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Welcome to the 880th Edition of Loading...

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Daily Column

Loading... putting the 'Mo' in MMOG.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

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?)

Warhammer Online - 200 BPM
World of Warcraft - 177 BPM
Age of Conan - 84 BPM
Stargate Worlds - 20 BPM
Tabula Rasa - 17 BPM
EVE Online - 16 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 14 BPM
Atlantica - 10 BPM
EverQuest II - 10 BPM
Vanguard - 9 BPM

**Late breaking news!!! Congratulations to our Managing Editor, Cody Bye who is now the proud father of a blond headed (not red Cody?) baby boy!! **

Make sure to peruse the links section below the column today. There is some amazing coverage from Comic Con in there that many of you will enjoy.

So, as I mentioned in Saturday's Loading... the fans at Comic Con were nothing short of spectacular. They conducted themselves like humanity should. On a scale of one to five I give them 10 stars!
I was spoiled at Comic Con. At the risk of showing my Canadianism, there were so many people, yet very little rude behaviour. Sure, they were dressed like Jobana the Space Chimp, but they weren't standing behind me dropping the eff-bomb because they couldn't move six inches farther up a line that wasn't moving anyway. Everyone was basking in the glory of the industry.

My itinerary Saturday started with a chat with John Layman (comic genius), now working at Cryptic Studios. John is a genuine guy, who if his Internet friends are telling the truth, loves cats. More to the point though, he loves comics and has worked on some smashing ones. His Wikipedia entry goes like this,

"John Declan Layman (born August 2, 1969) is an American comic book writer and letterer. Once an editor for Wildstorm, a branch of DC Comics, Layman turned to writing comics full-time in 2002. He mainly writes for Marvel Comics, and has also written a creator-owned graphic novel called Puffed. He has also worked on several comic books based on pre-existing licenses such as Xena: Warrior Princess and Thundercats. In 2007, he began working as a writer for Cryptic Studios, a video game studio in Los Gatos, Calif. John Layman is a man among men. His very words destroy the eardrums of small children. Once when John Layman was lost in the woods alone, he killed a bear with a single finger and some Saran Wrap." --Wikipedia

That is the real Wikipedia entry. I feel my WikiRAGE rising.... HULK Smash Wikipedia! I see now why Ten Ton Hammer had their entry removed. We need two fingers to kill a bear.

After my chinwag with John (which is going to make a transcript tough to read) "John said: then John replied:", I headed down to Paul Barnett's 'Panel of One'. Perched atop the panelist's tables like a comedic Emperor addressing the masses, Paul delivered a brilliant monologue. Jeff has video of the entire affair that will be posted soon, perhaps by the time this Loading... hits the site. If you haven't been reading Paul Barnett's blogs from Comic Con '08 then you have truly missed out. A very heartfelt Thank You to Paul for taking time out his astonishingly busy schedule to write for Ten Ton Hammer on your behalf from the Con.

I was dead tired by this point, but Jeff suggested, and by suggested I mean demanded that we head out to the SOE San Diego complex. As always, Jeff made the right call. He's like my shorter, smarter, better looking moral compass and work ethic catalyst. While at SOE we were once again were impressed with DC Universe Online. Jens Anderson let us try the game hands-on and confirmed that the title will be a PC and PS3 title. DC is in pre-alpha, but the little bit that they prepared for the public was eye-catching. We also caught up with the Free Realms team where we coerced Sebastian into giving us a video interview about this unique title. Free Realms is going into Open Beta in October.

My first visit to Comic Con was an awakening of sorts. It's challenging to do the same thing repeatedly, year upon year. What was once euphoric becomes mundane. I liken it to the feeling you have when you open a new game that you have waited so long to play or perhaps a comic book that you yearned to read. You embrace the moment. It is uplifting. It inspires you. You feel empowered.

I have been to countless gaming shows as part of development, marketing and now the press (See the trend that my career is taking? At this rate I'll be attending Leipzig as Team Ten Ton gopher. I go fer this and I go fer that, whatever the guys need.), but I have never been to a show that had as much devotion, admiration and affection for the medium being presented as Comic Con. The fans were astounding both in their passion for and their knowledge of the books, games and paraphenalia that was on display.

The closest I have ever been to the Comic Con feel is the original GameStock that Microsoft held in, guesh, I can't even remember. Was it 1998? Developers like Bruce Shelley who was working on Age of Empires, Chris Taylor who was developing Total Annihilation and Chris Roberts (oh where have you gone?), who was working on Freelancer were empassioned and animated about what they were doing. XBox was merely a twinkle in Ed Fries eye. PC Gaming was King, Queen, Judge and Jury. The development teams and even the press were in a sort of rapture that was greater than the sum of the parts. We believed that anything was possible. The experience was magical and extraordinary. I am immeasurably fortunate to have been a part of it. It was a snapshot in time that for me will live forever.

Today, most game events have become press and industry only. You see the same people at every show and it becomes a Mario Kart like circuit of handshakes and smiles as you bump into developers, trying to reach the powerups first in your attempt to bump the other press off of the track. Shooting ink in their eyes (Mario Kart reference for those of you so enamoured with MMOGs that you play nothing else) is personally my favourite trick. You become friends with the developers (and a few members of the press). It becomes challenging to write about the games objectively and in many cases the exigent demands on the journalists cause their views to become skewed. The developers smile and nod while answering the same question for the 19,426th time. The press roam around like packs of hyenas who haven't eaten (and in some cases bathed) for a week. They grumble about most everything to anyone who will listen. Their feet are sore and their backs hurt. The bloggers resemble the hyenas, minus the pack, an appointment to talk to anyone and the obligatory elephantine video camera. Note to any press outlets and bloggers reading this. If you aren't going to make the effort to be prepared for an interview then pack up your handy-cam and stay home. It's not only a disservice to the rest of us who prepare for our appointments, hauling teams with hundreds of pounds of gear around, but it's a disservice to the fans. Do it right or stay home. You're wasting everyone's time. The developer's tanks of vim and vigor aren't infinite and every drop that you suck out of them is wasted. It is a soul devouring experience for a dev to to answer questions that could have been answered with a Google search and 15 minutes of your not so valuable time.

I went into this show not knowing what to expect. I came out looking forward to reading a classic piece of culture that I would never have been introduced to otherwise, a Watchmen compilation that I purchased while trying to find a thank you gift for Paul Barnett. I was able to meet a very distilled cross-section of society. They allowed me to take a glimpse, if only for a week into their passion and I'm richer for it.

The comic book industry looks much like the game industry when viewed as an outsider. They must be a bunch of bed-wetting, basement dwelling social misfits. They read comic books and comic books are silly. If that is your belief then you need to take a step back, rethink how you look at the world of entertainment and give it another go.

I have so much more to tell, and quite frankly I'm not happy with the way this article turned out, but I'm out of time and that my friends is a reality. Thanks as always for letting me get inside your head while I give you a tour of mine.

I know you're thinking something. Share! The Loading Forums await you. Do you feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or derogatory comments? Here's my E-mail.

[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links and Real World News.]

19 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 276 in July! 1854 in
2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Comic-Con 2008

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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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