Sony Online Entertainment Compensating Players Due to Outage

It's been such a shame that Sony Online Entertainment and Playstation Network's outage has gone on this long, but Sony is working very hard to get it all back up and secure for every single one of us. It's not just that, but they've also have been trying to make us all happy after all this time that with no online play.

Now we already know about the Playstation Network's "Welcome Back" program, but what about SOE and all of the games that servers are running from? Well, it's a good thing to hear since SOE will be compensating for a good amount of things actually. The first thing that's really worrying gamers are the days that they're still getting charged for on their credit cards for the days they're not playing; "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," as stated by their recent post.

That's not all, though. Players will also be compensated with cool extras in games that they're playing as well, such as DC Universe Online, Free Realms, Everquest and many more. The following is a quote from their statement, which can be found, right here

• DC Universe™ Online: Batman™ and Two-Face™ Inspired Masks and 30 Marks of Distinction
• Free Realms®: Free daily items (7 to collect)
• Clone Wars Adventures™: Count Dooku v2 Outfit
• EverQuest®: A series of events, including Double XP, Double Rare Mob Spawns and Double Faction Gains
• EverQuest II and EverQuest II Extended: A series of events, including Double XP, Double Guild XP, Loot Bonanza, and City Festivals
• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes®: A series of Double XP events
• Star Wars Galaxies™: Bounty Hunter Statue, a miniature model of Boba Fett's ship, the Slave I™
• Magic: The Gathering - Tactics™: Four of each of these spells: "Ivory Mask", "Duress" and "Angelheart Vial", plus 500 Station Cash
• PoxNora®: Limited edition Carrionling, Welcome Back 5K Gold Award Tournaments and two Draft Tournaments, plus 500 Station Cash

For our lifetime subscribers, we'll grant in-game currency; specifically 20,000 coins for Free Realms, 7,500 Galactic Credits for Clone Wars Adventures and 10 Marks of Distinction for DC Universe Online (in addition to the items listed above).

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

Don't fret, online gamers! Both PSN and SOE services will be up sometime soon!

[UPDATED] Sony Online Entertainment Service Temporarily Suspended Due to "Intrusion"

First it was the Playstation Network, now this. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has gone down temporarily for the time being for maintenance, but why? Well, it's rather unfortunate for its users who play DC Universe Online and the on-going Everquest games because SOE has stated on their site, along with their online portal Station.com that there has been an intrusion, much like the Playstation Network. The current official statement on the site, besides the one pictured above a few hours ago, is as follows:

"We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily. In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately. We will provide an update later today (Monday)."

Previously stated by them, SOE claimed that the PSN intrusion did not affect their MMO service at all and was seperate from it. It may have seemed the case, but it looks like these cyber attacks won't hold back from anything Sony related.

Let's hope that these users won't get their information stolen

[UPDATE] - So it all goes downhill even more from here, unfortunately. Earlier today, Sony has confirmed that this was not a seperate attack and happened at the same time as the one on PSN. Up to "24.6 million SOE accounts may have been stolen, as well as certain information from an outdated database from 2007. The information from the outdated database that may have been stolen includes approximately 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates"

The following quote are from their official press release that was released a bit earlier today:

Tokyo, May 3, 2011 – Sony Corporation and Sony Computer Entertainment announced today that their ongoing investigation of illegal intrusions into Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE, the company) systems revealed yesterday morning (May 2, Tokyo time) that hackers may have stolen SOE customer information on April 16th and 17th, 2011 (PDT). SOE is based in San Diego, California, U.S.A.

This information, which was discovered by engineers and security consultants reviewing SOE systems, showed that personal information from approximately 24.6 million SOE accounts may have been stolen, as well as certain information from an outdated database from 2007. The information from the outdated database that may have been stolen includes approximately 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes), and about 10,700 direct debit records of certain customers in Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Spain.

As the on going investigation is still underway about the cyber attack against Sony, this will mark the 2nd week that the Playstation Network is down, and now with the addition of Sony Online Entertainment today, this leaves with many gamers unable to play online multiplayer games.

As Sony and major gaming websites have been doing, along with myself who just did it today, go to your bank and replace your card with a new one or cancel your account if you still feel uncomfortable with this whole situation, regarding your personal information.

Check back with us at Gamerzitch as more of this story unfolds!

SOE Studio Closures and Layoffs, "The Agency" MMO Cancelled

Apparently, things are going down with Sony Online Entertainment studios and games, one of which being The Agency, which had been announced at E3 a few years ago. That's not the only thing that's been going on, though!

Stated by Joystiq, they noticed that tweets were coming from George Broussard's Twitter regarding closures and layoffs at SOE. As far as we're told, Seatle, Tucson, and Denver have definitely shut down, but the Austin studio is still up. The only problem there is that half of the staff have been let go.

SOE has stated that due to these actions they have "focus development resources on delivering two new MMOs based on its renowned PlanetSide and EverQuest properties, while also maintaining its current portfolio of online games."