New Insights from the SOE Art Portal

Have you ever wondered how our character models are created? There's a new article up on the SOE Art Portal all about the process.

Then become a fan of the SOE Art Portal on Facebook, and recommend us to your friends!

We hope you enjoy this look into the world of art at SOE!

Brenda Halgrim and her family are new residents of Khal. Tired of being the shortest Lesser Giants, they decided to move and make a new home. To celebrate their new abode, the Halgrim family wants to throw a Harvest Day Feast. Unfortunately, they just don’t have enough food. However, a passing gnome offered to use a Gnomish Invention to help...and caused all sorts of problems...

On the other side of this festive event there's Salrash the Birdmaster. He and his followers are abhorred by the fact that there is a celebration based on the eating of a bird, and are preparing to stop the Harvest Day Feasts at any cost.

Now, you can join in the Harvest Day celebrations through four quests and with raid mobs!

These Harvest Day quests will reward you with some fun new items, like a "leg" weapon, throwing pies, a slime costume and a vulture:

• Feast or Famine          
• Simona Says
• Corrupted Cranberry Sauce          
• Bag Us a Bird

To secure an upgrade to your new Harvest Day weapon and obtain a few more festive costumes, be on the lookout for the following raid NPCs:

• Salrash the Bird Master
• Turfin
• Duksworth
• Cikran

SOE Thankful Turkey Feast: Live On Ustream!

Traditionally, Thanksgiving is the day we give thanks for everything we have. A day we gather together to take part in a great feast! In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, the SOE Community Team is throwing a special SOE Thankful Turkey Feast: Live on Ustream!

On Thursday, November 19th starting 2pm US Pacific Time, come watch the SOE Community Team celebrate Thanksgiving by crafting turkeys live on Ustream. We'll also be sharing thankful moments! You can come watch the show or join the live chat to tell us what you are thankful for this year!

Gobble Gobble you soon!

http://www.ustream.tv/sonyonline

Create your puzzle at flash-gear.com

Vanguard in the Social Media Sphere

You may not realize it, but Vanguard has quite a few pages in the Social Media world and they are yet another source for you to check out your friends from Vanguard and get some news and entertainment in the process. Check out below for the places that you’ll be able to find us!

Facebook

Facebook is a great place to meet up with some of your friends that you might know from Vanguard, or other games that you've played together in years past. It’s also another place to hang out, chat, and discuss some of the things going on with Vanguard! From time to time we also release exclusive information and promotions through Facebook so be sure to become a fan to get all the latest info!

http://www.facebook.com/VanguardSOH

Twitter

Twitter provides a venue where you can get up to date information on Vanguard while allowing us to communicate back with the followers at large. We tend to look for players talking about @VanguardSOH and we do our best to get you a reply to your questions so make sure you look for those @ replies should you discuss Vanguard on Twitter!

http://twitter.com/VanguardSOH

Flickr

Do you have a passion for taking pictures, screenshots, or anything else image related? Stop in on Flickr, join Vanguard’s group, and share those pictures with us!

http://www.flickr.com/groups/vanguard_soh

Keep in mind these are all free sites and most of all they are meant to be fun, so get out there and enjoy some of Vanguard’s Social Media sites!

Create your puzzle at flash-gear.com

Greetings fellow Telonians! My family has come into the possession of three fine sea crafts for which we are seeking worthy homes. These three caravels drifted, unmanned, into the docks of New Targonor. They appeared a little sea worn and the dockmaster agreed to allow my family to "remove the unsightly things" from his docks. After some paint, and fresh sails, they are crisp and new, and sail far better than we would like the dockmaster to ever know.

It is our good fortune that we would like to pass on; therefore we have decided to have a little competition, with the prizes being these three lovely vessels! What is the competition you might ask? Well, it is a story telling competition, my friends! That is correct, an event to call out the bard in all of us. So...

Calling all Troubadours, Rhapsodists, Odists, Versifiers and Jongleurs, now is your time to show your talents! Compete with others to win the votes of the crowd. The three speakers with the most votes will sail away from Keejay Cove on your very own, better than new caravel!

Have you no desire to tell a tale? Oh, trust friend, there is room a plenty for you too! Come enjoy the stories, the ale and the company and cast your vote for the bard with the most entrancing tale.

Have no transportation to Keejay Cove? No worries at all, friends...we shall have the three caravels in the docks of Khal on half hour before the event to collect and ferry our guest to our home! This will allow all those competing to see the sea-worthiness of these vessels.

There will be other, smaller prizes to be awarded also...so don't miss out!

You will find members of The Preferiti at the docks in Khal at half past six ((PM - EST)) and the festivities will begin once the hour turns seven.

Be sure to stop in on the forums to discuss this event http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=51228

Are you wondering what the Vanguard development team is up to? The team is currently in the middle of a mild revamp of all the classes in Vanguard. This week we're featuring the latest set of class changes to roll out for the Sorceres

Sorcerer Changes

• Sleep III particle has been improved.
• Seradon’s Falling Star line should now have a casting animation again.
• Unfocused form has been removed. Sorcerers will now default to Fiery Intensity form.
• A new passive ability has been added to the Sorcerer trainers called Magical Manifestation. This passive adds 16% damage.
• Fiery Intensity no longer grants a 16% damage bonus.
• Icy Focus no longer lowers energy costs and global refresh.
• Fiery Intensity and Icy Focus should now persist through death properly.
• Color Spray is now properly set to a mesmerize and not a stun.
• Chaos Volley, Taqmir’s Barrage/Bolts and Shocking Grasp will no longer remove the feedback from Seradon’s Falling Comet.
• Sanctuaries have had their refresh timers reduced to 2 minutes.
• Sanctuaries will now place 45 second immunities on their targets.
• Meteor Storm has had its refresh timer reduced to 0 and its stun portion is now a 10% chance.
• Meteor Storm has had its cast time reduced to 3 seconds.
• Meteor Storm will now cast a debuff called Meteor Storm Synergism on the targets it hits as long as they do not already have it on them. This will allow Ice Quake IV to do additional damage. The debuff lasts for 6 seconds.
• Ice Quake IV will now cast a debuff called Icequake Synergism on the targets it hits as long as they do not already have it on them. This will allow Meteor Storm to do additional damage. The debuff lasts for 6 seconds.
• Aquamarine Focus Essence now scales properly past level 50.
• Diamond Focus Essence now scales properly past level 50.
• Opal Focus Essence now scales properly past level 50.
• Quartz Focus Essence now scales properly past level 50.
• Quicksilver Focus Essence now scales its attributes properly past level 50.
• Forget has had its refresh timer reduced to 20 seconds.
• Chromatic Halo rune absorption amount has been increased to 5k.
• The Fire Pummel charge mechanic has been updated. Charging will now pop up a charge meter instead of popping up icons on your buff bar. The longer you wait on the charge, the more fireballs will be released (a maximum of 5).
• The tooltips for the energy feedback have been corrected for Chaos Volley, Seradon’s Falling Comet, Shocking Grasp & Taqmir’s Barrage/Bolts. They should no longer display 0 or the incorrect value. They will also now display text in the chat box per tick.
• Blinding Fire is now instant cast.
• Sleep will no longer consume 100% crit buffs.

Vanguard Saga of Heroes - A World LIke None Other

This video, made completely of screenshots, showcases some of the fantastic scenes that you'll experience as you adventure through Telon. Put to a nice mellow tune this is defeinitely a nice video to check out and relax to.

Halloween is a night for trick-or-treating, costume parties, visiting haunted attractions, carving jack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories, and watching horror movies.

What are you doing this year?  Do you have miniature ghosts and goblins dressing up for some fun, or perhaps just the big ones?

Check out how SOE is celebrating Halloween over at our Flickr group!

SOE's Halloween Decorating Contest

This year we have a Halloween Challenge for you...

You can help pick the winner of our Halloween Decorating Contest! Check out this thread on the Station.com forums, look at the entry photos from individuals and teams on our Flickr page, and then vote for your favorite! The top winners will get a spooky trophy, and runners up get a certificate. (Well, we save all the good prizes to give to our players at Fan Faire!)

Have a spooktacular holiday and stay safe!

Account security is important! Third party programs can download spyware onto your computer, allowing your SOE account to be compromised. More seriously, it can result in identity theft. Likewise, buying plat or power leveling services can endanger your account. Below is some information on how to keep yourself safe, as well as what we can do to help you.

We encourage you not to install anything on your computer that does not come from a trusted source.  Please be very careful when choosing and installing programs onto your computer.

"Compromised Account? What is that?"

Let me explain.  When someone logs into someone else's account and takes all their items, their coin, deletes characters, spams obscenities, loots the guild bank, and performs any other manner of maliciousness, CS refers to that account as a Compromised Account.  Customers often petition us saying, "My account was hacked, hepl pls!"  In a nutshell, what happened is that the account login and password was not kept secure by the account owner or they did not protect their computer properly from malicious access.

As many of you may know, sharing your account information (login/password) is against SOE policies. Keeping account information secure is the responsibility of the owner of the account.  We cannot tell you how many times we've seen a customer's ex-wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend, brother/sister, mother/father/grandparent, roommate/guildmate, child/dog/cat (yes, people have claimed their pets deleted stuff on their account ”accidentally”), log into an account and have a field day of revenge for some unknown wrong that was done to them.  That in and of itself should be warning enough to keep your login info to yourself and not to write it down where others can find it or post it on your super-secret guild website that only a few friends have access to.

"So how does this relate to Buying Plat and Power Leveling services?"

Very simple, and here is the crux of the concern we want to bring to the attention of our customers:  plat selling and power leveling websites are now actively compromising accounts, stripping them of everything (and stripping guild banks, too), and using the plat they gain from this malicious access to sell to players.  We've been seeing more and more instances of this.

We even had a case recently where an account purchased plat from a website plat seller was later accessed and stripped of all items by that very same plat seller, and on the next day was sold back the same plat that was taken from their account. 
How does CS know this?  When we investigate these issues, we can track where the money goes.  Sure the plat sellers use different techniques to try to mask what is actually happening, but our logs record what they do and with some time we can see exactly what happened and take action from there.

The plat sellers and power leveling services are likely obtaining account information in a number of ways, whether in a clandestine manner such as viruses, worms, and keystroke loggers embedded in their websites, or as obviously as saving your account info for later exploitation when you give them the information to power level your character.

"What is CS doing about the plat seller/spammer issue?"

Customer Service is constantly working with our Dev, QA, and Platform teams to come up with new ways to track, remove and prevent spammers, plat sellers, etc. from doing the disruptive things they do.  As the bad guys adjust their tactics to try and avoid detection, CS responds in turn and counters their activities.  Heck, we even have a team of GMs specifically dedicated to investigating and removing plat selling/spamming/hacking/illegal farming accounts from our games.

As for this specific issue, when CS receives a petition from someone that has had their account compromised and is missing all their hard earned coin and items, we do our very best to assist with restoring characters and guild banks back to the way they were before they were maliciously accessed and then we go after the culprit.  These investigations can take a significant amount time to do and we cannot guarantee that we can return characters back to the exact point they were at before this happened.  These types of issues also take time away from answering customer petitions for other important issues involving bugged quests, items, and so on. 

The bottom line is this: plat sellers and power leveling services, never trustworthy to begin with, are now actively double-crossing the very people that trusted them and have taken this problem to another level.  This also means that if you have shared your account information with anyone at any time in the past, you have put your account at risk for losing the rewards of your long hours of game play.   In our experience with seeing Compromised Account issues, no one you share your account information with will treat it with the respect it deserves and this situation almost always ends with a petition for help.

If you have ever shared your account information with anyone in the past or have ever bought plat or used a power leveling service, we strongly suggest you do the following:

• Change your account password immediately and change it often. Use a secure password with a combination of letters, numbers and symbols.
• Update your security question.

You can do both of these by going to www.station.sony.com

• Mouse over the My Account link at the top
• Click on Update Account Info
• Log in
• Click on the Change Password button on the right
• The Secret Question/Answer options are at the bottom of the page

Also:

• Never share your account information with anyone again.
• Use anti-virus software, run regular virus scans, and keep your anti-virus definitions up to date.
• Never, ever, visit a plat selling / power leveling service website.

These suggestions will help you keep your account information secure and will go a long way towards preventing your account from being compromised.  Also, not buying plat or power leveling will help reduce the problem as a whole, as without a demand, they will not be able to operate.

While it is our current policy to assist with these issues and to restore characters and guild banks to the best of our ability, please remember that we may not be able to assist with repeated occurrences of Compromised Accounts and that we cannot guarantee that we can restore you back to exactly where you were when your account was compromised.

If you are interested in finding out more info about our EULA or Account Security Policy, please see the links below.

EULA:
http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bi...p?p_faqid=12248

Account Security Policy:
http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bi...p?p_faqid=16231

(Adapted from a post originally made by Greeblen while he was CS Manager for EQII.)

Vanguard Saga of Heroes - The Monks of "Das Sechste Haus"

This flick recommended by a Vanguard player is very entertaining and showcases a well done thememed video. Kick back, relax, and watch some Kung-Fu, or in this case some Monk fighting and enjoy the video!

Are you wondering what the Vanguard development team is up to? The team is currently in the middle of a mild revamp of all the classes that can be found in Vanguard and the two latest classes to get a look over are the Ranger and Rouges. Has this made you curious as to the changes? Good, because we're outlining them all here for you to check out. Do keep in mind that these are subject to change and adjustments may be made as needed!

Ranger Update :

• Rangers may now have both melee and ranged paths.
• Switching melee/ranged forms will unlock abilities designed for that form while locking ones designed for the other.
• Ranger offensive forms can now only be switched once every 2 minutes.
• Fixed an issue with Wave of Lightning damage not scaling properly.
• Fixed an issue with the discharge effect on Wave of Lightning not displaying its damage.
• Sweeping Strike has had its endurance cost reduced.
• Fixed an issue with the discharge effect on Discharging Arrow not displaying its damage.
• Regress has been increased to 35m.
• Talismans will no longer fade when energy has been depleted.
• Thorn Cloak will no longer fade when energy has been depleted.
• Fixed an issue with Monsoon Cloak not consuming energy while activated.
• Summer Cloak now adds dexterity with the strength buff.
• Monsoon Cloak now adds dexterity with the strength buff.
• A new ability called Warden’s Temper has been added to the trainers. This ability will max out your progressive form as well as give a 30 sec buff that increases accuracy, crit chance and strikethrough chance.
• Fixed an issue with Static Surge doing the incorrect damage for levels 10-45.
• Golden Berries was removed from the forage tables.
• Fletching combine outcomes have been increased from 50 to 100.
• Fletching assembly component stack sizes have been increased to 200.
• The following abilities should now state their damage types correctly:
  • Blade of Storms
  • Destructive Swarm
  • Entangle
  • Grasp of Earth
  • Intercept
  • Maelstrom
  • Monsoon Cloak
  • Shocking Arrow
  • Static Surge
  • Summer Cloak
  • Swelter
  • Wave of Lightning
  • Winter Cloak

Rouge Update :

• Shadowblade duration increased to 30 seconds (damage should be adjusted accordingly)
• Hemorrhage duration increased to 30 seconds (damage should be adjusted accordingly)
• Quickblade refresh reduced by 60 seconds
• Blindside now places a 100% crit buff on the rogue for one attack, instead of a crit weakness on the target. This crit should only affect modular attacks
• Added Vital Strikes 2 to Sparkles loot tableVital Strikes 2 adds 100% crit and 5% crit damage for 4 seconds
  
• Increased dot duration of Eviscerate to 30 seconds (damage should be adjusted accordingly)
• Ruin’s duration has been increased to 30 seconds for all ranks.
• Assassin’s Guile should now properly give 5% crit instead of 4%
• Deter should no longer break stealth
• Details on Poison changes next week
• Fixed damage display on Azure and scarlet flame poisons since it is a DD
• Lint Bandages now stack to 300
• Pickpocket lockout should now display properly on NPCs
• Poison assembly recipes have been removed
• All non advanced poisons, scrolls, flechettes, and darts can now be purchased from rogue vendors.All rogue poisons now require a certain adventuring level to be used. This level should be equal to the skill previously required for the recipe/10.
• Apply poison skill has been removed
• Advanced poisons are now on pickpocket tables
• Advanced scrolls are now on their own pick pocket tables
• Advanced Flechettes/Darts are now on their own pick pocket tables
• There is an increased chance of rolling on the poison tables when pickpocketing
• Max stack size of all poisons, scrolls, flechettes, etc. have been reduced to 50.
• Poisons now consume a poison reagent on when they proc. So for example water of life when it procs will consume a water of life vial
• All poison proc buffs should now last an hour
• Old rogue poison related gems should no longer default to the poison pouch when looted.
• Azure Flame, Scarlet Flame, Siren’s Kiss, & Water of Life now last for 1 hour. This is for both basic and advanced versions.
• Poison weapon procs have had their efficiency increased by 20%
• Scroll: Advanced Bear’s Strength now lasts for 1 hour.
• Scroll: Advanced Blinding Strikes now lasts for 1 hour.
• Scroll: Advanced Cat's Feet now lasts for 1 hour.
• Scroll: Advanced Float now lasts for 1 hour.
• Scroll: Advanced Group Water Breathing now lasts for 1 hour.
• Scroll: Advanced Wolf’s Legs now lasts for 1 hour.
• Scroll: Bear’s Strength now lasts for 30 minutes.
• Scroll: Blinding Strikes now lasts for 30 minutes.
• Scroll: Cat's Feet now lasts for 30 minutes.
• Scroll: Float now lasts for 30 minutes.
• Scroll: Group Water Breathing now lasts for 30 minutes.
• Scroll: Wolf’s Legs now lasts for 30 minutes.
• Scroll: Vampiric Thirst now lasts for 1 hour. This is for both basic and advanced versions.
• Vampiric Thirst now requires and consumes a Vampiric Bloodstone per proc.
• Vampiric Bloodstones have been added to the rogue merchants.
• Advanced Vampiric Thirst proc rate has been raised to 25%.
• Fix for smoke trick burning mana when it does not fire correctly
• All ranks of stealth have had their base modifiers increased by 2%
• The max rank of stealth and the epic rank of stealth now add strikethrough chance of 5%
• The max rank of stealth and the epic rank of stealth now increase chance to proc by 5%
• Salamanders should now be classified as humanoid
• After looking at trick attack it is working correctly and over time adds more hate then the monk agro push ability goading slap since there is no refresh component. We do not see an issue with the power of this ability at this time
• Water of Life poison has been renamed to Viper Venom
• Water of Life Dart has been renamed to Tear Burst
• Siren's Kiss has a new rank at 55Viper Venom has a new rank at 55 that adds a chance to fire twice when it procs
• Tear Burst has a new rank at 55
• Azure Flames has a new rank that adds a reduciton in crit chance debuff
• Scarlet Flames has a new rank that adds a reduction in crit damage debuff.
• Foul blood has a new rank at 55
• Enflaming Veins Flechette has a new rank at 55
• Shadowy Flechette has a new rank at 55
• All of these new ranks have advanced versions as well.
• Fixed the restriction of many mobs in POTA that were not pickpocketable or able to be taken as hostages
• Removed the increased hate mod from devious foe.
• Vital strikes buff timer increased to 6 seconds
• Reduced Refresh of Eviscerate by 15 seconds
• Endurance cost reduction portion of criminal intent has been increased by 1 percent per tier after the first.
• Stack size of flash powder has been increased

Vanguard Saga of Heroes - Caravel

Cruising through the many Vanguard Saga of Heroes videos over on YouTube we came across a really nicely done piece showcasing the maiden voyage of a caravel. Put to a smooth acoustic track and featuring an adventuring bard this video is a great one to kick back to and enjoy some fun times in Vanguard.

Any chance Guild Halls will get some love? More fixtures, crafting stations, NPC vendors, mailbox, additions, scalable wall fixtures, books that fit on shelves, rows of books (that fit on shelves), maps (like in CW), prison cages/bars?
There are currently no plans to modify Guild Halls in any way.

Would like to know when Magicborne encounter will be fixed and also the Summoner Nimaa Encounter.
Magicbourne should be working properly now.

Any chance we will see a "mentoring" system like in Everequest 2, so that we can go back to the old areas with a group of lower level players and they will still get XP ?
Yes.

Where do you stand on class banacing and can we expect further tweaks to specific classes in the near future?
Yes there is a list of schedule class tweaks that has been posted for some time now.

What plans or ideas do you have for other ways that the Bard's group support/utility aspects could progess through AAs, or something else, (even if it's just something to replace the lost Charm spell) in the future?
None at the moment.

Are you guys ever planning to balance out the three tank classes so that 1 of the archetypes doesn't end up with the short end of the stick after a round of nerfs?
We are comfortable with where the tank classes are currently.

Any chance we could get macros to display a tooltip and show the cooldown of a specific ability within the macro?
Not something that is high on the list at the moment. It is something that we would all like to see happen though.

Are there any plans to allow for PvP Diplomacy?
No.

Is there any attention gonna be given to the NECRO in the near future?
We have recently given the necro attention. There are no plans for more work in the near future.

Is it intended that some buffs stop running their timers when you log out, some keep running their timers, some disappear immediately, and some reset their timers?
Yes.

How would you like to win free game time in all of your favorite SOE games? You would? Well, you're in luck! Patrick, the mastermind behind the SciFi and fantasy blog, Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, has just the contest for you!

You could win one of 20 six-month Station Access subscriptions. Station Access is the all-access pass to Sony Online Entertainment’s game portfolio. This giveaway grants game software including expansion packs and 6 months of subscription time to the critically acclaimed EverQuest®, Pirates of the Burning Sea™, PlanetSide®, EverQuest® II, Free Realms™, Star Wars Galaxies™, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes™, and EverQuest® Online Adventures! You’ll find the perfect game for everyone in the family!

Contest details are available on Pat's Fantasy Hotlist. Be sure to enter by October 25th!

Sony Online Entertainment LLC is not a sponsor of this event and, other than providing prizes to the event’s sponsor, is not responsible for any obligations herein.

Vanguard Saga of Heroes - A Bard's Tale

Although the level cap has been raised to 55, this video showcases one Bard's adventure to level 50. It's really quite good in showing some of the different areas that were adventured through on their quest to level 50. It's kind of neat to wax nostalgic in the process as we all remember those days when we were leveling away to the top.

In the latest update to Vanguard Saga of Heroes the development team has introduced a new game system that helps less experienced Telonians group up with some of the more experienced travelers of the land. The team is proud to introduce the mentoring system to the Vanguard Saga of Heroes players and included in this article is all the juicy tidbits that you need to know in order to get the most out of the new mentoring system.

• You can now mentor friends and adventurers who are lower level than yourself! In order to mentor another player check out the following information:
• To mentor another player you need to form a group
• Once you are in a group with the lower level player, the lower level player need to right click on the group members and select "Request mentor"
• The higher level members of the group can choose to accept or deny the mentor request at this point.
• If the adventurer accepts the mentoring request they will have their level temporarily dropped down to be in line with the level of the person who they are going to be mentoring
• While mentoring you'll be able to adventure with the mentored player, gain experience, complete quests, etc. so you can continue on your path to level 55!
• A maximum of 5 players can mentor one lower level player (This is limited by the group size).
• While mentoring, your player stats will be reduced to keep it reasonably in line with the level equivalent of the mentored player however you will still be a bit more powerful than an equal level character. This means your friend's progression should move along a bit more quickly than normal!
• The mentoring session ends when the player chooses to hit the "Stop Mentoring" option in the context menu where you choose to leave groups or if the mentored player is out of the group for over 2 minutes.

And that's the low-down on the mentoring system, be sure to invite your friends and family to group up with you in Telon as you can now help them out like never before!

Vanguard Saga of Heroes - Let's Take a Pegasus Nightly Ride!

Vanguard players are always finding new, creative, things to do in Telon and this video showcases just one of those examples. The flick that we're highlighting this week shows some of the fun that can be had as an adventurer takes off with a Pegasus for a nightly ride!

In 2003, SOE released PlanetSide, a Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter game where thousands of players fight a futuristic war, engaging their enemies in large-scale battles and tactical base assaults.

As you may have heard, we're planning to expand the PlanetSide universe with another game and we need your help with the design. After all, who knows games better than you, our customers, the people who actually play! Don’t worry about the original PlanetSide, it isn’t going anywhere.

We want to hear your opinion and to do so we have put together a short survey. The information you provide will play a critical role into helping guide the development and direction of the next hit Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter.

As a loyal and experienced SOE gamer, we value your input and look forward to hearing what you have to say. Thank you!

Station Access is an account subscription option that grants players access to EverQuest, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PlanetSide, EverQuest Online Adventures (for the PlayStation2 computer entertainment system), EverQuest Macintosh Edition, EverQuest II, Star Wars Galaxies and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Please note that all game software is sold separately.
Station Access also grants players the optional monthly membership to Free Realms, our family-friendly, free-to-play online game. Click here to see membership benefits.
Combining your subscriptions into a Station Access subscription offers a huge savings – see for yourself by checking out our savings calculator.
You also get the following features when you subscribe to Station Access:

Additional Character Slots

Running out of slots for your characters? Receive additional character slots for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (4 slots), EverQuest II (5 slots) and EverQuest (2 slots). 

Bonus Adventure Packs

Expand your adventures in EverQuest II with three Adventure Packs: The Bloodline Chronicles; The Splitpaw Saga; and The Fallen Dynasty—over a $20 value!

Casual Strategy Game Packs & Starter Decks

Launch your pirate fleet with two game packs for the Pirates Constructible Strategy Game Online, as well as one of the four starter decks (randomly selected) for both the Stargate Online Trading Card Game and the Star Chamber game.

Newsletter

Sign-up for the Station Access newsletter for exclusive offers, featured content, SOE news and more.
If you would like more information on Station Access, please visit our FAQ.
To sign up for Station Access, click here. Sign in using the same Station ID and password you use for your current (or previous) SOE subscriptions. On the ‘Your Subscriptions’ page, select one of your subscriptions. Next select the 'Edit Subscription' button. From there you may choose the Station Access billing option.

If you're a parent and you're in the San Diego area this weekend, be sure to stop by the San Diego Kids Expo, San Diego's premiere family event! The Expo is taking place on Saturday and Sunday, September 26th & 27th, at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. They'll have cool stuff for the entire family, and half of the ticket sales will support Rady Children's Hospital.

SOE is sponsoring the San Diego Kids Expo and we'll be at the event showing off Free Realms. Stop by the SOE booth to meet Jason "Pex" Ryan, Free Realms Community Manager, along with Benito "Shingo" Martinez, Lydia "Zatozia" Pope, Aimee "Ashlanne" Rekoske, Linda "Brasse" Carlson and other SOE folks!

Will you be attending the San Diego Kids Expo? Come and RSVP on Facebook!

Vanguard Saga of Heroes - Diplomacy Mounts and Bags Tutorial

It's always useful to have a tutorials especially when they are very well done videos. This flick on YouTube goes over Diplomacy Mounts and Bags in great detail so be sure to check it out!

This week we're giving everyone the rundown on the reported changes that you'll find currently on the Test server. This week the team has been hard at work looking into the Shamans, looking below you'll be able to find all of the latest changes and adjustments to the class.

• Lethargy line has had its potency increased.
• Ancestor's Infusion/Gift line can now crit.
• Shamans may now have their pet out when shape changing to the skin of their patron and vice versa.
• Avatar of the Spirit Warrior scroll has been added to Karax's loot table.
• Avatar of the Phoenix now has energy regeneration.
• Avatar of the Phoenix has had its refresh timer reduced to 10 minutes.
• Wings of Hayatet had its melee mitigation converted over to spell mitigation.
• Wings of Hayatet now has an additional non-fire spell damage buff. The 3rd level of this line also has a 1% spell critical chance.
• Attendant of Hayatet will no longer emit flame particles.
• A new detaunt spell has been added to the shaman trainer for Hayatet called Flutter.
• A new detaunt spell has been added to the shaman trainer for Tuurgin called Shake Off.
• Roar has had its refresh timer reduced to 10 seconds, from 2 minutes. Also fixed the description on the ability, it was saying it removed beneficial effects when it was actually removing enchantments.
• Avatar of the Great Bear now properly grants immunity to Cold.
• Avatar of the Great Beat has had its refresh timer reduced to 10 minutes, from 15 minutes.
• Skin of Rakurr, Skin of Tuurgin and Wings of Hayatet have had their endurance costs reduced.
• Shamans have been added to some caster classifications for items. Shamans may now equip some items that were normally for casters and/or bloodmages.
• Curse of Frailty is now a spiritual spell and no longer physical.
• Added some chat text to Purging Flames.
• Avatar of the Hunter has had its refresh timer reduced to 10 minutes, from 15 minutes.
• Increased the effectiveness of Snarl, Flutter and Shake Off.
• Rakurr's Gift of Speed line now adds accuracy & proc rate increase. Versions III & IV add critical damage.
• Rakurr's Grace IV and Rakurr's Gift of Grace now add to strikethrough damage.
• Acuity IV and Hayatet's Gift of Acuity now add to strikethrough chance.
• Burning Mantle line now has energy cost reduction and spell refresh haste.
• Mein of the Mystic now displays a message in the chat box when activated.
• Skin of Rakurr movement speed was increased to 90% and now has a 10% mount speed increase.
• Throat Rip now appears in the npc debuff window.
• Panacea line will now fail to cast if the targets 30 second immunity is still active without consuming energy and initiating the refresh timer.
• Intercession line will now fail to cast if the targets 2 minute immunity is still active without consuming energy and initiating the refresh timer.
• Fiery Shield has had its refresh timer reduced to 4 minutes and now has a 1 second cast time.
• Fiery Shield duration has been increased to 30 seconds.
• Fiery Shield cannot be cast on the same target more than once every 2 minutes.
• Shield of Mortality has had its potency reduced to 10%.
• Shield of Mortality has had its refresh timer increased to 4 minutes.
• Shield of Mortality duration has been increased to 30 seconds and now has a physical based damage shield.
• Shield of Mortality will now fail to cast if the targets 2 minute immunity is still active without consuming energy and initiating the refresh timer.
• Shield of Spirits has had its potency reduced to 10%.
• Shield of Spirits has had its refresh timer increased to 4 minutes.
• Shield of Spirits duration has been increased to 30 seconds and now has a spiritual based damage shield.
• Shield of Spirits will now fail to cast if the targets 2 minute immunity is still active without consuming energy and initiating the refresh timer.
• Skin of Rakurr now has endurance regen.

Ahoy, ye scurvy landlubbers! This Sat'rday be International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Arrrr!

Do ye have a pirate name? If not, the Community Team found a great site to create yer own pirate name!!

Head on over to tha forums to discuss yer pirate name! Or ye can create a post all in pirate speak!

Vanguard Saga of Heroes - Memory

This video from one of our friends in Germany is a great flick highlighting some of the fantastic sights you can see while playing Vanguard. Check it out and enjoy!

Wonder what the dev team has been working on as of late? The Vanguard development team has been busy checking into class balance and the first two to get looked at were the Disciples and the Necromancers. Here's the run down of all the changes!

Disciple Changes

• Inner Light has been fixed to work as an aura.
• Inner Light should now properly heal life, energy and endurance.
• Feign Death refresh timer has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Paralyzing Sweep will now stop auto attack.
• Increased the damage on the Ra’Jin Flare line.
• Reduced the amount of Jin needed for Ra’Jin Flare II & III.
• Fixed the tooltip for Kiss of the Slug in the spellbook. It will now display the correct damage and strength amounts.
• Removed the Endowment of Balance secret chain. The effects from this endowment have been moved to both Celestial Tiger and Immortal Jade Dragon forms.
• Endowment of Mastery & Endowment of Enmity have had their durations increased from 10 minutes to 20 minutes.
• Increased the aggro reduction amount slightly on the Soul Cutter line.
• Increased the heal amount slightly on the Lao'Jin Flare line.

Necromancer Changes

• The following abilities no longer require an npc corpse to work:
  • Plague Bringer's Ritual
  • Ritual of the Guardian
  • Ritual of the Servant
  • Ritual of the Slayer
• Level 53+ necromancers may now have up to 3 minions.
• Minions will now last up to 24 hours. (Excludes Ritual Animatus)
• Minions have had their HP values doubled. (Excludes Ritual Animatus)
• Minions now have 75% aoe mitigation. (Excludes Ritual Animatus)
• A 6 slot bag designed to hold grafts only are now for sale on the necromancer instructors around the world. Additional bags have been added to the necropsy tables for every 10 levels.
• Increased the damage on the Bone Spike line.
• Reduced the initial delay on the DoT portion of Bone Rail to 2 seconds.
• Increased the damage slightly on the Drain Life line.
• The nuke portion of Death Touch has been removed.
• Death Touch now requires the npc to be below 10% health to work.
• Reduced the refresh timer on Death Touch to 3 minutes, from 30 minutes.
• Increased the return ratio on Life Draught to 75%.
• Necros now have both Lich and Wraith forms, and may switch between them. A form switch timer of 5 seconds has been added. The Guise of Mortality forms have been renamed to fit which form they represent. Switching forms will kill all your minions. Forms cannot be switched during combat.
• The necro form quests have been removed.
• The minion summon abilities have been added to the trainer.
• Removed the endurance costs from the forms.
• Ghastly Revenge and Necrotic Clutch are now openly available without flag restrictions. With this change, they will not stack with each other on the caster.
• Removed the levitation effect from the Wraith forms. In response, a new self levitation ability has been added to the trainer called Weight of the Ghost.
• Increased the duration on Ritual of Necropotence to 30 minutes, from 5 minutes.
• Poison Burst has been renamed to Noxious Malady.
• Noxious Malady (Poison Burst) will no longer be an aoe nuke. It now is a single target nuke with a 25 second debuff to accuracy, critical hit chance and spell mitigation at the highest level.
• Increased the duration on Devouring Shadows to 60 seconds, from 24 seconds.
• Increased the duration on Grasp of the Grave to 60 seconds, from 36 seconds.
• Increased the duration on Plague of Infestation to 60 seconds, from 24 seconds.
• Increased the duration on Torment to 60 seconds, from 32 seconds.
• Reduced the refresh timer on Sealed Fate to 30 seconds, from 3 minutes.
• Increased the HP on the abomination by a large amount.
• Necrotic Clutch now properly displays in the buffs window instead of debuffs.
• Ritual of the Slayer will now summon a caster version if you are in Wraith form.
• Increased the damage on the Slayer minions.
• Removed the wraith version Plague Bringer’s Ritual and added its summon to the lich version. When in wraith form, clicking it will summon the wraith version.
  • Removed the lich version Ritual of the Servant and added its summon to the wraith version. When in lich form, clicking it will summon the lich version.
• Removed both Advocate’s Ritual spells.
• Vile Ritual will no longer attempt to give your abomination energy and will give it health instead.
• Vile Ritual cast time has been increased to 5 seconds.
• All necro pet heals now scale past level 50 up to level 55.
• Increased the healing amount on Blood Rite.
• The return effect on Rite of the Master has been reduced to 33%. This is due to the abominations health increased by a large amount.
• Increased the damage on Detonate Corpse.

It is difficult to believe that 8 years has passed since we heard those first unbelievable reports that two planes had crashed into the buildings of the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and yet another in a Pennsylvania field. 

The anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, offers an opportunity to remember this unforgettable moment in history, and to reflect upon the impact that the events of September 11 have had on the United States and the world as a whole.  Let’s all take a moment today to remember all those who were affected by these events and to reflect on what was learned that day about patriotism and tolerance.

Labor Day marks the end of summer for those of us the in United States.  SOE would like to wish everyone a happy and safe Labor Day weekend!

Customer Support will be operating normally on Labor Day, Monday, September 7, 2009.

This week the Telonian Tribune is proud to highlight one of Vanguard's many fabulous guilds!

Your name: E. D. O'Brien

Your guild's name: Aequinox

Your character's name: Hagdurwulf

Server the guild is on: Seradon

Who is your guild leader, and if you have any other ranking officials who are they and what are their responsibilities? Grand Council; Grand Magistrate Karinji of the Solsticar (diplomacy; legal), Grand Emmisary Kierka of the Solsticar (diplomacy, ambassadorial), Grand Marshal Thothmose of the Nadirium (Adventure, miltary), Grand Outrider Lizabethe of the Nadirium (Adventure, covert), Grand Commissioner Isoel of the Zenithad (Crafter, manufacturing), Grand Executor Moot of the Zenithad (Crafter,
Assets) ---- This Grand Council appoints a Chancellor to hold the highest rank (GL) to keep there powers in check with each other, they draft rules and regulations and Set standards for RP within the guild. All politics is handled through RP only, no real world issues. The Chancellor is selected to handle real world issues behind the scenes (runs guildsite, kick someone out of guild for violations, etc...) current Chancellor is an Office of Three people, Chancellor Ghabriel, Courier Intelligence, Warden Lellin

How would you describe your guild: raid focused, roleplay, casual, or something else altogether? We are RP and NON- RP, We have Two blanket organizations in our guild (aequinox.vanguard-guilds.com) The AEQUINOX GENERAL ROSTER, which members may just hang out and use our guildchat for out of charater relations, they dont set guild policy but can always suggest things. Then the AEQUINOX TRADE ALLIANCE, which has the Grand Council and is More RP oriented and sets guild policy, we have a Channel set aside that all members must autojoin, this is used for RP and for those outside our guild to RP with us, or stop in and say ((( hello, everybody ))).

When was your guild first created? Feburary 3rd 2007

Has your guild been active in any other games besides Vanguard? A lot of us moved over from EQ2, but sevaral of us play various games, but most of us love Vanguard because of its attempts to be more realistic than the Cartoony WoW and others like that.

How many members does your guild have? 116 currently, figure flows up to 130 or 140 depending on status of inductees into guild, and turn around of those inductees.

Does your guild have a Guild Hall? If so, where's it located? We have just completed a GuildHALL, it is located on the West side of the Island of Bleys Bluff on Thestra.

What does your guild look for when recruiting members? RPers, Non RPers, Helpful people, people who are new, and Veterens, those who want to build a family of friends.

How does your guild contribute to the community? We attempt on many occasions to have Interguild RP events, and Raid alliances.

Do you have a rival guild? We Dont have a Rival guild.

Do you have any guild quotes? "Time for HECUBUS to DIE" (hecubus even though a member of the guild, he is in the Aequinox General Roster and listed as an Enemy to the guild (RP) who is constantly trying to oust those in power out.
"Loyalty or Death, Its, your CHOICE" (how Thothmose our Military leader runs his miltary regime, he had many executed, NPCs, to consolidate his control of military forces, who were divided between leaders at one point)

Time to name names! Who dies the most in your guild? Who has the most alts? Who has the best sense of humor? We have a number of Alts in the Guild, Sariaan has the most I think, Hecubus probably dies the most, in RP and in combat.

Do you have a link to your guild's website? aequinox.vanguard-guilds.com Our site is organized the way we visualize our Guildhall, With rooms and offices, prison, stables, etc.... So the Site is very much IN CHARACTER, with paranthetical Out of Character explanations of various features.

Tell us about your most memorable guild experience or accomplishment: Our Guildhall was the highlight this year, so many on our AEQUINOX URBAN DEVELOPMENT TASK FORCE worked together to build that thing, Bing events are times Killing HEGNARIAN for various members and our guildwide pursuit of the Griffon Quest, which many of us have yet to complete. An all the New content that has been coming out, Our guild has seen a Large resurgence lately in membership, we are currently closing in on 300

Tell us more about your guild, and why you think it should be featured in the Guild Spotlight: We are extraordinarily organized, our RP roles and our Non RP roles are very well adapted to the various styles of play one might enjoy, and we dont mandate anyone stay with one style or another. We also have an extensive Gallery on our guildsite, we call it the Mezzanine. INSIDE it are portraits of Members of our guild, locations or Emotional moments, plus Utility areas for our guilds OOC use. The portraits are taken from Screenshots in the Game and they are modified with the use of PHOTO EDITING software, to look like paintings, Stained glass, drawings, and other works of art, "Intelligece" (real name of member) does all the PHOTO work on our site.

It would be an injustice to all the artwork posted on our guildsite to just send you a few pictuters, and a Bandwidth hog to you and myself, so I invite you to take a gander at our site and look at the multitude of pictures held there. (Aequinox.vanguard-guilds.com)

Greetings!

There will be maintenance on the Session databases across all games on Wednesday September 9, 2009.  It will begin at 12AM PDT and is estimated to last until 12PM PDT.  All game worlds will be unavailable for the estimated 12 hour maintenance, as well as the Station Store and all commerce avenues.  This may affect the performance of the forums and any or all accounts' abilities to log in.

We apologize for the inconvenience and will update the information as we are able.

The Community team will provide updates via twitter for anyone who follows us:

• Grimwell
• Naylie
• Kiara
• Virrago
• Zatozia
• Soffrina
• Momochii
• Ashlanne
• Gnobrin
• Amnerys
• Raijinn
• MinervaSOE
• Draakull

You can also follow game twitters for updates:

• Free Realms
• EverQuest
  
• EverQuestii
• EQOA
  
• VanguardSOH
  
• PlanetSide
  
• PoxNora

We apologize again for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Dragon*Con is just a few days away and SOE will once again be a part of the MMO Track! We've got all the information you need to know about the SOE whos, wheres and whens. We hope you'll join us for the fun!

Panels

This year all of our panels are scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 6th, and all take place in the Athens room at the Sheraton hotel. Below you'll find our tentative schedule; the finalized schedule will be released at Dragon*Con.

*Schedule is subject to change. Please check the official schedule at Dragon*Con.

Party Time!

We're hosting our own party this year for our players and friends! Click here to view the official Facebook invite. The SOE Fan Gathering begins Sunday evening at 10:00 p.m. and runs into the wee hours of Monday, or around 1:00 a.m. (a no-host bar will be nearby). Wear your favorite costume and participate in our costume contest. Sign-ups start at 9:30 p.m., with the contest at 10:30 p.m. Or if dressing up isn't your thing, then perhaps you'll enjoy our Live Quest. Come compete for prizes or cheer on your friends. We'll also have giveaways throughout the evening. And if you've always wanted to be part of the SOE Podcast, this will be your chance!

Follow Us Online

If you can't attend Dragon*Con in person, you can still attend virtually! We'll be streaming video from the SOE Fan Gathering on our Ustream channel.

For our friends at Dragon*Con: follow us on Twitter throughout the weekend for your chance to score some Phat Lewt. We'll occasionally tweet our location(s) around the con area. Find us and claim your reward!

Here's a list of Twitter accounts to watch for Dragon*Con updates and lewt giveaways:

• Aaron "Gnobrin" Bisnett - @Gnobrin
• Aimee "Ashlanne" Rekoske - @Ashlanne
• Alan "Brenlo" Crosby - @Brenlo
• Jason "Pex" Ryan - @freerealms
• Linda "Brasse" Carlson - @Brasse
• Rich "Greeblen" Schmelter - @Greeblen
• Tiffany "Amnerys" Spence - @Amnerys
• SOE Podcast - @SOE_Podcast
• Sony Online Entertainment - @SonyOnline

Our official Flickr photo album for the weekend is the SOE Dragon*Con Meet and Greet 2009 album. Check in from time to time to see what we're uploading from our adventures, and add your own photos if you attend our panels, the Fan Gathering, collect Phat Lewt from us, or just see us around.

Are you going to Dragon*Con? Stop by our [link]official thread[/link] on the forums and tell us what you're looking forward to at the convention. We'll see you there!