DCUO LETTER FROM THE PRODUCER - 04/05/2011

The first three months of DC Universe Online have been very exciting for the team.  We are thrilled by the community's response to the game and are very stoked about where we are going in the future.  As much as you play and test a product before launch you never know what you really have until you launch.  Will players like PvP?  Are the Raids challenging enough?  Will people enjoy being in Leagues? 

Based on what we are hearing and seeing, the PvP is badass and one of the most popular aspects of the game.  The Raids seem like they are the right balance of risk vs. reward.  And Leagues are growing fast in both size and number.  No doubt we still have a lot of feedback to address but the feeling everywhere is that we have something special and we really appreciate the great support, thanks!   In the coming months we have a ton of cool things heading your way, from a new series of Raids in the Fortress of Solitude, challenging new Alerts, the addition of new Duo missions, new gear and items, and of course the chance to fight with and against a number of your favorite characters from the DC Universe to make your life interesting… and dangerous.

But, we know what is foremost in your minds, where the heck is Update 2 – Heads or Tales???  Unfortunately, this update took us longer to develop than we would have liked.  However, I'm happy to say we are all set for releasing the US PS3 and PC update on 4/5 with the EU PS3 to follow soon after and it will be well worth the wait.  Why did this take so long?  In short, this is a fairly substantial update.  In addition to new game content, this update contains some major system upgrades, balance changes, and bug fixes.  We'll have detailed update notes posted soon, but here are some highlights.

A lot of you have asked for communication/social improvements, so we spent a good chunk of time working on these issues.  The social UI has been revamped to be more usable, and we've added functionality like 'vote to kick' and 'vote to re-queue' to instances.  Proximity chat, which was previewed in an earlier patch, has full functionality and is fully enabled.  We've also added custom voice and text channels.

On the content side, Batcave 3 is live and the Avatar of Technology which some of you may have seen at the end of beta,  is ready to deal some pain.  Two-Face, Penguin, and Mxyzptlk appear in cool new missions themed around chance & luck… btw, be very wary of the coin toss.  You'll also be able to play as Two-Face in Legends PvP.   With a flip of a coin, take your enemies situation from bad to worse.

What about the future and Game Update 3?  Update 3 is well underway, but doesn't have a target release date yet.  However, I can say that Ra's Al Ghul, Swamp Thing, and a very intimidating version of Chang Tzu will make an appearance.  We'll definitely provide more info over the upcoming weeks.

Finally, some of you may be wondering how the recent SOE news will affect DCUO.   Yes, the team was impacted and we lost some great developers and friends, but rest assured that we will still deliver *super awesome* new content and updates on a regular basis.   And, we appreciate your support! 

Wes Yanagi,

On behalf of the The DCUO Dev Team