DC Universe To Be Free

DCUO continues to be on my short of list heavily anticipated titles right up there with Heavy Rain, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Onelastcontinue had an opportunity to talk to Wes Yanagi, Senior Producer at Sony Online Entertaintment at Gamescom 2009, go hands on with the game, and came away impressed despite the game still being in pre-alpha. Wes revealed several details on gameplay, character creation, and one big suprise: no subscription fee

[thebudgetgamer]

now thats my kind of pricing.

:)

[thedisagreefairy]

i think sony has a sleeper hit ready to go now.

i think alot of gamers will try their first mmorpg with this game.

hell i might even try my first mmo because this superhero idea sounds pretty cool

[thebudgetgamer]

i'm not really an rpg guy aside from ff7 and the original phantasy star. i'm more of a wrpg lover, but with no monthly fee i owe it to my self to try to expand my gaming world.

[badz149]

this might be a sleeper hit! will batman be featured in this game?

[deadreckoning666]

OMG, this is the best news ive heard from Sony all year!

Sony's really REALLY impressing me.

[alster23]

is this cross platform with the pc

[FlatulentGhost]

One just has to look at the massive success Free Realms has turned out to be for Sony to see that they see this as a winning business model.

Last I checked Free Realms was up to 5 or 6 million players and growing fast.

"is this cross platform with the pc"

From the article:

"As impressive as no subscription fee’s is, open platform servers is equally as impressive. To be able to play with or against people on either PC or PS3 could create quite an expansive world. Further to play your created character on either a PC or PS3 would be nice when the PS3 is not accessible."

[leyego]

free??

i wasn't gona pick this up because i didn't want to pay monthly fees.
but if its free thats a different story. i just need the offical 100% word from the devs and im sold.

[INehalemEXI]

sweeeeet.

[FlatulentGhost]

This is the way to do online right:

PSN - free for everyone. You never have to worry about subscriptions or if your friends are currently subscribing. Premium content costs money but nothing that stops you from using the basic service.

Home - free fro everyone. Premium content costs money, but it never stops you from accessing all the areas of Home.

Free Realms - free for everyone. There is half the game that you can access to if you pay a monthly fee, but it is additional content and nothing that stops you from progressing through the free half of the game. I've played for months and never payed a dime and it is the most fun I've had with a MMORPG in a very long time.

I assume DC will be the same model. There will be stuff for people to buy in game, but it will be nothing that stops anyone from playing the game if they don't every buy anything.

[MikeGdaGod]

interesting......

[FlatulentGhost]

Here is Sony's Free Realms:

http://www.freerealms.com/

This might be the model they are going to implement - click on What is Free Realms?

You have half the classes and quests are free. The other half you pay a 5 dollar a month fee to access.

BTW, Free Realms, though targeted at kids, is incredibly fun. Sony did an amazing job with the game. You don't have to download some 10 gig installer, everything is streamed. You can be playing in about a minute or so after creating a login.

[Sarcasm]

I have to say, this title went from "I'll think about renting it" to maybe "I'll buy it"

Seeing as it will be a nice long experience it will be worth the money.

[Sarcasm]

Oh I get it now, this is the game that MS said "Cross-Platform games" just work better. Maybe he's talking about the PC?

lmao

And for those who keep saying "But but but the PC is a MS platform, so if it's on PC/360 it's exclusive to MS!!!"

Then I guess for the first time, PS3 players will be able to play with Microsoft PC players.

Idiots.

[I_am_rushin]

This is great news. IF TRUE. So if next month we find out that DCUO will have subscriptions don't go blaming Sony. Blame this site.

[DaTruth]

Officially on my radar! Guess it's sort of like Home, if it's free, why can't this?(Unless Home makes money with advertisements) This is better than Home though; If anyone gets on that h0m0 crap, you can kick their a$$ with super powers! Or hitting on you with Wonder Woman and their really a dude!

Does anyone still have bad things to say about Sony!

If this isn't really free, people will now call it a Sony lie and say, "Sony said this would be teh free. AHHH Sony lies!!!"

[Blaze929]

Yeah i HIGHLY doubt this is true. I'll wait for an official Word from Sony or a Press Release before I get excited. Would amaze me just how Sony could manage to make this game without any subscription fees.

[NoBias]

Only thing that worries me is that if the no subscription fee is true, the game could easily go to hell pretty quickly. Meaning that support and services being put to stop glitching, hacks and over all stability won't be there (or it won't be there as frequently as it should).

I'd rather pay a small fee for a strong running/well kept MMO vs a free one with bugs and people hacking everywhere. Here's hoping that the game is really stable.

Still, I think we should wait for an official word before people start cheering, hollering and praising. Remember the Killzone 2 "free" map packs?

[djfullshred]

thedisagreefairy - I think you are right. I have never played a MMORPG game before, but this one has my interest. I might be one of those noobs jumping in on this one.

[Baka-akaB]

@NoBias

How the hell is there a correlation between subcription and that ?
We are not talking about some lame and cheap f2p mmo from small korean or chinese studios but an actually big commercial project here .You still buy the game obviously .

Besides look at guild wars , it's without subscription , thought not yet open like it's upcoming sequel , but it wasnt ridden with hacks , it's servers have been consistantly stable since early days , and the game had and still got a massive amount of support .

Hell even if it wasnt at first , Gw1 is probably the most balanced pvp game existing .

Subs dont prevent hacking , or awful mmo launches . in fact most paid mmo i've seen have been infested for a short time or not with cheats , and all of them had bad launch , except again guild wars .

And if we were to make analogies , XBL got a lot of hackers , be it to cheat in stuff like cod , or to play pirated versions of game ... while it remains limited to stuff like said cod on the free psn .

[vhero]

Would never have have been free on 360..

[sabestar]

The free subscription thing just guaranteed Sony Online an extra copy sold (to me hehe)

[Kappa Mikey]

awww man this game is still in the pre-alpha stage, I can't wait no longer! and now I hear it'll be a free subscription. Take note Square Enix! FF14 should be free as well

[SprSynJn]

I doubt FFXIV will be free. If they expect it to sell they will have to compete with Sony, but I seriously doubt they will even consider it competition. So don't expect it to be free.

[ReaperXL7]

Hell Yeah!

Been waiting for DC Universe for along time now, and now that I know it's going to be free to play it's all the more exciting.

I'm just glad DC has been getting love from the gaming community lately as i've always been a bigger fan of DC than Marvel.

[cheapndirty]

This is a SOny exclusive that I will buy at day and date. The other exclusives have been great but not enough for me to pre order and all that. Now I have to get my other ps3 friends to buy that too so we can go roam around in DC world.

[vShinobi]

Free is always better.

[Sarcasm]

Except if it doesn't have Cross-Game chat you need to pay $50.

[Redempteur]

FREE

DId you see that ?

Dc online !
The agency
FF14

FREE !!

Do you really have to pay each month to feel you have a good product in your hands ? I don't think so

[tda-danny]

The Final Fantasy MMO will have a monthly sub fee unfortunately. It was said so by one of the producers a short time ago.

Quote:
"according to producer Hiromichi Tanaka, there will indeed be a subscription fee. "It's going to be a 30 days-based subscription," Tanaka told VG247 at GamesCom last week."

http://www.psxextreme.com/p...

Not that it matters, FFXIV is still day one for me!!

[Rifle-Man]

Everyone loves free!

I know it, Google knows it, Sony knows it.

[harrisk954]

I don't think that MS knows it!

[Redempteur]

Too bad for them then !!!

My wallet on the other hand feel fine

[blackpanther25]

a lot more people (including me) are going to get this game cause its free to play. I mean honestly i wasn't gonna get it before.

[godcrusher]

its free. The problem I have with monthly fees is that I feel obligated to play now that I pay 11.99 a month. I am getting this game for sure.

I just wish the Marvel MMO for the 360 did not get canceled. That was one of the main reasons I got my 360.

[Baka-akaB]

not me , i'm pretty sure champions is basically the scraping of what would have been the Marvel mmo , and i havent been thrilled by many things of that game .

At least with a new dev and marvel mmo on the horizon, there is always a chance it could turn alright . especially if getting clue from both Champions and DCU's advantages and flaws .

[Theoneneo81]

Yeah if its free it may hold me over till Old Republic comes out if its out before that!

[samoon]

HELL YEAH!

This is how u get people to play your MMO and in the long run STAY WITH YOUR MMO!!

It's games like this that I would support 100% with Microtransactions and buy their stuff!

[Polluted]

Awesome. I've been looking forward to this one a lot and the subscription fee was the one thing in the back of my mind keeping hype levels low. This is great news.

[akaFullMetal]

wow that's great, i wasn't going to get it before, but who can resist free.

[ukilnme]

Awesome. This will be my first MMO.

[Nitrowolf2]

i was feeling that they would charge for it and at a high price. Free is always good.

[Thoreau]

too many games.....

[BXbomber]

DAY 1 BUY, THX SONY!!!!!!!

[LordMarius]

Ummm I just came from a forum with the speaker being a guy from SOE talking about this game and he mentioned subscriptions........

[Ninji]

DC Universe (No monthly fee)
Free Realms (No monthly fee)
The Agency (No monthly fee)
Angel Love Online (No monthly fee/Japan)
FF14 (Monthly fee)

Square-Enix is the only one charging an online fee and like all Square-Enix games, it will suck.

Square-Enix fails.

[Sunny_D]

Ninji are you DNAGENT? He was practically the only one who talked about SE in practically every article. And now you do as well.

[Baka-akaB]

you're full of crap

FFXI rocks actually and is easily the best pve experience despite it's age and platform of origin... only bested by well other paid mmos .

FFXIV will most likely be better and more accessible finally , and will most likely feature at least decent pvp ...

Now it's awesome to not pay for both DC and Agency ... the only two real mmo of that list ...

Free realms got huge extra costs in the form of paid items , and is mostly a kiddie game .

Angel love online is some crap no one would even pay for , and that you most likely didnt even bother to try ..

[Jeff257]

DCU Online is going to be my first MMO and would have been even with a monthly fee but dang this is some great news.

[Sigh]

An MMO to be free, damn Sony is just too damn generous lol. Can't wait.

[Baka-akaB]

See , i knew i was right to pick this game over champions ... (regardless of platform crap) .

Champions :
- no possibility to create a villain until some paid addon someday
- a bit broken gameplay only starting to get fixed via patches
- no actual pvp (please silly arenas dont cut it ) , and especially not with villains since you cant create them
- subcriptions and yet oddly cash shops ?

DCU online :
- villains creations
- hero vs villains pvp out of the box
- pvp quests
- join the justice league!
- meet actual franchise heroes that arent lame
- no subscription!
- cross platform servers

[jovherye]

Yay!!! Hope this game kicks A$$$!!!

[cmrbe]

anyone?.

[TheBand1t]

You fly around in colored pajamas chasing criminals who also happen to be in colored pajamas.

Y'know, typical superhero stuff.

[Baka-akaB]

it's a super hero mmo like city of heroes and champions online .
Basically you create your hero (or villain) with a huge variety of looks and power customizations . Then you do quests in solo or groups , raid and pvp like in most mmo , only comicbooks themed .

City of hero spawned the genre and to this date do quite marvelous events , ranging from time travelling , heroes going rogue , villains making alliances , alien invasions etc etc ...

This time as an added bonus you actually can meet and fight against or alongside DC unvierse heros such as batman , joker , superman etc

[cmrbe]

Thanks. Sounds interesting.

[cmrbe]

to MS.

[Soldierone]

Free subscription, awesome who didnt expect that? The thing im excited about is this "Cross platform gameplay with PC" what other game does that?! Thats going to be AWESOME!

[NexGen]

What other game does that?

Final Fantasy XI
Phantasy Star Universe (pc/ps2)

[MetalGearBear]

awesome!!!!! PLAY B3YOND!!!!!

[Kluv]

OHHH MYYYYYY GOOOOOOODASM! THAT'S AWESOME!#!!!!!@!!!!@!$!$!!#!!! @$#!#%^!!!!!!!!

[J@D]

Free...? I'm sold!

[Kluv]

The Agency is another free mmo shooter coming from Sony. honestly, Free realms, DC universe, Agency and Home. free MMO with premium content, that's the way to freaking do it sony!

[user858621]

Now this is a 100% on release buy :D

[The_Nameless_One]

Read the original article.

"...they are leaning towards the expansion-pack business model, as opposed to the traditional subscription fee although such matters hadn’t been solidified at that point over at Sony Online Entertainment."

[Tripl3seis]

This would be my first mmo awesome thanks sony;)

[jdktech2010]

I don't know a whole lot about this game because I figured it would be p2p.....I might have to look closely at it now.....

By the way, (since you people brought it up) I only pay 40 dollars at one time for a whole year of gaming on xbox live......pay it and forget about it....easy enough and perfectly fine with me to pay less than 4 dollars a month (average) for a very stable and fun environment......it's all about personal preference and I seriously doubt that you'll (Sony fanboys) respect mine so I shouldn't even bother asking you to

Anyway, I'll look into but anyone have some good info about what this game has to offer that say Guild Wars doesnt'?

[Baka-akaB]

It's not always about sony or microsoft or both .

Just like some people still refuse to pay for mmo subs , some of us got principle about paying for online access on a console (or even pc) , especially when we are already charged for the rest .

And no it's not cheap in the grand scheme of things . See since we talk about mmo , just imagine what it cost already for a AOC or champions 360 player who can only use wifi access ...

They most likely wont let you access a mmo even paid with silver , so one gold account ... plus one hdd if you didnt have one already (and no it's not mandatory , since you can't copy external videos or mp3 , and since install arent mandatory usually on 360) but 'ill leave that one out and assume everyone would have one already ... still remains the additional cost of the wifi addon and mmo charges ..

that's quite a lot already , for both principle reasons and economic ones .

As for your second part , well i'm sure it really compares with GW . The theme alone and the fact that it's an open world , would make both quite different in design and gameplay .
What i can say is that it"s at least fast paced and action based , a common thing with gw . And should feature lots a hero vs villain pvp , bet it in masses , quests or duels

[Silent]

OMG!!! this is soo coool

[jdktech2010]

Ok, after watching the gameplay on gametrailers...I lied, that looks pretty boring to me.....I'll probably pass anyway especially with the old republic most likely coming late next year.

I'll have starcraft 2, l4d2 and mw2 to hold me over till then....everyone who wants it, hope you have fun with though

[timestoby]

OMG FREEEEEEEEE. rrodboxers are on there knees lol.

[KillerPwned]

I think i just pooped myself............no fee WHAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is deffinaly going on my preorder list!

[STRAIGHTASL]

remember SONY IS ALWAYS FREE and MS IS NO FREE.

[STRAIGHTASL]

remember SONY IS SO FREE and MS IS NO FREE.

[lucifon]

This sucks majorly. Free 2 play MMO's always have to make their money elsewhere, and the areas where they do often imbalances and screws with other aspects of the game. Not only that but F2P games attract a ton more kiddies.

They'l take a cash shop approach, probably much like the Free Realms route. Free 2 Play games are Free for a reason, theres not been one that can stand up to other Pay2Play games without having major flaws. Was really looking forward to this too.

[Baka-akaB]

F2P and paid games without subscriptions arent at all the same thing .

FP mmo are entirely free , so yeah will get money elsewhere by ripping you off by force or by luring you into it .
Free realms is free , and seems to be done with that "second life for kids" approach , so of course it would cost .

Commercial mmos without subscriptions , like well the only legit example so far , Guild wars dont usually need that approach .

They sell you the game , and sell you quite a few addons . They propose other transactions too but it's very limited and for stuff that truly dont affect the game or are needed . Like additional character creation slots in guild wars (if you cant wait addons that always expand those) .

When done smartly the server toll isnt necessarily bigger than hosting million of cod parties . And selling addons every 4-6 months is a pretty big paycheck

Look also at the nature of the game ... you wont really be able to con people into buying the nicest looking armor or health potions in a game where you design entirely your look and powers .

There will obviously be a few paid stuff or dlc , but there would be regardless of the system . Just look at champions managing to sport both subs and cash shops .
It just aint the nightmare you'd find with F2ps

[TechWiz]

lucifon, The game is not free, you have to buy the game. Your not paying monthly fees like WOW. Since your not paying monthly fees, feel free to buy all their DLC for the game and add-on packs.

[TechWiz]

"no subscription fee" Day one buy for me.