sony-online-entertainment posts

PC games should be able to be played by everyone, even those who can't see what's happening on the screen. That's the premise behind a new lawsuit that was filed in October by Alexander Stern, a visually impaired person, against Sony Online Entertainment.

According to the story from GameSpot, Stern claims that Sony Online's titles (no specific game is mentioned) do not do enough to make their games accessible to people like himself. Stern believes that violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. The lawsuit says that various phone calls and emails requesting such features be added have been ignored. Sony Online has not commented publicly on the lawsuit.

Me am sad to see that Bizarro is going to be in DC Universe Online. Me thinks Bizarro is one of the smartest and least powerful of all of the DC universe's heroes. He am always tries to get rid of that evil Superman but he am never able to get best of him. Me am happy about Bizarro always losing to Superman. We hope that Bizarro is treated like the hero that he is in Sony Online's upcoming MMO.

Hey wait . . don't. Me am typing here..don't . . .

(Sorry, that was our own Bizarro version handling that news post. Won't happen again. We hope)

Time for some early Halloween-themed MMO action as Sony Online's MMO game Star Wars Galaxies has just launched their latest content update. As we previously reported this update is a bit different than normal as it launches a horror-themed quest called Death Troopers.

While players can check out the update and then get themselves ravaged by the Star Wars' version of zombies, you might also want to check out the Star Wars Death Troopers novel by Joe Schreiber which just happens to be in book stores today as well. It served as the inspiration for the Star Wars Galaxies update and is the first time that one of the Star Wars books ties into events in the game.

[Via Massively]

The revelation that Sony Online was considering doing a follow-up to their FPS MMO PlanetSide hit the Interwebs a few days ago. Now Sony Online's head man John Smedley is giving more hints about what that game will be like. He calls the follow-up "PlanetSide Next" but we suspect that's not what the final version will be called.

Writing on his blog site, Smedley says that the original game had design elements that slowed the action down but adds, " . . . the core of Planetside - massive battles with vehicles and infantry was something we nailed really well." So what will "PlanetSide Next" be like? Smedly wants to take what worked in the original game and " . . . make it a lot better. Massive battles on a scale no other FPS will touch. None of this 64 player stuff. REALLY MASSIVE. With much better organization, and a tight focus on making sure the action is always going on, with awesome graphics." Works for us.

One of the most well known but somewhat goofy DC Comics characters gets the spotlight this week from Sony Online as they release new screenshots showing off how Green Arrow looks in their upcoming super hero MMO DC Universe Online. The character started out as a bit of a Batman clone in the 1940s. He was rich, had no super powers, had his "arrow" gadgets and even had a sidekick Speedy.

Things got more serious in the 1970s as writers changed Green Arrow into a crusading liberal who found out Speedy was addicted to heroin. The character has gone through several revivals over the last few decades and was even considered "dead" for a few years in the 1990s (with another person, Connor Hawke, replacing him) before being revived in 2000 in his current uniform.

Launched in 2003, PlanetSide remains one of Sony Online's more interesting game. The sci-fi first person shooter MMO was their attempt to create a game that was extremely different than their flagship title EverQuest. Despite lots of pre-release hype, the final product was not a big commercial hit although it still has a small and very loyal player following.

Now it looks like Sony Online is creating some sort of PlanetSide sequel. Players of the game recently got an email to fill out a survey. The purpose of the survey, according to the email, is because they " . . . plan to expand the PlanetSide universe with another game and we need your help with the design." The email insists that the original game is not being shut down in favor of the new title but the fact that the developer is thinking about a sequel at all is pretty significant.

[Via Rock Paper Shotgun]

We've got yet another game delay to report today but it's not one, thankfully, that's being pushed back to the already crowded first quarter of 2010 period. Sony Online announced today that Everquest Underfoot, the latest expansion pack to their long running fantasy MMO, won't be released on November 24 as previously revealed.

However the delay is just a few weeks long this time as the developers say they simply want to "give our players the best possible gameplay experience and the amount of content that they've come to expect." And it's all about the giving, as we all know. Anyway you can now expect the expansion to be released on December 15.

[Via Massively]

Last July Sony Online's head man John Smedley said their free-to-play MMO Free Realms was getting close to the 5 million mark in terms of registered players. This week Smedley made that figure for the game official during his keynote speach at the Austin Game Developers Conference. In fact that number was reached and exceeded sometime last month. The game officially launched last April

Massively reports (via their photo gallery of the keynote) that Free Realms' player base is under the age of 13 with 51 percent of their players belonging to that age group. That's a huge different from the typical MMO player who has an average ago of 33 years old.

It's been a long, long time since there's been any real news on The Agency, Sony Online's upcoming super-spy themed FPS MMO. The game was first announced over two years ago but so far the the development team has only shown the game in video form rather than give the press any hands-on time with the game. Last July a number of the game's key development team members left Sony Online's Seattle offices to form a new game studio.

Our sister site Joystiq got a chance to chat about the game's current status with Sony Online's head man John Smedley today at the Austin Game Developers Conference. He said flat out, " . . . there's this rumor going around that we're going to cancel it -- that's ridiculous." He added, " . . . we're going full-bore towards it. We're simply keeping it under wraps more because we want to make it the best possible game we can. I'm an FPS player first and foremost, so we're going to get that game right, period." Sounds good to us but we just wonder how much longer we will have to wait.

It looks like a number of MMO game publishers are being hit with lawsuits from a company that claims they are all violating patent agreements. Boston.com reports that their local MMO company Turbine along with Sony, Activision Blizzard, NCsoft and Jagex have all been hit with such lawsuits by Paltalk Holdings.

Paltalk owns the rights to two patents that describe technology for sharing data with lots of connected computers. They have already settled a case with Microsoft who Paltalk accused of using their patents in the multiplayer potion of Microsoft's Halo series. So far there's been no reaction yet from any of the MMO publishers named in the lawsuit.