So, since we're just 2 days from the Open Beta, who's gonna play this?
You can get an Open Beta key from File Planet or if you pre-order the game.
I'll be Kelraz, my girlfriend is Iphigenia.
We're also hoping that we can all maybe settle on the same server when it finally comes out. Game Stop has us able to create our characters and play 3 days ahead of the Sept 1st release.

I'm in. I pre-ordered it from Gamestop as well. I plan to be P-25, Mdana, or Munashii.

I'm out i've been in beta for months....if they took out the xbox platform support this game would of been much more fun.

The novelty of the game will wear off about the time the free first month will.

DC comics is trying XBox support as well. What exactly is the problem, and will XBox and PC players be on the same servers?

I don't understand why video game companies make dramatically more games for consoles than computers when 2-3 years later a console is obsolete.

Consoles have a longer lifespan than that, hell they still sell PS1 titles and the NES went out of support in ... 2007. However there are different market dynamics on console games, primarily motivated by the market being a lot more like a durable good than software, and focused on the market itself. Games nowadays may want more desktop-style accoutrement like installation and other such frippery, but historically have been buy, insert, and instant-play.

The PS2 still sells almost as well as the PS3. I don't like games developed for both as they typically end up with crappy PC controls.

DC comics is trying XBox support as well. What exactly is the problem, and will XBox and PC players be on the same servers?

I don't understand why video game companies make dramatically more games for consoles than computers when 2-3 years later a console is obsolete.

Piracy. Its very hard to make games for a PC that are piracy proof (if not impossible) for any length of time. Console games, while still not immune to it, have a better time with proceeds going back to the developers' pockets. As a result, the developers of Crysis for example got drilled to the wall pretty bad and are pretty much moving to console games after Crysis sales went to hell.

Except MMOs have subs.

Right, but MMO's also have private servers. I don't know how much of the pool of potential subscribers that takes away from, but MMO's aren't immune to piracy either.

Anyone else having trouble with the patcher? Tried to start it after work, and it seems to be hit or miss whether it actually decides that it wants to do something. I've had to restart it numerous times, and now the patch button is grayed out, but no actual progress bar appears.

I am not sure why, but they aren't utilizing a torrent patcher system like WoW, but who knows. Needless to say, most of the world is having troubles with their patcher. I'm giving up, will try tomorrow instead.

Piracy. Its very hard to make games for a PC that are piracy proof (if not impossible) for any length of time. Console games, while still not immune to it, have a better time with proceeds going back to the developers' pockets. As a result, the developers of Crysis for example got drilled to the wall pretty bad and are pretty much moving to console games after Crysis sales went to hell.

Except Valve has shown that the answer isn't all this anti piracy crap but to charge less for decent games and distribute via download.

There is no more than a few hundred people on ANY private server. The vast majority of them are less than 100. I doubt it would affect things at all.

Piracy.

Doubt it. Anyone who thinks console games aren't pirated by the millions has never gone looking outside Best Buy. There is also a substantial "lost sales" (even granting you can make that argument) angle from loaning and renting games that doesn't apply as much to PCs.

That's not to say illicit copying isn't happening -- I just don't think it's actually a direct monetary loss in the way the MBA morons try to describe it. Crysis as an example? FarCry seemed to do pretty well.

I would think it's to try to get more bang for the buck from both the PC market and console market. Allot of games today develop for both platforms and MMOs are just trying to get a piece of the pie.

Even if you pirate a copy of the game in an MMO you need a sub to pay, whether it was stolen or not the company is getting something more than just your $50+ to buy the game.

If that were the case, wouldn't there be a lot more PC games out there than there currently are? I think many developers prefer (and probably profit better) from console only launches - though I can't figure out why. Aside from the Wii and Wiimote, I'd think most games can translate to keyboard and mouse pretty easily.

It's much easier to develop for one set of hardware. XNA tries to alleviate that a bit, but there are still huge differences between a UI that works on a console and one that works on a PC.

I see many more games being released to both platforms than ever before especially newer titles. I don't think you'd see many sports games released to PC b/c sports games suck and have little resell value even when brandnew. But the larger titles are and do release to several platforms unless they have exclusive rights.

It's because of XNA. They can write their XBox port using XNA and it's almost automatically PC compatible too. Unfortunately, that's also why you end up with PC games with poor support for higher end hardware and crappy console UIs that don't leverage the mouse and keyboard well.

Thanks Sanchek, that makes sense.

I would think that games being designed for a PC would just be so much easier. You can patch, for one, and have UI customization and all of that, never mind the release of expansions - how are they going to managed Champions Online when they're on their 4th expansion? Can a XBox really hold 4 discs worth of game data PLUS all of the patches?

Modern consoles have like 120GB harddrives in them, although I'm sure the developer guidelines don't let you take it all, and they have patching built in too. The consoles really win out on ease of development in pretty much every category.

And Kelraz for the very reasons you mention it also keeps costs down b/c they are not expected to constantly churn out that new content at the same rate that we expect for MMOs. Instead they can release DLC (downloadable content which is usually just some maps and new items if you're lucky) and it's up to the end user to ensure they have the space on their console for it. If they do they pay a fee and viola can download it.

True that most new consoles have large HDD but the smaller scale systems have much smaller ones. It's more about what Sanchek is saying... it's easy to develop for 2 platforms but you have to take the good with the bad. Of course it helps that you can use your 360 controller on your PC some people don't even use keyboards/mice for these adapted games.

Actually there is a substantial loss on the console market due to the huge used game market. Gamestop and Eb and all them push used games and sell tons , the game companies get nothing from those sales.

Also what Malse said. Theres mods for every single console that let you put in bigger hard drives and burn and play games. A 5 min trip on the interweb will let you download most any game for any console.

Wow I'm really enjoying this game!

Agreed. I'm having fun with it so far, when I can actually get logged in. Seems a bit iffy sometimes. I spend a ridiculous amount of time with just the character creator.

I'm really tempted to play this, but i'm afraid it will have nothing to do once i get all powered up.

I'm really tempted to play this, but i'm afraid it will have nothing to do once i get all powered up.

Which is exactly what I hear from folks who had been in the beta. :( Let's see some screen shots and some discussion about why you like it though. Convince it's great!

The character creator is insanely powerful. Lots of costume pieces to pick from, color schemes, etc. With the powers, you can create your own customized set of powers to use from different trees, rather than picking a class and being shoved along some linear path. As you level, you get points that you can use to buy new powers, as well as points to upgrade your existing powers (for example I got a power buff that makes my cone AE have a root effect in addition to damage).

From what I've been hearing, the raid content at launch will be lairs of super villains, which I think is pretty slick. I think the game has some pretty serious potential, especially given the fact that you can have your own nemesis as well, which opens up room for fun stuff. I really like the depth of the character customization available. I'll try to get some screenshots when I get home from work today.

What I like the most is they finally got rid of "LF 1 tank, 2 healer, 2 dps". Everyone can tank, everyone can heal, everyone can dps - you'll only be LFG for as long as it takes to find 4 other people...any 4 other people.

What this means for the "endgame" though I have no idea.

Yeah, it may be that everyone can fill all roles, but it looks like some of the stats are important to different roles. So depending on how you're set up for the accessories, you may be better at one role over another.

My impressions so far:

Questing: Meh. Its WoW's quest system, just like every other game ever. It has Warhammer's "Go here!" system with the map, which is useful for instant gratification. Kind of annoying I guess, but the quest descriptions aren't really descriptive enough to tell you where to go. Broken up by quests that are done in instances that do not require a full group to do, which I like.

Combat: Really fun. Every person has an energy (mana) building skill that is in essence your auto attack. As a result, there is very little downtime to be seen, because as you're fighting, you're building up energy between power use. Mobs usually come in groups, which helps keep things interesting. There's enough of a mix between fast (instant use) maintained (channeled) and charged attacks to keep the fights fresh.

Powers (Abilities/Spells): Fantastic, well done. As far as I've been able to tell, every power set (a themed group of powers) is well designed and well thought out. Don't know how well balanced they are, but with each power set I've picked, it plays into bizarre strategies that I come up with for my characters. Some powers play off of other power sets' applied debuffs (my Munitions guy does double damage with his auto attack to targets that have fear from Darkness powers), and there are lots of cool synergies to be had, both with your own powers and with your teammates'. I think the game will reward groups of people that plan out their characters and how their powers interact with each other.

An example: my Munitions character gains energy every time he crits (3 second internal cooldown) so I jacked his dexterity (Crit chance) and got a bunch of channeled powers that hit every couple of seconds. As a result, I crit constantly and gain energy constantly. There's even more depth there, one of my friends uses darkness powers to apply fear, which in turn makes my auto attack do double damage - so when I'm regaining energy, I'm still doing respectable damage.

Another example, my two blade character has a trait (passive buff) that gives him an increased chance to crit, and when he crits, he gains a short term damage buff. It also lets me charge one of my other powers, which applies a buff (momentum) that makes certain powers build energy instead of take it away (and do more damage I think).

My crit chance on that character is kind of low so the trait isn't great on its own, but then throw in the power "advantages", which are like talents for specific powers. I took an advantage that makes one of my powers apply a stacking buff to my crit chance, which is consumed when I crit. As a result, I start building up crit chance stacks, and then use my charged power to trigger both my damage buff and momentum, then I go into my blade cyclone (PBAoE) which feeds me energy instead of eating it.

Travel powers are really fun, though teleport seems a bit buggy at the moment. Its pretty funny watching a gigantic beetle set itself on fire and hurl itself into the sky. (Fire Flight)

Character Creator (aesthetics): Off the wall insane. The depth here is hard to describe. Every piece of your costume can be colorized and change the type of patterns, material consistency, etc. There is an insane amount of costume pieces available. The customization for your body and facial features is mind boggling. Absolutely well done. I could spend hours playing with the character creator, and I've rolled new characters just to try to make a costume idea I have (and play with new power sets).

Screenshots pls!

I'll have try to get better ones today. The screenshots the game takes of your costume when you save it are pretty small unfortunately. :x

size doesn't matter! :p

I'm working on a new character, I'll grab screenshots of her + a couple others when I'm done.

some basic screenies. Just a warning, I'm no photographer so some of the poses/scenes may be kind of bad, also, kind of big as well so heads up on that.
http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/hezebel1.jpg
http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/celestian2.jpg
http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/blightcaller1.jpg
http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/blightcaller2.jpg
http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/celestian1.jpg
http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/celestian3.jpg
http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/celestian4.jpg

do the graphics really look that cartoonish? otherwise I like the first one with the wings :D

Its actually a setting that you can toggle on and off called "comic edging". I really like it, but for those that don't, it can be turned off. I'll try to get some close-ups of Hezebel (my winged character) though.

yes, please. I would like to see without the comic edging please

I'll grab some today when I get back from seeing District 9. :)

http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/celestian5.jpg

here's one of Millennium City.

The UI reminds me of WoW with a Matrix Online twist

I think I might play this if I can get my girlfriend interested.

Open beta is coming to an end today. There was a big robot apocalypse in Millennium City, gigantic robots and armies of smaller ones were running around. The admins added in a beta buffer to bring people up to 40 instantly. I grabbed a few screenshots of me killing a GM controlled villain and some of the gigantic robots that I'll post when I get home from work.

Woot that sounds awesome Mdana.

It was pretty neat. Hell, just getting to 40 and trying out all of the powers was the best part - spent a few hours trying different combos.

So do the powers change as you level up or just get more powerful? Do you get access to more powers when you level?

Some more. First two are from the robot apocalypse, second two are of Hezebel (my winged character) in the desert and the power house (training/level up area) respectively. The dead cryptonaut is the GM controlled character.

As for the powers Chanur, as you level up you get access to more powers (though not at every level). You get these points called advantage points that you can use to add effects to them, as well as rank them up (increases their overall effectiveness). For example, my munitions/gadgeteer has an advantage for one of her single target attacks (two gun mojo, rapid fire bullets) called "close the gap", which increases the damage the power does based on your distance to the target.

The advantages (and by extension the powers you take with them) allow for a lot of customization.
http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/crypt.jpg
http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/hezebel4.jpg
http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/hailstorm01/hezebel2.jpg

One thing that is purely cosmetic that I dig is you can change the color and origin of a lot of your powers. Say you have a character that shoots energy blasts - cool. Want them to be green? blue? some red, some green, some blue? ok! Want them to come from your eyeballs? chest? palm? ok! Would you rather wield an axe than a sword? ok!

Even just in travel powers they have flight, fire flight (you turn into a ball of fire and fly), ice surfing, earth surfing (a big chunk of rock instead of ice), jet boots, and levitating on a mechanical (or magical) platform. Many of these have slight variations (surfing on ice is a lot harder than flying to control, but has a slightly higher max speed, for example) too - they aren't purely graphical changes but also have slightly different mechanics. Other ones include super speed, super jump, acrobatics (not as fast as super speed, can't jump as high as super jump, but you do both), rocket jump, swinging (more like Batman than Spiderman), teleportation, and tunneling (tear the ground up and dive in). Different versions of these have innate advantages and disadvantages in combat, generally you expend more energy while these are active but have either offensive or defensive advantages).

For those who pre-ordered from Gamestop/Best Buy, you get to start playing this weekend. I'm pumped.

And, even better, its ONE server so we'll all be playing on the same server :)

Awesome. We should make a guild, or whatever the game's equivalent of guilds is. I have 3-4 friends from college that I've been playing with. :)

How does this run compared to WoW? Girlfriend has an older comp atm.

You can scale all of the stuff down and it runs super smooth, I'd imagine.

Minimum System Requirements

* OS:Windows XP SP2/ Windows Vista/Windows 7
* CPU:2.5GHz Single Core or 1.8GHz Dual Core
* Memory:1GB RAM
* Video:NVIDIA GeForce 7600 / ATI Radeon X700 or HD / Intel GMA 4
* Sound:DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard
* DirectX:Version 9.0c or Higher
* HDD:5GB Free Disk Space
* Network:Broadband Required
* Disc:6X DVD-ROM


Recommended System Configuration

* OS:Windows XP SP2/ Windows Vista/Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)
* CPU:Intel E8400 Core2Duo or Better
* Memory:2GB RAM or Better
* Video:NVIDIA GeForce 8800 or Better / ATI Radeon HD 3850 or Better
* Sound:DirectX Compatible Soundcard
* DirectX:Version 9.0c or Higher
* HDD:5GB Free Disk Space
* Network:Broadband Required
* Disc:6X DVD-ROM or Better

Is the game actually fun? I have heard horrible reviews and most say it is such crap.

You go from house to house killing gang members and its repetitive and boring is all I keep hearing.

Is the game actually fun? I have heard horrible reviews and most say it is such crap.

You go from house to house killing gang members and its repetitive and boring is all I keep hearing.
That sounds like a remix of matrix Online :(

It is a lot more fun than that to me, I got bored of LotRO's repetitiveness before the end if my free month but this hasn't bothered me yet. Though when you get to 40 it may be a bit slow, I dunno haven't gotten there yet ;)

I've been enjoying the game immensely. The quests are pretty WoW samey, but the gameplay is fun enough to keep me interested. I'm curious to see what the end game and dungeon content will be like, I didn't get to see much of it at all unfortunately.

I'm Kelraz@Kelraz, Kelrax@Kelraz, and Kelray@Kelraz should anyone want to friend me!

Currently:

Munashii Shadowscorn@taka06 (darkness/telepathy)
Solethein Darkstride@taka06 (telekinetics/who knows)
Captain Pike@taka06 (fire. burn.)
Hezebel@taka06 (telekinetics/telepathy)

Probably will have more though.

as soon as I upgrade my sustem, I might give this game a try, currently playing WoW ... but its slowly starting to bore me

If it works like warhammer and I get trial keys to give out, I'd be more than willing to spread the love.

I'd like some lovin'!


Um...I mean...a key, if it comes to that.

I may buy this, although like COH I've spent more time making new heroes than playing the game. How long does it remain story driven? And why oh why can't I scale body parts? :)

The story remains pretty consistent until around level 30 or so. At that point, most of the quests (and hence, story) sort of ceases to exist. Cryptic has been working on adding in new quests, but I've lost interest for the moment since leveling by grinding public quests isn't my idea of fun.

Supposedly though, a new halloween area is being released along with a new power set near the end of the month. Hopefully that'll get me interested in playing again.