Loading... Murlocs and Monetization

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Daily Column

Loading... like a murloc in your inbox every day.

First, you vote with what you view, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse. Predictably, WoW pulled away from the pack as all eyes are on BlizzCon 2008, which wrapped up late Saturday.

World of Warcraft- 200 BPM
Warhammer Online - 141 BPM
Age of Conan - 45 BPM
Stargate Worlds - 28 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 18 BPM
Tabula Rasa - 16 BPM
EVE Online - 10 BPM
EverQuest 2 - 10 BPM
Atlantica Online - 8 BPM
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - 8 BPM

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?)

We've wrapped up another year at BlizzCon in sunny southern California, but our coverage is just starting. The devil was in the details this year with no major games or expansions announced, and the Ten Ton Hammer team is going over our notes and recordings with a fine tooth comb to bring you a host of WoW, Diablo 3, and StarCraft 2 information you won't find anywhere else.

The announcement of the Wizard class for Diablo 3 was the intended big news of the event, and we figured we'd cover it since we're all RPG fans here. The Wizard a spiritual successor to the D2's Sorceress with plenty of AoE nuking power. That's nuking in the most literal sense - in the trailer she seems to have enough tactical capability to rival Pakistan - along with timestop spheres, AoEs that are simply electrifying (boo), and an interesting duplication ability that you'll be hearing about in Garrett's interview with D3 Lead World Designer Leonard Boyarsky and Production Director Ray Gresko tomorrow.

As a bonus, Skeena noted in our forums that the Skeleton King is back in Diablo 3 for another tussle. All this was enough to offset the downer that speccing stats each level was going away in favor of an auto-spec. Lead Designer Jay Wilson explained the move by saying that the manual spec only had one perfect solution, so the mechanic turned out to be nothing more than a way to allow players to break their character.

This D3 news (and plenty of WoW info that we'll be rolling out over the next few days) aside, Blizzard didn't offer too much in the way of good news at BlizzCon 2008. It's unfortunate that a lot of the energy and fun of the event will be lost in the tsunami of stories regarding Blizzard's new attempts to make more money from their franchises and services. The announcement that StarCraft 2's single player campaign will be broken into three separate titles, one for each race, but - even more shockingly - Blizzard got the audience to cheer when this was announced. No pricing was announced, but you can probably assume that the sum total will be more than you're used to paying for a single game.

Also from the folks at B$ (sorry, couldn't resist), Diablo 3's formerly free multiplayer matchmaking service, battle.net, will be "monetized" in some fashion, though we have no details on what will and won't be free yet. Even World of Warcraft got in on the act, as Lead Producer J. Allen Brack confirmed that paid character customization will be a part of WoW soon, presumably drawing on the barber shop / plastic surgeon feature that will be introduced next month in Wrath of the Lich King.

We'll have more on this news in over 20 pieces of scheduled content this week from the event, but I'll leave you on a lighter note. The story of the event belongs to our own Garrett Fuller, who somehow found himself at the number two spot in the Blizzard Store line on Saturday. To paint you a picture, this line was steadily 2.5 hours long on Friday and inexplicably (unlike last year) no monitors were set up for easy viewing of BlizzCon events. It was a long line, and an unhappy one at that. So as Garrett wound through the maze of versa-barriers, the stampede resulted in someone flying headfirst into the queue ropes, instantly taking out 3 rows.

As Garrett and others tried to help this poor soul up, (and this is one of humanity's shining moments) people were climbing over this kid to get into line, sort of like those boot camp training videos where the first guy falls on the barbed wire and the rest step on him to get over. Security quickly intervened, tossing said jumpers out of line, and order was restored with no serious injuries, thankfully. And, yes, Garrett got his murlocs.

Have a BlizzCon story to share, or want to weigh in on Blizzard's announcements? Post your thoughts in the Loading... forum, or email me directly if you like.

Ten Ton Hammer Epic Thread of the Day

Sometimes they're funny; sometimes they're foolish; sometimes they're flaming;
sometimes they're cool. Whatever this one happens to be, it's
our Epic Thread of the Day.

====================
From our WAR: General Discussion Forum

Serious thread: Green Skins don't have ...

There's
nothing like a good penis discussion to kick off a dreary Monday.
Swayne has read some Warhammer lore and postulates that greenskins are
lacking a certain appendage. And this is a serious thread. For serious
people. Seriously!

Awesome Quote from the Epic Thread:

"I gotta stop clicking on threads that make me go 'Uhhh...huh?'"
- Savanja
====================

Do you have a favorite Epic Thread? Let us know!

14 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 131 in October! 2631 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks Phil Comeau for links and Real World News]

Previews

City of Heroes: Issue 13 - Day Jobs

Community

Guides

Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to:

Real World News

Britain loses 20,000 cows
In unrelated news, lines to get tickets to Oprah have never been longer
Woman wins swing set, bites cop who thought it was stolen
The Aristocrats!
Shark 'virgin birth' confirmed
Shark sightings in grilled cheese sandwichs and potato chips imminent

Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

- Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle 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

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