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!

It seems like making the shift to free-to-play has been very kind to DCUO. A recent tweet from SOE's John Smedley notes that they've had over 120k PC registrations in 2 days. A day later, he returned to say that they've accumulated over 330k new players. Concurrent usage appears to be up 600%! That's a lot of percents!

Jokes aside, it really seems like this F2P shift has done great things for DCUO, so hopefully it means that more frequent updates will bec oming in the future. If you haven't tried DCUO yet, you probably owe it to yourself to get in on the action!

Get your Free-to-Play on! DC Universe Online has now made the full transition to free-to-play, and that includes a website overhaul and a shiny FAQ for all of your... well... frequently asked questions. Of particular interest is the fact that the DCUO F2P model is more similar to Turbine's DDO or LOTRO than fellow competitors Champions Online. In other words, powers and customizations will be fully available to players, with DLC expansion packs and convenience purchases for all. As well, if you spend more than $5 on Station Cash for microtransaction purchases, you'll be automatically promoted to a Premium account, with a few more features and a lot more slots (Character, Inventory, Auction, and Bank).

If you're curious as to the big differences between DCUO's Legendary (subscription) status, Premium status, and Free status, go take a peak at the F2P matrix they've made on the site.

UPDATE: SOE has just announced that DCUO will be going free-to-play on November 1st! It's pretty much around the corner! The team does note that the launch will have a lot of downtime associated with it, but November 1st is the set date.

They've also noted some of the microtransaction costs, like $4.99 (500 station cash) for an extra player slot, $2.99 (300 station cash) for 9 extra bank slots, and $0.99 (100 station cash) for 5 auction slots. They've also noted that most purchases will apply across all characters in a premium account (which can be purchased for $5.00 one time).

Last month, Sony Online Entertainment announced that DC Universe Online will be going free-to-play in late October. Halloween's almost here and we still don't have a launch date, but SOE plans to rectify that tonight. They'll be announcing the free-to-play launch date during their live community broadcast on Stickam today, Oct. 27, at 4:30 p.m. PDT!

If you have a question for the DCUO team, ask it on Facebook and they may answer it during the broadcast. Either way, make sure you tune into Stickam tonight for that launch date!

The second annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards ceremony was held last night at GDC Online, and both Rift and Minecraft took home the top honors with two awards each. Rift earned awards for Best New Online Game and Best Online Technology, while Minecraft received the Best Live Game and Best Community Relations awards. Wizard101 pick up the Audience Award, which is voted on by gamers worldwide.

It's also important to note that EverQuest was inducted into the Choice Online Awards Hall of Fame. The classic MMO is in its 12th year of operation and has a new expansion scheduled to launch next month. Last year's inductee was Ultima Online.

You can view the full list of winners after the jump.

DC Universe Online Update 5: Fate of the Fortress is now live! It features the second phase of the three-part raid to stop Brainiac in his attempt to harness Kryptonian technology to destroy the Earth. Here are the main features from the patch notes:

• New Alert! – The HIVE Moon Base Alert is now available as a Tier 2 Hard Mode. Look for it under Alerts: Hard T2 in your On Duty menu.
• New Raid! – Enter the Fortress of Solitude and defeat The Avatar of Meta! Look for Fortress of Solitude: The Avatar of Meta under Raids in your On Duty menu.
• New PVP Arena! – Players can now battle against each other in a simulation of The Batcave. Look for The Batcave (2 vs. 2) under Arenas: PVP in your On Duty menu.
• Dueling! – Use the Action menu to challenge another player or turn on Dueling Mode and allow anyone to challenge you. For players who don’t want to participate you can turn off Duel invites in the action menu.

In case you haven't heard the news, DC Universe Online is going free-to-play this month for both the PC and PlayStation 3.

Do you want to see your in-game villain appear in the DC Universe Online Legends comic? Then be sure to submit some screenshots and a description of the character to Sony Online Entertainment by tomorrow, October 4 at noon PDT for a chance to win their latest contest! If you're interested in checking out the comic, issue 15 goes on sale on Wednesday, October 5.

DC Universe Online is going free-to-play this month, which will give many more players the opportunity to create both heroes and villains on the PC and PlayStation 3.