Welcome
to the 1,314th
edition
of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily
MMOG news and commentary
newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
No matter which way
you slice it, Blizzard’s loyal fan base has unflinchingly
locked in the next link in the chain towards a more widespread
acceptance of micro-transactions by core MMO gamers in North America.
We’ll take a closer look at the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/celestialcashcow">Celestial
Steed craze, a
hopeful glance towards the long overdue expansion of
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro">Lord
of the Rings
Online’s
player-created
music into other titles, and a
fanciful nod in favor of the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/47">Guild
Wars
War in Kryta event
today in
Loading… Mountains of Mounts
The Pulse
You vote with what you
view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result
is the Ten Ton Pulse (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here
are today's top 5 Pulse results:
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow">World
of Warcraft -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2">EverQuest
II -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ddo">Dungeons and
Dragons Online - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc">Age of Conan
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/vanguard">Vanguard:
Saga of Heroes
Biggest
movers this week:
-
size="-1">2/1
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/926">Global
Agenda (release date) -
size="-1">2/2
size="-1">
- Star
Trek Online (release date) -
size="-1">2/16
- href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/expansions/sentinelsfate/index.vm">EverQuest
2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion) -
size="-1">2/16
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81479"> LotRO:
Oath of the
Rangers (content update) -
size="-1">4/5
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83086">Pocket
Legends (iMMOG - release date)
Releases
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1004">
-
size="-1">April
2010 - href="http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/game_updates/issue_17/issue_17_overview.html?utm_source=COHemail&utm_medium=US&utm_campaign=banner">City
of Heroes - Issue 17: Dark Mirror -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">Spring 2010
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1801">Mytheon -
size="-1">Summer
2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/998">APB -
size="-1">TBA
2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2079">Final
Fantasy XIV
-
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">Spring 2011
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/swtor">Star Wars:
The Old
Republic size="-1">
size="-1">Upcoming
Events
-
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">4/17 - 4/18
- href="http://www.ankama-convention.com/en">Ankama
Convention #5 -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">6/15 -
6/17 - href="http://www.e3expo.com/">E3
Expo -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">6/25 -
6/27 - href="http://www.lfgexpo.com/">Looking
for Group
Expo -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">7/22 -
7/25 - href="http://www.comic-con.org/">Comic-Con
International -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">8/5 -
8/8 - href="http://events.station.sony.com/fanfaire/">SOE
Fan Faire 2010 -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">9/3 -
9/6 - href="http://www.dragoncon.org/">DragonCon -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">10/22 -
10/23 - href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/?rhtml=y">BlizzCon
Celebrate
the 5th Anniversary of Guild
Wars and Win an In-Game Costume!
It's
been five years
since the launch of Guild Wars
and it's time to
celebrate with NCsoft and ArenaNet. Ten Ton Hammer has several codes
for two costumes for the in-game event. Enter your email address,
select your costume, and click Submit for your chance to win.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/giveaways/guildwars/war_in_kryta">
Visit our Guild
Wars
Giveaway page to win!
Loading... Daily
Back when the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow">World
of
Warcraft
TCG first hit store shelves, many players braved the sunlight
just long enough to snatch up every full box of card packs they could
get their hands on. Speaking with the manager at my local GameStop
later that same day, he claimed to have sold the dozen boxes of cards
the store got in to a single customer less than 5 minutes after
cracking the UPS shipment open. The crazy thing was, that was far from
an isolated incidence. Pretty much everywhere you went the card packs
were snatched up in massive quantities, so gamers with a genuine
interest in checking out the TCG but not a pile of expendable cash had
to wait to see what all the fuss was about.
Whether or not the card game
itself was anything to shake a stick at
really was irrelevant at that point though. What people really wanted
was the loot cards it contained, and they were obviously willing to
fork over the cash to obtain them. Yet what few really stopped to
consider was that the entire affair was simply a cleverly disguised
form of indirect micro-transaction. As we all know, MT has been a dirty
word in the vocabulary of many core MMO gamers, which was especially
true a few years ago.
Flash forward to the present
day, and one need look no further than
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/celestialcashcow">Blizzard’s
Celestial Cash Cow to realize
how far the
acceptance of MTs has come. If you had told me a week ago that a
developer could make $4 million in sales from an in-game mount in a
single day I’d have promptly told you that you’re
nuts. Yet WoW fans have clearly spoken with their wallets on this one
and proven me wrong. The new mounts and the flurry of reactions to them
is the topic of today’s Epic Thread, so be sure to hit up the
link below to add your own thoughts to the discussion.
In other, non 160,000 player
long queue news…
When
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro">Lord
of the Rings Online
first launched, in this writer’s
humble opinion one of the coolest and more unique features the game had
to offer was the ability to produce simple midi sounds in-game by
playing one of the various instruments available to players. Not only
does it push the envelope for player-created content in a direction
that had never been seen before, but it also has the added coolness of
allowing players to provide live entertainment for one another. In an
age when “live events” are still heavily planned
and scripted affairs in most MMOGs, the notion of picking up a lute and
playing a tune for nearby players whenever it strikes your fancy is a
pretty powerful thing.
While simplistic, that system
went on to birth a number of very skilled
musical groups within the game complete with some excellent live
performances, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before
other developers realized what an awesome and powerful tool in-game
music creation really is. Either that or my lifelong passion for all
things audio was simply causing me to wish that would indeed end up
being the case.
As it turns out my intuitions
served me well, even if it took a few
years to happen. As seen in our
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/paxe2010/APB/customization">exclusive
customization preview for
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/998">All
Points Bulletin
during PAX
East, that game will allow players to create simple midi clips and
which can then be used or even sold to other players as a sort of
‘death theme’ that anyone you take down in-game
will be forced to listen to. Then more recently, word came in to the
Ten Ton HQ a couple of days ago that
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/216">A
Tale in the Desert
would be
kicking off
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83380">The
Test of the Orchestra, which
will allow players to not
only compose music in-game, but even craft the instruments for it to be
played on. Call it what you will, but the musician in me loves hearing
about this kind of stuff, so I plan on giving both the APB and A
Tale
in the Desert systems a thorough
inspection as soon as I’m
able.
That about wraps things up for
this week folks, but be sure to hop,
skip or jump on over to the Loading… forums and let us know
what you think about the insanity that is WoW’s celestial
steed and the concept of player-created live events via in-game musical
performance. Otherwise, I hope you all have a
href="http://www.kickass-themovie.com/" target="_blank">Kick-Ass
weekend!
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=142">WoW
News Discussion forum
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=50790">Celestial
Steed & Mini-XT Available for Purchase
Once
upon a time, I said that microtransactions were the wave of the future,
and some Ten Ton Hammer rockstar (who shall remain nameless) suggested
I get a clue, saying that the Western world wasn't ready for
microtransactions. But as of last night, said rockstar acknowledged
that the queue to buy Blizzard's $25 World of Warcraft mount
was
160,000 (yes, count those zeroes again if you must) deep.
So, how about them microtransactions now, bitches?
Ahem. Anyhow. There'll be href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/celestialcashcow">plenty
of discussion
of the glowing pony that's making Blizzard richer by the
microtransaction (if you can call $25 micro anything) here on Ten Ton
Hammer. Go href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=50790">join
in the fun!
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"First it's promotional
something-or-others that give mounts, then
they sell pets and everyone has that annoying kung-fu panda, now it's
$25 for a mount in a game where you get an achievement for
mount-collecting..."
- Zeep
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
New
and Exclusive Content
Today at Ten Ton Hammer
4 new Ten Ton Hammer
features
today! 69 in April! 428
in 2010!
FEATURED GIVEAWAY
Celebrate the 5th Anniversary
of Guild Wars and Win an In-Game Costume
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/giveaways/guildwars/war_in_kryta">http://www.tentonhammer.com/giveaways/guildwars/war_in_kryta
The War in Kryta is the first event in a series dubbed Guild Wars
Beyond, which is an ongoing campaign that expands upon the original
game's storyline and leads into Guild Wars 2. Experience the War in
Kryta first hand, and come prepared with your very own in game costume.
Ten Ton Hammer has several codes for both costumes. Enter your email
address, select your costume, and click the Submit button for your
chance to win.
FEATURED
EDITORIAL
WoW: Blizzard's Celestial Cash
Cow
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/celestialcashcow">http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/celestialcashcow
Today Blizzard released a $25 mount in their pet store, the Celestial
Steed. Currently, as we publish this, the queue to buy such an epic
mount is over 160,000 users and climbing. Is the mount worth the $25?
What is the community's reaction so far? How will the industry react to
Blizzard's take on microtransactions? All of these questions are
answered in our latest look at Blizzard's Celestial Cash Cow.
MEDIA
Dungeons and Dragons Online
Releases New Update 4 Screenshots
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83405">http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83405
Turbine had more than their
share of negative attention this week with the
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83360"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83360" target="_blank">issues
stemming from their Offer Wall,
but things are settling down
and getting back to normal for the
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ddo"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ddo" target="_blank">
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ddo">Dungeons and
Dragons
Online
community as the freshly launched Update 4
is providing a nice distraction with all its new content and the
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83172"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83172" target="_blank">
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83172">Sentinel's
Adventure Pack.
Turbine has even
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83405"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83405" target="_blank">released
a few new screenshots of the
update that offers a look at
some of the content that includes over-elaborately dressed kobolds, a
pirate in a huge hat, and a flaming airship.
FEATURES
WoW: The Forsaken in Cataclysm
- The Loremaster's Corner
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/lore/forsakenincataclysm">http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/lore/forsakenincataclysm
This
week we delve into the Forsaken, World of Warcraft's undead race, and
look at their past, present, and future prospects in WoW. How will the
race fare in Cataclysm? Take a look at this week's Loremaster's Corner
to find out.
Today's
Hottest Articles, Guides, and Features
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/giveaways/guildwars/war_in_kryta">Celebrate
the 5th Anniversary of Guild
Wars and Win and In-Game Costume -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83356">WANTED:
Your Questions for TERA's
Developers -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/celestialcashcow">WoW:
Blizzard's Celestial Cash Cow -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83246">Pure
Artistic Vision - A style="font-weight: bold;">Guild
Wars 2 Concept Art
Q&A with Daniel Dociu -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/dmail/1">D-Mail
with Sean Stalzer #1: You've Got D-Mail! -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/podcasts/live/2">Ten
Ton Hammer Live Ep. 2 - A style="font-weight: bold;">Fallen
Earth Update with Project
Manager Colin Dwan -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83273">Borderlands
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83273">:
Add-On Pack
Reviewed -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/co/guides/viborabayoverview">Champions
Online href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/co/guides/viborabayoverview">:
Vibora Bay Overview -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/features/top_ten_newbie_mistakes">Starcraft
II href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/features/top_ten_newbie_mistakes">:
Top Ten Newbie Mistakes -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/features/everquest/nostalgia">Awakened
Nostalgia - EverQuest
Relived
Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
- Reuben "Sardu" Waters
and
the Ten Ton Hammer team
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.
