Well, the dust has settled, and it appears that EverQuest is back to stay (or at least until the next security breach because the folks over at SoE didn't bother to update!) To read Sony's announcement regarding the restoration of services, click here.

Sony has also publicized their "Make It Good" program, henceforth known as the "Make It Not Really All that Great" or "Make It So-So", they announced the following programs to attempt to make up for the fact that the servers were down for almost two weeks:

*  Firstly, as a Station Account holder in good standing, you will receive 45 days of game time (30 days plus 1 day for each day of the outage) added to your Station Account. This game time applies to any game you have currently or previously activated on your Station Account.

*  In addition to game time, current Station Access subscribers (with accounts in good standing) will receive 500 Station Cash.

*  EverQuest®: A series of events, including Double XP, Double Rare Mob Spawns and Double Faction Gains

Now before those of you that insist on carrying the We <3 Sony banner no matter what start your protests, consider that none of the above do ONE BIT for those of us who you know, actually played their game when it was up, and are max xp with most if not all our quests/missions/tasks/etc complete. 

Let's get real:  The biggest loss that the 12 day outage represents to a good many people is the LOST OPPORTUNITY to clear our lockouts again.  So, one really successful, winning solution to this issue would simply be to offer 1 piece of Sanctum raid gear to EVERY SUBSCRIBER.  Quite frankly, as a member of a guild that has completed the expansion, if you give it to casual people.  Wouldn't bother me in the slightest, and a gesture such as this would be an EXTREMELY good way to recapture good faith amongst your followers while costing you nothing.  In fact, most people wouldn't even care anymore and you'd be unlikely to lose any EQ customers even though you failed to protect our personal information, and in some cases our credit cards and BANK ACCOUNT NUMBERS -- which is, in my opinion, perhaps the most eggregious affront of the whole thing. 

Also, take care of your international customers.  They suffered perhaps the worst breach, yet your only identity theft protection program is for your American customers.  Surely Sony and SoE can do better then an embarassingly poor solution to a serious problem.