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is the premier daily MMOG newsletter, only from Ten
Ton Hammer!

Welcome
to the 1,391st
edition
of Loading...

As the tools for tweaking
character appearance in MMOGs continue to advance, it seems that
somewhere along the lines the concept of giving those characters some
form of personality or motivational behaviors has fallen by the
wayside. But let’s face it, even if you spend countless hours
aligning symbols along the sleeves of your wizard robes or tweaking
sliders to achieve the perfect snarling façade for your
warrior, you’re still ultimately creating Generic Hero
#100,001.

Today we’ll take a
look at how ArenaNet hopes to change all that by facilitating a
more personalized gameplay experience with href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2">Guild
Wars 2
in
Loading… Putting the RPG Back in MMOs.

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/">What
is The Pulse?).

Today's
top 5 Pulse results:

1. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow">World
   of Warcraft
2. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2">EverQuest
   II
3. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro">Lord of the
   Rings Online
4. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve">EVE
   Online
5. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc">Age of Conan

Biggest
movers in the past 24 hours:

1. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/42">Star
   Wars Galaxies
   
   - UP 12 to
   #13
2. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/co">Champions
   Online
   
   - UP 8
   to #11
3. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/926">Global
   Agenda
   
   - UP 5
   to
   #19

• size="-1">5/26
  - EVE
  Online: Tyrannis size="-1">
  (expansion)
• size="-1">5/27
  - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2422">Craft
  of Gods size="-1">
  (release)
• size="-1">6/9
  - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1004">Mortal
  Online size="-1">
  (release)
• size="-1">6/29
  - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/998"
  target="_blank">APB
  (release)
• size="-1">7/13
  -
  href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1801"
  target="_blank">Mytheon
  (release)
• size="-1">7/27
  -
  href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2461"
  target="_blank">Need
  for Speed World
  (release)
• size="-1">7/27
  -
  href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2" target="_blank">StarCraft
  II: Wings of Liberty
  (release)

• size="-1">August
  17, 2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/140">City
  of Heroes: Going Rogue (release)
• size="-1">September
  7, 2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion">Aion:
  Assault on Balaurea (free
  expansion)
• size="-1">September
  30, 2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ffxiv" target="_blank">Final
  Fantasy XIV size="-1">
  (release)
• size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">October
  26, 2010
  - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/170">LEGO
  Universe (release)
  
  
• size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">November
  2, 2010
  - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1407">DC
  Universe Online (release)
  
  

size="-1">Upcoming
Events

• size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">8/5 -
  8/8 - href="http://events.station.sony.com/fanfaire/" target="_blank">SOE
  Fan Faire 2010
• size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">8/18 -
  8/22 - href="http://www.gamescom-cologne.com/en/gamescom/home/index.php"
  target="_blank">Gamescom 2010
  
• size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">9/3 -
  9/5 - href="http://www.paxsite.com/paxprime/index.php" target="_blank">PAX
  Prime
• size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">9/3 -
  9/6 - href="http://www.dragoncon.org/" target="_blank">DragonCon
• size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">10/22 -
  10/23 - href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/?rhtml=y" target="_blank">BlizzCon
• size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;"> 3/24
  -
  3/26 (2011) - href="http://fanfest.eveonline.com/" target="_blank">CCP
  FanFest
  

style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">HOT!
Visit href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/guides">Ten
Ton Hammer's StarCraft II Guides
portal to gain that competitive multiplayer edge, or to read our Wings
of Liberty
single player campaign mission walkthroughs!

Loading... Daily

Back in the day in games
such as the original href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/38">EverQuest,
the choices you made up front at
character creation could radically alter how the NPC inhabitants of
Norrath would react to you. Not so much in the sense that
they’d dislike you if you had bushy eyebrows, but more so
that the choice of class and race played a far larger role than simply
dictating which spells you could scribe or which city you called home.

In those earlier days of the
industry faction actually carried a lot of
weight, whereas over the years the concept has been homogenized to the
point where it’s become little more than a thinly veiled
reason to add in reputation grinds.

For example, my main character
in EQ was a Dark Elf Necromancer
– a class / race combo that meant I’d have to pray
to Innoruuk that my Gather Shadows spell would allow me to slip
unnoticed through Freeport or else face a nasty beating at the hands of
the city guards on my way to the docks. Even in certain sections of my
character’s home city of Neriak I simply wasn’t
welcome and would suffer a grim fate due to my necromantic ways if I
took a wrong turn.

Call it what you will, but
making the world a dangerous place to
explore all because of the type of character you chose to create added
a much greater sense of adventure to the overall experience. To me
it’s no coincidence that as virtual worlds stopped reacting
to player decisions on a larger scale, it became commonplace to lop off
the RPG from MMORPGs.

That said, the most recent blog
post on the official ArenaNet site has
me even more eager to get my hands on href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2">Guild
Wars 2
than ever.
Previously we’d learned that players would be able to
establish a background for their characters which would be the first of
many steps along the path of href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/features/editorials/personal-story">personal
storylines within the game.
However, as we learned this week the href="http://www.arena.net/blog/personality-in-guild-wars-2">personality
your characters
develop through NPC interactions and gameplay decisions will push that
envelope even further.

Personalities will also have
the potential to unlock various rewards
for your characters, though on the whole the types of rewards mentioned
in the blog sound more along the lines of something you’d
discover while exploring the world rather than static factional NPC
shilling subpar rewards based on reputation grind.

If you think about it, this
same emphasis on establishing personalities
for our characters has been a major ingredient in the glue
that’s held many of the top single-player RPGs together over
the past few years. It not only ups the replayability factor far better
than tacked on faction grinds ever will, but with any luck might let
RPG become the jelly to our MMO’s peanut butter like it was
back in the beginning.

Do you enjoy the idea of having
the NPC inhabitants of
virtual worlds react differently to characters based on the decisions
they’ve made in the game, or are you more the sort that just
wants to bash enough skulls to hit endgame raids as quickly as
possible, personalities be damned? Unroll your favorite magic carpet
and ride it on over to the Loading… forum to have your say!

Shayalyn's
Epic Thread of
the Day

From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=490">Technical
Advice & Discussion forum



href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=52706">Pain
in the ass virus



What do you get when you get a virus that kicks your existing AV
software right off your computer (or at least disables it)
and then gimps your ability to get out to the Internet to
download
a solution? You get a pain in the ass virus. And while viruses may
happen everyday, it's the ideas and solutions for fixing this
particularly nasty one (and its variants) that make this thread epic. href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=52706">Check
it out!



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

Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread



"Everything
mentioned in this
thread so far seems to be a variant of the same virus....I'm an IT
manager here at work and I've had to deal with it dozens of times.
There are always 2 apps that I carry around on a jump drive that seem
to make life a lot easier..."



 - href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showpost.php?p=438305&postcount=5">Chilidawg

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

New
and Exclusive Content
Today at Ten Ton Hammer

5 new and exclusive
Ten
Ton Hammer
features
today!  26 Ten Ton Hammer
features
in August! 842
in 2010!

INTERVIEWS



Exclusive
Cataclysm Preview Q&A - Redesigning Darkshore

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/interviews/darkshore-in-cataclysm">http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/interviews/darkshore-in-cataclysm



In title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/cataclysm"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/cataclysm" target="_blank">Cataclysm,
the upcoming third expansion for title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow" target="_blank">World
of Warcraft,
much of the world of Azeroth as we know it today has undergone some
fairly major changes. New zones have been added but plenty of old world
zones have also been given both a visual and content pass that will
make them just as vital as they were when the game first launched
nearly six years ago.



Darkshore is one such zone, and game designers Luis Barriga and Craig
Amai sat down with us to discuss upcoming changes to Darkshore's
landscape, the fate of Auberdine, and the challenges of redesigning an
old-world zone from the ground up in this exclusive World
of Warcraft: Cataclysm content
preview.



SECOND
LOOKS



Returning
to the Scene of the CrimeCraft

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/reviews/crimecraft/free2play">http://www.tentonhammer.com/reviews/crimecraft/free2play



When
CrimeCraft launched last year some early setbacks looked like they were
poised to bust a cap in the fledgling game’s ass. Vogster
wasn’t one to
run from a fight, however, and their bold move of lifting the monthly
cover charge opened up the mean streets of Sunrise City to a whole new
set of gangsters. How has the change in subscription model impacted the
game? Join Jason “Medawky” Bolton, fresh off of a
bloody run through of
the new content with Vogster’s Kevin Ballentine and Casey
Dickinson, to
find out.



FEATURED
EDITORIAL



MMOG
Expansions That Would Make You Play Again

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/Expansions-That-Would-Get-You-Playing-Again">http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/Expansions-That-Would-Get-You-Playing-Again



Mattlow
finds himself in an MMO gaming funk right now. With nothing really
grabbing his attention he turns his thoughts this week toward what some
existing MMOGs could do to draw him and his wallet back to their games.



EXCLUSIVE
MEDIA



Atlantica
Online Screenshots Highlight New Tactical Battle System

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/atlantica-online/screenshots/august2010">http://www.tentonhammer.com/atlantica-online/screenshots/august2010



title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1303"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1303"
target="_blank"> title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1303"> title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1303"
face="Times New Roman" size="3">Atlantica
Online face="Times New Roman" size="3"> will be
getting a new Housing system and Tactical Battle System (TBS) with its
next update, offering players new combat options for their adventures.
The TBS will introduce two new game modes with Skirmishes and Tactical
Battles, each will play distinctly different and provide new options
for players to enjoy and the good people at Ndoors title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/atlantica-online/screenshots/august2010"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/atlantica-online/screenshots/august2010"
target="_blank"> title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/atlantica-online/screenshots/august2010"
face="Times New Roman" size="3">have sent us
five new exclusive screenshots of the new TBS in action face="Times New Roman" size="3">.



Be sure to tune into title="http://www.xfire.com/" href="http://www.xfire.com/"
target="_blank"> title="http://www.xfire.com/" face="Times New Roman"
size="3">Xfire face="Times New Roman" size="3"> this Friday
for a live demonstration of the next title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1303"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1303"
target="_blank">Atlantica Online
update.



FEATURES
& GUIDES



Cataclysm:
New Druid Talents

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/cataclysm_druid_talents">http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/cataclysm_druid_talents




World
of Warcraft Cataclysm is revamping and rearranging talents left and
right. In this article we go over all the new changes to Druids that
are currently live on the Beta including active and passive talents and
analysis of the changes.

Today's
Hottest Articles, Guides, and Features

1. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/interviews/darkshore-in-cataclysm">Exclusive
   Cataclysm
   Preview Q&A - Redesigning Darkshore
2. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/champions-online/interview/shannon-posniewski/august2010">Exclusive
   Serpent Lantern Interview with style="font-weight: bold;">Champions
   Online Executive Producer
   Shannon Posniewski href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/champions-online/interview/shannon-posniewski/august2010">
   
   
3. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/guild-wars-2/video/jeff-grubb/ghosts-of-ascalon">VIP
   Video Q&A with Guild
   Wars 2
   Ghosts of Ascalon Author Jeff Grubb
4. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/guides">StarCraft
   II Guide Portal
5. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2/editorials/EQ2-Extended"> style="font-weight: bold;">EverQuest II Extended –
   My Two Coppers and a Tour
6. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/cataclysm/ui-changes">World
   of Warcraft: Cataclysm
   Interface Changes
7. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/previews/tirisfal-glades">WoW
   Cataclysm - Tirisfal Glades
   Preview
8. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/free-to-play">Can
   LotRO
   Duplicate The Success of DDO?
   
9. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2/interviews/free-to-play-georgeson"> style="font-weight: bold;">EverQuest
   II Goes Free-to-Play - A
   Q&A with Producer Dave
   Georgeson
10. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/coh/going-rogue-preview">Into
    the Gray: A Hands-On
    Preview of City
    of
    Heroes: Going Rogue href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/coh/going-rogue-preview">
    
    

Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

- Reuben "Sardu" Waters and the Ten Ton Hammer team