Almost brand new, at least; it came out a little over a month ago. As the title suggests, it's themed around the DC Comics franchises. I'm not too well versed in DC properties, outside the big names (Batman, Superman, etc.), so I decided to do a little digging on the game to see who all was represented in it. All the obvious ones were there, but then there were a few characters I'd never heard of before, like Metamorpho and King Shark.
Of course, actually getting into the game I found that knowledge of DC characters or comic books in general really wasn't that important. The game, as with most MMORPGs, centers around the player's character, who's ostensibly a uniquely-designed hero or villain.
Before making your character, you choose their superpower and combat style, as well as whether they'll fight for good or evil and who their mentor is (Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman for heroes, The Joker, Lex Luthor or Circe for villains). I decided to go with a gunfighting hero mentored by Batman.
Originally, I had him designed as a robot wearing a suit and tophat. He was going to be called The Iron Gentleman, but the game wouldn't let me use that name. I assume it's because it's just "Iron Man," a Marvel property, but with "Gentle" crammed in the middle. Anyway, I completely redesigned him and changed his name to Lordly Caliber.
I kind of wanted to make him look like a king, to play off the "Lordly" in his name, but they didn't really have anything in the costume designer thing that would've worked like that, so I decided to go with an Ivy Leaguer who'd show those Princeton boys what for.
Less than 10 minutes into the game, however, you're given pieces of equipment that completely change what you originally looked like. Lordly Caliber ended up looking like Guy from "GalaxyQuest," if you've seen that. Fortunately, the game lets you lock pieces of your costume so that you can enjoy the practical benefits of new gear while still looking how you want. I was glad for that, because I wasted a lot of time getting Lordly getting the way I wanted him to appear to "the world," and I wasn't really down with him turning into a space cadet or spooky techno version of Batman.
Outside of running around next to other people, I didn't really have a lot of interpersonal interaction yet. Since I picked Batman as my mentor, I was sent to Gotham City as my starting zone. I assumed that thanks to the popularity of the Christopher Nolan movies, as well as the general more mainstream popularity of Batman compared to Superman and Wonder Woman, I assumed the area would have a fair number of other players. It ended up being largely deserted.
I think a part of this was because the last time I played it was on the snow day last Wednesday. Most people are at work at noon on a Wednesday not playing video games at home, so it's understandable that the population was a bit low. There were small bits of conversation going on in the chat channel, mostly people looking for others to band together for the missions that require groups of players. The bulk of the missions, as far as I'd seen, were designed to be done solo.
In fact, often I'd be around others who were doing the same mission, but nobody really said anything. Each person went about their private business, killing villains and saving citizens (Or vice versa, depending on what part of town I was in). I saw a few groups of two doing the same missions directly next to each other, but for the most part it seemed like a world of solo players.
So I soloed as well. I assume I'll soon be reaching a time where I'll either need to enlist the help of a group to do one of the harder missions I'd heard mentioned in chat, or I'll need to enter the player economy to have my gear up-to-snuff. Hopefully I'll have more info on that in my next post.
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