Currently Playing - DC Universe Online Free to Play, heck why not?
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Back in March(I think) of 2011, a friend of mine convinced me to buy DC Universe Online for the PS3. I I brought the game home, updated the game(Which took literally a day) and off I go creating my first super hero mentored by Batman. I honestly loved the game but the fact that I needed to pay 15$ a month for it turned me off completely. Now it has gone free to play last month and finally bothered to give it another shot.
Even with having the disc, the update latest at least half of the day to download. Beats the whole day but still half of a day was used to get it up and running. Since I bought the physical copy, my account was instantly in the premium status. Since its free to play, free to play accounts and premium accounts have limitations. The legendary account, which is pretty much the people still playing monthly for it has no restrictions and get all DLC free. I'm obviously not going legendary and premium is pretty much the next best thing at least.
Why is there a money cap!?
Restrictions are a bitch since it affects how much inventory space, character slots, bank slots, and worse of all - the amount of cash you carry. Damn I can live with limited slots, but cash!? With my premium account, I pretty much get double the limit of free to play accounts plus auction slots which is cool. Problem is, I have a cash cap of $2,000, free to play have a $1,500 cap so thats a 500 cap difference. Of course, $15 a month junkies get no cap.
Thats just too damn much. All I can do with that money is buy pots(600 for 6 pots btw)and repair items. Worse part is, the money you earn when you reach your cap gets transferred to this bank where you can withdraw in-game money for like one dollar. That one dollar purchase gets you to withdraw 10,000 from your bank, assuming you have that much saved up. You even see the money saved in, its like its just staring at you every time you open your inventory screen.
To be honest though, I don't see a point in having that much money though since I can earn gear by going through instances or trading-in emblems for gear. Still, the fact that they chained how much I can earn was a bit too much in their part. I' have a level 30(max level), I wanna feel rich.
That so far is the only bad thing about this free to play model to be honest, I'm still on my second day though so more issues will be surface. I've always enjoyed this game and it feels better with how alive the server is. Well thanks to it going free to play and only having 2 servers per platform, it better be full.
For a free to play game, its loads of fun
It's still is as fun as it was back when I tried it last march, but whats better is that there is no more of the worry that 15 bucks will go away on the next month to keep going. I have a maxed level character and decided to stop playing gearing him up because I had only 2 more weeks until I have to load up, where I had no intention of doing so. So Tier 2 content and raids is still unexplored territory for me so far. Currently leveling my Villain mentored by Lex Luthor, which is now at level 14, to experience the game with a live server. So far, its loads of fun. Especially on a pvp servers since you have a lot of hero players to fight against as you level. At the same time, instances and pvps are instant pops as you que which is amazing to see. When I tried it the first time it took almost 30 minutes to get into a group. Even at max level its a quick match up, which is what this game needs to keep it alive.
Sony Entertainment Online announced 1 million new players when it went free to play in November. That's honestly nothing since that's just the curious factor kicking in, and I'm sure they'd love to brag on how well the free to play model works. People know free gets people interested instantly, the real challenge is keeping them around.
I'm excited to fully gear my toon, I have the luxury to do so, and if this game feels worth the play in the next few weeks, might just get something out of the in-game store like the Green Lantern DLC or Flash DLC for different powers. For what the game was offering during the start for 15 bucks a month was not even close to being worth it, but with it now free to play, that's completely changes everything. It's looking good so far, but if things get boring, nothing is lost.
DC Universe Online is not even a year old yet and they already opted for the Free to Play model. maybe it was doing really bad? or maybe free to play is just as strong as subscribtion based? who knows. Should we bother DC Universe Online's new Free to Play model? heck why not? its free. If you don't like it then stop playing and delete, that's the beauty of it.
