The 4th wave of powers- and the decline in creativity

Father owns an AR15, dissassembled it, and had me reassemble 50 times. I can probably do it with my eyes closed at this point. Knowing how to do so lets me say with certainty that a gun is not a gadget.

Im sorry to burst your bubble but guns are 100% a type of gadget. I don't know what else to say you to you but it's apparent you aren't listening. At this point you are simply disagreeing just to disagree. I knew after that ridiculous monkey/whale comparison you were a lost cause.

It's funny you mention AR15 so I'll just leave this here and take my exit....http://www.wired.com/2013/02/ar-15/all/

You do

I hope you realize that website is not a credible source and cannot be taken seriously in any sense of the word. And I shall take my leave as well. Good day to you.

I think that would have worked better as well honestly.

Lol so because it actually shows another person's view supporting what I said it's not credible? All you posted was two definitions that in no way disproved anything. At leas I followed my arguement up with a definition and an article. I got two sources you have 1........see ya later. Go read your dictionary while I live in the world of engineering playing with my gadgets of which include guns.

I often wondered that myself. They probably end up on the forums each time they search Google for: "DCUO turn on how".

In regards to new powers, I've thought of several ideas. Perhaps the light power set should be renamed as "Fear" (Villains) and "Will" (Heroes). Afterwards a new power set called "Light" can be introduced which will feature various properties of light/ Electromagnetic Waves including but not limited to: Light Speed Movement, Lasers, Frequency Alteration (to become in tangible and allow damage to be avoided), Refraction, Absorption, Reflection, Generation of after images, generation of plasma.

Other powers I've fancied: Digital Powers(Gadgets=Hardware while Digital=Software -think TRON-), Thaumaturge (Based off Hamon from Jojo Kimyou na Bouken), Biomass Assimilation/Conversion Powers, Smoke Based Powers, and Kinetic Powers

There's a difference between forces of nature and the primordial elements bub -_-

I'm going to wait and see before I make any judgement call on the new powers, all we know is the names which are TBC by DC yet and who they are kinda/poster characters are

Pettymuch this: For munitions I'd like to see:

Mech Suit form.(Similar to Gadgets Stealth mode in that it has it's own customizable loadout with some unique abilities limited to the mech suit.)

Mini-turrets. If we're going for Gadgets 2.0 here we replace the mines with little stationary gun turrets that shoot bullets or missles at your enemies(Gadgets had two kinds of mine, munitions can have two kinds of mini-turret)

The ability to switch between a rocket launcher and our primary weapon.(The rocket launcher being an over the shoulder weapon which has it's own attacks), naturally it's lunge attack would be the rocket jump.



As for Serums:

We could again tap into the possibility of a third load-out with unique abilities like gadgets.(Only instead of stealth it has a charge attack, ground smash, and punt in addition to the grapples you can use outside that loadout.)

I could also see them making a tree inspired by the likes of Man-Bat and clay-face.

I keep hearing people say that the ps3 limits what can be added to the game but I'm really confused as to how? I play FFXIV and there is so much content and so many more things being added to the game while never once being restricted by ps3 compatabilities. The only problem that derives is rendering issues on ps3 but only if there are a lot of players in the same vicinity.

I know DC and FFXIV use completely different game engines but how can FF have so much more content than DC and not have any limitations from the ps3 but DC constantly claims to be limited because of the ps3? Sounds like an excuse to me but then again, I'm no game dev.

About Content
When people refer to content, they're talking about maps, raids, alerts, solos, open worlds, instances, etc. Content doesn't put nearly as much strain on the PS3 as you'd think. Having more content just means you need a bigger hard drive to store all the content you're not playing. The PS3 is limiting because of memory (RAM), not hard drive space. The only limiting factor for content is production costs. That's a delicate balance between the income of the game, size of the team, the cadence of the delivery cycle, and the scope (size/complexity) of that content. But the short version is, you can have more content but that only comes with time.

Other Kinds of Content
There is other kinds of content to consider, for example, styles. That is loaded in RAM but it's contextual. It's not all loaded in memory all the time. It only has to be loaded in memory if you're in range of it. That's what people usually criticize as rendering issues if that loading isn't snappy. Because it can be smart like that, it's not a burden on RAM.

About Animations
DCUO has all kinds of animations: weapon-combos, powers, iconic powers, trinkets, movement modes, movement tree powers, etc. Because it has action-oriented gameplay, these things need to always be loaded in memory at all times or else PvP and PvE within instances or open world would not look/feel right. If they were loaded on demand, you might get hit with the effect of an ability without seeing its animation. That would not be fun. It turns our that these animations have a bigger memory footprint than anything else. When you hear that the PS3 is limiting, it means it's not easy to add new powersets or weapon types (or anything else new that requires unique animations). That said, they are always tuning the code and looking for places to free up more RAM (hence we're getting more powers).

About Other PS3 Games (FFXIV)
Animations are probably an issue for them too. It really depends on how they engineered their game and what design choices they've made. First and foremost, are they an MMO? After that, how many powersets do they have? Do they have weapons? Do they have a combo system? Do they re-use a lot of their animations? Are their animations more basic? Do they support open-world PvP? Are they limiting the number of people that can be in an area? Can they get away with hitting you with an effect without the animation being loaded yet? If a game like FFXIV isn't feeling limited by the PS3 (which it probably is limited to some degree) then they probably made some choices that work for them but wouldn't feel right in DCUO based on the nature of the differences between the games.

Good explanation, if all of this info is accurate then you have answered most of my questions. It's all good though, Destiny awaits!

Well... the fact that you (and everyone else) were expecting Water & Blue Lanterns powers shows that Munitions & Serums are surprises. I still want to see a Water Tank and a Blue Lantern Healer (Blue Lanterns are Trolls, but Green Lanterns got that first... maybe change Green to Heals in a power revamp or something?).

They COULD play Munitions differently from Gadgets, after all Gadgets is to Batman what Munitions is to Punisher. I expect Munitions to have Bazookas, C4s (well, C4s are like bombs/grenades...) & what not. Serums appear to have grapples, but I don't know how these will come to play (look I grab Kalibak, he can't move or attack... OP!!! XD).

well, vindictus has a character that can grapple better then the others, but for bosses he holds them in a struggle for a moment then at the end either gets tossed like a ragdoll if he messes up, or delivers a strike to the opponent while anyone else in the group is free to attack them, however, just holding the boss for the group to pound him is actually a good idea for a tank since it does the tanks job of preventing the team from taking too much damage, possibly in this version just make it to where if the boss isn't dead by the time the grapple wears off you get knocked down and take damage or something if anything.

I really don't know what to say to this entire post... Atomic is awesome, and IMO should have been one of the first powersets available in game... It just didn't fit perfectly into the brainiac story arc that begins DCUO.

Munitons and Serums are perfect, and at a perfect time... why should those with the exobytes be the only ones to fight for earth's survival? It's storymode here folks... There is nothing wrong with adding some substance to the game that it is severely lacking in. Plus an untold amount of content left to be released.

Think about it, you've messed around with the Batcave defense systems, squirrelled around in Sup's backyard, closed the gates of Tart, and have been screwing around with the timelines for ages. Now, as a voting citizen, you just sit back and watch this happen, or maybe you toss a little bit of this, and a little bit of that in a vile and down it, tadaa I'm Bane 2.0 and I'm gonna smash your face.

Or maybe you (copyright infringements aside) build yourself a combat suit with all the big guns you can toss at it, and decide to take out some vigilante justice on the brainiac slave driver, lex luthor the power drunk special person that he is. Or maybe you really wanna break some super heroes for not being there when your dad didn't come home from his part-time job at big belly burger...

The fact that people may or may not have read this far doesn't elude me, but if you did, you're in for the real treat...

There is a whole load of content at DC's fingertips, and the fact that we get to be active participants in thier lore, is epic in and of itself. Not to mention that they give us new content faster than any other game I've ever seen. I'm used to seeing people with thier WoW hats on saying that this game blah blah, WoW has their 4th (maybe 5th?) expansion set to come out this November... DCUO is much younger, and already has 3x the content, and hasn't got that 'old world' feel to it, wherein all of the previous DLC content is now irrelevant to the current DLC... You can still do (and I bet you do) all the FoS raids for MoT's, styles, feats, etc, and it doesn't hurt your character for it...

Atomic should be awesome, Munitions should be crazy, and I'm expecting Serums to actually be quite broken, and require alot of attention. As for Water, Shadow, Solar, Lunar, Blue Lantern, Super Strength, Interstellar, whatever else you can think of... Yea, I'm sure it's in the works somewhere... It also has to be applicable to current game mechanics and balance...

The point of this wall of text crit is that instead of looking for a lack of creativity, look to see what you're not seeing when you started out on Brainiac's Invasion Ship.

(P.S. I'm still a firm believer that any ring type powersets, and the new powersets should get thier own starting zones... even a novice lantern would rip that place apart, and the new powersets are particularly "Human" creations.)

I enjoyed your writing, but I just want to clear one thing: you cannot compare WoW's expansions to DCUO's. You just can't. DCUO has DLC, but WoW has full blown Expansions: it's like a new game every time one is released. Each expansion has more content than 10 DCUO's DLCs. 1 Expansion comes with 3-4 whole Tiers worth of content.

My time with WoW was pretty short lived and I enjoy DCUO a lot, but WoW is like wine while DCUO is more like beer. Nothing wrong with either.

Aren't WoW expansions historically one every other year? I don't know in detail but I heard they are trying to shorten that cycle to annually and are having trouble doing it. DCUO keeping 3-month cycles is pretty impressive in my book at a time when the entire tech industry (not just gaming) is working towards shorter cycles.

Well, WoW has been out since 2004 and this year, 10 years later, they'll released their 5th expansion. Now, DCUO has DLC; WoW has Expansions. DCUO downloadable content boils down to pretty much 'extra missions', while WoW has whole new worlds, races, classes, etc. It would be more fair to compare 6-8 DLCs to 1 Expansion (3 new powers, new tiers, dozens of new missions, etc, etc). I think WoW has the upper hand on 'presentation' though, probably due to them literally having years to work on it and when they bring the new content, they even do CG movies to promote it (think DCUO's still awesome, still badass intro movie).

I can understand SOE wanting to release more content sooner to always have something new every month (reason why they are making new monthly DLC as stated in SOE Live) but I would appreciate if they take some time to really think things through, and really make up their minds when they implement new things to the game. I hate when they go back and 'fix' things that shouldn't be fix (aka Prestige or Symbols of Power, etc). It just seems desperate of them to re-invent the wheel every damn time. I'm still somewhat excited about what the future holds for DCUO, but I feel like my mates are slowly but surely moving on and I won't be able to appreciate the finer things they've been working on.

That all makes sense to me. I think it adds detail to your point that you pretty much can't compare the two.

Came for the new powers, stayed for the alternating links to dictionary definitions of "gadget."