Welcome
to the 1,289th
edition
of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily
MMOG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
It's already been a busy month
for MMOG fans, and March
is only getting started. Our ground crew is hard at work in the GDC
trenches this week and will be pulling you in with the mighty Ten Ton
Tractor Beam to check out the latest and greatest news, announcements
and exclusive features from the event. Today we'll take a
look at the latest coverage from the event, EverQuest
II's
Brewday, Fallen Earth's
new Mac client and much more in
Loading... Ale Goggles and Big Macs
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/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here
are today's top 5 Pulse results over the
last week:
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow">World
of Warcraft -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2">EverQuest
II -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve">EVE Online
(UP 1) -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ddo">Dungeons and
Dragons Online -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro">Lord
of the Rings Online
Biggest
movers today:
-
size="-1">2/1
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/926">Global
Agenda
(release date) -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">2/1
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1004">Mortal
Online (release date) -
size="-1">2/2
size="-1">
- Star
Trek Online
(release date) -
size="-1">2/16
- href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/expansions/sentinelsfate/index.vm">EverQuest
2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion) -
size="-1">2/16
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81479"> LotRO:
Oath of the
Rangers (content update)
Releases
-
size="-1">March
2010
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/998">APB -
size="-1">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 href="http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/game_updates/issue_17/issue_17_overview.html?utm_source=COHemail&utm_medium=US&utm_campaign=banner">17 -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">Spring 2010
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1801">Mytheon -
size="-1">TBA
2010
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2079">Final
Fantasy XIV
-
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">Spring 2011
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/swtor">Star Wars:
The Old
Republic size="-1">
size="-1">Upcoming
Events
-
size="-1">3/9
- 3/13
- Game
Developers
Conference 2010 -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">3/26 - 3/28
- href="http://www.paxsite.com/paxeast/index.php">PAX
East 2010 -
size="-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">6/15 - 6/17 -
E3
Expo
Loading...
Daily
The
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/GDC2010">2010
Game
Developers Conference kicked off
in San Francisco earlier this week,
and while there haven't been too many industry shaking
announcements or reveals so far, that's not to say
it's been a sleeper of a show by any far stretch of the
imagination. Not only did we
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/gdc2010/projectmercury">bring
you word of 38 Studios'
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2454">Project
Mercury
snagging a major publishing deal with Electronic Arts
Partners, but we also have an
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/gdc2010/GamersFirst">interview
with GamersFirst and an
exclusive
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/gdc2010/BlackProphecy">preview
of Reakktor Media's upcoming
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/452">Black
Prophecy
that you won't want to miss.
We'll
continue bringing you all
the latest news and info the
MMOG world has to offer at GDC throughout this week and next, so be
sure to keep an eye on Ten Ton Hammer's event coverage. In
fact, I highly recommend bookmarking the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/GDC2010">page
and checking back often
as we'll continue brining you ten tons of MMOG goodness,
Hammer style.
The
latest installment in the
ever growing Final Fantasy
franchise
dropped earlier this week for the PS3 and Xbox 360. The game has been
out in Japan for a while now, and over the past few months has been
blasted by fans and critics alike for its ultra-linear gameplay and has
even seen new box copy prices drop by fairly hefty amounts due to
overproduction and lackluster sales. Main site contributing writer
Mattlow is currently taking the North American release of Final
Fantasy
XIII for a test drive, and will
have a full review of the game ready to
unleash on the masses next week. I'll be curious to see if
Mattlow finds the game to be little more than an insanely long
interactive CG film, or if there's still some life left in
the series. With a new Final
Fantasy MMOG on the way I can
only hope
it's the latter.
Although
we're still a week
away from St. Patrick's
Day,
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2">EverQuest
II
players can log in and begin their virtual ale
consumption early as the 2010
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81872">Brewday
event kicks off today and lasts
until March 22nd. While the event is officially a celebration for Brell
Serillis, we all know it's really about making your
characters stumble around in a drunken stupor. For added fun be sure to
make use of your racial vision enhancement spells -
Infravision has always been a personal favorite and adds that little
something extra to the already abundant nuttiness of seeing four
simultaneous Norraths swimming across your screen.
This
year's Brewday event sees
a return of many player
favorite quests, activities and rewards with a few new ones thrown into
the mix to keep things interesting for everyone who participates. So if
you're a current resident of the shattered-style Norrath be
sure to check it out. We also have an excellent new
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/EQ2/Guides/battlegroundbasics">guide
covering the
basics of the Battlegrounds system, so even if you're not
quite sold on strapping a pair of Ale Goggles on this weekend,
there's plenty of PvP action and rewards to be had in
the new Norrathian smackdown zones.
Score
one more point for Team
Apple, as
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/177">Fallen
Earth
is the latest on a
growing list of MMOGs to offer a Mac version of the game client. The
official
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81919">announcement
went out yesterday, with developers Icarus
Studios encouraging interested players to dive into the Mac beta for
Fallen Earth
which is already underway.
One
interesting tidbit
mentioned in the press release is that the Mac
client for FE is made possible by use of an open source software
project called
href="http://www.winehq.org/">Wine.
While I'm not personally a Mac user (I
only just recently turned to the dark side and picked up an iPhone so I
don't expect I'll be fully taken over by Apple
Fever anytime soon) a common complaint I hear from those who are is
that there's a bit too much hoop jumping involved to get PC
software to run smoothly on a Mac, so Wine may be worth a closer look
for those of you interested.
That
about wraps things up for
this not-so-sunny Thursday morning here
at the secret high tech facility otherwise known as the Ten Ton Hive,
but you'll find plenty of sunshine (and hopefully less
uncontrollable zombie outbreaks) on the Loading... forums, so
be sure to drop on by!
Shayalyn's
Epic Thread of
the Day
From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=50064">WoW
General Discussion Forum
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=50064">Elitist
Group Addon Review
Our
World of Warcraft addon reviews are making a stir in general--it's good
to have someone help you decide which of the many WoW addons are worthy
of a download and install--but our Elitist Group review drew some
controversy, as well. Does Elitist Group really help "weed out the
trash" during the PUG forming process? Or is it really just plain
elitist, as its title suggests? How useful is this addon? We've given
you href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/uimods/reviews/elitistgroup">our
take, and now href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=50064">we
want yours.
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"What does a high gearscore
tell you? That the player has
high-level gear. That's it. The problem comes when people abuse this
tidbit of knowledge, whether demanding much higher gearscores than
necessary for the content planned or assuming high gearscore is the
same as ability."
- Pus
==============================
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
4
new Ten Ton Hammer features
today! 44 in March! 274 in 2010!
PREVIEWS
Black Prophecy Preview at GDC 2010
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/gdc2010/BlackProphecy">http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/gdc2010/BlackProphecy
Black Prophecy, the heavily anticipated space combat MMOG, is almost
ready to be unleashed upon the gaming hordes. Ten Ton Hammer sat down
with Gamigo at GDC 2010 to discuss, and drool, over the space pvp
action to come!
INTERVIEWS
GamersFirst Interview at GDC
2010
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/gdc2010/GamersFirst"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/gdc2010/GamersFirst">http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/gdc2010/GamersFirst
With the rise of free-to-play MMOGs, Ten Ton Hammer sat down with one
of the companies at the forefront of this emerging sector: GamersFirst,
a publisher with a broad range of titles and game genres with an almost
eponymous mission statement –making sure the gamers come
first. We talked with several key members of the team here at
GDC ’10 to get some insight on their philosophy, learn about
new
developments with existing games and get a preview of some upcoming
titles.
FEATURES & GUIDES
EQ2 Battleground Basics Guide
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/EQ2/Guides/battlegroundbasics">http://www.tentonhammer.com/EQ2/Guides/battlegroundbasics
EverQuest II Battlegrounds--you've heard about them and now you're
dying to get a piece of the action. Before you queue up, get the vital
basic knowledge that will get you started out on the right foot. Read
up on the battlegrounds in our Battleground Basics Guide to hone your
player killing skills before you get into combat and be one step closer
to PvP fun and rewards!
Star Trek Online: Ten Ton
Hammer's Galactic Map Archives
Updated
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/federation/maps">http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/federation/maps
While the process of warping between local systems in Star Trek Online
has been made relatively easy, sometimes traversing the vastness of
space can still be a difficult endeavor. To help get you pointed in the
right direction, Ten Ton Hammer is pleased to bring you detailed maps
for each sector in Federation space and beyond.
Today's
Hottest Articles and Guides
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/preview/multiplayer_1stimpressions">StarCraft
II href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/preview/multiplayer_1stimpressions">
Multiplayer Beta Preview & First
Impressions -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/interviews/update1.9">Aion
Update 1.9 Interview with NCsoft -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gdc10/projectmercury">EA
to Publish First 38 Studios Title href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gdc10/projectmercury">
-
href="http://tentonhammer.com/node/81709">CCP
Interview About EVE Online's
Tyrannis Expansion -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/uimods/reviews/elitistgroup">WoW
Elitist Group Addon Review href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/uimods/reviews/elitistgroup">
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81501">An
Exclusive
Interview
with Video Game Composer style="font-weight: bold;">Matt
Uelmen -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81817">WoW
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81817"> - To
Buff, or
to Nerf: That is the Question -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81640">Aika
Class Interview Series Part
2 - The Cleric -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/globalagenda/guides/robotics/pvp">Global
Agenda Robotics PvP Guide href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/globalagenda/guides/robotics/pvp">
-
title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81864/"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81864">Supplying
Minerals Through Market Acquisitions In
EVE Online title="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81864/"
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81864/">
style="font-weight: bold;">
Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer
network!
-
Reuben "Sardu" Waters and the
Ten Ton Hammer team
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our EverQuest II Game Page.
