Welcome to the 1,034th Edition of Loading...

Loading... is the premier MMORPG news and commentary daily newsletter from Ten Ton Hammer. Play World of Warcraft? Jay "Medeor" Johnson's weekly WoW newsletter "The Overpull" keeps you entertained and informed on all the latest developments in WoW. Sign up!


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 for today:

  1. World of Warcraft
  2. EVE Online
  3. EverQuest 2 (UP 1)
  4. Warhammer Online (down 1)
  5. Age of Conan (UP 1)

Biggest Movers in the Top 20 this week :

  1. Mabinogi (UP 13 to #11)
  2. Dungeon Runners (UP 17 to #14)
  3. Runes of Magic (UP 5 to #11)

Loading... Daily

Loading... your online tutorial for all things MMORPG.

Before I forget - 38 Studios dev chat tonight at 7pm Eastern with Curt Schilling and Steve Danuser. They won't be pitching (har har) their game under development, Copernicus, but they may talk a good bit about game design philosophy and other big picture ideas, and if nothing else it's your chance to belly up to the virtual bar with a future MLB hall-of-famer.

After a day of unverified patch downloads, I reinstalled my EVE client and finally beheld the wonders of Tuesday's Apocrypha expansion. And by wonders I mostly mean the skill training queue, since I've yet to find me some wormhole space. Anyway, I promptly queued up about 40 ten minute skills and one really long one on my main character before creating a new character. I wanted to try out the new "new player experience, " and if you like reading, love cheek-bone tweaking, and absolutely hate stats (in a word, if you're not a typical EVE player), you'll love how the new character creation system works. Never fear, our EVE race guide breaks all the races and bloodlines down by stats and the EVElopedia features a list of what stats improve the rate at which certain groups of skills are learned.

On to the tutorial, which you'll be happy to learn only takes 45 minutes as opposed to the former 3 hours. That people notice how long the tutorial takes doesn't really bode well for the game, and had a been a true newb (instead of a casual newb) I would have been stuck before step one - you have to undock to start the tutorial. The rest of the tutorial plays out pretty much as you'd expect, the soft, soothing EVE voice will tell you what to do and then cajole you when you fail to be at the right place or have the right window open (perfect for femdom fetishists, I suppose). The one attempt at suspense ("Oh no, an automated training drone has entered the sector, you must destroy it!") falls flat, and this tutorial is what it is, a "crash course" designed to get you minimally functional in EVE. Where it fails in charisma it makes up for in generosity, as you'll get almost a dozen free skills to train suited to your race / bloodline pick, and I'd criticize it more mercilessly except that I can't quite see how to do an online EVE tutorial better. EVE is a complex game, and any attempt to boost you up the "learning cliff" quickly is bound to skin your knees a bit.

The primary innovation of the tutorial is that it segues into yet more career tutorials - Military, Business (trade), and Industry (mining and manufacturing) - or your first batch of missions, which I'm told coincides with your first epic mission arc, new in Apocrypha. You'll also have scores of in-depth tutorials available via the help tab. I don't think the EVE University corp is in danger of a hostile takeover any time soon, but the breadth of topics covered in these tutorials will at least make you saavy enough to ask better questions and get better answers when you get into corp chat (assuming you have a weekend to blow on just learning the game). As TheMittani's last article showed, even folks that have played the game for years aren't as well acquainted with the rules as they should be. So don't be fooled, tutorials won't make you an expert - EVE is an extremely long-term learning experience, ADD and hyper-hero Captain Dynamic types need not apply.

As decent as the tutorials are, that the NPE is such a big deal underscores EVE's roots as one of the digitally downloaded pioneers. If there was ever a game that deserved a hefty tome of a game manual - enough bathroom and late night reading material for a month, complete with chapter header fiction designed to get you caught up on lore and jargon - it's EVE Online. And there's never been a developer better suited to churn out manuals and strategy guides than EVE Online, owing to their relationship with White Wolf Publishing.

It's not that the tutorial is bad, it's just that I think I'd rather puzzle through most of it offline. With offline training (and now have queued training to boot), I'm not compelled to log in and just "level up" as in other MMOs - I have to have an objective in mind. And EVE offers quality objectives in plenty, culminating in sovereignty over huge chunks of the game universe with your corp. It's finding the stepping stones to that kind of power that's tricky, and a guide or in-depth manual that presents all the options and renders the game rules in intimate detail would be very welcome.

Offline training, online tutorial? Or would you prefer to learn EVE offline in a format more readable than the rant-driven o-boards, like me? You have the floor in the Loading... forum, or feel free to email me.


Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day


From our Articles, News and Events Forum

Coyote Humor: Inspired by Heroes

Coyote's latest humor feature,
It's All Geek to Me, asks the (not so) mysterious and age-old geek
question: invisibility or flight? "Your answer," Coyote says, "is
supposed to have some soul-exposing ramification and show you your true
self."

I suspect my affinity for invisibility has something to do with my introversion. (I know you guys so
don't believe me, but I actually only play a sassy extrovert online.)
You see, Coyote's question gave me cause to ponder, and ponder I did,
until I realized what my need for invisibility implied about me. But to
Coyote, there's really only one answer to this question, and it has
nothing to do with soul-exposing ramifications or anything
remotely intellectual. (This is Coyote we're talking about, after all.)

I'll let you read the feature
and discover what Coyote considers a no-brainer for yourself. Then,
once you've uncovered the mystery, you can head over to our forum and tell us which power appeals to you. (I'm still wondering why mind control wasn't an option.)

Bonus (Apropos of Absolutely Nothing): If you don't know about Neds and Chavs, this thread may enlighten you.


=================================

Awesome Quote from the
Epic Thread
:

"I'm
all confused now after reading Kitsunegirl's reply. So, you're saying
you want to be invisible in the girls locker room with a scuba tank?
And this is a bad thing? But not in a good way? Or is it a good thing
in a bad way?

*headasplode*"

- almagill

=================================



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


4 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 49 in March! 309 in 2009!

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

Op/Eds

Community

Images

Guides

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

  1. The Struggle for Acceptance - Is Faction Grinding Necessary?
  2. The Comic Book Guy: Watching the Watchmen MMOG
  3. Wizard 101: Tops 1 Million - a Q&A with J. Todd Coleman
  4. DOMO Review: Through the Looking Glass, Indeed
  5. geeked: "Chuck Norris Has No Equal"
  6. Mabinogi: Pioneers of Iria Expansion Interview
  7. EverQuest 2: Exclusive EQ2 Game Update Tour
  8. Lord of the Rings Online: A Journey to Mount Doom (Part 1)
  9. Bounty Bay Online Starter Pack Giveaway
  10. Lord of the Rings Online: Lothlorien with Aaron Campbell

Real World News


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 EVE Online Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Jeff joined the Ten Ton Hammer team in 2004 covering EverQuest II, and he's had his hands on just about every PC online and multiplayer game he could since.

Comments