So, I payed for DCUO when it first came out. I payed for about ... half a year? Well, somewhere between three months and half a year. Now that that's out of the way, I think I'll give my perspective on it after quitting it while content was very stagnant, to a now free to play and more content rich game.

There are three levels of membership from best to worst: Legendary, Premium, and Free. You can become a premium member if you spend $5 or more on the game. Legendary access is still at $15 a month.

The Good

DC Universe Online has always had a great combat system. I still have not played such a seamless blend of RPG mechanics and fluid/fast combat in an MMO. The leveling up process is very enjoyable for those that have some sort of knowledge of DC comics characters and fiction, and it is actually very speedy. You could probably level up and hit max level between 1-2 days if you tried ... for better or for worse. Anyways, let's take a look at the changes:

• Free membership members get to play the game for free, and get updates/balance changes like everyone else.
• Free members also have a fair, but reduced, number of item slots, character slots (2), bank slots, can join but not create leagues, and get a free vault ticket per week (raffle ticket basically)
• Premium members who, like me, have returned to DCUO after paying for a while get updated perks like more bank, character, and item slots.
• Premium members also receive a vault ticket every 3 days.

For the most part, this stuff is awesome. The extra content they have added is welcome, and necessary because the level cap is still a very low 30. It's great that free members can level up and communicate with higher level characters, and that they have given extra benefits to people who have supported their game in the past. Now for ...

The Bad

The transition to free-to-play is not without some rough edges, as well as some seemingly disgusting changes.

• Premium members cannot trade cash with other players, and free members cannot trade at all. (This is really weird sectioning off part of the economy to even the free members. I understand that free members should not be getting crazy cool loot, but not even being able to trade money makes this next part even worse.)

• Free members do not get to use the auction house, mail items or cash, and have a maximum cash limit of 1500. Premium members have a limit of 2000 and can only trade/mail items. (Not only is this crazy, because repairs for high level or mid level content cost more than that, but they are also allowing players to collect more than the limit and storing the 'extra' earnings in an escrow account. In order to withdraw funds from the escrow accounts, players need to pay real money. This does not increase the maximum limit, but only withdraws cash to say 10k or 25k and any more cash collected is added to escrow again. Also, the auction house is virtually unusable as of now, because almost anything useful is more than 2000 by a long shot. Pretty despicable.)

• Free and Premium members have chat limitations. For example, Free members can only send 6 text messages per 30 seconds. Premium members - same thing but have proximity chat enabled. (I'm assuming group chat (voice) is enable for all, but what is the point on this limitation for anyone? It doesn't really stop gold farmers, or annoying people, and only hinders the necessary communication factor in a game like this.)

I understand that the whole business model is to cause people to want to pay for the game. Microtransactions, limitations, and more are supposed to make people want to pay a little extra for a cool thing. However, they have created a lot of hate by taking necessary things and placing ridiculous restrictions on them. Their business model not only makes players want to go Pay to Play, but it almost forces them. With crazy limitations on money and items, there is an even larger step to being successful in the endgame. Look at it this way, a stack of 5 or so health potions at max level is $900! That is nearly half of the currency cap for Premium members let alone free members!

DCUO has really great mechanics, but it's not exactly free to play as of now. Instead of having players pay for cosmetic or fun things, they are required to pay for things that are necessary to having a balanced experience in the game. I hope they address some of these concerns in the future, because I really want to get back into DCUO, but they are making it a very challenging experience at the supposed free entry point. I suppose no free to play game is ever really free to play, but I should feel compelled to pay for extra things in a game like this and not forced.