I didn’t really mention it when I tried out SWG a few months ago. After they completely changed the game I thought I should take a look and see if they changed it to something I’d like. Within the first 10 minutes I had met Han Solo and Chewy and I was shooting down Tie fighters from the Goddamned Millenium Falcon. Listen guys, I know it’s a fucking Star Wars game. I don’t need to be best friends with Luke Skywalker before I’m level 2. It’s a huge universe and shoving me into encounters with my “favorite heroes from the films” just feels manipulative.
Obviously I don’t have high hopes for the DC MMO. If it plays out anything like Galaxies I can tell you exactly how it will go. You will create your character and then spawn in the center of the Fortress of Solitude. Super Man will fly up to you and tell you that Lex Luther and the Joker are fighting Batman and he needs your help. He’ll scoop you up and fly you to Gotham via Metropolis (Hey look, it’s the Daily Planet) where you will meet up with the rest of the Justice League and they will make you an honorary member. After a crazy battle involving everyone from Wonder Woman to Krypto the super dog, you’ll end up in some filthy ally shooting rats with your heat vision.
Okay so this is the part of the post where I tell you what my dream DCO game would look like and then you mail me and tell me what a fucking idiot I am. Ready? Go! I think DCO should look like the old animated Superfriends cartoon. I know you think I’m crazy but honestly I think SOE should pull their character designs right from the old school Alex Toth stuff.
I want to see a character creation system that will let me make guys that look like this:
Plus if the entire world is cell shaded think about how much shit they could pack into these cities. Metropolis could be mile after virtual mile of art deco inspired skyscrapers. The sidewalks could be packed with citizens and the roads jammed with cars. Everything could be interacted with and affected by your ridiculous superhero fights. You could have instances where some super villain is literally leveling entire city blocks all around you. Punch a guy with your super strength and he goes through three buildings before he stops.
I know my dream of a retro loking DCO will never happen. I’m sure there’s no way they could sell that look to kids today. With that said though they could probably sell them something that looked like Batman the animated series or even the new and extremely good The Batman cartoon. It just doesn’t need to look like EQ and Star Wars for Gods sakes. Please give it some fucking style. Understand that Clone Wars is the best Goddamn thing to happen to Star Wars since Industrial Automaton invented the Astromech droid. This is SOE’s chance to take the DC license and make something really unique and interesting. It doesn’t have to look like anything I described here but it should look unique. You’ve got Wildstorm, some of the best artists in the industry. Please please please let them create something special.
-Gabe out
