Loading... BlizzCON Gets Bigger

by John Hoskin on Aug 14, 2008

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Welcome to the 893rd 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... 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 - 154 BPM Age of Conan - 50 BPM EVE Online - 25 BPM Tabula Rasa - 18 BPM Lord of the Rings Online - 9 BPM Atlantica - 9 BPM Dungeon Runners - 7 BPM Lineage II - 7 BPM EverQuest II - 6 BPM

Warhammer Online continues to dominate the Ten Ton Pulse traffic charts as it nears launch day, September 18th.

Dungeon Runners, the free-to-play title from NCSoft (which is also a lot of fun to play) sticks in the Top 10 amidst rumours of layoffs. Our exclusive coverage of WAR continues today with a look at the Squig Herder. I can't personally encourage you enough (I'm not a cheerleader) to visit our Warhammer Online forums where at any given point in time you and a couple hundred kindred spirits are discussing the game that Mythic built. There will be no official forums, so hop in, shoot off your mouth (or keyboard) and join the festivities. The game is so popular right now that the sold out Collector's Edition is going for $399.00 on EBay.

I mentioned the NCSoft rumours yesterday and in response we were graced with a statement by none other than David Swafford, Director of Public Relations for NCSoft North America.

"We are announcing that 21 positions are being eliminated in the Austin office of NCsoft in the area of product development. Primarily this is related to products which we have not previously announced and were in prototype phases. We are also cutting some positions on the Dungeon Runners team after deciding not to port the client to other platforms at this time." --David Swafford, NCSoft

It should not come as a shock that the rumour mongering sites sensationalized this bit of news. In the end though, some prototypes are put on the shelf and Dungeon Runners client will remain PC/Windows only. At least one especially good Tabula Rasa staff member was let go. We wish you all the best.

Those of you who tried to purchase BlizzCON tickets, but were crushed in the tsunami of bits and bytes that washed over and eventually washed away the Blizzard store have another shot at tickets.

"On behalf of everyone at Blizzard, I want to apologize for the challenges and frustrations you experienced while trying to purchase BlizzCon tickets on Monday and Tuesday. BlizzCon is about the positive experiences you all have had with Blizzard games. As a result of this week's events, the excitement that many of you felt about the show has turned into dissatisfaction and disappointment

Due to these circumstances, we've reevaluated our convention hall space and come up with some solutions that will allow us to offer 3,000 more tickets for sale. We know this will not be enough to satisfy the very high level of demand for tickets this year, but we want to ensure that BlizzCon remains a great experience for those of you who are able to attend. To avoid the issues many of you faced this week, we'll be selling these 3,000 via a lottery. We'll post further details once our plans are finalized. Please note that the lottery will only be open to those with an active Blizzard Account as of 9:00 PM PDT on August 12, the time that the “Sold Out” notice was posted.

I, and everyone else at Blizzard, share the frustration and disappointment that many of you have expressed as a result of this process. We'll do what it takes to avoid this type of situation in the future." --Mike Morhaime

3,000 more tickets also means a cool $300,000 in revenue for Blizzard from the event. If you can't get to the event, but would like to watch it on TV then DIRECTV is the answer you were looking for. 16 hours of coverage will cost you $39.95. Full Pay Per View details are not available, but a preliminary page is now up.

From the 'What's in a name department', Brutal Gamer speculated that World of Warcraft was hacked yesterday because of some strange happenings on the servers, most specifically the message, "The game ends in 45 seconds". Though it sounds dastardly, that happens to be the message that battlegrounds give when there are not enough players to continue a match. Coincidentally, many battlegroup servers were also down. It's time to put the tinfoil hats away and get out Occam's Razor or for those of you who insist on using Latin in your guild names, lex parsimoniae.

You don't need a tinfoil hat to be excited about Jumpgate Evolution, but you do need to visit Ten Ton Hammer if you want to read the latest Developers Journal - A Bleakstone Sector Guide.

"To gamers, the most important information you can gather about upcoming games is anything that deals with them directly. The Jumpgate Evolution developers have heard this little tidbit of information time and time again, and they've come up with a beautiful little informative developer's journal giving a guide to the Bleakstone Sector in the upcoming game. Along with the sector guide, NetDevil has also doled out six exclusive screenshots to run with the article, on top of the exclusive fan Q&A we held with the developers. If you're up for some space combat, make sure you check out this article!" --Developers Journal - A Bleakstone Sector Guide.

Last and perhaps least for today, Saga of Ryzom looks like it might be making a comeback. The original publishers went bankrupt stiffing us and I'm sure others for advertising money owed. It's amazing how many advertisers don't pay their bills. We really need a public list of these folks, both to help publishers like Ten Ton Hammer and to help the developers who deal with them unknowingly tarnishing their own reputations when they team-up.

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.

23 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 51 in August! 2035 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Images/Video

World of Warcraft: Deathknight Starting Area Screenshots Jumpgate Evolution: Exclusive Bleakstone Sector Screenshots Star Wars Galaxies: Exclusive Champions of the Force Celetania: Gameplay Screenshots Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Concept Art Atlantica Online: Exclusive Combat Video Zu Online: Northern Icy Fairyland Screenshots Emerald Island: Exclusive Trailer NeoSteam: Upcoming Factory Screenshots

Previews

Warhammer Online: Career Mastery - Squig Herder Warhammer Online: Dwarf Rune Priest World of Warcraft: Instance Guide - Azjol-Nerub World of Warcraft: WotLK Beta Journal - Getting in the Game

Interviews

Aion: Update Interview with Charles Dane

Free-to-Play

Top 10 Free-to-Play

Developer Diary