MMO News – DC Universe video, LotRO goes freemium, Guild Wars 2 at gamescom

On YouTube you can find some footage of DC Universe – Doomsday. It’s an epic battle between Superman and Doomsday, a super villain capable of killing Superman. You can either join Superman or Lex Luther with the winner taking Doomsday to a secret facility for the better of the world / your own personal benefit. The graphics don’t look so polished yet, though gameplay seems quite innovative. However, it remains to be seen how much of that is actually still going to be present in the final game.

In a move that will without a doubt tick off a lot of people who bought the lifetime subscription, Lord of the Rings Online is going to become free to play this fall. After making any significant headway towards WoW’s dominant position and seeing Dungeons&Dragons Online decent (a.k.a. 500% revenue increase) come-back by going freemium, this seems like a potentially smart move. It might allow them to seriously compete with WoW – a polished, western game with a great franchise might have a decent shot if it becomes free to play. It remains to be seen so if it’s going to be a major success – and if so, which other games will go under trying to compete with it (it certainly can’t help D&DO).

The E3 has in recent years really received its fair share of criticism. ArenaNet’s statement that they’ll avoid the E3 because it is not fan-friendly (read: a lot of money for too little publicity) in favor of the gamescom in Cologne, Germany (August 19-22) is thus no exception. However, some players might be disgruntled that ArenaNet would rather be fan-friendly in Germany than not quite so fan-friendly in the US. Luckily for those, PAX Prime (September 2-5) is a decent alternative, which promises to feature quite a bit of Guild Wars 2 content