Grumpy Old Nerds

Earlier in the month, DC Universe Online was announced as being free to play. While it is cool to have another MMO free to play there is another MMO that had an official launch on September 28th called Dragon Nest. So which is the better one to play? Well honestly if you have time for both or are playing a better MMO then the two mentioned, more power to you. However since these two MMO's are so close together in releases, I am going to pit these two against each other and give you my opinion on which is the better one to play. I am going to pit the two freebies against each other in gameplay, graphics, sound, and overall fun factor. So without further adieu, lets start off this battle.

We'll start off with the sound category. This I'll give the edge to Dragon Nest as the sounds of connecting with the enemies and connecting with an object are a lot better. I feel like DC Universe Online's sound effects could have been a lot better if they actually wrote out the sound effects along with your moves like the Adam West days of Batman. It just sounds off, for example, the sound effect of flinging a punch sounds like your flag being swung as fast as possible, another example is an acrobatic taking big strides create a woosh sound instead of actually hearing feet hitting solid ground. Dragon's Nest on the other when you hit a barrel, it sounds like you connected with a barrel, and breaking it you get the sounds of shattering wood and swinging a flail (which glad to see as a weapon in a game by the way) sounds like a flail being swung.

Next part of the sound category is music and voice acting. The music in Dragon Nest is ok but quite common for the fantasy MMO. If you don't understand what I mean, I'm talking about the folksy festival music that almost sounds like you should be clapping your hands to a gypsy dancing circles around a bonfire or that sounds like a flute away from being a legend of zelda song. The music side for DC Universe Online is a bit bi-polar, some places like the police headquarters/nightclub places (yes you heard me police headquarters and night clubbing are apparently one in the same in this game...) deliver such horrible music that sounds like a techno version of elevator music while other places like outside in Gotham City, the music is well orchestrated and almost sounds like the start of the Batman theme. If only Metropolis had the same care as outside of Gotham City...I would have loved to have flown around in a knock off version of the Superman theme. Even though DC Universe has some bad music I do like that it strays from the common MMO music, so that's why DCUO gets the edge there, leaving it down to just the voice acting to determine the winner.

The voice acting for Dragon Nest is ok, but there's no voice you hear in the game that you will actually recognize and fan-gasm over. I read up that the asian version of the game gets Gackt as a voice actor, which Gackt to me is a talented enigma, but that doesn't help us with the U.S. version of this game. The Voice acting for DCUO, all I have to say is "Hey Kids! It's Mark Hamil! Applause!" (A Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back reference to those that didn't get it). That's right, Mark Hamil as The Joker, and various other voice actors from the actual animated series put there voices into the game to enhance the gaming experience. That's a win, and that's why in this category DC Universe edges out over Dragon Nest.

Onward to gameplay! Both games have the same mechanics in that left mouse click is your basic attack, right click is a stronger attack, and then you have the number keys for your various powers and skills you earn. I have to say I give the edge to Dragon's Nest on this because Dragon's nest if you actually hold your left mouse button down you can pull off your four hit combo, there's that and I haven't ran across problems with my moves not registering, where as DCUO is so fast paced that sometimes where your combos involve alternating which mouse button you click, it doesn't register the exact combo you are trying to pull off. I also feel that DCUO also hurts itself with the energy bar and having to recover it by unleashing combos on your target. I understand the argument of "some of the heroes and villains don't use there powers often" which is true but in the case of needing heals and needing your defensive abilities, I find this to be a huge pain in the ass. Also a pain in the ass with DCUO is the boss battles. You will never have a easy boss battle which I can understand the need for back and forth fights making the whole comic thing more authentic but when you can unleash all of your abilities and attack as fast as you can and you still only end up whittling about half of the boss's bar down before he completely destroys you is absolutely cheesy. Also, it makes the battles look horrible with both the boss and you flailing at each other, it looks like two fish out of water flapping against each other (which doesn't look any better with a friend helping out...just looks like more fish flapping against each other). Dragon's Nest fights are smooth and the boss battles are less challenging thanks to having an actual mana bar and the bosses actually taking there times telegraphing moves having patterns like any boss in a video game would so you can fight them stress-free, unlike the DCUO bosses that have no predictability and then rushing up and zerging you.

Onto graphics, I feel like the edge once again has to go to Dragon Nest. DCUO's animation in it's fast paced combat I find to be too choppy, and sometimes the animation of the energy attacks do not appear on the screen, for example the Hand Blaster types have a combo where they charge up a beam of energy, then after connecting with that form a big ball of energy over head and toss it at the target, but sometimes the ball doesn't show and you just have a over head flinging motion, though it still registers that the move connected. I have not experienced that kind of problem with Dragon's Nest and all of the moves have a smooth complete animation behind them. Both graphic wise are cartoony, which doesn't bother me one bit, though I feel Dragon Nest is a lot more colorful and livelier.

On to the topic of Fun Factor. DCUO does deliver when it comes to the inner child at first, having your child hood heroes or villains speaking to you and giving you quests and thanking you for your help (or thanking you for not being incompetent in the villains case). Sometimes getting a chance to actually fight alongside your favorite heroes was epic. I remember doing the battle of Smallville helping Superman fight Doomsday made me giggle like a school girl. However there is some moments where I just wished some of the chain quests could be skipped over and go straight into the fight, like the starting area for Superman, I just wanted to go "Ugh, can't I just go punch Gorilla Grod in the face now?" Circe and Wonder Woman's entire quest arch I found completely annoying as well. Another thing I find weird about the game is you fight the boss, then defeat them, then you get the cut scene on why that particular character wants to rule the world or defend the city, etc. Shouldn't the cut scene be before defeating them to add more impact to the story?

Dragon's Nest though I'm finding more entertaining. Mainly because it has cut scene driven storylines that at the moment seems to be going from the start of the game till the very end (I can't confirm that though since while I did level cap in DCUO, I'm only at level 18 out of the US cap of 32 at the moment). This leads me to one gripe and it could be said for the majority or maybe all of the MMO's so far. Why do they make your character seem so incompetent? It happened with World of Warcraft: Catacylsm where every new zone you went into led to you being knocked out or captured and it's like, ok I helped slay Ragnaros, Illidan, Lich King, but I get knocked out in a cut scene by non-elites of my level? What the fuck?! This game almost made me think otherwise at first because one cut scene a enemy in the game was tossed over to the boss and you just walked into the scene. I was like "Sweet! Change of pace!", but from that point on for the next three boss battles afterwards you get knocked out...and then a few levels later you end up getting bullied and then rescued by someone that deems you worthless and considers you a slave...it's like geeze this game is the worst then Final Fantasy XI in making you feel like you have a worthless character, and in that game your major enemy for 40 + levels is onion creatures, rabbits, bees, worms, and crabs...crabs that take 5 other people to kill! What the fuck Square-Enix?! Despite the worthless seeming character the game's story, graphics, and smooth gameplay just made this game more enjoyable to me then DCUO.

Just because I declare Dragon Nest the winner doesn't mean DCUO is horrible, and honestly both of them can use some major improvements in certain areas. Both of them can use improvements in customization, especially Dragon Nest since there's only a single digit amount of hair styles, clothing styles and colors that you can pick. Also gaining costume looks is rare in Dragon Nest unless you spend actual cash but earning levels do give you the gifts of obtaining different costume pieces that only last for a couple of days, so wait until you get the full set before using them all. DCUO needs to do the same, while it does have a variety of outfits it really needs to gain a lot more, I recommend taking a look at the customization of City of Heroes. While I do like the fact that there's extra styles to earn through quests and missions, there need to be more styles to gather in game, and not just through tokens to earn special armor, like using the currency that you currently only spend on sodas (your health potions so to speak) to devote to clothing. Also DCUO really needs to focus on boss mechanics, please look at other MMO's on how to do a boss battle as the bosses shouldn't be recklessly flailing on you with you defeating the opponent determined almost by a matter of luck. Dragon's Nest I want to feel like when I'm playing a MMO that I am playing a hero not an incompetent idiot, but saying that and I'm uncapped I hope the character redeems himself, he really needs to. Also the party mechanic is pretty terrible. You can only party up in the closest town before you go a few screens over to go into the appropriate dungeon portal. Why in the world can you not just find the party before the portal? I can understand trying to make the traffic in the game easier, but would it be that congested? Could you not keep the single player pathways and just have the portals end up linking together if your partied up and go through the portal so you can come out the same end?

So to end things off, they're free. So give both DC Universe Online and Dragon Nest a try and let me know what you think of both. I still do play both but I am playing Dragon Nest more. If you play Dragon Nest, feel free to find me on the Argenta East Server under Woowuo the paladin, or Alraphise the acrobat. On DCUO you can find me on the PVE server under Tenthmandown. Now to sum up and rate everything below.


DC Universe Online - Pros: Authentic voice actors of the animated series interact with you by assigning you the quests. Mark Hamil being a mentor as The Joker is pure win.

Interacting with the heroes and villains that you know from your favorite DC Comics and in some cases getting to fight alongside or against them.

Fast Paced Action can sometimes get your adrenaline pumping.
A good bit of customization (though far from the greatest) Earning new costumes and styles in game can sometimes be better then what you originally chose you hero to wear.

Cons: Bad, almost horrible fighting mechanics if you are a melee fighter (it's much easier as a ranged fighter). To go along with this horrible boss mechanics.

No crafting, some might see that as a good thing but to me, it's just one less thing to do at end game content.

Game has more bugs then Joe's Apartment, resulting in a lot of downtime problems.

Graphics are just ok, almost PS2, regular X-Box quality.

Could use much bigger character customization



Dragon's Nest - Pros: Good graphics, smooth animation

Fun, flashy moves

Smooth controls

Excellent ongoing story with a quest tab that's easy to keep track of the entire story and current objectives

Most dungeons are pretty brief only last 10-12 minutes on normal difficulty. Excellent if you don't have much free time for MMO's.

Cool boss battles

Cons: Horrible party access in my opinions.

Could use more variety of music (dungeon music always converts into encounter music as soon as you get near enemies so your hearing the same music over and over)

Completely lack of customization, and not that much variety in appearance of armor changing (you do get better armor to increase your stats, but the clothing will remain looking the same)
NPC's find you annoying, cut scenes make your character seem like a loser so far (prove me wrong end content) almost feel like your stripped from trying to be a hero in the game.