by John Hoskin on Jan 26, 2007
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Two large pieces of news today; first up, Vanguard Saga of Heroes launches for pre-order customers. They hype is starting to go through the stratosphere. Our Vanguard community had more concurrent readers yesterday than our largest competitor had on their entire network. Booyah Vanguard! Booyah!
Note that I wrote "Vanguard community". We build professional communities. We do not run fansites as many developers tend to call them. if you want fansites then visit MySpace or Tripod or Geocities. We pay our staff. They work hard. They know the ins and outs of the game that they cover and they are professionals. I am the least professional of the bunch by a long-shot. They won't even sit with me in the lunch room. I'm the equivalent of Dwight from 'The Office' at Ten Ton Hammer.
The next big news bomb is regarding Lord of the Rings Online. No, no...they aren't going to give me the rights to the names LeggomyLegolas or LoLegolas or even BoomGandalfJack. Instead they announced the following;
"This exciting Founder's Program rewards all players who pre-order The Lord of the Rings Online with special $9.99 monthly subscription pricing, early access to the game (beta version), character roll-over and unique in-game bonus items.
Players can become a Founder by pre-ordering the title at www.lotro.com/preorder or at retail stores nationwide beginning February 1, 2007. This limited-time offer is exclusively available to pre-order customers."
They also announced a lifetime membership fee of $199. You would have to play for at least 20 months at the $9.99 pricetag to make this worthwhile. How many of you actually play a MMO for 20 months now?
Our Wikipedia drama continues. Gamers get a lot of flack for being nerds. Let me tell you. You are the big men on campus, the coolest kids on the block, the Brad Pitt of the Interweb and the Vin Diesel of record all rolled into one next to the rabble that runs the show at Wikipedia.
You truly have to read the link above to believe it. I expect to see some of these folks on CNN as they run into the Encyclopedia Brittanica head offices with C4 strapped to chests. We are all dumber for reading that link and you have me to thank. You are most welcome.
They are so "holier than thou" that they decided that they need not share the Google PageRank benefit of the 139,000 pages that link to them. Get this...
"Wikipedia has placed nofollow on all external links, based on my spot check of random entries such as Gregorian calendar, MacGuffin, and Albert R. Broccoli. This change was made with little if any discussion, though there appears to be an effort now to decide whether it should be rescinded.
If this becomes Wikipedia policy, several million external links on 1.2 million pages will no longer contribute to Google's ranking algorithm, and Wikipedia's own pages will get a boost, as Phil Ringnalda describes: " [Read more]
So it appears that there is plenty of time to argue the merit of the site ranked 8,600th largest on the Internet for inclusion in their little club, but no time to argue the ramifications of screwing over the 139,000 sites that link to them. One-way street. It reeks of racism against the gospel of MMOG to me and I'm calling them out.
Wikipedia is AntiTenTonite. They have made it very obvious that they are against the gospel of MMOG. Our site has been sent to a Wikipedia concentration camp and will soon be executed, perhaps at the hand of Rosie O'Donnell.
A holy crusade has been set in motion and verily I say unto you that I cannot stop it. Tauren, Blood Elf, Draenei, Raki, Gnome, Dwarf, unite and begin the march on the virtual Satan that threatens our very relgion. Crush him beneath your 408 AC plate boots. Smite him with your... ermm.. smite spell.
This jihad may be enough to unite the armies of Loading... with the followers of Coyote. It has been prophesized that Coyote's jihad brings the boys to the yard. It was that or the Pussycat Doll music he was listening to, we aren't positive yet.
Wikipedia for hate crimes against TenTonHammer, MMOG players and human beings in general I find you guilty. Brace for impact.
Talk to me, either in the comments section of the blog or in our forums!
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Exclusive TenTonHammer.com Content!
01.26.2007
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Scientist Develops Caffeinated Doughnut [Thanks Matt]Vin Diesel Fact: Vin Diesel is the fifth dentist. The one that doesn't recommend Crest.
Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com
- John "Boomjack" Hoskin