DC Universe Online

So, last night I decided to buy and download DC Universe Online. Available on Steam for 50 bucks. It's about 13 gigs to download, with an extra 2 gig patch afterwards. My initial impressions are quite favorable. It plays a lot like your typical action game, very similar to Prototype or God of War. You can lock on to targets or you can do it more like a free-flowing brawler style. Although it's an MMO, it feels more like a single player game due to it also being available for PS3. There isn't a whole lot of chatting going on, just running around and smashing stuff.

A lot of reviewers were saying that the game doesn't play well with a mouse and keyboard, but I haven't had any issues. I have the usb dongle to hook up my wireless xbox controller to my PC and play this, but it is working rather nicely on keyboard and mouse for me.

Here is a quick screenshot of my villian, PyritePunisher. I tried to transpose my old Pyrite Punisher character from City of Heroes over to DCUO. Big thanks to Kevin for coming up with the Pyrite Punisher name, it was perfect.

The level cap is 30 and it seems rather quick to get levels. Or, perhaps, I was having so much fun smashing cops that I didn't notice. Either way, it was very entertaining, and that is the point. I may have to try recreating The Angry Goblin character I had in CoH as well as a new villain that I will name Narcoleptica, that puts people to sleep and messes with their minds.

This game is very enjoyable, although it sucks that PS3 players have their own set of servers aside from the PC players. I would very much like to play with a lot of my favorite podcasters but they are all playing on the PS3 version of the game.

Dungeons are hard!

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2053469#blog

So Ghostcrawler wrote a post about the recent nerdrage concerning WoW dungeons and heroics. This recent whinefest is seriously getting disgusting. I understand that the game has changed a bit from what it was in Wrath of the Lich King, but it hasn't changed that much.

In the the beginning of WoW every dungeon was hard. It required teamwork and communication, until we got to the point where the majority of people knew the encounters well enough to not need an explanation. In Wrath, when the LFD tool came out, most people already had T9 or equivalent and just got into the habit of steamrolling heroics to farm badges. That was after the game had matured for what, 2 years? You cannot expect to enter the new expansion, essentially a brand new game, under a new philosophy that Blizzard has adopted, and expect to queue up and destroy everything with little to no social interaction with your fellow players. If you want to play an MMORPG and not interact, use strategy, and overcome difficult tasks with other people then you are free to just do quests, dailies and solo old content. When you do that you must realize that doing so will not get you the best gear. If you want the best gear, you must join a guild, be active within said guild, make friends, and generally be a good person.

The mindset of these people just baffles me. The reason Blizzard put so many perks for guilds in Cataclysm, is because they wanted you to join guilds! Be social! This is a massively multiplayer online game, which means there are massive amounts of people for you to meet, befriend, love, and also hate. You can play an MMO totally antisocially but you must accept the consequences for doing such.

I have just been focusing on acquiring gold, doing all the cool new quests, getting my main and all my alts to 85 and leveling a goblin. I am playing quite antisocially, actually, and I am enjoying the hell out of the content they have provided for us. I have done a few dungeons, but only with my good friends that I have made within the game and real life by being friendly and social.

I don't believe Blizzard should nerf content to placate the lowest common denominator that is not interested in improving themselves and learning. You are not entitled to anything in this game, even if you pay the monthly fee. You are just renting the content and the space on their servers. They aren't required to give you anything at all. They do so because they want to give people an amazing experience. So just shut up, and enjoy it!

So you wanna be a Cylon

Sony's new 3D display

I found this link today and thought I'd share. It sounds like a pretty sweet idea, though I don't quite understand all the clamor about 3D. Sure, it's a nifty little novelty, but there are great strides that must be taken to make it THE format. The glasses need the go, and the technology that doesn't use the glasses needs to be tweaked so you don't get headaches or sick to your stomach after an hour or so.

Instead of working so hard to make movies 3D, I think they should work on making 3D the format for games. Everyone wants more realistic, immersive gaming. Imagine running around Orgrimmar and it looks like you are truly running through town. 3D movies still seem forced and gimmicky. We need something better than just another catchphrase you can throw in front of a movie title and charge 15 dollars more.