Sony "lost" the EQ domain!

[SiegeTank]

Well, it sure sounds like someone at Sony phucked up.

Check out EQ2Wire.

The good news is someone there has posted info to paste into your hosts file to workaround the hours-to-days delay that could occur as the renewed domain propagates thru the web's name servers.

It boggles da mind...

Note I haven't tested these addresses yet but the post looks legit, being on the home page of eq2wire.com. A couple I tried don't come up though, so not sure what's going on.

 

[JimJohnson]

Well, it sure sounds like someone at Sony phucked up.

Check out EQ2Wire.

The good news is someone there has posted info to paste into your hosts file to workaround the hours-to-days delay that could occur as the renewed domain propagates thru the web's name servers.

It boggles da mind...

Note I haven't tested these addresses yet but the post looks legit, being on the home page of eq2wire.com. A couple I tried don't come up though, so not sure what's going on.

Most likely the person who purchased it 10 years ago no longer in same job.

 

[Copperhead]

Would doing a /flush dns fix it to where we could read EQLive? Or?

Anyway, realistically, what kind of time frame are we looking at here? Will the new add on be delayed now?

 

[SiegeTank]

Propagation across the web has nothing to do with what you do on your own computer. But their suggestion to update the hosts file would definitely work, if the info provided is right. This hasn't worked for me yet but there might still be some delay at their end with communications between their sites.

This is atrocious timing for Sony, what with a major patch tomorrow.

It truly boggles the mind that a billion-$ corporation can have such amateurish and unprofessional screw-ups. But hell the trillion-dollar federal government is incapable of keeping little kids from crossing our borders illegally so who's to fault Sony, eh?

 

[devestator]

Humorous, but not really something out of the realm of possibilities of happening. As JJ pointed out, if whomever was working there when the domains where initially registered put in their email address for the contact info, and they are no longer working there, it's very possible that any emails notifying of the expiring domain went unnoticed. And domain name registration is a small enough and rare enough responsibility that it would be very easy for everyone to assume someone had already taken care of it and not give it any more thought.

Definitely amusing, but I don't think it's some big amazing failure, just a silly oversight. I bet the contact info for the domain will go to some permanent email address now though. Hindsight 20/20

 

[William12]

Would doing a /flush dns fix it to where we could read EQLive? Or?

Anyway, realistically, what kind of time frame are we looking at here? Will the new add on be delayed now?

Used to be 3 days but most of the time it 12-24 hrs now. Back in 99 when I ran a madden fan website it took 3-5 days for DNS servers to update, when I updated my domain last month it took 12 hrs.

You could also use the google DNS servers they update daily.

 

[Wolfborn]

Some enterprising person could snap up the domain name and sell it back to Sony.

 

[Noah3]

I was thinking the same thing, i was wondering if the guy they fired um teen years ago , got the notice and bought up the name , and now they are in a bidding war

 

[Dealings]

this affecting logging for folks?

 

[Noah3]

yes.

 

[SiegeTank]

Incredible.

I was able to log into everquest.com to access a couple of accounts and change two passwords.

But now it's back to giving me the "WoW Gold for Sale" Network Solutions placeholder screen.

This reminds me of royal EQ clusterfucks in the past where the best thing to do is go out and enjoy the sun for a day or two and stop fussing about their foulups.

Dev, I respectfully disagree that this is tolerable practice by a major company like Sony. You don't control access to a million-dollar domain name by awaiting renewal notices that might have been set up 10 years ago with long-since defunct email contacts.

They never heard of a calendar and a tickler file? I do that for domains that are worth $50 to me...

 

[devestator]

I agree that it's not really "tolerable", I just don't think it's a huge failure either. Not anything to use to say omg look at what Sony did now, look at how much they suck. This is a silly easy to make mistake at any level, mom and pop shop or a multi-billion dollar corporation.

It's nothing like when playstation network got hacked and was discovered how low their security system was with credit card information stored unencrypted and such. That is a screw up that shows idiocy in design and implementation, as well as a complete disregard for user information security. And a mistake truly worth saying Sony sucks =p

Yes, the domain names expiring could have easily been prevented. I'm sure whatever department is responsible for the domains are cowering behind their desks as the Sony Execs scold them. But I just hope no one loses their job over such a simple mistake even if it does have large consequences.

 

[Zero0003]

Its not the first time i've seen this as the company I work for has 100's domains. Most of the earlier ones were set to an individually who moved positions but still was the primary contact. Happen to be he got the email and spam/deleted it and one day "OOPS" it was gone. of course IT panic and got it back cause they let the billing lapse/expire. Better practice it was moved to a group mailbox but some were missed.

It happens and its just an oversight on big boy company like that needs to use best practices when it comes to those kind of things.

 

[deathstryker]

soe.com seems to be resolving fyi..

 

[SiegeTank]

OK, Dev, let's agree to disagree lol. Yes, I agree there are far worse clusterfucks out there in the world, Sony owns one of them when they lost millions of unencrypted pieces of player data a couple of years ago. And there's been worse, for sure, from other companies. THIS is a relatively minor clusterfuck, compared, but in terms of what minor level of precautionary effort it would have taken to prevent THIS problem (namely, making a note on someone's calendar, "renew domain now",) compared to the discomfort, grief and loss of access that thousands of dues-paying customers are undergoing as a result of failing to take such basic precautions, well it's still a pretty darn BAD clusterfuck.

Am I surprised? Not really, and that's what so sad about it. My response to Sony, unfortunately, like with many players, comes down to:

"Thank You, Sir, May I have Another?"

 

[supertimmy]

i'm waiting for copper to come in and use this as evidence that everquest is horrible.

lol. jk copper jk. kinda!

also, someone should put the obligatory, "SURPRISED,MORTALS?"

 

[Mr. Sparkles]

Working as intended.

 

[hawthorne]

Smedley posted a tweet about this.

https://twitter.com/j_smedley/status/489093080377610240

John Smedley ‏<s>@</s>j_smedley

Sorry for the dns problems folks. Wont happen again. Notices sent to wrong email. Doh

It happens. Yes, best practice is to use a group email or generic email that routes to multiple individuals, but when everquest.com was first registered was probably 1996-1997 timeframe and it's possible it was never updated since. Email wasn't 100% commonplace at the time though it was growing like crazy.