Loading... Grandma Got Runover by a Publisher

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Posted December 19th, 2008 by tthadmin

#979 - Microsoft & Ankama join forces, Aion takes Korean Game of the Year honors, much more!

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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:

Biggest Movers in the Top 20 today

Warrior Epic (UP 5 to no. 9)
Lord of the Rings Online (down 5 to no. 14)
EverQuest 2 (down 3 to no. 19)

Loading... Daily

Loading... the buzz of the MMO community's hive mind.

Only 5 1/2 shopping days until Christmas, and for a procrastinator like me, that means it's almost time to start.

For those of you repulsed by today's title, it's taken from an old Dr. Elmo novelty song, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. And, even though Scott Brown's comments that publishers deserve a break are reasonable and well-founded, I'm going to indulge my baser emotions for at least one more Loading...

Microsoft, reigning cocktease among MMORPG publishers (abortively backing games like Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Mythica much to their ruination, as you might recall), has announced that it will partner with Ankama to bring a free-to-play MMO to the X360 console.

What an odd pairing and purpose this is, with Ankama, a French developer whose repertoire consists solely of isometric-perspective (think Diablo) cartoony MMORPGs like Dofus, the entirely warranted sequel Dofus 2, and Wakfu (can you name a game with this kind of visual perspective that's done well on a console? Jungle Strike from my NES days, maybe, though Civilization: Revolution was enjoyable), and Microsoft, who appears to be toying with us.

Of course, my opinion of Ankama's games was probably permanently by an E3 2005 demo, where the presenter (for whom I still feel pangs of pity for to this day) brought up Dofus on the screen, only to see a nude cartoon female hawking her pixels center screen. The rest of the interview was a mix of apologies on his part and painfully stifled laughter on my part, as you could guess.

Aion's official website reports that the game received Korean Game of the Year 2008 honors, which bodes well for its fans on this side of the Pacific. Last night in our Voon meet & greet, Metal passed around a few fantastic-looking screens from the game, and this is one 2009 MMORPG I'm genuinely looking forward to, busty Asian female character model paradox aside.

It seems that I'm not the only one running late with holiday preparations, as we have a few more winter holiday events to supplement the list I sent out earlier this week. Guild Wars' Wintersday event kicks off today, as does City of Heroes / Villains / Undecided Voters' Winter Event 2008. The CoX event (man, I hate that acronym) even features skiing (!) and tint-able (!) halos, which sets me to wondering how Toksin the villainous poison-crazed rotter of souls would look with something in the way of... puce, perhaps? And an elf outfit.

Comments? Thoughts? Post 'em in the Loading... forum , or my inbox is always open for comments. Have a wonderful weekend and, oh, SubGenious said to say hi and to come join the chatter in Voon!

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day

From our SWTOR: News and Announcements Forum

New SWTOR Video is Out!

Many a Star Wars fan has feasted their eyes upon the new Star Wars: The Old Republic video, which contains in-game footage of BioWare's game in development. The thread discussing the video sparked a strong reaction from our community (even if you don't count comments like "I'd hit it," and "*Sproing!"). Drop into our SWTOR News forum and have your say!

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Awesome Quote from the Epic Thread:

"Here's hoping they put in a live action combat system. The only thing better then having BioWare make a Star Wars MMO (has been a dream of many fans and geeks since KoTOR first launched) is actually being able to control your light saber as you slash your way through an ocean of enemies."

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

6 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 132 in December! 3106 in 2008!

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

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