Saturday, July 24, 2010

DC Universe Online Video Game, Exclusive Who Do You Trust Trailer HD | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com

DC Universe Online Video Game, Exclusive Who Do You Trust Trailer HD | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com

Ok, without a doubt this trailer is amazing.

However, putting on my game design wonk headset, I am still extremely skeptical about this game as a, you know, game.

Let's take stock shall we? Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, along with Lex Luthor, need to save the world.

Uhhuh, and what do the characters players can actually play do while all this is going on? Fetch bear pelts to craft into backpacks and sell them in the JLA lobby? Sounds intoxicating.

One hopeful bit is if you are actually playing in the dark future, where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are dead, and new heroes need to rise up to take their place.

I am skeptical DC as a license holder would want that though.

This is a problem with licensed properties in general. They have DMPC syndrome. It's in DC's interest that their characters are awesome, because that's the universe they make money off of. This is counter to what would make a good game.

3 comments:

mikelaff said...

eh. My bet: I think WB/Sony is smarter than that. (I could be wrong.) They should know that MMOs live and die on a combination of playability (is the game fun to play?) and community (can I easily find someone who's not a douche to play with?).
If they're smart, they're focusing on those two elements/questions and the DC signature characters will just be the draw/chief marketing element.

After the failure of Star Wars Galaxies and the seriously disappointing sales of Star Trek Online, I'd hope that MMO developers have gotten the message that having a popular license isn't enough -- and can even be a liability. (ie - the Trek faithful are freaking hard to please and catering to that crowd too much in Beta resulted in a game that wasn't much fun and didn't appeal to the average gamer.)

I'd be very surprised if you're actually running many missions where you're fighting alongside Bats and Supes. (Probably just an initial training mission and maybe the occasional benchmark/task force mish).

I suspect if Bats/Supes/Wondy are in game much at all, they'll be there chiefly as trainers/quest givers.

Zerzix said...

Hey guys,
I finally found this blogy thing again. lol I actually just watched the trailer (Baddass and I jump started back into Supers20 again!)
But I also just watched the game play trailer as well.. (it blows) so sad. =(

Jason Tondro said...

The roleplaying community for superhero MMOs basically fall into two camps, that I have observed. The first camp wants to be completely original; they think they are making characters with a power combination which no one has ever done before, and they want to be counter to whatever the genre traditionally does. Those people are going to HATE DCUO.

But the other group are the ones who just want to make their personal homage to Flash, Green Lantern, or Hawkman. It will not bother them a bit that the Justice League is here taking care of all the big stuff, and sending you on quests to round up Lexcorp goons. Those people will LOVE DCUO.

The PvP nature of DCUO is also something to consider. Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman will be out fighting Joker, Luthor and Circe, but all of those player character villains need someone to be their nemesis, and that's where you, the player character hero, comes in.

You totally hit the nail on the head in at least one regard: this video tells us nothing about game play, and we just won't know how good the game is till we see more of that.

Night Ride Part 1

Night Ride Part 1 “Look, Pa, it’s my turn. Also, Nana is having one of her spells again and she has no idea who I am when she gets this w...