It's official!  Sony Online Entertainment has announced SOE Live. As we reported last week when a banner accidently went live on the SOE Live site, the annual celebration of all SOE Games wiill be August 1 - 4, 2013, at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. Ticket and hotel pricing are not yet available so stay tuned!

Formerly known as Fan Faire, SOE Live is the ultimate gathering for the SOE community. It provides players an opportunity to celebrate their favorite games across SOE's popular portfolio of titles, including: DC Universe Online, Dragon's Prophet, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Free Realms, PlanetSide 2, PoxNora, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, and Vanguard Saga of Heroes. Fans of all ages are welcome to meet the talented people behind some of the online world's most successful games, and gain access to developer panel discussions, major company announcements, game tournaments, player gatherings, premium swag and more. In addition to various social events, SOE hosts developer panel discussions and game-themed live events, giving attendees a chance to voice their opinions of current and upcoming game content.

We highly recommend checking out Linda "Brasse" Carlson's introduction to SOE Live 2013 over on the SOE Live website.

While there has not yet been a formal announcement, today astute Facebook users noticed that the banner on the SOE Live webpage had been updated with a 2013 date and location. It looks like the event will run from August 1 - 4 at Planet Hollywood Las Vegas.

SOE Live is Sony Online Entertainment's annual convention, formerly known as Fan Faire. 

We will post an update as soon as there is a formal announcement, but that looks pretty official!  You can also keep an eye on our SOE Live wiki article for updates.

Sony Online Entertainment has announced a system-wide maintenance this afternoon:

Important: We will perform maintenance beginning at 7:00 AM Pacific on January 29, 2013. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 1 hour. This will impact the following services:

• Login for all SOE games may be affected
• Players who are already logged in may be disconnected and unable to log back in
• Login for all SOE forums may be affected
• Commerce transactions, including purchases on our websites and in-game marketplaces, may be unavailable
• Account management may be unavailable

We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

Here's our handy Time Zone Conversion Tool to help you plan.

Sony Online Entertainment has announced a system-wide maintenance this afternoon:

Important: We will perform maintenance beginning at 2:00 PM Pacific on January 25, 2013. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 1 hour. This will impact the following services:

• Login for all SOE games may be affected, but players who are already logged in and remain logged in will not be affected
• Login for all SOE forums may be affected
• Commerce transactions, including purchases on our websites and in-game marketplaces, may be unavailable
• Account management may be unavailable

We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

Here's our handy Time Zone Conversion Tool to help you plan.

Spooky is one word to describe the Underground Dragoon Ruins featured in the latest glimpse of Wizardry Online. With the game due to launch on January 30, SOE has released some screenshots and the video below to give a glimpse of this high level dungeon.

Ambassador Amnerys posteth:

We will bring the Free Realms servers offline on Thursday, January 17, 2013 at 8:00 a.m. PST (San Diego Time) for a Game Update. Anticipated downtime is around 1 hour.

Snow Days will be going away, so get your last-minute activites done!

You can check our Snow Days guide to see if you missed anything!

Confirmed earlier this week by John Smedley on Twitter, there is a Triple SC deal running on December 21. Players can enjoy this bonus Station Cash deal a bit early - Linda "Brasse" Carlson just mentioned on Twitter that the offer is already live (we just redeemed a SC code and can personally confirm this)! The deal runs until 11:59pm PST on Friday, December 21, 2012. It will include every form of Station Cash purchases excluding SMS payments. Happy Frostfell to all!