Loading... Like Hotcakes

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Posted Mon, May 18, 2009 by Ethec

Welcome to the 1,081st Edition of Loading...

Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news and commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.

In Loading... Like Hotcakes, we'll recount our experience of trying to buy BlizzCon tickets when they went on sale last Saturday. How could Blizzard improve the process and minimize the eBay scalping? Plus, Champions Online launch delayed until September 1st - share your thoughts on this development in today's epic thread. That and more on LotRO's Book 8 and Alganon Online's healer class in today's Ten Ton Hammer newsletter.

Coyote is back in a big way at Ten Ton Hammer, and his daily column explores all things geek with Coyote's trademark wit and humor in It's All Geek to Me, fresh daily at Ten Ton Hammer. Today's topic: Four things that SOUND cool, but aren't... (Unless you count bear-sharks)

Recent MMO Releases

4/28 - Free Realms (launch date)
5/11 - Chronicles of Spellborn 1.0.4 - "Scrolls of Keys and Courage" (patch)
5/15 - EVE Online Apocrypha 1.2 (patch)

Upcoming Releases

5/19 - Warrior Epic (launch date)
5/22 - Dragonica (CBT key giveaway)
6/23 - Jumpgate Evolution (release date)
10/1 - Champions Online (NEW release date)

Important Dates

5/30 - Final block of BlizzCon 2009 tickets on sale.
6/2 - 6/4 - E3 2009

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:

World of Warcraft
EverQuest 2
Warhammer Online
Lord of the Rings Online (UP 1)
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (down 1)

Biggest Movers in the Top 20 over the weekend :

Copernicus (UP 66 to #14)
City of Villains (down 7 to #14)
City of Heroes (down 6 to #17)

Loading... Daily

Ticket sales for last year's BlizzCon broke the server in a matter of minutes, so success either meant you'd made a deal with the gods of chaos and luck or that you were sitting on a fiberoptic connection in Southern California and have a very itchy trigger finger. This year would surely be different? Not really. In addition to raising the price over last year from $100 to $125 , Blizzard took a cue from their game and made a painful process not less painful, but slightly more palatable. Server outages were replaced by hopeless queues, so at least most of us can know for sure that we never really had a chance. Unless you're willing to spend north of $500 for a pair of tickets on Ebay (51 tickets are currently up for bids, and prices are likely to skyrocket after the next block of tickets sells out on May 30th).

Case in point: Ten Ton Hammer's Machail dove into the fray both to see what he could see and to try and secure a handful of tickets for at-work friends and, despite jumping in as soon as humanly possible, the time it took for him to specify the number of tickets and click submit, he was 8,998th in line. I'm not sure that Blizzard has released an exact number of tickets available this year, but last year's 15,000 seemed to stretch the Anaheim Convention Center to capacity.

Couple that with the fact that you could buy up to a five spot of tickets (judging by the Ebay sellers, small lots look to have been served first), and the Mac attack never really had a chance. He reached about 5,000th before the inevitable sellout occurred. And a sellout was absolutely inevitable, especially with no Worldwide Invitational this year or really any Blizzard events abroad. Activision Blizzard recently announced that they wouldn't have a public presence at E3 this year as well. It makes sense: why share the spotlight when you have a monumentally successful stage of your own in BlizzCon?

Nevertheless, this approach does create a pretty huge people jam. Other than moving BlizzCon 25 miles up I-5 to the much larger Los Angeles Convention Center (the stadium seating in the Staples Center would be a very welcome change from the one-elevation-fits-all expo approach for the large presentations), we came up with another possible solution.

Ten Ton Hammer's Cody Bye asked then-Game Director Jeff Kaplan about the possibility of a second BlizzCon on the east coast or mid-west at last year's BlizzCon. Kaplan had this to say: "Long term, we really want to be whereever people are, cut down that flying time and give more people opportunity to come and hang out with us." A second BlizzCon would mean twice the hype focii and twice the lost time for developers and it might just mean that the same x number of people would fight tooth and nail to get into both events. Nevertheless it could mean up to twice the capacity and fewer flyover states between us and BlizzCon.

Have a similar BlizzCon tickets story? Were you successful? How could Blizzard improve the process? Share your stories and ideas in the Loading... forum.

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day

From our Tavern of the Ten Ton Hammer

Champions Online Delay!

Disappointing? Maybe. Unexpected? Not really.

Every time a game is delayed, and a thread posted on our forum about the delay, people jump in to say one of three things:

I said it would be delayed! Didn't I say it would be delayed?
Doom! DOOM! This obviously means the developers are struggling and the game will suck
I'm glad the game was delayed. The delay is obviously the result of caring developers not wanting to release a game before it's ready.

Champions Online will be delayed until the fall. Perhaps this isn't a big surprise, and yet it's disappointing for those eager to play. (We really don't believe you guys in #3 when you say that you're glad there was a delay, although we know that games, like fine wine, should not be released before their time.)

What's your take on the Champions Online delay? Tell us!
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Awesome Quotes from the Epic Thread

"The thing about delays is they make a good game better, but if the game is a turd delaying it for polish will only give you a shiny turd. Hopefully It turns out to be a great game."

- AngryBeaver
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Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? Tell us!

6 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 57 in May! 583 in 2009!

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

Warhammer Online: Premium Member Q&A at Baltimore Games Day 2009
Now available to the public. Last week we asked the Warhammer Online enthusiasts among our Premium Members to submit their best questions for the WAR team. And, though it took a tag team of no less than five Warhammer Online developers to accomplish the task, we have some great answers for you! First, Paul Barnett and Josh Drescher take on questions about the Karl Franz encounter, the token system, more DAoC-ness, more siege weapons, and more in a 18 1/2 minute video that's as entertaining as it is informative, then we put your hardcore questions to WAR's team leads culminating in a four pages of quality written Q&A.
Lord of the Rings Online Interview with Jeffrey Steefel - Book 8 and Don Guldur
When it comes to Lord of the Rings Online, no one is more knowledgeable than Turbine’s Executive Producer for the title, Jeffrey Steefel. We recently sat down with Jeffrey in our weekly Vooncast to discuss the upcoming content in Volume 2 Book 8 and what players should be expecting when they finally get to cross the Misty Mountains, delve into Mirkwood, and explore the depths of Dol Guldur. The War of the Ring comes to life in this upcoming Book, so make sure you check out the transcribed interview!
Comic: Geeked - "A New Old Friend"
Ten Ton Hammer's very own satirical webcomic on all things geek-related is here with one more addition to the Geeked family. What home is complete without a pet? And what better pet than the decaying body of one's grandfather?
Alganon Class Interview #4 - The Healer
In the fourth and final class interview for Alganon, the Ten Ton Hammer staff explores the Healer class. While it may seem like a mild mannered health bestower at first, the Healer actually sounds like it packs quite the punch in Alganon. Have a look!
WoW - Warrior Talents Updated for 3.1
Choosing now is a lot harder than it used to be. With the coming of patch 3.1, Arms is now back in action and brings even more pain to the table to challenge Fury for the DPS crown. Read more in this update!
WoW - Selecting Raid Gear for the Druid
Now that you’re all prepped and ready to step into the raiding scene the next question on your mind should be “What loot do I roll on now that I’m here?”

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

Real World News

Will return after Victoria Day, when Phil will tell us exactly how many headscratcher holidays the Canadians get each year. Not that Victoria wasn't a nice person, as British monarchs go.

Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

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