Who hasn't daydreamed about being a superhero at least once in their life? If you're not flying upside down shooting red lasers out of your eyeballs, then you're probably standing next to Megan Fox, invisible, as she takes a long, hot shower. While DC Universe Online isn't that type of game, you do get to create your own hero. Wes Yanagi, senior producer, tells us where the game's at.
How are DC Universe players going to interact with the major DC superheroes, like Super Man or Wonder Woman?
Yanagi: Imagine you're a hero who's just arrived on the streets of Metropolis. Suddenly, you see Superman off in the distance fighting Lex Luthor in his power armour. What are you going to do? What even can you do?
If you help Superman, how might that affect your relationship with the Man of Steel? And what if you decide to ignore the situation? With DCUO we really want players to take part in their own journey of good or evil. How that unfolds will depend largely on the decisions you make and who you decide to help or betray.
DC Universe Online
Official trailer
1:53A 'who's who' for the superhero MMO
DC Universe Online
Official trailer
1:53A 'who's who' for the superhero MMO
Age Restricted Content Please enter your date of birth below in order to verify your age before watching this video
You must be at least 0 years of age.
Play Again? Missed something? Just watch it again..
Watch More Videos Browse related videos and see what's new & popular
Share This Video Email this video, or embed it into your own web page
So we can't play as Batman or The Flash, but how robust is your character creator? Exactly how detailed can we get with our heroes?
Yanagi: We're not ready to discuss character creation yet, but if you've seen our demo at E3, the characters we had on display are fairly representative of the level of customisation you'll get from the game. We also know certain characters have mass appeal. Take Batman. You can't be the Dark Knight, but if you wanted to be like him, we'll give you an "inspired by" option that fills out your character options.
How accessible are you making the game? Can a player log on and have a quick 20 minute session?
Yanagi: Our focus is about friends playing together and having fun online. That means different things for different players. If you've got a few hours, we'll definitely have some content that will fill that time frame. However, we also realise not everyone does, so we're intent on providing shorter, meaningful chunks of gameplay, but still allowing them to feel like they've accomplished something.
EverQuest and World of Warcraft have established plenty of MMO clichés generally attached to the fantasy genre, such as levelling up and character classes. Have you tried to avoid these?
Yanagi: There's a difference between a cliché and a convention. Elves might be somewhat cliché at this point, but there are a lot of MMO conventions that we'll definitely be using because they work.
So as you're blasting your way through S.T.A.R. Labs, you will be gaining experience and cool loot. Everyone loves loot, right? One thing about DCUO that's pretty compelling is how it incorporates so many story genres. I mean, you've got sci-fi, you've got mutants, and you've got some horror elements, just to name a few. The possibilities are practically endless.
You're one of very, very few MMO studios developing on console. Why do you think that is?
Yanagi: The PS3 opens up an entirely new player base for us and it's one that we're incredibly excited about. They may not be familiar with the persistent online side of our game, but they will get the action part immediately. Bridging the gap between these two game genres is something we're very confident we can pull off.
And to your broader point, the current console generation is the first one to fully embrace online functionality across the board, including all of the pieces required for an MMO, such as a mass storage device and broadband access. MMOs take a long time to build, so I'm sure there are others coming to the consoles as well.
How do you expect the PS3 version to perform compared to PC?
Yanagi: The game runs the same on either platform. I think about the only difference is that the PC version supports higher resolutions, as you'd expect. We have two control schemes - one for a keyboard-and-mouse and another for the PS3 controller.
DC Universe Online
Official trailer
1:23E3 trailer 2009
DC Universe Online
Official trailer
1:23E3 trailer 2009
Age Restricted Content Please enter your date of birth below in order to verify your age before watching this video
You must be at least 0 years of age.
Play Again? Missed something? Just watch it again..
Watch More Videos Browse related videos and see what's new & popular
Share This Video Email this video, or embed it into your own web page
There's another big superhero MMO on the horizon in the form of Champions Online. Do you see that as serious competition?
Yanagi: Well I don't really know what Cyptic is doing, but I do know that Champions is coming out much sooner than we are. If anything it's an exciting time for MMOs as we are seeing more take place in non-fantasy environments. That's probably a good thing for the genre as a whole as we broaden our appeal to other types of gamer.
How close to completion are you? Can we expect a beta this year?
Yanagi: We haven't announced a specific launch date; however our president, John Smedley, has stated that DCUO will come out in 2010. As for a beta, we'll have a big announcement to make on that just as soon as we're ready. In the meantime you can follow our many updates via MySpace at www.myspace.com/dcuo, or on our Twitter feed, http://twitter.com/dcuo.
so could you not have asked him if there's gonna be a subscription fee and how much it would be? i think that's a question everyone that's interested in this game would like to know the answer to.
Yep, fees would be nice to know. Seriously though...if you saw superman having a fight somewhere, you'd leave him alone. Its not like they can hurt him or anything. I really would enjoy beating the living hell out of him though...thats a dream ive had since Superman 64
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
