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Inside The Studios of Sony Online Entertainment

Posted by Zonk on from the chaining-dorks-to-their-desks dept.

Chris writes "FileFront has taken a very informative look at the world of Sony Online Entertainment inclusive of the developers, their offices, and equipment. Video interviews, screenshots, and photos are included. They also take a "World Exclusive" first look at the upcoming EverQuest II Adventure Pack, The Bloodline Chronicles."

4 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. I guess this got edited out ... by inkless1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "We were surprised to peek inside SOE's customer service department, only to find a hoarde of wraiths feeding on human flesh and screaming to shut the door..."

    Seriously, their customer support sucks. At least it did a little bit ago, and ... well I'm still bitter.

    1. Re:I guess this got edited out ... by inkless1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      PlanetSide didn't work. I don't know how to make it more plain than that - it just didn't work. It would lock up. It would crash. I would spawn as a wall. Let me repeat that last one, because it's not a euphemism - I entered the game as a wall. I could watch people passing by my wall, and I could do nothing else.

      SOE's Customer Support staff wasn't just useless, they were completely casual about how useless they were. If you asked them a question - ANY question, they wouldn't respond directly. They would just give you a form letter detailing all the log files they insisted that you cut and paste before they would acknowledge your existence.

      And THEN they would really ignore you. I mean days would tick without even so much as an update post to let you know that they had even bothered to read these 4 page long log files.

      In other words, they weren't there to help you. They were there to gather your system information so that they could further beta test the software you just paid money for.

      I mocked this openly on their forums. I wasn't abusive, I wasn't insulting, although I was probably a little mean. I got banned.

      Not from the forums. From the game. For annoying their useless customer support I was banned from the game. I didn't TK anyone, grief anything, cheat in any way. All I did was get frustrated at not just a lack of help from SOE - but a lack of response. I didn't even get an email telling me I had been banned.

      This lack of response carried over to when they reinstated me. And didn't tell me. And started to charge my credit card.

      That's when I cancelled, insisted they refund my monthly fee (which to their credit, they did) and swore to never touch another SOE product again.

      (Sadly I've broken that bloodoath with their Champions of Norrath titles, but that's only out of respect for Snowblind)

  2. Press release by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This is nothing more than a glorified press release from Sony. They are partners with Filefront, and the entire purpose of this is to make Sony look cool, make it look like they care about their players, and to push their new expansion.

    Nothing to see here, move along.

    --
    Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
  3. Here is another view of SOE from a few years back by jasonmicron · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here is an interesting look from a 3rd party perspective on the inside of SOE taken from Mobhunter.com and was written by a (now) SOE EQ2 employee known as "Moorgard".

    Snippet from the article, "Editor's Note: Please check out part one of this story if you want to read the background of why I was at the SOE offices and to see what I learned about EQOA. Also feel free to check out the non-VAK version to save yourself the time of composing your own anti-SOE rant."

    The non-VAK version is pretty funny (even if you LOVE to be a "Verant Ass Kisser".