Welcome
to the 1,307th
edition
of Loading...

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

Facebook boasts over more than 400 million users and more than
60 million status updates per day, many times what even the dominant
MMOG, World
of Warcraft
, maintains.What can MMOGs learn from
Facebook about nurturing social interactivity? We'll explore this topic
in today's Loading...
Socially Acceptable
.

width="100%">

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. EverQuest
    II
  3. Age
    of Conan
  4. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/43">EVE
    Online (UP 1)
  5. Dungeons
    & Dragons Online
    (Down 1)

Biggest
movers today
:

  1. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/215">Planetside
    (UP 86 to #18)
  2. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/287">Free
    Realms (UP 12 to #14)
  3. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2213">Dragon
    Age: Origins (UP 8 to #16)
Recent Releases

Upcoming
Releases


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1004">

  • 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
  • style="font-weight: bold;">Spring 2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1801">Mytheon
  • Summer
    2010
    - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/998">APB
  • TBA
    2010
    - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2079">Final
    Fantasy XIV

  • style="font-weight: bold;">Spring 2011 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/swtor">Star Wars:
    The Old
    Republic





Upcoming
Events

  • style="font-weight: bold;">4/17 - 4/18 - href="http://www.ankama-convention.com/en">Ankama
    Convention #5
  • 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 - href="http://www.comic-con.org/">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




Ten winners already - you could be a
winner too!

Ten Ton Hammer is partnering with Atari and Bigfoot Networks to offer
you a chance to win an incredible prize packs in celebration of Star
Trek Online's newly revealed "Season One: Common Ground". Check out
these remaining prizes:

  • Grand Prize: Killer
    Xeno Pro NIC, Star Trek Online Collector's Edition with a 6 month
    subscription
  • First Prize: Killer
    Xeno Pro NIC, Star Trek Online Collector's Edition
  • Second Prize: Killer
    Xeno Pro NIC, Star Trek Online Digital Deluxe Edition

One entry per registered user, premium members get
additional entries. Enter for free here: href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/giveaways/STOSeason1">Star
Trek Online Season One / Bigfoot NIC giveaway. Winners will
be posted in href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=50349">this
thread Monday through Wednesday. 

 


Loading... Daily

I get the feeling that Matt Lowery's article, href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/facebookthewowkiller">Is
Facebook the WoW Slayer?, will stir up some conversation on
our forums. In it, he talks about the addictive qualities of social
interaction in Facebook games like Farmville, and
suggests that the reason World
of Warcraft
is reigning MMOG king is not because
it's superior to all others, but simply because it's where the people
are.



Now, early href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=50592">comments
on the article to the contrary, I don't believe Matt's suggesting that
WoW and Farmville are in the same league since
they're on completely different platforms. What he is
saying, however, is that the social aspect of MMOGs is about to change,
and that hugely popular social networking games may provide the impetus.



I agree with Matt's assessment that people turn to WoW because they
know they're most likely to find their MMOG-playing friends there. I
also concur that MMOGs are due for a change, and that the Next Big
Thing may not necessarily be the slickest and shiniest new
game. Slick and shiny can certainly attract gamers, but when it comes
to MMOGs it's not enough to retain them.
Recent slick shiny MMOGs like Aion
provide evidence.



Let's take a look at some of the things Facebook does when it
comes to keeping people interacting:


  • Instant updates. If your friend had a
    burrito for lunch and the ensuing flatulence annoyed his coworkers, and
    he wants to tell you about it...then you're likely to hear about it.
    And the more his friends comment on his situation the more likely you
    are to take note of his plight. 
  • Comments beget comments...and emails. If
    you comment on your friend's little problem, unless you've changed your
    settings, then you're going to get an email or mobile alert when others
    have commented, or a notification when you visit your Facebook page.
    Either way, your friend's friend's comments might
    prompt you to comment yet again.
  • Your achievements are public. If you
    found a lost brown (and perhaps flatulent, if I'm staying with that
    theme) cow in Farmville, the application will
    likely create a
    post reflecting that. (For the record, I hate Farmville
    spam. I don't play it, myself.)
  • Competition is encouraged. When I get a
    high score playing Bejeweled Blitz other Bejeweled Blitz players on my
    friends list are notified. I can also send messages via the game
    interface to talk smack with them. (Sorry, I just can't find a
    flatulence tie-in here.)
  • "Like" and be "Liked." If your friend
    gives an update, article, fan page (perhaps one dedicated to burritos),
    or other online something the thumbs up by marking that they "Like" it,
    you may find out about it. Likewise, if you say or post or join
    something, your friends can "Like" it. People do like to be liked and
    find themselves returning to sources, like Facebook, that allow them to
    vie for peer approval.

Sites like SOE's Station.com
and Blizzard's Battle.net
have taken strides toward increasing the social aspect of MMOGs. Yet
there are probably many lessons yet to be learned from social
networking sites like Facebook and its peers. It seems the more
in-your-face a social networking community is, with email and mobile
updates constantly reminding you of its existence, the higher the
potential for annoyance (which is why the ability to opt out of such
updates is crucial), yet the higher the degree of interactivity
overall. That's probably why href="http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics">Facebook
boasts over 400 million active users and more than 60 million
status updates per day--it never lets you forget that its world exists,
and that you have friends there.



How will MMOGs utilize the lessons Facebook has taught to amp
up "socialability?" What connections can we draw between the world's
most
successful social networking platform and successful massively
multiplayer online games? There's plenty more I could say about it, but
I'd rather hear from you. Come talk about it in the href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=50601">Loading...
forum. Let's interact!



Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day


From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=153">WoW:
Paladins forum



Holy
help
?



No,
the title "Holy help?" is not a plea from Robin to Batman, but a
request from Zeep for answers to some questions about his holy spec'd World
of Warcraft
Paladin. Can you help a fellow Pally out? I knew
you could. So, go href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=50363">answer
his questions already!



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

Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread




"Flash of Light spamming is built around pimping your
spellpower, making the most of your smaller mana pool, and making the
spells you can cast a LOT of hit harder
."



- Kraelin

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



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

3 new Ten Ton Hammer
features
today! 30 in April! 389
in 2010!

FEATURED
EDITORIALS





Is Facebook the WoW Slayer?

http://www.tentonhammer.com/facebookthewowkiller



As Facebook continues to grow and add more and more games that play
like MMOGs, what effect does this have on the genre? Mattlow gives his
impression on how Facebook changes everything when it comes to social
gaming.



FEATURES & GUIDES



WoW: Non-Combat Pet Frenzy - WoW Weekly Report

http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/newsletter/issue61




Our World of Warcraft newsletter, the WoW Weekly Report, is here again
this week with WoW news, lore, and more. This week we take a
look at why David "Xerin" Piner thinks Ulduar is the best instance in
the game and what is so frustrating about the way non-combat pets are
currently handled.



WoW: Semi-Hardcore - The Life of a Not Quite Hardcore Raiding
Tank


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/semihc/vol1-intro">http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/semihc/vol1-intro



Welcome to Byron "Messiah" Mudry's new column at Ten Ton
Hammer, a place for him to expand on what he
feel is going in his favorite parts of World of Warcraft--tanking,
raiding, and some of the math behind the game. In this first article he
looks at the lack of CC and how tanking is almost all handled with AoE
these days. Come see if you agree that AoE has removed some of the
skill, planning, and tactics from the game.


Today's
Hottest Articles, Guides, and Features

  1. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/features/everquest/nostalgia">Awakened
    Nostalgia - EverQuest Relived
  2. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/pocketlegends/spacetimestudiosinterview">Pocket
    Legends
    MMMOG for the IPhone! A Q&A with Spacetime
    Studios
  3. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/facebookthewowkiller">Is Facebook
    the WoW Slayer?
  4. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/uimods/reviews/xperl">WoW:
    U.I. Mod Review – X-Perl
  5. Free-to-Play
    MMOGs: Microcosms - Nobody's Fool
  6. PoxNora
    Q&A with Tony “RadarX” Jones
  7. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/paxeast2010/apb_impressions">PAX
    East 2010 - Hands-On with href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/paxeast2010/apb_impressions">All
    Points Bulletin
  8. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/paxe10/coh/bianco_goingrogue">City
    of Heroes
    href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/features/protoss_earlygame_evolution">
    Praetoria Q&A with Senior Designer Melissa Bianco
  9. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/semihc/vol1-intro">WoW:
    Semi-Hardcore - The Life of a Not Quite Hardcore Raiding Tank
  10. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/paxe2010/APB/gameplay">Video: style="font-weight: bold;"> APB
    Gameplay Preview

Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

- Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg
and
the Ten Ton Hammer team

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Karen is H.D.i.C. (Head Druid in Charge) at EQHammer. She likes chocolate chip pancakes, warm hugs, gaming so late that it's early, and rooting things and covering them with bees. Don't read her Ten Ton Hammer column every Tuesday. Or the EQHammer one every Thursday, either.

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