The first episode of the Official SOE Podcast was released on June 6, 2006, and it focused on EverQuest, EverQuest II and EverQuest Online Adventures. After more than four years in the making, the team has reached the podcast's 100th episode! The celebration was broadcast live on Stickam on Dec. 16 and is now available for your listening pleasure.

Host Aimee "Ashlanne" Rekoske and co-host Linda "Brasse" Carlson cover a lot of topics in episode 100:

• their Holiday Carol Challenge
• EQ2 Talk's charity drive for Child's Play
• SOE's newest Facebook game: James Patterson’s Catch a Killer
• An interview with Free Realms Producer Nick Parkinson

You can download SOE Podcast #100 on the official site or go to the iTunes store, type SOE into the search box and click Subscribe.

Mark your calendars for July 7-9! Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is bringing all the fun of Fan Faire back to Bally’s Las Vegas for a weekend of gaming action. Fan Faire is a great time to meet up with old friends and make some new ones while getting a look behind the scenes of your favorite SOE titles!

Fan Faire will be packed with activities including:

• Special announcements and sneak peeks of upcoming SOE titles
• In-game tournaments and live, game-themed competitions and quests
• Developer forums, panels and roundtables
• Goody-bags, giveaways and other fun items! favorite SOE titles!

Fan Faire vets and noobs alike will not want to miss out! Visit the Fan Faire website at www.soefanfaire.com for up-to-date information on registration, pricing and schedules. Tickets are expected to go on sale early this spring.

Players of EverQuest, EverQuest II, Free Realms and Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures will soon have the opportunity to contribute to the Child's Play charity by buying select in-game items. From Dec. 21-31, Sony Online Entertainment will donate $10 to Child's Play for the purchase of each of the following items, up to $50,000:

• Clone Wars Adventures: P3-NUT, a nutcracker-themed Droid pet
• Free Realms: A penguin pet
• EverQuest: the Child’s Play cardboard tube ornamentation, an effect that makes any weapon look like a cardboard tube
• EverQuest II: the cloak of falling snow

Child's Play is a charity that is dedicated to providing children with toys and age-appropriate games at more than 70 hospitals worldwide. Visit the official Child's Play site for more details on how to make a donation.

In case you missed the announcement, the hosts of EQ2 Talk, a biweekly podcast about Everquest II, are currently accepting bids on a pair of Mighty Muggs figures that are customized to look like their EQ2 characters. The money will be donated to Child's Play.

Beginning on Thursday, December 9th, at 1:00 am PST, the following SOE Services will be unavailable or interrupted while we undergo data center maintenance.

• Chat Services
• All Star Wars Galaxies Servers
• All EQOA Servers
• All PlanetSide Servers
• All EQ servers
• All Vanguard Servers
• Session (Game Log-In)

The maintenance is expected to take approximately 11 hours, with a return to normal functionality around 12:00 pm PST. During this maintenance period, some game servers will not be accessible. During Session maintenance, some servers may remain online, but players who log out may not be able to log back in. This maintenance may also affect the ability to log into our forums.

Source:  EQII Players

From 1:00 am PST until 1:00 pm PST on Tuesday, December 7th, SOE account services, commerce flow, and the Station Store may be unavailable during maintenance. Session servers (the ability to log into games) may also have interrupted service during this time.

All EQII Battlegrounds servers will be locked during this maintenance.

According to posts on official SOE forums:

Beginning at 6am PDT on Tuesday, November 02nd, all SOE account and commerce flow and the Station Store will be unavailable for maintenance.

We expect this maintenance to take approximately three hours. During this maintenance period game servers will still be accessible. We apologize for this interruption and will resume the affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

Here's our convenient Time Zone Conversion Tool to help you plan.

With Halloween fast approaching, Sony Online Entertainment's employees are gearing up for the SOE Hocus Pocus Ustream event! Join all your favorite SOE employees for a night of costumes, pumpkins, decorations, and other eerie goodies.

You can join the crew on October 29 starting at 2:00 pm PDT by visiting the channel and watching or logging in to Ustream to chat with the Community Team and other visitors at the same time!

As posted on all SOE forums, there will be a two-hour maintenance on some SOE Session servers early Thursday morning.

Beginning at 4 AM PDT on Thursday, October 21, 2010, some Session servers will be unavailable due to maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 2 hours.

During this time, all Session servers may be interrupted, which could prevent character log-ins for a brief period of up to one hour during the two-hour maintenance.

In addition, this might cause some forum accounts to temporarily lose forum permissions, due to the inability to verify account status while the maintenance is taking place. This is only temporary and normal permissions will return automatically once the maintenance is complete.

Here's our convenient Time Zone Conversion Tool to help you plan!

As posted on all SOE forums, there will be a three-hour maintenance on SOE Session and Store servers early Tuesday morning.

Beginning at 6 AM PDT on Tuesday, October 19, 2010, Session, SOE Account and Commerce flow and the Station Store will be unavailable due to maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 3 hours.

During this time, our Session server may be interrupted, which could prevent character log-ins for a brief period of up to one hour during the three-hour maintenance. Players may also be prevented from making purchases through the Station Store and their in-game stores, if applicable.

In addition, this might cause some forum accounts to temporarily lose forum permissions, due to the inability to verify account status while the maintenance is taking place. This is only temporary and normal permissions will return automatically once the maintenance is complete.

Here's our convenient Time Zone Conversion Tool to help you plan!

As part of GameBreaker TV's GDC Online coverage, host Gary Gannon had the opportunity to to talk with Nathan Pearce, the director of Skunkworks at Sony Online Entertainment, about numerous topics. Pearce acts as an internal consultant that keeps information flowing between the SOE studios. They talked about all sorts of SOE games, including DC Universe Online, The Agency, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, and EverQuest Next. Yes, that's right. EverQuest Next.