DC Universe Online Interview
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The MMO Gamer: When the game was just in the concept stage and everything was on paper, and you first sat down to start working out the details, did you set out to create a great MMO that would appeal to the genre, or did you set out to appeal more to the hardcore comic book fans?
John Blakely: We have a lot of people in our audience we think we can reach. We have the action gamers, we have the MMO gamers, and we have the fans of DC Comics.
We sat down first and foremost to make a great superhero game. To make sure that you felt engaged as a superhero, that you had the freedom of a superhero or villain, that you had the story elements of a superhero or villain.
All of those pieces were very important to us to focus on first. We know that we can make a good MMO, we have good MMO systems, then also we took that element and we had to figure out how to layer in those pieces and get those elements in there to make sure that as an MMO player I come in and I'm like (Wow, this is a new action experience for me,) but as an MMO player there's a comfortable space because I understand the character progression, the end-game, the loot and the levels.
Then the action gamer comes in and says (Wow this is a familiar action experience, it's really exciting. But what's this new thing? It's this MMO thing, character progression, and loots and levels, and community-based gaming working with a team, working with players and accomplishing big end-boss goals and having an end-game.)
We're bringing those two audiences together.
Then, the DC fan of course wants a payoff on what they expect. These characters, how they look, how they interact, how they relate to you, and what you can expect as a DC fan in there. We wanted to make sure that's all in there as well. That's why we enlisted the help of Jim Lee.
We have a lot of things in there working for us to bring those things together, but it's really about bringing those audiences together in the context of the game as opposed to trying to force fit one into the other.
