How DC Universe Online’s Update 18 Renewed My Faith in the Game

MMOs are a hard business to get into; they take years of dedicated work to create and a constant effort to help keep the gaming experience enjoyable for the massive amount of players in the game at any given moment. Not to mention the constant flow of updates and expansions that any good MMO need to have to stay successful.

DC Universe Online has been on a roller coaster ride since it's release. Fans have argued the quality of the game itself and it's basically split the gaming community straight down the middle. MMOs are a genre that doesn't easily appeal to the mainstream gaming community, so it's really no surprise that DCUO has been having the ups and downs that it has been, but what exactly is it about this superhero MMO that has been keeping fans away?

Personally, I've been playing DCUO since it's release. Originally having picked it up for someone else as a gift, I quickly picked it up myself and have been hooked ever since. The idea of having a game where you could play as your own custom superhero or villain alongside all of the biggest faces in DC Comics should be enough for the massive modern day comic-loving community but a roadblock has always been present in the game since it's release.

DCUO invites players to complete various missions and group 'alerts' as either a hero or villain. The idea is great but, with a level cap of only 30, players can max out within a few days and are left thinking 'what now?'. Level 30 opens up a new world to gamers that really takes the 'role' aspect of MMOs and throws it in your face hard. For MMO newbies like myself, this was a slap in the face and a drastic increase in difficulty that crushes you into the ground and leaves you for dead. Luckily for me, my nerdy side has kept me coming back with new file after new file just to reach 30 and basically start over again. It was safe to say that I was really starting to lose faith in this game. I even left it for a while....I don't like to talk about it...

DCUO has released several large expansions and even more updates that add large amounts of content to the game but I've only discovered the full capacity of these add-ons now that DCUO's update 18 has been released. This update took the level 30 roadblock and destroyed it, making a much smoother and user friendly transition into the strategic world of roles and stats. The alerts, duos, solo missions and raids have all been recreated and shifted around to different difficulty level, making them more appealing to those of us who aren't MMO masters. The update has also changed the complicated 'marks' currency quite a bit to simplify the whole thing. Marks are used after level 30 to purchased high level armor sets and come in various types that are achieved by different level missions. To simplify everything, the update has made it so the first marks you can achieve are now the only marks you receive. In this way, players can take their time and redo earlier missions if they're not yet ready for the difficulty of the next tier of challenges. The update has only been live for a few days but the major differences in the overall feel of the game can be felt quite obviously.

If you haven't yet tried out DC Universe Online or originally bought it but have left it for dead, suffer the massive download and check out the newly designed world of DCUO and see why update 18 has completely restored my health in the game.