Avian Gamers Network

Hello Everyone,

First off, I'd like to say thanks for all of the wonderful ideas we received from you after my last posting. Having this ongoing dialogue is something SOE is committed to in a major way, and it's one of the biggest things you all asked for. So you'll see an increase in our public presence, not just on our boards, but on a lot of the fansites, as well. And we've created a new position within our ranks, the Director of Community Relations, specifically to prioritize you, the community, within our service offerings. Alan Crosby, previously EQ Community Relations Manager, will be stepping into this role, and all of SOE's community managers and representatives will report to him, while still maintaining close ties to the game teams, of course. Under this new structure, we will become even more responsive, even more dedicated to customer focus!

I'd like to give you a general update on our games this posting:

Since my last post, we launched our first Adventure Pack for EverQuest II "The Bloodline Chronicles" and over half our player base is already playing it! We are committed to releasing new content between Expansion Packs that goes beyond our live updates, and so we'll continue to release these Adventure Packs on a regular basis -- a first for our industry.

The EQII team is still hard at work on the existing game, and I think that all of the new content the team has added since launch is pretty amazing. In the past few weeks alone, we've added several new high level raids, an in-game mail system, Mentoring (something we're really excited about), two additional character slots for all subscribers, and we just added the new merchant system, which will allow players to sell items in game without having to leave their computer running. That's on top of the usual game additions -- dozens of new quests, spells, items, tradeskill recipes, etc. You can expect us to keep up this pace for a long time to come. Another part of the EQII team is hard at work on our first Expansion Pack, coming out later this year. We've taken a lot of your recent ideas and feedback into account, and we're working on some innovative ways characters can move and interact with the environment. Also, we're taking the first step towards introducing PvP competition with the introduction of a new type of combat!

In Austin, our Star Wars Galaxies™ team is focused on a big change to the game's combat system. The "Combat Upgrade" is now live on the SWG test server, and it's getting very positive feedback from the SWG playerbase. The team is also putting the finishing touches on Star Wars Galaxies™: Episode III Rage of the Wookies™, which launches in less than a month. The SWG playerbase is very strong, and we're continuing to put a lot of effort into making Star Wars Galaxies™ even better and adding new content all the time. The latest expansion pack adds Episode III content into the universe -- something our SWG players were asking for!

There's also a lot of action on EverQuest. We're consolidating many of the servers to keep the game an exciting place to be, and we are investing a lot of time and effort in making this game an even better experience for its many fans. EverQuest just had its 6th anniversary on March 16th. It's very gratifying to see such a strong demand for this game, but when you look at how much of an impact EverQuest has had on so many people's lives - not to mention the entire industry - it's not very surprising. We continue to hear remarkable stories of how people are touched by the game. In fact, we just had a player name her daughter Firiona!

One other subject I wanted to touch on is our Customer Service department. We've made some significant changes, and I'm proud to say our average telephone hold times are now 5 minutes or under. And our in-game response times are among the best in the business! We know how important this is to our players, and we will continue to focus on decreasing these response times even further.

We're going to have a lot of new things to talk about in the upcoming months. Our games continue to thrive, and we have a bunch of exciting developments coming out of our San Diego, Austin and Seattle studios. We're enjoying the present and looking toward a very bright future for SOE and the online games industry, and I wanted you to know that we truly appreciate your support and feedback, and we're listening! We're here to entertain you.

Thanks,

John Smedley