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Q&As and disclaimers to start your Monday Loading...

Have you sent me an e-mail and I haven't written back? I try to respond to as many e-mail as I possibly can, but with the deluge that often comes to my mailbox it simply isn't possible to reply to everyone. Rest assured that I read every e-mail that I receive, though I ask for help with the big words.

Remember, the opinions expressed in Loading... are not necessarily those of TenTonHammer.com, it's partners, affiliates, Stephen Colbert, Gary Coleman or Iksar Shaman. I do speak for Vin Diesel.

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This column is your column and here are your numbers:

• 395 new Loading... minions have subscribed to the gospel of MMOG, also known as the Loading... mailing list in the first 18 days of September.
• 91 have joined this week!
• 19 people have unsubscribed this month. May they Rest In Peace.
• 2,434 total subscribers are on the mailing list. You're that good. Spread the word!
• 19 new exclusive MMOG articles this week.

With your WoW Census (in beta ) we are taking names and getting numbers.

• 47,402 characters were added yesterday.
• 961,104 characters are now being tracked across the U.S. and EU servers.

Your WoW Database (more beta - more testing) is growing like Tom Cruise's opinion of himself. It now contains:

• 3,095 quests
• 11,472 NPC records (complete with map locations)
• 1,819 comments from you, the loyal readers.

Gold farming and reselling companies are snubbing their noses at game developers while the websites they own (Thottbot, Allakhazam, OGaming, etc.) make money from the players who visit them. Some players are even paying the gold farming companies a monthly fee to use the websites.

Is there humour in a topic that evokes as much emotion as gold farming in massively multiplayer online games? I believe that there is, and ironically it was a Chinese (blamed rightly or wrongly for much of the gold farming) website that pointed it out to me.

""We call it 'Gold Farming'," said Wang Yiwei"

And so do we! Common ground is found immediately. Though we don't name ourselves after our private parts. Wang continued, shooting out the following;

"Players can only obtain Gold by accomplishing time-consuming quests, slaying monsters,...A big proportion of WoW players are white-collar workers and students. These people do not have enough time to go through all the time-consuming procedures"

Accomplishing quests and slaying monsters is what the game is at its core. If you aren't questing or slaying monsters what exactly are you doing in World of Warcraft? Don't tell me that you are roleplaying. Roleplaying is an urban myth, much like the release of Duke Nukem Forever. We hear a lot about it, but nobody has ever actually seen it.

Even in the wild, wild East, black market entrepreneurs like Wang have problems with the establishment stomping on their illegal and immoral behaviours. We don't normally expect this from Chinese run megacorporations, but like Milli Vanilli you just never know what you are getting.

""And there are risks, too. Online game operating companies, like The 9 Ltd, delete players' profiles if the players are found to be "farming Gold" for over 24 hours. If their profile is deleted, players are unable to recover their Gold," Wang added.
The 9 Ltd is the official operating company of WoW in China. It charges Chinese players 30 yuan for every 66 hours."

According to an incredibly convenient online currency converter 30 yuan are worth $3.79 U.S. I read it on the Internet. It has to be true!

"Wang said he expects his two companies together to do 80,000 yuan worth of business per month."

That's approximately $10,000 U.S. a month in the pocket of a guy who is ruining the games that you play.

If you haven't found the joke in this article yet then let me pull it out and lay it down. A man named Wang is selling virtual currency to people so that they can have a larger epeen. Wang is the Viagara of World of Warcraft. People partake in his fake engorgement to pretend that they are capable of something that they are not.

The answer to this swelling dilemma? Castration. I'm pretty sure castration is the answer to gold farmers. Cut off their nippy parts and we're on the road to gold free gaming. We need to call in the Lorena Bobbitts of the world and cut these wangs out of the system. Maybe this woman from Anchorage could do it? Maybe a dog could help us? Wangman, head over to Wikipedia to see what could happen.If they are going to call themselves Wang, John Thomas or Mr. Wiggles then we need to draw the line, dotted of course and then cut along it.

You can read the entire gold farming article at Eastday.com.

Post a comment at the bottom of this blog. If you are shy (or female and sending in naughty pictures) you can E-Mail me.

Every good guild needs a home. A home free of gold ads, secondary market farmers. Look no further than GuildPortal.com.

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Exclusive new TenTonHammer.com Content!
Let us entertain you or at the very least waste some of your time at work.09.21.2006 Exclusive Content

• City of Heroes/Villains: Screenshots and Video - Veteran Awards
  "As if the ability to fly weren't enough, today from Cryptic Studios, we have word of a new reward for longtime players of City of Heroes / City of Villains: wings! Different rewards will be available for players with accounts in good standing for the past 3, 6, and 9 months with the release of the free "Issue 8" expansion in November. Check out the newest original screenshots and a movie of a winged superhero in action!"
• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - Beta Journal #1
  "Are we breaking the NDA? Noooo! This is sanctioned. Brad McQuaid, Executive Producer of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, asked his beta testers if they'd like to write up some of their beta experiences to share with Vanguard fans. Shayalyn jumped at the chance. So we've got a journal for you, live from Vanguard's Beta 3! How did Shayalyn and her group defeat a bunch of bandits on Lomshir Plain, including their boss? Very carefully, as it turns out. You'll have to read the journal to learn more. "

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Vin Diesel Fact of the Day - Vin Diesel was in the kitchen with Dina.

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Now from the real world. You can't make this stuff up. [Thanks Matt for the headline leads.]

• Camera Shoots At 160 Megapixels
  Size? Remember those first cell phones?
• Teacher Gives X-rated Handout
  The bonus word today is Kama Sutra
• Bizarre Foot Licking At Wal*Mart
  As opposed to the normal foot licking that takes place at said establishment.
• Man Sentenced For Whizzing In Co-workers' Coffee
  Urine trouble when you do crazy things like that.

As always, thanks for visiting TenTonHammer.com,
-- John "Boomjack" Hoskin