AGDC: The DC Universe Online team spills some beans
by Kevin Kelly 
{ Sep 17th 2008 at 4:00PM }
The panel consisted of art director Jared Carr, Jim Lee, lead character artist Jason Smith, and creative director Jens Anderson. Check out all the zap!, pow!, and bam! highlights after the break.
- One of the challenges was creating the female characters for the games. According to Lee, "We tend to draw women with very long legs, and when that gets translated to 3D it doesn't work very well." He didn't say anything about the enormous boobs that most of them are drawn with.
- They've had to nail down a lot of design elements that are variable in the comics, like the length of Batman's cape.
- When you create your character in the game you can choose "Inspired By," which gives you a set of tools to allow you to create a character like Batman or Superman. Alternatively, you can just create your character entirely from scratch.
- The player characters in the game will match the size of the iconic DC characters.
- You're able to choose a Power, a Power Source (a ring, a pistol, your eyes, etc), and an Origin, as well as design your own costume.
- There are different versions of some of the character's costumes, and in some cases the game artists have improved on the comic book designs.
- Jim Lee visits the Sony Online Entertainment Austin offices every three to four months, and the development team also visits the Wildstorm offices in La Jolla, California. They also have weekly calls and video conferences.
- In some cases the team is using locations and events that won't appear in the DC comic books for one or two years.
- Jim Lee has gotten pretty good at making videos of himself in various character poses, but he's scared it'll leak out all over YouTube. He's thinking about doing them while wearing a Mexican wrestling mask for anonymity, so keep your eyes peeled.
- Metropolis and the Daily Planet are definitely in the game, but they haven't revealed other locations yet. "We're trying to make it as wide open as we can."
- They hinted that the sewers of Gotham City and the Batcave will definitely be locations or instances in the game.
- The initial contract is just for the iconic DC characters to appear in the game, but you might eventually see Wildstorm characters as well.
- "We have to run on the PS3 as well as the PC, and the PS3 side has their own budget, so we have to be careful when planning environments." Does that mean they'll have to scale the PC side back to match the PS3? Inquiring minds want to know. We have an email in to Sony to clarify this.
- NOTE: Here's the official response from Sony - "No. I was just saying that we will take our vision of the environment to the highest possible quality bar while taking into consideration the scope of our environments. This is naturally going to be driven by the system specs on the PS3. "Scaling back" implies we've gone too far, which as far as I can tell is not the case. I was only making a comment on the fact that building for consoles has a much more specific hardware spec, unlike PCs that have high and low end configurations."
- Jim Lee has a not-so-secret obsession with Zatanna.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ElieCassat @ Sep 17th 2008 4:11PM
interesting, but the game is not...
Duke @ Sep 17th 2008 4:25PM
I'm interested in the game.
guidedbyvoip @ Sep 17th 2008 4:59PM
And I am not interested in your interest in the game.
Duke @ Sep 17th 2008 5:14PM
What a dick comment that was.
Dirty @ Sep 17th 2008 5:15PM
I more interested in his interest than in your non interest of his interest.
theturtle363 @ Sep 17th 2008 5:38PM
well I'm interested in, err, well.
Fuck
theturtle363 @ Sep 17th 2008 4:11PM
Zatanna is hot I'll give him that.
zuburi @ Sep 17th 2008 4:15PM
Jim Lee (along with his sidekick Liefeld) did his damndest to destroy comics in the 90's, but I'm glad he failed.
As long as he's drawing and not writing, he's tolerable. Something tells me this isn't the case with this game.
heypaul @ Sep 17th 2008 4:30PM
Rob Liefeld isn't even in the same league as Jim Lee, both in terms of talent and critical acclaim. Lee single-handedly designed the now classic look of the entire X-Men lineup, the look that our generation will forever identify with. Wolverine in the yellow and blue, Cyclops with the gold visor and mop top - can you ever get used to seeing them any other way? Every form of media about the X-Men used Lee's designs for a good ten years - How the hell do you consider that destroying comics? The only other orthodox comic book penciller I'd put next to Lee is Michael Turner, who, sadly, is no longer with us.
theturtle363 @ Sep 17th 2008 4:30PM
well luckily, MMOs are paltry on stories almost as a rule, so he wont have much of a chance I hope
Johnny Lasley @ Sep 17th 2008 5:02PM
I draw better than Liefeld with just a minor in Art, but I would be far...far away from the caliber of a Jim Lee, Bryan Hitch, Frank Cho or Joe Quesada (I'd be a better EIC, though).
Wyld74 @ Sep 17th 2008 5:10PM
Wow...Liefeld in the same sentence as Lee?? Only seems to work if you're asking for co-founders of Image Comics or something.
I don't think Lee's art was ever in question, just his writing, but I don't think there's been much of a problem there either.
But from what I've seen, Geoff Johns will actually be lending a hand with the backstory if not more.
zuburi @ Sep 17th 2008 7:59PM
Did you read the part where I said as long as he's drawing and not writing he's tolerable?
But yeah, you're right. WildC.A.T.S. and Heroes Reborn - that's some groundbreaking comic book writing right there.
P.S. - Wolverine was in the same costume that he has now before Jim Lee. You have Chris Claremont to thank for Cyclops' and Wolverine's look - you know, the guy that designed them that way in the mid-1970's.
Oh, and congratulations on being able to use Wikipedia.
theturtle363 @ Sep 17th 2008 9:40PM
and that boys and girls is why not to argue about comics with a man who has a doctor doom avatar
zuburi @ Sep 17th 2008 10:19PM
::bows to the man with the Batman avatar::
As long as SOMEBODY is reading this, I may as well clarify my original statement a bit more.
Chris Claremont and Jim Lee worked on X-Men together as a writer/artist team. Towards the end, Jim Lee started to try and get his writing ideas put into the comic book. Claremont, rightfully so, thought that they were shit and didn't want to work with Lee if he kept overstepping his boundaries as an artist.
In the end, it was an "either he goes or I go" ultimatum, and Lee won - obviously, there's tons of rumors and speculation over why he won, but it doesn't really matter in the end.
After all is said and done, Jim Lee helped usher in the "style over substance" era of comic books in the 1990s, which the comic book industry almost never recovered from - why pay for a writer AND artist, when one person will do both (and do a terrible job at one of them)?
Just look to the "incredible" body of work that Image put out as examples of why being able to draw a comic book doesn't mean you should be allowed to write one.
Lee isn't solely to blame for this, but he played a huge part. Do your research next time (wikipedia doesn't count).
heypaul @ Sep 18th 2008 3:10PM
zuburi, you've made some good points, as well as corrected a factual error on my part. You're right about Wolverine, but Cyclops in the yellow and blue with his hair showing was a Lee design through and through. Claremont's older design had him in blue and white and with the goofy looking swim cap. Even if we don't count Cyclops, what about nearly every other team member? Or what about his new look for Sabretooth and entirely original design for Omega Red?
Geek facts aside, we shouldn't forget that much like video games, comic books are still a visual medium. I'd argue that style (i.e. brilliant artwork or cutting edge graphics) is just as important as substance. Plus, Claremont's been a bum since Dark Phoenix. Acting like he was still relevant in the 90's is like arguing that Frank Miller is still relevant today.
And about Wikipedia... Guess who scribed the beautiful line about "an entire generation..."? That's right, yours truly.
Is it really that hard to believe that someone other than yourself would know a thing or two about comics?
Agathos @ Sep 17th 2008 4:25PM
At first I had no interest in this game, but now I'm thinking it might be crazy fun to do for a month or so but I don't see an extended subscription to this for myself.
Dirty @ Sep 17th 2008 4:27PM
Game seems alright to me. Ill keep and eye on it... just one though.
Startlingline117 @ Sep 17th 2008 5:30PM
What does it mean to "hint" at something
"definitely" happening?
Immortal Technique PSN: johnnynumber5 @ Sep 17th 2008 5:37PM
Looks great and I am leaning towards this as opoosed to champions online. I can only have one super hero game for my home consoles.
Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Sep 17th 2008 7:58PM
As much as I do like Jim Lee, I'm much more interested in Champions Online. T
heypaul @ Sep 18th 2008 3:09PM
zuburi, you've made some good points, as well as corrected a factual error on my part. You're right about Wolverine, but Cyclops in the yellow and blue with his hair showing was a Lee design through and through. Claremont's older design had him in blue and white and with the goofy looking swim cap. Even if we don't count Cyclops, what about nearly every other team member? Or what about his new look for Sabretooth and entirely original design for Omega Red?
Geek facts aside, we shouldn't forget that much like video games, comic books are still a visual medium. I'd argue that style (i.e. brilliant artwork or cutting edge graphics) is just as important as substance. Plus, Claremont's been a bum since Dark Phoenix. Acting like he was still relevant in the 90's is like arguing that Frank Miller is still relevant today.
And about Wikipedia... Guess who scribed the beautiful line about "an entire generation..."? That's right, yours truly.
Is it really that hard to believe that someone other than yourself would know a thing or two about comics?