Interview with Jim Lee about the DC Universe MMO.
Last week, when I was hunting for screenshots for Everquest to use in a comparison against Kothuria, I was struck with the urge to play Everquest again. It wasn't so bad, i told myself, but that was before I remembered all the timesinks and all the various bits and pieces about the game that, quite frankly, sucked big time. There were a lot of EQ junkies who have now moved on to today's current MMOG of choice -- World of Warcraft. Jim Lee was always a big EQ junkie. I frequently heard grumblings from both the game world and the comic world that Jim Lee blew away another deadline because he had been playing EverQuest all week (or all month, or all quarter). To be fair, there were many addicts of EverQuest all over the world, and the design of the game actually encouraged compulsive playing. Because of Jim Lee's involvement I'm curious to how the design of the DC Universe MMO turns out.
JL: Imagine getting to create your own unique superhero, give it a name, choose a physique, a costume, a set of powers and then dive 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 to take down Darkseid 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 DCU that is the big draw to gamers and comic book fans alike. Metropolis and Gotham city for example are such diverse environments that really can't be replicated in any other online space. Our job is to make the game as immersive as possible so that you don't feel like you're playing a game...but in fact, that you are a superhero. It's taking on the biggest fantasy there is in the world of comics and making it happen. That's what this game is about and it will take years to create.
According the interview, Wildstorm is doing all the art assets related to the game -- clearly that's a misunderstanding on the interviewer's part. A game's art assets are tremendously complex and I can't imagine comic book artists creating 3d models or doing the textures on the characters. Nor can I imagine them designing such features without access to the 3d game engine.
The statician in me can't wait to see the projections of crime in Gotham and Metropolis -- there is no doubt that the crime rate in those cities will exceed everything possible in the real world, with probably hundreds of crimes being committed every second. That being said, it's easy to see how a MMOG set in this universe could be fun (much more so than a Star Trek MMO), but we talking about Sony Online Entertainment, which somehow managed to suck all the fun out of the Star Wars universe such that even a fanboy like me was deterred.
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