Welcome
to the 1,336th
edition
of Loading...

Loading... is the premier daily
MMOG news and commentary
newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.

The launch of Craft
of Gods is coming quickly. How well does Russian Studio
CyberDemons fare in the crafting of a subscription modeled fantasy
MMORPG? Find out today in href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/loading/may/18">Loading...
Previewing Craft of Gods.

The Pulse

You vote with what you
view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result
is the Ten Ton Pulse ( target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).

Here
are today's top 5 Pulse results:

1. World
   of Warcraft
2. EVE
   Online (UP 5)
3. EverQuest
   2 
4. Age
   of Conan 
5. Lord
   of the Rings Online (down 3)

Biggest
movers today:

1. StarCraft
   II (UP 29 to #19)
2. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/52">Pirates
   of the Burning Sea (UP 15 to #18)
3. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/47">Guild Wars
   (UP 10 to #16)
   
   

• 2/16
  - href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/expansions/sentinelsfate/index.vm">EverQuest
  2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion)
• 2/16
  - LotRO:
  Oath of the
  Rangers (content update)
• 4/5
  - Pocket
  Legends (iMMOG - release date) href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1004">
  
  
• 5/1
  - 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
  (content
  update)
• 5/11
  - Age
  of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer
  (expansion)

• May
  26,
  2010 - EVE
  Online: Tyrannis (expansion)
• May
  27,
  2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2422">Craft
  of Gods (release)
• June 9,
  2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1004">Mortal
  Online (release)
• June
  30,
  2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/998">APB
  (US - July 2 in EU)
• style="font-weight: bold;">Q2 2010
  - Mytheon
• TBA
  2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2079">Final
  Fantasy XIV
  
  
  
  

Upcoming
Events

• style="font-weight: bold;">6/15 -
  6/17 - E3
  Expo
• style="font-weight: bold;">6/25 -
  6/27 - Looking
  for Group
  Expo
• style="font-weight: bold;">7/22 -
  7/25 - Comic-Con
  International
• style="font-weight: bold;">8/5 -
  8/8 - href="http://events.station.sony.com/fanfaire/">SOE
  Fan Faire 2010
• style="font-weight: bold;">9/3 -
  9/6 - DragonCon
• style="font-weight: bold;">10/22 -
  10/23 - href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/?rhtml=y">BlizzCon
• style="font-weight: bold;"> 3/24
  -
  3/26 (2011)- CCP
  FanFest
  
  
  

Loading... Daily

Over the weekend I got a chance to check out the upcoming MMORPG by
Cyberdemon, published by Kalicanthus, href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2422"> style="font-style: italic;">Craft of Gods.
The game piqued my interest a few months ago, mainly because it hadn't
made much of an impression on the North American audience. I had barely
heard about it and it was set to launch in only a few months. The
screenshots and premise looked decent enough, so I was admitedly
intrigued from there on out. I should have left well enough alone...



When I logged into the game for the first time this weekend, on my way
to meet my hosts for a guided tour of the game my first reaction was
one of slight confusion. The character selection screen wasn't too
intuitive. Although it didn't take me too long to figure out that the
single flag appearing on the screen was my pre-generated character, I
initially ignored the small flag as at first glance it looked like a
watermark or other insignificant part of the screen. No matter though,
it didn't take long before I found my character and logged into the
world.



The environmental graphics were nice. They looked great at some points,
and other points felt lackluster. Kind of like Katee Sackhoff in
Battlestar Gallactica. Sometimes she seems pretty hot, and other times,
you wonder why. Even though I could see glimpses of some real talent in
the artists behind the work, a lot of this was muddied by an incredibly
low framerate of 15 frames per second. To be perfectly clear, I'm
running a decent rig. A couple of Radeon 4890s in Crossfire
(for a total of 2 gigs DDR3 texture RAM) should be able to handle the
game's graphics and spit them back out at a much higher frame rate.
But, for whatever reason, it just wasn't happening in the small town we
started in. It's not as if the town was busy. There was no one on the
server except myself, a couple of other journalists, and three GMs. I
only saw a handful of NPCs in the area as well. This all led me to the
conclusion that it was probably poor optimization.



As soon as we left town the speeds improved and I was able to
start seeing the beauty in some of the graphical design. The world has
an old-school feel to it and it brought out my sense of adventure. It's
hard to define what it is about certain graphics that bring out your
desire to see the whole game world, but style="font-style: italic;">Craft of Gods has
it. I wanted to explore. The map was quite large, and I imagine it
would take any player a considerable amount of time to see it all.
Unfortunately the poor character and monster animations were enough to
make me want to live in a secluded cabin in the mountains so I would
never have to encounter another being to see them gliding across grass
and rock as if they were on ice.



Our tour guides then told us about the Charming system of the game.
Virtually every animal in the game can be charmed and used as a mount.
No one can argue that this is a very cool feature. I tried it out
plenty of times, and in our short one hour tour had rode a cow, a
leopard, a bat and a horse. Again, some of the mounts animations
suffered. Jumping while on the cow, for instance, treated me to a
wonderful animation of simple bovine levitation. The cow's legs didn't
move. It simply raised itself into the air briefly, and fell back down
statically. Now, to be fair, most cows I've rode in life
haven't been able to jump at all, so perhaps we can attribute this to
suspension of disbelief.



Next we went to one of the high level, most dangerous parts of the
world where we encountered a demon. Keeping par for the course, the
environment itself was inspired. Even the actual model of the demon was
pretty impressive. But when it started gliding and twitching over to me
like an epileptic bear on a caffeine overdose, some of the magic was
lost. Our group engaged in combat, and I couldn't tell who was doing
what to whom. I clicked my hotkeys, which had been preset for me. I
knew what the descriptions of the abilities said. But I couldn't really
tell if my character was performing them or not. Sometimes there would
be a mild animation, sometimes not. There was no visual stimulus in the
combat itself, which in a fantasy MMORPG is a problem. It was as
awkward and confusing as anything else in the game that involved
animation.



Cyberdemon claims they are going for the old-school type of MMOG. They
want social interaction to be important and for the world to feel big
and unexplored. Well, I believe they have succeeded in a certain
respect. The game feels oldschool in the way that it could very well be
using code and animations from the 80s. I'm sure the world
will be left largely unexplored as I can't possibly see how more than a
handful of die-hards will be playing the game much past launch. It's a
pity too. The environments really are impressive, but that's just not
enough to keep gamers paying a monthly fee.



Have you tried Craft of
Gods during Open Beta? Let us know your thoughts of the
game on the forums.

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day

From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=139">WoW:
General Discussion forum



Casually
Casual WoW: Episode 3 - Casual...Raiding?



Can
you say "casual raiding" in a World of Warcraft forum without inviting
an instant (and probably intense) debate? Let's consider today's
thread, based on Jason "Mem" Bechdel's href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/CC/three">editorial href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/CC/three"> of
the same title, the litmus test. Is it possible to be a casual raider?
Should WoW have an "easy mode?" href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=51217">Tell
us!



==============================

Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread



"Heroics ARE the easy mode. It's end game content that
everyone can see, they take like 30-60 mins a pop, there are different
levels of difficulty to them, and there is a lot of content to
be done in them (be it just the fact that there are a lot of them, or
the achievements and optional bosses).To make raids REALLY
casual accessible would completely trivialize them."



- Thansal

==============================



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

7 new Ten Ton Hammer
articles today! 58 Ten Ton Hammer
features
in May! 529
in 2010!

INTERVIEWS



Achievements, Apps and Beyond - An Exclusive Fallen Earth VIP
Interview

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/fallenearth/interviews/beyond-blood-sports">http://www.tentonhammer.com/fallenearth/interviews/beyond-blood-sports



For
our latest VIP outing, Ten Ton Hammer recently paid a visit to Icarus
Studios to speak with the devs behind the post-apocalyptic powerhouse,
Fallen Earth. Joining us for the interview were Senior Game Designer
Marie Croall, Lead Environment Artist Cory Farris, Lead Scripter
Michael Broadwater, Marketing Manager Jessica Orr and last but
certainly not least, Media Specialist Tricia Jenkins. With an all star
lineup like that, you know this is one VIP interview you won't want to
miss!



REVIEWS



Microcosms – There’s an App for That - A Pocket Legends Review

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/microcosms/2010/may/18">http://www.tentonhammer.com/microcosms/2010/may/18



What
happens when you combine one part instanced dungeon crawler, one part
emote-driven chat room, one part MMOG, top it off with a healthy
portion of portability and serve it up for free in the Apple App Store?
Join Jason “Medawky” Bolton this week as he dives into the recipe that
Spacetime Studios hopes will become one of your favorites in the form
of Pocket Legends, their new free-to-play microtransaction-based game
for your favorite mobile devices.



FEATURED EDITORIALS



Dynamic Events in Guild Wars 2: Living in a Living World

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/84465



Guild
Wars 2 developer Colin Johanson released a new developer diary last
week talking about how Guild Wars 2 will have "dynamic events." The
world itself will be alive and events will be driven by the players.
Promises like these have been made before but can ArenaNet deliver on
the hype? We take a look at this and a lot more in the latest coverage
of Guild Wars 2.



MEDIA



New Vindictus Screenshots Offer a Look at Bosses

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/84452



Nexon's
upcoming MMOG, Vindictus, first caught our attention at GDC 2010 and we
have since been watching the game's development. Recently, Nexon
released several new screenshots of the Fomors, or boss monsters found
in Vindictus. There are several versions available for you to check out
in the latest batch of screenshots ranging from an over-sized claw
wielding creature to some fiery bad guys. Give it a look and let us
know what you think.



FEATURES & GUIDES



Five Fun and Profitable Things To Do In Lowsec

http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/guides/politics/five_lowsec



This
guide instructs pilots why they might venture out into low-security
space, and how to make ISK and have fun while doing it. Ten Ton Hammer
Contributing Writer, Space Junkie, lays it all out for us here.



Beginners' Guide: PvP and the Battlegrounds

http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/newbie/pvp



Get
briefed on the basics that you'll need to defend yourself and your
realm against the enemy. Learn about Battlegrounds, Arenas, PvP Gearing
and more all in Ten Ton Hammer's complete introduction to
World of
Warcraft PvP combat.



Tanks and Attitude - Semi-Hardcore #4

http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/semihardcore4



This
week in Semi-Hardcore, Byron “Messiah” Mudry takes a look at the real
world personalities that make up the best in-game tanks as he sees it.
What kind of person is a tank most likely to be out of game--calm mild
mannered or raging control freak? In this issue he looks at the
sometimes vastly conflicting parts of a tank's personality that are
required to perform at the highest level.

Today's
Hottest Articles, Guides, and Features

1. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/microcosms/2010/may/18">Microcosms
   – There’s an App for That - A Pocket Legends Review
2. Dynamic
   Events in Guild Wars 2: Living in a Living World
   
3. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/reviews/nvidia/3d_vision/monitors">Acer
   vs Alienware: Who is King of the 3D Vision Monitors?
4. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/fallenearth/interviews/beyond-blood-sports">Achievements,
   Apps and Beyond - An Exclusive Fallen Earth VIP
   Interview
5. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/features/editorials/5_things_to_improve_sto">5
   Things to Improve Star Trek Online
6. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/giveaways/eve-tyrannis">EVE
   Online: Tyrannis Launch Day
   Prize Giveaway
   
7. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/fallenearth/previews/blood-sports">Fallen
   Earth: Blood Sports PvP
   Impressions
8. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc/rise-of-the-godslayer/preview">Age
   of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer Expansion
   - Launch Day
   Preview
9. Ragnar
   Tornquist Answers Ten Ton Hammer Reader Questions for The
   Secret World
10. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/guides/ships/osprey">Flying
    The Osprey Cruiser In EVE
    Online
    

Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

- Benjamin J. de la Durantaye
and
the Ten Ton Hammer team