Loading... By Crom! It's Age of Conan Launch Day!

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Daily Column

Loading... an MMOG shoulder to cry on for over three years.

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 - 23 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 9 BPM
EverQuest 2 - 9 BPM
Lineage 2 - 5 BPM
Warhammer Online - 5 BPM
Vanguard - 5 BPM
Pirates of the Burning Sea - 5 BPM
EVE Online - 4 BPM
Guild Wars - 4 BPM

It's Age of Conan launch day! With over 110,000 collector's editions sold and over 700,000 boxes shipped to retail this could be a wild ride. I managed to get the enormous client downloaded yesterday and put in four hours leveling up a Priest of Mitra. The release experience is dramatically better than the beta client experience. There were no crashes. I could play the game without a hitch in boot camp on a Mac Pro at 2560X1600 with most settings on high. It was almost unbelievable and quite frankly if I hadn't seen it myself I would call "fanboy". Well done Funcom. Well done!

There are still some things about the U.I. that I don't like, but it isn't game breaking and those dislikes are more a result of my being accustomed to another U.I. than they are defects in the AoC system.

The Ten Ton Hammer guild (which will be run by readers and not necessarily the staff ) is going to be on the Wiccana server. It is open to all Ten Ton Hammer readers. If you would like to hang out with some other folks who read this newsletter (scary) or who enjoy Ten Ton Hammer the game network (not very scary) then just ask.

Jeff has posted an interview with the man who scripted the raid bosses in Age of Conan, Eirik Munthe. Eirik was a great guy to talk to. He was patient with the press who really had no idea what to ask and yet, jumped into detail when Jeff asked questions that were related to his area of expertise.

I found time between phone calls to write an article giving an overview of raids and siege combat based on what was shown at the Oslo launch event. Not nearly as well written as Jeff's piece I suggest you read mine first or you'll feel like you're swilling $6 wine after tasting a 1787 Chateau Lafite.

Breaking away from the launch day frenzy, Tony "RadarX" Jones interrogated Kevin O'Hara, Senior World Designer for The Agency.

Don't let me keep you from going out and picking up your Age of Conan box today. Our forums are filled with rave reviews. So, far the pre-launch has been relatively uneventful with the exception of some players not being able to purchase the extra three days of access.

Until tomorrow. 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.

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[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links, headlines and taglines today. ]

16 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 163 in May! 1182 in 2008!

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Age of Conan Launch Event

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Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com. Thanks to Karen Hertzberg for doing the heavy lifting with the links.

- John "Boomjack" Hoskin and the Ten Ton Hammer Team

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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