Hands On With DC Universe Art Director Mike Daubert

Comic Con has been known to drop some major announcements about certain games, and the big announcement for DC Online Universe seemed to be it’s 6 ½ minute cinematic trailer. I agree, it was extremely impressive and beautiful, but sadly it did not match up to the demo. The demo at the DCUO booth was PVP only.  So, you could play other gamers that were checking out the game at the convention.  Either way, running around as the joker (once again voiced brilliantly by Mark Hamill) is always fun.  Check out the trailer below.

We had a chance to meet up with Art Director Mike Daubert, and hear what he had to say about the game.

MD: What we have here is DC Universe Online, it’s a massively multi-player action game. So, what you’ve got is you get to make your own character that is inspired by the DC characters, fully customizable, you get to pick a Hero or a Villain and you get to be the next Legend in the DC Universe itself.  So what we’re showcasing here and the big announcement for us is you make your own Hero and Villain in the game, but what you get to do is you actually get to find sim cards, right, so you find like a Batman sim card or a Joker sim card and you take that sim card and you take that into the PVP match and you actually get to play as the iconic characters.

Mike Daubert, Studio Art Director and gamer Justin Fitzwater

AE: Really?

MD: Ya, so you get all the major iconics, like Lex Luthor and the Joker, and Batman and Robin. What we’ve got right now is Joker, Batman, Nightwing and Harley and we’ve got a PVP match going on. You’re fighting inside the Batcave right now. And what this is is a King of the Hill so you’re trying to hold the Batcomputer as long a you can against the heroes. (we’re playing as the Joker in the demo right now).

The DC Universe is an MMO, you’ve got your full progression, and a very robust character creation system. Jim Lee is the Executive Creative Director, so our character creation system is really built around creating a character that looks and feels like it belongs in a Jim Lee comic book. (I got Jim Lee’s autograph on a Batman Hush comic book!)

You pick your own movement type, you’ve got super speed, we’ve got flight and acrobatics, and you get to pick from nine different power types and as you go through the game with true progression , we actually let you customize the gear as you’re going along, so you keep your own color palettes…so like, if you find a pink helmet or something and you put it on, it actually matches your color palette.  We think that’s pretty cool

(we got interrupted by a kid who wanted freebie stuff. Mike said, “It’s all about the schwag” And it is!!)

AE: Like all MMO’s there is a starting point where your character begins their progression. What is DCUO’s starting point?

MD: We have a very robust storyline that explains a lot, and has been written by Jeff Johns and Marv Wolfman, so it starts you out as a low end super hero that explains why all of a sudden all of the world has all these characters that have super powers. The story really is very robust so it really is getting to a point where all of the major iconic heroes are calling you and saying, “Listen, we can’t save the world without you”. You actually are a big part of the storyline itself. You are actually affecting the way the story is drawn out throughout the whole game.

AE: So I’m confused, in the game you can play as the this new super hero but also as the Joker?

MD: No, you can’t play the Joker but you make your own character, right? The only time you get to play the Joker is in the PVP matches where you actually find the sim cards. You can make a character inspired by the Joker. We actually have button in our Character Crate that says “Inspired by” and you get the same exact powers that Joker would have or Superman would have and it kinda looks like the Joker , but you make your own twist on it and to customize it to the way you want to.

AE: Very cool.  So you can only play as the actual iconic super heros in a PvP match?

MD:  Exactly, the rest of the time you will play as the hero you’ve created.

AE: Is this a subscription based MMO?

MD: It is subscription based, $14.99. The box for the PC is $49.99 and $59.99 for the PS3.

AE: So as you play live on the PlayStation will you be able to play with PC gamers, or is it separate?

MD: The PS3 and PC will be on separate servers. So you cannot play against each other. It really came down to balancing the game experience. We really wanted to make sure that both sides had as much fun within the realm, and so we kept them on separate servers.  We’re getting ready for beta, we’ve got open beta registration right now, so hopefully in the next week or so we’ll start announcing our beta and we also have pre-order right now so if you order it right now, the only way you can play the Batman in the PVP is if you do pre-order.

(beta keys were given out at one of their panels at Comic Con)

AE: So as a designer, producing this game, how do you live up to the standard of DC Comics?

MD: That’s a great part about it.  We’ve got Jim Lee as the creative executive/creative director, with Marv and Jeff. They’re really looking over us and really making sure that we’re staying close to the idea itself and making sure that we’re representing the heroes, the iconic heroes and the iconic villains and the environments they way you expect to for all the comic book lovers.

AE: Cool, let’s go back to the PVP area. How many players can play in each match?

MD: So, right now, this is a 2 on 2 and we’ve got up to a 12 person PVP and then the rest of the world is open PVE for us. It’s a complete open world. We have Metropolis and Gotham at launch and we’ve got some smaller areas, adventure zones, that the true die hards are gonna love, like Oolong Island, one the comic book fans will recognize and we’re also doing smaller ones, we have raids that will actually be in the Batcave and Arkham Asylum. So we’re really taking advantage of the DC license and making sure that we’re delivering the experience that the comic book fans wanna see.

AE: I’ve noticed you’ve got some hard core gamers here now in the booth wondering when you’re going to launch.

MD:We’ve been doing this for almost 6 years and every year that we come out (Comic Con), they’re like, “wait a minute, why aren’t you guys launched?” And really we’ve taken our time to make sure that we doing this right because we want to make sure that we deliver the experience that the comic book fans are going to want.

It really came down to making the gameplay first and then just building this huge world that is the DC Universe.

I’ve only been with Sony for four years, only working on this, but SOE is famous for MMO’s, we’ve done them before—EverQuest, Galaxies, we’ve got the Clone Wars Adventures which is coming out, which is a great IP as well. We know how to do MMO’s and we’re hoping this one’s gonna be a big delivery. We really feel like we’re, right now, at a point where we’re revolutionizing the way MMO’s are played.  Because we’re not calling it an MMO, it’s a Massive Multi-player Online ACTION game. Because it is way faster paced than any MMO that’s ever been out there.

AE: I actually got my first start with MMO’s with EverQuest and loved it. How is the load time for zoning going to be?

MD: Hopefully, seamless. We really are trying to get in on them…I mean the PS3 is strong enough and powerful enough that we don’t want to you sitting there having a load screen for ten minutes or having to jump on a boat and having to float somewhere to go to another zone. We really want you guys in on the action (he says as he snaps his fingers) and making it as fast as possible.

MMO players are always, hamburger in one hand, a Mountain Dew in the other and you’re like ‘autorun, autorun’, you know? That’s not this. This is really a faster paced, action—we’re always saying that within five minutes of the game, you’re in action, you’re in combat. That’s what makes a hero. A hero doesn’t go over, you know and collect a pie or pick daisies. A hero wants to get in there, a villain wants to feel villainous and that’s what we’re trying to really deliver to the fans.

AE: Do you have a definite release date for DCUO?

MD: November 2, 2010. It is definite.

Ok, so I’m looking forward to using the beta key I got from the panel at Comic Con. It was too hard to get a real idea of the true action packed game play that Mike was describing just from the PvP demo.   Yet, from this interview and all of the panel discussions I’ve seen and of course the movie-like trailer, I’m still pretty excited about DC Universe Online.  How about you!?