Sony Online Entertainment announced today that SOE Fan Faire will return to Las Vegas from June 25-28, and you can expect to enjoy a fun-filled weekend in honor of EverQuest's 10th anniversary. Tickets are expected to go on sale in April and will cost $89 for the entire weekend or $39 for one day. In addition, Bally's Las Vegas is the official host hotel, and Fan Faire attendees get the special rate of $59 per night on June 25 and $79 per night on June 26-27. These rooms will probably sell out quickly, so you might want to book them as early as possible if you plan on attending.

So what can you expect to do at Fan Faire? Well, SOE President John Smedley will be giving his third annual community address full of special announcements and sneak peaks at upcoming titles. There will also be an EQ birthday bash, a costume contest, a grand banquet, demos of SOE games, in-game tournaments, developer forums and more.

It's still three months away, but if you plan on attending, let us know. For more information, check the official Fan Faire page. For ZAM coverage of previous Fan Faires, check out our wiki page.

Tune in tonight to The Ravecast with hosts Leonai_art and Luxx as they talk about recent gaming news from the past few weeks, a few games, and tune in to hear Luxx's accounting of both the Star Trek convention as well as SOE's Fan Faire 2008 con.

Its definitely a night that you won't want to miss, so be around and tune in!

What? The Ravecast

When? 6:30pm - 8:30pm Pacific

Who? Leonai_art & Luxx

How? Click Here to Tune In

Our final mini-interview in this series also spotlights a highly anticipated new SOE game - The Agency.  Please see exactly how Steady-Cam(tm) doesn't help when the camera operator is a total newb in:

Three Questions with...   Matt Wilson, Director of Development, The Agency

In our fifth mini-interview in this series, I stumble over (almost literally) a Fan Faire icon as I'm leaving a panel.  Take a minute and a half to see:

Three Questions with...   Linda "Brasse" Carlson

During FanFaire, The Agency HQ got a chance to sit down with The Agency's developers, and held them captive had a nice 97-minute chat. The transcript of the first installment of the interview, which covers the first 15 minutes, has been posted.

JonnyG: I'm with Steve Kramer, developer for the Agency. First of all can you give us a little background on what you do for The Agency?

Steve: Sure, I'm Steve Kramer, currently the PvP designer for The Agency. My primary responsibility at this moment is to come up with the maps for PvP and the game types. And to make sure all of that is fun and makes sense to player base out there that is really into that kind of thing. And also to try to make that more accessible to people that probably wouldn't normally try to do competitive gaming in the shooter genre. So we're trying to make that fit in with the rest of the PvE content in The Agency, and have it make sense with all that.

Check out the entire first part of the interview here .

In our continuing series of mini-interviews from Fan Faire we look beyond the EverQuest brand to exciting new developments.  Here's a bit on FreeRealms!

Three Questions with... Jason "Pex" Ryan, FreeRealms

In the third example of my 1337 camcorder skills, I prove that Quarks is not the best place for a video interview!  But judge for yourself in:

Three Questions with...   Christie "Kiara" Renzetti, EverQuest II Community Manager.

Continuing our series of mini-interviews from Fan Faire, this next bit shows how much the players love their devs!  Please enjoy:

Three Questions with:   Emily "Domino" Taylor, EverQuest II Tradeskill Developer

The SOE Fan Faire is a very busy time for everyone, Developers, players, fansite staff and press are all trying to cram as much as possible into two-and-a-half days of sheer, unadulterated, MMO overload.

Despite a very busy schedule I took my camcorder and got a series of mini-interviews with V.I.P.'s - Very Interesting Persons. You're invited to laugh at my truly amateur camera skills and enjoy a short video series called:

Three Questions With...

Our first victim is Tiffany "Amnerys" Spence, the EverQuest Brand Community Representative.

It is important to note that since this panel (Friday, August 15) Greg "Rothgar" Spence has posted some changes to guild halls based on player feedback. These changes can be seen here . Things which have changed since this presentation are indicated by an asterisk (*).

Attending:

Bruce "Froech" Ferguson, Jeremy "Jindrack" Gess, Greg "Rothgar" Spence, Noel "Ilucide" Walling, Bill Yeatts, Joshua "Autenil" Kriegshauser.

Froech teased that the Guild Hall panel was canceled, and we'd talk about cow tipping. A guild hall survey was distributed to the audience. The 2007 concept art and the current reality images were displayed.

Like other presentations at Fan Faire we were given a slide show presentation outlining the major points before the question and answer period.