Deciding on Supers MMO

[knightwriter]

I just got my shiny new macbook pro and finally have the heavy lifting to be able to play some MMO's. I'm trying to decide between Champions and DC Universe. Can anyone give some insight into which would be better? I'm kind of leaning towards champions online because it seems like there might be a bit better customization.

[Enforcer84]

I can't speak for DCO, but Champions Online has a nice feel and look to it, VERY corny dialog, some lame pop culture humor, and a lot of repetitive tasks.

That said, the character creator is worth it's weight in chocolate. And the free version is, well, free. It's pretty fun if you can team up, but suffers from usual MMO Chat sickness

[Tasha]

I just got my shiny new macbook pro and finally have the heavy lifting to be able to play some MMO's. I'm trying to decide between Champions and DC Universe. Can anyone give some insight into which would be better? I'm kind of leaning towards champions online because it seems like there might be a bit better customization.

I would Recommend CO over DCU. Of course you shouldn't ignore Cryptic's first Super MMO City of Heroes. Both CO and CoH have great customization, and have fun quest lines. CO is of course based on the Champions IP, so if you played the Champions PnP game in the past. It's fun seeing villians and heroes from that setting.

Also CoH has a dedicated Mac Version so you don't have to boot into Windows of use a Virtual Machine to play.

[cptpatriot]

I just got my shiny new macbook pro and finally have the heavy lifting to be able to play some MMO's. I'm trying to decide between Champions and DC Universe. Can anyone give some insight into which would be better? I'm kind of leaning towards champions online because it seems like there might be a bit better customization.

DC Universe Online (DCUO) is visually nice to look at and the story lines are in keeping with the DC Universe flavor, but like any MMO, you have a lot of repetitive tasks. The interface is obviously designed with the console in mind and it is easy to pick up but it has nuances when you start dealing with combos for the hand to hand and ranged attacks. If you are a button masher, you will only go so far if you get involved with any of the PvP players/servers. The costume creator is limited, especially in comparison to Champions Online(CO). The thing about DCUO is that you can unlock other costume pieces as you get items.

2011-04-23_00001.jpg

As seen in the attached screenshot, the inventory system is similar to WoW in that you have different areas you equip and each item brings with it a style that can be used to change your costume. You can change the costume whenever you feel like it, but it doesn't allow for multiple costume slots like CO.

The only problem I see for DCUO is the power choices. DCUO limits you to 6 power groups (and the subgroups listed below):

1. Fire
   
   • Immolation
   • Ignition
   
   
2. Gadgets
   
   • Traps
   • Tricks
   
   
3. Ice
   
   • Cryogenics
   • Storms
   
   
4. Mental
   
   • Telekinesis
   • Illusion
   
   
5. Nature
   
   • Shapeshifting
   • Plants
   
   
6. Sorcery
   
   • Summoning
   • Destiny
   
   

In general, DCUO is a cool game, if you want something you can pick up quickly and has an easy learning curve.

[Certified]

Both games look good, but Champions Online has the customization hands down. As I understand it the plots and story arcs in DCUO are more cohesive. However, the best you can ever expect to be in this game is second string to one of the big boys. To the point the best gear in the game is designed to make you look like a soldier from a member of a given hero or villain's personal army. This is in addition to the fact that all DCUO characters share a common origin story, infection. Where as with Champions Online you're left with an open background. This for me is a major issue, and probably one of the reasons I never played a Kheldian in City of heroes.

[knightwriter]

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. I am leaning to Champions Online, but wouldn't mind hearing some more thoughts.

[sinanju]

Well, I found a copy of CO at the local game store today and bought it. I've installed it (the patches are downloading now). One nasty surprise was when I agreed to intall the Raptr gaming chat program...which added an unasked-for toolbar to my browser. I deleted that immediately, and left a nastygram for the makers when I got a pop-up asking why I was uninstalling it. Don't ever, EVER install something on my machine that I didn't explicitly invite you to install, people.

Otherwise...I'm hoping to have fun with CO. We'll see how it goes.

[Starcloud]

Having played Champions Online and City of Heroes both, I have to say:

City of Heroes is the better game. While it is true that you can create more, and more varied, costumes in Champions Online, I find the art style to be cartoonish, not just comic-book inspired, the character models to be poor in quality, the animations rough and unpolished, and the general process of creating a costume to be rather arcane and confusing.

I also don't agree with many of the game design decisions behind Champions Online, not the least of which is basically ignoring Hero System entirely, and the idea of "building up" energy to fire off your big attacks is backwards to me.

To be honest, City of Heroes is closer in game design to Hero System than Champions Online ever was.

That said, if you're having fun with it, great. That's the point of any game, or it should be.

[Pattern Ghost]

I agree with Starcloud with regard to the character models. I much prefer the look of the City of Heroes models. It's too hard to make a model in CO look more than vaguely human. The underlying skeletons just seem off, and the animations are pretty bad to boot. I can't comment on CO game play, because my system can only handle the game on the very lowest settings.

The last time I played City of Heroes was a little while after City of Villains was released. That was a pretty decent update, and I liked the new villain power sets, but the early quests were a bit repetitive for me. When I get a new computer, I plan to get the latest expasion, as it seems they've done some graphic engine updates along with the other new content. What drove me away initially was the lack of variety in high level missions: You'd get a tank, go to an Arch Villain battle, have the tank round everything up, AOE it to death, lather, rinse, repeat. It was about the only way to level effectively post-40 (I left right after the level cap was raised) as the death penalty was harsh, and non-tanks could die relatively easily soloing. (They also nerfed the heck out of my main defensive measure, Smoke Grenades, which was in fact over powered, but then went to perfectly useless.) That said, I keep making trial accounts a few times a year to check it out. I really, really want it to be good. I suspect it's much better now, but it's competing with WoW for my limited monthly gaming allotment. As far as the actual characters go, I love creating and running them. The powers feel right, the game play feel is excellent, and you feel super. With some more activities to do outside adventuring and some better adventure design, the game would be perfect for me. (Also, some new environments. They may have them now, but the limited types of maps/terrain in the original release were mind-numbing to a degree.)

I've got no comment on DCUO. I may get it at some point, just to level cap and quit to see the game and the storylines, but I'm kind of waiting to see if it flops and then goes free to play, because I have a limited budget for monthly game fees.

[Starcloud]

If you've been out of City of Heroes since Issue 6 or so.. wow.
A lot of things have changed. Definitely get Going Rogue. For one thing, you can have access to both Paragon City and the Rogue Isles on the same character. Then there's the Incarnate content which was added, tons of quality of life improvements, the Fitness pool becoming Inherent on all characters, thus removing the early game endurance crunch... Invention Origin enhancements...
The maps have been expanded somewhat over the years, but not as much as I'd like.

DCUO had a drastic drop in subscriptions after the first month, and with Station.com being down now because of Sony's poor security practices, I only expect that to accelerate. I mean, seriously.. unpatched outdated Apache servers without firewalls? Sony was just begging for criminal hackers to steal from them. But DCUO is a Sony Online Entertainment game, and a major licensed property at that. It's rather unlikely to go Free to Play.

[cptpatriot]

After the headache that DCUO has caused because of the Sony incident, I can't even cancel my service. In general, I like the game's graphics, but good looks isn't enough to keep me in the game. I forsee DCUO dying a horrible death.

[Certified]

After the headache that DCUO has caused because of the Sony incident, I can't even cancel my service. In general, I like the game's graphics, but good looks isn't enough to keep me in the game. I forsee DCUO dying a horrible death.

"You realize you're already dead?"

I think it's safe to say we can replace DCUO with PSN. They are going to have to do some major work to resurrect their MMO market.