Ten Ton Hammer | Loading... E3 Blogging

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Daily Column

Loading... putting the 'Mo' in MMOG.

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

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

World of Warcraft - 200 BPM
Age of Conan - 122 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 68 BPM
EverQuest II - 60 BPM
EVE Online - 53 BPM
Warhammer Online - 46 BPM
Lineage 2 - 45 BPM
Dungeon Runners - 42 BPM
Guild Wars - 41 BPM
Vanguard - 35 BPM

We don't usually and by usually I mean ever cover real time strategy games. Well, unless they are games that I personally take a fancy to and then all bets are off. Putting my love of Starcraft and Dawn of War to the side for a moment, we have some enormous news about another large RTS franchise. Our resident rodeo clown, Jeff Woleslagle has taken the Ten Ton Hammer road-show to Shanghai where he is covering ChinaJoy. This is the first time that we have covered this event. Please put your hands together for Big World, without whom we would not be able to provide this coverage.

And now the news...

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Relic Logo

"While Western eyes are watching E3, the other side of the Pacific - China in particular - has a few surprises of its own. Ten Ton Hammer has the scoop on one such happening at ChinaJoy: THQ / Relic, in partnership with Shanda Interactive Entertainment, is releasing a free-to-play version of the bestselling WWII RTS Company of Heroes (CoH).

In China.

This week. "

Why oh why would they give this incredible game away for free in China you ask?

"You might think that CoH is a bestselling title in China, but you’d be wrong... at least about the “selling” part. “We know that there are at least one million pirated copies of the game in China,” Williams admitted, noting that every time a patch is released, more than one million updates are applied from Chinese IPs - this for a game that’s never been released at retail in China. In Sun Tzu fashion, THQ / Relic thinks it can turn this retailing weakness into a strength.

Jung explained their strategy with a metaphor: cracked out of the box games and private servers have been a thorn in the side of every online game, whether multiplayer or massively multiplayer. However, for many players, this option is simply a training ground where new methods are tested before the foray into the higher level of competition the players would experience on a legitimate server. "

Over one million pirated copies of the game are being played in China. Read the whole announcement here, Company of Heroes Headed to China as F2P Game - Exclusive ChinaJoy Interview . Jeff was also able to confirm that there will likely be a free-to-play version also available in the U.S.

Closer to home, Josh Drescher's (Producer, Warhammer Online ) has a new nickname, 'The Mailman'. Josh continues to deliver his eloquent, entertaining blogs from E3 exclusively for TenTonHammer.com. Today he tells us about the peaks and valleys of E3, oh guess who he saw perform at the Rock Band party? The Who, or as Josh puts it, "IT WAS THE FRICKIN’ WHO."

"Peak: The game looks awesome. We’ve had folks on Beta all week long and it’s just a perfect way to illustrate how great the game looks, feels and plays at this point. A note to the beta community: Don’t be afraid of the armored 40th-level War Lions that showed up in High Elf 1 today – that’s just us saying “Hi!” from the show).

Valley: Staying on your feet for ten straights hours makes everything sore. We’re all whiny babies by the time 6:00 PM rolls around." -- Josh Drescher, Producer Warhammer Online.

Not to be outdone, Matt Wilson, the Director of Development for The Agency has been blogging exclusively for TenTonHammer.com from E3 as well! Bull riding (and our rodeo clown Jeff Woleslagle is in China?), The Agency on a 40 foot screen, smoothies and more all in one place, Matt Wilson's E3pionage.

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The SOE Booth has
smoothies!

"The Agency™ made a few appearances at the beginning and end of the press event as well and it was great to see some of our spy action footage on the 60+ flat screens wallpapering the stage… although some folks thought we were making a bull riding simulator based on the brand new ParaGON field office footage that was shown. *winks* Lead designer, Hal Milton and I, have tackled a bunch of press and video interviews with a number of different media outlets and publications so far, and day two brings even more. You should track how big the circles under our eyes grow as the next couple of days play out. More on The Agency and the SOE booth tomorrow…"
-- Matt Wilson, Director - The Agency

An enormous Ten Ton Thank You to both Matt and Josh for becoming honorary Ten Ton Hammer bloggers for E3 2008!

Matt mentions DC Universe Online in his blog. If you haven't had a look yet you need to check out the new DC Universe Online concept art that we had handed to us yesterday. Supergirl, other female concepts and environments are yours in the Ten Ton Hammer DC Universe concept art gallery.

But, that's not enough for you is it? It's never enough. How about the official DC Universe Online E3 Trailer? How many times as a kid (or perhaps as an adult) have you pretended that you were a superhero?

You're going to have lots of options in the next 18-24 months. City of Heroes/Villains has merged into one game under the wing of NCSoft, DC Universe is looking great and so is Champions Online. Joe Wreschnig, software programmer for the Champions Online U.I. was recently interviewed.

"Q: What is the most awesome thing you have seen or done in the past two months?
A: I re-enacted the hot dog cooking minigame from Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends with my sister and a friend from Cryptic. Words cannot capture the grandeur of this event, so we also took videos." --Joe Wreschnig, Champions Online

Are superhero games your thing? If so, which one are you most looking forward to?

Do tell. 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.

--
[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links and Real World News.]

17 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 182 in July! 1760 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

ChinaJoy 2008

THQ/Relic's Company of Heroes to go Free-to-Play

Previews

World of Warcraft: Utgarde Keep

Interviews

Champions Online: Joe Wreschnig

Exclusive Blogs from E3!

Images/Video

Free-to-Play

Top Ten Free-to-Play Games - Week 13

Contests

Play Atlantica Beta Giveaway

Guides

Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to

Real World News

Humans and machines will merge in the future [Link courtesy of Danny "BirthdayBoy" Gourley!]

All hail our jetpack-wearing future cyborg overlords.
World's Greatest Dad arrested in child sex case [Link courtesy of Bill P.!]

World's Greatest Mom still at large
Got a question for Kenny Loggins? Submit it here.

Don't we all have a question for Kenny Loggins, deep down inside?

Have you seen some Real World News that you think Phil can try to make funny, and fail? Send it in!

Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com.

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

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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