World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

Welcome to the 1,295th edition of Loading...

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

No one can deny that in the court of mass appeal, you're somehow laughable if you don't have WoW-like subscriber numbers. It's singularly tragic because a lot of good titles have little time to percolate upwards before the market moves on. What's the solution? Maybe a little March Madness of our own. Some conversation starters on how to promote a healthier sense of competition in today's MMOG market in Loading... Bracket Busters.

The Pulse You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is The Pulse?). Here are today's top 5 Pulse results over the last week: World of Warcraft EverQuest II EVE Online Age of Conan Dungeons and Dragons Online Biggest movers today : Black Prophecy (UP 12 to #28) Vindictus (down 3 to #19) Star Trek Online (down 2 to #10)	Recent Releases 2/1 - Global Agenda (release date) 2/1 - Mortal Online (release date) 2/2 - Star Trek Online (release date) 2/16 - EverQuest 2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion) 2/16 - LotRO: Oath of the Rangers (content update)
	Upcoming Releases March 2010 - APB April 2010 - City of Heroes: Issue 17 Spring 2010 - Mytheon TBA 2010 - Final Fantasy XIV Spring 2011 - Star Wars: The Old Republic
	Upcoming Events 3/26 - 3/28 - PAX East 2010 4/17 - 4/18 - Ankama Convention #5 6/15 - 6/17 - E3 Expo 6/25 - 6/27 - Looking for Group Expo 8/5 - 8/8 - SOE Fan Faire 2010

Loading... Daily

We've taken to calling MMORPGs "MMOGs" here at Ten Ton Hammer, celebrating the fact that the "role playing" nature has to be earned, not assigned. And by "role playing" I mean absorption into the gaming world, not turning a character into a morbid mix of Old English and nerdrage. By this definition, I believe EVE Online is one of the best examples of an MMORPG that you'll find these days.

But an unfortunate side effect of lumping all of these games into a single category - whether you call it MMO, MMORPG, or MMOG - is that we've created a false basis of comparison between these games. It's one of the most unsettling aspects of trying to cover the MMO category - when the boss calls me on the carpet, how can I justify using resources to cover cool indie projects like Fallen Earth or Black Prophecy - potentially combining for a fraction of a percent of the market - when WoW holds something like 60% market share?

The answer, of course, that WoW players are by and large insular and the Internet content market for WoW content is extremely saturated, while the "core" MMOG audience is still by and large searching for a home. We straddle the fence as best we know how, hiring and cultivating experts in WoW and a variety of other games to write for us. We do this both because we have a passion for MMO gaming and because we believe that the heart of MMOG innovation doesn't always or usually lie with the big publishers.

But sometimes I find myself wishing there weren't an artificially imposed MMO category at all. To explain what I mean, I'll take my cue from the current disruption of network television in the US. You see, with brackets filled out and office pools anted, an American rite of spring called March Madness is in full effect this week, lasting until early April.

I'll confess I have only a passing interest; as a kid I often kept company with my grandma watching TV and doing homework after school, and basketball was never favored programming because nothing more than the "squeaky sneakers." Somehow the preference took root. I do like the premise of the NCAA basketball tournament, however, since there's usually a number of no-name college programs that find themselves playing for big stakes. Conversely, a couple big names like UNC and UCLA found themselves on the outside looking in this year.

Even the office pools have plenty to recommend them. From an accessibility standpoint, anyone can fill out a bracket based on numbers and stats alone with a reasonable assurance of success, and already we've seen a number of "bracket busters" in terms of first round upsets to make the so-called experts cringe.

Not only that, but there's a secondary tournament for the also-rans called the National Invitational Tournament or NIT. The effect mirrors that of the divisional system used in other sports like football for high schools and colleges where schools are rated by size - Division 1-A are huge schools, Division 3 are tiny - and schools of differing divisions don't often compete with each other. Separate tournaments should mean better competition in each, since more programs have some competitive presence and fewer teams are competing outside their league.

I've often fantasized that we could have different brackets and tournaments in our coverage of the MMORPG category. The Escapist is trying to do something a little like that, though Blizzard is a ringer much like UConn of the NCAA Div. 1 Women's bracket - there's no competition. World of Warcraft is in a league of its own, and most devs we meet these days are fine with that. They want an NIT or set of alternative tourneys - leagues specific to their budgets and the genres (co-op action, action RPG, RTS, etc.) of games that they're trying to make.

Champions Online Exec. Producer Bill Roper vented a bit of his frustration at the current measures of success in the MMOG market, noting that publishers who expect even a tenth of WoW's playerbase are out to lunch. Any dev we talk to would feel their game is a success on the scale of WoW with a plump fraction of even a million paying customers, and would be more than satisfied with half that. It's all about the budget - Fallen Earth's Lee Hammock noted at PAX 2009 that they'd be profitable at 50,000 subscribers and "extremely profitable" at 100,000, simply because their budget allowed for excellent profits at these numbers.

So while we'll continue to court the WoW audience as Cataclysm looms on the horizon, don't look for us to stop documenting the more experimental MMO games, the multiplayer co-op action games, and the single player open world RPGs. There's too many good things happening in this industry to do otherwise.

What's your opinion? Does baking all these games in one big "MMORPG" pie help or hurt? What will it take for critics to stop comparing every game with a hint of MMO (most recently STO) to WoW? Is Ten Ton Hammer helping or hurting the process? Share your take in the Loading... forum.

---

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day

From our /OOC (Off-topic) forum

Strange Dreams

Have you ever dreamed that you stood in the glare of a spotlight, naked except for your high school graduation mortar and tassel, reciting a speech about your generation and the quest for world peace? Or...or the one where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked men screaming and throwing little pickles at you?

Why am I the only one who has those dreams?

Anyhow, people do have peculiar dreams, and they've shared some of them in our /OOC forum. You'll find that your own bizarre dreams are far less creepy once you bring them into the light, so go, my friends! Tell us your dreams!

==============================
Awesome Quotes from the Epic Thread

"I had a dream where I had a pet snake. Whenever I needed to feed it, I would chew [the food] up and swallow it half way, then the snake would slither down my throat and eat it, then come back out again. ."

- Ironfungus

"We're you, by chance, on a plane?"

- kageyfna
==============================

Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? Tell us!

---

New and Exclusive Content Today at Ten Ton Hammer

2 new Ten Ton Hammer features today! 79 in March! 309 in 2010!

MEDIA

New Black Prophecy Trailer
http://www.tentonhammer.com/blackprophecy/trailer

Reakktor Media has just released the newest trailer for Black Prophecy, their free-to-play space combat game, imported by Gamigo. This awesome video gives us a look at combat, cool spaceships, and even some starbase interiors. Get ready to jump into your cockpit for some serious ship-to-ship combat!

FEATURES & GUIDES

Global Agenda Medic PvP Guide
http://www.tentonhammer.com/globalagenda/guides/medic/pvp

If there's one thing that I'm glad evolved in the MMO community, it's healers being able to do damage. Global Agenda gives our Medics the ability to launch debilitating poison attacks, as well as the standard healing you've come to expect from the class name. Get the tips you need to do both saving teammates from death and bestowing it upon your enemies in PvP here!

Today's Hottest Articles and Guides

1. Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer GDC 2010 Video Presentation
2. EVE Online Sins of a Solar Spymaster #40 - Make More Sandboxes
3. Star Wars: The Old Republic Lead Writer Interviewed at GDC 2010
   
4. Democratizing DDO - Turbine Reveals New Facts and Figures at GDC 2010
5. New Black Prophecy Trailer
6. TERA Preview at GDC 2010
7. Conquest and Diplomacy - A Look at Sid Meier's Civilization V
8. Final Fantasy XIII Review
9. The Evolution of StarCraft Armies - Early Game Zerg
10. WoW: Loremaster's Corner: The War of the Three Hammers
    

---

Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

- Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team