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is the premier daily MMOG newsletter, only from Ten
Ton Hammer!
Welcome
to the 1,395th
edition
of Loading...
SOE Fan Faire is as energetic as it is laid back, and as
events go,
it's probably one of the finest you could ever attend. Karen "Shayalyn"
Hertzberg had a great time at Fan Faire, followed by a superb
experience on the first class leg of her flight back home. It was while
waiting for the mythical second leg, a brief commuter flight, that the
zombies came out to play. Get all the gory details in today's
href="http://tentonhammer.com/loading/2010/aug/11">Loading...
Zombies Ate My Desk Agent.
The
Pulse
You vote with what you
view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result
is the Ten Ton Pulse (What
is The Pulse?).
Today's
top 5 Pulse results:
Biggest
movers this week:
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1407">DC
Universe Online
- UP 13 to
#17 -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/140">City of
Heroes
- UP 7 to #12 -
Star
Wars: The Old Republic
- Up 4 to #18
-
5/26
- EVE
Online: Tyrannis
(expansion) -
5/27
- Craft
of Gods
(release) -
6/9
- Mortal
Online
(release) - 6/29
- target="_blank">APB
(release) - 7/13
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1801"
target="_blank">Mytheon
(release) - 7/27
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2461"
target="_blank">Need
for Speed World
(release) - 7/27
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2" target="_blank">StarCraft
II: Wings of Liberty
(release)
Releases
- August
17, 2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/140">City
of Heroes: Going Rogue (release) - September
7, 2010 - Aion:
Assault on Balaurea (free
expansion) -
September
30, 2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ffxiv" target="_blank">Final
Fantasy XIV
(release) -
style="font-weight: bold;">October
26, 2010
- LEGO
Universe (release)
-
style="font-weight: bold;">November
2, 2010
- DC
Universe Online (release)
Upcoming
Events
-
style="font-weight: bold;">8/18 -
8/22 - href="http://www.gamescom-cologne.com/en/gamescom/home/index.php"
target="_blank">Gamescom 2010
-
style="font-weight: bold;">9/3 -
9/5 - href="http://www.paxsite.com/paxprime/index.php" target="_blank">PAX
Prime -
style="font-weight: bold;">9/3 -
9/6 - target="_blank">DragonCon -
style="font-weight: bold;">10/8 -
10/10 - New
York Comic Con -
style="font-weight: bold;">10/22 -
10/23 - href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/?rhtml=y" target="_blank">BlizzCon -
style="font-weight: bold;"> 3/24
-
3/26 (2011) - target="_blank">CCP
FanFest
style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">HOT!
Visit 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
Through the whims of good fortune I had a first class ticket home from
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/fanfaire/2010">SOE
Fan Faire in Las Vegas. (Don't get jealous, though; the rest
of the story cancels it all out.) I enjoyed a lovely lunch of chicken
parmesan and all the apple juice I cared to drink. (Although, on second
thought, I should've been hitting the white wine pretty hot and heavy
in preparation for the next leg of my journey.) I was in the front row
seat, with plenty of room to stretch my long legs. If I had the means
to travel like this all the time, I certainly would--it's choice.
But then my first class flight ended at O'Hare International Airport, a
wretched hive of scum and...well, never mind. Let's just say that
O'Hare sucks. But all I needed to do was catch a 45 minute commuter
flight and I'd be back home. In just over an hour (time to grab a $4
bottle of water) we'd be boarding. I felt upbeat.
Then I saw the departures board. My 5:25 PM departure time had now
changed to 6:55. Bah! I figured I'd make the best of it, planting
myself in the terminal to work on my favorite article from Fan Faire,
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87767">the one about
the soldier. No sooner had I pulled out my laptop when
American Airlines announced, "Ladies and gentlemen on flight XXXX, we
have a gate change...." I got up, stowed my laptop, and chugged on down
to the reassigned gate. And that's when I saw the departure board roll
to 7:20 PM. I groaned, but figured I'd have time to continue writing my
article, at least.
"Ladies and gentlemen traveling on American Airlines flight XXXX, may I
have your attention please," the announcer bleated after I'd gotten
just 10 minutes of writing in, "As you know your flight is delayed. At
this time, we'd like to offer you bus service to your destination. Your
travel time by bus will be 3 hours, after which you would need to find
your own transportation to the airport to claim any checked luggage."
I did the math. Three hours on a bus versus a couple hours in an
airport plus 45 minutes air travel time? I'd take the airport and the
air travel. Other passengers, although they were clearly getting
frustrated by the wait, chose the same option. But all of us were
beginning to mutter amongst ourselves. And then...
"Ladies and gentlemen traveling on American Airlines flight XXXX, we'd
like to announce a gate change. Your new gate number is..."
Oh, for the love of Cheez-its! I packed up my laptop again and shuffled
to the new gate. By this time, we were all beginning to talk to each
other, stranger to stranger, about the vagaries of air travel. We told
our travel war stories, and we muttered about customer service. We
speculated about what was going on, and why our plane was so damn late.
(American Airlines wasn't talking.) And we had, I noticed, dull, hungry
looks in our eyes.
So we waited...and we waited. I finally stowed my laptop as 7 PM
approached, figuring we must be boarding soon. After all, there was a
plane at the gate. Surely it was our plane. But then the PA blared,
"Ladies and gentlemen traveling on flight YYYY with service to Grand
Rapids..."
WHAT?! This was not
our plane? I darted out to check the departure board to make certain I
hadn't missed yet another gate change. I hadn't--we were still showing
departure at the gate I was sitting directly in front of. And yes, the
name of our flight was still on the board, beside the Grand Rapids
flight details. But how could this not be
style="font-style: italic;">our plane? We'd
been waiting hours!
After the Michigan-bound plane left, with our departure time still
reading an unrealistic 7:20 PM (it was now 7:10), we mulled around
restlessly. The harried announcer called out once more, "Ladies and
gentlemen..." (I have to tell you that I was no longer feeling very
ladylike) "...our flight is in an over-sold situation and we are
looking for four volunteers with flexible travel plans. You will be
given a $250 travel voucher, plus hotel accommodations, travel to your
hotel, and a meal."
There was a collective groan.
One lovely couple rose to volunteer their seats. I can only assume
they'd had it with waiting hours for a 45 minute commuter flight
and a hotel didn't sound just too bad at this point. I heard
the desk attendant squeal with delight, saying, "You'd like to
volunteer? Wonderful!" I watched her start preparing the vouchers and
then, suddenly, her desk phone rang. I tensed. She sighed, and in her
eyes was all the sadness of the world, a sadness that comes with the
instinctive knowing that...things are gonna get ugly.
"Ladies and gentlemen traveling on flight XXXX with service to
ThisPlace," she said, "Your flight has been canceled due to weather."
(There was no weather in Chicago. There was no whether where the flight
was originating. There was no weather at its destination. The cake was
a lie.)
A loud moan arose from the waiting crowd, like the groan of 100 or so
flesh-starved zombies. We stumbled toward the desk with our arms
forward, burbling a guttural, "Unnnggghhh!" The attendant quickly
added, "Please, um...wait in the terminal for further instructions, or
you can...uh...make your way to an American Airlines ticketing
agen-...AAAIIIIEEEE!"
Okay, I may have made up the primal scream, but believe me, cerebrally,
I heard her silent shriek of fear.
This horror story is getting a bit long, so I'll wrap it up by saying
that I ended up getting on a 3 hour bus ride nearly 2 hours later. (The
irony is that if I'd taken the bus ride I declined earlier I would've
been home a good 2 hours sooner.) I left without my luggage, which
never showed up after an hour waiting at the baggage claim carousel AA
repeatedly told me was The One (while also telling me that it might
take 45 minutes to an hour for my bags to show up, since they were
being re-routed). I nearly missed my bus waiting for my bags, but even
so, by 1 AM I was finally home, picked up and delivered by my
bleary-eyed husband, who had to get up for work at 5:30 AM.
Through it all, I felt some compassion for the poor American Airlines
desk agent. (No really, despite wanting to eat her brains, I honestly
did feel compassionate!) Customer service is a tough gig. I had
attended the customer service discussion panel at SOE Fan Faire just
the day before, and so the reality of how challenging customer service
can be was fresh in my memory. All I can say, folks, is the next time
you're dealing with a customer service woe, please don't kill the
messenger. There are only so many good CS brains to go around.
Do you have air travel or customer service stories to tell? Want to
laugh at my misfortune?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=52817">Hit
the Loading... forum to have your say.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=6">Articles,
News & Events Discussion
SOE
Teases Next EverQuest MMOG Details at Fan Faire
Most EverQuest
fans are aware by now that SOE has a new EverQuest MMOG in the works,
currently dubbed EverQuest Next. Martuk provided a few details from SOE
Fan Faire and now the community is buzzing. Is EQ Next going to be the
core game they're dreaming of, or is it going to be EQ meets Free
Realms, or will it be WoW-like, or none of the above? (I specifically
heard an SOE dev at Fan Faire say, "We're not chasing WoW," and I
believe it.)
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=52775">Share
your thoughts on what EQ Next might be or should be.
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"I'm still expecting it
to fill
the niche Vanguard was supposed to fill, as it will run alongside both
EQ and EQ2 it can't really try to compete with either of them. EQ is
the hardcore old school, EQ2 is the accessible and casual game, so EQ
Next is probably going to sit somewhere in the middle with a bit of
sandbox thrown in for good measure."
-
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showpost.php?p=438692&postcount=5">bobfish
==============================
New
and Exclusive Content
Today at Ten Ton Hammer
7 new and exclusive
Ten
Ton Hammer
features
today! 50 Ten Ton Hammer
features
in August! 866
in 2010!
HOT!
SOE FAN FAIRE
style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">HOT! DC
Universe Online Hands On Preview
http://www.tentonhammer.com/dcuo/previews/hands-on-aug-2010
Sony Online Entertainment is looking to break into the superhero MMOG
market in a big way with
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1407"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1407"
target="_blank">DC Universe Online. At
this year's SOE Fan Faire, Ten Ton Hammer's Benjamin J. de la Durantaye
had the chance to get some hands-on time with the game and find out
what SOE has put together for the DC Universe. Join Ben as he
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87799"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87799" target="_blank">dawns
his cape and tights to explore the streets of
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/87799">DC Universe
Online.
HOT!
Infiltrating
the Agency - An Exclusive Q&A with Lead Designer Rory McGuire
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/agency/interviews/mcguire-aug-2010">http://www.tentonhammer.com/agency/interviews/mcguire-aug-2010
It
seems like many years ago when we first heard about Sony Online
Entertainment's The Agency. Then things went quiet for a while. The
silence was broken recently as SOE has let the world know their first
person shooter MMOG is shaping up to be an exciting addition to
players' libraries. Ten Ton Hammer spoke with Lead Designer Rory
McGuire at Fan Faire 2010 to find out more about this hot upcoming
title.
style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">HOT! New
EverQuest 2: Destiny of Velious Trailer Shows Locations and Flying
Mounts
http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2/trailers/destiny-of-velious
SOE
has just released a new EverQuest 2 trailer for their upcoming Destiny
of Velious expansion. The new expansion adds over 300 new quests,
hundreds of items and weapons, ten instanced dungeons, four new
Heritage Quests, 30 new creatures, two new zones, PvP battlegrounds,
flying mounts, and more. (Whew!) The new trailer showcases a few of the
new locations that youll be adventuring in, and the sights are quite an
eyeful. Plus, you will get to see one of the eagerly anticipated flying
mounts! Destiny of Velious is being released on February 11,
2011.
PREVIEWS
WoW Site Content -
8.10.2010 - WoW Cataclysm - Western Plaguelands Preview
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/previews/western-plaguelands">http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/previews/western-plaguelands
Western
Plaguelands, once a dead zone well on its way to becoming a replica of
its neighboring zone; Eastern Plaguelands, has undergone some big
changes in Cataclysm. The land is being renewed and wildlife
is
repopulating the area. Both Horde and Alliance are making their mark on
this now fertile zone, however, with the good comes the bad. An evil
force has taken up residence in Western Plaguelands which is bent on
turning the zone back to rot.
FEATURES & GUIDES
How To Get Planetary
Materials Without Planets
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/guides/business/without_planets">http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/guides/business/without_planets
Do you have repetitive stress injury from running the planet-side
factories from the Tyrannis expansion to
href="http://tentonhammer.com/eve">EVE Online?
Do you wish there was another way to get some of those goods? If this
describes you, then you might want to read this guide by Ten Ton Hammer
Contributing Writer, Space Junkie.
EQ2 Summoner Sample AA
Specs
http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2/guides/specs-summoner
The EverQuest II
Summoners are the ultimate "jacks of all trades." Useful in groups and
powerhouses as soloers, the Conjuror and the Necromancer are popular
choices because of their ease of play, and we can help you make this
great class even better! Alternate Advancements customize and optimize
but if you are unsure of where to start, we have an AA build for you
that get you on your way to enjoying a better Summoner experience.
StarCraft II Mission
Guides Part Seven: The Final Missions
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/guides/final-missions">http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/guides/final-missions
The
Queen of Blades is cornered. Legions of Zerg surround her though, and
breaking them will be no easy task. As you barrel through the masses,
you'll be given an option to take out one of Kerrigan's support groups
for the final mission. But none of this will be as simple as the
previous missions. You have to make the most of your units to attempt
what Raynor has in mind. If you have trouble, our guide is where you
need to look!
Today's
Hottest Articles, Guides, and Features
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/reviews/wings-of-liberty">StarCraft
II href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/reviews/wings-of-liberty">:
Wings of Liberty Review
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2/news/scars-of-velious-reveal">EverQuest
II href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2/news/scars-of-velious-reveal">:
Destiny of Velious Unveiled -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/fanfaire2010/pool-party-video">Video:
From the SOE Fan Faire 2010 Pool Party! -
href="http://tentonhammer.com/interviews/soldier-connects-across-Star-Wars-Galaxies">Deployed
- A Soldier Connects Across Star
Wars Galaxies -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/features/previews/personality-and-immersion">Personality
and Immersion in Guild
Wars 2 -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/cataclysm/previews/blackrock-caverns">WoW
Cataclysm href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/cataclysm/previews/blackrock-caverns">Beta:
Guide to Blackrock Caverns -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/previews/thunder-bluff">WoW
Cataclysm href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/previews/thunder-bluff">Beta:
Thunder Bluff Preview
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/features/reviews/ghosts-of-ascalon">Guild
Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon Book
Review -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/champions-online/interview/shannon-posniewski/august2010">
Serpent Lantern Interview with Champions
Online Executive Producer
Shannon Posniewski href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/champions-online/interview/shannon-posniewski/august2010">
- StarCraft
II Guide Portal
Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
- Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg and the Ten Ton Hammer team
