As you have probably noticed, we here at the Flickcast are hugely excited about the upcoming DC Universe Online game headed to Playstation 3 and the PC. Our hands-on time with the game and the interviews we have gotten with the creators have both been impressive and have gotten our mouths’ watering for the game’s eventual release. Now, DC Universe Online has combined with Mass Animation to actually give the game’s fanbase a chance to be a part of its creation process.

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) and Mass Animation today announced the DC Universe™ Online (DCUO) Animation Contest. The DCUO Animation Contest is version 2.0 of the acclaimed Mass Animation Facebook® application and will give DC Comics fans, gamers and animators a chance to animate heroes and villains from the DC Universe Online game currently in development by Sony Online Entertainment, and to collaborate in creating a CGI trailer and in-game character animations. The DCUO/Mass Animation contest is scheduled to launch on December 7, 2009.

‘The DCUO/Mass Animation contest takes a part of the game out of the development studio and puts it in the hands of fans, an empowering opportunity for our community,’ said John Smedley, president of SOE. ‘Players will have a chance through qualified contest submissions to be involved with the game’s development at a deeper level than ever before by animating actions for in-game heroes and villains.’

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As we mentioned yesterday, at San Diego Comic Con we had the opportunity to sit down one on one with one of DC’s top creative talents, Marv Wolfman of Crisis of Infinite Earth fame, to discuss his involvement on DC Universe Online. During our time he discusses his involvement in the DC Universe as a writer and the many different mediums it has been a part of, his own video game fandom and

The Flickcast: First off, thank you for taking the time to speak with us about this project.

Marv Wolfman: My pleasure. This is fun.

TF: For the audience who doesn’t know yet, can you explain what your involvment with the project was? I’ve heard your name attached, Jim Lee and Geoff Johns. Can you explain how all that kind of fit together?

MW: Okay. Think of it as a building. Geoff put up the structure. It has all the beams. It has all the floors. I’m coming in now and I’m putting up the walls. I’m putting up the paintings. I’m painting the walls. I’m putting up the rugs. I’m filling it with furniture. Jim is the one who has designed all of that. (Phone call interruption) Geoff came up with an overview concept for the center part of the story.

The one that sort of motivates the entire storyline. I’m coming up with now hundreds of other stories, some of which will lead you to that center story. A lot are what I call just DC stories, stories that don’t center on that big storyline but are the things that characters do normally that you get involved with. So Superman adventures, Batman adventures, Wonder Woman adventures and all the other characters down the line.

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At the recent San Diego Comic-Con, we got some major quality time with all things DC Universe Online from our gameplay footage of the game to our interview with DC superstar artist Jim Lee . We also had the opportunity to get some hands with the game itself, have a sit down with some of the developers and a one on one interview with writer Marv Wolfman and discuss his work on DC Universe Online. Because there is just so much information from SDCC we have about DC Universe Online, this is going to a be two part story with the second half coming out tomorrow.

DC Universe Online was created with the goal of fulfilling the superhero fantasy in the DC world. Players will be given the ability to create their own hero or villain in order to achieve their own legacy. The ultimate goal of any hero or villain in the game would be to get invited in to the Justice League of America or the Secret Society of Super Villains respectively.

DC Universe Online is a Massively Multiplayer Online action game. Using a Playstation 3 controller or a keyboard, the player presses a button to perform an action. Players are able to string up button pushes to chain up together complex series of attacks. In addition, heavy attacks will knock certain objects around the environment, resulting in a world that is reactive to the player’s actions. If a player hits an explosive barrel in to a wall, there will be noticeable signs left behind from the barrel’s detonation left behind.

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This past weekend at San Diego Comic-Con, I had the privilege of sitting down with a few other members of the media to talk with legendary artist Jim Lee about his involvement in DC Universe Online, the upcoming MMO for the PC and Playstation 3. We were able to get some insight in to what he learned from the game, the first mention of an expansion from any party involved in the game and even the future of All-Star Batman.

John Carle: First obvious question, how was it working on an MMO for the first time?

Jim Lee: How was it working on an MMO? I’ve been working on it for over four years, so it feels long, but good. I mean I feel like it’s like weight training or something. (Laughs) Like its hard work but at the end of the day, you come out stronger and better for it. So yea, I mean it’s been a real learning experience not just in terms of learning how to build an MMO but also learning about the DC Universe.

Never really thought about what kind of materials all these costumes were made of. Never really thought about what all the different environments and neighborhoods of Gotham and Metropolis look like. And having those answers now, I feel much smarter as a DC fan than I ever did before, yea.

QUESTION: Are you a gamer yourself?

JL: Ah yes, I do game so you know it’s weird because I do get asked that a lot. I just assume everyone games but maybe they don’t. It’d be more interesting if I said, “No I’ve never played a video game before and that’s why I bring a very unique perspective to this.”

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We’ve got plenty of things coming to you straight from the convention floor at Comic-Con in San Diego this weekend, and we’re proud to also have some great gameplay footage as well.

One of the games we got to check out at the con was the new Sony game DC Universe Online, the new MMORPG set in the DC Universe, where you get to fight side-by-side with your favorite heroes and take down some of your favorite villains.

In the video after the jump, you can see a level as the created main character, in which he takes down Bizarro and gets some help from Batman, Wonder Woman, and a few others.

Check it out!

video by contributor John Carle.

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This week, Gazillion Entertainment announced that David Brevik would be placed as studio director at Gargantuan, the studio house developing the Marvel massive multiplayer online game. After originally being scrapped by Cryptic Studios in favor of Champions Online, Gazillion entertainment had been filling its ranks up under the weather by recruiting members of Apple, Blizzard, Pixar and Microsoft Game Studios to create their team.

Now with the addition of David Brevik who has been credited as leader programmer, project lead and design lead of both Diablo games, gamers should feel confident in the studio’s ability to deliver on the multiplayer experience required for a quality MMO. But can the Marvel Universe MMOG survive in a landscape already dominated by the behemoth World of Warcraft. Other properties like the Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings and Warhammer have taken shots at unseating Warcraft but have thus been unsuccessful.

Even other strong properties outside of the medievil time frame have fallen short like the ill-fated Star Wars Galaxies and the Matrix Online. What may be Marvel’s biggest threats though come from the blossoming superhero MMOG genre that has been popping up over recent years, the pinnacle being City of Heroes/City of Villains which came in to legal trouble with Marvel and DC for such robust character creation tools that many players were able to create incredible likenesses of their favorite proprietary heroes.

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