DC Universe Online MMO News, Guides, and Features at Ten Ton Hammer

From ninjas to Swamp Thing, Creative Director Jens Andersen, Game Director Mark Anderson, and Executive Producer Lorin Jameson fills us in on Update 3’s backstory, offer new Megaserver insights, and clue us in on DCUO’s future.

Megaservers - What’s in a Name?

Players are excited about DCUO’s upcoming “Megaserver” merge, and with good reason. For starters, queue times will improve since the game can matchmake an instance with a larger pool of players.

Yet one of the biggest topics related to the megaserver change is name collision. Who gets the name when two or more players have the same name on different servers that are about to be merged. It’s a big deal when a comic book inspired MMORPG character’s identity is largely tied up in his or her name.

Game Director Mark Anderson clarified the steps of the process: “The first tie-breaker when there’s a name collision is whether the person is an active subscriber. The second is the amount of play time on that character. So if you got the name on Day One but didn’t really play the character, yet someone on another server has that name but has played the character for hundreds of hours, they would get the name.”

This process should make a number of names available for new characters, too. “If there are name collisions yet no one is an active subscriber, that name will be freed up so that our current subscribers can get that name.” This process also applies to players who perhaps used the same name on multiple serverse, Jens noted, since they’ll win the tiebreaker with themselves.

Swamp Thing, Poison Ivy, and Captain Planet? – Update 3’s Seasonal Event

Being that Swamp Thing is a Vertigo character (not DC), Mark explained that, with the conclusion of the Brightest Day comic storyline, SOE had a “window of opportunity”  to introduce this well-known Guardian of the Green to the game. Artistically inspired by Berni Wrightson’s version of Swamp Thing, but he is Alec Holland (“but you’d have to ask him for his ID to know that – he’s a full-on plant elemental now” Lorin quipped.)

Creative Director Jens Andersen mentioned that their biggest design debate was how prominent Swamp Thing’s teeth should be. Despite his morally ambiguous stance in the comics, DC was adamant that Swamp Thing should be viewed as a protector of the Green, Jens noted, and not overly menacing.

The upcoming event piggybacks on the Mr. Mytzlplk content from the March event. In Update Three, Poison Ivy will challenge Swamp Thing’s status as a sort of plant elemental sworn to protect the Green (the Green being a sort of life force for plant life). As a villain, you’re trying to help Poison Ivy become the sole Guardian. As a hero, you’re trying to stop her, working alongside Swamp Thing.

Monthly No More?

All this talk of Update 3 had me wondering what happened to SOE’s original monthly update cycle, a feature so often cited as an answer to why the game carries a monthly subscription. Will we see a return to monthly updates? SOE wouldn’t commit one way or another, but we should definitely give them points for honesty.

“We’ve been struggling, honestly, to hit our stride,” Mark noted. “We want to get more out faster. We’re pushing toward a cadence on these updates, assure they’re of high quality, and get them to the customers as fast as possible. Yet, we want to make sure we get in better touch with our audience again. For a time we were pushing so hard to get content updates out that we weren’t talking as much to our audience as we wanted to.”