Feldon 
The details of the Welcome Back program have now been specified.
Members with a Station Access account get:
- 500 StationCash
And all EQ2 players will see these events all active on all accounts for the next WEEK through May 22nd:
- Double XP
- Double Guild XP
- “Loot Bonanza”
- All Aether Flying Races
- All City Festivals
- Moonlight Enchantments
From the “Welcome Back Details” article on SOE.com.
We want to ensure that your experience is as positive as possible as you re-enter our games. To show our gratitude for your patience and support, Sony Online Entertainment is offering a Welcome Back Program, the details of which are outlined below.
Firstly, as a Station Account holder in good standing, you will receive 45 days of game time (30 days plus 1 day for each day of the outage) added to your Station Account. This game time applies to any game you have currently or previously activated on your Station Account.
For those customers on an active paying plan, this time has been added to the end of your current billing cycle. For all other customers, your time begins upon your first login to each of the relevant games. Customers must login by 11:59 pm PST August 31, 2011 to claim the game time.
If you require the latest SOE game software, visit www.soe.com/getthegame.
In addition to game time, current Station Access subscribers (with accounts in good standing) will receive 500 Station Cash.
Lifetime subscribers/members (who are therefore not on a billing cycle) will receive in-game currency instead of game time.
Additionally, many of our PC games are offering a variety of items and special events to welcome players back, depending on which game(s) you play or have ever played.
EverQuest II & EverQuest II Extended for all characters on all accounts from May 14, 2011 through May 22, 2011:
- Double XP
- Double Guild XP
- Loot Bonanza
- The City Festivals and Moonlight Enchantments will be live
- The original Aether races return
EverQuest2.com extrapolates further:
We’re so glad to see you! Please make note of these special events going on right now in EverQuest II! You can enjoy them from the time the servers come up until Monday, May 23rd.
During this time, all of Norrath will enjoy:
- Double XP (Adventure, AA and Tradeskill)
- Double Guild XP
- Loot Bonanza: All past and present Hot Zones, including overland and group zones in Velious, have a higher chance to drop high quality loot.
- The City Festivals will be active in every city, as will the Aether Races that accompany the Qeynos and Freeport festivals.
- The Moonlight Enchantments mushroom rings will activate.
- The original Aether Races in Lavastorm, Tenebrous Tangle, and Butcherblock will return.
In addition, the May Madness sale in the Marketplace was postponed and will now be activated this Tuesday, May 17th. Keep an eye on EverQuest2.com for more details.
Also, to answer a few of the frequent questions we saw during the downtime:
- Rent: All houses and guild halls requiring rent will have one month added free to help offset any costs incurred during this outage.
- Dominance Quest Series: If you began this quest series before the downtime, your timer may have expired. CS will be happy to look at this for you and make adjustments.
- Research Assistants: Your Research Assistants kept on working during the downtime.
- Recruit-A-Friend: All recruits will be getting an extension of their trial time (upon first login). The inviters will continue to get their free time once the recruited friend has converted to a paid sub hits the correct number of days.
Once again we thank you for your patience during this unexpected downtime. Please be sure to read the official Welcome Back! news article for more detail on the Welcome Back (Make Good) program, as well as the Debix Identity Protection service details and more information about updating your passwords.
We’ve got convenient links to the Welcome Back Program, Identity Protection, and Resetting Your Password right here at SOE.com.
We’ll see you in Norrath!
At least the Research Assistants kept at it – well done them 🙂
Right, time to stop all this nonsense of talking to the family, having a social life, etc., and time to retreat to my bunker. Maybe a couple of days ‘sick’ this week as well………………
I never got 500 SC…
I logged in today and my char had 27 days to go on research – something went wrong there I think.
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=499959
They are aware of the research issue and fixing it
“EverQuest2.com extrapolates further:”
You should be demanding a refund on your dictionary.
Oh this is so wonderful.
It started May 14 (yesterday)
And most of us (if not all) probably wouldn’t be able to login until after May 22.
Oh isn’t this so wonderful of SONY.
Sorry, but this is so frustating. (and well thought out)
I had to pay rent on a few houses, so I think something went wrong there in addition to the RAs being unable to read a calendar. However, other than the fact that I am out of town all next week (*cries*) I don’t otherwise have any real complaints about their make good.
Loot bonanza is something about all the hotzones being active as well as overland zones having a higher chance to drop better loot, which I expect will have little to no impact on any of us.
You may want to clarify that the 500 station cash is for “Station Access accounts” and as a result most people will not see it added to their balance. The news summary confused me for a minute when it just said 500 SC.
Should have a month long event. Giving one set week of events is great… except not everyone will be able to be there. XP potions would have worked better, or giving a bigger window for the events and xp. But oh well, if it satisfies the other 200 people that will still play the game….