Champions Online VS DC Universe

[Fading]

Anyone who still complains about MMO's costing money has never played Matrix Online lol. That's a key example of what happens when an MMO is under budgeted and has to let go of developers. It's not a pretty sight.

I think ppl underestimate the cost of running an MMO. I'm not going to be arrogant and pretend to be an expert, but regular dedicated servers costs a small fortune to run. Now imagine them not being high end servers that have to be able to support 10,000+ players on it at any time. Now add on about 100 or more of these servers (counting foreign country servers too). Add on weekly server maintanence, writers and developers, voice actors for future content, massive electric bills, hardware upgrades, and so on.

With a regular game they make it and forget it, maybe adding in patches for game breaking bugs. With an MMO they are constantly adding new content, and have a staff working on it non stop all year. I used to be against paying, but it's really not that bad. You usually get what you pay for.

 

[SuperAl]

DC universe looks like crap to me. And ya i wouldnt pay 15bucks a month to play an mmo, Guild wars doesnt charge monthly to play it, and they do fine.

 

[Fading]

It's all in personal taste, but Guild Wars lost my attention quickly. Plus it makes it's money in expansion after expansion, some of the content being things that would come in a free content patch in most MMO's.

Anyway I'm not trying to argue. I was on the other side of the fence at one point, but once I made that leap and did start playing MMO's, I found it really was worth the money. There are a lot of games I buy and then put down and never pick up again. Where with an MMO I can still find new content being added 5 years down the road, and always find something new to do.

There comes a point where you've done everything you possibly could in an RPG, or a game like GTA or Fallout 3. Where an MMO doesn't have a limit to new content as long as they have a proper developmental team behind it.

 

[Rail]

Believe me running an MMO isn't that hard or even costly, I mean me and my small team have ran one before and we didn't even have to charge a cent. All this maintenance and paying the workers is literally just a big fat lie. I've ran countless dedicated servers, most people don't realize the base dedicated server is INCLUDED with windows, the only thing that gets people is running the files for the game, which you can just get from friends. BUT if your running your own game you'd already have the files. I have a couple programmers and a couple modelers and that combined with a good idea is all you need for an MMO.

Hosting an MMO doesn't cost millions of dollars, if it does the corporations must be idiots considering I've done it before without even charging a cent, and believe me I'm not rich. You can pretty much host a good server on your home computer without paying anything, although it helps to just get a seperate one so you can do things on one of them without slowing the server

 

[Fading]

Edit - On second thought, I'll just delete what I typed and just say I respectfully disagree with high end servers costing nothing to run, and developer costs being a lie heh.

 

[SuperAl]

dont all multiplayer games run on a server? im not positive, but dont games like cod4, warhawk, halo3 etc etc run on a server. Diablo 3 can also be considered an mmo but they dont charge a fee.

frankly if dc universe charges for that piece of crap they are developing id be surprised if anyone buys it. it honestly looks terrible. Graphics look like something on the wii

 

[Fading]

There's a difference from a server that hosts 6 vs. 6 battles, and a server that hosts 25 thousand ppl at any given time, and various data like guilds, money, items, quests complete, etc. There's a lot of demand put on MMO servers hardware wise. The hardware gets incredibly hot in their server farms, hardware breaks down, but they have to make sure it always stays up, hence the weekly maintenance most have.

I'm not going to argue anymore, IMO it's silly to say MMO servers cost nothing and compare high end service to something like geocities. Visit dedicated server sites, you'll see many begging for donations just to pay their monthly server bill, and those aren't even all high end.


As for DC online being crap, I respect you're opinion, but I think it looks good. IMO it looks superior to Champions. It's all in taste tho, but DC onlines combat looks fun and more real time (such as putting a person in an energy ball and tossing them around). Champions honestly doesn't appeal to me, where DC Online does.

 

[SuperAl]

well saying the server is only 6vs6 is kinda dumb because there arent only 12 people playing at a given time, there are basically thousands of 6vs6 games going on at a given time. Turn on halo 3 and it'll tell you theres a few million people playing. Stuff like heat is pretty standard for any gaming company they all have servers that need to be kept cool, and hardware breaks are pretty rare unless they are having dodgeball fights in their server rooms. Weekly maintenance are for fixing bugs and exploits, but for all you kno these updates they release could be something as easy as fixing misspelled words. 15bucks a month from every single one of your customers is a scam to be honest, they are racking it big money basically to pay for their overhead without actually adding anything to the product.

my main problem with pay to play games, is not necessarily the paying thing but the fact that it almost forces you to play. Say you pay your 15dollars for that particular month, it kinda forces you to play the game otherwise it would make me feel like im wasting my money. I honestly think thats why so many people have problems/addictions with mmo's, they pay for it and feel like they gotta make it worth every penny so they constantly play. Maybe if they built it so it would keep track of how much time you spend on it, so if you pay for a month's worth of gaming, you would not have to pay until 30days of time has elapsed.

there are alternate forms of paying for their maintenances also, during loading screens they could insert advertisements which i would honestly welcome over paying 15bucks a month.

 

[Midnite]

DC universe looks like crap to me. And ya i wouldnt pay 15bucks a month to play an mmo, Guild wars doesnt charge monthly to play it, and they do fine.

Sure its free, but you have to pay for the expansions.
As for DCUO, the graphics are still work in progress. Since its only pre-alpha.

 

[TheBlueRogue]

Sure its free, but you have to pay for the expansions.
As for DCUO, the graphics are still work in progress. Since its only pre-alpha.

There has been only one expansion for GW, you can get all 3GW games for only 40bucks and the expansion for less than 30. Tons of new patches,updates, areas, weapons, armor, skills have been added as well free of charge. Also awhile ago some new areas have been added FREE of charge. Im not saying to not play an mmo because you have to pay I've played COH, WOW for awhile. But why should I have to spend 15 bucks a month when I can have the same entertaiment from another mmo possibly more for free? But thats just my rationale I don't really expect anyone else to think the same way.

 

[roach]

i think the big reason is does GW let you play as a superhero???
Can you command a starship for starfleet in GW????

 

[TheBlueRogue]

i think the big reason is does GW let you play as a superhero???
Can you command a starship for starfleet in GW????

It's set in a fantasy theme dude the majority of MMOs are, if you want to play as a superhero there's Freedom Force if you mind the graphics, COH,and soon Champions and DCU. For me once the novelty wears off COH becomes very repetitive, if you like it more power to you. Does it honestly matter if you're playing as a....knight, starship commander, or a hero I thought what matters most is if you are having fun or not but then again I guess I might be wrong on that.

 

[roach]

to me it matters because Im not a big fan of fantasy mmo's.
My first MMO was COH, I tried WOW and AOC and while they were pretty good games it just didnt offer me something different like COH did. Thats why Im really looking forward to STO and DCUO.

 

[SuperFerret]

If you know you're not going to have fun playing a fantasy MMO (like I do) it doesn't matter how good the game is.

 

[roach]

exactly...I like MMO's but I dont like sword and sorcery

 

[SuperFerret]

I LOVE sword and sorcery. I just don't like the limits imposed in those MMOs. Character customization is a key factor in me enjoying a game.

 

[SuperAl]

do you create ur own superhero in DCU or is it just that u chose from one of the characters in the justice league

 

[Mike_D202]

You can create your own hero in DCU, but don't expect the customization to be as in depth as CO.

 

[roach]

You can create your own hero in DCU, but don't expect the customization to be as in depth as CO.

actually from what I read customization would be equal to COH which in my book is pretty good but from what I hear still a touch under CO

 

[SuperFerret]

CoH and CO are very close when it comes to customization with CO a step ahead. Take into consideration that CO is just starting, and it's clear that DCU needs to be AMAZING in order to compete with Champions in the Customization department.

 

[NightCrawler]

my main problem with pay to play games, is not necessarily the paying thing but the fact that it almost forces you to play. Say you pay your 15dollars for that particular month, it kinda forces you to play the game otherwise it would make me feel like im wasting my money. I honestly think thats why so many people have problems/addictions with mmo's, they pay for it and feel like they gotta make it worth every penny so they constantly play. Maybe if they built it so it would keep track of how much time you spend on it, so if you pay for a month's worth of gaming, you would not have to pay until 30days of time has elapsed.

The same reason i bought my lifetime subscription from Champions Online