Tabula Rasa at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

Welcome to the 1,004th Edition of Loading...

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The Pulse

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 top 5 Pulse results:

1. World of Warcraft
2. Warhammer Online
3. Lord of the Rings Online
4. Age of Conan
5. Runes of Magic

Biggest Movers in the Top 20 today :

1. EverQuest (down 7 to #19)
2. Requiem: Bloodymare (UP 6 to #14)
3. Tabula Rasa (UP 4 to #6)

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Loading... Daily

Loading... goes skiing.

Now that winter is back with a vengeance, at least in my area, the last month seemed a great time to revive a pastime from my youth: cross country skiing. Now, XC skiing is probably the least trendy of winter sports, lacking both the high-brow exhilaration of alpine skiing, the hipness of snowboarding, and the social or indoor appeal of skating sports. None of that matters to me since my brand of skiing is absolutely free (or at least cheap if you go to a groomed course on the weekend) once you buy the relatively cheap equipment. Not to mention that it's excellent exercise.

I'll bring this back to MMORPGs in a moment, so hang with me for a second. For those of you still experiencing a thoroughly brown or icey winter (or summer for the Aussies and New Zealanders) imagine a rolling forested wilderness of hills (we like to pretend they're mountains and, in truth, my usual haunt summits at around a respectable 2,000 ft.) covered with a thick carpet of untouched, crunchy, clean white powder. Now imagine, as your skis whisper through what is usually a hiking trail or firebreak, that it's all yours. There's not a person for miles around. Even though backcountry paths are slower snow, they lack the bumpy footprints and snowmobile tracks of the more common tracks.

Granted, I've taken plenty of stupid downhills and either find myself in a pretzel spoked with skis and poles or having to awkwardly "herringbone" up lengthy slopes when a gentler incline didn't present itself, but finding your way in an alien landscape has a definite appeal to my Bartle's taxonomy explorer side.

That's not the only appeal of XC skiing for me. No matter if you're the first or fortieth to forge a path through a blanket of new-fallen snow, you leave a paralell set of compacted grooves in the snow. These grooves not only mark your path, they make the path faster, more even, and less "unknown" (finding a bent over sapling the wrong way can be a painful experience) for the next skiier.

Except for the largely lost art of trail blazing, no other sport that I know of offers the constant chance to improve the experience of someone that follows after you. To start to bring the analogy full circle, someone emailed me the other day asking why sites like Ten Ton Hammer seek to "spoil" the game experience with class guides, quest guides, leveling guides, etc. I'd never really thought of what our community site writers do as spoiling anything, so I was a little taken aback.

The devs give us players this beautiful snow-covered landscape, we have our limitations - natural, psychological, and otherwise - we pick up some equipment and set off. When I'm all about progress, I'll look to a guide and follow in someone else's grooves. When I'm feeling wanderlust, I'll forge a new path. Good games offer many equally fun paths to the same goal, and guides can only point you down one or several of these paths. On the trail there's plenty of room and time for both, and I'd hope it's the same way in today's quality RPGs, MMO or otherwise.

Ten Ton Hammer has produced somewhere on the order of 1,200 MMORPG guides in the last four years. How do we do? Are our guides helpful or do we spoil your fun? Have your say in the Loading... forum, or write to me.

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Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day

From our Voon at Ten Ton Hammer Forum

Voon events for Jan / Feb!

Okay, okay...like yesterday's thread, this one doesn't include an Awesome Quote. I swear I'll return to that tomorrow. But I couldn't let the opportunity to point out Ten Ton Hammer's Loading... Live voicechat schedule for January and February pass. We'll be chatting with the developers of Warhammer Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Champions Online, so you're going to want to get in on this.

If you're wondering what Voon is all about, we welcome you to check out Vivox's new voicechat and events client beta. It's completely free and available to all. Download it here so you won't miss the chance to participate in live developer chats and other Ten Ton events. And if you've got questions about the January / February schedule, or about Voon, check out the discussion thread.

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Awesome Quote from the Epic Thread:

Your Awesome Quote will return tomorrow with more awesomeness than ever.

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

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8 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 117 in January! 117 in 2009!

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

Previews

• Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn

Op/Eds

• The Tabula Rasa Autopsy: What Makes Games Die?
• The Comic Book Guy: Comic Industry Talent in Gaming

Features

• Ten Ton Turnip: Issue #6 - The Final Root
• NY ComicCon 2009 MMO Panel Schedule

Community

• Geeked: "Racial Intolerance"

Guides

• World of Warcraft: Selecting Talents for the Paladin
• World of Warcraft: Selecting Talents for the Priest

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

1. Preview of Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn
2. The Tabula Rasa Autopsy: What Makes Games Die?
3. The Comic Book Guy: Comic Industry Talent in Gaming
4. Ten Ton Turnip: Issue #6 - The Final Root
5. NY ComicCon 2009 MMO Panel Schedule
6. Geeked: "Racial Intolerance"
7. Runes of Magic: Daniel Ulrich on the State of the Beta
8. MMOs, the Final Frontier: How will Atari help EVE Online?
9. Jan-Feb 09 Schedule for Loading... Live!
10. Geeked: "Jimmy's Plea"

Real World News

• Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury
  Search continues for foodstuffs containing Venus, Mars and Jupiter
• Playing World of Warcraft could lead to avoidance, discrimination
  Lobbyists for Alliance of Gnomes and Dwarves unavailable for comment
• Cows with names make more milk
  Still unknown whether they make more hamburgers
  

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Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

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