Hand of Fate Producer Letter!

by **Ronsin** Fri Aug 24, 2012 11:00 pm

Hello everyone,

I?m pleased to announce
DC Universe Online's next DLC Pack ? Hand
of Fate! This marks our fifth DLC Pack, and it is unlike
anything we?ve offered to date. It brings a whole new type of gameplay
designed from the ground up to draw players out into our iconic, open-world
cities, Gotham City
and Metropolis. Featuring
loads of side missions and a whole new type of group mission we call
Operations, Hand of
Fate
will enrich our massive open world areas in unexpected ways,
deepening and enlivening the game as players encounter not just the world and
its challenges, but each other along the way. We are also excited to
introduce Utility Belt Attachments. This handy item greatly expands loadout
options and makes it viable to use more trinkets, toys, and consumables ?
ultimately opening the door to more fun and deeper tactics. Personally, I
could never justify keeping a toy equipped when I played, no matter how fun
it was, but now it's easy to have one at the ready. Read on for details!

Hand of Fate

I don?t want to share too
much yet about the backstory for Hand
of Fate, but it will pit Doctor Fate and his heroic supporters
against the evil sorcerer Felix
Faust and his villainous cohorts in a classic tale of magic
and mystery. Even as the world reels from Brainiac?s invasion, other forces
are moving, and dangerous plots are afoot. And when there?s magic involved,
anything can happen.

Operations

Operations, our new group
missions, are what make the open-world magic possible. You can think of
Operations as Raids or Alerts that can be set in the open-world, but they're
more than that. For example, while on an Operation, up to eight players will
be queued up in a starting instance to defeat a challenge alongside their
iconic ally. After they win this challenge, they will go out into the
open-world to take on the next stage of the operation. Players can split up
in smaller groups to accomplish certain objectives, but they will find others
require the entire group working as a team. In short, you and your friends
will be able to tackle more and more varied content than ever before ? in the
open world! You?ll probably find the new map UI from Game Update 17
extremely useful here!

Why Operations? We wanted
to take high level players back out to Gotham and Metropolis, our most iconic
and, by far, biggest locations, and add more excitement and activity all
across the cityscapes. When the team first started talking about this, I had
visions of new players being drawn to witness an epic battle between 8
top-tier players and a powerful boss, witnessing the high-level splendor
firsthand, just like in the comics.

There?s more to it,
though. Players don?t have to just watch. They can choose to get involved,
and that's the type of emergent experience that I think will set DCUO and Hand of Fate
apart. Especially on PvP phases, I expect this to create fireworks, awesome
battles, and real strategy and competition in the open world. Along with
that, one nice surprise for villains is that more than ever, villainous
content will truly be villainous! It's from the perspective of the villains.
I know that's been a touchy subject with many of our villains, forced to work
long and hard alongside heroes in defeating Brainiac. Your pleas have not
fallen on deaf ears! You get to be evil.

Side Missions

Along with Operations, Hand of Fate will
feature roughly 60 side missions. Let me repeat that. 60 missions. These are
similar to the Level 1-30 content that a lot of our players really enjoyed
and have been asking for again. These missions are fun and add depth to the
narrative and world, and of course offer their own rewards. I think
players will really enjoy the everyday variety and challenges side missions
have to offer.

Utility Belt Attachments

Last but certainly not
least, I wanted to offer a little more information on Utility Belt
Attachments. This feature is a useful and fun upgrade for players in all
aspects of the game. There will be a variety of Utility Belts ? offering
anywhere from two to four Utility Compartments or Slots. The slots
themselves can vary ? some will only accept certain kinds of items, though the
rarest will include Wild Card slots that allow you to equip any kind of
trinket or consumable. Depending on the belt, you can equip offensive and
defensive consumables, toys, or trinkets. As I mentioned earlier, most belts
have pre-defined slots, encouraging balanced loadouts. One of the benefits of
this is that it will actually make sense for more players to make use of
toys. Toys have always been fun to play around with, but were not something
that you could generally use much on Live (I normally use a more sensible
trinket that offers the best combat benefit). With the additional
capacity offered by Utility Compartments, I expect to see a lot more people
using Toys (Dice, Balls, etc.) and Pets. These really do make the game more
fun.

With that, I'll say goodbye.
Remember to look for more information on Hand of Fate as we get closer to
launch in the second half of September. We?ll have a lot more to share.

Best,
Larry Liberty
Executive Producer
DC Universe Online

View
article...