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to the 1,267th
edition
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Loading... is the premier daily
MMOG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.

In a rare turn of events, Myst
Online: Uru Live
makes a comeback. Will it be able to stick
around this time? Also, sales of virtual items for real cash in style="font-style: italic;">Planet Calypso sets new records...
again. All this today in href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/80745">Loading... It All Adds
Up... Or Does It?

The Pulse

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

Here
are today's top 5 Pulse results:

  1. World
    of Warcraft
  2. EVE Online
    (UP 1)
  3. EverQuest II
    (down 1)
  4. Star Trek Online
    (UP 1)

  5. Dungeons and
    Dragons Online
    (down 1)

Biggest
movers today
:

  1. Fallen
    Earth
    (UP 26 to #9)
  2. Global
    Agenda
    (down 3 to #14)
  3. Warhammer
    Online
    (down 1 to #10)
Recent Releases
Upcoming
Releases

  • 2/10 - href="http://www.stargateresistance.com/">Stargate Resistance
    (expansion)
  • 2/16 - href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/expansions/sentinelsfate/index.vm">EverQuest
    2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion)
  • March 2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/998">APB
  • Spring 2010
    - Mytheon
  • TBA 2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2079">Final Fantasy XIV

  • Spring 2011
    - Star Wars:
    The Old
    Republic



Loading... Daily

Myst made for one hell of a great single player puzzle game. I spent
days on end with my college roommate working through the original game.
It was captivating, challenging, and a lot of fun. But hey, we were
poor college students. Anything that could distract us from our real
life obligations without costing much money was a win in our books.



In 2007 the newest iteration of the game by developer Cyan Worlds
brought it to the massively muliplayer market. Players would get
together online to solve the puzzles and advance the story of style="font-style: italic;">Myst
Online: URU Live. It was certainly a unique experience, though
calling
it a "niche game" would be like calling Rosie O'Donnell "a little
annoying." No sir, the game didn't see many players. In 2008 the
project came to a close and servers were shut down.



But now, Myst Online: URU Live
is back again, now aptly named Myst
Online: URU Live Again
. Cyan Worlds has put up a fresh new
server and is offering the game as an entirely href="http://mystonline.com/en/">free-to-play experience.



The game may have never received many subscribers but it did get href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/index.php?q=node/594">favorable
reviews
by many critics. Perhaps the timing wasn't right, or perhaps the game
just simply did not have a large enough market appeal to last. Whatever
the case, it hasn't stopped Cyan Worlds.



That, alone, is commendable. These developers believe in the game so
much, and are so committed to it that they'd rather put the game up as
a free-to-play option instead of letting it die forever. "Oh, but sure,
other games have done this," you may argue. But those other games are
still attempting (some
quite successfully) to make the game profitable through
microtransactions. From what we can tell, style="font-style: italic;">Myst Online
is not offering microtransactions and is quite simply being funded by
the developers with donation options on the front page. Considering
some of the forum activity
the game has seen even after it was shut down, this community just may
be enough to keep the game afloat.



And in other news: Some guy just href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/80736">spent $69,696 on an egg.
And that's not the craziest part; it wasn't even a real egg. style="font-style: italic;">Planet Calypso
player Deathifier invested in this egg as a gamble. No one
knows what will hatch of the egg in the game. Hell, no one knows if the
egg will even hatch. For all we know this bloke may have just bought
himself the world's most expensive paperweight. That seems a little
unlikely though, but if it does turn out to be the case, we'll see who
ends up with egg on his face.



It's good to see the economy picking back up to the point where we, as
consumers, can nonchalantly drop 70 Gs on an egg. I don't think I'd
ever do it mind you. I'd *consider* doing it for some french toast.
*Maybe* some sausage and bacon. But not an egg. That's just silly.



Who knows? With the current upswing in popularity of
microtransaction games we may soon see full breakfast entrées on some
virtual stores. A Grand Slam Denny's Online special for a mere 50 K.
It's possible. I don't even pretend to know what goes through players'
heads when something like this happens. Am I alone? Can you shed
some light? Let us know in the forums.


Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day




From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=142">WoW News
Discussion



WoW
Gold for Naked Pics
?



Well,
here's a cautionary tale, kiddies. A Copenhagen man has been charged
with luring teenage boys into sending him nude photos, or participating
in web cam acts I probably shouldn't speak of here, in exchange for
virtual gold in World of Warcraft. You can read the complete story href="http://www.cphpost.dk/news/crime/48177-man-grooms-boys-to-send-naked-pics.html">here,.




Do
you have kids who play WoW? How do you protect them from depraved
individuals like the man from Copenhagen? Are you surprised that we
don't see more stories of this nature, given the popularity of WoW with
a younger crowd? Talk it up href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=49438">here!



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

Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread




"Don't trust anyone. Whenever someone asks me my a/s/l I report spam
and add to ignore.
"



- AngryBeaver

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



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

New and Exclusive Content
Today at Ten Ton Hammer

5 new Ten Ton Hammer
features today! 44 in February! 159
in 2010!

INTERVIEWS



Fallen Earth Patch 1.3 - A
Q&A with the Team


http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/80705

Patch 1.3 of Fallen Earth will be hitting the game this week.
This patch offers new stories and events to high level players but also
revamps some of the content for beginning levels. Ten Ton Hammer caught
up with the Fallen Earth team to talk more about the patch. We
met with Marie Croall, Dev Team Lead, and Ian Lemke, Live Team Lead to
find out what players can expect come patch time this Wednesday.



FEATURES & GUIDES



Far
from the Madden Crowd: Sports MMOGs Past, Present, and Future


http://www.tentonhammer.com/feature/feb2010/sportsMMOGs

MMOGs and sports video games combine for over $15 billion in sales in
the US alone. So why have we seen comparatively little
cross-pollination between the two powerhouse categories? In honor of
the Super Bowl and Vancouver Olympics, that's the question we'll pose
to one of the Western pioneers in the sports MMOG category,
GamesCampus's David Chang. Is the Madden model past its peak? Could
online sports be the next emergent category in video games? To help
answer those questions, we have the facts and figures to make an MLB
statistician
blush in href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/feature/feb2010/sportsMMOGs"
target="_blank">Far from the Madden Crowd: A Look at Sports MMOGs
Past, Present, and Future.



The First Month Of Playing EVE Online


http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/guides/ships/first_month

The first month of playing EVE Online is the hardest. Ten Ton Hammer
Contributing Writer, Space Junkie, shows us what to do for these first
four weeks.



WoW UI Mod Review - Rankwatch

http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/uimods/reviews/rankwatch

There are many things about World of Warcraft that too many of us have
taken for granted over time, one of these things is the automatic
upgrading of spell ranks on your toolbar. Issues surrounding the
automatic upgrading of spells and the simple fact that some people
forget to train their spells leads to issues in groups. Byron "Messiah"
Mudry looks at a handy little mod that seeks to solve all these issues
by pointing out anyone that doesn't use the highest rank spell
available to them. While the mod itself is simple, the ethics and
perception of it's use may not be. Join the Messiah as he looks at
Rankwatch.



Fallen Earth Developer Diary: Starter
Town Revamp, pt. 1


http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/80702

Fallen Earth receives another content patch this week which will
include revamps for several starter towns around Sector One. This means
new encounters, creatures and extensions to story lines. The patch
doesn't stop there; Sector 3, a high level area, will also see a new
camp open called Deadfall Point. We received a developer diary from the
folks working on Fallen Earth about the content patch. Read on
to see what they have to say.


Today's
Hottest Articles and Guides

  1. EVE
    Online

    Sins of a Solar Spymaster #38: Self-Immolation for Fun and Profit
  2. Daring to Dev -
    The Journey from Fan to Game Designer
  3. Allods Online href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/80678"> Archetype Interview
    Series Part 1 - The Warrior
  4. All New
    Screenshots of
    EverQuest
    2
    's Sentinel's
    Fate
  5. Mass Effect 2 href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/80183"> (PC) Review
  6. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/globalagenda/editorials/betaimpressions"> style="font-weight: bold;">Global Agenda
    Beta
    Impressions
  7. href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/federation/starfleet_training">New
    href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/federation/starfleet_training">Star
    Trek Online
    href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/federation/starfleet_training">
    Interactive Class Skills Pages
  8. Five Tips For
    Succeeding As A New Player In
    href="http://tentonhammer.com/node/80695">EVE Online
  9. WoW:
    Arathi Basin Battleground Guide
    href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/80275">

  10. WoW:
    Love is in the Air 2010 Guide





Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer
network!

- Benjmain J. de la Durantaye
and the
Ten Ton Hammer team


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Myst Online: URU Live Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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