Loading... We Like to Watch

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Posted Tue, Sep 15, 2009 by Ethec

Welcome to the 1,164th edition of Loading...

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

As we discussed in yesterday's newsletter, MMOs aren't always the most watchable games. That's beginning to change with more and more action-oriented games, but in between some comments that would make awesome chapter titles in Satan's leadership book, Activision CEO Bernard Kotick stated that he wants to fuse the best parts of console gaming with PC gaming. Are we seeing hints about the future of Battle.net unfold before us? That, plus the latest round of troubles for the developers of Stargate Worlds, is yours to discuss in today's Loading... We Like to Watch.

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:

Biggest movers today:

Dark Age of Camelot (UP 23 to #19)
Star Wars: The Old Republic (UP 5 to #12)
Runes of Magic (UP 4 to #18)

Recent MMO Releases

8/4 - World of Warcraft Update 3.2 (content patch)
8/25 - CrimeCraft (release date)
9/1 - Champions Online

Important Dates

9/15 - 9/18 - GDC Austin
10/1 - 10/3 - EVE FanFest

Upcoming Releases

9/9 - Dungeons & Dragons Online Unlimited (release date)
NEW - 9/22 - Fallen Earth (release date)
9/22 - Aion (release date)
10/9 - Cities XL (release date)
Early 2010 - APB

Loading... Daily

MMOs typically aren't the most watchable games. If we locked you in a room with 3 sets of people playing MarioKart, Call of Duty 4, and World of Warcraft, chances are you'd gravitate away from WoW and towards something with LAN or console appeal. Not only are the UI elements small and the gameplay relatively slow-apace in the typical MMO, the more dazzling side of the game is how people cooperate to complete objectives, and that's hard to see from a single player's perspective.

But gamers are, by nature, watchers. Half the fun of any game is talking about the thrilling moments afterward, and the best part of my job is sharing with you, longsuffering reader, the best moments I experience in the MMOs I play. MMOs are usually better in the telling than in the watching, so it's no surprise that a game like EVE Online has an exponentially bigger armchair audience than its active playerbase. We like to watch, perhaps more than we like to play sometimes, and TVs are typically staged much better for an audience than even the biggest e-peen of a computer monitor.

I guess that's why this article on how Activision plans to bypass consoles with "untethered Guitar Hero" doesn't surprise me. Kotick argued for a streaming presentation of video games that make use of a media hub rather than a licensed console, which makes sense now that Guitar Hero and Rockband have proven that you can (easily) sell hardware with software. That media hubs will probably become licensed consoles in this scenario seems to have escaped him.

What does surprise me is how open Bernard Kotick is on the subject of streaming media (Kotick is President and CEO of Activision Blizzard, whose subsidiaries, surprisingly enough, are Activision and Blizzard). Kotick's sweeping statements go far beyond relaying the thought process for Guitar Hero, but also (potentially) games like Call of Duty and Blizzard's upcoming games. Could Diablo 3 and the ever-mysterious "unannounced project" by piped directly into your Media PC? Is Blizzard grooming Battle.net to take on this role after all?

Kotick went on to make more gruffly ass-hatted comments like "The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games" and that's he's tried to instill into the company culture "skepticism, pessimism, and fear." It's like games industry rewind to 15 years ago, it shows how impervious and godlike the executives of these companies believe that they are, and it wholly explains why Blizzard done more exploitation than innovation since the olden days. You can't argue with the results in the short-term, though, and the reality of the Blizzard situation is probably nowhere as bleak as it sounds, as judging from our own interactions with Blizzard developers.

I guess we'll all have to keep watching to find out what these comments mean to Blizzard, but in the meantime, do your own bit of speculation the Loading... forum.

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day

From our Articles, News & Events Discussion

Major Investor Sues Gary Whiting of CME

I'd love to see the Stargate IP come to life as a MMOG; I really would. But whenever I picture the hardworking folks at Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, developers of Stargate Worlds, I see the company's founder, and alleged shady businessman, Gary Whiting shooting down their dream of launching a game like a player in some crazed game of Duck Hunt. I have no doubt that there are a lot of good people working on Stargate Worlds, but I have to wonder how they're dealing with the oppression of financial woes, scandal, and now lawsuits.

Will CME ever get a break? Do they deserve one? Would you like to see them pull off Stargate Worlds? Share your comments.

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Awesome Quotes from the Epic Thread

" Just end this SGW farce now and give the IP to someone that can actually make a good SG game."

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

5 new MMOG home-grown articles today! 29 in September! 981 in 2009!

Today's New MMO Coverage, Features, and Guides

Star Wars: The Old Republic VIP Interview from PAX 2009
Public interest in all things Star Wars: The Old Republic related is at an all time high, as was illustrated in Ten Ton Hammer’s latest query to our premium members as to which upcoming MMOG they wanted to hear more about for our next VIP interview. With a lengthy list of reader-submitted questions in hand, our PAX 2009 ground crew made their way to the LucasArts Cantina where they had the opportunity to discuss the game with producer Jake Neri from LucasArts and producer Blaine Christine from BioWare Austin.
Pre-AGDC Interview with Star Wars: The Old Republic's Gordon Walton
Gordon Walton is a name that has been around the gaming industry for a long time. He has worked for several major game developers and been involved in the AGDC (Austin Game Developers Conference) regularly. Ten Ton Hammer recently caught up to Gordon Walton prior to this year's AGDC to get his views on online gaming, the MMOG game space, and how he feels the AGDC can benefit developers and the industry.
Aion Asmodian Female Emotes Video
After we posted our last Aion Emotes Video for male Elyos, many members of our community wanted to see what the female emotes looked like. This week we are giving the people what they wanted. We have put together a video to give you a look at the emotes for Asmodian females.
Aion Altgard Zone Guide
Aion's Asmodian characters, newly ascended and ready to tackled the big and wild world of Atreia, set out to Altgard to test their skills and rid the world of undesirables. This is no easy task for the young Daeva and each player will need every tool available to them in order to succeed in their adventures. Our Altgard Zone Guide is such a tool! To ease your passage through unknown lands, keep this guide handy for quest help and tips that will make your early level days far less painful.
Torchlight Vanquisher Teaser Video
Torchlight is gearing up for a launch in October, and the teaser trailers are in. As much as we'd like to horde the videos for ourselves, we just couldn't do that to you. In this video you'll see the Vanquisher in action as she wrecks her enemies. She's the sharp-shooting class of the game, but she ain't no William Tell. Forget the apple, she aims for the face.
World of Warcraft Editorial - Are PTRs a Good Thing?
Public Test Realms (PTR) have become Blizzard’s primary method to test new content before its release to ensure that everything is ready for public consumption. Players swarm to the PTR to look at every aspect of the game that is changing and very rapidly analyze, digest and then regurgitate the changes back to other players in easy to handle chunks of information. Is this a good thing for most players though? Should content be available before release? Byron “Messiah” Mudry asks the question “Are PTRs a good thing?”

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Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network! Have a great weekend!

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

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