Is DC online worthy to be among mmorpg Champions or is it a City of Zeros?
Gameplay:
Starting off you will build your character and chose your weapon and superpower. You'll be using your weapon attacks (fists, staff, guns, etc.) more than your superpowers as attacking generates energy to fuel powers. However while you can change your weapon late in the game you can't change your power so choose wisely as your power set determines your role in combat tank, healer or controller. Everyone gets dps as a starting class and access to your primary class at level 10 at which point you can switch between them any time outside of combat. The difference between DPS and your main class mode being more damage and squishy vs stronger superpowers and defense.
Actual combat revolves around using your weapon combos to build energy and then using your superpowers at the right time. As a Brawler I found little use for other than two weapon combos, the longest main one and the one ranged skill you can get. In fact, since you can get passives in other weapon trees that stack whether you are using that weapon or not, every extra unused weapon skill you take becomes a waste. This means choosing variety, to offset the boredom of using the same attack, makes you less powerful. It is worth noting you can redirect the Brawler's main combo to another enemy should the one you are attacking die before it completes. This I found both useful (due to the end of the combo doing more dps), fun and something that requires a tiny bit of skill rather than spam. Unfortunately energy power builds on combos so if you need power, as opposed to killing enemies, to say heal a group it's better to just spam your low level ranged attack over and over. Since your superpowers require energy built from weapon attacks superpowers are of course more powerful though the strongest powers work on a supercharge meter. Rather than energy building on combos these powers charge on defeating enemies and depending on which power you buy can be a lifesaving ability or a slot wasted. Which powers you take in a tree will create a lot of how you play the game as you can only have six equipped at a time. As such powers behave like weapon skills with any extra unused powers taking away from passive powers you could have bought. This lends itself to two options do you want to play the same way the whole game and have better stats or have lower stats and powers you can swap to when you get bored? Since many abilities serve the same purpose but perform it in a different manner I felt myself a bit punished for trying to add variety to my character's abilities.
Having played a healer to level 30 (and a tank character some) I felt healing in the game is a bit lackluster. Firstly you'll be watching bars a lot and don't expect to heal like a Warhammer melee warrior priest as you'll use up too many heals on yourself. As such ranged attacks seem better for healing and you'll have a few problems if your weapon skills are primarily melee based. I also had issues with other players blocking my distance attacks therefore depriving me of power. This left me with the feeling that ranged flying healers would probably do better than my primarily melee super speedster. You're also going to have to give up some single player/PVP power to be the best team healer as each player has a limited amount of power abilities they can purchase. Many heal powers will be fairly useless in single player something the fire tank's power tree did not suffer from. Still as a Brawler/Nature build I managed ok as an off-healer, only having a couple heals, and in single player pvp match ups I held my own.
The single player quest varieties are 'kill this many", "collect this many" type quests. There are no timed quests, delivery quests or anything that dynamically changes in the world. The game does have many varied settings and DC characters to encounter but the actual actions you perform are the same. Want to have to deliver a vaccine in time while attack helicopters spawn chasing you? It doesn't come anywhere close. Where is the urgency? Where is the spontaneity? Where are the moments I write my own legend DC? They will be adding some content but it's going to have to be major AND varied to escape the grind, I don't see that happening. Once you reach level 30 you are reduced to raid or pvp farming ad nauseum. There are a few types of pvp, alerts and raids which are polished but standard fair.
In addition why can't developers realize meaningful and varied player interactions are the core of re-playability? A game will never have enough content as human interactions can create so why not put effort fostering dynamic content that does that? What we do get in DC is a pvp server where heroes and villains are thrown together without context and a pvp arena where you can grind for armor to beat down newbies who haven't grinded. Grouping for harder enemies and raids were among the highlights of the game but, for the best gear, I had to farm the same instance so long I don't ever what to see the Batcave again XD (and this was with a beta bug that dramatically reduced the time I had too farm it). Please note if you play this game I recommend the pvp server, yes you can currently get overwhelmed by a level 30 camping but you get an element of danger not present on the pve server. On the pvp server I found myself actually have to be alert to my surroundings if I wanted to complete quests not just grind in a haze.
Graphics:
DC online excels in this area bringing the large cities of Metropolis and Gotham to life with many locations from all over the DC Universe. There is a little pop in but it's not bad on my moderate level computer. You've also got DC characters from the well known to the obscure and even a few hidden cameos to be found. Certainly DC did not scrimp in the detail department and the missions are good the first time if only to check out what happens and who or what you end up fighting. Add in seasoned and recognizable voice actors from the DC cartoons and you feel like you are in one at times. A few notable powers, super speed and the slightly useful super strength for more damaging item/bus chucking (who doesn't like a good bus throw), did make me feel superpowered though they are unfortunately the exceptions not the rule. Most powers were meh and not all the powers/weapon skills mix well either. Also DC's costume earning incentive does not work when I got my costume as close as the game would allow when I created him. Now every new piece of equipment is just a grind for more stats, not unlike leveling but less compelling (seriously DC more prongs does not make better looking armor). Also, unlike Champions, you don't get huge character control, you don't get size variance, facial hair is not separated from head hair and a multitude of tiny options are unavailable. Even the power sets seem inappropriate to what I want as I'm not an "elemental" type guy. Still the powers and customization options do their job well enough it just makes me long for the Champion's character creator. Of course this juxtaposes the areas in Champions which left you feeling like your were going down a corridor while the feeling of freedom that the cities in DC impart is a vast improvement. I think I had the most fun in DC online just super speeding up buildings to ramp jump off and over other skyscrapers. It's nice to finally have a game you can actually leap tall buildings in a single bound .
Moral Content:
As far as moral content most objections in the game come in the form of the magic/demon content. Since you have three possible mentors to choose from and one is magic based almost a third of the game's content will take you through the vast magic themed stories of DC comics. For the most part it stays true to it's completely non-sensical source material however a few missions had me wincing even if they didn't make sense. The worst I found was the one you must leave your soul in the care of the the demon Etrigan (he is a good demon though >.> ), turn into a zombie and infiltrate some areas sealed by evil to fight it. Of course this was on the "Hero" side I imagine the villain side would of course have you being evil and thus be worse. As far as language there were a couple of light cuss words in the game itself but that paled compared to other players which, being the internet, freely used whatever crude language they wished. There was no chat filter at the time of my testing and some players exploited that fact to it's fullest potential. The game certainly has it's share of sexy and reveling super outfits but I saw no sexual references nor can you have a nude character with um details.
Final Word:
DC online appears to have fallen into the atypical mmorpg syndrome. Sure all the mmo bells and whistles are there, raids, quests, pvp, it's pretty, etc. . Notables include the huge scale of Metropolis and Gotham and a couple powers help lend an epic feeling. Also if you are a DC comic fanboy it's fanservice and attention to DC detail will put you in 7th heaven. Maybe that's part of the problem though. Unlike fulfilling the game's motto "the next legend is you" it feels like it's a guided tour of the DC universe. Batman thanks you (since when does Batman thank people?), you hobnob with Superman and fight all the big baddies from Lex Luthor to Braniac but I never felt like I was a legend of my own. I was more like one of the many forgettable, and disposable, Justice League sidekicks being patted on the back by Superman "you did good farming those 20 demon horns, yes you did, who's a good superhero, you are, yes you are!" . There is no real nemesis to call your own or a story based framework to set up and propel pvp. Most of the time you'll be grinding through quests which, although rich in DC detail, are all to similar in tasks. It certainly will be fun for a couple months but strip away the super heroes and you are left with that typical mmorpg grind.
DC online is not a bad game. Overall it's probably the best superhero (action) mmorpg out today with all the features you've come to expect but nothing more and certainly nothing original. I'd recommend it if you are a super hero fan or more so specifically a DC comics fan. You'll think it's great it for a couple months then get bored.
