Comic-Con: DC Universe Online looks awesome

Before heading out to Comic-Con, I was inundated with press releases about demos for new products that would be showcased in San Diego. One that really stood out to me was the upcoming DC Universe Online MMO from Sony Online Entertainment.

I was lucky enough to get creative director Chris Cao to show me how this amazing game will work. He is essentially in charge of what happens with the design of the game and therefore I got some good information.

Really good. In fact, he dropped a hint about an upcoming feature of the game that he didn’t mean to mention and can’t even talk about yet. Try as I might, he wouldn’t go any further with it.

I’ll get to it a bit later. (teaser!)

The begin with, DC Universe Online (DCUO) is an Action MMO. That differs from other MMOs in the way that you interact or battle other players. City of Heroes for example has a turn-based combat system, whereas DCUO is all done in real-time.

“In order to bring this universe to life, we had to build an action game,” Cao explained. “This is not an MMO that is dressed up or sped up. This is an action game.”

And it’s beautiful to watch. The demo I observed was a scene in Metropolis where Brainiac has infected the citizens with some mutant disease which turns them evil. With the city under attack, Superman, Supergirl and Green Lantern all show up to do battle with Brainiac, Bizzao and Lex Luthor.

There are over 150 actual DC Comics superheroes in the game. Before you ask, no, you cannot play them. Like any other MMO, you build your own character however you see fit.

Chris was the lead designer on Everquest 2 and he knew that superheroes don’t wait to act or fight based on turn-taking in you classic MMO. They want to fight NOW.

You can choose from a bunch of different types of power for your character, like water, ice, fire, electricity, etc., Then you select your power source, which is the way you manifest these abilities.  That could be guns, axes, your eyes, etc. Basically like Green Lantern’s ring.

And then from there, you can have abilities such as flying, super speed or strength.

There are instances of events that will happen based on the number of players who may be around a certain area. If enough show up, a major story will take place involving possibly superheroes like Superman or Batman, and evil ones like The Joker.

If you are wandering around Metropolis on your own, a tiny scenario will pop up and lead you into mini-quests and missions.

You can play both sides if you want as well. Start off good or evil, and help those major characters like Lex or The Joker, or Wonder Woman. The more you help them, the more they trust you and will actually call on you when trouble arises.

There is an unreleased story that goes along with the game that explains why there are thousands of superheroes suddenly all over the place. So they are basically taking the thousands of players out there who create superheroes and adding them into the story of the game.

Pretty cool.

But what about socializing? People can only fight so much. This is an MMO, so players want to interact socially of course, and there will be a way to do that in DC Universe Online.

Now the big secret, which I really can’t expound on.

Secret Identities.

Chris wouldn’t give in to my begging to explain what he meant, but he basically said there will be a secret identity aspect of the game that will blow people away.

I don’t even know anything about it and I think it sounds great. How realistic to the superhero world would it be to fight alongside other heroes, but then not recognize them in other settings because of secret identities?

And then a favorite pastime might be trying to figure that stuff out based on another player’s typing habits or tendencies. In a game I play on occasion, this is a practice of some who want to figure out who is behind a certain character and if they know the typist. The geek term is “alts.”

All in all, this DCUO game looks sickly awesome. The combat was smooth and flexible. You can interact with elements around you, like cars, other players and then do things to them. While we played, Chris tossed cars a few miles away, or froze Brainiac into a block of ice and smashed him to the ground.

Not to mention that you are fighting right alongside Superman and other heroes in a major battle to save metropolis.

Thanks again to Chris for taking the time to show me the ins and outs of the game. You had to be pretty patient to do what he was doing considering all the questions he got from people walking by.

“Is this like City of Heroes?”

There is only so much of that a man can take. I heard it around ten times in the 20 minutes I was standing there.

What I got to see was the Alpha version, so there isn’t even a Beta out yet. And because of that, they have no release date set at this time.

It will be available for your PC and Playstion 3. Sadly, no Linux version exists, but this is yet another reason for me to get a PS3.