Server Slam: Your First Hands-On With DCKO
What it is
A chance to be one of the first to get your hands on DCKO in the upcoming Server Slam! Help us test the servers and content we’ve got ready. As a first Alpha, it’s a smaller slice than what will be available at worldwide launch, and every future test brings more to play, test, and tell us about!
Get your footing in the tutorial. Take on PvE in Test Missions & Rifts. Jump into real-time matches in both Duels & PvP matchmaking. Poke at everything in between.
Server Slam will start at the end of next week, continuing over the weekend, ending early the following week. We will update our socials and this blog on exact dates as soon as we have them confirmed.
We’ll continue sending invites in waves throughout, so keep your eye out for an email, even if you didn’t get in on day one. Start playing the moment you download.
How to Apply:
- Pre-register at playdcko.com
- Follow our social channels. Every 1,000 new followers unlocks 100 more invites
- Fill out the submission form: https://link.playdcko.com/Dkexo/31gc/p2tk
- Use the email attached to your device’s Google Play or App Store account
- Keep an eye out for an email!
More followers means more invites, which means the fastest way to get your friends in is to spread the word!
And the always-fun fine print:
- The form is an entry, not a guarantee. Selection is an ALPHA DRAW.
- iOS and Android invites aren’t interchangeable
- Error on your form? Head back and make your edits to ensure you’re notified if selected.
- Not transferable. Access is tied to the email invited.
- Don’t share your invite or the build itself
- Nobody from Drop Fake will ever DM you an invite. Invites will arrive via email.
Get an invite?
- Report feedback/issues in-game or in our official Discord
- Invitees will receive a Tester Handbook, which will contain more information on this
- Let us know what feels good, what needs work, or any ideas for the future
- Have fun! Let us do the sweating.
Tell us about it. Ideas count. Hunches count. “I can’t explain why but this bugged me” counts. We want to build with you and your feedback is invaluable!
Find any cracks? We want that too. If it’s broken, tell us. If we can’t get it fixed for Server Slam, we’ll get it fixed for the future. The core goal is to have fun and let us know if it keeps you coming back for more.
We’re a small studio of about 30 devs, fully remote, no publisher standing over us telling us what this should be. That means we get to build DCKO the way we think it should be built, with you. While we have a blast in our own matches, no number of internal playtests could ever match the feedback of our players at scale.
That’s what this week is for.
Didn’t get in this time? Fear not! While we know alpha tests on mobile aren’t exactly…normal, we want to break that mold. We intend to run more of these, becoming more open and available to any who want to join as we march towards worldwide launch. So follow our social channels and stay tuned.
What’s in the build
Not everything that will be available at worldwide launch will be in the Server Slam. We want to get eyes on content we feel is ready to try now, with goals to polish it from there. Here’s what you’ll have, so you’re not hunting for something that isn’t there yet.
| Tutorial | Learn the basics. Start here even if you think you don’t need to. |
|---|---|
| Rifts | Daily PvE. New runs every day, with generous rewards and a different twist of fate for each. Claim a new Rift from the store every 8 hours. New Rifts will also cycle every 24 hours. |
| Progression | Level up your Legends, unlock and swap Supers, expand your roster. |
| Store | Claim free currency to unlock costumes, Super Moves, Rifts, DC Legends, and resources. |
| Duels | Add a friend and challenge them to some real-time PvP. Open all week, any time. |
| PvP Matchmaking | Matchmaking runs during scheduled windows. More on that below. |
| Legends playable | 13/20 of our launch roster are available to play with in this test. You’ll start with Batman, Robin, and Starfire. Progress and unlock even more: Bane, Blue Beetle, Catwoman, Constantine, Cyborg, Doomsday, Nightwing, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Zatanna. |
| Progression | This is an Alpha test. Progression is available but limited. Future tests will provide more variety of content & ways to progress. |
| Platforms | iOS and Android |
| Languages | English only. Plans to localize into more languages before worldwide launch. |
Missing Legends, modes, and content aren’t bugs. That’s intentional. As with all Alphas, a lot can change before worldwide launch. Balance numbers, abilities, modes, UI, audio, animations, etc. All of this may see changes. Your feedback and insights tell us if we’re on the right track. You play, we build!
Rifts, Test Missions, Progression
Rifts are your daily PvE with Test Missions available during onboarding. Fight your way through a variety of enemies, collecting rewards and buffs as you go, all building toward a final showdown in each Rift. Multiple fresh challenges every day of the test, so there’s always a reason to come back.
The roster is yours to build. Level up your Legends. Unlock and swap Supers. Claim free currency and other goodies from the Store to unlock costumes, moves, DC Legends, and resources. Want to grow the roster further? Use Promethean Cores to summon new Legends, and Source Clusters to Level Up the ones you have.
Then take whatever you’ve built into battle and find out if it holds up!
Progression is one of the areas we’re most curious about. Does unlocking and earning things feel good? Is the pace right? We want to hear it.
Duels & PvP Matchmaking
Two ways to take on real opponents during the Server Slam, and they run on different schedules.
PvP Matchmaking will be turned OFF to start. We’ll flip it on at set points throughout the Server Slam, then back off again. See more below.
PvP Matchmaking: Specific Time Windows
While PvP matchmaking will be disabled at the start of this test, we’ll turn it ON/OFF during specific time slots. There’s a good reason for that. Matchmaking gets better with more people queuing at once. Spread a smaller test population across a longer period of time and a variety of regions and you get long waits or bad quality matches.
Nobody wants that. To mitigate this, we’ll open up windows of time to enable matchmaking throughout the test, letting you know through push notifications. We’re aiming to find good times that work across as many regions as possible.
With PvP matchmaking also comes a Leaderboard to track where you stand against all the rest. How high can you climb?
PvP Matchmaking: Latency Controls
Ping is a thing, especially in fighters. Due to that, we’ve developed a few tactics to help ensure good matchmaking during the Server Slam.
We have a built in system working to help prevent being matched with a player whose ping is higher than 150ms. This keeps you matching against people close to your region, avoiding the rubber-bandy type of things that happen when you introduce high pings into a PvP space.
Duels: Always Enabled
Add a friend and match against them anytime during the Server Slam with Duels. Need to find one? Join the Discord and in the Playtest section, ask around in the regional channel that suits you best. There will be no restrictions on ping/latency in this mode. Duel a friend on the other side of the world…but remember that with higher latency, comes unpredictability.
You play. We build.
Reacting to Feedback/Issues
Our team will actively be watching reports coming in. You focus on fun and reporting, we’ll handle the rest. As we get insights, we’ll work to resolve any major issues to keep things rolling smoothly. This is the first time DCKO has been tested at scale, so tell us how things feel.
This is early. Alpha early.
You’re seeing DCKO at a stage most players never get to. That means servers may wobble. There may be bugs or crashes here and there. We may take things down for maintenance. You might see a whole new build drop mid-week. If everything truly falls over, we may have to end early. Not the plan, but you should know it’s on the table.
We’ll fix what we can, as fast as we can, and keep everyone updated through our social channels, Discord, and push notifications the whole way through.
What you keep
We’ve seen questions around whether any progress saves to worldwide launch or whether there are any Server Slam specific rewards.
Due to the limited nature of this test, there won’t be any specific rewards associated with this one, nor will progress carry over. Once these tests become more available for all to participate, we’ll consider some early access rewards that carry over.
So play recklessly! Take the pairing you’d never risk on an account that mattered. Dump everything into the weird experiment. There’s no wrong way to spend the time that resets.
Stream it, clip it, post it
No NDA. No restrictions.
Feel free to stream, make content, and show your friends! We’d love to hear it all, the good, the bad, and any ideas for the future! We know Alpha access means an issue here and there. But we’d rather smooth those out before launch rather than after. If something looks unfinished, it likely is.
Tag @PlayDCKO and use #ServerSlam so we can find you. We’ll be resharing all week, and our team will be in Discord, watching and re-watching what everyone is putting out there.
Lots of excitement over here, with the natural nerves of a face-reveal. Be candid with us. What are we doing right? Where do we need work? Most importantly, are you having fun?! Help us move in the right direction!
Once you’re in
Your invite email is your access. There’s no separate start time to wait around for. The link lands, you install, you’re in. We aren’t on storefronts yet, so installing takes a few extra taps and a setting or two on your phone. Nothing painful, and the guide walks you through both platforms.
Two ways to tell us things:
In-game. Fastest route. It attaches your device and session details automatically, which our engineers love. Crash? Please submit any crash reports if the option appears on-screen.
Discord. discord.gg/PlayDCKO will have purpose driven areas in the Playtest Category to leave any thoughts you have.
Full details on everything will be in the Tester Handbook, which will be sent to anyone who reviews an invite. That document will run through installing on both platforms, which channel does what, how to write a report we can actually act on, and what we’re most curious to hear about. Keep an eye out for that if you receive an invite.
Recommended Specs
Specific to the Server Slam, recommended specs are a little bit more demanding as we’re pre-optimization. Don’t meet these specs? No problem! Download DCKO, give it a shot, and let us know how it’s running on your device.
It helps us understand where our floor is and make improvements. As time marches forward, our teams will work on bringing these requirements down to support a wider range of mobile devices below these benchmarks.
Server Slam - Recommended Specs
- Samsung Galaxy S23 (or equivalent)
- iPhone 15
When it ends
You may still have the client on your phone, but the build will stop connecting to our servers and you won’t be able to log in. Nothing’s wrong with your phone, that’s just the door closing.
Sometime after we get all feedback in hand and have time to review it, we’ll circle back with our learnings. What people loved, what they didn’t, what broke, what we’ve fixed since, and what we changed because of the feedback from one of you.
You may even see something and think “wait, was that from me?”. After that? We get back to building, and we do this again on a future date!
Follow the channels, pre-register, fill out the form: https://link.playdcko.com/Dkexo/31gc/p2tk
Have a chance at being one of the first to get DCKO in your hands.
Social Channels
See you in the fight!
- Drop Fake