DC Universe Online Panel Recap
Sony Online Entertainment teams up with comics legends Jim Lee, Geoff Johns, and Marv Wolfman to talk DC Universe Online.
Who Was There: Wes Yanagi (senior producer), Jim Lee (executive creative director), Geoff Johns (writer), Marv Wolfman (writer), and Jens Anderson (creative director). Also, Jim Lee's favorite flavor of ice cream may be Chunky Monkey--but he may also just like saying that.
What They Talked About: After opening up with a trailer for DC Universe Online, the team showed off a slideshow of artwork from their game while discussing what it was all about. One of their main goals was to make players feel like a big part of the DC universe and allow them to build up their own legacy--they may even one day join a team such as the Justice League.
Another goal is to pick the coolest moments, costumes, and battles out of the entire DC history (a monumental task, no doubt) and put them into the game at one point or another. There's a reason why everything and everyone is there in the world, and SOE brought in some of the biggest names in comics to make sure that the entire game felt authentic. Though there's a lot of story that they want to throw in, the team wants to pace themselves and roll out much of it over time once the game is released, as they just want to focus on Earth for now.
From the very beginning, they wanted to have a mixture of villains and heroes within the world, and it was very important that this was achieved. Quest lines will be intertwined between the two sides, so a villain's story may tie in to a rival hero's story, and vice versa. Something of a mantra that was repeated a couple of times was, "Save the world, or rule it." For Marv, the idea that a villain can win was initially a difficult mental roadblock to get around, but it was something that had to be done--after all, it wouldn't be any fun if Superman showed up every time you were about to win and just stomped you.
On the difficulty of transferring the 2D elements of comic books into 3D, Jim joked that "drawing the backsides of buildings was really weird!" He said that in a comic book, it's easy to make Batman seem more menacing by drawing him bigger in one panel, or look defeated by drawing him more shriveled up and tiny. In games, everything has to be consistent, so he really had to think about things that normally wouldn't come up, like the length of Batman's cape or what sorts of materials his costume is made up of. This was all very tough to work out early on, but it has all been taken care of now.
On the environments, Marv said that he often focuses only on the single rooms he's telling a story in rather than the building as a whole. Now that everything is being realized in 3D, his eyes have been opened up to just how big these environments really are, and how much more room he has to work with. He talked about how he could have a story start out in one room, move into the hallway, and move into another room, and so on. According to Jim, the environments are really characters themselves, and he wanted to bring that notion into the game--it's important to him that you can be looking down a city street and know instantly that you're in Gotham, for example.
Best Audience Question: One audience member asked about what sorts of visual customization can be expected in DC Universe Online, and specifically mentioned the character creation tools available in City of Heroes. City of Heroes seems to be more about fashion over function, the team said, and they went on to discuss how they wanted to make costume choices meaningful. Customization is very important to them, and they don't want everyone looking the same at later levels just because they're all wearing the same gear. To that end, their game features an appearance collection: as you progress, you'll unlock various costume pieces and add them to your collection, and you're free to fully customize each piece of equipment to look like anything you've already got. This ensures that you'll be able to maintain your look, if you like, from the beginning of the game all the way through the end, but with all your upgraded stats and bonuses.
Movie Confirmation: Geoff Johns was asked if he was indeed working on a film adaptation of The Flash, and he answered yes.
Fun Fact: It's pretty clear why Jim Lee just draws, as he himself admitted, after improvising a line of dialogue from Lex Luthor that included a poop joke. Also, he burned on Batman while he described how the Justice League splits up tasks to handle situations: "Superman says, 'I'll go stop that meteor!' while Batman says, 'I'll go redirect traffic!'"
The Takeaway: Maintaining authenticity and making sure players feel like they're a huge part of the world are excellent goals for a team tasked with translating the enormous DC Universe into a video game, and with such big names behind them, it's looking like they're going to pull it off. Keep an eye out for this one, but don't get your hopes up for a release anytime soon: DC Universe Online is still in a pre-alpha state, with no release date yet announced.
