DC Universe Online : Create your own Superhero

(UPDATE 8/7/12) To show my appreciation for the success of the article reaching over 2000 hits, and celebrate, I've gathered and put together some screenshots as a follow up. I've posted up the screen captures as a few different articles (pages) to shorten their length a little.

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One of the best games for Comic Fans:
If you’re a fan of PC games and DC comics or own a PS3, You must have a really great excuse if you have not heard about DC Universe Online (DCUO). This game lets you create a hero or heroine with different customizations and superpowers from your favorite DC super heroes and fight alongside them in missions. 
Is it better to be a Hero or Villain in DC Universe Online?
You can even choose to be a villain from the dark side. Some of the most popular heroes are npc’s (non playable characters) that you see or interact with in the game. For example Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman, Joker, Lex Luthor, Green Lantern, Flash, Robin(+Nightwing), Booster Gold, Raven, Cyborg, and many more are all in the game. Travel between Gotham and Metropolis. Literally explore and freely roam the streets and outside of the buildings of these cites. Gotham is dark and at night while Metropolis is Bright and big and beautiful and futuristic. Visit and explore Watchtower to upgrade your equipment. It’s not just a screen saying it’s Watchtower. You really move your character from room to room. 



Other Perks of the Game? Automatic saving at all times so you will able to leave the game anytime to do whatever you have to do right away. Like say...immediately attend to a baby crying or go with everyone to eat out. You don't have to wait or worry about getting to a save point. You can even resume most missions after you die, enter missions in buildings and the bad guys you've defeated will stay defeated. Objectives that require certain amount of kills or collections will save your progress if you are defeated. Once you respawn/Flee away with Esc, you can go to the area again to continue. Missions besides Alerts and Wanted don't take that long to complete anyways. Boss' and Alert enemies will fully recover if no player has been attacking them for a while. To my knowledge it is very helpful to have other players fight an Alert enemy as those enemies are stronger and hit harder than bosses. Having human players battle a giant enemy will increase your chances of continuing the fight against those opponents without having to completely start over.


Who gives out Missions in DC Universe?
 Each of your missions will be briefed by a member of the Justice League if you’re a good guy, or a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains if you’re a bad guy. Most of the time the briefer  would be the Mentor that you have chosen. There are hundreds of items to customize the look of your character. With that many you will most likely find at least one setup that you like. The intro of the game is also a trailer for the game. If you’re a fan of the Justice League, the trailer will surely be something to look at. It explains why there are so many people with super powers and how you get yours. I’ll try not to contain any spoilers. Oh yeah, and IT’S FREE. 

These aren't screenshots, but I assure you the ingame graphics are detailed and cool looking too.

What PC's can Play DC Universe?
System Requirements or rather Recommended Specs: (taken from official site)
-Windows XP/Vista.Windows 7
-3.0GHz CPU Dual Core Processor
-2 GB RAM
-NVIDIA 8800GTX+ or ATI 3800 series+ Video Card
30 GB of Free Hard Drive Space
-DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability
-Broadband internet connection connection (required)

The game was originally meant to be a pay to play game but I guess the plans changed to make it a free game. 
What are the Bad Points of Dc Universe Online?
However, the free version has a few small limitations. And there are a few DLC Packs (Downloadable Content Packs) or DLC’s which require money. Also the updates for the game are really big, depending on your connection. For example an update can be up to almost four gigs, not common, but it has happened. I started playing at least half a year ago and the updates have been between 200MB-300MB. Maybe they are starting to get the idea that updates bigger than that aren't very tasteful. DCUO is brought to you by DC Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), and Warner Brothers(WB) Interactive Entertainment. The main DCUO website doesn’t have a dedicated search function for DCUO, which can be annoying at times. The searches gives you results from all SOE’s other games as well.

How to Get Started in MMORPG's: 
Guide to Playing DC Universe OnlineI am partially a noob in the game so my explanations and terminologies may not be completely accurate. To me the game didn’t do a really good job of explaining the permanent settings of creating your character. You start by choosing a server, PvP or PvE. PvP stands for Peer vs. Peer in which human players from the other side may see you and attack you freely and vice versa. On PvE, Player vs. Environment, human players cannot harm you unless you initiate or accept a battle with that individual. Even on PvE, you will eventually receive quests where have to play PvP missions.
-I struggled sometimes between using the mouse and arrows to scroll through the selections. Sometimes it would scroll two selections backwards. It might be due to my mouse position on the screen.

Once that’s done you choose a Gender.
Then you select a Build, Large(heavy, roundish), Striker (Built, athletic) and small along with 3 sizes to choose from. The body type and size is stated to not have any difference in battle.

(TIP: before committing to permanent characteristics and combinations, search Youtube for those setups to see how they work in battle and how they look like.)

You then choose a Template or Custom. If you choose a template from a Marvel Character, most of your settings will be based on that character. Most likely you will want to customize your own character.

You then choose to be a Hero or Villain.

Next up is your Personality. This setting is mostly for your poses. Again, stated to have no affect on battles or story.

Mentor. Choosing this would determine who you meet at the beginning, and who would brief you on most of your missions. I believe this also determines at least some (or a lot) of your quests. Combat not affected, even though it looks like it does during your selection. Possibly affect which section of the Watchtower your higher level equipment will be in.

Choose your Power:(Fire, Gadgets, Ice, Mental, Nature,Sorcery ) Some Powers have more abilities for defense and helping out allies than others. Again I suggest looking up videos to see how these abilities would look like and see if you like them.

Choose your Movement: determines how you travel and some of your fighting abilities.
-Flight(Superman-like) My favorite, especially once you unlock super speed for this.
-Acrobatics(climb walls and ceilings) Runs like leaping. Look choppy at times but for the most part it is done very well considering the vast 3D World.(Batman-like)
-Speed. Runs fast like the Flash. Runs on walls.(The Flash-like)

Choose your Weapon:
Bow, Brawling, Duel Pistol, Duel Wield, Hand Blast, Martial Arts, One-Handed, Rifle, Staff, Two-Handed.

Red, White, and Blue. Btw, this isn't Super Girl

Customizing Your Appearance 
-Skin.(most people don't use skins)
-Hair. Large variety and styles.
-Gear (You won't like all the default colors given on each gear. Don't worry, you can change the colors later on during the creation)
-Head
-Face

If I remember correctly either Face(mask) or Head Gear covers up the other or just covers up the eyes. This may just be due to my bad combination of items that I tried.

-Emblem
-Chest (more like upper body suit including arms)
-Back (capes and other things)
-Hands (gloves)
-Waist (belts)
-Legs (lower body suit)
-Feet (boots)

Colors: Now you can customize the color of your Gear. You are stuck using a 3 color pallet though. Each gear has 1-3 colors that can be assigned colors from your pallet. This also has something to do with the color of the blur behind  you when you are traveling fast.

Change colors of the Skin, Hair, Eyes, Makeup.

Choose a name, check if it’s available and you’re good to go to the DC Universe Online.

This is the Hall of Heroes in the Watchtower. Here are 3 of the original Justice League members.

Limits of the FREE Versions of the Popular Comic Book Based MMORPG.(as far as I know)
-your maximum in game currency is only 1500. Anything you accumulate after that goes into an account that you can only take out once you pay real world money to access.
-item storage limit is a lot less
-You can only create up to two characters on the free version.

Hotkeys for the game:The game does a horrible job of tutoring you things. It gets a few things right but also doesn’t teach you a lot of things.

When low on health, run away or fly and you will heal slowly when out of battle or fighting mode. Some enemy units can still shoot you though.
Numbers 1-6 are for abilities. 7 is for a healing item and 8 is for a fighting item. Make sure you assign items to a number so you can use the items during battle.
W,S,A,D buttons are used like directional buttons for movement.
Mouse is used to aim and change direction of abilities and camera. Use mousescroll to zoom in and out.
Space:to jump, hold longer to fly.
F:Fly, press again to stop flying. Falling into the ground makes you smash the ground, landing a lot like iron man.
Shift:to break a hold/paralyzing move from an enemy or the environment.
Num Lock:press to fly fast after flying. Only available after level 12 or so.
Esc:Shows options, (kinda like an ingame menu)
F4: brings up a menu of some sort where you can view names of people around you, see friends online status, access league, see league members and their online status.
F1:shows moveset and some other information. vague but idk how to explain
J:Journal (missions and objectives)
M:Map (WARP to rally points and Watchtower from this screen)(areas for current mission is in               orange)
I:Inventory (equipment)
To Type/Say something: press “enter" on the keyboard and type whatever it is that you want to say. Then press enter to say it. While in typing process, you won’t be able to do number abilities.
K: shows Traits menu that displays Skills and Abilities once you go into a few submenus. Assign Power Points and Skill Points here. Once assigned, you cannot retake/reassign the points) Green number shows available points and orange numbers show how many you’ve gotten or used. These points are earned on level up. Each level up gives you either one of the points and the next level up will give you the other kind of point.
O:League Management:See leagues log in message and other league stuff here.
P:Loadouts (idk how to use this, but) you can preset loads/classes with different abilities for quick changing. Probably more useful for different roles in missions with other human players.

 For some reason the game’s icon’s default name is “DC Universe Online Live”

You can’t land on the the Daily Planet because it and other buildings are encased in some alien brainiac shield.

Some heroes can turn into animals. This is because they have the Nature power.

How to fight Human Players in DC Universe
To fight other human players:Put a PvP sign (two heads facing each other. One’s in blue and ones in red) on your head or find a person with it. To enter PvP Mode and put on a fight sign above your character on the PvE server by typing “/pvp”. You must wait for someone to accpet. To acceptor fight someone with a sign, press “E” next to them to initiate a battle.

A PVE environment may still allow PVP, but not by default. DCUO's PVE enrivonment does allow PVP. You can switch it on when you see an enemy player that also has it enabled and can have at fisticuffs. You can turn it off, but to balance out coward tactics, you have to wait five minutes without being attacked by another player for the PVP to actually turn off. This prevents you from jumping somebody, then running away if you're losing and hiding behind disabled PVP and vice versa. If you're playing in the PVP server, then there is no on/off switch, and players can fight each other indefinitely. 
(sourse:Raijin1999 @ http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/39995/t1610087-pvp-pve/)


Other Notes:
I am barely passed level 20 of 30 and haven’t tried using exobytes to customize my gear. Nor have I tried to get strong tier equipment. Very inexperienced in PvP missions and PvP gameplay. I prefer playing the RPG element of the story, interacting with other DC superheroes(sometimes with the help of human players on a team).

Q:What if I don’t want to have appearance changes to the new equipment?
A:You can “Lock” in the appearance of a specific item if you want by pressing “i” on your keyboard, and go to the second icon with the mask, “Style”, on the bottom of the screen. Here you can change the appearance of what you are wearing. I believe once you have equipped an item, you don’t need to equip or own the item anymore to get that appearance.

How to Take Screenshots by Pressing F9:Screenshots will be saved in a folder in Documents--->My Games--->DC Universe Online--->DCGame--->Screenshots(at least for Windows Vista users)
Screenshots takes away the user interface (hides names) and has a very small lag(like a Flash) while taking a picture.

Everytime on startup, the game calls it "installing" instead of "loading".

As with any FullScreen PC game, use "Alt+Tab" to access other programs without having to close the game.

Everyday you get the option of entering a room with big boxes. Those boxes contains random gifts. After about 20 boxes you leave the room. Joker keeps you company while you are here.

Although Booster Gold has never been a big contender as a hero to me, he has a lot of optional sidequests in the game. His quests require you to explore specific locations of the the given DC Universe in the game. While at each location, he gives some background information of the site. Most of the time, these sites can slightly relate to the superhero of that city. For me, these missions helped me appreciate the work and detail that was put into the 3D environment. I learned a lot as well as earned a lot of experience points.

(The Avengers Movie was Great. I had  great expectations for disappointments, but I couldn’t find any. Very epic movie for superheroes.) For Avengers fans, or Marvel fans, you are not out of luck, because there are so many parts to customize your character, there are items that strongly or slightly resemble Marvel characters as well.  I myself have seen Iron Man, Wolverine, the Thing from Fantasic Four, and Daredevil. She-Hulk shouldn’t be difficult to make. In fact, there is a guild/league just for mutants, called Mutant Academy. (members are moving over to a guild/league called “Marvel Crossover”, login says that DC heroes can join as well. I made a Magneto and am part of that guild. Found out about and joined the guild on my Birthday. Check it out.

Iron Man. I spy another Marvel character in the background

The Thing from Fantastic 4. Taken with my phone. Blocked the character names.

Daredevil. He invited me into the league.

I see an X-Men:Wolverine. I usually don't place full screen shots in articles but I wanted to show the details of the environment.

One other feature I like about the game is that it contains Kevin Conroy’s voice as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker. These are my two favorite voices for those characters. Kevin’s resume include voices in Batman:The Animated Series, Justice League, Batman Arkham Asylum and Batman Arkam City, and Batman Beyond. Mark Hamill’s work include being the one and only first Luke Skywalker in Star Wars Episode 3, Joker in the works that Kevin Conroy was mentioned for Batman, a Keyblade Master in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, and Firelord Ozai in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Other Note: Superman is voiced by Adam Baldwin who has been in Independence Day with Will Smith, Angel, Firefly, and Transformers Prime.

Here are two videos showing off more of the game and my character.

(UPDATE 8/7/12) To show my appreciation for the success of the article reaching over 2000 hits, and celebrate, I've gathered and put together some screenshots as a follow up. I've posted up the screen captures as a few different articles (pages) to shorten their length a little.

Gallery Page 1
Gallery Page 2
Gallery Page 3