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Massively giveaway: Sony Online Entertainment All-Access prize pack

Filed under: EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide, Contests, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies


Sony Online Entertainment is a unique company in the MMO industry. Not only do they have a stable of games, they try to make it easy for you to play all of them. Our giveaway today celebrates this with an SOE game sampler. We have a great box with 30 days of gameplay for Planetside, EverQuest, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and EverQuest II all included! Plus, we'll throw in two additional 30 day time cards. Extend your play of one of those games to 90 days, or try out two games for two months. We've got a ton more swag for you on top of that greatness; we'll throw in an SOE podcast t-shirt, SOE-branded binoculars, and a DC Universe Online pen/flashlight that shines the Bat Symbol! Estimated total retail value of the pack is $130.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling us what your favorite SOE game is and why. To get this unique prize pack you'll need to comment before 7:00 AM EST Friday, November 7th. You can only enter once per person, and after the contest closes we'll ship out this fantastic prize to one randomly-selected winner. Give us at least a week to ship out this massive pile of swag, though. To win you must be age 18 or up and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec). For full eligibility details, we suggest you read our official rules. Good luck!

PlanetSide veteran remembers the Battle of Forseral

Filed under: Sci-fi, PlanetSide, Culture, PvP, MMOFPS

PlanetSide doesn't get much attention these days. It didn't get much attention when it was fresh on the market either. It has always seemed like a clunky, not-quite-right prototype for what a massively-multiplayer-first-person-shooter could be. But some folks remember their time spent there quite fondly, including Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Quintin Smith.

A few days ago he wrote up an article about how veterans of the game fondly share war stories, and then provided his own epic tale. It's a great story that shows how players with good humor can turn a game-crushing bug into the gaming experience of a lifetime.

The story resembles the Battle of Thermopylae; one nation is forced (by a bug) to the brink of annihilation. It's interesting because it's presumably the one time any faction in PlanetSide was faced with the possibility of complete and final loss of a war that's rigged to be impossible to lose (or win). We recently brought up the question of stakes in PvP, so this new RPS article is topical! Amusingly, the article is also not entirely dissimilar to our own PlanetSide experience.

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The SOE Fan Faire bag o' schwag

Filed under: Galleries, EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide, Events, real-world, The Agency, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Everquest Online Adventures, Free Realms, Legends of Norrath, DC Universe Online


What goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas -- unless of course you happen to be at Sony Online Entertainment's 2008 Fan Faire! We here at Massively are party-crashing this fun event bringing all the dark, dirty details to you straight from the heart of casino central!

For those who are unable to make it to this year's event (and those of you who are just curious about this kind of thing) we're bringing you the contents of the official SOE schwag bag for this year. So gather your courage, and dip in to the gallery for a first look at all the wonders contained in the 2008 Bag o' Schwag.

The Gaming Iconoclast: A side of PlanetSide

Filed under: PlanetSide, Events, in-game, PvP, Reviews, Opinion, War, Hands-on, MMOFPS, Humor, The Gaming Iconoclast

"Come on, you apes! Do you want to live forever?"
- Unknown WWI platoon Sergeant, as quoted in the epigraph of Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein

This sort of chaos, of being flung into the maw of an overwhelming and relentless foe, very succinctly sums up the jovial insanity of Massively's foray into PlanetSide's world-event realm as so-called Black Ops. Replete with frenetic action, us-versus-the-world attitude, and the ever-so-helpful seismic and meteoric stylings of a GM eavesdropping on our Skype chat, TGI hopes that our incursion into PlanetSide's universe provided an entertaining distraction to the folks for whom it's been a long-time daily driver.

Our efforts could politely have been called "lambs to the slaughter." They could less-politely be visualized as a well-worn combat boot meeting a sensitive part of TGI's anatomy, perhaps the one he sits upon, repeatedly and with great vigor.

It was glorious.

Continue reading The Gaming Iconoclast: A side of PlanetSide


One Shots: Wake up, time to die

Filed under: Screenshots, PlanetSide, One Shots, MMOFPS

As many of you know, we just recently played PlanetSide with a good-sized team comprised of Massively staff -- and some guest stars. As you can imagine, there was much, much death. It wasn't all one sided, however. We managed to take and hold a tower for quite a little while before the PlanetSide players caught up with us. To give you an idea of what we were facing every time we popped out from one of the spawn tubes, we bring you today's One Shots taken by our own Colin Brennan. He says: I got an awesome picture of all the NC that were camping the spawn tubes during our event in PlanetSide. I had just respawned when you guys said, "Don't respawn at the base" and came face to face with... well... everyone on my former team.

Do you have any screenshots from the recent Come Frag Massively event? Or perhaps you just have a great screenshot of that moment, frozen in time, when you know you're absolutely, positively going to die no matter what you do. Pack those screenshots up and email them along with a description to oneshots AT massively.com!

Gallery: One Shots

Guild Wars 2008 Wintersday panorama

Liveblogging Massively's PlanetSide assault

Filed under: Sci-fi, PlanetSide, Events, in-game, MMOFPS, Humor, Massively Event Coverage

It's a bright summer day, the sun is shining, the grass is green ... and the explosions are deafening. Welcome, regular readers and PlanetSide fans, to Massively's first in-game event. In collaboration with Sony Online Entertainment, for a few hours today the staff of Massively.com (along with some temporary recruits) are going to attempt to stand our ground against the might of three armies. Like Xerses at Salamis, we'll try to hold against all odds. The forces of the New Conglomerate, the Terran Republic, and the Vanu Sovereignty will all be gunning for us, and we hope you'll join them. Head over to the announcement post for details on how to join us in-game.

This post is your go-to locale for information as the battle progresses. We'll keep you updated with our current position in-game, the status of our wartribe, and insider information on how the battle is going. Click on through for the current state of the war, and we hope to see you on the battlefield!

Continue reading Liveblogging Massively's PlanetSide assault


One Shots: I'ma chargin mah lazorz

Filed under: Screenshots, PlanetSide, Events, in-game, One Shots, MMOFPS


Are you ready to rumble? Are your lazorz all charged up and ready? Do you have enough ammo to do what it takes to take the Massively staff down during the PlanetSide fragfest planned for later today? We certainly hope so! We already know that Massively reader Mason R. is ready, as he not only sent us the great screenshot above, but a cool edited variation too. If you haven't started your download or signed up yet, there's still time, though. Check out all the details about Massively's invasion of PlanetSide. We'll see you at 6:00 PM Eastern, recruits!

Do you have some cool screenshots you took (posed or otherwise) showing off an aspect of your world that we haven't seen recently? Perhaps you'll be snagging screenshots from today's PlanetSide event and would like to have your screens featured in our upcoming huge gallery of the event? Whatever the case -- just pop those screenshots and a description of what we're seeing into an email and fire it off to us here at oneshtos AT massively.com!

Gallery: One Shots

Guild Wars 2008 Wintersday panorama

WRUP: Frag Massively edition

Filed under: Sci-fi, PlanetSide, Events, in-game, PvP, Massively meta, MMOFPS, Humor


Time once again to ask you readers what you're playing this weekend, and this time, we know the answer: Planetside. That's right, tomorrow afternoon is our big event in the best MMOFPS of 2003, and we really hope you'll be there to join us -- we have to have someone driving the Galaxies we're planning to shoot down out of the sky.

Other than the Planetside event, Age of Conan continues to be popular around the Massively compound, as does World of Warcraft, and EVE Online has reattracted our attention lately with the new patch's factional warfare and whatever that was that happened in Jita the other day. As we like to ask you every week, dear readers, What aRe You Playing in the world of MMOs?

Just make sure that Saturday afternoon at 6pm EST, it's Planetside -- after all, it's not every day you get to shoot us in the face. We'll be on the US Gemini server, and if you need to figure out where we are, you can just hit ESC and punch "Instant Action" in the menu. That, or just follow the carnage left in our wake!

One Shots: A view to a kill

Filed under: Screenshots, PlanetSide, One Shots, MMOFPS


Several of the team members have been checking out PlanetSide in preparation for our upcoming "Come Frag Massively" event, this Saturday at 6:00 PM Eastern. What has pleasantly surprised several of us is just how good looking this game is considering it was released in 2003! Today's One Shots was snapped while standing a cliff, overlooking a base under contention. Of course, what this lovely, placid-looking screenshot doesn't show you is the nearby mech piloted by Music520, who blew this blogger straight off the map about ten seconds later! To say this is going to be a fun and exciting event is an understatement, we think. So if you're free this Saturday, be sure to grab a PlanetSide trial account and come have fun fragging the crap out of the Massively staff!

Do you have a screen you captured just before something ate your face? Perhaps you also have a funny story behind a screenshot? Whatever the case may be, we'd love to check it out! Just scribble down your story, attach your screenshot and send the whole thing to us here at oneshots AT massively.com!

Gallery: One Shots

Guild Wars 2008 Wintersday panorama

TurpsterVision: Saturday Night Fever

Filed under: Video, PlanetSide, PvP, Reviews, Opinion, TurpsterVision


Every Wednesday think, "That's a day late again, I hope he isn't making a habit of this" and take the "T" for Turpster and take the "a" in "day", capitalise it, remove the little bit in the middle, turn it upside down and you get a "V". Put the two together and you'll have TV for TurpsterVision -- the best Internet video podcast on Massively! (Never mind that business about it being the only video podcast on Massively...)

It might be a day or so late but at least it's here! Thanks for stopping by once again to the internet's favourite almost-every-weekly MMO review show. This week gives you a little taster where you can see the game that you WILL be playing this Saturday (14th June – 6pm EST) and a slight indication of how much you are going to get owned in the face by my mad team killing skills!

If that little teaser doesn't tempt you to join us after the break then lets just pretend that there are some leaked spoilers and exclusive news – there isn't, but I wont tell if you don't.

Continue reading TurpsterVision: Saturday Night Fever


Come frag Massively in PlanetSide!

Filed under: PlanetSide, Events, in-game, MMOFPS, Massively Hands-on

Maybe you've disagreed with an article here on the site. Maybe you didn't like the way we covered your favorite game, or were too slow to jump on something you were really pumped about. Regardless, after reading the site for some nine months now, we'd bet you have at least one thing you'd like to get off your chest. Well, now's your chance. This Saturday we're going to give you the chance to put the leads, writers, and columnists of Massively.com in their place by fragging us to kingdom come.

In collaboration with Sony Online Entertainment a bunch of Massively staffers are going to hop into PlanetSide as a fourth army - we're going to be the bad guys. It's your job, then, as the loyal recruits of the New Conglomerate, the Terran Republic, or the Vanu Sovereignty to put us in our place. You can participate for free, even, and get a taste of what the gameplay in PS is like on an epic scale. Join us this Saturday at 6pm EST on the US server Gemini! For full details, read below the cut to find out how to grab the client and join in.

Continue reading Come frag Massively in PlanetSide!


SOE provides handy guide to cross-game communication in EQ

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide, Game mechanics, Tips and tricks, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard


Sony Online Entertainment is responsible for quite a number of MMOs, and they've got a useful system in place to allow communication with people across their game worlds. However, many people either don't know about this system, or simply don't know how to wrangle it into doing what they want. To help with this, SOE has written a guide illustrating how EverQuest players can chat to their friends in other games.

The games that EQ players can send both private messages and in-game mail to are EverQuest II, Planetside, Vanguard, The Matrix Online, and Star Wars: Galaxies. It's also possible to communicate with players on different EQ servers, but many of the servers have abbreviations that must be used in the commands -- these can be found in the guide. Now don't go acting all surprised when you're hiding from a guild raid on another server and your guild master sends you a tell!

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ION 08: John Smedley keynote shows off Free Realms and The Agency

Filed under: EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide, Events, real-world, New titles, The Agency, Star Wars Galaxies, Free Realms, Massively Event Coverage


When you think of Sony Online Entertainment, what comes to mind? I'm sure that Everquest, Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies and Planetside are some of the titles which most people think about. From what I've recently seen in John Smedley's keynote at ION 08 that's all going to be changing in the near future. While he did tease the audience with a hint that, "There's more Everquest in our future." Smedley left the topic of EQ at that. I've certainly had my thoughts on what the next Everquest experience should or could be like, but it's just my own personal wish.

So why are we going to be looking at SOE in a different light in the near future? Two games are the reason why: Free Realms and The Agency.

Continue reading ION 08: John Smedley keynote shows off Free Realms and The Agency


Planetside's two US servers merging

Filed under: Sci-fi, PlanetSide, Culture, MMOFPS

Early last month the small but dedicated fanbase for Sony Online Entertainment's Planetside learned that they'll be getting (in terms of pure acreage) smaller. The two current US servers, Markov and Emerald, will be condensed into the single server: Gemini. This was confirmed in a developer address to the players on the official forums. Some old Planetside players are getting invitations to return for a limited time; their accounts have been reactivated from now through May 21st.

This is partially about nostalgia, and partially a bid for character self-preservation. The merged servers will result in a lot of duplicated names, and characters that have been logged in recently will have precedence when it comes to claiming their name. Outfits (guilds) and characters that have been logged in within the last three months will have the highest chance of retaining their name; everyone else will be rolling the dice. Van Hemlock observes that this is likely a prelude to merging in the EU server Werner as well, which may well be the end of EU participation. Those extra pings when making the leap across the pond can't help in FPS PVP action.

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Sony Online Entertainment is looking for interns

Filed under: EverQuest, EverQuest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PlanetSide, MMO industry, The Agency, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Everquest Online Adventures

If you live and breathe gaming and are looking for some experience in the games industry, then you'll probably want to note that Sony Online Entertainment is currently looking to fill a number of intern positions. SOE is responsible for a whole swag of MMOs, including EverQuest, EverQuest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea, and Star Wars Galaxies, and some experience with them would likely be a valuable asset for further work in the industry, if not with SOE themselves.

They say that an internship with them would stretch 9 weeks, is a part time and paid position, and each intern will have a mentor to help them develop during the program. Taking a look at the drop-down menu on the SOE Career Opportunities page shows that quite a range of internships are available, from working with the community, to programming and developing, to art and even QA. Pretty much all of SOE's internships are based in San Diego, but it looks like there may be a couple for Seattle and Denver as well.

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