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The Pulse

First, you vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is Pulse?). Here's today's Pulse results:

Biggest Sinkers and Floaters in the Top 20 this week

Hero's Journey (UP 126 to no. 12)
Tabula Rasa (down 8 to no. 15)
Guild Wars (down 8 to no. 16)

Loading... Daily

Loading... getting you Hammered every morning since 2004.

From a CME employee who wished to remain
anonymous: "I can't tell you how encouraging
it is to know that the community cares."

This morning I dropped off a FedEx package with $650 in gift cards as the final step in our CME kids donation drive. The Ten Ton Hammer community came through with $450 in cash donations and ten premium memberships, the proceeds of which we matched. My sincerest thanks to everyone that gave, you did a good thing.

One CME employee who wished to remain anonymous wanted me to convey his gratitude, saying "it means so much that the community cares." But while the donation drive is over, the financial problems at CME persist, so please continue to keep these folks in your thoughts and prayers.

Via Massive Gamer, this year's EVE exploit is brought to you by the EVE community in the wake of the starbase reactor exploit. At the core of the issue is a pair of manufactured items that are made with quantities of ore that can only be mines from moons (which is no small feat, requiring a player-owned station deep in null security space) and several reagents meant to make the cost of manufacture a little more commensurate with the going price. The problem was that the reagents weren't used up in the process, essentially allowing manufacturers to double or triple the value of a mined good with no added cost or use those component to manufacture even more valuable Tech II ships and equipment.

By all accounts, this has been going on for some time - since 2004 and raising an illicit 2.5 trillion ISK by one estimate (worth between $83,000 and $145,000 of very real money, depending on whether you use gray market or official spot prices for ISK - gray market seems more likely on this scale). To put this in perspective, the most powerful ship in the game, a Titan, costs in the neighborhood of 70-80 billion ISK to produce (assuming you can find a skilled builder that will sell to you). Considering that Titans were supposed to be scanty at best, the issue rightly earns CCP's description of the consequences of this exploit: "considerable and far-reaching."

Last week CCP finally took action, identifying seven corporations involved in the practice and banning 70 accounts and market prices are already starting to stabilize. But the real issue isn't so much the exploit, it's CCP's allegedly slow response coupled with its heavy-handed reaction. At least one of the perpetrators says he petitioned the bug at its outset, and only when nothing was done did his corp ramp up production.

Whatever the truth is, take this as a lesson kids: when you turn a bug into an exploit, past petitions (or pleas that a beneficial bug is just part of the game) won't save you if you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar. On issues like this, I find it hard not to side with the players, especially in an anything-goes setting like elder-game EVE. When the dam has cracks, you fix it, and the mills downstream that benefitted in the uptick of current will take care of themselves. No need to go tearing them down.

Think CCP's response is heavy-handed, or not tough enough? Join the discussion in the Loading forum, or my inbox is always open for comments.

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day

From our Tavern of the Ten Ton Hammer Forum

Female Gamers

It's an older thread, but it escaped my attention until somebody bumped it, thus making it stand up and demand attention. So...

Raise
your hand of you play a female character in a MMOG. Now raise your hand
if you actually have breasts (and no, man boobs don't count).
Our community member, Elannar, claims to have breasts and was
surprised to learn that some men find the existence of real
estrogen-powered women behind female avatars a rarity.

Ten
Ton Hammer's Age of Conan community manager, Savanja, is a real flesh
and blood girl as well as a gamer and a gaming journalist. (Down,
boys!) She commented: "Nowadays, I'd guess that females make up 40% of
the gaming community,
particularly for online based games like Yahoo Games. In MMORPGs, it's
likely more like 30-40% but that number is definitely rising."

Do
you agree with Savanja's estimate? Or are you always suspicious that
the people behind the curvaceous creatures you encounter in
game have hairy knuckles and Adam's apples? Speak out!

=================================

Awesome Quote from the
Epic Thread:

"For as long as I've been playing MMOs, there's been an ever increasing
number of female players within my in-game social circles. In the EQ
guild I was in the longest, most of our officers (including the 2
leaders) were females as were a good number of our membership in
general. Even our MT on raids was female. None of us saw gender as an
issue and I still don't understand why it should be."

- Sardu

=================================

Do you have a favorite Epic Thread? Let
us know!

6 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 106 in December! 3080 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks Phil Comeau for links and Real World News]

Reviews

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Previews

Runes of Magic: Embrace the Familiar

Community

Ten Ton Hammer's Stocking Stuffer Contest!

Guides

Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to:

Real World News

U.S. anti-kidnap expert kidnapped in Mexico [Link courtesy of Brian K.]

He escaped briefly and ransom distance, but didn't get far before recaptured.
Whinnies help horses communicate, picture herd

Sarah Jessica Parker calling out order of a round of Cosmopolitans equally effective, study shows
It's now legal to spit in Sarasota, Florida

Decades of enforced swallowing come to an end, sex trade workers applaud the ruling

Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!

- Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer Team

To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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