Welcome to the 1,156th edition of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
Champions Online launch day is here. Though Cryptic will
readily admit that the game took a lot from its MMO predecessors, we'll
argue that in the final analysis (insofar as there can ever be a final
analysis of an MMO) CO gives back a lot to the MMO category as well.
Are we on the cusp of yet another generation of MMORPGs or yet another
clone of MMOs past? Credit where credit is due today in Loading...
Champions Online launch day.
The Pulse
You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result is the Ten Ton Pulse (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here's today's top 5 Pulse results:
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/41"
target="_blank">World of Warcraft -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/860">Champions
Online -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/254">Aion
(UP 2) -
EverQuest
2 (down 1) -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/115">Age of
Conan (down 1)
Biggest Movers in the past week :
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/175"
target="_blank">DC
Universe Online (UP 16 to #18) -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/47">Guild
Wars (UP 1 to #16) -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/38"
target="_blank">EverQuest href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/38"
target="_blank"> (UP 1 to #17)
MMO Releases
-
8/4 -
World
of Warcraft Update 3.2 (content patch) size="-1"> -
8/25
- CrimeCraft
(release date) - 9/1 -
Champions
Online (NA release date)
Important
Dates
- 9/4 - 9/6
- Penny Arcade Expo
(PAX) - 9/15 -
9/18 - GDC
Austin - 10/1 -
10/3 - href="http://fanfest.eveonline.com/">EVE FanFest
Releases
- 9/9
- Dungeons
& Dragons Online Unlimited (release date) - 9/15
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/177">Fallen
Earth (release date) - 9/22
- Aion
(release date) - 10/9
- Cities
XL (release date) - Early 2010
- APB
Loading... Daily
MMO successes call to mind the old BASF slogan, "We don't make a lot of
the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better."
WoW certainly wasn't and isn't the most innovative game on the market.
But it did take a lot of what worked from previous MMOs and games -
raids, dungeons, faction-based PvP, the Warcraft storyline, to name a
few things - and made them if not better, then more accessible. You can
find similar examples in what Apple has done for personal computers and
MP3 players, what Japanese automakers did for cars in the seventies,
and with what Ten Ton Hammer did for the MMO news and guides network
(kidding).
It would be tempting to think of
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/860">Champions
Online as just another MMO aggregator that took the best of
what we've seen of both comic book and mainstream MMOs in the past.
There's an element of truth in that: to paraphrase Bill Roper, Cryptic
would be foolish not to take what works from other MMOs. But it would
be a total injustice to think of Champions as simply a clone or ripoff
of any other MMO. In
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/73665">Champions
Online: Embracing the Future of MMOGs, an article celebrating
the launch of Champions Online today, Sardu does a great job
of pointing out the many subtle improvements made by Champions that go
far beyond the comic book niche and should do a lot for MMOs
as a whole. I've made my case in
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/71192">Loading...
before so I won't drag out the point.
Rather than asserting the many fun and interesting points about
Champions Online, the bottom line about this game is that I haven't
heard a bad word about it from anyone that's played well into the teen
levels. Even though it seems like a tautology - you have to like CO to
play it to 20, or to get to 20 you have to like CO - but it's actually
pretty high praise for an MMO. This is one that grows on you. There's a
hump to get over - maybe it's easier to put yourself in elven and
dwarven shoes than to scoot yourself into a pair of superhero tights,
maybe it takes time to realize the full brilliance of the fully
customizable frameworks or gain some comfort with how your powers
develop, maybe you just have to let go of your prejudice against cell
shader graphics long enough to see how well the art direction fits the
game. But give Champions a chance, and it will probably surprise you.
Doubtless, we'll see plenty of haters of Champions Online too, some for
fairly legitimate reasons, some smear merchants who hardly touch the
game and just love to influence others. If you feel Champions getting
its hooks into you, don't listen to the naysayers. There's plenty of
room in the MMO market for divergent opinions and there's no need to
measure success in the mega-millions. With apologies to genuine WoW
fans, haven't we been following each other around like a herd for long
enough?
Even though the category's less than 15 years old, we love to talk
about "generations" of MMOs. A generation isn't just a new feature set,
it's a vast change, one
href="http://tagn.wordpress.com/2007/01/22/third-generation-was-there-a-second/">blogger
accurately called it a paradigm shift, in how people play online
games. The breakdown will differ depending on who you talk
to, and you'll likely disagree with how I break things down, which is
cool. But if Ultima Online and Everquest with first-gen MMOs just by
their existence, if the factional, large-scale combat of Dark Age of
Camelot and EVE Online brought about the second gen, and if EQ2 and WoW
were third gen just by their all-consuming nature, I think active
combat, dynamic content, personalized story, and incredible scalability
might be the hallmarks of the fourth gen MMO. If that's the case, games
like Champions Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Star Trek
Online truly belong to the future. If not WoW-killers, should become
classics in their own right.
Have some launch day impressions of Champions Online? Get started with
the game at the Ten
Ton Hammer Champions Online site, then share your thoughts
and ideas in our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=45930">Loading...
forum.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=577">Champions
Online: The Power Sets That Be forum
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=44318">Which
Power Set is the Coolest?
This week we wrapped up our exclusive series of
interviews with Bill
Roper focused on the various power sets available in Champions Online.
If you haven't done so already, be sure to check 'em out:
target="_blank">Gadgeteering, Munitions and Archery
target="_blank">Might and Power Armor
target="_blank">Dual Blades, Single Blade, Fighting Claws
and Unarmed
target="_blank">Telekinesis, Force and Telepathy
target="_blank">Sorcery, Darkness and Supernatural
Now, in honor of Champions
Online
launching, we want you to weigh in on which power set is the coolest.
It's a tough call for me--playing through the tutorial on various alts
I've tried Telekinesis, Supernatural, and fiddling with a custom build.
I feel compelled to try...well, everything, or at least everything that
suits my playing style.
Got some power sets you're itching to
try? Have a recommendation for the rest of us, or just an opinion to
share? Make your way over to our forums to
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=44318">talk
about it.
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"If you're going with
Might, you
should at least pick up the 'Bite' power from Supernatural, if nothing
else from that set, so you can have some awesome Mike Tyson moments."
- Sardu
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
4 new MMOG home-grown articles today, many from
BlizzCon! 4 in September!
946 in
2009!
New Coverage and Guides At Ten Ton Hammer Today
Features:
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rise_of_the_godslayer/craig_morrison">Age
of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer Interview with Craig Morrison
Funcom recently released details of the first expansion for Age of
Conan Hyborian Adventures titled 'Rise of the Godslayer'. Ten Ton
Hammer got the chance to speak with Age of Conan Game Director, Craig
Morrison about what's in store for players with the upcoming expansion.
New loot, new mounts, and new skills are all on the horizon. -
Champions
Online: Embracing the Future of MMOGs
There has been an interesting evolutionary process at work behind the
MMOG industrys rising success stretching all the way back to the late
1990s when the first few titles that pioneered the concept sprang forth
from the primordial MUD soup. As with most dominant genres in gaming,
current MMOGs continue to fall back on the foundations created by these
early success stories, but for a newer title to be truly successful on
its own terms, something new must be added to the magical brew of
gameplay mechanics and beyond. With the launch of Cryptic Studios
newest offering, Reuben Sardu Waters takes a look at the core
gameplay elements in Champions Online that have built upon the
foundation of the titles predecessors, as well as the dynamic approach
to content design, that could very well lead the industry as a whole
into interesting new directions. -
World
of Warcraft: A Brave New World? The Age of Interface Mods and
Addons
Of the many innovations in World of Warcraft, a highly customizable UI
paired with almost limitless numbers of user created addons has been
among the most popular and hotly debated. Many players consider the use
of combat and encounter addons to be akin to cheating, while most
raiding guilds and groups have strict requirements of mandatory addon
usage. Join Medawky this week as he delves into some popular UI mods
and tries to seperate the cream from the crap. -
World
of Warcraft - Trial of the Crusader - Faction Champion
Strategy
With the 3.2 patch to the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King,
Blizzard opened up another raid instance for players. The third
encounter in the Trial of the Crusader is referred to as the Faction
Champion fight. This fight is much more like a PvP fight than
a raid encounter. This is due to the fact that the group
makeup is random each time and that your opponents do not have agro
tables. Due to these items the fight is always different and generally
very difficult to maintain any set strategy, you just have to go with
the flow. Join Byron "Messiah" Mudry as he guides you through
some of the general strategies that will help you defeat the faction
champions.
Giveaways:
-
(NEW)
Ran Online Beta Key Giveaway
Go back to school (literally) with the Ran Online beta. We only have a
limited number of keys for this one, so first come, first
served!
Hottest Content:
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rise_of_the_godslayer/craig_morrison">Age
of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer Interview with Craig Morrison - Champions
Online: Embracing the Future of MMOGs -
Exclusive
Champions Online Launch Interview with Bill Roper -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/blizzcon09">BlizzCon
2009 href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/blizzcon09">
Coverage Portal - Final
Fantasy XI: Moogle Kupo d'Etat Walkthrough Tour - World
of Warcraft Cataclysm Q&A with J. Allen Brack - Aion
Class Preview - The Cleric - World
of Warcraft: A Brave New World? The Age of Interface Mods and
Addons - StarCraft
2 Preview from BlizzCon 2009 - Heroes
and Monsters in Diablo 3
Real World News
(courtesy of Phil Comeau. Have some real world news Phil can mangle
into something funny? Send
it to him!)
-
href="http://blogs.app.com/saywhat/2009/08/31/woman-arrested-for-killing-elderly-man-with-sex/">Woman
arrested after sex romp kills 75-year old man
Proof positive that the penis mightier than the sword. -
href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090831/bs_nm/us_bakerhughes_7">Oil
company Baker Hughes to buy BJ Services
Local union officials are pleased at this new addition of benefits for
the companys hard-working staff. -
href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/08/hit_by_recession_cocaine_deale.html">Recession
drives drug dealers to telemarketing
Lines are manned by a crack team of operators skilled in speed
dialing. Insiders hope that this new approach will get them
out of the meth theyre in.
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 Champions Online Game Page.
