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Daily Column
Loading... It helps you scratch the itch you just can't reach.
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
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com" target="_blank">homepage.
(
target="_blank">What is Pulse?)
- World of Warcraft - 200 BPM
- Age of Conan - 123 BPM
- Lord of the Rings Online - 67 BPM
- EverQuest 2 - 59 BPM
- Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - 43 BPM
- Warhammer Online - 40 BPM
- Guild Wars 2 - 34 BPM
- Dungeon Runners - 31 BPM
- EVE Online - 31 BPM
- Dungeons and Dragons Online - 28 BPM
Unfortunately, John “Boomjack” Hoskin
couldn’t make it into the Loading… cubicle today
– he mentioned something about having his teeth sharpened
into fine points – but rest assured that Loading…
won’t ever miss a beat as long as a Ten Ton Hammer staffer
has a set of digits with which to type out your daily dose of MMOG
goodness. This week, Cody “Micajah” Bye
(that’s me!) takes the helm of this vast ocean liner and
cruises you to MMOG waters that are more virginal than anything
you’d see in Age of Conan.
For those of you that are fans of the games created by Blizzard
Activision, this week must feel like a small slice of heaven. Along
with the announcement of Diablo
III, news about Wrath
of the Lich King and Starcraft
II has been exploding throughout the World Wide Web.
However, there are a few rumors that still remain in the air concerning
Blizzard’s titles. For example, the Blizzard team was hiring
developers for a “next-gen” MMOG product, but
didn’t officially discuss whether that would be a
continuation of the World of Warcraft franchise or something new
entirely. Was Diablo III
the only new project that Blizzard was working on? Or is there yet
another game hidden behind a curtain somewhere?
Apparently, the editors at the German website OnlineWelten.com heard
your cries of uncertainty, because in their
href="http://trailer.onlinewelten.com/videos,id4103,blizzard_interview_with_rob_pardo.html"
target="_blank">latest video they ask Rob Pardo that very
question. To make a long story short, there is a
“yet to be announced” next-gen MMOG project that
has yet to make its splash. Will it be announced at BlizzCon this year?
If so, the Ten Ton Hammer team will be on site to make sure we get all
the details our readers want and deserve.
In more titillating news, our crazed, rabid news reporters have
uncovered a piece of delicious information regarding Age of Conan.
According to the developers over at Funcom, the sex of your character
actually affects your weapon speed. However, this isn’t due
to any sort of “sexism” or “male vs.
female” arguments that some people would have you believe. On
the contrary, it seems that the combo animation lengths were incorrect
between a number of the different animations when the male / female
avatars were compared. Here’s a small portion of the
href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=1314180">much
longer post by Funcom’s Svein Erik "Sharum" Jenset:
discrepancy in damage output that you’re seeing is that the
length of an animation isn’t equal for both Male and Female
characters in many cases. This is what we’re currently
fixing, but there’s roughly 800 to 1000 animations in total
that are involved here, and that they are significantly more
“complex” than the ‘white
damage’ animations mentioned above this naturally takes a lot
more time.
Of course, once the
length of the animations have been fully corrected/tweaked either by an
animator or BCC designer then every rank (of every combo for every
class) has to be re-balanced by the System Designers because, as I
mentioned above, one of the factors that come into play when
determining the combo damage is animation length.
Normally, I’d expect a sort of bra-burning outburst
from this sort of problem, but since the vast majority of female
avatars are played by men, it shouldn’t come to that.
However, my ears are already burning from the amount of venom and bile
that’s going to be spewed at Funcom over this mistake.
Hopefully they’ll fix the issue sooner rather than later.
Finally, it looks like Guild Wars fans will continue to have the same
sort free experience in the upcoming sequel that they grew to love in
the first game in the series. The developers at ArenaNet have
href="http://guildwars.com/products/guildwars2/gw2faq/">updated
their FAQ with those details, and here’s
the official wording:
Wars, there will be no subscription fee for Guild Wars 2. You just buy
the game and play it online without paying a monthly fee.
So what are your thoughts on Blizzard’s Next Gen
MMOG? Is it Universe of Starcraft or The EverLost Vikings? Do you think
Funcom’s animation error in
style="font-style: italic;">Age of Conan will
pull subscribers away from that game? Did ArenaNet make the right
decision in keeping Guild
Wars 2 free to play? Let us know on the forums!
Do tell. The
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=30602"
target="_blank">Loading Forums await you. Do you
feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or
derogatory comments? Here's my
href="mailto:[email protected]">E-mail.
--
[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links,
headlines and taglines today. ]
39 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 38 in July! 1616 in
2008!
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today
Blizzard WorldWide Invitational 2008
- Halls
of Stone Presentation Video - Sneak
Peak into The Halls of Stone - Class
Discussion Panel - 'The
Occulus' Sneak Peak Video - Sneak
Peak (article) at 'The Occulus' - Nihilum
Battles Kil'Jaedon at Blizzard Paris Worldwide Invitational '08 -
Anatomy
of Dungeons and Raids Discussion Panel -
Anatomy
of Dungeons and Raids - Presentation Video - Costume
and Dance Contest Pics - Invitational
Swag Gallery - Death
Knight Images - World
of Warcraft Q&A - The
Big Announcement - Diablo III
Previews
Reviews
Interviews
- EverQuest
2: Game Update 46 w. Kyle Vallee and Nathan McCall - Game
Safe: Security Software for Gamers - Fusion
Fall: Executive Producer Chris Waldron - Gaia
Online: Q&A with Developers
Op/Eds
Features
- Warhammer
Online: Meet the Devs - Content Designer Chris Behrens - Dungeon
Runners: Ten Ton Hammer's Bling Gnome Arrives - Exteel:
Lore - Divided We Stand
Images/Video
- Project
Powder: Screenshots and Concept Art - Atlantica
Online: Tactical Combat Screenshots - Fusion
Fall: Exclusive Screenshots - Warhammer
Online: Executive NPC Screenshots - Gaia
Online: New Screenshots
Comics
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/37357?size=_original">Age
of Conan: Lost in Hyboria - Like an Episode of Maury
Community
Guides
- Tabula
Rasa: Purgas Station - Pt 1 - Tabula
Rasa: Purgas Station - Pt 2 - Age
of Conan: Atzel's Approach - Age
of Conan: Quests in Khemi - Age
of Conan: Ranger Skill/Combo List - Lvl 61-80 -
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=487">Vanguard:
Dread Knight Spell List Update - Lvl 26-50 -
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=956">Vanguard:
Hunter's League Quests - Rising in Rank -
href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=669">Lord
of the Rings Online: Tier 4 and 5 Scholar Product List
Hot Content - Or, what I took a
fancy to
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/37357?size=_original">Age
of Conan: Lost in Hyboria - Like an Episode of Maury -
World
of Warcraft: Anatomy of Dungeons and Raids Discussion Panel -
World
of Warcraft: Anatomy of Dungeons and Raids - Presentation Video - World
of Warcraft: Nihilum Battles Kil'Jaedon at Blizzard Paris Worldwide
Invitational '08 - World
of Warcraft: Anatomy of Dungeons and Raids Discussion Panel - Stargate
Worlds: Exclusive Op-CORE Info Revealed! - Champions
Online: Dev Profile - Alan Salmassian - Top
10 Free-to-Play Games
Real World News
-
href="http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-06252008-1554393.html">School
locked down after 'ninja' sighted in woods [Courtesy of Mike
G.]
Luckily, he was chased off by a pirate. -
href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7479836.stm">'Entire
Life' sold for £192,000 [Courtesy of Shayalyn]
Apparently sold to a man with lots of money, but no life -
href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080701/hl_nm/drugs_who_dc">The
US leads the world in substance abuse
USA! USA! USA!
Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com.
Thanks to Phil Comeau
for doing the heavy lifting with the links.
- Cody "Micajah" Bye and the Ten Ton Hammer Team
