Welcome to the 1,186th edition of Loading...

Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.

Greetings, Loading... fans! Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg here.
I'll be handling Loading... for the next three days and holding down
the Ten Ton Hammer fort while Ethec and the boys frolic...er, attend
meetings...in Las Vegas. I wonder what trouble I can get into while
they're gone. Send your Editor Gone Wild ideas to me at href="email:[email protected]">[email protected].
And now, on to the business of MMOG commentary....

There's certainly a subset of MMO gamers who are
ultra-competitive. These power gamers race to the level cap, duke it
out endlessly in PvP to stay near the top of the leaderboards, and
aren't satisfied with anything less than the best gear. But staying on
top takes a great deal of time and commitment that the average MMO
player, the one with a career and family life, just doesn't have. It's
to those gamers, the ones who have competitive spirits yet lack the
ability or willingness to let MMO gaming consume their lives, that I
dedicate this issue of Loading... Competitive by Nature, Casual by
Necessity.

width="100%">

The Pulse

You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result is the Ten Ton Pulse ( href="http://www.gunnars.com/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).

Here's today's top 5 Pulse results: href="http://www.gunnars.com/">

1. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/41"
   target="_blank">World of Warcraft
2. Dungeons
   & Dragons Online
3. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/254">Aion href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/254"> 
4. EverQuest
   2 
5. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/115">Age of
   Conan

Biggest movers today:

1. City
   of Heroes (UP 9 to #19)
2. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/117">Star
   Trek Online (UP 2 to #17)
3. Lord
   of the Rings Online (UP 1 to #6)

Recent
MMO Releases

• 8/25
  - CrimeCraft
  (release date)
• 9/1 -
  Champions
  Online (release date)
• 9/9
  - Dungeons
  & Dragons Online Unlimited (release date)
• 9/15
  - Runes
  of Magic "The Elven Prophecy" (expansion)
• 9/22 -
  Fallen
  Earth (release date)
• 9/22
  - Aion
  (release date)
• 10/8
  - Cities
  XL (release date)

Upcoming
Releases

• 11/3
  - Dragon Age:
  Origins (release date)
• 12/1
  - LotRO:
  Siege of Mirkwood (release date)
  
  
• 12/2
  - DOFUS 2.0
  (release date)
  
  
• Early 2010
  - APB
  

Important
Dates

• 10/23 - 10/24
  - Hero-Con
  
  

Loading... Daily

It’s about six or seven years ago. My family is gathered around our
Xbox, playing the first game we ever bought for that console: Gauntlet
Dark Legacy. My husband, son and I each have a controller in our hands
and we’re slogging through yet another brutal dungeon, laying waste to
our enemies. It’s great family entertainment.



I’m the Green Archer and, despite my son’s tanking talent as the Blue
Warrior, I’m out in front cutting through everything in my path. My
husband, the Red Wizard (read: Innately Squishy) is hanging back,
scrambling around while the booming narrator’s voice declares, “Red
Wizard needs food badly!”



“Take the fruit…” I say, rolling my eyes.



As we reach the end of this dungeon, the game racks up our kill counts
and ranks us. This is the moment I wait for each and every round.
“Who’s got the most kills?” I cry. “It’s the style="font-style: italic;">Green Archer!
Booyah, baby! Boo-yah!”



“You’re so competitive,” my husband says, and now it’s his turn to roll
his eyes.



What can I say? I have a competitive nature. Perhaps it’s because I was
the first born in my family and I enjoy the position. Or maybe it’s
that I was the only girl amongst male siblings and cousins and
I felt the need to prove myself. Whatever the case may be, since
childhood I’ve felt the need to be at the top of the ranks, whether
those ranks were achieved by defeating everyone else at Scrabble,
winning first place in the all-school writing competition, or scoring
the highest kill count as the deadly Green Archer.



In my early days playing EverQuest, I felt the need to be at the top of
my game, too. There was no ranking system in EQ, but it was important
to me to be one of the top players in my guild--the one who was
level-capped and wore the best gear. I liked that I my guild would call
on me to organize raids. My little casual guild was by no means uber,
but among my guildmates, I was a leader.



But then one day I went to the open house at my daughter’s school.
Outside her first grade room a collection of the kids’ drawings hung on
the wall, each picture labeled with careful first grader printing: MY
FAMILY. I scanned the wall for my daughter’s art. She’d depicted her
dad hunched over a crudely drawn PC. “My dad works on computers,” she’d
written. I smiled, and then looked at her drawing of me, holding a
sword and shield. “My mommy plays EverQuest.”



But, I run my own
business! I thought. Why
didn’t she say, “My mommy owns a business?” or “My mommy is a writer?” 
I cringed and slinked away, wondering what the other parents, not to
mention my daughter’s teacher, must think. Instead of seeing me as a
businesswoman, or even just a hardworking mom, my daughter identified
me as an EQ player. That was my wakeup call, letting me know that my
urge to be uber had led me to do too much gaming and, just maybe, not
enough living.



Don’t get me wrong--I love gaming. And I still dearly love being the
leader of the pack whenever I can be. But as the years progressed I
learned that working, raising a family, and living a full life
conflicted with being a power gamer. I learned to make my peace with
the idea that I would never top any leaderboards, or score any server
firsts, or rank among the first to reach the level cap in my MMOG of
choice.



It’s actually taken me a while to find a game that could satisfy my
need to feel uber while allowing me to remain the casual player that I
know I must be. Right now, Aion is that game. Among my legion I’m
certainly not at the top of the food chain--I’m a few levels behind the
legion’s leaders, my gear is decent but not top-of-the-line, and my
gathering skills are pitiful. And although this makes me twitch
occasionally, struggling against the urge to throw family and career
aside for a while so that I can blast my way to the top, I’m mostly
okay with it. My character looks cool, her skills are epic, she fights
like a well-oiled killing machine, and even if she’s not the best,
she’s enough.



As I wander the forum community at Ten Ton Hammer I discover more and
more that our readers and the people who frequent our community are
much like me--they game for fun, and while they may have competitive
urges, they’ve learned to temper them with responsibility. They are,
for the most part, grownups, even though they might not want to be.
They have families and careers. For them, MMO gaming provides some
much-needed leisure time, but they’ve moved past the point where they
use it to feed their competitive spirit. Like me, they’ve learned that
an MMO can be enjoyable for the journey when you’re not among the elite
who's willing or able to race to the destination.



And yet, if they’re anything like me, when it comes to a weekend game
of Scrabble or Monopoly, or even a run through some multiplayer console
game…all bets are off.



Booyah, baby! Boo-yah!



Are you a casual gamer in a competitive person’s body? Or have you
always been laid back? Hit the Loading… forum to talk about it.

---

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day



From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=3">Tavern
of the Ten Ton Hammer forum



href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=47052">Dragon
Age:Origins new game trailer sacred-ashes



Psyched about BioWare's Dragon Age? Yeah, so am I.
OneEyeRed linked up the latest trailer from GameTrailers.com and it
left our community members tingling with anticipation and, well...eh,
just watch the trailer, be careful to keep your pants intact, and then
head to the thread to href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=47052">comment.




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

Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread



"Dangnammit One-eye!
Thats another new set of pants you owe me. Yes, it was good for me."



-Anacche

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



Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!

---

7 new Ten Ton Hammer MMOG features today! 62
in October! 2,010 in
2009!



Today's New Features & Guides

• href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/newsletter/issue36">WoW
  Weekly Report - The Overpull "Battle.net Requirements and Cleave"
  
  The
  Overpull, your World of Warcraft newsletter by Ten Ton Hammer, is once
  again bringing you all of the latest WoW news. This week we go into
  battle.net accounts, The Guild, in game tower defense addons,
  and a lot
  more.
  
• The
  Rift Between Us - A Guide to Rifting in Aion
  
  Using
  rifts, also known as "rifting" or "rift hopping," is becoming
  more
  and more popular as people are reaching higher levels in Aion.
  For
  people who love to PvP, it's a thrill being in enemy territory. Check
  out Ten Ton Hammer's guide to rifting and soon you'll be landing on
  your enemy's doorstep.
  
• href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rom/guides/beginner_mage_guide">Runes
  of Magic – The Mage: A Beginner’s Guide
  
  Free-to-Play
  games are a dime a dozen these days, but there are a few that rise
  above the pack. Runes of Magic is one of the few to make the
  grade.
  Accessibility, smooth graphics, and fun gameplay combine to make this
  one F2P game worth checking out. If you like playing classes
  of the
  finger-wiggling variety, Dalmarus has created this handy guide for
  Mages just stepping into RoM.
  
• Champions
  Online - Celestial Powers Overview
  
  Coming
  October 27th to Champions Online, the new Celestial power set offers
  players a wide variety of healing and support powers. William
  “JoBildo”
  Murphy takes a look at what’s been revealed of the set so far and
  offers his opinions on what it means for the game.
  
• WoW:
  Knights of the Ebon Blade Reputation Guide
  
  One
  of the many factions that you can earn reputation with
  in World of
  Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, is the order called the Knights of
  the Ebon Blade. This group is made up of Death Knights who have made
  their home at the Ebon Hold in the Eastern Plaguelands. They also have
  bases at the Ebon Watch in Zul'Drak and the Shadow Vault in Icecrown.
  Byron "Messiah" Mudry tells WoW players how to gain reputation in this
  handy guide.
  
  
  
  
• Halls
  of Stone / Halls of Lightning Achievement Guide
  
  With
  the Wrath of the Lich king cycle for World of Warcraft almost complete,
  it is time for everyone to finish up all of their achievement
  goals. For many players that means finishing collecting all of
  the
  Heroic mode achievements. This guide walks you through getting
  all of
  the achievements in the two 5-player heroic instances located in
  Ulduar. Join Byron “Messiah” Mudry as he walks you through
  getting the
  eight achievements located in these two instances
  
  
  
• DDO:
  Unlimited Sorrowdusk Isle Video
  
  What
  do you get when you put undead, trolls, ogres, and other nasty
  creatures together on an island with an ancient evil? You get
  Sorrowdusk Isle, an adventure pack for Turbine's DDO: Unlimited. Check
  out this video of the Sorrowdusk Isle Adventure Pack that illustrates
  what this new content has to offer for the gamer on a budget.
  

Hottest Content:

1. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/newsletter/issue36"> style="font-weight: bold;">WoW Weekly Report -
   The Overpull "Battle.net Requirements and Cleave" href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/editorials"> style="font-weight: bold;">
2. style="font-weight: bold;">Aion: First
   Impressions
3. style="font-weight: bold;">EVE Online Video
   Q&A with GoonSwarm Spymaster 'The Mittani'
4. style="font-weight: bold;">Champions Online :
   B.A.S.H. Basics
5. Windows
   7, Gaming, and Why You Should Care
6. Mechanics
   No
   MMOG Should Launch Without
7. The
   Rift Between Us - A Guide to Rifting in style="font-weight: bold;">Aion href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/75229">
8. Ease
   of Access - Case Studies
   in Accessibility and Popularity
9. style="font-weight: bold;">DDO: Unlimited Sorrowdusk
   Isle Video
10. Moving
    the
    Genre Forward - A Look at Innovative Game Mechanics href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/75294">
    
    

---

Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network! 

- Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg and the Ten Ton Hammer
team