"Rumor has it, the patch on Wednesday, May 8th, will bring the "new code" from Test server which WILL break the EQEMu. Please do not patch your EQEMu Client folders (you do keep a 2nd copy of EQ in a diff directory for EQEMu right?). We will NOT be handing out files for you guys that patched. You will be up a creek without a paddle. Any asking for these files here or in #eqemu on irc.trifocus.net will cause your subnet to be banned from the login servers also. Just a little warning."

"The hottest properties in cyberspace are virtual worlds. Meet the man who's making magic -- and millions of dollars each month -- by developing the Net's newest boomtowns.

Smedley, 33, is the chief operating officer of Sony Online Entertainment, where he's master of the virtual boomtown known as EverQuest. Once a destination for the fringe Dungeons & Dragons crowd, the online role-playing game guide now has 433,000 paying customers who generate $5 million a month for the Japanese entertainment giant. Given the 40 percent gross-profit margins, and the fact that this world practically runs itself, the dragon-slaying business is looking pretty good these days.

...

One of the biggest and most ambitious of all is ready to launch. In July, Sony and LucasArts Entertainment are releasing a beta of Star Wars's first online colony. Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided is set in a galaxy far, far away (sometime before the action of The Empire Strikes Back). Subscribers can play bounty hunters looking for Jedi knights, Wookiees exploring Jabba the Hutt's palace, or any number of other galactic roles. For Star Wars fans, who can effectively live here round the clock, it'll be like opium.

...

Next year Sony releases PlanetSide, the first experiment of a first-person action game (think Quake) in a persistent world. Also in development is Sovereign, a real-time strategy game that will let players fight battles in future worlds. Soon, Landau says, Sony will even bring out single-player EverQuest games.

You guys have heard me ragging on Guides and GMs in the past few weeks, and really making fun of EQ Customer Service in general. However, I have a confession to make. I am posting this here as this in the one place I can assure Sony will not be able to have the post removed.

For the past year and a half I have also been known as Guide Aislyn on the Tholuxe Paells server. Yes, your *cough* beloved *cough* guild leader was a Guide. Not only that, I proudly served as a Senior Guide for 3 months... before being demoted.

Yes, you guessed it. I was demoted and removed as a guide because I will not keep my mouth shut when I feel something needs to be said, and not only said, but shouted from the roof tops. The subject I touch on here is one near and dear to my heart, and that is Customer Service to the players of EQ.

When I was demoted and it got out as to why (I will go into this later) many asked why I was not removed. It was because of this very post. I just became a larger liability to the vaunted Powers That Be in SOE Customer Service. My gag is off and I will NOT be silenced. If you are from Sony and reading this post I ask you one thing and one thing only... prove me wrong. I rest assured that you will not.

The whole thing came to a head the day I was promoted to Senior Guide. My birthday as a matter of fact. That was the day it was announced to the guides in the programme that servers would no longer have a GM assigned to them. We would hence be blessed with a roving band of GMs who would come and blast away the red petitions (GM only) and the customers would weep with their good fortune. Oh, players wept allright. They wept in frustration that it now takes a month to get an issue resolved, if it gets resolved at all.

November 19, 2002 - NVIDIA today released a video of their new GeForce FX card pushing EverQuest 2. The video is broken down into five parts, each with some commentary from EQ2 people. The senior producer and art director discuss some of the advanced features of the chip and programming for it. Newly released footage is peppered through the video. If you are interested in hearing about the shi, then watch all five. If, however, you're here primarily for game footage, then skip to the last clip, which is all game.