So the beta launcher is finally un-betaed! Sony has officially pushed the Station Launcher into the "final version," dropping in voice chat, simplified menus, faster servers for downloads, and the ability to run the launcher without administrative rights as well.

The fun stuff, however, is really contained within the voice update. This new voice, dubbed "station voice," lets you communicate with friends from within the game or outside of the game. Creating a room from outside of the game is done with your in-game character, letting people who are on the station launcher join you, or people inside of the game join your room from the inside, no launcher required.

Plus, the other new features like the upgraded servers that will give more downstream bandwidth for game updates, are certainly nothing to sneeze at.

This doesn't mean that Sony is done with upgrading and changing the launcher, as they've already pledged to continue taking user feedback and pushing that into their product to constantly make a better launcher.

For the full patch notes, check them out on the EverQuest forums, located in this thread.

Sony Online Entertainment Fan Faire 2009 is happening in Las Vegas, and of course they've had a number of things to unveil so far. SOE president John Smedley gave his community address last evening, and other speakers made an appearance as well. We've got a few highlights from SOE Fan Faire 2009 for you:


Smedley jumped right in by talking about the state of the SOE game lineup and some of the new directions they've explored with them in this past year. One of those new directions has been the introduction of Station Cash, and he talked about the growing adoption of Station Cash among SOE game subscribers in EverQuest and EverQuest II, as well as how it will soon be tied into new services and customization options. He announced a partnership with Hewlett-Packard which will allow players to purchase matte print images of art from the games using Station Cash. You'll be able to have your own character rendered in a high-quality art print, or even have your entire guild depicted and sent to you as a hardcopy art book.


On the topic of EverQuest, remember that mention we had of SOE trademarking new EQ properties? It turns out these are the new expansions: EverQuest: Underfoot and EverQuest II: Sentinel's Fate. Smedley kicked off the EQ announcements by reflecting back on 10 years of EverQuest and looking to where the IP is headed in the future. EverQuest II producer Alan "Brenlo" Crosby discussed the game's sixth expansion, Sentinel's Fate, where players will travel to the land of Odus and see what's happened there since The Shattering.

He dropped a few details about this next expansion, slated for a February 2010 launch, and the updates they plan to release between now and Sentinel's Fate. These updates will include the ability to downtier characters, allowing you to go back and replay older content, plus achievements are coming to EverQuest II. In addition, the EQ II level cap will increase by ten levels.

SOE hasn't forgotten about their long-term fans either, those who have stuck with the original EverQuest through the years. EverQuest producer Thomas Terrazas announced the sixteenth EQ expansion, Underfoot, which will launch in November 2009. Underfoot will feature 12-15 zones at launch, with bonus zones and additional content to release in April of 2010. Underfoot will have twice as many weapons as any of the previous 15 expansions, a new focus targeting window (allowing you to add specific targets to your list, monitor health of friends and foes), and achievement tracking that will help players remain aware of the objectives to be completed in their progression path. "In other words," Terrazas said, "you won't have to go looking online on somebody else's website so see what you need. It'll be in-game."

Fan Faire 2009 attendees will get both expansions for free.

Before there was Star Wars: The Old Republic or even World of Warcraft, there was Star Wars Galaxies.

Today marks the six-year anniversary of Sony Online Entertainment's epic MMORPG, and throughout the past six years, the game's seen a lot of changes. In an exclusive e-mail interview with lead producer Chris Field, he told us about the challenges of working on a six year-old game, their ongoing process of integrating fan feedback and what we can expect for SWG going forward. Hint: it's not going away anytime soon.

E3 may be the show on everyone's minds right now, but SOE is doing what they can to make sure that people don't forget that they have their very own event later in the month. They've put up a preview of some of the digital schwag that attendees will receive for coming to SOE Fan Faire 2009, and the new rule this year is that you'lll be able to get one in-game item for each game you have an active account for -- no need to choose just one anymore.

The preview has pictures and some details about the items, and there's one in particular that will probably get the most attention: the Dianoga Dumpster for Star Wars Galaxies players will spit up collection items if fed once a week for a month, and besides that, it just looks kinda cool. Other neat items include a statue of Firiona Vie for EverQuest II, and a flying dragon mount for Vanguard, although, that one might divide people due to its bright pinkish-purple color. Registration for the fan faire is still open, so if you simply must have a pink dragon, now's the time to book.

The Star Wars Galaxies forum regulars have welcomed a new community relations manager named Draakull to their ranks, who will be taking over for previous CRM Zatozia. Draakull made an introductory post and explained how MMOs have played a big part in his life, primarily because of the communities he's been involved with. Online friends helped him through some hard times when he didn't have support in the real world, and now he's ready to give back to the SWG community by performing in his new role as best he can.

Draakull has only been the CRM for a few days, but he has already organized a couple of small events in his introduction thread and has gained a lot of fans. To see what he's got in store next, keep checking the thread, or simply stay tuned to the SWG forums -- you're bound to see his posts a lot from now on.

SOE is searching for their two biggest fans, and plans to reward their loyalty with a trip to the SOE Fan Faire in Las Vegas later this year. It would be pretty difficult to work out who the biggest fanboys or girls are without any input from the community, so it's up to the players to nominate suitable candidates -- and yes, you can nominate yourself. What qualities should you be looking for in potential Players of the Year? From SOE:

"Do you know someone who is the poster child for your favorite SOE title? So dedicated to the game, he or she walks around with bloodshot eyes, sleep deprived, wearing his or her favorite wrinkled SOE T-shirt? Does this player stand out as the first person to go beyond the call of duty to help fellow community gamers in and out of the game? If so, you may have the perfect candidate, and we want to know more!"

To submit a nomination, send an email to SOEContests AT soe.sony.com with a 300 word letter or role-playing story explaining the worthiness of the player in question; a link to a screenshot, video or artwork can be included. The contest is already underway and closes at midnight PST on the 10th of May, and the nominee must be a US resident and 21 years of age or older. Full competition details can be found here.

Rejoice, Star Wars: Galaxies fans, because the Force is with you. SOE have announced via the forums and the official game site that you can transfer your characters between galaxies until June 30th.

As with most things, there's a catch though. You can only transfer characters created after December 11th 2008 and once the transfer has started, you need to exit the game and wait for two hours before logging back in, this is to make sure nothing interferes the with the transfer.

Being the helpful souls that they are, SOE have supplied a list of links to help folks who've never gone through the process before. This includes a comprehensive list of questions and valid galaxies and even some advice from the GMs on submitting character transfer-related tickets. So if you're looking to try a new galaxy, this might well be the perfect time to make the move and, even better, you aren't rushed to decide either.

What do bounty hunters and trade federation droids have in common? They're both rewards for playing through the upcoming Star Wars Galaxies trading card game scenario, "Destroy All Droids!"

Yes, you too can bask in the glory of a rare card featuring bounty hunter Bane Malar and a nice piece of Star Wars Galaxies in-game loot for your house. All you have to do is simply complete the upcoming card game scenario, which will be released on April 15th. That's it!

When you complete the small little storyline, the game will reward you with your card and a trade federation droid vendor for your house. If you beat it again with a new deck that has a different archetype you'll get another copy of the Bane Malar card, but you can only have up to four copies. So, if you're a Star Wars Galaxies player, you might want to check this out even if you aren't a rabid follower of the card game. Free stuff is free stuff!

Vegas, city of lights, nightlife, and SOE's Fan Faire! Sony has announced that they will once again be heading for Vegas to party down in high-rolling style. This year they'll be holding the event from June 25th to 28th at Bally's Hotel. The location they've picked is right in the middle of various Vegas attractions - although we're sure if you're there for the SOE party, you won't need to worry about that too much.

Having attended last year's Fan Faire, we can definitely say that it's a great weekend of fun and interesting panels, nice people - and this year's lineup appears to be just as interesting. So far the scheduled events include:

• Special announcements and sneak peeks of upcoming SOE titles at the Third Annual Community Address from SOE President John Smedley
• Autograph signings with members of the original EQ development team and other key contributors
• Lots of in-game tournaments; and live, game-themed competitions and quests
• Developer forums and roundtables
• Cool giveaways and other fun items!
• Player of the Year

To top it all off, prices for Vegas vacations are quite good, currently. So if you've been thinking about getting away, really dig SOE's games - or upcoming titles, and enjoy partying down with a great bunch of friendly, welcoming people, then definitely make some plans to attend this year's Fan Faire.

The patch notes for Star Wars Galaxies game update 8 are two posts long and full of information about all of the changes and additions coming to player run cities -- one of the staple pieces of content of SWG.

One of the biggest changes comes in the form of a 90 day log in time placed on all citizens of a city. If a citizen does not log into the game for 90 days, their character will be removed from the citizens list of the player city and their house will be eligible for pack up. On the bright side, this will allow city mayors to remove unused buildings and items from their city, should they be cluttering things up. On the down side, each character must be log in at least once each three months.

Past that change, other additions include a new guild master elections system, the ability of city vendors to wear bodysuits, a new 69 month veteran reward, and increased experience when in groups.

For the full list of changes in update 8, check out the patch notes over at the main Star Wars Galaxies forums.

It's funny the things that can suck you right back in, just when you thought you were out.

I've been feeling pretty burned out with World of Warcraft over the last couple of weeks, and I wasn't enjoying the feeling at all. There was a brief interlude where the Argent Tournament piqued my curiosity, so I grabbed the PTR downloader to give that a try. That lasted all of about an hour, when I realised just how long it would take me to download the files. I'm not sure if I should blame BT for my frequently crappy connection speed, or Blizzard because they can't seem to create a decent downloader. It doesn't matter really, as I can QQ about both equally.

Then it hit me – burn out didn't need to be a bad thing. In a shocking turn of events, I decided to actually listen to our readers' advice, and spend some time with other MMO, and maybe try a change of pace.

I haven't been playing World of Warcraft as much as I should have this week, and I feel bad about it. Last week, my Warrior hit the Defence cap, I got my first 25 Emblems of Heroism, and I tanked Archavon on 10-man. This week though, I've hardly even logged on.

I have instead spent most of the week playing Mario Kart Wii, honing my skills so that I can crush my 7-year old nephew utterly when next we meet. There are lessons we all need to learn early in life. Chief among them being never, ever, horse your Uncle Craig at Mario Kart. He'll thank me for it in time.

I also had some problems with my internet connection, thanks to the UK's seeming inability to cope with heavy snow. Then again, it is January, so I can see why we were taken by surprise. That was sarcasm, by the way.

I have felt guilty about my lack of WoW time though. I've been neglecting my characters in favour of other games, and I feel bad about it. I've felt this way before, on the occasion that I've taken a break from WoW, for example, to spend some time with EVE Online or Star Wars Galaxies.

Online credit card fraud is big business and even MMORPGs aren't safe from it's far reach. We recently had a chance to sit down with Executive Director of Global Customer Service, Brad Wilcox, and discuss how SOE is dealing with gold selling and power-leveling services for their games. They are taking this war so seriously that they have put all transactional business under keen gnomish scrutiny.

Can you tell us how this fraud prevention task force came to be?

Brad Wilcox: Since the inception of EQ1, we always had components of a fraud prevention team. These were game masters and individuals tasked with looking at the game economy and making sure that people weren't exploiting. Since September 2007, we started to see a big increase in fraudulent activity in regards to stolen credit cards. That is when it was decided to put a few more resources specifically related to the fraud that was happening with accounts and subs being created with these stolen credit cards. That's when we formed what we call the NUGIT team, which stands for Norrathian Underground Gnome Investigation Team. As you can tell by the name, our employees enjoy having as much fun on the back end as we do on the front end of these games