Sony Online Entertainment has released details for Game Update 9: Assemble for Battle for DC Universe Online. It seems this time around the goal is all about making the game faster and more accessable to the player base than ever before. To do so they are introducing Role Optional Alerts and Novice Raids.

Role Optional Alerts are the solution for players affected by long and painful queue times. What this feature will do is allow players to queue and form groups with any combination of roles. But what happens when you don't recieve a healer? Well DCUO will be giving parties a "Team Buff", which will slightly take the place of the missing character. 

• If you don't have a Tank, everyone will take less damage overall.
• If you don't have a Healer, any Controller or Damage character will trigger a small amount of regeneration when your health dips below a certain point. If you're a Tank, you'll always have some regeneration.
• If you don't have a Controller, everyone will get varying amounts of additional power periodically.

It appears love won't be in the air this year for DC Universe Online players. Creative Director Jens Andersen has taken to the forums to post on the status of the upcoming Valentine's Day events. In his post, he recognizes the lack of quality in the previous years' events and states how "This event is not worthy of the standards we strive for." Because of this, the DCUO team has decided to cut Valentine's Day from their intended content so that it can be refined and renewed for better seasonal events.

Andersen did go on to say that there are still indeed plans for seasonal events in the future and that they will be focusing on four major times: Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall. Each will get more development in the form of either a Boss fight or open world content. Once these major events are in place, DCUO will continue to improve and expand them each year, as well as try some new seasonal content, like Valentine's Day.

Change has been rumbling through the online gaming industry for some time now, and no company better represents this shift than Sony Online Entertainment. In the past year alone, two flagship SOE titles have made the transition from the traditional subscription-based revenue model to the more flexible microtransaction-based free-to-play model: DC Universe Online and EverQuest II. Of course, these two weren't the first to make the big shift for SOE, as their popular children's MMORPG, Free Realms, has already been pushing its popular microtransaction goodies for close to three years now.

Regardless, it seems like change is here to stay, and with SOE experiencing some phenomenal success with their free-to-play transitions, I decided to sit down with SOE's Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, Laura Naviaux, to talk about the future of online gaming microtransaction models, SOE's vision for 2012, and much more. If you're at all interested in what's going on with the online gaming industry and the revenue models that govern it, take a read!

DC Universe Online is adding a way to create powerful Equipment Mods and Consumables, all through the help of unclaimed Exobytes. Starting at level 10, players will be able to enjoy the benefits of the modified technology by collecting Exobits, gathering research plans, and then developing the desired item. Furthermore, you can even salvage gear, which will then be used to gain components used in other recipes.

For the full details on this feature check out the DC Universe Online website.

They say the best things in life are free and, on that note, SOE’s flagship DC Universe Online went free to play last month. In doing so, Sony has taken a game that was initially met with passionate indifference, and turned it into an unmitigated success.  The million dollar question, however, still remains: “should I play DCUO?” The answer is an unqualified yes—it’s a triple-A title, it has that great DC flavor and it’s free to play. If any of these talking points even come close to tickling your fancy, you owe it to yourself (and your fancy) to give DC Universe Online a try. Now that we’ve gotten the housekeeping done, let’s talk about the “hows” and “whys” of it all.

I think everyone over at SOE's DCUO Studio is already getting into the holiday mood, as the latest news post from the team detailing the contents of Update 7 is... rather underwhelming. But that isn't to say that Update 7 will be jam packed with fun! Holiday themes are going to be big this update with Larfleeze, the leader of the Orange Lanterns, stealing presents from heroes and villains alike.

Also, there's a new 5v5 PvP map, The Watchtower, on its way. So celebrate Christmas by bashing your friends! Happy Holidays!

On Wednesday afternoon, we sat down with DC Universe Online's creative director Jens Andersen and executive director of development Lorin Jameson, in a roundtable interview, to discuss the upcoming downloadable content update based on the Flash. "Lightning Strikes," gives players access to new missions, instances, maps, as well as a brand spanking new power type: electricity.

The second major DLC pack for DCUO, "Lightning Strikes" follows in the footsteps of "Fight For the Light," the Green Lantern-centric DLC that was released earlier in the year. Similarly priced at $9.99, "Lightning Strikes" will introduce a new style of map: a large scale shared instance where up to 50 players will be able to work in concert to save the inhabitants of Central City from a new enemy known as "Paradox Reapers." Also in this DLC pack are new story-based duo missions taking place inside the Flash Museum, in which players will be able to travel back in time using a new feature called the "Cosmic Treadmill." Heroes and villains alike will be tasked with protecting the past from an enemy who wishes to stop a young Barry Allen from ever being struck by lightning (hence the title), and thus, becoming the Flash. This looks to be an interesting and original take on origin stories, a subject matter that Hollywood has beaten into the ground with the fury of a thousand Brett Ratners.

Hot on the heels of its free-to-play shift comes some big update content from SOE. Update 6: The Deadly Double Cross is launching today to wrap up the three-part Fortress of Solitude raid series. In this new update, players get to take on General Zod, who has taken control of the Sun Crystal Matrix Chamber, earning some new Kryptonian Military weapons made from Sunstone crystals. This new update also introduces a new eight-man group combat raid, with players teaming up with Superman or Lex Luthor to take down Zod.

You can read the full patch note details (including some balancing tweaks) on the DC Universe Online Forums.

In a press release today, SOE's DC Universe Online has announced that they've registered over one million new player accounts in the one week since they've gone free-to-play, with a 50/50 split between new PC users and new PS3 users. I wonder how many of those accounts are purchasing Station Cash and taking part in DCUO's microtransaction system. Even if only a small percentage are, that's still quite significant for SOE! Congratulations DCUO!

Well this is a first. DCUO is apologizing to their players for being too successful, as server queues continue to mount in the face of overwhelming popularity. John Smedley tweeted two days ago that their game has grown to over 1000% of their pre-F2P concurrent numbers, which means that their servers are being hit with some pretty huge population surges.

On Facebook, Executive Producer Lorin "DeadMeat" Jameson posted a quick Producer Update noting that they are working hard to optimize their systems to shorten wait times. As well, more improvements will be made, including priority queuing for Legendary and Premum players, as well as Game Update 6. Let's hope they can grow fast enough to accomodate all their new players!