by John Hoskin on May 05, 2008
Welcome to the 822nd 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... the industry's longest quest chain.
First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.
If the Top 10 isn't enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)
Age of Conan - 200 BPM World of Warcraft - 55 BPM Lord of the Rings Online - 17 BPM EverQuest 2 - 16 BPM EVE Online - 13 BPM Warhammer Online - 12 BPM Guild Wars - 10 BPM Lineage 2 - 10 BPM Vanguard - 10 BPM Sword of the New World - 8 BPM[Quick contest update: Our Wonderland giveaway continues with $1100 in prizes to be won including a $100 Amazon gift card! ]
An unfortunate hurdle that any new massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) must overcome is that it will be compared to games that have had years to polish and perfect their product. Rocky launches have retarded the potential of many games. The list is long, but Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Horizons are perhaps the two best examples of titles with enormous potential that self-destructed at launch and never recovered. Horizons is still careening in and out of view like a tuba player in a drunken marching band. Vanguard promised gaming nirvana. Delivered some of it, and made such a mess of the rest that even some of the developers didn't play the game at launch, opting to finish off World of Warcraft content that they hadn't consumed yet. True story.
World of Warcraft had a much rockier launch that most pundits expected. There were bugs, server crashes and other issues, but one underlying fact was that the gameplay worked on a level that appealed to most players. It was intuitive, paced beautifully and scaled at a rate that kept players coming back for more. You didn't need to read a manual or slog through the much in message forums to progress, though astonishingly that level of play was also available to those who relished it. Many of the issues with WoW were due to its enormous success. That said, they knew how many boxes were on the shelves. There must have been some expectations as to how many would sell. I can't imagine the Blizzard marketing team sitting down in a room somewhere lamenting the fact that they had burned 2,000,000 copies of the game and sold them. It's plausible I suppose that they expected the huge sales, but not so quickly in which case they are still not forgiven. Loading... fans don't forgive so easily. They do pay $15 a month. 400,000 unique readers paying at least $15 each per month is $6,000,000! If you all only pay me that $15 for one month I promise I will write better articles. This is no joke! Just joking. Or not. Where were we?
EverQuest II launched in better shape than WoW, but didn't offer the same intuitive gameplay. It's important that as players we don't confuse intuitive with easy. EQ II had a much deeper gameplay mechanic at launch that WoW, but as a whole the game wasn't as intuitive. Players were frustrated. Many like myself decided to give WoW a shot and the rest was history. It wasn't an easy decision to make. I had been one of the quickest levelers in the game, lead one of the best guilds in the game and yet, the gameplay just couldn't keep me entertained.
Lord of the Rings Online had perhaps the best technical launch of any MMOG in history. The game was well received by players, but by level 20 or thereabouts they began to churn back to WoW. If LotRO and WoW had launched simultaneously I think the breakdown of players would be quite different. LotRO had to compete with a game that already had two years to iron the little wrinkles out. Players given the choice of very similar games and very similar gameplay decided that the title with the most content and polish would get their money. Remember, Blizzard had two years to get things right.
Another Turbine title, Dungeons and Dragons Online attempted to deliver a completely different gameplay experience with less than spectacular results. It was too different apparently and though I enjoy the game the subscription numbers are relatively low when compared to many other AAA titles on the market.
The next title to try and break into your hearts will be Age of Conan. Many of you (Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Puts pinky finger to corner of mouth) won a chance to test out AoC in the current beta. Not only do the Funcom team need to deliver a flawless technical launch, free of crashes, server downtime and client misbehaviour, but they need to give customers enough content to compete with games like WoW and EQ II that have had four years of extra development time. Is this even possible? Are Erling and Gaute veritable supermen who will make your dreams come true? You tell me.
EQ II proved that fancy graphics don't trump intuitive gameplay. The combat system in AoC sets the game apart from the crowd, but will that be enough? Will AoC provide enough glue to keep not only its game components adhered intuitively together, but players smitten by what they are experiencing?
Lay it on the line! 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.
--
18 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 45 in May! 1064 in 2008!
[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links, headlines and taglines.[
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today
Images/Video
Wakfu: New Concept Artwork 2Moons: Exclusive Gameplay Video Tabula Rasa: Six Month Veteran Rewards Warhammer Online: Concept ArtInterviews
Champions Online: Cryptic Q&AReviews
Flyff: First ImpressionsPreviews
Magic World OnlineCommunity
Vanguard: Haelufir v. Crom? Age of Conan: Clan Soup #8FAQ
EverQuest 2: Races & Combat FAQ UpdateOp/Eds
World of Warcraft: Selling Arena RatingsGuides
Age of Conan: Class Guide Portal Age of Conan: Necromancer Skill List EverQuest 2: Shadowknight Class Guide Update World of Warcraft: Staying Alive on the Isle of Quel'danas World of Warcraft: How to Farm 100 Gold in an Hour World of Warcraft: Lockpicking 101 Lord of the Rings Online: Woodworking GuideHot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to
World of Warcraft: Selling Arena Ratings Champions Online: Cryptic Q&A From 2004 to 2008: What have we learned? Warhammer Online: Exclusive Live Q&A with EA Mythic Age of Conan: NDA Lifted! Wonderland $100 Giveaway Bounty Bay Online Client @ Ten Ton HammerReal World News
Man grows back missing finger using 'pixie dust' [Courtesy of Matt N.!]Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com. Thanks to Phil Comeau for doing the heavy lifting with the links, headlines and taglines!
- John "Boomjack" Hoskin and the Ten Ton Hammer Team