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


Welcome
to the 1,446th
edition
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style="font-style: italic;">BlizzCon
2010 has finally arrived, and the area surrounding the Anaheim
Convention Center has been transformed into one massive celebration of
all things Blizzard. Leading the charge of our ground troops at the
‘con, today Sardu shares some of his experiences from the
past two days leading up to the event, including a jaw dropping figure
that helps illustrate just how ambitious of a project style="font-style: italic;">Diablo III
is shaping up to be. This and much more await you today in href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/loading/2010/oct/22">Loading…
Down the BlizzCon Rabbit Hole.

cellspacing="0" width="100%">

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 2 
  3. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/99">Lord
    of the Rings Online 
  4. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/43">EVE
    Online 
  5. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/115">Age
    of Conan: Hyborian Adventures 

Biggest
movers today
:

  1. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/140">City
    of Heroes

    - Up 4
    to
    #19
  2. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1407">DC
    Universe Online

    - down 3
    to
    #12
    style="text-decoration: underline;">
  3. style="text-decoration: underline;"> href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/183">Guild
    Wars 2

    -
    UP 2
    to
    #9
size="-1">Recent Releases
  • size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">9/7
    - size="-1"> href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion">Aion:
    Assault on Balaurea (free
    expansion)
  • size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">9/29
    - Everquest
    2 Extended

    (release)
  • size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">9/30
    - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ffxiv">Final
    Fantasy XIV (release)
  • size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">10/20
    - Champions
    Online: Demonflame

    (expansion)
  • size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">10/20
    - Dungeons
    and Dragons
    Online: Update 7
    (expansion)

size="-1">Upcoming
Releases

  • 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,
    2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve">EVE Online:
    Incursion (expansion)

  • size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">December
    7, 2010
    - World
    of Warcraft: Cataclysm

    (expansion)

  • size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">January
    2011
    - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2539">Test
    Drive Unlimited 2
  • size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">Early 2011
    - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1407">DC
    Universe Online (release) size="-1">

size="-1">Upcoming
Events
size="-1"> style="font-weight: bold;">

  • 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="font-weight: bold;">Rift
- Ask the Devs!

Have you got a question about style="font-style: italic;">Rift:
Planes of Telera?
Well, you have a chance to ask the devs at Trion Worlds directly. Just
submit your questions href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=53660">in
our forums. style="font-weight: bold;">Contest!
Win a Guild Wars 2 Premium Wall Graphic

To help celebrate the redesign of the Guild Wars 2 forums, Ten Ton
Hammer is having a contest where the winner receives a Guild Wars 2
premium wall graphic from LTL Prints. All you have to do to enter is
post on our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=721">forum.
This contest ends October 26th. For all the contest details, go href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/contests/ltl-post-a-thon">here.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/playerscore/scoreboards"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 580px; height: 249px;"
alt="World of Warcraft PlayerScore"
src="http://images.tentonhammer.com/misc/PlayerScore/2010/PlayerScore_102210.jpg">

What's
your PlayerScore?
World of
Warcraft players, find out at href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/playerscore">playerscore.com.


Loading... it’s the
Super Chunk of MMOG peanut butters.

BlizzCon 2010 is finally upon us, and while I make my final
preparations prior to swooping down on ‘con like Deathwing
incarnate, there are a number of interesting anecdotes worth sharing
from my experiences so far. In fact, the event truly began for me on my
connecting flight to Anaheim on Wednesday, as I quickly discovered that
I was seated between two avid href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow"> style="font-style: italic;">World of Warcraft
fans.



One of them, a member of href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/playerscore/scoreboards?server=139&guild=205343&">Gong
Show, a top ranked style="font-style: italic;">WoW
guild, is currently stationed in Iraq but used some of his R&R
time to make the monumental trek across the globe just to attend the
event. Call it what you will, but I can’t help but admire
that level of dedication to a favorite game or company. As we talked,
it was interesting hearing what kind of preparations raiding guilds are
already making to be able to take a crack at getting world firsts once href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/cataclysm"> style="font-style: italic;">Cataclysm
launches next month.



The dedication of Blizzard fans was just one of the many topics I had
the pleasure of discussing yesterday on my ride back from the day-long
fansite summit at the Blizzard HQ with none other than the legendary
Samwise. It was a rare opportunity to chat about the gaming industry
with one of the people that helped carve the face of Blizzard on the
MMOG Mt. Rushmore.



For example, though the original style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest
is largely responsible for the gameplay templates most of us take for
granted, releasing such a seemingly hardcore game in the current era
would likely be commercial suicide for the developer and publishing
entities involved.



Earlier in the day I also had the chance to speak with Alex Mayberry,
Senior Producer for style="font-style: italic;">Diablo III.
While it will still be quite some time before a release window is ready
to be announced, from the sounds of it the style="font-style: italic;">D3
team is nearing the important milestone of opening the game to the full
staff at Blizzard for internal testing. As Alex explained, from there
it will be a few months until the ‘friends and
family’ beta begins, and depending on the feedback during
that phase, a public beta won’t be too far off.



I expect that more specific gameplay details will be revealed early in
the day today for style="font-style: italic;">D3,
but in the meantime it sounds as though development is progressing
quite well. One big thing that stood out for me though, was on the
topic of skills and runes in the game. At present, there are roughly 97
billion potential combinations of skills and runes alone. Yes, I said
billion. That doesn’t even factor in all of the other
variables involved in creating a largely dynamic gameplay experience,
but it certainly puts into proper perspective just how ambitious a
project D3
is shaping up to be.



For those of you not attending the con or absorbing it like a giant
virtual sponge via the internet or Direct TV feeds, keep your eyes
peeled on our BlizzCon 2010 event portal for all the important news and
announcements this weekend. In the meantime, be sure to venture on over
to the href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=54306">Loading…
forum
to share your thoughts on the ‘con.


Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the
Day

From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=724">Guild
Wars 2 General Discussion forum



href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=54282">Guild
Wars 2 will sell you more dungeons



Guild
Wars pioneered the subscriptionless MMOG by offering a game
that
is free to play after the box purchase. Gamers seem to enjoy this
setup--there's nothing better than a game you can pick up any time
without worrying about renewing a subscription. But bring the word
"microtransactions" into the mix, regardless of the fact that the game
remains subscriptionless, and suddenly you've got a minor uproar.
Suggest that just style="font-style: italic;">maybe
those
microtransactions will include the sale of additional dungeons, and
things get even worse. Head to our forums to get the scoop and href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=54282">discuss.



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

Awesome
Quotes from the Epic Thread




"I'm
already doing this type of thing with DDO. So if GW2 does it, that's
fine by me. The original game already looks like it will be large
enough that folks won't have to buy anything else if they don't want to.
"



- href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showpost.php?p=444532&postcount=3">KM9K

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


New
and Exclusive Content
Today at Ten Ton Hammer

8 new Ten Ton Hammer
features today! 82 original features in October! 1142
in 2010!

FEATURES
& GUIDES




Guild
Wars Halloween Guide


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/beyond/guides/halloween">http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/beyond/guides/halloween



Halloween
is happening in Guild Wars and there are a lot of things to do! Get out
there and start stocking up on holiday treats such as the
Ghost-in-the-Box or try your luck at the Costume Brawl where you can
fight as one of your favorite heroes or henchmen. Stay tuned as the
holiday advances and more quests are released in addition to 
Mad
King Thorn's return October 31st.



Guild
Wars 2: The Ever Deflating Miniature Market


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/features/editorials/mini-market">http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/features/editorials/mini-market



A
lot is changing in the world of Guild Wars 2 as each week we find out
something new and exciting from the developers over at ArenaNet. This
week we take a look at some of the topics that are currently going on
in the community and attempt to explore some of the subjects that have
people talking. Right now we’re looking at the miniature
market, the
long wait until GW2 finally hits the shelves, and other hot topics in
the Guild Wars 2 world.



All-New
Burglar Class Guide for Lord of the Rings Online


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/burg/overview">http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/burg/overview



The
Burglar is one of the most advanced classes available to Lord of the
Rings Online Free-to-Play accounts, and one of the most intriguing and
fun. This is the class for people who enjoy fighting dirty, for
outwitting enemies rather than simply overpowering them. Want to learn
to play a Burglar? Our class guide will help you out.



Patch
4.0.1 Updated Death Knight Talents


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



4.0.1
put the Unholy tree back in the spotlight with some absolutely massive
buffs to the Ghoul pet that will make a real impact on the class'
playstyle and will make Unholy once again the go-to DPS tree for Death
Knights.



MEDIA



DCUO
Screenshots - Girl on Girl Action with Circe and Wonder Woman


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/dcuo/screenshots/circes-lair">http://www.tentonhammer.com/dcuo/screenshots/circes-lair



DDO
Unleashes Half-Blood Races - See the Screenshots!


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/91018">http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/91018



Gods
& Heroes Images Show off Game Action


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/91027">http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/91027



LOTRO
Fall Harvestmath Festival Screenshots


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/91007">http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/91007

Today's
Top 10

  1. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/dcuo/interviews/2010/jim-lee-and-chris-cao">DCUO's
    Jim Lee and Chris Cao Talk Green Lantern, a Moon Mission, &
    more!
  2. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/seasonal/hallows-end">WoW
    2010 Hallow's End Guide
  3. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/classes/burg/overview">All-New
    Burglar Class Guide for style="font-weight: bold;">Lord of the Rings Online
  4. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/reviews/everquest2-extended">Extended
    Forecast: An style="font-weight: bold;">Everquest II Extended
    Review
  5. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/new_death_knight_talents">Patch
    4.0.1 Updated Death Knight Talents
  6. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rift/interviews/reader-submitted-questions-part3">The
    Ascended Class Soul System - style="font-weight: bold;">Rift:
    Planes of Telara
    Reader Submitted Q&A #3
  7. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/cataclysm-glyphs">Guide
    to the Patch 4.0.1 Glyph System
  8. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/guides/business/incursion-speculation">Market
    Speculation For The Incursion Expansion For style="font-weight: bold;">EVE Online
  9. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/classes/hunter"> style="font-weight: bold;">WoW
    Hunter Guide 4.0.1 Patch Update
  10. href="http://tentonhammer/com/wow/blizzcon/2010/expectations">BlizzCon
    2010 Expectations


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 World of Warcraft Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Reuben "Sardu" Waters has been writing professionally about the MMOG industry for eight years, and is the current Editor-in-Chief and Director of Development for Ten Ton Hammer.

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