Welcome to the 795th Edition of Loading...

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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.

One patch, so much to cover. The WoW effect is real for those of you that don't believe in it. Tuesdays are the busiest days on our network and apparently the same is true of similar networks as two of them disappeared into that land that TCP/IP forgot yesterday under the deluge of traffic. When the game is down, people flood to other forms of entertainment whether they be websites about the game or other games. Developers take note, if you aren't advertising your game and getting into the forums and other social spaces on Tuesdays you are missing out on an enormous opportunity to reach a core group of players who maybe, just maybe are looking to try out something new.

What do you do when WoW is down? The The Loading... forums await you.

Do you feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or derogatory comments? Here's my E-mail.

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11 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 203 in March! 716 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

• Mythos: Closed Beta Video - Premium Members
• --
• Age of Conan: Lost in Hyboria - "The Impotent Blade"
• Legends of Norrath: Inquisitor Review
• Lord of the Rings Online: Guide to Guardians
• Mythos: Beta Journal #2
• Mythos: Premium Closed Beta Video - Premium Members
• Mythos: Closed Beta Video
• Vanguard: Dungeon Map - Trickster's Haven
• Warhammer Online: Scenarios - Stone Troll Crossing and Talabec Dam
• Warhammer Online: Collector's Edition Overview
• World of Warcraft: How Is Your Class Affected By Patch 2.4?
• World of Warcraft: Patch 2.4 AVailable For Download

Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to

1. Warhammer Online: Collector's Edition Overview
2. Mythos: Closed Beta Video - Premium Members
3. World of Warcraft: How Is Your Class Affected By Patch 2.4?
4. Legends of Norrath: Inquisitor Review
5. Stargate Worlds: Exclusive Technical Interview
6. Legends of the Industry: An Interview With Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar
7. Final Fantasy XI: Wings of the Goddess Guide Tour
8. Jumpgate Evolution: Exclusive Interview - Crafting and Resource Gathering
9. Jumpgate Evolution: Video Interview With Producer, Hermann Peterscheck
10. Jumpgate Evolution: Exclusive Screenshots of Octavian Ships

Real World News

• Party Fire Engine Put Up For Sale
  Includes smoke machine.
• Russian Bombers Intercepted Off Alaska

  NATO escort service gets first business in months.

• LOLCats Will Appear On Jones Soda
  Maybe now somebody will buy the hairball and kitty litter flavours.

Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com

- John "Boomjack" Hoskin and the Ten Ton Hammer Team