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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?)

World of Warcraft - 200 BPM
Warhammer Online - 129 BPM
Age of Conan - 109 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 26 BPM
EVE Online - 21 BPM
Tabula Rasa - 19 BPM
Atlantica - 15 BPM
EverQuest II - 12 BPM
Vanguard - 10 BPM
Dungeon Runners - 7 BPM

World of Warcraft has pushed back, retaking the #1 spot in Pulse. Warhammer Online and Age of Conan remain in striking distance. Atlantica, propped on the back of its current beta key giveaway has risen to #7 passing stalwarts like EverQuest II and Vanguard.

The final installment of our E3 WAR blog, compliments of Josh Drescher, Associate Producer has been posted. A prodigious number of readers pored like Skaven over Josh's daily compositions. An enormous thank you WAAAAAAGH goes out to Josh for helping us at E3 this year. His E3 blogs in their entirety can be found here. His latest, E3 Post Mortem is but a finger tap away.

"For those who are tracking closely with our appearances over the summer, I’ll see you guys at San Diego Comic Con, which takes places… dear lord… NEXT WEEK. It’s a wide-open event and we’ll have TONS of stations available, so if you’re anywhere on the West Coast of the US, I insist that you attend. Barnett will be giving a full-fledged lecture that he refuses to show us, so that alone is worth the price of admission. Unfettered access to WAR just sweetens the pot!"

Jeff, Phil and I will be at Comic Con starting....tomorrow! I guarantee that we will chat with Josh, Paul, The Hickman and the rest of the Warhammer Team at length about WAR. Hopefully we can nab you some gameplay video. I haven't played WAR since Leipzig last year where Cody and I fleeing from Dwarven tyranny, lead a ragtag, fugitive group, on a lonely quest—for a roaring scream, known as WAAAGH! I will take as much time as I have available to actually put my hands on the game, and give it a test-drive. I don't know what will be shown (or available to play) at Comic Con. The play-test at Leipzig was a single arena-like PvP battle of capturing nodes. With beta at a more progressed state maybe we'll get to see some RvR? More on that from the show, where this year I'm not the photographer. In my place, Phil will be snapping the pics, just at E3 2005 where his various shots of scantily clad booth babes riding escalators were the talk of the industry.

Those of you who know Warhammer from its roots as the tabletop game are going to love our interview with Erik Mogensen of Games Workshop.

Ten Ton Hammer: I recently noticed that some of the descriptions for the miniatures (specifically the White Lion class) changed and now more closely resemble the class descriptions for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Was this a planned move to allow you to capitalize on the game’s hype or was this something that you had planned to do all along?

Erik Mogensen: Our designers are, first and foremost, Warhammer fans themselves. They keep their eyes and ears open, and when they see something particularly cool that a licensee (in this case, Mythic Entertainment) has done, they may be inspired to incorporate it into whatever they’re working on at the time. It’s not a big strategic decision by Games Workshop to do this – it happens organically. So sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t – the important thing is that no matter what the medium, it’s all still Warhammer!

Equally well received were the E3pionage blogs written by Matt Wilson, Director of Development on The Agency. Unfortunately, Agent Wilson's identity was compromised and he was removed from the mission. In hindsight, perhaps we shouldn't have put a huge picture of him in the masthead of the blog page. Being a super-secret undercover agent is though enough without our readers getting your picture handed to them. In his stead, Kevin O'Hara, Senior World Designer for SOE Seattle stepped in to pen the finale, A Transmission Intercepted. To be fair, we also posted Kevin's picture, though not in the masthead. Tag! You're it!

"I’m not sure there is much more I can report from the E3 floor. Another busy day packed with interviews (more than I was expecting, thanks Matt *smiles* ). The third day does allow for you to spend a bit more time with people you’ve talked to before and have returned with more questions. Personally I’ve very pleased with the enthusiasm the press had for our game. Although we couldn’t give them more information about our release date, they were very understanding and appreciative that SOE is fully committed to paying more attention to quality over set release schedules. This was clearly shown with our other game, Free Realms. The extra care and time they have been taking has paid off in spades; the game just looks so fun to play now."

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Demetrius Comes (SGW) Represents in his
Ten Ton Hammer Soccer Jersey

So much went on over the weekend that it is hard to know where to start, but I can't go wrong with our Stargate Worlds VIP Access Interview. Ten Ton Hammer Premium Members sit in the journalist seat and ask questions directly to the developers.

d3athre1gns: How will dying be handled in the game.

Stargate Worlds Development Team: You don’t die; you become incapacitated and you revive in a med tent. There is a mild penalty but not very much.

I often wonder if the first MMOGs had mild death penalties if we would have swung the other way, towards harsh ones in this generation of game.

cirric: How soon can we expect to see vehicles we can drive, both space and ground [vehicles]?

Stargate Worlds Development Team : Ground vehicles are nowhere in the foreseeable future. I don’t know if we’ll ever get them, the technology challenge there is pretty formidable. If any team can overcome it, it’s this team, however. Space vehicles are much more likely.

Stargate Worlds is in tough if they release Q1 2009 fresh off the rising tide of Warhammer Online and Wrath of the Lich King. We'll be chatting with the development team at Comic Con. Though I probably won't get a release date out of them, I'll ask them about the challenges that come with developing a game that as good as it looks has perhaps the toughest competition that this industry has ever witnessed. Regardless, I'm excited to see the game. I haven't been able to sit down and view it since GDC. I sense greatness in their future.

Sci-Fi has been a tough MMOG market to crack with EVE Online being the only true winner so far. The aforementioned Stargate Worlds hopes to change that as does the recently rumoured and now confirmed Bioware project, Knights of the Old Republic. Garrett picked up where EA's CEO John Ricitiello left off, delivering unto you, How Will KOTOR Affect The MMO Market?

So it’s official. Sort of.

EA’s CEO John Riccitiello admitted in an interview yesterday that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic will be coming out in MMO form. Obviously this is one of the biggest game announcements since World of Warcraft, so we want to try an answer a few questions, bring up some new theories, and talk what “The Old Republic” may mean to the MMO marketplace. Let’s face it, the official announcement from Bioware Austin will have much more punch than a random statement made at the end of E3. Slip up or not, the entire gaming industry is now abuzz with KOTOR Online.

Not to be left out of the buzz, our resident rodeo clown, Jeff Woleslagle was in Shanghai covering China Joy. His extraordinary writing style,

"Shanghai is a vibrant, exciting, and energetic place to be, and to a varying extent, China is bringing its own residents along for the ride. For example, the Internet infrastructure within China is among the newest in the world and should be the envy of many Western nations - the US and most of Europe included. A favorite pastime in Internet bars is to play a windowed game while you stream your favorite programming over the Internet... in high definition (HD)." --Online Gaming in China: Inside a Shanghai Internet Cafe

is bested only by his ability to take booth babe pictures. Yes, you got it... China Joy Booth Babes.

And so, I leave you with the thoughts of an E3 without it's old panache and a Chinese show that has nothing but.

I know you're thinking something. Share! 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.]

15 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 214 in July! 1792 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Exclusive Blogs from E3!

ChinaJoy 2008

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Lord of the Rings Online: Book 14, The Ring Forges of Eregion

Developer Diary

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Op/Eds

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Vanguard: Dalmarus' Chronicles - Back to Work

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The Meow Mix 'Think Like a Cat' Game Show

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Truce called while both eat the lunches and drink the milkshakes of Ironman and The Incredible Hulk
Australian brothels working overtime

The reason? World Youth Day and the Pope's visit. "I'll take, 'The PenIs Mitre,' for $100," says Sean You

Have you seen some Real World News that you think Phil can try to make funny, and fail? Send it in!

Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com.

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

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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