Remember the CBS News email-bag from December that accused Sony of shipping incomplete expansions and screwing over the Star Wars license? The plot thickens as Smed, he of SOE fame, responds: “There has never been a release by Sony Online Entertainment that has been incomplete.” He says other stuff too, but I know the ex-EQ players will particularly enjoy that quote. Brought a smile to your face, didn’t it? Ya, mine too.
Are we still pretending that the SOE stable of online games is flourishing? Sony announced yesterday an impending repackage job of their stable — EQ Evolution (wtf? Oh, that’s EQ + the first 5 expansions), EQII, PlanetSide Aftershock (complete PS collection), The Matrix Online and Star Wars: Galaxies (with the first expansion, Jump to Lightspeed) — all for $39.99 beginning March 14th. I don’t even want to think about how much I paid for my personal collection of SOE onliners way back when. (DAMMIT) The monthlies for those 5 games with the Station Access subscription, $21.99 plus tax. (Press Release)
Some pretty serious charges leveled against Sony Online in this email published last December in CBS News’ Gamecore: Star Wars Mailbag: The Sequel.
A lot of this stuff we know already — i.e. expansion zones pushed live without full itemization, etc. — but the other stuff is pretty damn snakey, even by Sony standards. To be fair, there are structural problems with the column (no clear delineation between the emails) and the charges are unsubstantiated, but such is the state of affairs with modern journalism: if someone says it, that’s good enough to print.