I've always enjoyed DCUO's PvP. The complex combo, blocking, and interrupt systems for all weapon attacks make player skill paramount, and the Legends system that lets you play as pre-made iconic DC characters provides a gear-agnostic zone to duke it out on a theoretically level playing field.

But while PVEers have gotten three huge updates since the game's transition to free-to-play late last year, PvPers have been chugging on mostly the same content. Yesterday's DLC release, The Last Laugh, makes up for lost time with huge additions that dramatically improve the PvP experience and reward cycle.

PvP changes that are free for everyone
Before we get into the Last Laugh DLC content itself (which subscribers get free, but F2P players need to pay $10 to unlock), let's take a look at the free PvP changes that came to everyone in the last two patches. Game Update 13 upped the skill ceiling by adding a Counter-Attack Immunity buff that grants complete immunity for a very short period after a successful Block Break, Interrupt, or Block Counter.

For those of you unfamiliar with those fighting-game terms, players in DCUO can block at any moment by holding the Shift key. While blocking, the player takes significantly reduced damage and counters any heavy attacks made against them. So if you see someone executing a big attack, a quick tap of the Block key at the right time will not only reduce the enemy blow, but knock them on their butt too. As the attacker, you have to be aware of when your target is blocking and use a specific attack combo or power that has the ability to break through blocks. On top of that, some powers or combos channel over a period of time, and defenders can interrupt those channeled attacks or heals with the right moves. In this environment, the Counter-Attack Immunity buff rewards players who fight smart, watch what their opponents are doing, and actively work to counter them.

And because no amount of content can make unbalanced PvP fun, Game Update 14 brought a huge balance sweep of all the iconic Legends right before this DLC pack launched. I still find myself getting beat down by a few Legends in particular, like Bane, but I suspect that my ignorance of Bane's moves is as much to blame as any balance issues. The same update also added cross-faction PvP queueing to speed up queue times, with an option for roleplayers to opt out if they simply refuse to play on the other side's team.



Gear + progression changes
Without this DLC pack, PvP is a fun diversion in DCUO, but the progression path and the breadth of activities simply aren't wide enough for it to be a "lifestyle" within the game. You could technically PvP all you wanted, but you really had to do other activities if you wanted to stay sane while playing the game regularly. The Last Laugh pack tacks on a lot of extra goodies to the PvP lifestyle: new quests, gear, and—of course—maps.

The quests are my favorite addition to the PvP package, giving you mini-objectives within PvP matches to keep each session feeling different. I've gotten straightforward quests to KO 30 villains in PvP, but also quests to take out specific iconic characters like Harley Quinn in Legends matches. Quests come from the other big addition to your daily PvP activities: reward boxes. Completing the daily PvP Arena or Legend will give you two reward boxes.



One box will contain a piece of low-tier PvP gear and the other a consumable item. The gear will be useless for anyone already decked out in fancy PvP duds, but it's a great way for noobs to get competitive quickly. The consumables, on the other hand, will be incredibly welcome for everyone. They're the perfect mix of useful and fun to keep me using them constantly. Just some of the consumables I received are a healing barrel summon, explosive oil barrel summon, buff cola, healing cola, seeds that cause AoE freeze, an explosion with AoE knockdown, and good ol' Mark bundles to help you purchase gear more quickly.

The new tier of PvP gear (tier 4) included in this pack that you'll be working towards is modeled after the Checkmate security firm in the O.M.A.C. comic books. It looks great, but it's still as out-of-reach as ever, priced way too incredibly high, it seems, to simply to keep you playing the game. The stat difference between Tier 2 and Tier 3 PvP sets is less than seven percent, but the cost is more than doubled, with each piece of the Tier 3 set costing at least a week's worth of effort in PvP tokens. Each piece of the Tier 4 set costs a month's worth of effort.

A full set (minus weapons and trinkets) of Tier 4 gear costs 270 Marks of Strategy, and in the past week I've earned four. It feels completely out of reach as it stands. At the very least, the lower Tier items should be given at a faster rate to help motivate us PvP noobs to press onwards.



A new challenger approaches!
Robin, Harley Quinn, Joker, Two-Face, Batman, Cat Woman, Huntress, Nightwing—have you noticed the trend yet? Every playable iconic in the Legends PvP mode before this pack is a part of the Batman family. The Last Laugh DLC almost doubles the roster size by adding seven new iconics, all from the Superman and Green Lantern families. Kilowog, Power Girl, Arkillo, Jon Stewart, Bizarro, Ursa and Amon Sur all join the fight, and you get one for free with the DLC pack (via the opening quest). Unlocking the rest doesn't take too long as their Marks of Legends costs are quite reasonable.

Being a Batman fan myself, I wasn't too excited about these characters before they came out, but I've really grown to appreciate them this past week. Even if you don't like playing as the new Legends, it's refreshing to have a whole new set of enemies to face off against. Ursa has become my new nemesis, constantly flying around and punching me in the face.



Don't tell Two-Face, but Bizarro has actually become my new favorite Legend. A flyer with knockbacks and AoEs is a great change of pace. There's a sense of incredible force behind his punches that gives a similar satisfaction of the Barbarian's corpse-punting in Diablo 3. I burst into laughter the first time I KOed Robin in the Batcave with Bizarro's charge ability and his tiny, helpless body went flailing off the edge of the platform into the stalagmites below. Take that, Boy Blunder!

The voicework is as amusing as ever, with Bizarro throwing out quips like, "Bizarro kill you with kindness!" as he sends his foes packing. I was impressed by how many interactions the iconics have between each other that at least seemed to be custom-tailored to who they were fighting.

On the next page, we look at the new arena PvP maps, the Shield weapon type, and the new Duo.



New places to fight
The best new content isn't for Legends, though--it's for Arena PvP, where everyone plays as their own character. Seven new maps focus on including NPC iconics like Superman, Deadshot, and Mr. Freeze as powerful variables or direct objectives. Both sides' headquarters, the Watchtower and the Hall of Doom, are turned into multi-stage 8v8 arenas stuffed with tons of NPC heroes and villains helping you take it over. Your objectives in these maps and their related scoring system aren't explained well (I'm still not entirely sure if success on the first stage actually does anything), but having the iconics fighting alongside you adds a lot to the combat and strategy. Your attention is constantly split, almost like a MOBA, between guarding your NPCs, attacking the other teams' NPCs, and dealing with enemy players.



The City Safehouse maps are equally terrific, and bring an element of randomness that boosts repeatability. All four maps (two set in police stations and two in nightclubs that players frequent) are lumped into one queue and each map can have one of two different modes. In one mode, you're stealing gravity emitters that spawn all around the room. Iconics and squishy mobsters/policeman join the fray and create plenty of mayhem as a backdrop for the players' fight over the gravity emitters.

When my team got close to winning, Harley Quinn jumped on the loudspeaker and started making gravity puns. A crowd in the background groaned after every one, but she kept going. After about six attempts all met with disapproval, she finally gives up and throws away the mic. This is the sort of thing that might get old over time if it's played too often and with too little variation, but for now it adds another layer of fun to the experience.

The second mode in the safehouses has no iconics roaming free at the start. Instead, teams battle over a single force field disruptor item, which they must carry/throw to the NPCs trapped around the building. Get it to an NPC of your faction and you free them and earn a ton of points for your team. NPCs close to the disruptors spawn location are simple civilians that'll run away, but if you can manage to escort your team's disruptor-carrier to the far away NPCs, you'll free powerful iconics like Huntress or Parasite to help you fight.



In both of these modes, player kills are worth almost no points, encouraging teams to play strategically and focus on objectives, rather than mindless killing in the middle.

The final arena added is The Pit: that central area in the Hall of Doom that villain players will be familiar with. The terrain is different, but the objective is straightforward. There are enemy players, and you must kill them. The first team to 20 kills wins, so it's at least over quickly if the teams aren't balanced.

Legends also got a token new map, although it's basically an identical copy of the Fortress of Solitude arena map that's been around for a while.



The Shield
Let's not be coy: DCUO added shields so we could pretend to be Marvel's Captain America. And being Captain America is awesome. The weapon has some pretty fun combos that are easy to memorize. Basically, you click the left mouse button like crazy and hold the left mouse button at any time to perform a combo based on how many clicks came before it. It's definitely one of the more simple weapons to play as, but the terrific animations make it fun to watch. All of the melee hits are single-target, with lots of CC and knock-ups.

The ranged attacks are the real reason why I'm keeping my shield equipped for the long haul, though. Once again, the combo is incredibly simple: do hold-clicks on the right mouse button repeatedly. You will cycle through a series of three attacks that send your shield whirling like a boomerang in front of you, dealing AoE damage and stunning everyone caught in front of you. Best of all, each of the three attacks in the combo are block breakers. The animations are once again magnificient, letting you picture the shield bouncing off the enemies' heads before returning to you. Most importantly, it gives my healer a great way to contribute to the fight from a safe distance. I can AoE stun the enemies and break through all of their blocks from afar, allowing my up-close DPS buddies focus on unleashing maximum pain.

I haven't seen all of the appearances yet, but there seems to be a pretty healthy variety. I've been bashed in PvP by spikes, gears, lion crests, and—my personal favorite—a trash can lid.



The other stuff
There's not a lot in this pack for PVEers, but there is one nice nugget on top of the Shield weapon type (if you're into that sort of thing): the new Duo. Shady Nightclub is the first Tier 3 Duo in the game, meaning that it gives Marks of Krypton, which are used to buy gear from the Fortress of Solitude raids. Unfortunately, that also means it comes with the same obnoxiously high Combat Rating requirement (a system that locks you out of endgame content based on the quality of your gear). You need a whopping 53 Combat rating to enter the new Duo, which means I wasn't able to test it out.

The few reports I've heard from players that have gotten to try it out so far have been fairly positive, for whatever random chat channel hearsay is worth to you.

Bottom Line
The Last Laughter DLC is a must-buy for anyone that PvPs for a significant amount of time in DCUO—its new maps are the best in the game and the Legends characters and rewards structure jump on to easily make this pack worth more than the $10 price tag. However, if you don't like PvP, you can easily skip this pack—there's not much here for you outside the new Shield weapon type.

I remind any PvP fence-sitters forget that a huge chunk of PvP is completely free to play. Download the client and give the free PvP content a shot--if you enjoy the combat system and the rulesets, you can get a ton of enjoyment out of DCUO by only picking up this DLC and ignoring the rest of the packs until you crave endgame PVE content.

Shields and epic PvP battles are the big themes of DC Universe Online's next DLC Pack, The Last Laugh. This exclusive new video from the dev team shows off some of the new weapon type's animations-in-progress and talks about their goals for Shields in the game. I talked with the game's creative director, Jens Andersen, about the most iconic shield-bearers in DC comic books and exploded in happiness when I heard who we'll be fighting alongside in the pack's PvP arenas.

PC Gamer: The Shield weapon is a part of the huge PvP update, but is it designed for PvP primarily?

Jens Andersen: We always want to add something to the player package when we release a new DLC. In The Last Laugh, we added Shield as a new weapon option. Even though the new DLC focuses on PvP, Shield can be used effectively anywhere in the game, just like the rest of the weapons.

PCG: In your opinion, who’s the coolest DC character to ever wield a shield?

JA: There are lots of characters that have hefted a shield in the DC universe. For example, Wonder Woman uses one in battle all the time, but typically she does so with a sword in her other hand. But this new weapon is different: it is all board and no sword.

The character that it was modeled after is named The Guardian. He was created by Jack Kirby in 1942, so he's been around for a long time. The Guardian is a super soldier, with superior strength, speed, endurance and regeneration. He wields an indestructible shield and is a master of hand to hand combat. The coolest part of the character is that he is a clone, and when one version of The Guardian dies, it's replaced by another clone. This process has been going on for decades.

I think people would really like the character if they checked him out and I hope we see more of him in the comics in the years to come.



PCG: What are one or two combos that the Shield has access to, and were they inspired by any particular comic book scenes?

JA: The combo tree for Shield is really cool. It's kind of like Staff, but it takes the chains to a new level. Each basic attack can transition into a heavy attack, but rather than having that heavy attack end the combo chain, players can keep it going by jumping back into the light attack change. They can go back and forth until they reach the end of the attack chain.

For example, light attacks would be : L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, etc. Heavy attacks would be : H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, etc. So players could string the following combos: L1, H2, L3, L4, H5 or L1, L2, H3, L4, H5, L6. It’s a very versatile combo tree and players are going to love it. The attacks range from bashing opponents with the shield, striking with the open hand and even powerful kicks.

PCG: Getting into the PvP side of the update, a lot of the new PvP content seems to be based in the opposing side’s strongholds. Are these instanced Arenas, or are we actually invading the other faction's police headquarters and night clubs in the open world?

JA: Players are not invading the public versions of the HQs and Safehouses. These are Arenas. Players will use the queuing system to enter the Arena with random players or a pre-made group if they like.



PCG: Did you consider opening up the Safehouses in the open world, and why did you ultimately decide not to?

JA: We didn’t want these to be public spaces for a few reasons. First, we want a balanced experience so the matchmaking system is important. Second, we wanted very specific game modes, rather than just a raid on the HQ where you may or may not run into resistance. In that scenario, you simply kill a particular NPC. By using this approach, we can make custom game modes tailored to the space and then expand on those in the future without messing up the previous versions. Third, there's no way to get into the HQs without zoning—you can’t travel to them in the open world—so there were many complexities to queuing invaders into the space that didn’t add much at this time so we didn’t pursue it.

PCG: Assaulting the Watchtower or Hall of Doom is a momentous feat. Will there be iconics showing up in the fight to help, like in the Arkham Asylum Legends map?

JA: Our goal with The Last Laugh was to bring the iconic characters to the forefront of PvP like never before. Legends PvP is getting a huge increase in the roster—oh yes, there are more!—and the new arenas will pull from a large roster of legendary heroes and villains to take part in the battle. Each team will have three iconic allies each match. Characters like Professor Zoom, Black Adam, Gorilla Grodd, Solomun Grundy, Cheetah, Superman, Shazam, Kilowog, Power Girl, Raven and many more will be making regular appearances. It’s an iconic slug fest, and the players are right in the middle.

A while back, an OCD DCUO player put together a detailed map of the game's main hub for heroes, The Watchtower. Today, another industrious fan took it three steps further by building detailed interactive maps for all of DCUO's two major cities, Gotham and Metropolis, inside of Google Maps. And now he's in the process of adding icons to help you locate everything you could possibly want to find in the urban sprawl.

Going by the name Happy-Cat (located in "The Happy Cave" according to his profile) on DCUO's official forums, this hero didn't make the original maps, but has done a tremendous job of migrating and updating them to reflect the new positions of collections, briefings, bounties, and races as the game gets patched. He's still in the process of updating them with new information, so be sure to jump into this forum discussion to let him know what you'd like to see on the maps next.

You can find all four versions of his maps here:
Gotham map, no legend
Gotham map, with legend
Metropolis map, no legend
Metropolis map, with legend

As always, you can download and play DC Universe Online for free, and I highly recommend you do--especially after the latest content patch.

Like 'em or not, lockboxes are the latest craze in free-to-play games. These little chests of mystery show up on your fallen foes sealed alarmingly well, and often require a special key purchased from the cash shop to open them. DC Universe Online will be the latest to jump on this trend with next week's patch, but it will at least allow subscribers to open all of them for free. In addition, subscribers will be getting a few other nice perks starting next Tuesday.

My favorite of the new perks is the monthly stipend of 500 Station Cash, roughly $5 worth of cash shop currency that can be used to pick up all sorts of goodies. Also awesome: SOE is adding the ability for players to reset their instance loot lockout timers, which'll let you double-up on gear rewards if you have a free weekend. Resetting a lockout will cost a different amount of Replay Badges, depending on the type of content: 12 Replay Badges for a Duo, 29 for an Alert, and 87 for a Raid.

Subscribers will get 150 Replay Badges dropped into their bags every 30 days to let them run their favorite content more often, with additional Replay Badges costing about three cents a piece. The reason I like this new perk so much is that it adds an option that wasn't in the game before, and lets subscribers sample it for free without changing the experience of free-to-players at all. These two new subscriber perks are terrific, and are a show of good faith on SOE's part.



The third perk is more of a mixed bag: it's great for subscribers, but will likely annoy the majority of free players. Starting Tuesday, Promethium lockboxes will have a chance to drop off of every enemy in the game above level 10. These will contain random pieces of new, unique gear and Marks that can be used to purchase endgame gear. Subscribers will be able to open them at will (yay, free gear!), but free players will need to purchase keys from the cash shop to crack 'em open.

I'm not a fan of this kind of lockbox system, which fills free players' inventories with potentially useless items that constantly remind them that they're not paying money. But some free players will want to pay for these boxes and subscribers will definitely be happy to receive the extra loot and Marks while playing. And to be fair, no other free-to-play MMO is as generous with these lockboxes to their subscribers as DCUO is. Most other MMOs with a similar system require their subscribers to pay for the keys, just like free players. The big problem I have with DCUO's system is the price tag on the keys: $2.50 is abnormally high.



For comparison, Allods Online, which doesn't have a subscription option, has been dropping lockboxes that require cash shop keys to open for over a year, charging 50 cents per key and allowing them to be traded between players in-game. Since December, Lord of the Rings Online has run a similar gambling-style game with its lockboxes and treasure-hunting system, but it requires subscribers to purchase keys at $1.33 a piece, on top of their monthly fee.

Star Trek Online added Cardassian Lock Boxes back in December, which can hold anything from a super rare spaceship to crappy consumables, and charges $1.25 per key to open the little buggers—also not free for subscribers. And more recently, City of Heroes added some random looting with its Super Packs, which give five random items for $1. But CoH's super packs don't drop from creatures and can only be purchased in the store--a good compromise that keeps the packs from pestering those players not interested in playing a little gear-roulette with their money.

The big non-MMO to use a similar lockbox mechanic is Team Fortress 2, which also charge $2.50 for players to open a single lockbox, which will contain a random item.

So by comparison, DCUO's system treats susbcribers extremely well, although it isn't doing free players any favors with steep key prices. For more info on the changes to DCUO next week, you can see the official community post and FAQ.

It's never good when things come out of Tartarus. For those of you that slept through Greek mythology (that's a class, right?), Tartarus is a horrible, horrible place in the darkest corner of the Underworld where only the most foul and dangerous of monsters/Titans/gods/people are imprisoned and punished for eternity. If something comes out of there you can know it's going to be two things: incredibly powerful and terribly pissed off.

And that's right where DC Universe Online's latest DLC pack, The Battle For Earth, starts: über-villain Braniac waltzing out of the gates of Tartarus with a new arsenal of powers to obliterate mankind with.

Earth, Wind, Wat--no, cut the rest
Thankfully, the heroes and villains of the world have some new powers in their pack too, courtesy of the new playable Earth power set in the DLC. There's two things that had me really excited about this new powerset before launch. First, I was excited to try out Aftershock, the new mechanic the powerset's Seismic tree introduces that lets you cast a spell multiple times in a row before the cooldown goes into effect. The extra ability casts are usually increasingly more powerful versions of the original ability, but there are some unique effects as well.



I got my first ability with Aftershock yesterday: Upheavel, which launches a small tornado of dust that whips ahead, damaging and knocking down whoever it hits. Casting it once is pretty useless--the damage is underwhelming and the power cost is high. But with Aftershock, I can toss out four increasingly large and dangerous tornadoes that absolutely tear it up. One ability with all the Aftershocks was enough to clear most non-elite groups I faced. It's glorious and I love that it feels more involved than simply hitting the ability and moving on. Not to mention the tornadoes pick up, throw, and destroy other objects it runs into, which makes for a nice physics show.

Second, I loved the concept of a pet tank class. Earth powers let you build mini-me statues and divert damage headed towards you or your groupmates towards the little rock-people instead. It sounds like a fun mini-game to tank with, and a little more interesting than the other two tank power sets in the game, which never grabbed my interest. My new Earth powers character isn't quite high enough level to really use the tanking system yet (you can unlock your first damage-diversion ability at level 12), so I can't report on how that feels yet. I'll be leveling up my little earth stomper as quickly as I can, though, and will report back once I get in my first few alerts as a real tank.



The top-end stuff
The new power set is only one tiny part of the update. The majority of the new content is up at level 30, so I hopped over to my max-level Sorcery healer and headed out to South Gotham. It took me awhile to find Braniacs new minions roaming South Gotham (hint: they're mostly on the Eastern edge of the Old Gotham section of the city), but man are there a lot of them! I haphazardly stumbled right into a nest of tiny leaping brain bugs and within 10 seconds, I was getting gangbanged by 20+ servants of Braniac. It was insane.

I never found the new daily quests that are supposedly out there somewhere, but I did manage to join up with a roaming group of heroes battling the robots down there. There wasn't anything mind-blowing in this open world portion, but the robots are varied and have some interesting attacks. It's a fun new section of the city for new level 30s to explore and get beaten to death repeatedly, and a good challenge for geared players looking to push their skills in a 1-on-200 gauntlet.



Once I tired of being a solo badass (and the long death runs that accompanied that), I decided to queue up for the new Duos--the only max-level content in the new DLC I'm geared enough to quality for. The new Alert, South Gotham Courthouse, requires Combat Rating 53 and the two new Raids, The Gates of Tartarus and The Prime Battleground, require Combat Rating 70. So I took my embarrassing Combat Rating of 43 and queued for all three of the new Duos (whose entrances are located around that new open-world area along the coast of southeast Gotham.

I got called into Riverside Hotel, which is trapped inside one of Braniacs' giant bottles. My partner and I were tossed into the bottle and given a simple instruction: destroy 16 of Braniacs machinery inside. These objectives are semi-random, rotating between one of three possible objectives each time (the second time I ran the Duo, I had to blow up cables attached to the buildings and there were a lot of conspicuous pods with humans trapped inside them that I suspect is the third optional objective).



Once you're dumped inside the bottle containing your building of choice, you can move around the area however you like. It's not a large area, but being able to move about the whole place freely and approach enemies however you wanted to was a great change from some of the other Duos that funnel you straight down hallways. The enemies were pretty straightforward, replicas of the enemies found out in the open world invasion area. Tiny brain droids that leapt through the air to ambush me from scaffolding above the alleyways were my personal favorite, and always caught me off-guard.

Unlike earlier duos, this one doesn't drag its feet--after you complete that one objective, its straight to final boss time. Both times, I fought against a massive robot that could pull and throw me around the entire bottle, summon waves of minions, detonate itself like a bomb, and heal itself. With a lesser-geared partner, it's a very tough fight that'll require you to stay on top of interrupting the boss' self heal. On my second run, I was paired up with a DPS god, who (after wiping twice) was able to burn through the bosses health with very little problem--jumping out of DPS range only to avoid the boss' bomb attack a couple times.



It's a solid, fun piece of content, even if it doesn't revolutionize Duos. And I like the design--reminiscent of WoW's Scarlet Crusade dungeons--that breaks up what would've been one long Duo into three separate bite-sized chunks. My first run through the Riverside Hotel took 20 minutes, and the second run took 8. That's a tiny time investment for 4+ chances at a gear upgrade and a daily bonus. In under half an hour, my character got 3 pretty decent gear upgrades, and put me a few Combat Rating points closer to tackling the big chunks in this new content.

Should you buy it?
Without having played the high-end raids, I can't give an unequivocal endorsement for purchasing this content pack for $10, but from what I've seen, I think this will definitely be worth top-end players' time. As a new player (you can download and play the game for free right now), I'd recommend holding off on picking up this pack unless you have an intense, insatiable desire for Earth-themed powers. Play around with all the free power sets and see what role you like to fulfill in Alerts and Raids. Once you've figured that out, it'll be easy to pick between the 3 DLC packs when you're ready to throw down some cash. Hopefully by that point, you'll have a higher level character with decent enough gear to let you take advantage of the top-end content that comes with this pack too.

If you decide to jump into DCUO as a hero, this map'll help you navigate the Watchtower and find what you need.

The Battle for Earth DLC will finally give DC Universe Online players the chance to take down Braniac, who's been bothering Earth's citizens with his plans for world domination ever since DCU came out last year. As mentioned in our DC Universe Online update reveal, heroes will be heading to Wonder Woman's home town on the island of Themyscira, aka Paradise Island. It sounds like a nice place for a superhero to take a holiday but THIS IS NO HOLIDAY. Unless you count fighting a giant robot sphinx as a holiday, which Batman probably does.

Anyway, it's out on March 13, and promises extra stuff for players of all levels. There's a big invasion of Gotham to deal with and there will be a suite of new Earth powers to acquire, explore, reject and eventually embrace, as the typical superhero origin narrative arc demands. Find out more about the Battle for Earth on the DC Universe Online site, and check out these superheroic scenes from the battleground of Paradise Island.

Sony Online Entertainment have announced that the running of many of their games is transferring to German publisher ProSiebenStat.1 Games Group in Europe. Games affected include EverQuest II, DC Universe Online, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Free Realms, and this year's Planetside 2.

While SOE will continue to manage the European servers for their games, European players will no longer be able to play with friends in the US. The two providers will use separate account systems and virtual currencies, effectively splitting each game in two.

Existing European players will be asked to create an account with the new provider, and SOE will be offering a way to transfer characters and progress as well as any virtual currency in their possession. European EverQuest II players, meanwhile, will be able to use their SOE accounts as normal after the handover is complete. All new European players will go through ProSieben, however, meaning that Planetside 2 will be region locked.

SOE's FAQ on the subject says that "generally speaking, prices for game content, in-game items and services will remain similar." We've contacted SOE for comment on what this means in practical terms, and whether European players should expect a price hike. We've also asked what measures are being taken to ensure that patches and updates are localised quickly. We'll let you know what SOE have to say.

That intergalactic jerk Braniac has been bottling the cities in DC Universe Online and stealing Earth's citizens for too long. His attempted take-over for Earth has been the primary storyline in DC Universe Online for the past year, since the game's launch in January 2011. A year and a few raids later, we're finally going to be able to go toe-to-toe with Mr. smarty-pants when the next content pack takes us to Wonder Woman's native island of Themyscira. We've got the exclusive scoop on what players will find there, and where DCUO is headed after its big, bad villain is down for the count.

PCG: Those hydras and architecture seem to indicate that we may be fighting on Wonder Woman’s Themiscyra. Is that where this screen is taken? If so, is it a whole new open-world zone, or just an Alert?

Jens Andersen, Creative Director: Yes, this is on Paradise Island, otherwise known as Themyscira. The situation is so dire they're allowing men on the island to defend it, which is unheard of for the most part. The Gates of Tartarus have long been guarded by the Amazons. Suddenly they are taken by surprise as Brainiac emerges from the gates of Tartarus, having stolen the power he sought inside, and is now assaulting Themyscira from within with a surprise attack. It’s a bad situation and the Amazons are looking for help from just about anywhere to aid the, in stopping Brainaic’s Avator of Magic from escaping the Island.

PC Gamer: Braniac is fighting us directly? I always figured he was more of a “sit back and let minions take you out” sort of bad guy. What is it that finally pushes him to face us personally?

Andersen: As a comic-book cut scene explains in-game, this was actually Brainiac’s final push, but Future Lex Luthor knew it was coming—and he hid the truth from everyone, even his past self. So, as history has unfolded, it's only now that we realize we’ve done little to divert Brainiac’s plans. Future Luthor wanted the confrontation to play out as it did in his timeline, so HE could seize victory from Brainiac at the last moment. Thankfully, Future Batman doesn’t break his promise that he will be "coming for Luthor," and he shows up at the end to save our bacon… or does he? It's a big cliffhanger to enjoy as we launch a new storyline surrounding these two mysterious iconics from an alternate future.

PCG: Braniac seems to be wielding some sort of demonic staff. Are those tentacles behind him coming from the staff, or is that his other arm doing something crazy?

Andersen: That's the Avatar of Magic. Throughout the fight, he will go through many different phases thanks to the power he obtained in Tartarus—the Flame of Change. It allows him to create Chimeric minions and alter his own form as he sees fit. Those are the Horns of the Bull he has on in the screenshot, and it lets him do some powerful charges.



PCG: It also looks like we might have just fallen in through that hole in the dome above. Will the fight feature changing terrain like that?

Andersen: The hole above is not where the players enter from, they can however look down into it from behind a portcullis at the start of the raid. The whole map makes a big loop around itself and you often get glimpses of what’s coming next along with some fantastic vistas.

PCG: Braniac’s been the ultimate bad guy of the entire game up until this point, is it time for players to take him out for good? It almost feels too soon for us to be taking him down. Is this the final act in the story arc that started at launch?

Andersen: Well, never count a comic book character out . But yes, this is Brainaic’s final push, but it will be an ongoing one as he tries to recover from the player’s resistance and future Luthor’s manipulation of everyone, including Brainiac. The presence of the new heroes and villains, our players, is what made us able to defeat Brainaic so soon in this timeline. The story will then move into a new phase, but Brainiac’s actions will always have a lasting effect on DC Universe Online as he gave birth to the exo-bytes which created many of the new heroes and villains our players created in the game.

PCG: Will defeating him affect the bottled buildings around the game world?

Andersen: Once Brainiac’s initial plans are thwarted in the raid, he is hamstrung, but not completely defeated. He will continue to try and regain control of the situation to continue his plan to assimilate the multiverse. Now the pressure is on for him to do that before Future Luthor takes his place. He’s relentless after all. So the bottles and the actions of the Union around them will always be something players can take part in—an epic battle to save the Earth.

PCG: Will another mega-villain rise up to threaten the world, or will it go back to a semi-normal state? If so, is the idea to rotate the game world through various crises over time, such as No Man’s Land Gotham? Roughly one year for every major crisis?

Andersen: We want to provide a many-colored tapestry for our players. Focusing on one storyline isn’t needed with the pace at which we release content. So players can look forward to the next chapter in this story, resolutions to some of our launch stories, as well as totally new things in the years to come.

DC Universe does a lot of things really well, but building easily-navigable hangout spots is not one of them. The Justice League Watchtower and Hall of Doom serve as the primary meeting points for all Hero and Villain characters, respectively. Both house a ton of useful objects—like the Phase Shifter, which allows you to swap between PvE and PvP phases of the server at will—but not all of them are easy to find.

The cryptically-named RedDragon74 over at DCUO Life has done heroes a great service by putting together an all-encompassing map that labels the locations of everything you'll need in the Watchtower and also provides a full list of bounty locations and a complete breakdown of how to earn the different PvE currencies at endgame. It's not the prettiest map ever made, but all the info is here.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an equivalent for the Hall of Doom quite yet (sorry, Villains), but the endgame breakdown list should still be able to help ne'er-do-gooders.

I've always liked DC Universe Online's twist on the classic tank-healer-DPS trinity that defines most MMORPG's group roles. DCUO gives everyone access to two roles—DPS and then either tank, healer, or control (CC and power-restoration), based on their power selection—and lets them swap between them whenever they want.

It's a hybrid system that lets players specialize, while limiting the usual problem of there being too few healers or tanks because most people want to be able to level and solo efficiently. As a result, the queue times in DCUO are much shorter than they are in many other MMOs. And with the Role-Optional Alerts SOE's adding in the game's next update, which use specialized buffs to make any combination of players an effective group, players should be able to form groups almost instantly.



When the tool puts together a group of players, it analyzes what key role(s) your group is missing, and grants the entire team a buff that helps shore up their weakness. Your group will still have to be organized however, as the buffs will only be effective when all four players are fighting together.


If you don't have a tank, everyone in the group receives a buff that reduces the damage they take. Not enough to make everyone tanks, but enough to make the incoming damage manageable for your healer.
Oh no! You're missing a healer too? Well, everyone in your group will receives a buff that triggers a "small amount" of regeneration whenever their health dips below a certain point. Tanks without a healer in the group will always be regenerating.
And finally, if you're missing a controller, your group will receive a buff that gives everyone "varying amounts" of power during combat


 

The game's Duos—which plant two characters in a more challenging version of a solo instance—already function off of a similar desire to get people playing together, regardless of their character type, and have been a huge success by all accounts.

In the same update, SOE is also adding Novice Raids, alternate versions of all existing raids with lower gear and difficulty requirements. Their goal is to allow everyone to experience the story arcs told inside the Batcave, Kahndaq, and the Fortress of Solitude, and to let players start raiding much quicker after hitting the level cap, if they want to. Novice Raids will award the same quality of gear that existing raids do, but reward less of it per run.