Are you prepared to don your cape, slide on your tights, and adjust
your mask? We sure hope you are because the Ten Ton Hammer staff
recently received the answers to your
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1407"
target="_blank">DC
Universe Online questions that a number of you
posed in our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=357"
target="_blank">Premium Member Forums.
Specifically, the questions were answered by Wes Yanagi, Senior
Producer for DC
Universe Online, who took a few minutes from developing
the game to make sure that there wasn't any confusion regarding the
state of PvP play in DCUO, the formation of guilds, and a number of
other inquiries that our DCUO fans came up with in our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=41021"
target="_blank">VIP interview thread.
If you're interested in participating in our next exclusive VIP
interview, we're currently accepting questions for the upcoming sci-fi
MMO, Earthrise. All you need to do is
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/membership" target="_blank">sign
up to be a premium member and
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=42522"
target="_blank">jump into this forum thread. Enjoy!
Ten Ton Hammer:
Are there any plans for other writers to write content to be added to
the game, as spinoff missions for example? (megaflux)
style="font-weight: bold;">
Wes Yanagi:
Right now we’re working with two premier DC Writers, Geoff
Johns and Marv Wolfman. Geoff is doing the overarching story that
explains why there will suddenly be an influx of millions of heroes and
villains entering the DCU via DC Universe Online. Marv, meanwhile, is
helping us with the individual quests and capers players will be taking
part in. As for other writers, we haven’t announced any other
writers for the game. But obviously we work very closely with DC Comics
and Warner Bros. to make sure DCUO stays true to the license.
Ten Ton Hammer: The DC
Universe is full of some of the most memorable super heroes [in comic
book history]. How do you plan on stopping player-made characters from
seeming like super duds and sidekicks when compared to the preexisting
characters like Superman and Batman? On the flipside, how are you going
to stop player-made characters from transcending those legends?
(centric)
Yanagi: We
want to give players an opportunity to write their own chapter in the
DC Universe. So what does that mean? Well, eventually you’ll
be an equal to Superman, Batman and all those other iconic heroes and
villains everyone knows and loves from the books, movies and TV shows.
But achieving that level of power and respect won’t be easy.
Ten Ton Hammer: Have you
decided how the open world PvP will work yet? If so, can we get a more
in-depth explanation? (Vaebn)
style="font-weight: bold;">
Yanagi:
Chris Cao, our studio creative director, has a post on the href="http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendId=170495422"
target="_blank">DCUO MySpace
page
that talks about this in depth, but to summarize - PvP will always be
consensual. You will either play on a PvP server, opt-in to a
PvP zone, or take actions that will flag you for PvP. When
flagged, players can fight each other as well as struggle over opposed
encounter objectives. For example, a hero might see a police officer as
a protect objective, while a villain will see him as a knock out
objective.
Ten
Ton Hammer:
From all of the limited interviews and statements I've read so far,
much has been made about open world PvP. What incentives are there, if
any, for those who don't enjoy PvP to play DC Universe Online?
(CelestialLord)
style="font-weight: bold;">Yanagi: For
the players that do not enjoy PvP, we will have designated non-PvP
servers for them to play in.
Ten Ton Hammer: Will
someone who usually plays typical MMOGs, such as EverQuest II, find the
[console] controls in DC Universe Online easy to grasp and use? Or, the
other way, if someone is used to a console, how will you make [PC
controls] easy to use and grasp? (CelestialLord)
style="font-weight: bold;">
Yanagi: Well
we’ve always made sure you can pick up and play with either a
controller or a mouse and keyboard and have the UI switch on the fly,
without any interruption to play. This way, either platform
can choose to play with whichever device they prefer. This
was also important to us to make sure we could have PC and PS3 players
play with or against each other without any competitive edge going to
either.
Ten Ton Hammer: Are you
going to have player- and group-based website portals and data
available to customers, like [Station Players] in other SOE games?
(RawGutts)
Yanagi:
It’s a bit too early for us to talk about specific details,
but there will be offerings similar to what other SOE games have.
Ten Yanagi:
Ton Hammer: What
features are we going to have for super hero / super villain groups?
(RawGutts)
Super hero / super villain groups are player created Leagues &
Legions in DCUO. They'll function as your typical guild
system and will have your standard set of support features.
Ten Ton Hammer: Will I be
able to at any point decide to "dark side" and ultimately become a
super villain or redeem myself and become a super hero? (Sirr01337)
style="font-weight: bold;">
Yanagi: No,
once you create a hero or a villain at the beginning, you
won’t be able to switch sides.
Ten Ton Hammer: Can you
list five reasons off the top of your head why someone who has had
really bad experiences with SOE in the past should give SOE another
shot [by] buying this product? (RawGutts)
style="font-weight: bold;">
Yanagi: I
can give you one big reason -- we’re doing something totally
new with DCUO. The prospect of action-physics combat and the DC
characters in a persistent online world is something we’re
very excited about, and we hope our fans are, too. Our mantra here in
the Austin studio is “prove through play.” We are
taking that to heart, by bringing the latest demos of the game straight
to fans at events such as San Diego Comic-Con.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our DC Universe Online Game Page.
