DCUO: Who's playin'?

[mjdgoldeneye]

I have this weird habit.

 

The games I put out for lifetime subs on, I rarely play after the first few months. I always seem to have things to do in other games (that I pay month-to-month for) and always think "I can get back to Champions/DCUO/STO/LOTRO since I'm a lifer!".

 

Let's see what happens after I start with Guild Wars 2 on Friday. Buy the box and never pay again might work the same way with me.

 

You should probably at least play long enough to try every race and class. They're all really fun.

 

I don't play MMO's. I tried City of Heroes and Champions online and WoW and The Old Republic and several others (freely, either just organically or on others' accounts). I really, truly dislike MMO's. I see right though the grind and think, objectively, they're a good single player game that's been artificially drawn out and dumbed down as much as possible.

 

However, I have GW2 pre-ordered. It's truly a game. It isn't a box opening exercise. It isn't psychological engineering. At the very least, it doesn't feel like it is.

 

I also particularly love how PvP is set up. That has practically endless replayability as you can just hop in with any class and roll with whatever build you want. You don't have to grind a character for 2 weeks - a month before trying something new. A lot of people don't like having things all spilled out like that, but I love it.

 

World vs. World (vs. World) is also great because it's sort of the best-of-both-worlds between PvP and PvE. I haven't played a lot of it since a few betas ago, but if they do something about the 15-30 minutes it takes 10-20 players to knock down a door, it should be great. (Honestly, though, if they don't change that, WvWvW will wear thin on me quickly. The organic team fights and overall concept is great, but standing next to a door and occasionally pressing keys for ages isn't fun at all).

 

But... yea... I'm stoked.

 

Me and some IRL friends (something like 8-10 of us, which is shocking for any game) will be rolling on Tarnished Coast if you want to join in.

[Remianen]

You should probably at least play long enough to try every race and class. They're all really fun.

 

I do that within the first few months. In STO, for example, Vice Admirals/Lieutenant Generals of each specialty (Engineering, Tactical, Science) and both sides comprise my six characters.

 

I don't mind "grind" as people call it. I believe everyone has a different definition (and tolerance) for it. If it's repeating the same task over and over again, anyone who's played video games for a couple of decades has been doing that...for a couple of decades. Back in the day, once you found "the pattern", beating any game became almost an afterthought. I remember playing Super Punch-Out!! in the arcade, literally with my eyes closed up until Super Macho Man, because I knew the patterns so well. It's always been a case of motivation. A good game motivates you to get to a certain point (like Street Fighter II getting to M Bison), usually the end. MMOs nowadays don't have anything even vaguely resembling grind. They pretty much warp you to the point of the game with the least content (usually the end). That's why they can't staunch their churn.

 

And I don't think there can be a 'best of both' when it comes to PvP vs PvE. That's mainly due to available developer resources and the focus of a game. There's an old scripture that says, "A man cannot serve two masters" and it's true in this instance. If you had two separate teams working on things (one for PvP, one for PvE), that would be a different story. But you don't, so you wind up with either PvE feeling tacked on (ala EVE) or PvP being tacked on (damn near every other mainstream game).

 

We'll see. I haven't played any of the betas (logged in for the stress test Tuesday night but only for fifteen mins or so. I didn't actually do anything). I'm going to see if the time it takes to get the game down will extend my interest in it. More often than not, I'm in the beta and see the game as it progresses to its launch state. So I can start off jaded (over 'focus cuts'), not to mention with enough advance knowledge to get to max level in a week.

[mjdgoldeneye]

I do that within the first few months. In STO, for example, Vice Admirals/Lieutenant Generals of each specialty (Engineering, Tactical, Science) and both sides comprise my six characters.

 

I don't mind "grind" as people call it. I believe everyone has a different definition (and tolerance) for it. If it's repeating the same task over and over again, anyone who's played video games for a couple of decades has been doing that...for a couple of decades. Back in the day, once you found "the pattern", beating any game became almost an afterthought. I remember playing Super Punch-Out!! in the arcade, literally with my eyes closed up until Super Macho Man, because I knew the patterns so well. It's always been a case of motivation. A good game motivates you to get to a certain point (like Street Fighter II getting to M Bison), usually the end. MMOs nowadays don't have anything even vaguely resembling grind. They pretty much warp you to the point of the game with the least content (usually the end). That's why they can't staunch their churn.

 

And I don't think there can be a 'best of both' when it comes to PvP vs PvE. That's mainly due to available developer resources and the focus of a game. There's an old scripture that says, "A man cannot serve two masters" and it's true in this instance. If you had two separate teams working on things (one for PvP, one for PvE), that would be a different story. But you don't, so you wind up with either PvE feeling tacked on (ala EVE) or PvP being tacked on (damn near every other mainstream game).

 

We'll see. I haven't played any of the betas (logged in for the stress test Tuesday night but only for fifteen mins or so. I didn't actually do anything). I'm going to see if the time it takes to get the game down will extend my interest in it. More often than not, I'm in the beta and see the game as it progresses to its launch state. So I can start off jaded (over 'focus cuts'), not to mention with enough advance knowledge to get to max level in a week.

 

Guild Wars 2 has also had a development cycle much longer than most MMO's.