Double and a Quarter Bonus XP Weekend - NOT!

From the SOE forums:

It's time to grab your favorite refreshments, dust off your neglected alts, and start your long weekend of hunting, fun, and adventure! The experience bonus will run from Friday May 28, 2010 (10:00 am, PDT) to Tuesday, June 1, 2010 (10:00 am PDT)

Even though we didn't reach 15K goal for the 50% rare spawn chance increase , we have decided to run a Rare Spawn Chance Increase of 25% to this weekend as well! Enjoy!

UPDATE: I've been fooled. Someone bumped up an old post from last year and I never noticed. This is from last year.
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Extra Free Packs in Legends of Norrath Card Game and Free Loot Card

All EverQuest players will receive extra packs free, because of the recent downtime. More interesting is that we also receive a free loot card, any loot item of your choice for your EQ character.

Even if you don't play LoN, a free loot card is worth signing into LoN for.

April Prizing!

We are also extremly [sic] apologetic about the lack of tournaments in April and May, so as a thank you for your patience with us as we reorganized, we will be awarding all Legends of Norrath players a Legacies Loot Card. All players will also receive 3 free Legacies packs.

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Patch Scheduled May 25, 2011

From the SOE forums:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 3:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 4:00 am MST, 5:00 am CST, 6:00 am EST, 11:00 am GMT, 12:00 CET) for a game update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for 5 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Just a quick reminder, if you experience any difficulty with the launcher after the upcoming game update the most recent version of launchpad can be found here.

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Some Client Crashing Memory Bugs To Be Fixed In June Patch

I have attempted to gather information about these [client] crashes [during raid instances], but very very few (most of whom I have been able to help) have sent me any further information. I understand it's not the players' job to fix these issues, but since we have not been able to reproduce the problems in-house, I'm asking for a bit of help. Sending debug.dmp and dbg.txt files to equserclient@soe.sony.com would be helpful.

If these problems are due to memory issues (which the majority of the ones sent in have been). There are some fixes coming in the June patch.

-- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

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Dragorn and Other Tank Mercs Hate Bug To Be Fixed

Dragorn tank mercenaries have been failing to generate the proper hate.

Chandrok, EQ Developer:

I was able to find a bug causing the Dragorn tank merc and a few others to not generate the proper amount of hate. This will be fixed in the June patch.

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SOE Announces "Hardcore Heritage" Temporary Zone Revamps in May, June, and July

From EQ Players site:

Are you ready to revisit some of your favorite classic zones and experience all new challenges? Well Hardcore Heritage is almost here!

Hardcore Heritage, one of our yearly events where we revisit some older zones and update them to provide a more challenging environment, is coming to a server near you soon! Spread over the months May to July, you'll have an opportunity to visit the old stomping grounds with entirely new foes to battle.

The schedule for events is as follows:

5/23 – 6/12

Blackburrow (Level 80)
Cazic Thule (Level 80)

6/13-7/3

Lower Guk (Level 85)
Unrest (Level 85)

7/1-7/21

Crushbone (Level 90)
?????????? (Level 90)

This year we're presenting two newly revamped zones, Crushbone and one other yet to be announced. Nostalgia and loot will abound, make sure you stop by and visit all the old spots from Trainer Hill to Emperor Crush's throne room itself! There's even a new challenge for two to three groups of players, can you defeat Emperor Crush and his stalwart allies?

How will you handle the might of the Crushbone Orcs? Check back in the coming weeks as we reveal the final exciting zone to receive a revamp this year. We're positively chilly with anticipation!

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SOE Announces In-Game Poll Results

Auto-Granting AA Poll Results are in. The results don't surprise me all that much to be honest other than the low number of votes received.

Yes - 55%
No - 21%
Don't Care - 14%
Yes, but not this solution - 4%
No, but I like free stuff - 3%
Yes, but I would choose a different expansion - 3%

No ETA on WHEN this will happen, but pretty safe bet that I'll be moving forward on this.

More surprising however, was the results for the removal of PC/Pet push on NPCs.

Yes - 44%
No - 34%
Don't Care - 22%

I'm really surprised there are so many of you against removal of push.

-- Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC

Naturally, SOE is not bound by these results. However, I expect they will implement these changes, as the polls just confirm what they were considering.

From this thread on the SOE forums.
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EverQuest is Back!

Restoration of SOE's game services will begin today. This phased restoration will include the return of nearly all of our portfolio of online games, the reinstatement of our game forums and websites, and added functionality to require players to reset their passwords.

Details on the in-game bonuses:

Double XP, Double Rare Mob Spawns, Double Faction Gains. All players, each character. From now until Sunday, May 22 2011 at 11:59 pm Pacific

In addition, all accounts, including unsubscribed, are getting free time. Even if you haven't used an account for years, you get 45 free days.
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SOE Announces "Make Good" Plan, Details To Come Here

From SOE's EverQuest page on Facebook:

Players with an active house will be credited one month of upkeep costs and the inactive period will be extended from 90 to 150 days. More information on SOE's "Make Good" plan to come!

UPDATE:

First and foremost, all impacted players will receive 30 days of game time added to the end of the current billing cycle in addition to one day for each day the system is down.

Additionally, many games are offering a variety of in-game items and special events to welcome players back once our services resume (per the outline below). This is true for both PC and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system based products.

[Removed non-EQ game information]

* EverQuest®: A series of events, including Double XP, Double Rare Mob Spawns and Double Faction Gains

[Removed non-EQ game information]

And finally, our Station Access subscribers will receive 500 Station Cash, in addition to the subscription time and items listed above.

Additionally, we announced today that SOE will provide its U.S.-based Station Account holders with complimentary enrollment in an identity theft protection program through Debix, one of the industry's most reputable identity protection firms. For Station Account holders who live outside the U.S., SOE will be offering similar programs, if and as available, and will provide details as they're confirmed for each country or territory.

According to their previous post, to SOE will be sending us email with the procedures for Debix enrollment:

Details, including how to sign up for the program, will be emailed to Station Account holders in the United States soon, and you will have until June 28, 2011 to sign-up and redeem your code. Additionally, Station Account holders will be required to reset their password prior to signing up for this program as an added security measure.

Since we have to change our password before signing up, we can't sign up until SOE is back online. So let's hope everyone identity and credit cards are fine until then. Although almost all credit cards should be safe, according to SOE, only a very small number were compromised.
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"Update" From SOE

SOE has provided us with very little information. Not even a daily, "EQ will not be up today" message. One wonders what the PR people as SOE do all day, it sure isn't keeping us in the loop.

SOE has created a Recent Updates page which should help.

UPDATE: SOE has belatedly begun to post "EQ will not be up today" messages on their Facebook page.

UPDATE: With very little information coming from SOE, rumors are everywhere and facts are almost nowhere to be found. The EQ2 Wire seems to be the best place to find out what is going on, since SOE has never understood the word "communication" (hint: try dictionary.com :).

From The EQ2 Wire we hear that Bloomberg.com reports, "The company is in the process of adopting an improved security system and its plan to restart the services fully by May 31 is unchanged".

Naturally, they are talking mostly about the PlayStation Network, since that is where Sony makes the most money. SOE (EverQuest) is just an afterthought.

UPDATE: Industry Gamers has posted a letter they claim was sent to Sony's publishing and development partners about the hack.
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Email from "SOE". Phishing or Legitimate?

Today email has been sent from "Sony Online Entertainment" with the URL of soe.innovyx.net. It has the Subject: "Important Customer Notification". It is a copy of the statement SOE posted on their website.

This email is highly suspicious. All of the links on the page, even though they appear to be to places like www.annualcreditreport.com, www.experian.com, and www.consumer.gov/idtheft, actually lead you to soe.innovyx.net.

Since SOE has reported that hackers have gained access to the email addresses of SOE customers, all email should be suspected of being fake.

It is highly recommended that you be wary of any email purportedly from SOE. Do NOT click on any links you find in such email. Instead, type the address you wish to go to into your browser address bar.

UPDATE: A SOE customer service representative on the phone stated that SOE did indeed send out email to their customers on this. Therefore, the email may be legitimate. However, the warning to be cautious and to NEVER click on email links but to type them in yourself is still good advice.

UPDATE: SOE's web site at https://www.soe.com/securityupdate/ says the following:

A press release was issued May 2, 2011 outlining these details. We are sending customer service notifications via email to all of our impacted account holders whose customer data may have been stolen as a result of an illegal intrusion on our systems. These emails will be sent by Innovyx, our third party email distributor, and will contain either 'soe.innovyx.net' or 'soe.sony.com' in the sender field. [Bold added]

So this email appears to be legitimate.
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All SOE Games and Websites Down for Security Reasons

All SOE games, including EverQuest, are down.

Here are some links from SOE explaining the issues: SOE Customer Service Security Update

And Press Release

Summation:

* SOE servers were hacked. Hackers gained everyone's personal info, including name, address (city, state, zip, country), email address, gender, birthdate, phone number, login name and hashed password. (A hashed password may or may not be secure, depending on how much other information the hackers have and how skilled they are. Theoretically, it should be secure but we don't know the extent of their access.)

* Credit card and bank info is supposedly safe, except for some non-US customers. SOE will be informing them if it is suspected their information is compromised.

* SOE is working to discover what happened and to secure their networks going forward.

* SOE recommends everyone be alert for suspicious email, phone and other contacts. Watching your credit reports and banking and credit cards is recommended and they offer some ways to do so.

* No information is available as to when EverQuest will be back up. It is likely that SOE has no idea. There isn't much doubt that they are working around the clock to try to identify and fix this, but it is very complex and difficult. They do not want to bring the game and their web sites back up until they are sure it is safe. It could be as long as weeks, judging by the PlayStation Network, which has been down since April 20, 2011.

* Subscribers of SOE games, including EverQuest, will get 30 days added to their subscriptions for free. In addition, they will be "compensated" one day for each day they are down. It is likely that the compensation is additional days added to their accounts, rather then a cash refund.

More will be reported here as we learn more.

UPDATE: According to the Associated Press, the SOE servers were hacked on April 16 and 17. Sony has obviously done some major investigation into all their systems after the PlayStation Network hack was discovered and just recently figured out that SOE was also compromised.

"We had previously believed that SOE customer data had not been obtained in the cyber-attacks on the company, but on May 1 we concluded that SOE account information may have been stolen and we are notifying you as soon as possible," Sony said in a message to customers.

UPDATE: According to joystiq.com:

SOE has provided us with the following statement, in which it confirms that its user data was stolen as part of the original [PlayStation Network] intrusion -- not a second attack. "While the two systems are distinct and operated separately, given that they are both under the SONY umbrella, there is some degree of architecture that overlaps. The intrusions were similar in nature. This is NOT a second attack; new information has been discovered as part of our ongoing investigation of the external intrusion in April."

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