering, Munitions, and Power Armor. Archery was pretty self explanatory and makes any amateur Robin Hood into a force to be reckoned with. Gadgeteering looks to be a heavy support role with resurrection abilities, not to mention the ability to summon drones and attack teddy bears complete with pirate hats. Munitions is every vigilantes dream with weapons like the pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle, and hand grenades represented, making it quite a formidable category. Finally Power Armor features cybernetic implants that make you into a walking death machine with abilities like shoulder fired missiles, hand blasters, and even a chest beam. Mixing both ranged and melee abilities you can expect to see some great combos coming out of this category.

Magic

What category could make Dr. Strange any prouder than Magic? Sorcery is the most prominent and Cryptic has already provided some video to show a few of the more potent powers. It had many "circles" that apparently bring different benefits to the caster and is probably the closest thing we'll see to a healer in this game. Darkness powers will fit those of you who just can't stand the thought of being a good guy, so now you can bring justice in a dark way. Darkness had one of the most powerful charge up attacks I saw, and it killed almost anything I hit it. On top of all that, Darkness also has a Drain Life ability. Supernatural might not fit this category but that framework was an odd combination of mutant-like abilities such as controlling animals, biting, and a chain lash. It will work well for any melee fan and add variety as a secondary class.

Psychic

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Some super heroes use the powers of the mind, and Champions plans on reminding us of that. An interesting category called Force let me knock targets back using a nifty close range area of effect power to reach out and slap someone. Telepathy was a little less direct but had abilities to confuse and debuff enemies while adding a nasty damage over time effect on top. It certainly won't fair well against melee classes but with a decent travel power, it could perform well. Finally, Telekinesis was a unique mixture of both ranged and melee attacks allowing you to pick and choose your preference. Neither were exceptionally strong but you can't expect flexibility and heavy damage can you? I see these frameworks falling into the support role or augmenting some of the tougher melee classes to make a super strong hero.

Melee

The melee class was the final category and includes 4 separate martial arts frameworks and one called Might. I really couldn't tell much difference between the Martial Arts: Dual Blades, Single Blade, Fighting Claws, and Unarmed. They were all different powers but appear to go about things the same way, not that there is anything wrong with that. In the end does it matter if something takes a sword or fist to the head as long as the NPC still goes down? Kicks, fighting stances, and other nuances will separate them, but these seem to be the tanks and melee strikers of the game as everything had a max range of 7 feet. Might was a little different and very much reminded me of the Incredible Hulk. Smashing, throwing, and heavy punches will put this framework in the enemies face and I personally enjoyed the chaos I could create.

So there's your basic breakdown of powers in Champions Online, and can help you get a better feel for your character in the next few months. As you can see, Cryptic is certainly living up to the reputation they created with City of Heroes by allowing a ridiculous number of combinations and customization options. Look for Champions to hit retail your local retail store sometime after July 14th, and then you too can get your very own chest beam.

Champions Online Guides Exposed

Posted by MMO Reviewer



Champions Online is out,the game is different, the game is new and leveling guides are sprouting all over the place but very often you end up buying the guide and then feel like you’ve been tricked and scammed.The guides tend to be poorly written or contain extremely vague instructions This is where people like us come in. We buy the guide, use it and then give you a review so that you don’t get hoaxed.

So far, Champions online has 2 guides, one from killerguides and the other from FTWGuides. We went thorugh both the guides without any bias and these are our findings.

We went through Killerguides, their leveling guide is grossly incomplete and very vague it is barely of any use. Quests aren’t detailed, all that is told is move from here to there and complete xyz quest. Why pay for a guide that makes you do all the work. But then we saw FTWGuidesin action and it absolutely stunned us.

First of all, the Champions Online leveling guide by FTWGuidesisn't just a leveling guide. It includes so much more. It will not only teach you the quickest way possible to hit level 40 but will also teach you how to make more resources (Champions Online version of gold), play your champion, find the right equipment for you, and how to spec your character. It clearly explains the stats(Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intellect, Ego, Presence, Recovery, and Endurance) and what you should be increasing when and for what character.The guide starts off with the basics, so newcomers arent left out and it then goes onto some serious stuff.

One of the big questions that I get asked is how can someone already have a guide out for this game since it was just released a few days ago? That's actually a common question and in the world of mmo guide writers what happens is they very often take part in the game's beta and do all of their hard work designing a useful leveling guide. That way once the game is released there usually isn't huge changes needed and any smaller changes can be added to the guide quickly. Keep in mind that these are usually written by the top expert players in the game.

Our #1 Pick For A Champions Online Leveling Guide :- FTWGuides by a longshot

Champions online is a very new concept in the genre of mmorpgs. And a guide for this game. must offer quality content regularly. FTWGuides have an amazing history of providing quality updates to their guides. As of now the guide covers every single quest in the game along with a whole host of other tips and tricks to ensure that you level up really fast.

Here's a highlight of some of the important things that is included with the Champions Online leveling guide.

* Complete step-by-step leveling guide to get you from 1-40 (We mean Step by Step with screenshots!!)
* Secrets, tips and tricks you need to know along the way
* Online easy to read format, never get lost
* Full colored numbered maps
* 24/7 Support LIVE!
* Money back guarantee