by Cody Bye on Jun 19, 2008
Welcome to the 853rd Edition of Loading...
If you aren't reading this in your e-mail, you could be.
target="_blank"
href="http://newslist.tentonhammer.com/dada/index.cgi"
onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Sign
up. Are you looking for gaming news?
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com"
onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">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
target="_blank">Ten Ton Hammer's news syndication program.
Enjoy!
Daily Column
Loading... Bringing the Ten Ton Hammer to the breakfast table.
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
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com" target="_blank">homepage.
(
target="_blank">What is Pulse?)
World
of Warcraft's push to retake the #1 spot on our pulse chart
has been thwarted somewhat although the title still looms ominously at
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc" target="_blank">Age
of Conan's perch.
target="_blank">EverQuest II and
href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com" target="_blank">Lord
of the Rings Online Remain within spitting distance of one
another, which could get a bit messy since both of them are
anticipating an expansion pack within year's end.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/24"
target="_blank">Vanguard has not so surprisingly
moved up to glower at
target="_blank">Warhammer Online, but as WAR's
marketing machine takes over don't expect that number to remain
stagnant.
As a warning to you all, John "Boomjack" Hoskin had to declare
another away day, but he promises to be back by next Monday.
Apparently there's some secret Jedi Council meetings that he had to
attend. (Editor's Note:
When Yoda calls, who says no?) In his stead, I - Managing Editor Cody "Micajah" Bye - have taken
up the gilded mantle of Loading... and hope to at least inform you, if
not entertain you. Since I am not nearly as witty as Boomjack, I've
included plenty of male genitalia references, which should make up for
my lack of funny.
With Age of Conan out of the starting blocks and sprinting
around the
track, the full attention of the MMOG industry has now landed squarely
on
target="_blank">Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.
Luckily, the Warhammer Online
developers have noticed that all the eyes are on them. Just last
weekend
the team at EA Mythic traveled to Europe to attend DreamHack. I'd never
heard
of DreamHack LAN event before this year, but from this video of Paul
Barnett it must be a convention of epic proportions. (The video comes
courtesy of
target="_blank">Josh Drescher's blog. Thanks Josh!)
Speaking of Mr. Drescher and the WAR road team, we couldn't
help but ask for a general quote from their guys on how their recent
Baltimore Games Day event turned out. Here's what Josh had to say:
Thanks Josh! From my personal experience, the computers around
any WAR demonstration are almost always full and I'm sure the lines in
Baltimore were enormous! If you attended the event, make sure to
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=30074"
target="_blank">drop us a line in the forums.
For those of you that haven't been checking random MMOG forums
every
other second, you may have missed an interesting little tidbit that's
been floating around the world wide tubes. Apparently a an ex-SOE
developer by the name of Dan Rubenfield (who did some work on the
infamous NGE addition to Star Wars Galaxies) posted a blog on his
personal website giving his own take on the NGE, why it happened, what
went wrong, and a large dose of verbal diarrhea that even made me
blush. Let's just say the term "Om Nom Nom" is used ad nauseum.
href="http://rubenfield.com/?p=86" target="_blank">While
a copy of this post still exists on the blog, it is a much
tamer version than the original piece of text Rubenfield had
tossed out. (
href="http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm?POST=2077408&bhcp=1#2077408"
target="_blank">Here's the original. Warning: May
not be safe for work.) And a brief snippet:
Truly, I don't know how anyone can expect to post something
like
this on the Internet in this day and age and not expect to receive a
whole truck load of hate in response. The previously mentioned blog
post must have been a response to a long, stressful day, a large bottle
or rum, or some combination of both. It's a tragedy that this kind of
post had to see the light of day, but obviously Rubenfield's true
feelings about things were divulged and it ruffled plenty of
feathers.
Since the post has seen the rounds on the Internet, several
individuals have taken their time to respond. While most are nothing
more than "You suck!" and "I hate you!" responses, there are a few
serious answers to the accusations that Rubenfield has thrown at the
feet of SOE and Lucasarts. Out of these, Scott Jennings (a
developer on a yet unannounced project at NCsoft and made famous by his
rants as "Lum the Mad") looked past the "Om Nom" comments and drove to
the heart of the matter:
Oh, no,
you didn’t.
You
didn’t just point the finger for NGE’s commercial
failure at everyone but yourself.
OH
NO, YOU DIDN’T.
“It
was a marketing failure.” (yeah, marketing makes or breaks
games, plus everybody dislikes marketing, it’s easy to blame
them!)
“Community
dropped the ball.” (yeah, you know, the community person
who was FIRED a week after trying to deflect the rage of a community,
who for SOME STRANGE REASON en masse felt betrayed. I WONDER WHY.)
Really, this only goes to show that making a mistake with an
MMOG is
something that will never, ever die. As much as everyone would like the
NGE to just fade away with time. It won't, because there will still be
players inside the game (and in other games) that remember their
disappointment at seeing their world totally altered under their
feet.
What do you think? Will the NGE ever die? Or will we continue
to see posts like Rubenfield's pop up once a month?
Do tell. The
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=30074"
target="_blank">Loading Forums await you. Do you
feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or
derogatory comments? Here's my
href="mailto:cody@tentonhammer.com">E-mail.
--
[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links,
headlines and taglines today. ]
14 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 201 in June! 1497 in
2008!
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today
Images/Video
EverQuestInterviews
JumpgateCommunity
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=949">Vanguard:Guides
AgeHot Content - Or, what I took a
fancy to
Real World News
href="http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=c44cd680-0b08-44d4-b5a3-37399bdb4c49">6thThanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com. Thanks to Phil Comeau
for doing the heavy lifting with the links.
- Cody "Micajah" Bye and the Ten Ton Hammer Team