I'm not a fan of MMOs. I hate the monthly subscription concept. Call me traditional, but I like to pay for a game once, and for that game to be complete. I also dislike the idea of having my play experience spoiled by someone who just feels like anonymously ticking off other people.
But if there were ever an MMO I would give a try, it would be DC Universe Online. And when it went free to play, and I suddenly had a new laptop that could run it, I had to give it a go.
The experience has largely been amazing. The world feels large and open, the action is sweet and feels great with a controller, though it's still an action RPG, meaning that hand-eye coordination skills are not required if you're willing to level grind. (Woohoo!)
Character creation is a bit narrow and pre-packaged, but the biggest thrill for me is just being able to explore my favorite comic book universe at will. It's also finally a game I can play with my gaming buddy Mark, who lives 9 hours away by car.
The game still isn't without the annoying trappings of MMOs. Even in a non PvP server I've gotten one or two requests to fight somebody. Another time several players decided to team up and block access to a room that is commonly needed by all players, just standing there to block movement, knowing they couldn't be attacked in the non-PvP server. I had to wait about 10 minutes before they were booted from the server, though other players seemed to have been waiting much longer.
My only other gripe is that once you reach about level 10, most missions basically require you to team up with others in order to be successful, or spend insane amounts of time level grinding. (Bad guys yield very little XP. Completing missions is the primary way to earn it.) So I've got my gaming buddy Mark that I'll be able to partner with, though eventually we'll probably have to find one or two others to group with if we want to see all of the game's content. Bummer.
Not that there aren't nice gamer folks like you out there that I wouldn't enjoy gaming with, but for me, video gaming is a solitaire experience almost by definition, and I prefer my rare times of co-op to be of the couch variety, with friends I've already built a relationship with away from a computer screen.
Even so, if you play the game on PC, feel free to look me up. I'm not very good at using the chat interface yet, so please forgive any perceived ignoring. So far my two characters include "Vincent Craft" when I play solo and "Paeter" when I play with my buddy. (Though I've already snagged the name of CFOS and suspect he will emerge in the world of villains sometime soon.)
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