by Jeff Woleslagle on Oct 03, 2008
Welcome to the 928th Edition of Loading...
If you aren't reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer's news syndication program. Enjoy!
Daily Column
Loading... presidential debates will never block out our timeslot.
First, at Ten Ton Hammer, you vote on your favorite games with what you view. We report the results to you with something we call The Pulse.
If the Top 10 isn't enough, we also show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)
1. Warhammer Online - 200 BPM
2. World of Warcraft - 165 BPM
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 116 BPM
4. Age of Conan - 46 BPM
5. Atlantica - 18 BPM
6. Tabula Rasa - 15 BPM
7. Dungeon Runners - 10 BPM
8. EVE Online - 10 BPM
9. Runes of Magic- 9 BPM
10. Mabinogi - 9 BPM
Happy Friday, folks. Warhammer Online apparently saw its first successful city siege on the Karak Eight Peaks server, with the forces of Destruction taking Altdorf. Eurogamer broke the news, though I think I might be summarily dismissed if I wrote an article using only the Warhammer Alliance forums as source. Destruction apparently took the path of least resistance, cutting through the keeps and Reikland Fortress in a matter of hours before taking down the Order city of Aldorf.
The forums and article are pretty critical of Mythic Entertainment Mark Jacobs , who had this to say in an earlier interview at Eurogamer: "We've seen the other games out there where people can do things late at night while nobody else is on, but it doesn't work that way in WAR. It's impossible."
The last thing I'd want anyone to do is rein in Mark Jacobs (if that's even possible); we need more passionate and talkative devs that are willing to go out on a limb. My guess is that the proportion of high levels in the fight on the server this early in the game favored destro, and the game wasn't built to handle a tug-of-war contest where only one side shows up.
That won't be the case in a few months' time when a critical mass of high level players is established for both sides, but hopefully the renown gear imbalances we'll see in the meantime won't result in won side having a serious advantage over the other on any given server.
Ten Ton Hammer's Garrett Fuller will be talking with the Mythic team over the weekend about this and other WAR issues, so if you have something special you'd like him to ask, post hastily in the Loading... forum.
I was planning to write about the WoW Burning Crusade raid boss nerf as well, but I'll mostly spare you since the source article made my head hurt. Suffice it to say that Blizzard seems to have the expansion transition down to a science.
Oh, and this just in - Stargate Worlds closed beta starts for the final group of testers officially starts on October 15th, the official announcement and a few screenshots gratis can be found here.
The Loading... forum is available 24/7 for your comments. I'm still anxious to know how you like the new email format, so if you're receiving this newsletter via email, please take a moment to tell us what you think. You're welcome to email me if you'd rather not post.
Ten Ton Hammer Epic Thread of the Day17 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 48 in October! 2544 in 2008!
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks Phil Comeau for links and Real World News]
Images/Video
Otherland: New Screenshots Lord of the Rings Online: More Exclusive Mines of Moria Flyff: Version 12 Exclusive ScreenshotsClosed Beta
Stargate Worlds: Date Announcement!Interviews
Champions Online: Dev Q&A with Daniel StahlPreviews
Legends of Norrath: Ethernauts Loot Exclusive Sneak PreviewOp/Eds
World of Warcraft: State of the PvP in BetaCommunity
Warhammer Online: Coyote's Ultimate Guide Age of Conan: Border Kingdom Cryer - Times of Change Top 10 Free to Play GamesGuides
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP Portal World of Warcraft: Death Knight Class Guide Warhammer Online: Public Quest Maps - Troll Country Warhammer Online: Dark Elf RvR Quests - Tier 1 Warhammer Online: Introduction to the Renown System Warhammer Online: Witch Hunter Masteries Age of Conan: Quest Guides RebuiltHot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to:
Stargate Worlds: Date Announcement! Champions Online: Dev Q&A with Daniel Stahl Otherland: Q&A with Sr. Producer Kevin Buckner Jeff Lyndon: An Interview with an Ex-Gold Farm Operator Star Trek Online: Dev Q&A with Matt Highison Bigfoot Networks: The Killer NIC U.B. Funkeys: Industrial Designer Ethan Wood City of Heroes: Good versus Evil GiveawayReal World News
10 Ways to Waste Time on the WebThanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com.
- Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer Team