Welcome to the 1,188th edition of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
Talk of banning foreign investments in online games in China could have
a larger impact than we may think. Our games would change, and a lot of
them would no longer be available to play. The after-effect would be
huge, and the MMOG industry as a whole would be thrown into chaos.
Benjamin J. de la Durantaye explores some of the possible outcomes if
these bannings were adopted more globally.
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/">
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/41"
target="_blank">World of Warcraft - Dungeons
& Dragons Online - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/254">Aion href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/254">
-
EverQuest
2 -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/115">Age of
Conan
Biggest movers today:
- The Secret World (UP 15 to #18)
- Star Trek Online (Down 8 to #19)
- Runes of Magic (Up 6 to #11)
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)
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
Earlier this week,
href="http://www.china.org.cn/china/2009-10/11/content_18681548.htm">reports
were coming in that the Chinese Government will begin banning foreign
investors from operating online games in China. This, if true, would
mean that games like World of Warcraft would not be able to operate in
the country, and any profit made in China would stay in China.
Now, as it turns out, this may not be exactly
href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/15/china-bans-foreign-investment-in-lucrative-online-gaming-market-not-quite/">accurate.
It would seem that the quotes and facts were not listed in their
entirety, and the struggle is one more of a political nature within
China itself than it is with foreign game investors.
However, it did get me thinking. What if foreign investments were
banned worldwide when it came to gaming? No company could launch a game
outside of their own region, and no one could import a title, or
localize it. It would be a pretty different MMOG world.
You could only play WoW in the United States; would it still be the
"king of subscriptions?" Canadians would be stuck playing BC's Quest
for Tires and several iterations of Warhammer 40,000. The people of
Iceland would be getting lonely in space in EVE Online. We wouldn't
have seen games like Anarchy Online outside of Norway, so would
we have instances?
Our online vernacular wouldn't include things like "all ur base" and
there would be no "uber guilds," just "really big guilds with lots of
play time." Gold selling spam may be less frequent, but instead of
seeing things like "Chepest Gold 4 u. Fast,free livery. You best guys,"
we'd see "Y'all buy this here gold 'afore I whoop your
ass." Chinese Gold Farmers would be known instead
as Virtual Forex Brokers, and monks in our games would be
replaced by MMA street fighters.
Dwarves would speak with a southern drawl, and Icecrown Citadel would
be renamed to Fort Brrr.
In the US, Age of Conan would be a late night comedy talkshow MMO. Aion
would be a musical MMO about gang wars between the Jets and the Sharks,
and MapleStory would become MarioStory.
Yessir, it would be a different online world out there. How would it
affect your game? Let us know in the forums.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=157">WoW
Mages forum
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=47069">Mage
for a Day
ZeroMerc,
usually a "paladin player at heart," is suddenly having fun trying out
a mage in World of Warcraft. Now ZeroMerc is seeking the advice of
fellow mages about how to proceed and make the most of this class,
while avoiding inherent pitfalls. This epic thread has taken on quite a
few posts since it first hit our forums a few days ago. Can you href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=47069">add
to it with your own mage class wisdom?
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"The biggest down side
to playing
an early mage is the down time. You make lots and lots of water to keep
your mana up. It seems like you drink every 2 mobs or so. I had little
down time with the pally. Being used to the mage, then playing a DK
(with almost NO down time) or the pally (with little down time) it was
hard to start a new mage again."
-ShadowDragon
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
1 new Ten Ton Hammer MMOG features today! 73
in October! 2,021 in
2009!
Today's New Features & Guides
-
Aion
Newsletter - The Daeva Weekly #5
Is buying your way to the top in MMOGs the thing to do these
days?
While some may be cheering on the mass bans that NCsoft smacked down
last week, others are crying foul as players make claims of getting
caught in the crossfire. In every war there are always
casualties,
right? Find out why gold sellers suck and get other
interesting Aion news in this week's Daeva Weekly!
Hottest Content:
-
Incarna
Incarnate - An Exclusive Q&A with style="font-weight: bold;">EVE Online's Torfi
Frans Ólafsson href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/editorials"> style="font-weight: bold;"> - Player
Created Content - A Look at Benefits and Dangers of Giving the Players
Control -
Can
Aion overcome
the re-subscription threshold? href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/75321/"> style="font-weight: bold;"> -
style="font-weight: bold;">EVE Online Video
Q&A with GoonSwarm Spymaster 'The Mittani' -
style="font-weight: bold;">Champions Online -
Battle Royale: The Min-Maxer vs. The Conceptual Creator - Windows
7, Gaming, and Why You Should Care - Mechanics
No
MMOG Should Launch Without - The
Rift Between Us - A Guide to Rifting in style="font-weight: bold;">Aion - Ease
of Access - Case Studies
in Accessibility and Popularity -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/guides/world/abyssguide">
style="font-weight: bold;">Aion Beginner's
Guide to the Abyss
Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
- Benjamin J. de la Durantaye and the Ten Ton Hammer
team
