Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

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 DC Universe Online questions that a number of you posed in our 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 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 sign up to be a premium member and jump into this forum thread. Enjoy!

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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)

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)

Yanagi: Chris Cao, our studio creative director, has a post on the 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.