All EverQuest Servers Down

[kegasu]

The article does not give a "End of May", rather it says as soon as they feel it is secure. So next week, end of May, December 2012? Who knows.

https://www.soe.com/securityupdate/recentupdates.vm

 

[EverquestBB]

Half to say that is bullshit

Hopefully they suspended billing. I'd be annoyed if they charged my account while I couldn't use their service.

Oh, they are still billing, card was debited yesterday and the day before. Figured they wouldn't continue billing, but I was wrong.

Beauty is you cannot log in and cancel the billing . . .talk about a catch 22. I would have half a mind to dispute the charge if I didn't know they would suspend every account associated with the card. From a goodwill perspective that is a shit move . . . you are not getting the service but they continue to charge for it? I smell another class action brewing . . .

 

[TheStrategist]

Keep commenting on their FB page about it. Someone is bound to respond if there is enough attention.


Feel free to like, comment, or add to my post on their FB page. Maybe it will get the ball rolling...

http://www.facebook.com/EverQuestLive

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Hopefully they suspended billing. I'd be annoyed if they charged my account while I couldn't use their service.

Oh, they are still billing, card was debited yesterday and the day before. Figured they wouldn't continue billing, but I was wrong.

Beauty is you cannot log in and cancel the billing . . .talk about a catch 22. I would have half a mind to dispute the charge if I didn't know they would suspend every account associated with the card. From a goodwill perspective that is a shit move . . . you are not getting the service but they continue to charge for it? I smell another class action brewing . . .

Once I saw the first charge on my statement, I merchant locked them. I already have plenty to spew at Fan Faire, more so if they retaliate. Funny though you know, companies "refunds" or "other" services may be down, but god damn if they aren't on top of billing.

 

[SiegeTank]

Continuing to bill us, where we can't even log in and cancel an account, is beyond the pale. It's unbelievably crass of Sony, especially considering the level of inconvenience and identity theft risk they're placing on their customers. It's hard to imagine a company being this callous and uncaring of its customers.

We should forward this commentary to a few of the larger ambulance-chasing national law firms and I can't imagine one wouldn't jump on this. It offends on oh so many levels that it really leaves me kind of breathless.

If they had an iota of customer service awareness they'd announce TODAY that nobody will be charged starting the first day the servers went down and when the servers finally come back up every inactive account gets a free month of uptime and every currently active account gets TWO free months.

In the long run they'd come out oh so much better doing that than what's going to result from their current approach.

/boggle

 

[Sum1]

Wow, that's pretty ridiculous... so I can't see FB on this computer, but is their site blowing up with people pissed about getting charged?

 

[Copperhead]

Until the servers come back up they dont know how many days (30+1*each day down) to credit you and if they dont bill while its down your account expires and they have no way of telling who to give free time to when it all comes back up. I agree that its shitty to get billed for the game when its down but i am pretty sure it would take them months to figure out who all to give credit to for what if they didnt.

I can see them doing it this way since we have a few rewards that are tied to account activity. for example if you let your account lapse, you lose your loyalty velocity. This way we dont we lose nothing.

But yeah, its still shitty.

 

[Moongaden]

I dont like this compensation package due to the fact that it doesnt motivate SoE to get the servers back up and running any quicker.

The 30 days are already given. The 1 day of compensation per day they're down is just reimbursing us for days we're already owed.

To put it in perspective, if the servers are down for 3 weeks, we get 30 days compensation.. If the servers are down for 3 days, we get 30 days compensation. The reimbursement is something we already own.

I for one would prefer to see a much bigger compensation if the servers are down for a longer period of time. 30 days is nice for the servers being down for a couple days, but if they're down for a month, i want much more compensation.

And yes, i realize SoE has their own motivations for wanting the servers back up quicker, im just saying that this compensation/reimbursement package doesnt help.

 

[rob]

Every Sony account in good standing should get 30 free days. Every active account should get 30 free days + 1 day per day down. If this is not the case, then it will be yet another example of Sony's ongoing disregard for its rapidly shrinking client base. At least that is what is sounds like they will be doing per their releases.

Not that 30 days + 1 day credit per day it is down is enough. They need to step up ways to keep us happy. How about 30 days for all accounts, 6 months to 1 year subscription to Lifelock(or equiv), and for all subbed clients, 1 box of LoN boosters per day of downtime in addition to everything else.

Also, F velocity. $15 is worth more than 120 tokens.

 

[wunaye]

I dont like this compensation package due to the fact that it doesnt motivate SoE to get the servers back up and running any quicker.

The 30 days are already given. The 1 day of compensation per day they're down is just reimbursing us for days we're already owed.

To put it in perspective, if the servers are down for 3 weeks, we get 30 days compensation.. If the servers are down for 3 days, we get 30 days compensation. The reimbursement is something we already own.

I for one would prefer to see a much bigger compensation if the servers are down for a longer period of time. 30 days is nice for the servers being down for a couple days, but if they're down for a month, i want much more compensation.

And yes, i realize SoE has their own motivations for wanting the servers back up quicker, im just saying that this compensation/reimbursement package doesnt help.

Everyday it's down is costing Sony money. Those days they will compensate for cost Sony money.

Lets say the servers are down for 30 days. That is 30 days of lost income and they are giving us a free month, that is 2 months of lost income for the year.

I'm sure it's hurting them a lot, most of their games already struggle.

 

[Zeta1]

Don't forget about lost Marketplace purchases.

 

[purekilling187]

"We wanted to let you know that our games will not be up this weekend. We are working around the clock to get our services back up and running soon. Thank you for your continued patience and support."

- SOE Facebook page 15 mins ago.

 

[Sum1]

Don't forget about lost Marketplace purchases.

I was totally about to say this... glad I refreshed before I did

 

[Mspudd14]

Coming from a webhosting background and in the accounts receivable aka billing dept I can see why folks are still billed since that shit is usually on a 3rd party server and is automatic no matter what happens. Tho I am with most that the frustration of being billed for a service your not able to use at the moment is total bullshit. Personally I am in a holding pattern until this is resolved before I get pissy though which will depend on the compensation they end up giving us. Many a rumor has been reported regarding free service or double xp periods all of which I am sure are just that rumors....

Unless it comes from the SoE site any compensation talk is folks blowing smoke up your ass... they wont likely make the decision as to what they will give until they have resolved the security issues.

As for any ETA you hear about that is also likely just rumors. From experience I can tell you when our hosting servers go down it is more often than not hardware issues and we expect them to be up in a matter of an hour or two but we will never give an ETA because experience has shown us that once the hardware is replaced there are a number of variables that could require more time or finding a secondary issue that takes a bit longer to resolve. AND GIVING AN ETA ONLY SEEMS TO ENCOURAGE THE IMPATIENT TO TAKE THAT ESTIMATE AS AN ACTUAL DEADLINE as to when the issue will be resolved so they flood the support lines for an update as to why its not up yet. Security has never been an issue for the company I work for so I'm up in the air with most of you as to when it will be resolved but I seriously doubt it will be end of month. More likely if I had to guess I'd say this up coming Wednesday. Tho again that is me pulling day outta my ass and nothing set in stone.

Will SoE lose subscribers over this... pretty damn sure they will lose a bit. Maybe even more than a bit and since they are "the man" and had to use outside help in resolving it there is good chance they will raise your rates within the next 6mo claiming some bullshit excuse to cover the cost of that outside help. Which I am fairly sure they will get compensated themselves from the government for... maybe not enough to cover actual cost but gaurantee with likely rate hike they more than cover in the first month.

Personally am a 3 boxer and my A and B team's are all T4 flagged and nearly fully T4 geared with AA ranging from 4-7k when the servers do finally come back up you'll likely find the majority of my post in the Marketplace...

 

[wunaye]

Many a rumor has been reported regarding free service or double xp periods all of which I am sure are just that rumors....

Unless it comes from the SoE site any compensation talk is folks blowing smoke up your ass... they wont likely make the decision as to what they will give until they have resolved the security issues.

SOE will grant customers 30 days of additional time on their subscriptions, in addition to compensating them one day for each day the system is down.

http://www.soe.com/securityupdate/pressrelease.vm

People are just guessing we'll get some sort of double xp week/weekend or something. I think that is nearly a given since they give out double XP for lesser events. Sure they haven't said they will give us double XP but I'd be surprised if they didn't.

I think it would be great if they could give us a rough ETA, like days/weeks/months. At the moment we have no idea at all, though they recently said it wont be this weekend. But will it be Monday? Tuesday? Surely they have some sort of idea. They don't need to give an exact time or day but if they know it wont be up for at least a week they should say so.

 

[MooMoo33]

imo~ these guys dont even know wtf to look for...let alone what theyre actually looking for, but i think its out of SOE's hand now because its become a federal(multiple countries?--multi federal??) situation..25ish million people had their credit card info stolen! i think theyre looking for footprints and hoping whoever/whatever did it will come back to strike again!

lets hope it wasnt george thorogood!!!!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDG4PwwHsYY"]YouTube - George Thorogood And The Destroyers - Tail Dragger[/ame]

 

[Littleguy]

imo~ these guys dont even know wtf to look for...let alone what theyre actually looking for, but i think its out of SOE's hand now because its become a federal(multiple countries?--multi federal??) situation..25ish million people had their credit card info stolen! i think theyre looking for footprints and hoping whoever/whatever did it will come back to strike again!

lets hope it wasnt george thorogood!!!!

25ish million account and info were stolen, I believe its only like 12500 non US CC numbers were taken. But the other info that was stolen would easily be enough to open up new CC which is why you can sign up for the free scam stuff from the credit companies.

 

[shishodo]

do ya think any of the new se curity will cause problems running programs like mmobug? Hell I run 9 accounts and would be lost with out it

 

[brainiac]

do ya think any of the new se curity will cause problems running programs like mmobug? Hell I run 9 accounts and would be lost with out it

no

 

[rob]

I believe they confirmed over 100,000,000 account information in total, but I've only seen confirmation of 10kish credit cards taken from european players from an old database. Of that, only 900 cards were still believed to be active.

The thing that annoys me is that they say they are working 24/7 on this issue, yet they know for a fact that the servers wouldn't be online this weekend. It's a bit disingenuous to feed us information the way that they are. They even stopped updating their retarded www.soe.com page. The last update was on 5/4. If you're working 24/7 you can do a better job of informing us of the progress than having us rely on google news.

Also, as was brought up in IRC, all they need to do is buy new hard drives, replace the compromised machines, and bring the new ones up with updated patches/security/etc. It shouldn't take this long if you have an army of people working 24/7.