Welcome to the 1,114th Edition of Loading...

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

Good games reward initiative and punish complacency. Some MMORPGs get this formula backwards, punishing initiative and rewarding boring activities, which is why these MMORPGs are typically not good games. Today's Loading... looks at how one game community is tearing into one of the most hotly criticized aspects of EVE Online and why this is one jihadist offensive we can support. It's all in Loading... Risk and Reward.

Coyote's daily column explores all things geek with Coyote's trademark wit in It's All Geek to Me. Read it daily at Ten Ton Hammer! Today's topic: I plead the 4th... (Team AMERICA! F*** YEAH!)

The Pulse

You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is The Pulse?).

Here's today's top 5 Pulse results for today:

  1. World of Warcraft
  2. EVE Online (UP 10)
  3. EverQuest 2 (down 1)
  4. Aion (down 1)
  5. Age of Conan (down 1)

Biggest Movers this week :

  1. CrimeCraft (UP 81 to #19)
  2. Runes of Magic (UP 9 to #15)
  3. Lineage 2 (UP 6 to #16)
Recent MMO Releases

Important Dates

Upcoming Releases

Loading... Daily

The Mittani's weekly Ten Ton Hammer article, Sins of a Solar Spymaster, is always a highlight of my bleary-eyed Internet reading each week. It might be GoonSwarm propaganda to some extent, yes, but it's extremely well-done propaganda and, especially if you read between the lines, offers incredible insight into EVE culture.

In this week's article, The Mittani seeks to recruit shaheed suicide bombers for GoonSwarm's jihad against "safe" empire space. The jihad won't touch you if you stick to mining in truly safe space (> 0.8), so this isn't about newbie griefing. Instead, from one perspective, GoonSwarm is doing the game a great service by making intensely boring large-scale mining operations in "safe" space less safe, encouraging more miners to get into more lucrative and much more interesting corporate low-sec and null-sec mining. It's a beautiful thing when a game or a game's community actively discourages boredom.

But I digress, and GoonSwarm certainly doesn't need me to defend its actions. The part of the article that really spoke to me was the (probably fairly obvious) fact that a huge portion of CCP's subscription revenues come from safe space, the newbie (and atrophied newbie) areas.

Yesterday's Loading... explored the advantages and disadvantages of a level-less game, one huge yet commonplace disadvantage being a lack of direction. If a sandbox game gives players not-fun choices, like strip mining cheap ore for the illusion of "guaranteed" (if miniscule) profits, some players will pick not-fun. Such players are probably the most likely to quit when something finally does go horribly wrong, which does happen to everyone from time to time in EVE.

But what keeps EVE players coming back for more isn't empire space and "safe" mining, it's the thrill of working as a corp and taking much greater risks for better rewards. That holds true for even predominantly PvE MMORPGs - i.e. you risk an evening's worth of work every time you raid, but you raid because that's where the loot is. I'd argue that the reason WoW's PvP servers became so popular in 2007 was because players were tired of the safety and boredom of the content they'd leveled through countless times and needed a little more risk.

CCP has put a lot of effort into breaking players out of their newbie shell with features such as factional warfare, but previously this was one area where a developer slowly tortured its golden geese to subscription death by actively supporting boring gameplay. Games that do this as a matter of course (and I'm not thinking EVE Online here, moreso grind-tastic MMOs of Asian provenance) justly deserve the criticism from MMO-hating forum troll. You know the type, those that pop up every time an MMO is mentioned on a mainstream gaming forum, saying that subscription MMO devs are the equivalent of pushers, hooking players into a grind to milk them out of their monthly subscription dues. That has never been my experience with any subscription MMORPG I've played with any seriousness, but I can certainly see how it could happen.

How about you? Have you ever played a top-tier MMO that devolved into a grindfest? Why would a developer seek to kill the golden goose with repetitive, not-fun gameplay? It's definitely not a good long-term plan. Share your thoughts in the Loading... forum, or feel free to email me! Happy Independence Day to the US folks, and happy weekend to the rest of you.


Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day



From our Aion Forum



4 Day Preview



Get your Aion on!



Participants
in Aion's closed beta weekend get to play a little longer than usual
over the 4th of July/Canada Day holiday. Kitsunegirl wants to talk
about it in today's Epic Thread. Do you have opinions, questions,
ideas, gripes or anything else to share about Aion? Post them here!



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

Awesome Quotes from the Epic Thread



"Log in queues are happening. The game is downright packed today! "



- Savanja

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



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


6 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 16 in July! 781 in 2009!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Exclusive Articles:

  • EVE Online: Sins of a Solar Spymaster #18 - Defending Allah's Sacred Domains
    Even while the most recent war in EVE Online was nearing its conclusion, many of New Eden’s inhabitants remained relatively unaffected by the events playing out in 0.0 space. All of that is about to change though according to the most recent edition of Sins of a Solar Spymaster, in which The Mittani discusses the tactics involved in declaring war on Empire space:
  • **Premium Only** The Dilemma of Level vs Skill - How Old Became New Again
    Since MMORPGs became a mainstream medium, players have debated the two primary methods of advancement. Which is better? Is it the level-based system that is so dominate in today's MMORPGs or the lesser used skill-based system? This has been a strong subject of debate on many forums, blogs, and gaming sites for as long as the genre has existed. This week Cody "Micajah" Bye investigates the two concepts and gathers input from some of the brightest minds in the gaming industry about their thoughts on the two systems of advancement.
  • 13 Things to Know Before Playing Aion
    If you're jumping into Aion for the first time this weekend, you'll find it's different than other MMORPGs you might have played in more ways than one. Ten Ton Hammer has compiled a quick list of 13 hints and tips to get you off to a great start in your first 10 levels. Have a look, then enjoy the 4-day Aion beta event weekend, preorderers!
  • Jade Dynasty Crafting Developer Journal
    Perfect World Entertainment was nice enough to share a developer journal about the crafting system exclusively with Ten Ton Hammer. The unedited journal entry includes six exclusive images.
  • The Agency: Fan Faire 2009 Report
    The Agency is Sony Online Entertainment's upcoming action spy game and Dalmarus was on hand for the recent discussion panel held at Fan Faire 2009. See why this game nabbed his interest out of the blue in true super spy fashion.
  • Basic Primer to World of Warcraft Machinima
    Ever dreamed of making movies or filming your guild's raid in World of Warcraft? Well now you can. David "Xerin" Piner comes in to give the very basics on the art of movie making in virtual worlds like World of Warcraft. So get your beret on and your creativity set to record some virtual footage.

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

  1. EVE Online: Sins of a Solar Spymaster #18 - Defending Allah's Sacred Domains
  2. 13 Things to Know Before Playing Aion
  3. Gangland Gankage - A CrimeCraft Hands-On Preview
  4. Champions Online Power Set Interview – Telekinesis, Force, and Telepathy
  5. Basic Primer to World of Warcraft Machinima
  6. Age of Conan Game Update 5 Funcom Interview
  7. Ten Ton Hammer E3 2009 Awards
  8. The Agency: Fan Faire 2009 Report
  9. Aion Archetype Preview - The Warrior
  10. WonderKing Beta Key Giveaway

Real World News (we couldn't make this up if we tried)


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.

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