SOE will be performing maintenance on all games and services beginning at 4:00 a.m. US Pacific Time on November 1, 2011. You may experience the following:
Here's a time zone converter to help you plan.
What better way to fill your Halloween goody bag than with DOUBLE STATION CASH®! Get Double Station Cash on Saturday October 29, 2011 starting at 12:01 AM PDT when you redeem any SOE Pre-Paid Game Card or buy Station Cash. Offer runs October 29, 2011, 12:01 AM PDT through 11:59 PM PDT; excludes purchase by mobile/SMS.
There are more tricks and treats in participating games throughout the SOE Trick-or-Treat Event! For more details visit www.soe.com/trickortreat.
Participating games include: EverQuest® EverQuest® II,;EverQuest® II Extended, DC Universe™ Online, Free Realms®, Star Wars®: Clone Wars Adventures™, PoxNora® and Magic : The Gathering – Tactics™
Following the recent hacker attack that kept Sony Online Entertainment offline for two weeks in May, Sony has "detected a large amount of unauthorized sign-in attempts on PlayStation Network (PSN), Sony Entertainment Network (SEN) and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) services." The activity occurred between October 7-10 and was an attempt to validate account information that was apparently stolen from other sources. Credit card numbers associated with these accounts are not at risk.
Here are the main details from Sony's press release:
"Less than one tenth of one percent of our PSN, SEN and SOE consumers may have been affected. There were approximately 93,000 accounts (PSN/SEN: approximately 60,000 accounts; SOE: approximately 33,000) where the attempts succeeded in verifying those accounts’ valid sign-in IDs and passwords, and we have temporarily locked these accounts. As a preventative measure, we will be sending email notifications to these account holders and will be requiring secure password resets or informing consumers of password reset procedures."
To reiterate, these unauthorized sign-in attempts were to verify account information that appears to be taken from other sources. According to Philip Reitinger, Sony's SVP and Chief Information Security Officer, "the overwhelming majority of the pairs resulted in failed matching attempts."
Sony Online Entertainment has launched Pre-Paid Game Time cards in Europe! To celebrate SOE is offering a Double Station Cash weekend exclusively to their European customers.
Redeem SOE Pre-Paid Game Cards anytime between 12:01 am CET Oct. 7, 2011 and 11:59 pm CET Oct. 10, 2011 to get double Station Cash. This offer is valid only through redemption of SOE Pre-Paid PC Game Cards purchased from participating retailers in Europe. Cards must be redeemed for Station Cash, not game time, to receive double Station Cash.
Retailers include: GameStop, WHSmith, Gamestation, and GAME.
Visit www.soe.com/gamecards for European retailers and game card information.
UPDATE Sept. 9th: Around 1:10 p.m. EDT the Nagafen server (EQ2) came back online. Go play!
A widespread power outage that struck San Diego this afternoon has brought down Sony Online Entertainment and many of its services. Currently login servers and forums are confirmed as down, though players already logged in seem unaffected. Zoning while in-game may disconnect you. Linda "Brasse" Carlson has been answering some questions on Twitter:
Brasse: SOE and most of San Diego has just lost power. No ETA. ;(
Brasse: “@cuppy: @Brasse Rolling blackouts?” not unless they rolled it out across the entire city and surrounds with no advance notice.
Brasse: “@gdcurry: @Brasse ACK! Was there an earthquake?” No earthquake discernable from this location. We are clueless as to cause
Brasse: “@NickMcLaren: @cuppy @brasse According to 10news, unplanned and no idea of the cause yet” [I blame the Vanu #Planetside]
For those of you locked out during this downtime you are welcome to join us on ZAM's IRC chat. Feldon of EQ2Wire also has set up a ZAM IRC java applet that you can use.
Between Friday, August 12 and Thursday, August 18, 2011, get a 30% discount* on Station Cash! Plus, check participating games for specials throughout the week.
Participating games include EverQuest®, EverQuest® II, EverQuest® II Extended, Free Realms®, Magic : The Gathering – Tactics™, Star Wars®: Clone Wars Adventures™, PoxNora® and Legends of Norrath™. Check back later in the week for more details on game-specific items!
Please note that the 30% discount* is on purchases of Station Cash and does not impact the redemption of SC cards.
* Offer not applicable to payments made by SMS or with pre-paid game cards or purchases of SOE Game Cards.
We had a blast at SOE Fan Faire 2011 last month, but it's already time to start planning out next year's convention! Community Relations Project Manager Aimee "Ashlanne" Rekoske has confirmed that Fan Faire 2012 will once again be held at Bally’s in Las Vegas. There are three openings available at the hotel in the fall, and SOE needs your help with picking the dates. Here are the possibilities:
The poll will remain open until August 19 at 10 a.m. PDT, so make your voice heard! The weekend in October currently has a substantial lead, but that could easily change as more players cast their votes.
Also, you may be wondering why the 2012 dates aren't in the summer. Linda "Brasse" Carlson, SOE's director of global community relations, said that these three weekends are the only ones Bally's has available in 2012. That's it! As for why Fan Faire will once again be held at Bally's, it's the most affordable solution for both the players and SOE. You can read her honest and in-depth response after the jump.
All SOE games and services are expected to be offline for several hours beginning in the very early morning hours on Tuesday:
Beginning July 12, 2011 at 1:00 a.m. US Pacific Time, we'll be performing maintenance on all games and services. During this maintenance, our forums, websites and games will also be unavailable. The estimated downtime for the maintenance is 7 hours.
We apologize for this interruption and will resume the affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.
SOE Fan Faire came to a close on Saturday night with the grand banquet and costume contest, and we were there to take photos of every costume that crossed the stage. Above you'll see the top winners of the contest, who certainly turned a few heads as they walked through Bally's hotel and casino in Las Vegas. The EverQuest II ratonga on the left won the best in show award. Her mouth moved when she talked!
Click here to visit our Fan Faire costume contest photo gallery and view every contestant's costume.
If you look closely, you'll find our very own Calthine dressed as a level 90 woodworker looking for work in EverQuest II! You can also see which costumes received awards from the audience.
Which costumes are your favorite? Let us know in the comments below!
SOE Fan Faire kicked off with a bang today thanks to a handful of newsworthy announcements from CEO John Smedley and other members of the Sony Online Entertainment team that were made during the opening community address. PlanetSide 2 was the biggest reveal, followed closely by details on the EverQuest and EverQuest II expansions that are launching this November. Also, SOE is launching new security authenticators to help players protect their accounts.
Keep reading after the jump for all of the details we learned during the community address, and keep an eye on ZAM for more Fan Faire news!
