DC Universe Online Interview

eu.playstation.com has a multi-part interview with creative director Jim Lee about DC Universe Online, covering the creative processes and story. Creating DC Universe Online – part one.

What were your main goals for DC Universe Online when you began working as the game’s executive creative director?

My goal was to capture the look, feel and excitement of the DC Universe in a game, and make the game so immersive it felt like you were actually a superhero or supervillain in the DC Universe. I also wanted to allow players to unlock their inner DC. Imagine getting to create your own unique superhero, give him or her a code name, choose a physique, a costume, a set of powers and then diving into the DC Universe where you get to meet and ally with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the entire pantheon of heroes.

Imagine getting to team up with friends and other players from around the world and take on the likes of The Joker, Lex Luthor and Deathstroke. Imagine getting to use your network of contacts to go on missions and adventures to incredibly diverse environments. Imagine gaining fame and notoriety, forming leagues of superheroes to battle one another or taking down Brainiac himself.

It’s not hard to see how awesome a game like this would be, and it’s really the chance to play around and do so many different things in the DC Universe which is the big draw to gamers and comic book fans alike. It really is about taking on the biggest fantasy there is in the world of comics and making it a reality.

Creating DC Universe Online – part two.

What do you think is the most difficult thing to capture when transferring DC Comics characters from the page to a videogame screen?

A lot of the stuff that works in comic books works because you choose the angle and can add lighting effects and things like that. In the massively multiplayer online action game (MMOAG) space we don’t have those same kinds of controls. Characters have to look great from all angles. A lot of the times we’ll draw a side view that’s a lot different from the front, three-quarter view. In the virtual world, there’s a lot less room to fudge things. A lot of time was spent early on sharing the art style with the entire art team so they began to internalise it.

Every artist has their own natural signature that shapes, in very subtle ways, the myriad of creative decisions they make on a millisecond by millisecond basis to create a drawing or a 3D asset. We spent a lot of one-on-one time refining these decisions, making very subtle changes to things like eyebrows, noses, lips, hair styles etc. It really was a fascinating way of working collaboratively with so many talented artists, each of whom had their own natural styles.

DC Universe Online – storyline.

How does writing the script for a massively multiplayer online action game (MMOAG) such as DC Universe Online compare to crafting one for a comic book, which is normally only 22 to 24 pages?

It takes much more time to do a videogame than a comic, let alone writing an MMOAG, but that’s not the main difference. Comics are still pictures and videogames are always moving. But even more than that, the writer controls the story in comics; you follow exactly what we want you to follow.

In a massively MMOAG, the player is in charge. What the writer does is to come up with ideas that get you involved, that need your contributions; then we let you take over. So not only does the mission have to be interesting story-wise, we’ve got to lead you into great gameplay.

Comics are about us telling a story that you read. MMOAGs are about us telling you there are great things out there, and then letting you decide how you want to deal with them. They’re very different.

What were the main guidelines and rules you had to follow when creating your stories in DC Universe Online?

The missions I came up with all had to be very DC Universe centric. That means when crafting a story that deals with Batman, it can’t be the same kind of story The Flash would deal with. The characters are all different and so should the stories be.