Welcome
to the 1,277th
edition
of Loading...

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

Death penalties, economics, AFK players, uber guilds, new games, old
games, social experiences, risk vs. reward and forum rants are today's
topic. That may be a lot of topics, but we've got it covered today in
Loading... Where's the Dot?

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
are today's top 5 Pulse results over the last week:

  1. World
    of Warcraft
  2. EverQuest II
  3. EVE Online
    (UP 9)
  4. Dungeons and
    Dragons Online
    (UP 1)
  5. Lord of the
    Rings Online

Biggest
movers in the last seven days
:

  1. The
    Agency
    (UP 14 to #18)
  2. EverQuest
    (UP 12 to #16)
  3. City
    of Villains
    (UP 11 to #13)
Recent Releases
Upcoming
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Loading... Daily

Medawky beat me to the punch today with the style="font-style: italic;">Allods death penalty discussion in href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81326">Microcosms. And
Martuk put the pieces
together
. So where does that leave us today with Loading...? Well,
dear readers, it leaves us with a bit of a rant.



It used to be that we'd log on to a game looking for excitement and
that excitement would often come from travelling to new areas or
sometimes even just sitting outside a bank talking to your friends or
making fun of the people who were trying to make a quick buck by
setting up their own in-game casino that more often than not would be a
scam with the player quitting out quickly if the dice didn't roll in
their favor keeping your hard earned cash which was more valuable at
that time because it took a good long while to earn what few pennies
you could scrape together to try to save up for that uber weapon that
would only later become obsolete due to expansions coming out faster
than anyone could complete them except of course those guilds that had
a lot more time than the rest of us. You know those guilds, the ones
who ran around town wearing their flaming swords and fancy hats
thinking they were better than us, and they probably were better than
most of us because we didn't want to admit that we didn't have, or
didn't want to face our real lives either, but these guys were better
at having no lives than the rest of us because they had something to
show for it instead of us, poor, pitiful us who spent more time than we
care to share trying to get our corpses from the bottom of Blackburrow
when no friends were online to help.



This was a day when you had to make friends, friends that would be
willing to help save your sorry skin from pulling one too many mobs or
not waiting until the enchanter was full mana or the healer was back
from AFK that they seemed to do a lot and just how small is their
bladder anyway? Is it some sort of prerequisite to playing a priest or
cleric or druid that you can only do so if you need to pee every 2.7
minutes or after drinking an ounce of energy drink or if an obscure
reference to the rain forest sets you off into a bladder-bursting
episode that can only be satiated by multiple AFKs leaving the rest of
your party to fend for themselves while you sit back and relax on the
porcelaine throne reading old issues of Archie's Double Digest because
let's face it, there's nothing like Jughead's Quest for Burgers when it
comes to downtime in the john.



Death means nothing any more to most of us and worse still many of us
like it that way because we don't want to play a game that has any
semblance of risk, just reward--rewards that will keep us playing no
matter how small the upgrade so that we can compare stats and claim
that we are the best and unique talented players just like the other
ten million served the night before on the same raid with the same
bosses, the same loot, the same macros presed at the same time in the
same order that we were told to do on UberLeetGuildMan.com because we
don't want to think for ourselves, but would much rather have someone
else tell us what to do and just sing along even if we don't know the
words like a giant online Karaoke machine that's been broken for some
time but no one really wants to bring it up because that would mean
that we'd have to find something else to do with our time while we wait
for another company to come up with another new idea that will be
trashed before it even sees the light of day because in the end we're
all too scared of change, and god forbid we try any of these games as
it's best to just wait until someone tries it, fails, and another
company picks it up and tries it again and feeds it to us with no risk
once again like a watered down beef stew with no actual substance, just
processed and reprocessed pre-packaged goods we've seen before and will
see again until that magical time when UberLeetGuildMan.com tells us
it's time to check out another game because this time they used real
beef.



It's hard. Hard to understand why we're so quick to pass judgment yet
so slow to accept change and try new things which could only benefit
the market as a whole, offering new experiences, mechaincs and a new
thing to obsess over for the next few months instead of hopping around
hoping that the next big thing will be the ultimate answer to all our
prayers of the last seven years when in reality there already is
something that fulfills our needs and desires but we're too ashamed to
admit that we made a mistake ever leaving it in the first place because
we wanted to fit in and be part of the 1337 crew like a little brother
tagging along except no one really knows who the big brother is and if
they did find out they'd realize he was just another person like us who
doesn't really have the answers but is making the best of what they've
got until something better comes along which may or may not happen but
will definitely not happen unless we finally stand up and say what we
want and accept no substitute, assuming of course we even know what we
want which most of us don't apart from knowing that we don't want to
spend much time and just want to reap rewards because nowadays it's not
about the actual game play but more about how many purples you can link
to your friends at the end of the night.



So I've ranted long enough, enough that you'll either have moved on or
gotten bored because we don't have the attention spans we used to
except when it comes to voicing our opinions on forums because that's
what we need to do to be heard and in the end we all need to be heard
whether young or old or middle aged and we'll reply to threads that get
us going hoping that someone will agree with us in the end but we know
it doesn't really matter just so long as we can post it all in the
forums.


Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day




From our Tavern
of the Ten Ton Hammer




Shnould
I bother
??



Darke
recently started playing an older MMOG on a trial account just to see
what sort of changes had happened in the game, but the changes he
encountered left him baffled and wondering, "What were the developers
thinking?" This frustrated him so much that he considered
organizing a group of players to storm the official forums and push for
imrpovements, because he, "being the ever MMO optimist, believes
there's potential there to be had!"



Would Darke's crusade to
make some noise on the official forums and push improvements be a
waste of time? Can the not-so-vocal minority ever rise up and champion
a cause, thereby making a difference? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=49771">Voice
your opinion in the Tavern of the Ten Ton Hammer.



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

Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread




"Seriously, unless the developer's name is Turbine, I wouldn't
even bother. Out of the many games I've been a part of, Turbine is the
only company that gets that 'the gamers pay the bills,' and that is
shown in how they've been developing for LOTRO
."



- solareus

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



Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!

New and Exclusive Content
Today at Ten Ton Hammer

7 new Ten Ton Hammer
features today! 101 in February! 216
in 2010!




INTERVIEWS

A New Dawn with Gods & Heroes

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81345



Yesterday's target="_blank">announcement that Gods & Heroes: Rome
Rising

would indeed be seeing completion brought much excitement to the MMOG
community. Ten Ton Hammer caught up to Heatwave Interactive's Tim
Schubert, Producer of Gods & Heroes to find out more about
the acquisition.



FEATURES & GUIDES

Microcosms Issue #6 - No Risk All
Reward


http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81326



While the controversy rages among the Allods Online
community
over the games death penalty, an underlying issue comes to light. Have
MMOGs gone soft? Did the once veteran group of tougher than nails
gamers get whittled down into a whiny group of folks wanting free
epics? Join Medawky this week as he explores this topic in Microcosms,
your weekly source for Free-to-Play and Microtransaction goodness.



The Seven Most Useful Web Sites For
EVE Online


http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81336/



Knowing what EVE Online-related
sites to read can be just as important
as playing the game. In this article Space Junkie tells us about his
favorite seven EVE
Online-related sites.



Star Trek Online: Guide to Fleets

http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/guides/fleets



Star Trek Online provides a fairly robust fleet (aka guild) structure.
From banking and fleet-designed uniforms to handy fleet-specific news
reporting, the system works fairly well. Creating a fleet is free, but
there is always room for improvement (Fleet Hall/Starbase anyone?). One
unique twist on the fleet uniforms is the ability to set rules for who
can wear the fleet uniforms based on their rank within the fleet.



WoW PTR 3.3.3 Class Changes

http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorials/333classchanges



The PTR patch notes for 3.3.3 got posted last week with changes for
almost every class.  Many players are surprised that so many
changes are coming so soon after Icecrown was released and the new PvP
Arena season started.  Even more players are left wondering what
all of this means for them?  Join our very own Byron “Messiah”
Mudry as he looks at each class and gives the rundown on what the
changes are and what they could mean for you.



Guide to Ice Crown Citadel - Frostwing
Halls


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/raids/icc/frostwinghalls">http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/raids/icc/frostwinghalls



Many guilds have been steadily working their way through Icecrown
Citadel since its release in patch 3.3. At this point in our series of
guides on the raid we are almost to the end, there is one last wing
left to defeat before facing Arthas. The last wing in Icecrown Citadel
is the Frostwing Halls which house two dragons that are dealt with in
two very different encounters. Are your ready for them? You can find
all the details on these two encounters in the guide to Frostwing Halls
by Byron "Messiah" Mudry.



WoW Weekly Report - "Top 10 Tips for a
Better Game"


http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/newsletter/issue55



The World of Warcraft Weekly Report is here again this week with a
review of this week's news, links to our lore column, a recap of
everything WoW in the past week, and our top ten tips for better
gameplay. Need a recap of everything WoW in the last week? Our Weekly
Report has you covered.



Today's
Hottest Articles and Guides

  1. A New Dawn with style="font-weight: bold;"> Gods & Heroes - Q&A with
    Tim Schubert


  2. Going Rogue with
    City of Heroes - A Q&A with Melissa Bianco
  3. Mytheon href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/mytheon/video/introQA_pt2"> Video
    Q&A Part 2: Sound, Loot, Launch Plans, and Microtransactions
  4. EVE Online href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81282"> - Sins of a Solar
    Spymaster #39 - The Twilight of the Great Powers
  5. Allods Online
    Archetype
    Interview Series Part 3 - The Mage
  6. Love
    Connections
    : Developers' First Gaming Loves
  7. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/features/the_traveler_episode3">Star
    Trek Online
    href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/features/the_traveler_episode3">:
    The Traveler's Guide - Episode 3
  8. Stargate
    Resistance
    PC Review
    href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/81065">

  9. Defining
    the Lore of Guild Wars 2
    - A Q&A with
    ArenaNet's Jeff Grubb
  10. Allods
    Online
    Archetype Interview
    Series Part 2 - The Healer
    href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/80983"> style="font-weight: bold;">

Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer
network!

- Benjaming J. de la Durantaye
and the
Ten Ton Hammer team




Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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