MMORPG.com Lead Writer Bill Murphy recently had the opportunity to attend a roundtable discussion between DC Universe Online developers and several members of the media. The team was ready and able to tackle a wide-variety of topics including some more controversial ones such as the departure of Chris Cao, the seeming 'bat' fixation of the team and when several key issues and bug would finally get resolved. Check out Bill's report on the DCUO Developer Roundtable.

Are you guys Bat-crazy?

The next question came from Lucas of PC Gamer, and he asked whether it was intentional for the devs to focus so much on Batman in the first few updates. Jens came out and said, that well… yes, actually. Since the first updates were all about the Batcave, they wanted to stylistically keep it in the same realm. As new locations are explored (maybe Superman, if the last Blur trailer is any hint) new villains and characters will get focues on. E3 is when they plan on showing a lot of the new content on the horizon and the focus on new characters. We’ll still see Batman’s rogue gallery folks, but they’ll be more in the background. Apparently this also means more Legends PvP characters will step out of the Batman realm too.

Read more of Bill Murphy's DC Universe Online: Update 3 Developer Roundtable.

It all sounds very good and very promising CC going will probably be a good thing for the game too as he seems to be very good at getting concepts to release but has little idea how to manage them after the launch.

More Emphasis on quality will be nice hopefully a big relaunch to tie in with the new Batman film will happen too, its just a shame they already used Bane and Catwoman.

Looking forward to the Ras instance, Oolong was a fun one so a redo of that will be interesting too.

DCUO is a solid, fun game. i had a blast leveling to 30. i left mostly because of pvp exploits, bad queues, and the grindy end game. id like to come back, just need some very good reasons.

Is the megaservers coming with Update 3 or is that a seperate thing?  Not sure I saw the answer in this article.

Good news though on the rest.  New alerts should be fun and I enjoyed the last seasonal update.  More reasons to go to open world is a good thing.

"Jeff from Ten Ton Hammer then asked why the team couldn’t seem to hit that monthly stride.  Essentially, Mark says, they just found out how hard the process was once the game was launched. "

Anybody REMOTELY connected to the development of software could have, and probably did, tell him this long before launch.

Has the guy never had ANY experience in developing software?  No matter what kind of software you develop, you DO NOT base your release on arbitrary time periods; you base it on content.  Using a release schedule based on ANYTHING else, particularly generic periods of time, is a disaster because it interferes with your creativity.  Big projects will be set aside to shove content out the door every month.  You'll see bugged content going out as testers are afraid to fail them back to development and miss the deadline.

You figure out what you want to build, get a good estimate on how long each item will take, choose what to include that makes for a good build of features and fixes with adequate testing time, and TARGET the date.

45 day free time over yet? now thats the true test on how many people resub and come back. But most of all SOE will wait and see how many of their PS3 users will come back to the game. Future of PC DCUO seems very connected to PS3 division.

Originally posted by Matriarche

45 day free time over yet? now thats the true test on how many people resub and come back. But most of all SOE will wait and see how many of their PS3 users will come back to the game. Future of PC DCUO seems very connected to PS3 division.

 

 Now more that ever, they should go ahead and let the computer and platformers play together. Even if it is a pain in the arse technically to make it happen.

I think most will agree that there is not a big enough difference in the controls (especially since many PC people use a controller instead of mouse/keyboard config) to say it is "an unfair advantage" to playing on PC instead of PS3.

This game should not get this much attention. After its release, just 4 months ago it has nose-dived and has an XFire ranking of 324 which puts its playerbase around what Darkfall and Mortal Online has.

It is a dying game and will most likely go F2P any time.

"Anybody REMOTELY connected to the development of software could have, and probably did, tell him this long before launch."

Well maybe he did too.. And told the marketing, and they were all like.. Meh... You can do it.

"This game should not get this much attention. After its release, just 4 months ago it has nose-dived and has an XFire ranking of 324 which puts its playerbase around what Darkfall and Mortal Online has."

Yeah.. specially the last month... Not sure why... Something might have happend... Like a total suspension of game services... Also XFire is not a perfect tool.. it is good for broader indications but not all that brilliant when it comes to the finer details.

An interesting set of questions but I'm not quite sure they really have the jist of the what the issues are.

I mean more Instances are fine an all but I do feel the social aspect is the major lacking area in this game, that really needs address, maybe through RP means, (supergroup bases/more areas for just RP known from the books etc, etc).  Also I guess that includes the UI which they have said there addressing again.

Also I do think there going to the same Batman shaped well too many times.  While I like Batman there's little reason for a character say, based on Wonder Woman, to be taking on Two Face as the last patch or Ra Al Ghul now.  He's a uniquely Batman villian really IMO.  It would be nice to have a bit more focus on the cosmic level of villians/heros Superman or Wonder Woman might face, just for variety. I guess it's a safe bet for the developers considering Batmans popularity wise.

Oh well hope for the best and you never know :)

All good news.  DCU is a blast to play!

lol it seems they still haven't got a clue what to do with DCUO and its a shame that they're not going to be releasing the Light Power set this year which is a big let down, but i guess until they get out of this Batman craving we'll have to live with what they want to give us.

I talked to Chris Cao at Fan Faire last year.  At that time, he said the first Expansion may be Space and the inclusion of light based powers such as the Lanturns. 

My question would be is the expansion going to happen or is that content going to trickle out through free patches from here on out?

Originally posted by tawess

"Anybody REMOTELY connected to the development of software could have, and probably did, tell him this long before launch."

 

Well maybe he did too.. And told the marketing, and they were all like.. Meh... You can do it.

"This game should not get this much attention. After its release, just 4 months ago it has nose-dived and has an XFire ranking of 324 which puts its playerbase around what Darkfall and Mortal Online has."

 

Yeah.. specially the last month... Not sure why... Something might have happend... Like a total suspension of game services... Also XFire is not a perfect tool.. it is good for broader indications but not all that brilliant when it comes to the finer details.

"Well maybe he did too.. And told the marketing, and they were all like.. Meh... You can do it."

Possibly.  But I don't suspect that the beancounters went so far as to say, "tell people in interniews that you're putting out monthly updates, or else".

Actually in Xfire... during the lockout it was at 900-ish for obvious reasons.  324 is actually up from where it was pre-breach, where it was in the upper 300's.    I suspect the uptick is due to people being kicked out for so long, AND people like me who played dcuo beta that took them up on the 45 day trial.

And sure, Xfire isn't the best tool, but it's one of the best we've got in terms of the trend of a game against itself.  Good Game vs. Game evidence it is not.  But it's hard to argue that after it launched in the lower double digits, but has since disintegrated to the high 300's, that the game is "doin' fine"... console subs or not. 

Now, I'm enjoying the trial, but the place is a ghost town - no denying it.  People were scarce in all the hubs, and I never saw more than 2 at a time.  At police stations, I'd occasionally see 1-2 people, oftentimes empty.  Watchtower, maybe 5 or so people through the whole place.

.

Game needs to have a 14-day free trial, and then have enough content so that you can't complete the game in those 14 days.  When they get to that point, let me know.

Theres no logical reason why DCU is still getting this much attention on this site.  Its another failed mmo that has crashed and burned and like someone else mentioned, at this point Darkfall probably has just as many, or more, people playing.  I know DCU is someone's precious here at MMORPG.com but its not a good enough reason to keep pumping out new articles and columns on the game disportionate to its significance and player base.

As for the article itself, the questions asked were pretty softball.  The only interesting part was when he was asked about the failure to produce the promised monthly updates, which was a key selling point.  Anyone with half a brain should have known that it was never going to happen.  Once again, soe devs either knowingly lied to its customers or were completely inept and clueless. 

I'd like to comment on this portion of the roundtable discussion:

"Jeff from Ten Ton Hammer then asked why the team couldn’t seem to hit that monthly stride.  Essentially, Mark says, they just found out how hard the process was once the game was launched.  With the necessity of submitting updates through so many different approval processes while trying to maintain quantity and quality, they just haven’t nailed it yet."

Hmm, so before launch, you weren't aware of the approval process for submitting updates.  Really? 

I'll be blunt, I don't believe you.  Why?  Because I've seen SOE do this before: sell people a broken game with very little content, and make promises to people that they don't follow through on.

Imo, everyone who bought the game and/or subcription time on the basis of the promised updates should now qualify for a refund. 

Originally posted by Robsolf

"Jeff from Ten Ton Hammer then asked why the team couldn’t seem to hit that monthly stride.  Essentially, Mark says, they just found out how hard the process was once the game was launched. "

Anybody REMOTELY connected to the development of software could have, and probably did, tell him this long before launch.

Has the guy never had ANY experience in developing software?  No matter what kind of software you develop, you DO NOT base your release on arbitrary time periods; you base it on content.  Using a release schedule based on ANYTHING else, particularly generic periods of time, is a disaster because it interferes with your creativity.  Big projects will be set aside to shove content out the door every month.  You'll see bugged content going out as testers are afraid to fail them back to development and miss the deadline.

You figure out what you want to build, get a good estimate on how long each item will take, choose what to include that makes for a good build of features and fixes with adequate testing time, and TARGET the date.

The cynical would say that it was a cold callous marketing ploy. Of course they absolutely knew that the had no chance whatsoever of delivering anything (let alone anything meaningful) on a monthly basis.

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

I'd like to comment on this portion of the roundtable discussion:

"Jeff from Ten Ton Hammer then asked why the team couldn’t seem to hit that monthly stride.  Essentially, Mark says, they just found out how hard the process was once the game was launched.  With the necessity of submitting updates through so many different approval processes while trying to maintain quantity and quality, they just haven’t nailed it yet."

Hmm, so before launch, you weren't aware of the approval process for submitting updates.  Really? 

I'll be blunt, I don't believe you.  Why?  Because I've seen SOE do this before: sell people a broken game with very little content, and make promises to people that they don't follow through on.

Imo, everyone who bought the game and/or subcription time on the basis of the promised updates should now qualify for a refund. 

 

 We saw this same promise time after time with SWG, another license game.  This is just a way to blame the license holder and not thier priorities at SOE.  The language is just nicer.

No one asked about individual player 'lairs' or hideouts where players could have models of their gear like Batman does in the Batcave?

That seems weird.