Loading... Leipzig GC Begins

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Daily Column

Loading... putting the 'Mo' in MMOG.

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 homepage. (What is Pulse?)

Warhammer Online - 200 BPM
World of Warcraft - 167 BPM
Age of Conan - 55 BPM
Tabula Rasa - 19 BPM
EVE Online - 17 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 11 BPM
Champions Online - 11 BPM
EverQuest II - 11 BPM
Dungeons and Dragons - 8 BPM
Vanguard - 7 BPM

The only thing better than travel is well, everything... but you don't want to read about my complaints so we'll leave it at that. We have an incredibly busy schedule in Leipzig this year. I think Garrett thought he was scheduling for 17 and not seven staff. Way to go Garrett! You da man!

Loading... will be a play-by-play of my impressions, etc. I'll also be called upon to step in front of the camera as well as write up legitimate articles, so bear with my unorthodox Loading... columns over the next week. I promise that Phil will take oodles of pictures of booth babes and booth bros for your viewing pleasure.

Saturday 12:00 - Hit the road for the airport. Traffic is light making the trip a mere three-hour tour. The travel gods smile upon me. I smile back.

Saturday 15:00 - Arrive at the airport and use the self-service (which means no service) line to get my boarding passes. This should be quick...whoa! The baggage drop-off line is long than a Rosie O'Donnell 'ching chong' rant.

Saturday 15:30 - I drop off my lone bag as the family beside me attempts to shuffle items between four pieces of luggage that are all over the weight limit. I'm not sure they quite understand the law of conservation of mass. The parade of underwear and dirty jeans continues as I lope to the security gate.

Saturday 15:45 - I take off my shoes to go through the security check and everyone laughs, out loud, for an extended period of time. "Oh sir, you are not traveling to the United States. You can leave your shoes on." Apparently unafraid of me smuggling miscreants into Germany in my shoes the customs staff smugly wave me through.

Saturday 16:00 - I expect to see Phil, the birthday boy, sitting in the gate area, but he is mysteriously absent.

Saturday 17:00 - The plane is boarding, but our birthday boy has not arrived. Text messages remain unanswered. This does not bode well. He has all of our interview schedules.

Saturday 17:30 - "Would passenger Comeau please identify himself" comes over the public address system on the plane. Hoo boy. My row of seats has two people, but three seats. The one aisle seat remains empty. Perhaps I'll luck out and the the gentleman beside me will move.

Saturday 17:35 - Jinxed it! A rather large and by large I mean elephantine lady literally drops herself into the seat and immediately yells, "I need a seatbelt extender!"

Saturday 18:00 - We are backing off of the gate. It doesn't appear that Phil made the flight. We've managed to lose one team member before even leaving the country!

Saturday 19:00 - A familiar face peers across at me from the far aisle of our 777 aircraft. Like the Phoenix, Phil has risen from the ashes and searched the aircraft to tell me that he made it. He was the reason that we were delayed. Shocker.

Saturday 21:00 - Unable to sleep I watch 'Ironman'. It's much better than I expected. I attempt to watch another movie, but the in-seat entertainment system has other ideas and will now only play commercials for credit cards and travel companies.

Sunday 07:30 - We land in Frankfurt and begin our trek to the gate for our final flight to Leipzig.

Sunday 08:15 - Through customs and off to the gate where we meet Tony and Garrett who have already arrived. Garrett is his normal, jovial self. Tony looks tired. You'd think he had just flown all night. Pansy.

Sunday 09:00 - We bump into Bobby Stein, the Writing Team Lead for ArenaNET who also happens to be on our flight. Bobby is part of a gaming panel tomorrow where he will talk about achievement systems.

Sunday 09:50 - We are herded onto a bus and off to our plane. The plane that we were supposed to be taking has 'technical problems'. How comforting.

Sunday 11:00 - Touchdown! 6 points, a convert, a coffee and a glass of water later we're in the town that, well, somebody built. Once we grab our luggage we're golden. I'm beat and could use a nap.

Sunday 11:30 - Everyone has luggage except Phil. His didn't arrive. We explain his predicament to the Lufthansa baggage patrol who send us on our way sans luggage.

Sunday 12:00 - By the clock, the trip has now taken me 24 hours. We arrive at the hotel, get our keys and head to our rooms. You would think that our room keys would be a simple tool, however none of us can overcome the perplexing puzzle of how to actually enter our rooms. We stand in the hallway, grinning at each other like attendees at a village idiot convention. Finally one of the cleaning staff (Navajo code talkers in disguise) steps up and shows us the trick. Feeling obtuse, I unpack, (finding notes that my kids have hidden in my luggage, each marked with the day that I can open it) have a shower and crash.

Sunday 18:00 - The team (myself, Garrett, Tony, John Hammond and Pat) meet downstairs for some pre-dinner drinks. Phil, like his luggage before him, does not arrive. Our star player, Jeff won't arrive until tomorrow.

Sunday 19:00 - Phil remains AWOL. I sense a theme. We decide to dine without him. I wonder if he is sitting in his room, naked, wishing that his bags had arrived. I shiver and force the picture of Phil from my mind.

Sunday 19:45 - Phil arrives, wiping the sleep from his eyes and orders his food. The rest of us are ensuring that the coffee and beer in the hotel bar don't pass their expiration dates. Garrett mentions that everyone needs to bring their confirmation letters to the show tomorrow. I ask, "What confirmation letter?" Everyone sighs. I foresee Garrett sweet talking the registration staff for me tomorrow.

Monday 01:00 - The bar closes its doors and we head back to our rooms to get some sleep before the first day of the show.

Monday 03:00 - My mind tells me that it's three in the morning, but my body thinks that it is nine at night. I can't sleep. Happy days. I get up to prep for my interviews.

Monday 04:00 - Phil appears in my IM list. Apparently I'm not the only one who can't sleep. I feel better already. Phil pops over to my room to see if he can fix my phone which will receive calls and text messages, but is unable to either call out or SMS out.

Monday 04:30 - Garrett pings me on IM. Apparently all of our body clocks are completely out of whack. Tomorrow will be more exciting. I promise.

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.

[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links and Real World News.]

16 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 81 in August! 2065 in 2008!

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How nasty do you have to be to get an obituary like this one? I'm taking notes; Get off my lawn!
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Have you seen some Real World News that you think
Phil can fail to make even remotely funny? Send it in!

Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com.

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

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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