Where the World's Greatest Super Heroes Come to Life!
Wearing spandex and leaping tall buildings in a single bound is all the rage in the massively multiplayer online arena these days. For years though gamers who wanted to live out their virtual lives as a super hero (or villain) instead of a sword wielding paladin or magic tossing mage were left in the cold. And considering how thin spandex is, well... that wasn't such a good thing.
In 2004, NCsoft brought PC gamers City of Heroes. Next year Cryptic Studios (the original developer of CoH) will launch Champions Online for the PC and Xbox 360. Last but certainly not least, DC Comics, one of the granddaddies of comic books, is throwing their cape into the virtual ring with DC Comics Universe Online for PC and PS3 gamers.
With so many heroic games on the block, how will DC's online super universe stand out and win over gamers' free time and hard earned dollars? The most obvious answer of course is that this is the DC Universe. The literary virtual reality that DC has created over the last 74 years is one of those rare properties that scream for a persistent world like an MMO. There are sandbox worlds and then there are sandbox worlds. Other games may try and mimic the legendary comic heroes and villains of Gotham City and Metropolis, but DCUO will be the only place where all those components will actually come to life.
The game is still in development (a release date has not been announced), but over the last few months, enough interesting tidbits to fill a utility belt have been released at media events such as E3 and the San Diego ComicCon. One of the biggest hurdles this MMO will have to overcome stems from the fact that players can't actually be any of the iconic figures we've all come to know and love. Batman, Superman, Joker, and Lex Luthor will all exist within the game world, but they're off limits to players.
The DC Universe
So how do John Blakely (Sony Online Entertainment-Austin VP of development), Chris Cao (DCUO Creative Director) and Jim Lee (DCUO Executive Creative Director) plan on getting players interested in a world where they can't be "The Main Man" (Lobo fans will recognize that reference)? The back-story goes something like this: for some unknown reason (they're keeping much of the storyline details under wraps), thousands of "superhumans" have suddenly appeared in the DC universe and the Big Kaunas of Metropolis and Gotham have to deal with this sudden influx.
The stories are written by "a very well-known writer" that Sony has yet to reveal (again, more top secret stuff they plan on announcing "soon"). We think it will be very interesting to see how Batman reacts to the unexpected emergence of an army of like-minded vigilantes. Can the benevolent guardian that is the Man of Steel take everyone under his wing? Will the Joker try to recruit you... or kill you?
While DCUO is an MMO, it's also an action game. Fighting isn't controlled by dice rolls... players fight in real time. What's more, you won't have to reach a specific (high) level to gain your travel power; you get it straight out of the gate. Super loot works similar to other MMOs in that it will make you more powerful and you will be able to modify it. Say you stumble upon some nifty Thanagarian war armor, but it has goofy feathers sprouting from the shoulders. If feathers don't work with your character's image, then take them off. Sounds tantalizing, doesn't it? But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's start at the beginning.
Jumping Inside the Tights
NCsoft's City of Heroes revolutionized character creation and customization; anything less than an equally robust system simply won't be acceptable. Fortunately, the gang at SOE knows this, so expect DCUO's character generator to be extremely flexible and allow for highly modifiable toons. Do you want to be a valiant hero and rescue kitty cats from trees and intercept satellites crashing to Earth to save humanity, or do you want to terrorize little kids and explode dams as a vile villain? What kinds of powers will you possess and how will they manifest themselves (weapons, talismans, jewelry, specific body parts, etc.)? Where did your character come from and what's his/her origin (magic, technology, none, etc.)? How do you travel from point A to point B? Is your personality stoic, cute, or vengeful? Players will be able to choose from a host of features like this as well as choosing whether to be male and female, tweaking all the various body parts and picking a specific body build. Costume options will be influenced by eras (Golden, Silver, Modern) as well as a player's power set.
Only a few power sets have been revealed - Fire (archer), ice (ranged), light (ranged), and electric (melee) - but many more will surely be added. Don't be fooled into categorizing these into typical archetypes however. While some power sets contain specialized abilities, all characters will possess a variety of powers. Each toon will have a quick, low damage attack (left mouse button) as well as a slow, high damage attack (right mouse button). There is a slight twist to your heroes' fists of fury: only four special powers (each with its own cooldown timer) can be slotted and used at any given time. These powers can be changed between battles to dynamically alter your play style, and can be mixed and match anyway you see fit. Go with all of one type of attack (ranged or melee), crowd control, support powers, or a mixture. The key will be knowing when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. Another interesting trick is the ability to interact with in-world items. Say you have electrical powers. If you pick something up, you can charge that item with electricity and hurl it an opponent (where it will explode for extra damage).
Every superhuman worth his/her salt will have a travel power. Speedster, flyer, teleporter, and acrobat are the only ones mentioned so far, but more will obviously be added (super jump anyone?). Currently more is known about speedsters than any of the others, and based on what we do know, there will likely be a great many heroes and villains flashing about DCUO. Why? Speedsters will be able to run over all obstacles in their path. Yes, that means you can run up one side of a building and down the other, or zip over the top of a truck and anything else that gets in your way. Those who are fleet of feet can also kick it up a notch by going into a super-speed mode for short bursts. Think of it like hitting the nitrous oxide in your street rod. Not that we know anything about that sort of thing.
An Epic Story Unfolds
After donning the tights and picking powers, players are ushered into the game world. Basically, you are a new type of hero or villain in the DC universe. The majority of your playing time will be spent patrolling or prowling about the game world working your way up the superhuman food chain. As your character levels up and gains respect, they will logically want to join the Justice League of America or the Legion of Doom. Aside from finding out how the solo iconic heroes react to all the super-newbies, the game's overall storyline is also rooted in how the JLA and LOD come to terms with the new "free agents." When this MMO goes live, the DC universe as a whole will suddenly get very crowded, and your particular character and their story will be a part of that expansion.
Instead of traipsing around the game world tracking down individual contacts with big exclamation points above their head, quests are dolled out through a communicator device. If you're a hero you will get missions from the Justice League, while villains will get theirs from the Legion of Doom. As mentioned, this is DC's universe, so expect to see everything you've always read about in full three-dimensional virtual space. Missions will occur in places like Arkham Asylum, the Watchtower, the Batcave, Apokolips, Hall of Doom, and Thanagar. They really are using the comic books as their guide, so if it's been in the comics, it will most likely be in the game. And everyone knows you can't be a super hero (or villain) without having a secret identity, right? Well, DCUO will incorporate storylines to address that very salient point.
With that said, DCUO will never be the canonical end-all be-all. It's only one small part of the overall DC universe (i.e., the TV show, movies, and comics) and Sony plans on putting the best parts from it into the game. So if there's a particular hero, villain or storyline that suddenly becomes popular in the comic books, they can drop it into the game. Likewise, if something they create in the game becomes popular, they will be able to migrate that into the actual literary canon. The real chore is properly bridging the game world with the literary world so a flow exists that doesn't lock either side into a perpetual loop of doom. Cao sees DCUO as an introduction to the DC universe because it will be the first time players actually get to become a DC hero or villain.
Designing a Superhero World
And all of it will look absolutely amazing because the concept art of Jim Lee (who is a hardcore gamer himself) will be fleshed out via the most drop-dead sexy graphics engine on the block - the Unreal 3 engine. But wait... there's more! The world of DCUO will boast more then just breathtaking beauty. The Havok engine will be unleashed across the servers to create first-rate physics effects. For example... say you're an ice-powered hero and you've just turned some goon into a giant ice cube. One of his cronies is bearing down on you like you were a picnic basket and he was Yogi Bear. You will be able to pick up ice cube boy and throw him at Yogi. Or maybe there's a light post nearby! Rip it out of the ground and do your best impression of Babe Ruth by sending him careening like a pinball down the street. Not done with the fun? Use your super speed to catch up to him and continue using him for batting practice. If you get tired of using the light post, pick up a city bus and use that instead. Suuuuh-weet!
According to conventional wisdom, size doesn't matter. Unless of course you're talking about a virtual world; in which case, the bigger the better. At the ComicCon held in late July, Sony showed off a demo of DCUO that revealed a chunk of Metropolis that covered a few hundred blocks. The final version of Superman's hometown will most likely be six or seven times that size. And that's just Metropolis we're talking about - there's also Gotham City to run around in as well. Enormous zones such as these will allow for a tremendously exciting shared world experience.
A giant world to play in would be boring without toys to play with. DCUO will have more than enough things to do, people to see, bank robberies to stop, and insane asylum's to raid - you know, all the usual stuff that a daring do-gooder or dastardly villain would normally do during a workday. DCUO has a dynamic content system that will keep players very busy. Each and every event in the game (from little stuff like an armored car robbery up to full server-wide events) has been handcrafted. Say you're a villain named Dastardly Duck and you want to break into Arkham Asylum with your ne'er-do-well accomplices to free other villains so you can all go and raid the Batcave. Well, you can. Every event gets spun up dynamically based on who is there, what they're doing, and how many players there are. So no more Generic Bad Guys hanging out on the same street corner hour after hour, day after day. The system will let Sony quickly and easily replace every encounter (anywhere at anytime) and suddenly have Brainiac attack or the Thanagarians invade. In fact, the demo shown recently at ComicCon was a live, instanced event called "Brainiac Attacks!" where the Big Brained One attacked Metropolis and the players had to stop him.
Due to the scale of the game (literally thousands of city blocks, an assortment of far-flung space zones, caves, lairs, fortresses, secret headquarters, and who knows what else), skirmishes and missions will take up a lot more space. Battles between heroes and villains will be truly epic. Imagine dozens of superhumans going at it on a cityscape battlefield that dynamically moves as the players do. Cao likens players to vehicles in that they are the ones who actually drive the action and determine the scale of the battle. Again, as more people get involved, the scale will change dynamically. The biggest chore for them is getting the balance just right between wildly exciting and uncontrollably confusing. With a slew of physics objects being hurled about, they don't want players to be dazed and confused in the heat of battle.
Additionally, players will be able to stop what they're doing (personal missions, daily chores, etc.) in order to join "Instant Action Matches." These IAMs could be localized events (a bank heist) or something much larger, like a Thanagarian invasion or a satellite crashing to Earth, all of which will include other players in the area. All of these instanced raids and events (including holiday events) are less about the resources and more about how close Sony can get players to the iconic characters in DC's universe. How cool will it be to suddenly have Superman or Batman appear out of nowhere and start fighting by your side?
Heroes and villains hate each other and they're going to fight like cats and dogs. Thus, player versus player will be a big part of this game. Exactly how that will be implemented is still sketchy, but John Blakely has revealed how a PvP match can turn into a PvE event. The exact scenario he described revolved around the Tomb of Isis, where Black Adam's wife is buried. Black Adam is a character who was originally envisioned as a tainted ancient Egyptian predecessor of Captain Marvel, but who has since been reimagined as a corrupted anti-hero trying to clear his name. The scenario begins with players using the tomb as a PvP battleground (complete with background objectives both sides must complete while the other side is trying to stop you - think tug of war), but as the battle rages, Black Adam shows up. Needless to say he's a bit peeved that people are desecrating his beloved's tomb, flies into a rage, and starts attacking everyone. Suddenly the PvP battle turns into a mutually shared PvE fight for survival against a major archenemy.
When the Sun Sets
With battle comes defeat. DCUO will handle the whole "death/defeated" mechanic very simply. When a player's health hits zero and they "die," they only have to wait 10 seconds before respawning at the exact same spot at full health. Can't get much simpler then that! If you decide to throw in the towel on a specific mission or enemy, you can choose to respawn safely out of harm's way.
Sony hasn't settled on how much they're going to charge or what kind of business model they're going to use. The main goal for them right now is to create content that will make players "want to play tomorrow." Once they've made a great game, they will figure out the best pricing plan. Since Sony has experience in providing games with monthly subscription fees and microtransactions, it could go either way. Looking towards the future, expansions will be released that take on other worlds, dimensions, and even times. One thing to remember is that Sony is making DCUO for the PlayStation 3 as well and that fundamentally changes the development process considerably. It also opens up doors of opportunity that a PC-only MMO would not otherwise provide.
DC Universe Online will let players break all kinds of stuff in the game, and it sounds like the game itself will be breaking all kinds of new ground in the MMO arena as well.
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