sony-online-entertainment posts

Sony Online Entertainment is holding its annual Fan Faire event in Las Vegas this weekend and during the event the publisher revealed the next commercial expansion packs for both of their Everquest PC MMO games. The original Everquest title gets its 16th commercial expansion with Everquest: Underfoot. It will have the usual additions (new locations, monsters and more) when it's released in November.

The new expansion for Everquest II was also revealed during the event. Titled Everquest II: Sentinel's Fate, this expansion is not due for release until February 2010 but will raise the game's current level cap to 90. You can check out some concept art for the expansion at the game's official web site.

Late in April, Sony Online Entertainment launched their free-to-play MMO Free Realms and to day the game has been a success in signing up subscribers might be understating things a bit. After reaching the one million player registration mark in mid-May and the two million mark in late May, the game has now surpassed the three million mark according to a new press release today.

To celebrate this new milestone, Sony Online is giving the game's first three million subscribers a free "3M Pet Party Pack" which will be filled with in-game items specifically to be used by player characters' virtual pets.

A long running movie-based MMO is about to take the red pill and enter the real world of oblivion. Sony Online Entertainment has announced that The Matrix Online will shut down its servers on July 31. Originally developed by Monolith and published by Sega in March 2005, the game transitioned to Sony Online's Seattle offices just a few months after its launch.

In a note on the game's message boards, it was announced that Matrix Online players will not be billed again for playing the game after June 1 and players who have multi-month subscriptions or paid for their play time with game cards will have refund checks mailed out to them. Developers are promising, however, that the game will end with a big in-game event.

It was only a few days ago that Sony Online sent over work that their new "free-to-play" fantasy MMO Free Realms had already signed up 1 million players well inside a month. Today Sony Online revealed that sign ups for Free Realms have actually accelerated. Launched on April 28, the game has now surpassed the 2 million registered player mark.

All current players of the game are getting a new pack of in-game items to celebrate the milestone. Sony Online also states that 75 percent of its registered players are under 17 years old with 46 percent under 13. Also nearly a third of the players in Free Realms are female.

[Via email press release]

We would be very upset if The Flash wasn't a part of DC Universe Online. Thankfully we don't have to worry about that prospect as Sony Online has confirmed that the Scarlet Speedster will indeed be seen in their upcoming super hero themed MMO.

This version of the Flash is Wally West who is actually the third person to have that title. Jay Garrick had the Flash name for the Golden Age of comics and in a major revamp Barry Allen took over during the Silver Age. Wally started out as Kid Flash and then took on the main Flash mantle after Barry Allen's "death" in the classic DC comic maxi series Crisis on Infinite Earths. However Barry just recently returned to life in the Final Crisis mini-series. The Flash also has one of the best collections of villains, including Captain Cold, Heatwave, Mirror Master, The Trickster. the Weather Wizard and The Flash's opposite number Zoom. Hopefully we will get to see The Flash in action in a DC Universe Online demo at E3.

There has been a ton of games that have been or will be adapted into comic books and DC Comics' Wildstorm imprint is responsible for many of them, including World of Warcraft, Prototype, Gears of War and the upcoming StarCraft comics. Now Wildstorm has announced that the just launched MMO Free Realms from Sony Online is getting its own comic as well.

The first issue of the planned 12-issue maxi-series is written by fantasy author J.S. Lewis (not to be confused with the late fantasy author C.S Lewis). Like the MMO it's based on the comic seems to be made for a younger audience (something that's a tad rare for a Wildstorm published comic). Look for the series to begin in July.

Sony Online's first big move in the free-to-play MMO space seems to have been very successful so far. Free Realms, the fantasy based game that officially launched on April 28, has already secured over one million subscribers.

That lucky 1 millionth subscriber is getting some cool bonuses, including a lifetime subscription to the game, 10,000 in Sony Online's Station Cash and a unique astronaut suit for his or her character to wear in the game. In addition all the 999,999 people who signed onto Free Realms beforehand will each get 200 Station Cash and a matching in-game t-shirt for their pets.

[Via email press release]

He's the creature that managed to kill Superman (at least for a few months) and since then has been a particularly nasty staple of the DC comic book universe. Now Sony Online has released new screenshots showing off Doomsday in the upcoming super hero MMO DC Universe Online.

The three new screenshots (added to our gallery below) give a good glimpse of the Kryptonian creature with massive strength and speed, huge bones coming out all over his body and a regeneration factor that makes him hard to bring down. Any players that come up against this guy might laugh at his green shorts for a second, then will have their bodies thrown by him into next week. Ouch.

Check out the Doomsday trailer for DC Universe Online right here

In perhaps one of the briefest open betas for an MMO game in recent history, Sony Online has posted up word on the official Free Realms web site (if you check out the inviso-text like we did) that the casual themed fantasy MMO is set for its official launch on Tuesday. This is likely Sony Online's only major launch of an all new game this year as both The Agency and DC Universe Online seem to be targeted for a 2010 launch date.

This is Sony Online's first game for the free-to-play MMO audience that has pretty much exploded in the past couple of years with lots of different titles currently online or in the works. Our sister site Massively reports that everyone who played in the beta test will be getting a special unnamed in-game item when Free Realms officially launches tomorrow.

The DC universe has tons of heroes, villains and other supporting characters and you can bet that Sony Online will be using as many of they can in their upcoming super hero MMO DC Universe Online. This week the developer/publisher released several new screenshots spotlighting one of the universe's most well known bad guys: Solomon Grundy.

The part man-part swamp plant creature is also one of the oldest DC super villains, first battling the Golden Age Green Lantern in the 1940s. More recently the massive and super strong creature has fought Superman, Batman and the entire Justice League. He's usually been portrayed as not very bright although he has had spurts of intelligence. The new screenshots show Grundy doing what he does best: throwing people all around. It's not clear how big of a role he will have in DC Universe Online.