by Jeff Woleslagle on Mar 13, 2009
Welcome to the 1,035th Edition of Loading...
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The Pulse
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 top 5 Pulse results for today:
World of Warcraft EverQuest 2 (UP 1) Warhammer Online (UP 1) Age of Conan (UP 1) Lord of the Rings Online (UP 1)Biggest Movers in the Top 20 this week :
EverQuest (UP 13 to #10) Champions Online (UP 10 to #17) Dream of Mirror Online (UP 8 to #18)Loading... Daily
Loading... a golden ticket idea every day.
Thanks to all who joined us for the 38 Studios dev chat last night where, as promised, we had fun despite not being able to talk directly about their MMO project. This is a dev team that really wants to shock and amaze you with their fully formed ideas rather than let your expectations run wild on half-hints and assumptions. We can respect that, but the conversation kicked into gear at several points thanks to Cody's good questions. Both gents - Curt Schilling and Steve Danuser - were a pleasure to talk to, and Curt's indomitably encouraging influence no doubt makes each workday the best kind of challenge for 38 Studios staff.
I almost breached the 38 Studios wall at one point when I asked (or almost asked, as the transcript will reveal) whether they felt MMOs with an unremittingly frazzled, chaotic, and uncomfortable world setting at every turn seemed destined to fail. As I've said oft times before, Fallout is fun for a month, but if you can play and replay it for a year, I'm coming to your house come the dawn of the apocalypse. There's enough depressing influences in real-life for me to go looking for that in a game, but dedicated players of games like Requiem: Bloodymare will no doubt disagree.
Steve Danuser, one of my favorite people from back when I used to run the Ten Ton Hammer EQ2 site, agreed, saying something to the effect that no matter how many dangerous areas and influences a player runs into, it's important that they have a home to come back to at the end of the day. Games accomplish home in a variety of ways, not just setting or true-to-form player or guild housing. Fully customizable and just-for-fun housing can help, though efforts should be made to keep it from feeling like a well-kept ghost town. For my spuriously spent money, no game did or does player housing better than EverQuest 2 - which used just the right amount of instancing.
Aside from social interaction, which is the reason why most of us play MMOs in the first place, setting is probably the leading indicator of player comfort. We all like that feeling of risk, of venturing a little too far into the dungeon, fighting mobs that con a little higher than what we're rated to fight, and seeing sights that you certainly wouldn't want to see hanging in your living room (unless maybe you're this girl). It's a fun place to visit but no place to stay, and everyone needs a break from the grit and danger in a game meant to be be played for months and years, if for no other reason than to renew the adrenaline rush and novelty of the experience when we venture in next time.
What does it take to make an MMO your new online home? Is it just the community, or does setting and story play a role? Share your thoughts in the Loading... forum or feel free to email me, and have a great weekend!
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our SWTOR: General Discussion Forum
This is BioWare (KotOR) not Obsidian (KotOR II)
Seems
like it's been a while since we talked about Star Wars: The Old
Republic. After the initial hype surrounding the announcement that
BioWare was working on a Star Wars MMOG (the worst-kept MMO gaming
secret ever) died down, it seems most of us settled in, waiting
for the developers to work their magic, content in the knowledge that
when they were ready to tell us more about the game they would.
But
there's been some new activity on our SW:TOR forum, so what better time
than now to revive the discussion of this much-anticipated game? In this thread,
our member skodan felt the need to point out that BioWare (who were
responsible for the first Knights of the Old Republic RPG) are
developing this MMOG, not Obsidian (makers of KotOR II).
"So
all those saying that KotOR II was a failure for BioWare, well you are
wrong; they had nothing to do with it," skodan proclaims.
But was
KotOR II a failure? What set the first game and its sequel apart? And
what does any of this mean for Star Wars: The Old Republic? Head over
to the wretched hive of scum and villainy (no, not really) that is our
SW:TOR forum and have your say.
=================================
Awesome Quote from the
Epic Thread:
"I
enjoyed both games a lot and really don't understand why people
complain so much about Obsidian. Of course they aren't as good as
BioWare, no one is in my opinion, but they still produce AAA titles."
- bobfish
=================================
Do you have a favorite Epic Thread? Let
us know!
5 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 54 in March! 314 in 2009!
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks Phil Comeau for links and Real World News]
Op/Eds
Remembering EverQuest: Ten Years of MemoriesCommunity
Loading... Live #8 - EVE Online: Apocrypha Dev Chat Vooncast Goob & Begud: "Dirty Work"Images
Fallen Earth: Gallery Update - Exclusive Hoffa Bunker ScreensGuides
World of Warcraft: Soloing the Warlock, Lvl 61-80Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to:
Remembering EverQuest: Ten Years of Memories Loading... Live #8 - EVE Online: Apocrypha Dev Chat Vooncast Goob & Begud: "Dirty Work" The Struggle for Acceptance - Is Faction Grinding Necessary? The Comic Book Guy: Watching the Watchmen MMOG Wizard 101: Tops 1 Million - a Q&A with J. Todd Coleman DOMO Review: Through the Looking Glass, Indeed geeked: "Chuck Norris Has No Equal" Mabinogi: Pioneers of Iria Expansion Interview EverQuest 2: Exclusive EQ2 Game Update TourReal World News
Horse bites off man's testicle, then spits it outThanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
-Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team