style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; overflow: hidden; float: right; display: table; width: 200px;">

With yesterday's launch of the Rift
headstart, we officially kicked off
our own Rift
Community site here at Ten Ton Hammer. We decided to skip
the fanfare and ballyhoo though; we don't need hype or trumped up
claims
when it comes to delivering the goods. We have been steadily plugging
away for years, providing top notch guides, interviews and features on
all the games our community wants to know about.



We also have a pretty good finger on the pulse of these games and can
usually tell a contender from a pretender pretty early on, and style="font-style: italic;">Rift looks like the
real deal. We also know our readers have a pretty good sense of humor
and enjoy knowing more about a game than just the top DPS spec or the
easiest way to kill a boss - and it is with that knowledge in mind that
we bring to you our newest weekly feature - The Soulwalker. Named after
my most consistent activity in game, The Soulwalker will be an evolving
feature that will hopefully kick off your weekend with a recap of the
hottest stories,  news and events - as well as provide me with
a soapbox to launch my numerous rants from.

---

I have to admit, when my editor drug me out of my cave this week and
demanded that I have this ready to go today, nary a day after headstart
launch, I was a bit worried. I pleaded with him that there would be
nothing newsworthy after only 24 hours, I mean this was one of the
smoothest beta tests ever and the team at Trion worlds was about as pro
as it gets. Obviously he knew far better than I that no matter what,
this is still an MMOG launch and as such nothing can ever go 100%
smoothly.



I was pretty geeked up this morning when I returned from my weekly
breakfast meeting with a coleauge of mine, I had my broswer pointed to href="http://riftcountdown.com/">http://riftcountdown.com/ style="font-family: Segoe UI; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
which was proudly declaring that "S#!^  Just Got Real!" It was
only 10:02 PST so I excitedly fired up my client and set about bringing
the newest incarnation of  Medawky to life, unfortunatley when
I went to my predefined server choice, I was met with the harsh reality
of a queue - a very, very long queue. Being a veteran gamer I was
nonplussed, queues are nothing new right? But being an intrepid
reporter and a WoW subscriber I also knew that S#!^ Was
Hitting the Fan over on the Rift forums.



To say my instincts were correct would be a mild understatment at best,
the forums were lit up like the Griswald house on December 24th. Trion
was on top of it though and had an official response post up and
stickied assuring gamers that they were being proactive and to show a
little patience. href="http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?86555-Opening-Day-Queues">The
thread grew faster than Rosie O'Donnell's waistline at a
buffet though and soon had hundreds of pages of responses. I was
encouraged that most players were good natured and understanding,
having been conditioned by years of overcrowded servers and awful
launch days to not expect much - but there were more than enough trolls
under the bridge to keep this billy goat entertained.



There were so many outstanding posts in this thread that it served as
the perfect filler for my time in queue - ironic no? href="http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?p=1303445#post1303445">Here
is my favorite though, at least from a practical standpoint:



I really do have to
laugh here. Were any of you children around for EQ? Were you there for
the thousands of server crashes, the queue times, the re-boots and
headaches of Kunark? I'm not going to get into the whole "In my day we
had to get on tred mills to power the log in servers for EQ and
hand-drew all of the animations for Karnor's Castle with charcoal
sticks." but honestly...the absurd hysterics some of you are letting
loose on the boards here makes me worry about the people who are going
to be playing alongside me in this game.
style="text-shadow: none;">


Lighten up. This is a game, not your life...no one is going to die
because they aren't able to get on when they want to. You didn't pay
for this time...it was simply an added bonus for buying when you did. I
will guarantee you that people who purchase the game, once it goes
live, will pay exactly what you paid for the game. Should the devs and
Trion go back and compensate everyone who ever purchases the game again
for the fact they missed out on Head Start? style="text-shadow: none;"
src="http://forums.riftgame.com/images/smilies/mefiant15.gif"
alt="" title="Mefiant15" class="inlineimg"
border="0"> Simple answer to that is "no". So, no: You
didn't pay for this time...it's a bonus thank you from Trion. I'd be
willing to bet a number of you whiners were the same children who made
a fuss at Christmas when they didn't get what they wanted under the
tree...it's a freaking gift - take it, thank the person who gave it to
you and move on. Life will go on, the sun will rise, Elmo will still be
on Sesame Street and Jessica Alba will still not want anything to do
with you.



And, not to put too fine a point on it, but if you people are seriously
going to nerd rage and quit over something like this...please do it
quickly. The mentality which you are displaying is EXACTLY that which I
am fleeing from WoW. I have NO desire to play with a bunch of fast-food
mentality, insta-gratification seeking chuckle heads who throw a fit at
the first sign of trouble, start demanding compensation for
understandable technical issues, whine about things being too hard or
content not casual friendly. Seriously...please quit and do not
contribute to the virtual gene pool of this game.
style="text-shadow: none;">


So...if you're feeling that need to toss your keyboard across the room
and fire off a nasty letter to the devs threatening to quit...do us a
favor and depart quickly as you'll decrease the queue times, the server
load and the stress of having to play along-side you lot of misfits -
not to mention no one will miss you or your childish antics.
Really...it's true...you're not the special snowflake you've been
deluded into thinking you are by over indulgent parents and a society
which promotes sloth, poor manners and an over hyped sense of self
importance.



Trion: Keep up the good work. You've got an amazing product, great
people working for you and a wonderful vision to move us all forward on
the journey you've presented us.



~Fin




Kudos to Darkothe for his incredibly lucent post, he is welcome to play
in my virtual sandbox any time, I'll even let him use my favorite Tonka
truck. Now if you all will excuse me I think my queue just popped.

---

alt="Rift Queue"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 640px; height: 360px;"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/94949">