Welcome to the 874th Edition of Loading...

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Daily Column

Loading... putting the 'Mo' in MMOG.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn't enough, we also show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

  1. Warhammer Online - 200 BPM
  2. World of Warcraft - 152 BPM
  3. Age of Conan - 134 BPM
  4. Lord of the Rings Online - 34 BPM
  5. EVE Online - 20 BPM
  6. Tabula Rasa - 14 BPM
  7. Dungeon Runners - 10 BPM
  8. EverQuest II - 9 BPM
  9. Mythos - 8 BPM
  10. Atlantica - 7 BPM

Josh Drescher, Associate Producer on Warhammer Online deserves a raise. Thanks in part to his E3 blogs (and some news somewhere or other about class cuts?) WAR has become the #1 most sought out game on the Ten Ton Hammer network. I believe this is also the first time that we have had three free-to-play games in the Top 10 at once. Dungeon Runners rises to 7th position, the now canceled Mythos rises to 9th and Atlantica (you entered our beta contest right?) sits at 10th.

Matt Wilson, Director of Development at SOE Seattle has been generous enough to take time from his busy schedule and post his own developer's point of view from the show. Matt has some breathtaking screenshots and insightful reflections on Day 2 of E3 posted in E3pionage. Remember folks, he is under no obligation to do this. He's a fan of the fans so to speak. E3pionage discussion is underway here. Post away!

I picked up two copies of the retail version of Dungeon Runners yesterday. My son and I Bling Gnomed it for an hour or so last night. It was worth the $20 just to hear a Noobasaur helper talk like a backwoods hick.

We also picked up Rock Band for the Wii. It's entertaining and kept us going for a couple of hours, but I didn't find the song selections to be as good as Guitar Hero. Maybe that's just me though. It's a matter of personal taste and admittedly I'm short in that particular area.

One gentleman who does have taste is our very own Jeff Woleslagle. He also happens to be hanging out in Shanghai covering the massive ChinaJoy games event. (A big round of thanks to the folks at BigWorld Technology who helped make this coverage possible) Yesterday Jeff broke the story regarding Company of Heroes going free-to-play in China (and perhaps the U.S.). Today he takes a look at how China games in, "Inside a Chinese Internet Cafe".

"A short distance from Shanghai's Nanjing Road lies a building which, along with many others like it, represents ground zero for online gaming in China. We're about to enter a Chinese internet cafe - or wang ba- and I'm wondering how in the world anyone knows that the fifth floor is a haven for the roughly 60% of Shanghai gamers who don't own a computer. From a street level both busy and narrow, your only clue is a few Chinese characters on the windows high above. "Jungle tom-toms," a smiling Aleck Longhurst says, explaining that the location of places like this - like many things in Shanghai, New York City, or any urban area - spread more by word-of-mouth rather than in-your-face advertising.

Aleck, an consultant to BigWorld Technologies and a longtime resident of Beijing, has spent a lot of time studying the potential of game development in China and Southeast Asia. Judging by the more than 1,000 skyscrapers over 20 stories tall, the vast majority of which were built in the last 15 years, business is booming. Those who travel here expecting to meet with a dreary, gray, thoroughly Communist Shanghai will instead meet with (as the ex-pats living big on their stronger foreign currency like to say) a cross between Times Square, Las Vegas, and pre-Katrina New Orleans on crack. And, with a resident population half the size of California's in the city alone, you might add steroids to the metaphor as well."

Yesterday also birthed more fuel for yet another enormous MMOG rumour. Portfolio.com reported that Electronic Arts (Bioware in this case) is working on a Knights of the Old Republic MMOG. This has been the unfounded rumour since Bioware became part of the EA stable, but yesterday it got some legs when according to Portfolio.com EA Chief Executive John Riccitiello said,

""We've got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development," said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. "And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about -- in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it."

Does Riccitiello mean the oft rumored Knights of the Old Republic Online? "Yes," he said."

Our calls to EA / Bioware were accepted, but they are not commenting on this story at this time. Is it truly a shocker to anyone that the game is probably KOTOR? WAR, KOTOR and WoW might be the biggest trifecta in gaming since Starcraft, Age of Empires and Command and Conquer went head to head with their respective series.

Another big day in the industry. Do you have any questions or comments?

Do tell. The Loading Forums await you. Do you feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or derogatory comments? Here's my E-mail.

--
[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links and Real World News.]

17 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 199 in July! 1777 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

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Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to

  1. [New!] WAR's Josh Drescher: The New E3, Same as the old E3
  2. WAR's Josh Drescher: E3 used to be decadent!
  3. WAR's Josh Drescher: An open letter to E3
  4. [New!] The Agency's Matt Wilson: The Demos of Day Two
  5. The Agency's Matt Wilson: E3pionage!
  6. World of Warcraft: Instance Preferences - Shorter = Better?
  7. World of Warcraft: When Will Lich King Launch?
  8. Warhammer Online: Rationalizing Removal with Mark Jacobs -Part 3
  9. Warhammer Online: Rationalizing Removal with Mark Jacobs - Part 2
  10. Warhammer Online: Rationalizing Removal with Mark Jacobs - Part 1

Real World News

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Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com.

- John "Boomjack" Hoskin and the Ten Ton Hammer Team

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Dissecting and distilling the game industry since 1994. Lover of family time, youth hockey, eSports, and the game industry in general.

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