Linda “Brasse” Carlson has taken to Facebook to provide an update on some key points regarding this year’s SOE Live event in Las Vegas.

Confirmed: increased area of grand ballroom to accommodate 150 more Premium Passes. We will sell tickets online right up to event time (unless we sell out).

Confirmed: hotel has “increased nodes” in ballroom in an attempt to improve smart phone access – to be tested at the event! Initial tests by staff are positive, but huge numbers of people do weird things to cell reception.

Confirmed: Player Got Talent auditions to be accepted SOON – as in tomorrow. Start practising!

Confirmed: International attendees CAN participate in our awesome game tournaments this year!

Confirmed: EverQuest players lead the pack of 1542 people registered with 520 attendees, well in advance of second place EQII with 392.

Confirmed: Dead Carpet event, the Zombie Prom Party – we WILL have a zombie-themed drink special. I hope it does not contain gross lumpy or chunky bits.

WHUT ARE YE WAITIN’ FER? RETWEET THIS & SIGN UP NOW! ;-)#
https://www.soe.com/soelive

Better Cell Phone Service?

Last year’s cell phone reception on the show floor was absolutely atrocious, amounting to a media blackout. This was not just an inconvenience for attendees. It cut off diehard players, fansites, and media who were all trying to Blog, Tweet, and post on Facebook on the most important weekend of SOE’s year. We were preventing us from getting the word out about EQNext, Landmark, Planetside 2, and SOE’s other properties. We’re cautiously hopeful that are happy to see a mention that cell phone service may be improved this year.

According to Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, this July 4th weekend will not see Double XP  as we’ve seen in past years (EQ is having one this year), however we will see a 40% rebate for selected StationCash items. Hopefully the sale will include “service” items such as Character Slots, Spell Research, Age of Discovery features like Mercenaries, or Server Transfers, but we’re not holding our breath.

From the EQ2 Forums:

No Double XP this weekend, but there will be one very soon ™. We have a big 40% sale this weekend. This is also the last weekend of the Gear Up, Get Ready where members are getting bonus XP. Just saying.

Not to be outdone by Target, Best Buy is now offering a $5 off promotion for Sony Online Entertainment’s 1500SC/30 day game cards. And unlike the Target offer, these Best Buy cards are available at the $10 purchase price either in stores or on Best Buy’s website. This deal is available today (July 2nd) through July 5th. From EverQuest2.com:

Save $5 when you buy a $15 SOE Game Card at Best Buy stores from July 2-July 5!

Tomorrow, July 2nd, SOE’s accounting, commerce, and forum and game logins will be offline for approximately 2 hours. We’re going to assume this is part of the ProSieben migration back to SOE. From the SOE forums:

Attention players: we will perform maintenance beginning at 6:00 AM PDT* on Wednesday, July 2, 2014. We expect this maintenance to take approximately two hours. This will impact the following SOE services:

• Account management
• Commerce functions, including purchases
• Game, web and forum logins (between 6:30 and 7:00 AM)

The complete service window could last as long as four hours and may intermittently affect our services outside of the time frames above. Thank you for your patience!

*Convert to your local time

-SOE Community Team

Just in time for the last day of early bird SOE Live 2014 registration, the Official Schedule (minus Player Panels) has been posted! Realize that the schedule is subject to change. You may recall that the Events team moved heaven and earth last year to make sure that EQ, EQN/EQNL, and EQ2 had as few conflicts as possible with each other and panel panels.

So as of June 30, 2014, here are your tracks…

Selected “Everyone” Stuff

• Thu @ 7:00-9:00pm – Welcome Reception and Keynote
• Fri @ 8:00-11:30pm – Zombie Prom Party
• Sat @ 10:00am – Geek Out with SOE Coders
• Sat @ 1:00pm – Player Studio Panel #1
• Sat @ 2:00pm – Player Studio Panel #2
• Sat @ 8:00-11:00pm Grand Banquet and Costume Contest
• Sun @ 10:00am – Dev Brunch

EverQuest II Track

• Fri @ Noon-1:00pm – EverQuest II Keynote: Inside the 11th Expansion
• Fri @ 1:00pm – EverQuest II Q&A #1
• Sat @ 10:00am – The Art of EverQuest II
• Sat @ 1:00pm – EverQuest II: Systems mechanics panel
• Sun @ 1:00pm – EverQuest II Q&A #2

After the jump, EverQuest Next and Landmark…

From Colette “Dexella” Murphy on the EQ2 Forums:

Today is Monday, June 30, 2014. That means we’re only 45 Days away from this year’s SOE Live! Have you bought your passes yet? If you haven’t, here are the top 5 reasons you want to buy your pass TODAY.

#5 – It’s a good deal!
Right now, the Premium Pass to SOE Live is $149 for the entire weekend. That’s $149 for the banquet, the party, the costume contest, the tournaments, the live quests, and all the interesting panels! But it’s only $149 TODAY. Prices increase on July 1, 2014.

#4 – You can get your t-shirt mailed to you!
This year, we’ve partnered with J!NX to bring you the SOE Live t-shirt (which you can see and read about here). J!NX is offering to mail you your complimentary SOE Live event t-shirt, butonly if you register by July 1! Register today and skip the line at the event.

#3 – Three Words: Zombie. Prom. Party.
Our famous Friday Night bash is back with an undead twist this year. Dance the night away with a horde of zombies… Or, at least, a bunch of Developers, SOE Staff, and fellow event attendees that LOOK like zombies! Zombie costumes are highly encouraged for what is sure to be a memorable evening. (Please note, this event requires a Premium or Evening Pass, and all attendees MUST BE 21+).

SOE Community Management lead Linda “Brasse” Carlson posted on Twitter last night to advise players that SOE Live platinum registrations are nearly full:

By the way, there are now less than 100 premium passes left for #SOELive. DON’T MISS OUT!!! https://t.co/AqKGlVYJU8

— Brasse (@Brasse) June 23, 2014

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Since SOE publishes an opt-in list of SOE Live Attendees, and since data crunching is sorta our thing, we took a look at the numbers to see what game people are most interested in visiting SOE Live for this year. First up, the Primary Game choices. Out of 1,048 entries, 15 opted out of choosing a Primary game. The remaining 1,033 chose:

When prompted for a Secondary game choice, only 704 players selected one…

We’ve got an update from Ashlanne on the SOE forums:

All US Targets are involved in this promotion. We would like you to please send us the exact location for [any] Target that did not have the cards or told you they didn’t have the cards. A street address is necessary to look it up in our database.

You can post in the linked thread above, or post a comment here and I’ll repost it in the thread for you.

After over two years of drama, with SOE customers feeling cut off, marginalized, and second class just for living in Europe, the grand experiment of German media conglomerate ProSiebenSat.1 managing SOE customers in the EU region is finally over!

When it was announced that Sony Pictures had licensed their entertainment library to PSG to try to be the Netflix of Europe, the writing was on the wall that SOE gamers might be along for the ride. While I do think Sony Online Entertainment eventually made some heroic efforts to try to make this deal work — after a few scathing reviews penned by this and other gaming sites — the deal was likely doomed from the start. ProSiebenSat.1 had never handled a AAA MMO title, let alone three, and the inexperience of its fledgling Alaplaya brand at supporting anything beyond F2P browser games became apparent even before the SOE-PSG transition began.

Much like the ill-fated Ubisoft takeover of EU-based EverQuest Live accounts in the early 2000’s, and despite promises of localization improvements and copious advertising, these deals seem to only ever end up souring the playerbase and having a negative impact on server populations and general goodwill.

As of today, June 18, 2014, new EverQuest II, PlanetSide 2, and DC Universe Online players in Europe now do so with SOE. And as of July 1, 2014, existing EQ2, PS2, and DCUO customers will be transferred back to SOE.

After the jump, the official statement from Linda “Brasse” Carlson on the SOE forums:

From the EQ2 Forums:

We’ve got a promotion that’s right on Target! Head over to your local Target from June 15th to June 28th and receive 20% off your purchase of an SOE Pre-Paid Game Card!

This news was posted at 4:36pm PDT today.

Commentary

These cards work out to 1500SC for $12 or 125SC per dollar. If you can still find the 1500+500SC cards at Walmart, those work out to 133SC per dollar. However we have confirmed with several sources that the Walmart 1500+500SC cards can no longer be reordered from SOE and they will not be getting new stock. Despite a tweet from SOE President John Smedley teasing that double SC promotions aren’t completely gone, we have not seen one for quite some time now, so this may be the best deal going.

From the EverQuest II twitter account:

Three NEW countries added to #playerstudio tax registration testing! DK, NO & SE now join FR, DE, UK, CA & US! http://t.co/bwvlA3ffaQ

— EverQuest II (@everquestii) June 10, 2014

From the EQ2 Forums:

Attention Potential Player Studio Creators!

Special testing help is needed from residents of Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Since a big part of Player Studio is earning royalties, and since you can’t make money without taxation, we built this system to help get folks set up with their tax paperwork. Tax registration is necessary before you can list items for sale and earn royalties.

This feature costs SOE money each time someone uses it. SOE pays a partner to validate data as part of the feature. For this reason, the finished feature will include a one-time non-refundable fee of US$10 (or equivalent.) You should only need to go through this process one time. Address changes, for example, do not require a repeat of this process.

Completing this feature will make you eligible for activities that earn you real world money through our Player Studio program. Completing it during testing counts for this. This a not just a test; it’s a real registration.

To participate, please visit this page to start:
https://player-studio.soe.com/w9

Qualifications:

• Resident of Canada, France, Germany, UK or US
• Over the age of 13
• You are not already a published Player Studio creator in another game with an IRS form W-8/W-9 on file with SOE.

HINTS & TIPS:

• When you are given a registration code or a PIN number, please save it carefully. That’s valuable.
• When entering a PIN or password via copy/paste, please double-check that no space character has been added to the end. An extra space character will break it. If your code is not being accepted, try pasting it into a word processor, viewing it in another font, and typing it by hand.
• Approval is not instantaneous and there is a status page where you can return and view your approval status. It can be reached by visitinghttps://player-studio.soe.com/w9, clicking the yellow button, and logging into your Station Account. We don’t yet have estimates on how long this will take the average international registrant.
• We have a known issue with entering middle names. You do have the option to enter the form without the middle name and it should generally reach full approval status.
• If you have questions, you can email playerstudio@soe.sony.com and Syrah will attempt to help you although for legal reasons he is not allowed to give advice on how to fill out the form.

If, like me, you are on the fence about whether you want to leave Las Vegas on Sunday mid-day, or stick it out til Monday morning, a recent update to the SOE Live Schedule may be helpful. Although the exact details of the panels have not been given, a rough outline is now available:

• 10:00am-12:00pm — Developer Brunch
• 12:00pm-1:00pm — Landmark Dev Panel
• 1:00pm-2:00pm — EverQuest II Dev Panel (probably EQ2 Q&A #2)
• 2:00pm-3:00pm — EverQuest Next Dev panel

Choose, but choose wisely!

Tomorrow brings the second official episode of EverQuest II Insider (EQ2Insider), an EverQuest II webcast hosted by SOE Community Manager, Margaret “Luperza” Krohn. This monthly webcast takes place on the first Wednesday of every month. From the EQ2 Forums:

This month on EverQuest II Insider episode 2:

• Cast: Margaret Krohn, Jason Woerner, Holy Longdale, Akil Hooper, Kyle Vallee, and Nathan McCall!
• News, Announcements and What’s New?
• May’s Contest Winners & Update on June’s Contest
• Dev Picks: Submit your house here for a chance to be spotlighted!
• Dev Showcases: Showing off the new NPCs for decorators, Deathtoll updates and new NPC reveal for the expansion!
• SOE Live Dev Team Rapid Q&A: Holly Longdale and Akil Hooper will each have 2 minutes to answer as many questions as they can! Who do you think can answer the most? If you have a question, send it to us on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, or right here on the forums! 

Where: http://www.twitch.tv/ everquest2

When: 06/04/2014 2PM – 3PM PDT

Server: TBD during segments

Don’t forget to use our hashtag #EQ2Insider and follow us on Twitter @EverQuestii, and @PurrfectStorm

How do I get my Guild, Fan Site, In-game Event, House, or a Friend featured on EQ2Insider?

Head over to the What Is EverQuest II Insider? thread and fill out one of the forms on the page. I hope you won’t forget your favorite EQ2 fansites — EQ2U and EQ2Wire!

Missed last month’s episode?

If you missed last month’s EQ2 Insider episode, you can watch it on YouTube:

Posted by Margaret “Luperza” Krohn on the EQ2 Forums:

Last month on the first episode of EverQuest II Insider, the EverQuest II Development Team announced that we are working on a new expansion, and we’ll be increasing the level cap to ONE HUNDRED!

To help everyone prepare, on Tuesday, June 3rd at 9:00 AM PDT, we are launching the much awaited “Gear Up, Level Up” promotion that was announced in Holly Longdale’s May/June Producer’s Letter. What does this entail?

From the EQ2 Forums:

GEAR UP, LEVEL UP (June promotional program from June 3 to July 8)
All Access members will receive the following bonuses and discounts:

• Double-Double Etyma in Tears of Veeshan (4x the rewards)!
• 25% XP Bonus
• Tears of Veeshan Expansion discount (15%)
• 25% Off Heroic Characters

Free players receive the following bonuses:

• Double Etyma in Tears of Veeshan (2x the rewards)!
• Also eligible for a Tears of Veeshan expansion discount (15%).

WEEKLY FEATURE

• Loyalty items have been added into the Marketplace to make searching and purchasing them more convenient. These items are still for sale on the merchants.
• [Ed Note:] As seen in the Producer’s Letter, over 100 new Loyalty items are being added.

It’s hard to believe this will be EQ2Wire’s seventh Fan Faire nee SOE Live. And it’s hard to believe that this will be our third year presenting a player panel on EQ2U and Data Feeds (Census) in general. Talking to players before and after the panel, and presenting what we’ve been working on, is certainly the highlight of the event for me. If you will be at SOE Live and have ever had your own idea for what kind of player panel, put your name in the hat and you might just get to do your own panel!

From the EQ2 Forums:

One of our favorite features of SOE Live are the player panels. We love ’em, YOU love ’em and they’ll be back for 2014! We’ll have panels each day, and will work to avoid scheduling conflicts with the major game panels of the event.

We are looking for panels on any subject that will be of interest to SOE Live attendees. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

• Managing a Guild
• Guild Leaders Support Group
• How to run a raid without losing your mind
• L337 gameplay tactics (in any SOE game!)
• Roleplay in the 21st century
• Running an in-game event
• Cosplay tips and tricks
• Running a Successful Fan Site
• Fan Art and/or Fan Fiction
• Mastering the art of… ?
• An amazing topic that we’ve never thought of!

WOOT! I’M EXCITED TO SUBMIT A PANEL!
We’re accepting panel submissions NOW, and until midnight Pacific Daylight Time, June 27th, 2014. We anticipate more applications than we have timeslots, so spend plenty of time on your submission to make sure it really shines!
We will contact all panelists by July 9th to advise whether or not the panel is accepted. All accepted panels will be scheduled as soon as possible after that date.

EverQuest 2 has announced a “Summer Kickoff” event! First up, all players will see 30% off Appearance items and Mounts on the Marketplace.

Now here’s where we split off into the Free-to-Play and All Access groups.

• All players will receive Double Bonus XP on Monday, May 26th
• All Access subscribers enjoy Double Bonus XP the entire weekend (May 23-May 26).

From the EQ2 Forums:

To celebrate the start of summer, we’re having double experience and sale action!

All players will have double experience on Monday, May 26th, 2014 at 12:00 AM PDT to 11:59 PM PDT. All players will also have 30% off on appearance items and mounts, starting Friday, May 23rd, 2014 at 12:00 PM PDT to Monday, May 26th at 11:59 PM PDT.

All Access members will have the entire weekend of double experience and 30% off on appearance items and mounts, starting on Friday, May 23rd, 2014 at 12:00 PM PDT to Monday, May 26th at 11:59 PM PDT. Note: Yes, this stacks with your 10% off on all marketplace items for being an All Access member.

We hope that you all enjoy the double experience and sales. Have a fantastic weekend!

After the jump, some further comments on Double vs. Bonus…

From Luperza on the Official Forums – a new contest sponsored by EverQuest 2.  As of the date of this post – there are only two entries.  It does appear you must have a Facebook account to enter.

Salutations Norrathians!

If you didn’t catch our first episode of EverQuest II Insider, you may have missed one of our announcements about future contests! Starting in May, we are doing a monthly contest. These may vary in theme, requirements, and rewards, so if you have any good ideas for future contest ideas, send them our way!

May’s contest is all about housing décor with a draconic theme! Head over to our sweepstakes and submit your photo! This contest ends May 27th, 2014 at 2PM PDT. Three winners will be chosen. Each winner will attain a bundle of up to five housing items of their choice (at the discretion of SOE) that’s worth $25.00 USD.

We can’t wait to see your photo submissions! Don’t forget to send us your ideas and tune into the next EverQuest II Insider on June 4th, 2014 at http://www.twitch.tv/ everquest2.

For the last eight hours or so, players on EU servers including Storms, Valor, and Splitpaw, have been unable to login to EQ2 as they receive this message:

Login Rejected:The Clients version does not match the Servers. please rerun the patcher.

The issue seems to have been caused by the game Launchpad receiving updated files (via a Manifest file) hours before the Server has been patched. This Manifest file is supposed to be updated only after the game server is ready for the updated client. This has nothing to do with ProSieben and originates with Ops/Platform at SOE HQ.

We are following this issue and will post an update as we have it. The issue is also being discussed in the May 13th Update thread.

Everything about last year’s SOE Live was bigger — the crowds, the announcements, the lines! Ok, so that last one was a bummer, but while we’re hoping the player turnout and announcements stay big, the lines have thankfully been nerfed!!

• Sign up for SOE Live by May 12th and not only do you get a discounted rate ($129 for the entire weekend), but your badge will be mailed out to you well in advance, so the only thing you have to wait for when you walk out onto the Mezzanine is the inspiration to choose which game developers, artists, players, or vendors you want to chat up first!
• This year, SOE partner JiNX has created an event T-shirt which will also be mailed out at the same time as the badges. I hope that T-shirts of other games will be available on-site as well, and that we can have character names printed onto them, as this has been popular in the past couple of years. Read More about the JiNX shirt

• SOE has negotiated a discounted hotel rate which absorbs the $20/night Resort fee and includes wired in-r0om internet connectivity for 1 device. More Details
• New this year, you and your Guild, friends, and/or family can reserve a 12-seat table at the Welcome reception (the Grand Banquet reservations have already filled up).
• For the first time, International players will be able to participate in Tournaments and Live Quests. Get Your Game On at SOE Live

There are still some things up in the air about SOE Live, namely the exact Official & Player Panel schedule — signups for Player Panels aren’t open yet — and whether the Friday night party will be near a pool or be moved to some other venue. Hey as long as there are more than 2 bartenders for 1,500 guests, I don’t care if it’s in the hotel basement. I heard people were hitting up the well-stocked yet reasonably priced liquor store in the Miracle Mile just to keep their buzz on!

And yes, I’ve already signed up to attend what will be my SEVENTH SOE Live and I hope I will see you there. I’ll be recording all the EQ2 panels as always, although it’s never the same as being there and being able to ask your questions directly of the devs!

Get Your Game on at SOE Live 2014!

Just posted over at the official forums a few details on Live Quests and Tournaments for all the games.

Big Highlight — International attendees may participate!

By: Aimee “Ashlanne” Rekoske

Every year at SOE Live we offer a schedule full of panels featuring the games you love to play, games you can’t wait to play, and other burning topics any SOE Gamer would find interesting. The schedule always includes activities like Live Quests and Tournaments. Brand new this year: International attendees may participate in our Live Quests and Tournaments! Detailed rules and prizes will be posted in the coming weeks. We wanted to get this information out to you before Early Bird registration closed!

Check out the ways you can participate!

From the EQ2 Forums:

For the last several months we’ve been working hard to update the Player Studio program with a number of improvements that will simplify and expedite the overall registration process, and will allow international players from select regions and territories to participate.

This work has progressed well, but it’s a complicated initiative and there are still a few outstanding components to finalize to ensure we get this 100% right. Initially, we hoped to expand Player Studio to Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom on or before May 1, but given the intricacy of the program and our recent launch of the new All Access Membership plan, we have decided to roll out international support for Player Studio at the end of May. Player Studio support for Landmark will also come in the near future, but not until we are fully confident that the overall system is ready.

Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has posted 3 new screenshots on her Twitter account about new bunny mounts which are now available in EQ2. They are leaper mounts and currently run 1,350SC.

Get a jump on this! The new “earie” mount. #EQ2

— Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) April 15, 2014

And there are house pets too…awww! #eq2

— Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) April 15, 2014

From the EQ2 Forums:

You know it’s spring when the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and gamers worldwide are planning their trips to Las Vegas for four days of non-stop awesomeness at SOE Live 2014! The annual gathering of players is happening this year August 14-17, 2014, and gives fans a chance to meet and get an exclusive look at what’s new in their favorite games.

Did you know that by registering early, you gain access to great options to make your SOE Live experience that much more epic?

After the jump, check out this years’ Early Bird offerings including Group Table Reservations ($5 a person for a table of 12), Mailed Out Badges (no 3 hour lines this year!), Special Hotel Rates, and more!