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Through the rest of December and into the New Year, many of Sony Online Entertainment's virtual worlds will be celebrating Christmas with all-new events, festivities, and adventures.
Flying Lab have been hard at work tweaking their seafaring MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea since launch, and they're inviting old captains back to see if the modified pirate life is for them.
Sony Online Entertainment's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is finally on the road becoming a real massively-multiplayer online RPG as fishing makes an appearance on the game's test servers.
Sony Online Entertainment has teamed with trading card masters Topps to bring the Free Realms digital trading card game into the physical world.
Topps will be launching the physical version of the card game included with SOE's family-friendly MMORPG this Spring with a Passport to Free Realms Starter Pack bursting with in-game goodies, along with 11-card boosters, each containing a card redeemable for in-game items.
"Our online trading card games have been hugely successful, and the chance to take our digital trading cards into the physical world with an industry leader like Topps is a fantastic opportunity for us as a company," said John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment.
Could this mean a physical version of the Everquest card-game Legends of Norrath won't be far behind? Hit the jump for the full press release, and the link some rather fanciful card artwork.
Earlier this week we got the good news that SOE's MMO The Agency wasn't canceled, but where's the game been? In hiding, apparently. According to the game's lead designer Hal Milton, after the CES demo was released earlier this year the developers went into full-on content creation mode.
We went kind of intentionally dark after CES, we've been pretty quiet this year so we could go heads-down on the content. In the world of MMOs and triple-A game development we are actually a pretty reasonably-sized team. We're slightly under a hundred people. I know sports titles and other games that have much larger teams than that for 'offline' games. We're all just concentrating on getting our tools online and building as much content as possible - making sure that content is actually fun.
Do they really have to bring back Guk? I suppose there's no stopping them now, as Sony Online Entertainment launches the fifth expansion for EverQuest II, The Shadow Odyssey. The expansion pack introduces more than 20 new zones to the game, with some of the original game's most frustrating dungeons brought back to new, terrifying life. Befallen and the Ruins of Guk are just a few of the more than 18 goal-based dungeons, and I would have paid full price simply to keep Guk away from me. I still have nightmares about being lost and alone down there, separated from my guild, huddled in the corner crying...perhaps I share too much.
Aside from revisiting old horrors, the expansion also introduces dozens of new creatures, new quests, new equipment, and two new deities to the once godless lands - Rodcet Nife and Anashti Sul. All of this, plus the four previous expansion packs, all in one convenient package. Hit the jump for more info on this latest chapter in the epic tale of Norrath.
SONY Online Entertainment has asked the games industry at large to contribute to the Gamers In Real Life (G.I.R.L) scholarship program, aimed at bringing more women into the industry.
Speaking at the International Game Developers Association conference in San Francisco, Torrie Dorrell - SOE's Global Sales & Marketing called on other companies to throw $US10,000 a piece into the G.I.R.L. hat and do their bit for the cause.
"Today, I am challenging everyone to take action to help level the playing field for women pursuing a career in video games. By donating to the G.I.R.L. scholarship, we can encourage diversity in development and make a difference, hopefully creating more opportunities for women and ultimately making more video games women will want to play," said Dorrell.
Full press release after the jump...
Sony Online Entertainment has launched the beta sign up website for their upcoming family-friendly MMO Free Realms, and being an MMO that's trying to draw in a whole new audience to the genre, SOE of course has to do a little hand-holding when explaining the whole beta process. This leads directly to the image seen here, which clearly shows us what a bug is.
Nearly ten years ago I got my first taste of EQ, creating my first character in the beta test (a bard), writing up a preview for a long-forgotten video game website. Now a decade has passed, and EQ is still alive and kicking, and Sony Online Entertainment has just released the 15th expansion pack for the game, EverQuest Seeds of Destruction, which sends players back in time to visit old zones made new again, much like EQ II's focus. The expansion increases the level cap to 85, introduces 20 new zones, grants access to all content from the previous 14 expansions, and also adds AI mercenaries to help the solo and friendless.
Sony Online Entertainment loves Halloween, and they never fail to do the spooktacular holiday up right, even in games that I didn't think anyone was still playing. The Matrix Online, for example. Not only are people still playing, but they get Halloween goodies, as do the folks playing Everquest, Vanguard, Star Wars Galaxies, and even the Legends of Norrath trading card game. Nice, but what about the poor PlanetSide fans? We know...oh oh, but do they know it's Halloween?
Check out these screens, while you ponder that.
