New Sites
2007 saw the launch of the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/tr">Tabula
Rasa and
href="http://warhammer.tentonhammer.com/">Warhammer Online
community sites. Spearheaded by network veteran
Tony "RadarX" Jones, our Tabula Rasa
community site launched with ten tons of content--well, it launched
with more content that any site we've ever launched. And Tony continues
to push out more Tabula Rasa
content that anyone else on the web. The Warhammer Ten Ton Hammer
community site benefits from the deep Warhammer knowledge of Brock
"Brokain" Ferguson, a new member of the staff in 2007. When
style="font-style: italic;">Warhammer Online got pushed back to
later in 2008, that gave Brock the perfect opportunity to come in and
make sure our community is the best source for information about the
game.
Ten Ton Hamster
We recognize that many of our readers are parents with children who are
interested in mommy or daddy's gaming hobby. We also understand that a
good number of free-to-play, child-oriented games are very
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src="http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e227/junkit4/hamster.png"
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The
Chinese may think 2007 was the year of the boar, but it was really the
year of the Hamster!
popular. With so many upcoming MMOGs geared toward the children's
audience, Katie "Khatie" Postma wanted to create a community where
younger players could go for news, reviews, and interaction. Built as
an online children's gaming community network from the ground up,
href="http://www.tentonhamster.com/">Ten Ton Hamster launched in
2007 to provide young game players with a home where they can chat with
their friends, post in the message forums, share game stories, and ask
questions of experienced staff.
Ten Ton Hamster uses the tag line "Your Games. Your Friends. Your
Worlds." to denote its goal to empower young gamers, but the decision
to approach Ten Ton Hammer had even more significance to Katie. She
recalls, "I chose to build [Ten Ton Hamster] in cooperation with Ten
Ton Hammer because they have high ethical standards, not just about the
game industry but about their employees and their work. It is a
perfect place to build a network supporting younger players."
Tentonhamster.com, which sports a hamster mascot, covers news,
interviews, and reviews about games geared for young people. Helping
Katie run the site are Padma "LadyLotus" Fuller and Beth "Mesagirl"
Ralston. All three women have been playing games for a long time and
now have children who will likely be big gamers in the near future, too.
Katie previously worked as the Myst Online (Uru) Community Manager at
Ubisoft in 2003 before going to Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment where
she launched their community website and forums for
style="font-style: italic;">Stargate Worlds. After a brief
stint as Community Director for FusionFall at Cartoon Network, she came
to Ten Ton Hammer.
Padma has played video games for over 20 years. Among her favorites are
Dark Age of Camelot and
style="font-style: italic;">World of Warcraft. She is now the
Community Manager for Webkinz Ten Ton Hamster community site.
Beth began playing MMOGs with Asheron's
Call was in beta and currently plays
style="font-style: italic;">World of Warcraft as an officer in
a large guild. She is now the Community Manager for the Club Penguin
Ten Ton Hamster community site.
Ten Ton Hammer Premium Membership
Yet another milestone for the Ten Ton Hammer network in 2007 was the
launch of its Premium
Membership Program. For a quarterly or annual fee, Ten Ton Hammer
readers can become Premium Members, which gives them access to
customized forums avatars and titles, extra chances to win most
contests and giveaways, first access to available beta keys and content
for hot new games, access to Premium Member Only forums, and special
invitations to industry events. Each membership helps bring Ten Ton
Hammer closer to an ad-free network. As a result, Premium Members see
no ads on our forums.
Ten Ton Hammer Store
Premium Memberships are sold out of the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/store">Ten Ton Hammer Store,
which launched in 2007 also. In addition to the memberships, anyone can
buy Ten Ton Hammer gear in the store. We will continue to update the
store with new gear, so you can sport your love of MMOGs and your
support of a gold-free network in many ways!
Parting Thoughts
2007 was a big year for Ten Ton Hammer. The fast-growing network made
big changes to support and maintain its reader base while showing a
dedication to expansion. What will 2008 bring? Well, check back just
after New Year's for my special 2008 preview!
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=22304">Discuss
this article in our forums!
