Weekly MMO news round-up: DC Universe gets Green Arrow, LOTRO screens, CrimeCraft goes free

Quite a bit of stuff regarding MMOS this week.

CrimeCraft will go free-to-play, Turbine released new screens for Siege of Mirkwood, Green Arrow is making his way into DC Universe online, there are a couple updates on World of Warcraft movies, and a whole other bunch of stuff happened too.

Read on past the break for the lot.

• Fans of DC Comics, or those looking forward to DC Universe Online should be pleased to know that Green Arrow, a.k.a. Ollie Green, will be present in the MMO when it's released. SOE has the screens of the green one posted here, in the screenshots section.

• Five new exclusive Star Trek Online screens where handed over to Massively by Cryptic this week. The lucky gougers. You should go have a look because each one is amazingly full of Star Trek awesomeness.

• Bounty Bay's new expansion Beyond the Horizon, will contain weekly PvP tournaments through 1v1, 2v2 and 5v5 when the update goes live later this year. There's loads more to the expansion than that though, which is posted in detail on the official website.

• With Issue 16: Power Spectrum for City of Heroes, NCsoft has reactivated all accounts and heroes plus all villains will get double experience this weekend and influence/infamy is doubled as well. This all begins October 8.

• Those who play Champions Online might be interested in the lore behind Blood Moon. Awesomely, players can do battle with zombie versions of the greatest heroes to have fallen in the Battle of Detroit. Once defeated, players will then head into Takofanes' crypt and free the spirits of those same heroes.

• Speaking of Champions Online, lifetime subscribers to the game should check their in boxes for three free buddy passes that were handed out to players, so they can give their friends 14 days of free play. More details on that are through here.

• IMDB has updated details on the Warcraft movie, Warcraft: The Rise of the Lich King. Slated for a 2011 release, it's said that Thrall will be in the movie, the story will be told "primarily from the Alliance point of view", and it's set about a year prior to when the game's timeline began. It's said to be more about war than adventure, so don't go in expecting Lord of the Rings or anything.

• On that note, Turbine has released some fantastic screens from Siege of Mirkwood, its upcoming expansion to Lord of the Rings Online: The Mines of Moria. Eurogamer has the lot. Looking through the gallery is making us a bit giddy, to be honest.

• While not really an MMO, CCP revealed during fanfest that DUST 514, its strategic FPS for consoles which ties in with EVE Online, will not require a subscription to play, but instead will run off of microtransactions via a "virtual items marketplace". It's all over on Eurogamer through that link there, and the site also has a full preview of the game here.

• Runes of Magic's next content update is set to land next week with Chapter 2: The Elven Prophecy, and those who play should expect to be traversing the Cave of the Water Dragon soon. Six player teams at a level cap of 55, can "quest from Polython to the Throne of Water in the Weeping Coast, where they will meet Zanordoth, King of Water Dragons," reports Massively. Sounds rather interesting really, and the trailer proves it.

• Looks like Vogster's CrimeCraft will go free-to-play by the end of October. Soon, players can download the full thing as a trial so as to "experience the major features of the game for free for as long as they want." Then, should you like what you see and do, you can upgrade to the $9.99 per month subscription or $4.99 per month. Each subscription model differs in "customization, skill slots, speed of experience gain and inventory capacity." BigDownload has you need to know on this right here.

That's it for this week.