Welcome to the 802nd Edition of Loading…

If you aren’t reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer’s news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading… it’s like the play-offs, for MMOGs.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn’t enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

1. Age of Conan - 200 BPM
2. World of Warcraft - 80 BPM
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 30 BPM
4. EverQuest 2 - 25 BPM
5. Warhammer Online - 23 BPM
6. EVE Online - 21 BPM
7. Lineage 2 - 19 BPM
8. Vanguard - 15 BPM
9. Guild Wars - 15 BPM
10. Tabula Rasa - 13 BPM

New York Comic Con is almost upon us and guess who is looking after all of the MMOG panels? Garrett, Jeff, myself and perhaps even Phil will be in New York to attend Comic Con. Together with the Comic Con team we organized and will moderate the following Ten Ton Hammer Comic Con New York 2008 panels.

• 1E16
  11:00 AM
  EvE Online
• 1E16
  12:00 PM
  Warhammer Online
• 1E16
  1:00 PM
  Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings
• 1E16
  2:00 PM
  Age of Conan Online
• 1E16
  3:00 PM
  Starting a Video Game Company
• 1E16
  4:00 PM
  MMO Industry Round Table

Held at the Javits Center, the Ten Ton Hammer presentation room, IE16 (though I haven’t seen it yet) will seat up to 500 people for each panel and presentation. Ten Ton Hammer Premium Members that let us know in advance that they will be attending will receive VIP service and seating at each of the panels that we are hosting. We expect these panels to fill up quickly, so non-members should arrive early to ensure that there are seats available.

“New York Comic Con is proud to welcome exhibitors including Konami, Namco Bandai, Square-Enix, and Ubisoft; some of the biggest names in the interactive entertainment industry. These exhibitors will present their current hits and preview the summer’s biggest titles from the show floor. While these demos and videos will be enough to satisfy any gamer, they are just the tip of the iceberg. New York Comic Con will present a special gamer summit on Sunday, April 20, with 12 panel discussions led by video game industry leaders. NYCC’s gamer summit was created with the guidance of TenTonHammer.com and Themis Media. The summit will showcase games including Age of Conan, EvE Online, Iron Man, Warhammer Online, and studios including CCP, FunCom, Turbine, and 38 Studios. The summit will also feature round table discussions and topics ranging from video game journalism and writing for video games, to starting a career in the video game industry.”

Special thanks to CCP, EA/Mythic, Turbine, Funcom and 38 Studios for accepting our invitation to speak at the show. I believe that this is the first time that this many AAA MMOG developers have converged on one room in one afternoon to talk about the MMOG industry.  

If you plan to attend Comic Con and would like to take advantage of the Premium Member seating or just want to say "Hello" to the Ten Ton staff then drop either Jeff Woleslagle or myself a line and we’ll get you on the list of VIPs (Very Important Players).

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Welcome to the 801st Edition of Loading…

If you aren’t reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer’s news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading… up at 6:00 am, so you can level faster.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn’t enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

1. Age of Conan - 200 BPM
2. World of Warcraft - 169 BPM
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 53 BPM
4. EverQuest 2 - 52 BPM
5. Warhammer Online - 43 BPM
6. Vanguard - 41 BPM
7. Guild Wars - 40 BPM
8. EVE Online - 39 BPM
9. Tabula Rasa - 33 BPM
10. Lineage 2 - 25 BPM

It was another huge day in the industry with near record levels of traffic. You are really eager to get the news!

Las Vegas contines to roll along as it always does with scantily clad women serving drinks in smoky casinos to people who probably shouldn’t be drinking them. We weren’t done meetings and dinner until 10:00pm yesterday, which left little time for me to admire the angels that Coyote so aptly describes in his column each day. Perhaps today I’ll have more time.

As I enjoyed our exclusive content today, perusing the new Jumpgate Evolution screenshots I ruminated on the fact that screenshots are not the proper method to show off an explosion. Before those of you who act like the NetDevil hounds of war start foaming at the mouth and rattling your chains let me explain.

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Welcome to the 800th Edition of Loading…

If you aren’t reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer’s news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading… it’s a laugh riot, though usually only one of those two things at a time.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn’t enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

1. Age of Conan - 200 BPM
2. World of Warcraft - 170 BPM
3. EverQuest 2 - 59 BPM
4. Warhammer Online - 42 BPM
5. Lord of the Rings Online - 41 BPM
6. EVE Online - 35 BPM
7. Lineage 2 - 31 BPM
8. Guild Wars - 29 BPM
9. Tabula Rasa - 25 BPM
10. Vanguard - 24 BPM

As you can see from the Pulse, yesterday was an enormous day for traffic here at Ten Ton Hammer. We set a new record for unique users in one day. Well done folks! A large part of the community was viewing our latest contest called, "AoC 4 Life" You won’t find an Age of Conan contest cooler than this. You have my guarantee!

“Age of Conan is almost here, and Ten Ton Hammer is teaming with FUNCOM to bring you the contest of a lifetime! In the Ten Ton Hammer AoC 4Life contest, 10 people will score beta keys. 5 of those lucky beta key winners will also get a copy of the collector’s edition of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. 1 will go on to get the collector’s edition plus an autographed framed Age of Conan concept art. And one extremely lucky contestant will walk away with a collector’s edition signed by FUNCOM founder and Age of Conan Game Director Gaute Godager and a lifetime subscription to the Age of Conan.

You read it right. One lucky S.O.B. will get the game free, it’ll be signed by Gaute Godager, and that gamer will never have to pay a penny for Age of Conan for life!”

I can’t believe that one of our staff used "S.O.B." in a contest description. Phil…please bring your iron fist to the lunch room. We have some educating to do!

I landed in Vegas only to find that what I thought was poorly played and obvious April Fool’s joke had tricked quite a few people. Your heartfelt good-byes brought a tear to my eye. Thank you for all of your kind words. Unfortunately, you can’t get rid of me that quickly, though you did get me sent to the desert.

Travel for me is like covered in honey and thrown in a pit of fire ants. I never seem to have an uneventful trip and this flight was no different. I was the lucky recipient of a seat that had no latch to keep it in the "locked and upright" position. The moment the captain cranked the engines for take-off, my seat flew back, my feet flew up and "Whoaaaaaa!" flew out of my mouth. Every time that the plane would climb during the flight my seat would slide back into the lap of the passenger seated behind me, who being a good traveler himself would kick the seat to get me to refrain from lounging.

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Welcome to the 799th Edition of Loading…

If you aren’t reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer’s news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Thank you for reading this column over the last three years. As you have probably already found out, TenTonHammer.com has been purchased by another industry player. Unfortunately, the company that purchased Ten Ton Hammer has no need for my services, which is for the best given the nature of their business.

I’ve enjoyed my time as Editor-in-Chief and hopefully I will enjoy seeing many of you as I make my way to my next position, wherever that may be. May your days be filled with epic loot and double experience.

Unloading….

John "Boomjack" Hoskin

Welcome to the 798th Edition of Loading…

If you aren’t reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer’s news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading… PvPing all over your shoe!

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn’t enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

1. Age of Conan - 200 BPM
2. World of Warcraft - 102 BPM
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 44 BPM
4. Lineage 2 - 32 BPM
5. EverQuest 2 - 30 BPM
6. Warhammer Online - 29 BPM
7. Dungeons and Dragons Online - 28 BPM
8. EVE Online - 24 BPM
9. Vanguard - 22 BPM
10. Guild Wars - 19 BPM

I’m off to the land that modesty, inhibitions and power savings forgot for a TenTonHammer.com meeting of the minds. Las Vegas is the venue and the plan is to set the good ship Ten Ton Hammer on a course for the rest of the year. Loading.. may be sporadic, but I’ll do my best to get you something every morning, or because of the three hour time change by noon.

Player versus Player combat (PvP) has been talked about more lately than some war that is apparently going on in the Middle-East. Player versus player gaming was a predominantly Asian phenomena with regards to MMOGs until World of Warcraft took Western standards out behind the shed and kicked them until purple spaulders came out. Every remotely successful MMOG since has tried to implement some form of PvP combat. To be fair, Ultima Online, the original high profile MMOG had PvP that was harsh and wide open. It is this writer’s humble opinion that it was the way in which PvP was implemented that drove many potential customers away from UO. Getting killed over and over without being able to enjoy what the game had to offer was a turn off.

The big dogs pulling the 2008 release sled are both promising unique PvP experiences. We’re all special, that’s what makes us unique, or so the saying goes. Age of Conan and Warhammer Online both put great emphasis on their PvP combat, pointing out that it will be unlike that found in World of Warcraft. Crowds are forming behind the caution tape watching for the chalk outline of WoW, but they are going to have to hunker down for a while. It will be a lot like those lines that form to buy AAA games that go on sale at midnight. We’d all stand in that line if we were guaranteed not to see anyone that we knew.

Make no mistake, World of Warcraft does not make the act of PvP very enjoyable. WoW is a gear-centric game and though the PvP system is simple enough to learn that almost anyone can participate, it has serious flaws. Arenas, Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm and Alterac Valley are more a comparison of which player has acquired better gear than a test of skill. Sure, there are skilled players and they rise above some of the differences in gear, but for the most part the winners and losers are determined not by how skilled they are, but by how much time they have spent in the PvP venues accumulating points to spend on epic equipment. Imagine if a sport like tennis was setup like this. The more you played, the smaller your side of the court became and the harder it would be for another player to best you.

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Welcome to the 797th Edition of Loading…

If you aren’t reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer’s news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading… In Soviet Russia, Loading… reads YOU!

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn’t enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

1. Age of Conan - 200 BPM
2. World of Warcraft - 97 BPM
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 35 BPM
4. Lineage 2 - 27 BPM
5. EverQuest 2 - 24 BPM
6. Warhammer Online - 22 BPM
7. EVE Online - 16 BPM
8. Vanguard - 13 BPM
9. Guild Wars - 12 BPM
10. Tabula Rasa - 11 BPM

Congratulations the Warhammer Online team who currently have the collector’s edition sitting in the #1 spot on the Amazon.com ‘Top Sellers in Video Games’ list. If you missed the column yesterday because of your open-heart surgery or your accident at the pogo-stick through the landmines race then you missed no less than 11 exclusive videos and articles about Warhammer Online. Go ahead and watch them all. Tell your boss that I said it was OK. Here’s my email address if he has a problem with it.

Thank you to Bill, one of the Loading… faithful who put me on to this fantastic $9.99 deal for Tabula Rasa at Amazon.com. If you find great deals like this pass them along and I’ll share them with the rest of our Loading… community!

While I’m on the topic of community building, a few of us (Jeff, Garrett, myself and perhaps Phil) will be in New York at the upcoming Comic Con. It is always fantastic to meet some of the people who make our jobs possible. If you are going to be attending Comic Con or will be in the Manhattan area between April 17th and 20th let us know and we’ll find a quiet (or loud) place to hook up, have a drink and impersonate a one-legged-drunken marching band.

Since we are in group hug mode today let’s share some more shall we? I have a question for both my developer and player readership.

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Welcome to the 796th Edition of Loading…

If you aren’t reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer’s news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading… It’s like going up Niagara Falls in a barrel.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn’t enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

1. Age of Conan - 200 BPM
2. World of Warcraft - 128 BPM
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 37 BPM
4. EverQuest 2 - 32 BPM
5. EVE Online - 25 BPM
6. Vanguard - 23 BPM
7. Lineage 2 - 21 BPM
8. Warhammer Online - 18 BPM
9. Tabula Rasa - 14 BPM
10. Rappelz - 12 BPM

Congratulations to the Rappelz team on breaking into the Top 10! What the heck is Rappelz? You’re making work for me. Now I have to do some research which infringes directly on my “unbridled by facts and grammar” mantra. My virtual personal space is being violated.

Congratulations are also in order to Matt and Katherine (former Ten Ton Hammer EQ2 guildmates) on the birth of their daughter Jadyn! We could really use another tank. The baby-sized keyboard and mouse are on their way to you!

The big news yesterday was that Jeff Hickman lost the company drinking contest and was given the task of announcing that EA/Mythic’s Warhammer Online would launch this Autumn and not Q2 as previously announced. I don’t think that this was a surprise to anyone who follows the industry closely. There has been no hype from EA since Leipzig last year. The Pulse numbers for Warhammer have run at the 20ish range nearly every day, compared to Age of Conan at 200 and World of Warcraft at 120. If they announced an early launch they would get killed. Right now AoC and WoW are like athletic women at a nudist beach, all eyes are on them. The 2.4 patch for WoW has by itself driven the Warcraft pulse up by 20 points. In laymen’s terms, “That’s a hella lot!” To give you a frame of reference, 2.4 drove as much traffic to WoW as WAR has in total.

Today I expect that all to change. EA/Mythic has allowed us to post some content that had been embargoed. Warhammer fans will be all over this like Angelina on a third-world child. Jeff and Garrett visited the WAR development team and for their efforts you are rewarded with no less than 11 exclusive WAR articles and videos today!

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Welcome to the 795th Edition of Loading…

If you aren’t reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer’s news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading… cutting through MMOG news like a fat kid through cupcakes.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn’t enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

1. Age of Conan - 200 BPM
2. World of Warcraft - 118 BPM
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 39 BPM
4. EverQuest 2 - 30 BPM
5. Lineage 2 - 25 BPM
6. EVE Online - 22 BPM
7. Warhammer Online - 22 BPM
8. Vanguard - 21 BPM
9. Guild Wars - 16 BPM
10. Tabula Rasa - 13 BPM

Blizzard pulled back the curtains on Patch 2.4 yesterday to a fanbase that wailed and foamed at the mouth, but for the most part wagged their happy little tails at this rather large patch. Some of the highlights of this major addition to the game include.

• The Sunwell Isle is now available for play. This area includes a new quest hub and 5 and 25-player instances.
• The combined forces of Shattrath have launched an attack on the Isle of Quel’Danas, to confront Kael’thas and the Legion at the Sunwell and surrounding areas. Players will now be able to gain reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive and participate in a new set of daily quests.
• A representative of the Keepers of Time has been spotted at the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Players in good standing with the faction will be granted ease of passage to the Caverns of Time.
• Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers.
• Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities.
• Item Cast Spells: Many spells cast by items were being cast as if the caster were the same level as the item. Most of those will now be cast at the player’s level, giving them a reasonable chance to miss, be dispelled, or be resisted.
• Resilience: Now reduces the magnitude of mana draining effects by the same amount that it reduces critical strike damage. The Tooltip has been revised to reflect this.
• Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit.
• Weapon Skill: Points will be gained faster in weapon skills for levels 1 through 59.
• The Daily Quest limit has been increased to 25.
• [Full Patch Notes]

This was a major patch to the highest profile MMOG on the planet. How does it affect you? A Patch 2.4 class by class breakdown is up on our WoW community site.

Cameron posted his take on the new 5-man instance in the forums for those that are curious about the new content.

Scott Jennings, formerly Lum the Mad and now super-secret-designer-agent at NCSoft posted an articulate, witty and bang-on piece about the removal of the attunement requirements to enter Black Temple. He’s right of course, as much as those that “did the work” to get attuned don’t appreciate that ‘casual’ gamers now also get to enjoy the content. Get this, 121,000 people have finished Black Temple. That’s it! A development team created content that only 121,000 people have finished and 10 million would like to attempt.

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Welcome to the 794th Edition of Loading…

If you aren’t reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer’s news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading… It’s your inner monologue only in a really sexy voice.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn’t enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

1. Age of Conan - 200 BPM
2. World of Warcraft - 84 BPM
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 43 BPM
4. EverQuest 2 - 25 BPM
5. Warhammer Online - 21 BPM
6. Vanguard - 20 BPM
7. Lineage 2 - 18 BPM
8. EVE Online - 18 BPM
9. Guild Wars - 13 BPM
10. Tabula Rasa - 12 BPM

Mabinogi has officially launched. Congratulations Nexon!

WoW PvP Epics, some call them ‘Welfare Epics’ while others swear that they are the greatest advancement in gear since Blizzard introduced the paint by numbers guide to the worth of an item.

As I mentioned in a previous column, I recently got my first WoW character to 70 (and subsequently got a second to 70. I had a lot of 60s.) and starting my quest for epic items. I don’t have enough playing time to commit to a guild, so if I want great gear then I need to PvP. I don’t expect the same level of gear as the guy who spends hours taking out the baddest mobs in the game. I don’t expect the same level of gear as the guy who spends 10 hours per day playing PvP. To be frank, I don’t expect very much.

First I joined a 3v3 team for Arena with two other casual players. Not only were we shown the door in 10 straight matches, we were shown the floor, the insides of each others bellies, how hard it is to compete when you have inferior gear, how hard it is to compete when you don’t have PvP experience, oh and how hard it is to compete, period. We got annihilated, but it was fun. We expected to get sliced and diced and that is exactly what happened.

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Welcome to the 794th Edition of Loading…

If you aren’t reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer’s news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading… It’s like the Easter Bunny for MMOGs.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn’t enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

1. Age of Conan - 200 BPM
2. World of Warcraft - 85 BPM
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 34 BPM
4. EverQuest 2 - 28 BPM
5. Warhammer Online - 21 BPM
6. Lineage 2 - 21 BPM
7. EVE Online - 20 BPM
8. Vanguard - 19 BPM
9. Pirates of the Burning Sea - 14 BPM
10. Tabula Rasa - 14 BPM

The Easter holiday is over for me. Our family traveled four hours south for my son’s season ending hockey tournament. These tournaments are a lot like MMOGs. You go, meet many people that you would otherwise not meet, play and have fun. Our tiny little town came away with the silver medal in two age groups, which is a bit like raiding and wiping on the final boss mob, but it was fun nonetheless.

Warhammer Fans will be thrilled to know that our Warhammer community has received a brand new home. Have a look and let me know what you think of the new site.

Some of you may have noticed some slowdowns and strange goings-on around the network the last few days. I was asked if we were experiencing a denial of service attack like some of our competitors have been experiencing, but that isn’t the case. Our slowdowns are purely the cause of heavy traffic to the network. We’re working on optimizing the sites to better handle the deluge of new visitors. We apologize for any inconvenience that the recent problems may have caused you.

Now the good news… Here are the names of the winners in our 2Moons Contest!

• Wsmitty
• DGMastermind
• Ravyn
• Nelien
• Fangolor
• Kaldor
• dr0w
• ashamita
• Whipit
• Lisje
• necron666
• Roland
• redaliennom

They each won:

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