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The Pulse

First, you vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is Pulse?). Here's today's Pulse results:

1. World of Warcraft
2. Warhammer Online
3. Age of Conan
4. Runes of Magic
5. Atlantica Online
6. EVE Online (UP 1)
7. Tabula Rasa (UP 2)
8. Star Wars: The Old Republic (down 2)
9. Lord of the Rings Online (UP 8)
10. Guild Wars (UP 1)

Biggest Movers in the Top 20 today

1. Lord of the Rings Online (UP 8 to no. 9)
2. EverQuest 2 (UP 4 to no. 16)
3. Stargate Worlds (down 4 to no. 19)

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Loading... Daily

Loading... Ozzy Osbourne endorses us during the WoW commercial, you just can't tell.

In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "voon" is the dejected sigh uttered by the mattresses of Squornshellous Zeta, which are "caught, killed, dried out, shipped out, and slept on . None of them seem to mind, and all of them are called Zem."

At Ten Ton Hammer, "Voon" is what we say when we're describing what has the potential to be the coolest out of game communication tool we've ever used. Voicechat, an IRC-style chatroom, audio events with leading MMO personalities, what have you. The sound quality is superb (powered by Vivox, after all), the scalability is incredible, and best of all, it's absolutely free! We may have your username reserved as well, so feel free to wait for the welcome email or jump right in.

Still shaky on what Voon is all about? Check out our Q&A with Vivox's Matthew Bellows. Voon is currently in beta too, so you'll have a chance to offer feedback and maybe even bend it to your will a bit. Feedback and feature requests are always welcome in the Voon at Ten Ton Hammer forums.

Join us in Voon's Ten Ton Hammer room tonight at 9pm (US Eastern) for a meet and greet with the Ten Ton Hammer folks, if you like (complete with MMO trivia and prizes).

In other action, Sardu examines how accurate Cody and Boomjack's 2008 MMORPG predictions were in entertaining fashion with Ten Ton Soothsayer 2008. Who will claim the title? Not I - it wasn't so long ago that I was expecting EverQuest 2 and Auto Assault to take the number 1 and 3 slots, respectively, not 11ish and never on Pulse.

Speaking of Auto Assault, Cody Bye interviewed NetDevil's Scott Brown on Tabula Rasa's eventual demise. Scott offers an interesting look into a studio fighting for a game's survival, then losing the fight and seeing what happens next. It's easy to draw paralells between NetDevil and Destination Games, not just because TR and AA were NCSoft titles, but because the two games followed similar trajectories. This is one excellent interview, especially since it has a happy ending for NetDevil, who subsequently picked up the Lego IP and began reworking and updating their first MMORPG with Jumpgate: Evolution.

Comments? Thoughts? Post 'em in the Loading... forum, or my inbox is always open for comments.

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Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day

From our /OOC (Off Topic) Forum

Climate Change: Man made, or nature's way of saying 'shape up or ship out'?

We can get serious in our /OOC forum--yes, we can! Mikes brought up the issue of global warming and suggested that maybe, just maybe, humanity wasn't specifically at fault for it. (I still blame farting cattle, myself.) This started a storm of serious posts debating the causes of global warming as well as other (somewhat more immediate) means of world destruction.

Well, okay, the debate was mostly serious. Until we started talking about ideas for epic disaster movies.

Aw, go see for yourself.

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Awesome Quotes from the Epic Thread:

"A super stud horse of an asteroid smashin' it's sweet sweet love into a mega-volcano that has just been itchin' to spew forth it's massive orgasmic load of scalding hot ash upon the world is nothing short of the greatest porno premise ever."  - CHEWNIE01

"Throw in midgets and I'll back that film!"  - Bansaw
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Do you have a favorite Epic Thread? Let us know!

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9 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 126 in December! 3100 in 2008!

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

Interviews

• The End of Tabula Rasa: An Interview with Auto Assault's Scott Brown
• Voon: Q&A with Vivox's Matthew Bellows

Community

• Vivox and Ten Ton Hammer Introduce Voon - Voice and Chat for Serious MMO Gamers
• Ten Ton Hammer's Stocking Stuffer Contest!
• 2008 Ten Ton Soothsayer

Guides

• World of Warcraft: Alliance Northrend Levelling Guide - Part 3
• World of Warcraft: Horde Northrend Levelling Guide - Part 4
• Warhammer Online: Greenskins Public Quests - Chap 3
• Warhammer Online: Empire Public Quests - Chap 2
• Age of Conan: Field of the Dead Ultimate Boss Guide

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

1. Voon - Voice and Chat for Serious MMO Gamers
2. 2008 Ten Ton Soothsayer
3. The End of Tabula Rasa: An Interview with Auto Assault's Scott Brown
4. Voon: Q&A with Vivox's Matthew Bellows
5. 2008 Child's Play Charity Auction and Dinner
6. Get Your Holidays Out Of My Games!
7. Geeked: "Something For Everyone"
8. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
9. Ten Ton Hammer's Stocking Stuffer Contest!
10. Ten Ton Turnip #2 - Blizzard Buys Mythic!

Real World News

• Woman asked to smell husband's genitalia to determine fidelity
  He denied the accusation, says she was just being crotchety.
• Colorado doctor finds foot in newborn's brain
  Creationists hail the discovery as proof of the existence of the human sole.
• Bakery fined for arm in mixer
  Injured worker had to be whisked away to hospital immediately.
  

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Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

- Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer Team