Loading... How To Measure Success?

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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?)

Warhammer Online - 200 BPM
World of Warcraft - 84 BPM
Age of Conan - 35 BPM
Tabula Rasa - 11 BPM
EVE Online - 7 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 7 BPM
Everquest II - 6 BPM
Vanguard - 5 BPM
Dungeons and Dragons - 4 BPM
Stargate Worlds - 3 BPM

With the launch only 16 days away, Warhammer Online is the unsurprising king of the Pulse. Our Warhammer Community had more people visit it in August than our main page. If the title can live up to the pre-launch hype there will be a lot of very happy MMOG fans.

EVE Online remains in the top five without much hype at all. I reloaded EVE to give it another shot. Now that there is a Mac client I really have no excuse not to have it running in the background while I'm doing research. There is almost a consensus in the industry that EVE is a successful game. With 300,000ish subscribers this independently developed game is viewed as a jewel in the crown of the MMOG genre. A rough launch didn't hamper the team who kept building upon a solid foundation with positive results.

Age of Conan, which has settled into what seems like a semi-permanent spot at #3 in the Ten Ton Pulse is widely perceived as a failure. Fans and press have turned on the game which sold 700,000 copies and currently has 415,000 subscribers. AoC also had a rough launch in some respects, though overall it was a solid start to a solid game. The problem with AoC wasn't the game, but the expectations. Rightly or wrongly, players had expectations that certain features would be in place and when they weren't, things on the public relations front went downhill in a hurry.

EVE had many problems at launch, but the were corrected and now the game has not only longevity, but legs going forward. Will fans look back on AoC in three years and consider it a tremendous success? They probably should be doing that now. 415,000 subscribers puts the game somewhere in the #2 to #4 spot in the genre. On the flip-side, EVE never lost 285,000 subscribers. What is your take? How should the industry measure success?

PAX is over. We didn't attend this year and I for one am glad that we cut it out of our schedule. With GenCON, Leipzig and numerous other shows so close to PAX there was really no new coverage for us there. PAX is a show for the players, not for the press. Publishers that attended the show ended up rehashing coverage that has already been beaten thin, marinated and consumed by the public.

On the bright side, industry super-star Jeff Hickman, the Executive Producer on Warhammer Online took time out of his schedule every day at the show to blog for you about his experiences. At least, that was the plan. What Jeff did was above and beyond what could have been expected. He read our forums and replied to many of the questions that you posed. Jeff wrote three blogs with the hopes of topping the numbers of viewers that Paul Barnett (Creative Director - Warhammer Online) drew at Comic Con and that Josh Drescher (Associate Producer - Warhammer Online) drew at E3. The votes are in and our readers have given Jeff a slim victory over Josh. All hail 'The Hickman'.

However, not to be outdone, Paul and Josh (PB and J) currently hold the record for most views to a video series with WAR's Paul and Josh Do Leipzig. Who is #2 you ask? It's none other than our Exclusive Video Interview with WAR's Jeff Hickman.

WAR is breaking all traffic records except for one. The biggest traffic day in the history of our network belongs to Age of Conan. Can WAR topple that record as well? We'll find out on September 18th.

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.

Ten Ton Hammer Epic Thread of the Day

Sometimes they're funny; sometimes they're foolish; sometimes they're flaming;
sometimes they're cool. Whatever this one happens to be, it's
our Epic Thread of the Day.

====================
From our Tavern of the Ten Ton Hammer Forum
Submitted by...No one; we just liked it.

Good Times Canceling My WoW Account

After
playing WoW for a good long time, Demosthenes left the game for WAR.
When he cancelled his account, Blizzard put him on a serious guilt
trip. He included screenshots of the WoW "guilt screen" for our
amusement. (And amuse us it did!)

Will WoW suffer when WAR goes live? Talk about it in this thread.

Awesome Quote from the Epic Thread:

"In case you are curious, the... years my wife and I played works out
to just under $1500. That is the equivalent of watching 162 movies.
Going out for dinner for two 48 times. Having at least 15 nights of
drunken barhopping. (Drinks are cheap here.)" - Demosthenes
====================

Do you have a favorite Epic Thread? Let us know!

23 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 23 in September! 2217 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks Phil Comeau for the Links and Real World News]

Leipzig GCDC 2008

Images/Video

Interviews

Community

Developer Blog

Op/Eds

Vanguard: Can PvP survive?

Comics

Contests

Guides

Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to

Real World News

WoW Players Using Treadmills to run Azeroth [Courtesy of John B.]

Step 2: Flinging themselves off buildings when using the flight paths
Benefit of pelvic exercises on urine leaks wanes

My bladder asplode
Hundreds ride sex toys in local river rapids race

The last-place finisher's choice of zipper mask and ballgag was probably inappropriate for conditions

Guiding You to the Next
Level... [Thanks Karen Hertzberg]

Let there be no doubt; our community site teams work hard
to put out quality guides to help you get the most of your gaming
experience. And now we've got your weekly guide to the guides. Here's a
recap of the information and updates published on our community sites
last week.

Age of Conan

Lord of the Rings Online

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Warhammer Online

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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