Tuesday, July 15, 2014

DCUO I LOVE YOU!

Growing up I was never a comic book fan. I never bought one until I was an adult and that was Spawn. I was a child of Hollywood. The first superhero movie I ever saw was Superman with Christopher Reeves. At the age of 5, I became an instant fan of Superman.

Looking back at my childhood and remembering all the superhero themed Underoos I owned, I would say I was a DC fan. Of course, The Hulk was my favorite superhero growing up, but I had more DC underwear in my dresser.

I think Marvel is a more popular franchise because they have a better public relations department. Disney knows how to hype their products better than anybody else. Before Disney took over, the Marvel movies were crap compared to the DC ones. Just comparing the movies prior to Disney you can see that. Because Disney produces good movies and great hype, the world is on a Marvel kick right now. It's easy to tell when you watch Man of Steel then go watch Ironman 3; obviously Man of Steel is a far superior movie, but Ironman 3 man more than twice the money, all because Disney.

Even though I seem like a DC fan, I'm really not. I'm a fan of the heroes and I think Marvel has better heroes overall. Yeah I jumped out of a tree thinking I was Superman and whenever I ran as a kid I though I was The Flash, but I liked Marvel overall better. Marvel just seems to have more heroes that humans can connect with. Most of them are just average people that became superhuman one way or another. I know both franchises have their alien heroes and their human/superhuman heroes, but the more popular superheroes are Marvel because of that more human connection. Even though I think I would enjoy a Marvel MMO a lot, DCUO is a great game. I'm sure 10 years from now DCUO will be the Christopher Reeves benchmark MMO, but we'll have hype induced Robert Downey Jr MMO out by then. But until then, I'll be playing DCUO and loving it.

I didn't always love DCUO. In fact, I've been struggling to play it since it released in 2011. I've tried it off and on for over 3 years never making it past level 17 and I only made it that high 6 months ago on the Playstation 4. Before that I never made it past level 8. I think my problem with the game was the console friendly controls. I'm a horrible console gamer and I think MMOs suck on consoles. Hence my distaste with DCUO. Recently a lot of MMOs have come out with the same action based combat DCUO helped pioneer and I think it's helped me grow accustomed to that console feeling of control.

Even though I tried DCUO on the PC in beta, I never bought the game. Later when it went free to play, I downloaded it on the Playstation 3 to try again. Of course, I didn't like the game again because I felt disoriented playing an MMO on a console. I made it to level 8 and shelved the game again. When they released DCUO for the PS4 I tried it again, mainly because there were no games for the PS4 and my son wanted to try and MMO. I played it with him for about a month before I quit... again. About 6 months ago DCUO had an awesome DLC released that caught my eyes and I tried it again for a month. You know what happened after that month, I quit.

Two weeks ago I started playing DCUO on my PC for the first time since beta. I really didn't have a reason to, I just felt like trying it again. So far, I'm loving it a lot more than I ever did on the console. I still think the social menus suck, but they're fixing those in their 39th free patch. Yes they have 10 paid DLCs, but they also update their game with large patches for free. They're not as robust as the DLCs, but they do need to make money somehow off a F2P game. Second to GW2, DCUO has an outstanding F2P model. Their team is small and very dedicated to making a quality game. Not to mention the story is amazing.

All that said, I made it to level 10 last night. I just have 8 more levels to beat my record. Will I quit again? Probably at sometime, but I'm subscribed for a month and I plan on reupping my subscription when it's up in 2 weeks. The good thing is, I don't have to if I don't want to. I can keep playing it for free with minor roadblocks.

Last night playing it I noticed how lively the game is. This is only the PC server I'm talking about; the PC people do not play with the console people. I wish they did, but they are separate. Logging into the Playstation it's just as packed. Some might chalk that up as a F2P phenomenon, but I've played dozens of F2P MMOs and they are not this packed. It makes me feel good the game is doing so great after a rocky start. It proves converting from a monthly subscription to a F2P model doesn't mean the death of a game. If done as good as DCUO, it means the life of a game.

I'm not guaranteeing I'll play DCUO for the next year, month,  or tomorrow, but I'm guaranteeing the game is fun to play for a lot of people. I know it's not for everybody and it is super hard to get into it, but once I found my proper platform, I've had fun. I'm at home with a keyboard and my G600 Logitech mouse with side hotkeys. I can now get on the Alliance of Awesome TeamSpeak server and chat with people while I play a game I enjoy, even if they're not playing with me. I'm having fun and while I get the social interaction I need.

If I reviewed DCUO 3 years ago I would've given it a poor score, but after years of stellar updates and hard work I'd give the game a great score now. I'm looking forward to their 39th free update and their 11th DLC coming out soon. The game just keeps getting better and better, even for a Marvel fan like myself.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Wildstar and Luminosity Developers Work Together on September Ultra Drop

Recently, developers from the popular mind expanding game Luminosity have been spotted entering the headquarters of Carbine Studios, makers of the extremely popular MMO Wildstar. Our reporters had the chance to talk with one of these anonymous developers and this is what she (Sarah), had to say:

"I started playing Wildstar at launch a month ago and I was appalled to see so many quests with words or cut scenes. Then, I came across a Simon Says quest and I was in heaven. The makers of these quests touched my heart forever. It was that moment I decided to reach out to Carbine Studios to help them expand their game's potential. "

Anonymously, Sarah has been working  with Wildstar developers to develop the September Ultra Drop titled: Brain Fart! She told us there will be more than a 100 more Simon Says quests and a special dungeon with a Rubix Cube boss where players will have to work together to solve the mind-boggling cube of doom. Here is a list of some of the other cool stuff slotted for the Ultra Drop:

1. A Sudoku carpet
2. A light bulb hat
3. Newton's Apple tree
4. Chess piece costumes
5. A Dunce cap
6. An Albert Einstein mount
7. A new zone dedicated to PvP thinking games like Chess, Charades, Battleship, Scrabble, and many more
8. A new path called,  Lawnmower Man
9. 1 or 2 bug fixes
10. A new chat channel dedicated to  theory.

All these features are just 10% of Wildstar's potential. In the future Carbine Studios is hoping these brain games stimulate their players enough to develop content for themselves with their imagination. They're hoping when you feel bored of the game, you can just take over the mainframe with your mind and instantaneously become unbored.

I believe this is a genius move for the future of Wildstar and humanity. Together we can grow mentally to take over the universe.

Women's Only Bathrooms at Finnish IeSF Tournament Outrages Male Competitors With Weak Bladders

Recently with the help of Blizzard Entertainment, the decision to have male-only e-sport competitions was overturned. The decision to let females play in all e-sport competitions at the Finnish tournament has been met with thousands of women signing up at the last minute to compete. Unfortunately, the venue reserved for the competition only had male bathrooms.

In an effort to not seem sexist, the Finnish IeSF representatives taped,  "Women Only"  over half the bathrooms in the facility. This has outraged teams sponsored by Mountain Dew and Monster Energy Drinks. Both teams are known to have extremely explosive diarrhea and recurring UTIs. A spokesman for team Dew had this to say:

"I have a doctor's note demanding at least 70% of the buildings I compete at have to have male bathrooms with a minimum of 16 stalls to poop in.  Even with 60% of the bathrooms here I have a 90% chance I'm going to shit my pants more than I normally shit them. That means I'm going to get a diaper rash. I can't win this tournament under these conditions. My adult diapers can only hold so much. "

A woman standing outside a random building was asked what she thought of this outrage. She had this to say:

"For years men have been pissing and shitting in the woods with only their bare hands to scrape the poo from their backside, why should they need a bathroom now? I say, set the computers up outside like real men. There's a tree, man it up! "

Being a man myself that normally urinates off top floor balconies at a hotel in a drunk stupor, I think not having male bathrooms at all is brilliant. For far too long men have sat on toilets becoming more and more female. We're soft! We can't let women suppress us anymore! We need to fight for our rights to party! No longer will we expect a bathroom and toilet paper lined with aloe! We will shit in the streets and wipe our asses with our bare hands! We will go to this tournament with crap under our fingernails wondering if it's chocolate or shit. Only a taste test will do! So men, stand up and fight for your manly hood and refuse all bathrooms! Now go make our species proud!

Wildstar Subscription Numbers Overwhelming!

Today Carbine Studios announce they are having an overwhelming amount of subscribers catastrophically bottlenecking their system. They're quickly implementing a system to help players play and not feel stressed out. Here is a forum quote:

"WTF! I woke up this morning to play and I couldn't! This is bullshit! I then checked my bank account and I haven't been charged yet! I was bullshit! Quickly I threw money and cat feces at my monitor! Catshit! "

Later when server Master Server-Guru Cougar announced:

"Sorry for the inconvenience, we've implemented a fix to get players in the game while our payment server is cleaned of cat shit. Please people, stop throwing cat shit at your monitors. Our system takes all major credit cards, PayPal, prepaid cards, and blood donations, but we're not accepting hot, steamy, cat shit at this moment. Oh and we don't accept Bitcoin, cat shit has more value. Thank you for your patience and feel free to save cat shit for a later date. "

So, there you have it. At this point I'm one of the many that hasn't been charged for my year subscription and I have cat droppings all over my computer. Just so you know, jamming crap into your CPU fan does not work either. Who knew? Unfortunately, I need a new motherboard and my carpets cleaned. I didn't know that when shit hits the fan, it will spray back at me. I should've called Tim Howard before I freaked out; he could've saved me!

Act 1: Pong

Now that Boomers are finally dying off, the rest of the world can relax and play their video games without being harassed. Video games are e...