For this "Things you Would Change..." article we take a look at Sony Online Entertainment's superhero/super villain MMORPG DC Universe Online where players get to explore the extended universe of the DC comics ranging from Metropolis to Gotham City and fighting against or alongside some of the greatest superheroes and super villains that have been brought to life in the comics, TV shows and movies. For us DCUO has always been on the cusp of being a truly great MMORPG, with such an awesome IP behind it we feel like it could be far better than it is, but other than rebuilding from the ground up here are some of the things that we'd definitely love to see changed/ implemented in the game.

Character Customisation
We want it all, we want it all, and we want it now. It isn't so much the number of pre-generated items, costumes or auras that we are as bothered about (although more certainly wouldn't go amiss, particularly new hairstyles which have been long needed), but the lack of detailed customisation. As you'll see from our recent MatchUp article where we compared DCUO with Champions Online the level of customisation when creating your superhero costume is insane, multiple customisable components for each individual item, including hair colour, as opposed to the three colour palette style that DCUO uses which automatically colours your outfit. We want the option to wear a rainbow of colours, or simply customise our boots and gloves to a finer level of detail, so we can look even more different from the players that we constantly come across.

Permanent Sidekicks
Sidekicks need to be more than a temporary summoned pet. One of the things we've always felt with the game is that it often feels like you are playing second fiddle to your Mentors; Batman, The Joker, Superman, Lex Luther, Wonder woman and Circe. Even when you meet other known superheroes through the various quests you often feel like you are the Sidekick in their task as opposed to a superhero helping them. The implementation of Sidekicks took a step to bridge this issue, unfortunately we don't like the fact that they are temporary summons from a trinket and instead would sooner see them as permanent companions that follow you around akin more to Star Wars: The Old Republic (and some more customisation options of course).

Mentor Importance
Mentors should be more interesting and exclusive. Whilst we may gripe that sometimes you feel like a sidekick to the Mentors, this might be easier to stomach if they were actually made more relevant and interesting. Aside from a handful of story quests the Mentors don't actually do that much, we wouldn't mind seeing them as actual Mentors appearing more often during the key quests whilst dealing with other Superheroes, as opposed to just a name that sits in your character sheet. Secondly are the storyline quests for players should have some exclusivity for choosing that Mentor, as it stands players can join a group with another player that has a different Mentor and perform their story quests (and ultimately gain the benefits of that). Having the Mentors take a more active role in your rise as one of the greatest Superheroes or Super Villains the Universe has seen would be pretty good.

The Rise and Fall
Players should be able to switch factions. There is no real reason not to allow this, the classes and customisation appearances are the same whether you choose to be a superhero or super villain, and everyone loves a good villain redemption story or seeing the fall of their favourite superhero as they turn to the other side. Whilst we feel this should in its own right perhaps be a system, maybe allowing villains to perform good deeds to raise their reputation and superheroes perform bad deeds to lower theirs, ultimately resulting in their Mentors et al throwing them from the group, or at least giving players a personal campaign story arc to switch. Whilst some gear and even bases have restrictions to one side or the other it would be interesting for players to pursue such a storyline with their characters.

Cutscenes
Bring back cut scenes when completing key missions. One of the greatest things about completing quests were the cinematic cut scenes that players can experience, making them feel like part of their own superhero movie. The type of thing is something that fell by the wayside quite a while back and is surprisingly something we miss. The opening cinematic to the game is one of the best we've seen, so full of story and action, and whilst we don’t expect something to this level we'd prefer anything over the generic animations that we get now.

More Challenging Content
The game just isn't all that difficult. We’re not sure why but we’ve never found DCUO particularly challenging, solo content that many players find themselves in is typically a walk in the park and doesn't provide much of a challenge, which in turn doesn't make you feel like you're up against bad guys (or good guys) that actually count. Beating up weaklings doesn't make you feel like a superhero or supervillain, whereas overcoming great adversity and dangerous threats most definitely does. Even the raid style content is pretty basic and very few of the boss encounters feel like they have any boss style mechanics to them. Let's actually give our superheroes something to fight for and make our villains feel like they've just toppled one of the greats.

Lose the PS3
Keeping the PS3 on board limits the game. As noble (or profitable) as it may be to try and make a game is accessible to as many players as possible the truth is that as powerful as the PlayStation3 is as hardware in its own right it is unfortunately holding back the game. Whilst it falls under the Sony brand offering online PlayStation Network access, so initially made sense to try and make the game available to it, it is a dated platform that limits just exactly what DCUO is capable of. Such things as having to have item quantity restrictions across the board because the PS3 can’t handle it is damaging and given that the PS3 users only make up a small portion of the player base. More so when the PS3 users often as not complain about how bad the game is on the system (which has earned flippant responses from the developers telling players to "get a PS4") then it's about time they dropped the system from their list, open the game up and see what this baby can do instead of trying to glean a few extra dollars from a few extra players at the expense of everyone else.

These are some of the things that we would change about DC Universe Online, but what do you think? What would you change about this game? Would you add anything else to the list? We await your opinions! Let us know!!!!!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2015 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Articles, MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Puedes dejar una respuesta, o un trackback desde tu sitio web.