DC Universe Online Interview and Previews
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We'll start things off at GameSpy, where they've transcribed a chat they had with comic book artist Jim Lee:
GameSpy: You mentioned in an earlier panel that you've created DC Universe assets that have never been done before, like a working map of Metropolis, and a map of Gotham. Do you say, "Hey, this can be useful," and then send that stuff out to all the artists that work for DC, all the writers, and stick it in something like a DC design bible?
Jim Lee: Oh yeah, all the stuff that we've generated has been disbursed throughout the DC Universe. Not just editors and creators; that's limited right now because we want to keep the secrets of the game secret. Dan DiDio, the Editor-in-Chief, has seen it all. But yes, there are environments, characters and costumes that will be used in comics later down the line, but we're saving them to debut in the game.
That map of Metropolis is available now, yes, but I don't think they want to limit the writers. DC wants to provide the writers with the best tools to tell the best stories, but doesn't necessarily want to shackle them by saying that something like Metropolis has to be done a certain way. There are lots of different versions of Metropolis, honestly. The version we have in-game, for instance, has this huge waterfall and dam. When I was working on the book, I didn't know that was the case. Not every artist draws the city the same way. But it didn't need to be drawn the same way, as long as you knew it was Metropolis, or it was captioned: Metropolis. Everybody draws the city differently.
I'd hate to be in a situation like Disney where you always have to draw the characters the exact same way. The great thing about working for DC in comics is that every time you're working on a character, you're doing your take on that character's costume. Even the colors of the costume change based on the artist's personal palette. That's obviously not the case in the game, since we need everything to be consistent and stay the same.
Then we move to GameSpot for a recap of the Comic-Con panel:
On the difficulty of transferring the 2D elements of comic books into 3D, Jim joked that "drawing the backsides of buildings was really weird!" He said that in a comic book, it's easy to make Batman seem more menacing by drawing him bigger in one panel, or look defeated by drawing him more shriveled up and tiny. In games, everything has to be consistent, so he really had to think about things that normally wouldn't come up, like the length of Batman's cape or what sorts of materials his costume is made up of. This was all very tough to work out early on, but it has all been taken care of now.
On the environments, Marv said that he often focuses only on the single rooms he's telling a story in rather than the building as a whole. Now that everything is being realized in 3D, his eyes have been opened up to just how big these environments really are, and how much more room he has to work with. He talked about how he could have a story start out in one room, move into the hallway, and move into another room, and so on. According to Jim, the environments are really characters themselves, and he wanted to bring that notion into the game--it's important to him that you can be looking down a city street and know instantly that you're in Gotham, for example.
And finish things off at Ten Ton Hammer for a hands-on PvP preview:
As I continued to play through the PvP demo and get a handle for my controls, the differences in the game continued to be revealed. Players that are used to having pinpoint control of their movements and attacks will probably be turned off by the controller functionality. Although it definitely has an ease of use that the keyboard lacks, the controller felt cumbersome in my hands... but then again I'm a fan of the PC, and even when playing on consoles I prefer the sleeker Xbox controller to its PS3 counterpart.
Still, the PS3 controls were relatively intuitive: each of the buttons on the gamepad lined up with buttons that you might be used to on any PS3 combat-oriented game. You had your basic melee and ranged attacks along with a heavier "scatter" power that could give players some breathing room. Special attacks - what we MMO gamers know as abilities or skills - are put in a deck that players accessing by holding down the L2 button and hitting the four main PS3 keys. The clickable items - like potions and rings - were activated via the R2 button and the four main keys. My character was more of a "fire" inclined individual, using bolts of energy and ground-shattering attacks to scatter my foes before raining destruction down upon them.
