Gnobrin posted on the official EQII forums:

On Wednesday, April 23, 2008 from approximately 9am PDT until 1:30pm PDT, all store services as well as character transfers shall be down for maintenance. This maintenance is planned to take about 3.5 hours.

- Now Accepting Applications for G.I.R.L-Gamers in Real Life-Competition-

SAN DIEGO, Calif. –April 1, 2008 – Applications are now being accepted for the 2008 G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition scholarship of up to $10,000 designed to educate and recruit more women into the field of video game production and design. Sponsored by Sony Online Entertainment LLC. (SOE) a global leader in online gaming, applications and complete rules for entry are available online at www.girl.soe.com.

The SOE G.I.R.L. -- Gamers In Real Life -- competition is the first of its kind to encourage students toward career paths in the field of video game design and production, ultimately resulting in the development of games that are more interesting for women to play.

According to Grimwell:

On Thursday, April 3, 2008, all SOE Station Players websites (including Guild sites) will be coming down for maintenance at 8:00 am US Pacific Time. The estimated downtime is 3 hours. We apologize for the inconvenience and will keep you updated if additional downtime is needed.

Gnobrin posteth:

Beginning at 4am PST/11am GMT on April 1, 2008 all game servers and community sites will be unavailable due to network maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 2 hours. We apologize for this interruption and will resume all game servers and community sites as soon as the maintenance is completed.

(...and no, this isn't an April Fools Day prank, this is a real maintenance. ~Gnobrin)

SOE announced today:

To provide our customers with more credit card security Sony Online Entertainment has partnered with Visa and MasterCard. Verified by visa and MasterCard Secure have now been added to our Station store purchase flow.

Q. How will this affect our customer?
A. When adding new subscriptions, changing a subscription or purchasing software from the station store you the customer will be prompted to join Verified by Visa or MasterCard Secure. An application will pop up and prompt you to join the security program.

Q. How much does it cost to join Verified by Visa or MasterCard secure?
A. It is completely free to join Visa and MasterCard’s security for online purchases.

Q. Why should I give Sony Online entertainment my personal information?
A. The information requested for these programs is not stored on any SOE servers. These programs are provided by Visa and MasterCard. Only Visa and MasterCard will retain the information you provide for your security.

Order page- VBV and Master Card sign up page- Please enter all requested information. This is a secure sight and only Visa or MasterCard will have your information.

Login Screen- after you have signed up for the security program you will need to login again to verify that the card has been secured.

In this SOE Podcast we get to hear EQ producer Travis McGeathy talk about EQ's 9th anniversary, and Nathan McCall and Liz Sigmund discuss EQII's Bristlebane day. In the end, no other discussion can out perform an interview with Norrathian paladin Mithaniel Marr! There's more to be heard though, so don't miss out.

This cast as well as all previous, can be found on the official SOE Podcast page!

[Edit: In case you decide not to listen, the SOE Fan Faire was discussed, and they mention having a countdown of days by next podcast, and a possible announcement before then! Let's all keep our fingers crossed!]

SAN DIEGO, CA & TOKYO, JAPAN (March 13, 2008) — In a strategic move to closely align itself with the strong growth of the worldwide online gaming market, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) announced today that Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) will report to Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, SCEI, effective April 1, 2008. The new structure is designed to mutually benefit both companies by further accelerating the PlayStation business through SOE’s strong online gaming expertise.

Ashlanne posted on the Station.com forums:

Beginning at 1am PDT/8am GMT on Wednesday, March 12th all SOE services including game servers, forums, game websites, and subscription services will be unavailable due to system maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 4 hours.

We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.