10th Anniversary Producer's Letter

Are you saying that Unreal 5 is backwards compatible with older engine code? Just trying to wrap my head around this stuff. Sounds really interesting.

From my understanding it very much is. And even if it isn't the devs make content around the newest hardware and technology they have. So moving forward with eps with the unreal engine 5 would be the way to go forward with next gen to capitalize on the game's growth. The game you see now wouldn't change in the way it looks at all. A new open world would be introduced. all eps being made would be all done with unreal 5 and that open world would be already underway with the unreal 5 engine. All powersets would look like next gen. once you have made it through the old part of the game you can decide on. Going to the login screen and jumping into the next generation unreal 5 part of dcuo like many games are doing. Also known as relaunching a game aka dcuo 1.0 or dcuo 2

That's nice. How much do you want to bet that those games are upgrading from Unreal Engine 4 and not 3? Also, did they do heavy modifications of the engine to suit their purposes? Probably not. Unreal Engine 3 was never intended for MMOs. The creators of this game took that and made some very huge changes to fit their needs.

There is no magical software in existence that can just "Upgrade" from one game engine to another. That's not how it works. But even if it did work that way, it still wouldn't because of all of the significant changes that was made to the Unreal 3 in order to make it fit their needs. If you sat down and looked at standard Unreal 3 code and compared it to what DCUO produced back then you wouldn't think they were the same...because it no longer was. Now add all of the years of changes since the original development, you have to realize that it isn't as simple as loading up the new unreal engine and pressing "UPGRADE" and watching the computer "upgrade". Game programing doesn't work that way.

That type of upgrade would be a port, and that would bring with it all of the bugs and limitations that were in the game from its original development. In order to avoid all of those problems they would have to rebuild from scratch.

How can that be possible without unreal 5??? Hmmm...they have managed to make 39 episodes over the course of 10 years (Happy 10th Anniverary DC Universe Online ), but because they're not using Unreal 5 that's it...DCUO is over??? Eg7 bought themselves a lemon? It's time to shut off the servers because Unreal 5 is the only way? Well, not sure what to tell ya dude. As you said, it would take time...and while that work is underway we won't hear a peep until close to revelation time. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what's next won't we.

I would be very surprised if they haven't squeezed every single drop out of Unreal 3 at this point. If they still have more under the hood with Unreal 3 after all this time then I do wonder why such the long wait for such old tech ? Unless it being old is the reason for the hold up but if its taking you that long with old tech why not just cut your losses and move to a newer engine ? My hope is that this has been years in the making and they have been throwing us curve balls throughout.

I get it i don't understand but neither do you. The game as you see now never gets anymore polish. Instead unreal 5 is the new engine they do not need to do anything to the game your looking at and playing neither do they. Building the new open world eg7 talked about and all the content going forward will be built with unreal 5. The only way to capitalize on the Next Generation growth rate is unreal 5. From what iv read the jump to unreal 5 isn't gonna be that hard at all. The devs just start building the new world now and rework powers and relaunch the game this year unreal 5 kit is already available. They. Can still keep unreal 3 but will never see the benefit of next-gen with that engine. The only reason to upgrade to unreal 5 would be to cut cost and time down to none and give us more content at a faster rate with less bugs. They clearly can't handle unreal 3 cost and time take a look have u seen any new powers? Any new pvp updates any new massive open worlds rebuilt and not reskined to cut cost and time down. Just take a look their tech is probably hard to work with in unreal 3 its old its outdated software

They cant just build new content on UR5, although they have names that sound like its just a upgrade, UR3 and UR5 are pretty much whole different things with 16-17 years of tech separating them. Back when gaming with 256MB of RAM was considered good is when UR3 launched.

DCUO 2 or a relaunch of DCUO is the only way to upgrade engines, but it could take multiple years. The only games I know that did significant upgrading without rebuilding from scratch are Overwatch 2 and Fortnite, but their companies own the engines and spent a long time in advance preparing them for the upgrades

Moving to a new engine is far more expensive than anything thry have done so far and not possible unless they have been upgrading for a long long time.
Most of the content was made when PS3 limitations where there (all powersets, our characters and most cities), so less polishing and quality, thats where I believe they have place to improve

Hmm..

Just because the DevKit for Unreal 5 is available doesn't mean that the devs of this game can do anything with it at this point in time or even in the near future. Rushing to next gen isn't always a viable plan, especially if other factors need attention. Also, be careful of what you read when it comes to new game engines and developing games with them; it isn't easy for every developer and/or the game/platform and it sounds to me that you've read someone's individual experience in a well-known game genre. DC/WB will have to approve and help negotiate licensing terms with Unreal; the licensing terms they have with Unreal 3 may not be available for Unreal 5 and more than likely Dimensional Ink will have to shell out more money.

And there you have it; the "steps" are falling into place. There is enough information here to understand that they have graphic upgrades in the works and plans to retain current players while attracting new/returning players. Expanding the dev team is a big priority, because that means more people to help move the game forward.

Make account bound skill points and we’re good. Alts are a chore and it’s too expensive buying sp. do us a solid and make alts worth it without the ma$$ive downfalls.

It was mentioned last year that along with the changes at Daybreak (them moving into publisher role while the newly branded Dimensional Ink becomes an "independent" studio) that DI was working on a next gen MMO title that would use a newer Engine (possibly 4 or moving on to 5). They told us that they had no details for now and that we'd learn more much later. And someone on the forums saw some job postings that specified experience with Unreal 4 and all that. So they are working with future tech....just on another project.

Budokkai on the other hand has nice dreams...but that's all they are, dreams. Nothing he spouts is rooted in any factual reality (particularly how "easy" it is to upgrade to a new engine). I'll give him credit for persistence...he's been on the same cloud smoke for a very long time.

The only thing the devs can't do is port maps to unreal 5. That can be done but only a few company's have the massive team it would take to do it. That's why u relaunch your game with a new open world. call the game dcuo 1.0 or dcuo 2 with a full Metropolis and Gotham rework and make content going forward built around unreal 5 to capitalize on the hardware of next gen and its growth rate. We all have to understand one thing and one thing very clearly. If eg7 is investing most likely 700mil into dcuo this year it will not be for any crap on unreal engine 3. You can't build a new massive open world in one year on unreal engine 3 its not gonna happen i don't care how many developers dcuo has. That open world will have all kinds a bugs in it because of how dcuo was built around unreal 3. Unreal Engine 3 doesn't work with a game like dcuo its world is just too damn big for the engine. Relaunching the game is the key point here eg7 will be throwing alot of money at dcuo to do it right. so they can start advertising dcuo 1.0 or dcuo 2. I know mepps said they wont be upgrading to unreal 4 or 5 but I dont think eg7 has even walked into the room yet before he said that. I dont even think the developers even know what they have planned for this game its just alot for them and us to take in right now. All I know is eg7 what's this game polished and a new massive open world and way more content going forward. And incase u were not reading they talked about engine improvements to really make the game shine. you won't get this game shinning with unreal 3 not without a fat list of hard bugs to get rid of not with this massive mmo. Make a new open world aside from the old part of the game and move on from unreal 3 its full.of bugs. hell they can't even fix powers that's how hard unreal 3 is to work with in a game like this

You can believe whatever u want but for a 1 year timeframe this doesnt looks feasible. For the next 3-4 maybe they have something in mind, but nobody knows and we have no info to suppose that.

And fixing powers has a lottttt more to do with the system and manpower tgan UR3

They did stats revamp look how long that took them with unreal engine 3. And they plan to make a new massive open world add on to the game. Yea right good luck with that on unreal 3. These devs are crazy if they keep using unreal 3. I dont blame them for not making new powers or reskinning everything in the game. Unreal 3 just doesn't go well with this kinda game is too massive. I dont blame them for giving us cookie crumb eps every 3 months. I dont blame them for pushing styles on us because content is harder to do on the engine dcuo was built on. I dont blame them for not trying to fix this broken game because when they fix something something else gets broken. It just takes too damn long to build worlds fix bugs make new things happen with unreal 3. So they are stuck with pve only and styles/base items. Maps are the only thing they can't port over to unreal 5 everything else is a green light which is why u relaunch a game. One part old gen the new part next gen

Kind of hilarious after several years, you're still on the forums making claims that you know the inside scoop of what the dev team is doing, without a shred of evidence. It's as entertaining as it was back then. Please continue

Where is this new "massive open world" coming from? There is nothing in the Producer's Letter about this, and the Eg7 financial document from December only shows they are interested in "brand new large content update," for Q4 2021, which could literally mean anything, it might have been just an example to gain financial investors. And interested isn't the same as actively developing or even scheduled for development in the near future. It could mean a new city zone on or similar to, half the size, a third of the size, of the scale of the original launch cities. It could mean just a return to traditional large content DLC structure like the producer's letter is mentioning, or it could mean something else. We don't know. Which brings me back to my original post. No one has really said anything, everyone is just speaking in general terms without much detail. The only thing we know for sure is that a PS5 native client is finally coming with some kind of improvements and a Flashpoint inspired DLC is being worked on.

Y'all a lot nicer than I would have been after reading some of the posts these last few weeks. New years day, I'd have flipped a light switch on them. But I and many others do appreciate them regardless of if we need them or not