Christmas may be over, but here's the 2nd part of our interview with Jim Lee. In case you missed it, check out the first part here.

Tamat : How will in-game socialization work? Obviously creating a superhero league or guild will be fun, but what other ways will be available for players to interact with one another as enemies or allies?

Jim Lee : Well I can't speak of that as directly as I would like, but you'll definitely have all the tools you need to form those kinds of leagues and societies. Ultimately, we want to reduce the grind time as much as possible and really allow players to find other people to group with immediately so they can get to it. We want to reduce the amount of time spent looking for group, looking for a league and something to do. We really want this to be a game where you can log in and immediately start doing stuff.

Tamat : Is there more of a focus on solo play, group play, or both?

Jim Lee : Well I think ideally, you would have both so that you can jump on and have fifteen minutes of fun or group with your buddies and do a much larger mission. I know the goal is to really reduce the amount of grind time. If you're ready to do a mission, it will pair you up with other people and you'll be ready to roll. There won't be a lot of running to each other in order to group. We really want to maximize he amount of fun in game, and maximize the time you spent doing super heroic things, verses typical MMO grind.

Togikagi : In a similar vein how will "leveling up" and character progression work? How do Super Heroes become ever more ... super?

Jim Lee : There will be a balance between leveling up and the innate game skill. We didn't want to make it so that the game would be void of skill or talent. So if you're good at arcade battle and using a controller, you're going to have an advantage over those who don’t. There will also be items in game that make players temporarily more powerful or more protected. That will allow players who've played for a longer amount of time to collect cooler items and expendables to use to make up for the fact that maybe they’re not as skilled. So there is a little bit of everything for everyone in the game and we didn't want it to be a game where it didn't matter if you had good timing or couldn't control your characters very well and I think that would take away from the arcade thrill or the feel of the game. So there will definitely be items in the game that make your characters more powerful temporarily and you'll need to play the game for a while to get a lot of these cool items to suit up your characters to take on certain missions. So there are going to be some cool things to acquire in the game but, at the same time, you're going to need to pay attention and fight your heart out every time.

Togikagi : In most MMOs you have Tanks, Healers, Damage Dealers, etc. How will the party dynamic work in DC Universe Online?

Jim Lee : It's probably too early to say at this point other than we want to make it possible for all sorts of groups to come together to do missions. We want to make it so that you don't have to have one of X, two of Y, one of Z, that kind of a thing. We're really trying to give a lot of flexibility. You'll have your power set but you'll have a lot of flexibility in term of the equipment that you can swap in and out, that will allow you to do different functions within the different groups. I don't think there are going to be classes per se, like most MMOs, where you have a healer or a damage dealer. I think people are going to have a lot of different abilities that they can maximize and minimize based on the equipment that they put on and the powers that they've chosen.

Tamat : Does the fact that the game will launch on both PS3 and PC have any effect on the design process, especially when it comes to controls and graphics?

Jim Lee : Yeah, I mean that's a technical issue obviously. I'm not as technically proficient on that level. I just know that we really want to make it possible for many people to play with one another.

Tamat : What about how it affects you? Does it affect your art at all?

Jim Lee : Well it definitely affects how it looks on the screen I would imagine, in terms of resolution. But, at the same time, a lot of the tests we've seen so far, in terms of optimization for the PS3, look great -- the renders that I've seen look really terrific and the PS3 is a very powerful machine. I think that the colors and the detail look super vibrant at this point. I think in terms of how games look on your screen, MMOs tend to be a little behind your typical single player game. That said, the stuff that I've seen so far looks really terrific. We have a lot of really cool silhouettes for all the different heroes and villains. Also, the character customization in the game is going to allow you to enhance that. So you're going to have some really amazing armor sets or costume sets, capes and weapons that you can hold. The color palette is intense. It looks really sharp.

Togikagi : Will there be a big difference in storylines between players choosing to be a hero or a villain?

Jim Lee : Yeah for sure, this is where Geoff Johns has been instrumental in the design of the story arcs. There are story arcs for both Heroes and Villains that are unique but at times sort of cross over and interplay off each other. But yeah you're going to have a very different game experience if you create one Heroes versus a Villain and actually when you go the Heroic route there’re a couple of different options you can pursue that will give you different missions and interactions with the characters and overall a different game experience. So there is going to be a lot of replayability and if, at some point, you say "I really just need something new and different", you don't have to just roll another power set; there are all these others different things you can do in terms of being a hero versus villain, then also, what cities you start in, etc, etc. Chris Cao and Jens Andersen work with Geoff Johns to really create as much diversity in the different story arcs as possible.

Tamat : How often will we be able to interact with the big name characters, like Superman, Batman and Green Lantern? Will it happen often or be more for the bigger, epic missions?

Jim Lee : We want there to be as much interaction as possible so you don't have to wait until you've maxed out your levels to interact with Super Man. We want you to be able to experience the DC Universe as soon and as intensely as possible. So, depending on the story arc that drives you character, you'll be interacting with iconics fairly quickly and fairly often. That is an important part of the DC Universe experience. It could even just be something like getting a message from Super Man saying "Hey I need help, can you go investigate this situation?"

Togikagi : So it sounds like we're going to get a lot of screen time with the big names.

Jim Lee : Yeah.

Togikagi : How has your artistic style changed as you've focused on the MMORPG medium? Or, to summarize it differently, what are the similarities and differences between creating a comic book and designing a video game?

Jim Lee : You know it's interesting. As we were creating the first path of the player character costumes I was with a very talented artist named Mike Pedro at SOE in Austin. He came up with some amazing designs that look like they were more from the world of video games and he started seeing some of the differences and we’re going to have that because we want to have as broad a spectrum as possible.

But I really started thinking about Super Hero costumes that make them unique to comics; that’s something that I had never really thought about before, and certainly while drawing these silhouettes I started questioning my own proportions. When I draw them, I draw them to fit the space, I draw them to fit the mood and that could mean that their face looks wider, or more intense, or longer and even beefier depending on the emotion that you want to create with that drawing and then the 3D space obviously needs to be consistent. I started realizing that I definitely draw different profiles of the face in terms of the nose and things like that. So it's been an eye opening experience to see a drawing develop 3D and then recognizing that if I had to draw a face with a nose of this length from the front, this is what it would look like from the side. I've thought, "Wow, it's a good thing I don't have to do that" -- it's been really cool to see that. A lot of the stuff that I've been dealing with has been more from the standpoint of design. Things you do second hand without even thinking about it. So when I sit down and start drawing Gotham, I don't start thinking about how Gotham is different from Metropolis; I just start drawing what I know to be true. Breaking it down and making a list of why certain things make it feel more like Gotham isn't something I've ever really had to think about. So you have to really dissect your style, going over it and breaking it down even with things as simple as how to draw eyes. I’d never really thought about how I do it differently than others but then there was something where I sort of had to train the 3D modelers and impart that style guide onto their sensibilities. It's been a cool experience; it's almost like your taking your own drawing class and having to listen to yourself about your own style because you've never really thought about it that way.

Tamat : What type of character do you plan on making?

Jim Lee : Wow. Well I almost always end up creating a Paladin, or good characters, that's sort of my character of choice. But for this one I'm going to go a little different and I'm going to go the Villain route. That way I can be as evil and as malicious as possible while PvPing and I'll feel good about myself. I definitely think that Speedster is one that, as soon as they put that in game and I tried it out, I was like "oh this is just so amazing". It makes it so you can traverse and experience the game environment. I've ridden horses and flown through cities, but who can say that they've run up and down skyscrapers? Running through the city, running up the sides of buildings and across rooftops and jumping to other rooftops is just something that fulfills a very cool power fantasy for a lot of people. So I'm definitely going to pick that as my power movement type. But I'm leaning toward villain, especially for PvP. A lot of times villains tend to get less love and attention and I want to make sure that they do in DCUO.

Togikagi : Yeah! Villains are people too!

Jim Lee : Yeah exactly.

Togikagi : Lastly, any word on a tentative date for the start of alpha testing, beta testing or a release date?

Jim Lee : There’s nothing that I could put out there. Right now we just want to produce the best game possible and that's going to take the required amount of time. Once you start giving dates, you create expectations. If you're late, it's really bad for the game. So right now we want to talk about how cool the game is turning out and then when we're closer to announcing dates, we'll do that. We want to just ship the game when it's ready and check out all the cool stuff we've done so far.

Togikagi : Alright. On behalf of the both of us I really want to say how much we appreciate you meeting with us. It's been a real pleasure.

Jim Lee : Well thank you guys!

Andrew "Tamat" Beegle
Editor-in-Chief
Allakhazam.com

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Darryl "Togikagi" Gangloff
Reporter
Allakhazam.com