Loading... Reality Bytes

Welcome
to the 1,180th
edition of Loading...

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

We sometimes hear gamers complain that combat in a MMOG isn't
very true to life, or that character models and environments look too
"cartoony," or that a certain feature or mechanic detracts from a
game's realism. But is realism truly what we're after when it comes to
games? Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg talks about how too much realsim
could detract from a MMOG's real purpose, to distract us from our daily
lives, in today's Loading... Reality Bytes.

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.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).

Here's
today's top 5 Pulse results:

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  EverQuest
2 href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/43">EVE
Online

Biggest
movers this past week:

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/926">Global
Agenda (up 9 to #17) href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1234">Runes
of Magic (up 2 to #14) href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/860">Champions
Online (down 4 to #10)
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
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/177">Fallen
Earth (release date) 9/22
- Aion
(release date) Upcoming
Releases
10/9
- Cities
XL (release date) 12/1
- Lord
of the Rings Online - "Siege of
Mirkwood" (release date)

12/2
- DOFUS
2.0
(release date)

Early
2010
- APB

Important
Dates

10/23
- 10/24
- Hero-Con

href="http://affiliate.account.frogster-america.com/tentonhammerus/ROM-US/en/">Click
here to explore the best
free-to-play MMORPG - Runes of Magic
The Elven Prophecy. Join now and create the ultimate fantasy hero.

Loading...
Daily

The last time you logged into a MMOG you likely saw and accomplished
things you would never see or accomplish in the real world: you cast a
spell that shot a bolt of lightning at your foe; you donned tights and
flew through the skies as a superhero; you wielded a sword that, in the
real world, would’ve weighed at least a third of your own body weight,
and yet you not only held it upright but leapt through the air,
swinging it at your enemies with apparent ease. Even more realistic
games (think some of the post-apoc titles) contain some unrealistic (or
at least futuristic) elements, from ginormous weapons to gadgets
utilizing advanced technology. Why? Because we live and work in the
real world, and when we play games we want to be…elsewhere.



With games, we’re more than willing to suspend disbelief and accept
that our online avatar really is a night elf druid, or a winged daeva,
or a spandex-clad superhero. In fact, that sense of being transported
to a different time, place, and set of global circumstances is what
online gaming, and most video gaming in general, is all about. Even
simulators like The Sims have their fantastical
elements--teleportation, magic, toilets that flush themselves. (Wait,
we have those self-flushing toilets. Never mind.)



Our longing to adventure in other worlds, and the way the gaming
industry is constantly delivering those worlds to us, might lead us to
believe that, at the very least, reality is something we want to escape
from when we game. And yet, when things aren’t realistic enough, we
tend to balk. Some of us object to “cartoony” graphics. Others object
to things like weapons landing what should amount to finishing blows
over and over again to the same opponent. Our forum regular,
BahamutKaiser, put it well in a href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showpost.php?p=399770&postcount=20">recent
post:

It’s a good point BahamutKaiser makes, and I agree that it would be
interesting to see a game with a more a realistic type of sword battle,
yet somehow I’m not sure that’s what we sign up for when we play a
MMOG. No one wants to miss for most of the fight only to land a few
crippling blows toward the end. What we want to see is our character
repeatedly bashing our virtual opponent (or nuking it with spells, or
shooting it with guns) until it’s dead. There’s a reason why monsters
intended for soloing, as long as they’re within our level range, don’t
easily defeat us--losing detracts from the idea that we are
great and powerful.



My last entry in Loading… talked about the gamers’ need to href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/75054%5D">feel epic,
and I think that topic relates to this one. Certain special cases (or
deluded individuals) aside, we’re just not all that epic in our
day-to-day lives. We wake up, we brush our teeth, we go to work or
school (and if we’re lucky we enjoy that part of our lives at least a
little), we come home, we eat dinner, we do something either lazy or
social or recreational for a few hours (gaming, perhaps?), and we go to
bed and sleep until it’s time to repeat the process all over again.
Games let us escape that real world grind--sometimes in order to
participate in a virtual one, but that’s another topic altogether--and
experience the excitement of being some style="font-style: italic;">one else, some style="font-style: italic;">place else, doing
something
else. 



Are we ready for a more realistic experience in a MMOG? I’m not sure.
Although I often hear gamers cry that they’re tired of fantasy-based
games, developers keep making them, and Aion proves yet again that
gamers will keep buying and subscribing to them. Space- or sci-fi- or
horror-based games are still fantastical, featuring technology or
creatures that aren’t a part of our lives in the 21st century. Even
realism-based games like Second Life transport us somewhere and give us
the ability to don different virtual skins and different personas, and
to lead completely different lives from the ones we’re living outside
of their pixelized realms.



If games didn’t transport us we’d have no need of them--our own lives
would be adventure enough. And yet, as much as life can be an adventure
unto itself, we’ve always longed for the thing that takes us out of our
time and space and into something else, whether it’s another world or
another life or just another person’s moment in time. Games are merely
an extension of our need to be stolen away by a story or idea, a need
that has always been with us. In ancient times, we shared verbal
storytelling traditions. We progressed to books, and learned that the
written word could convey us to other places, and allow us to feel as
though we were witnessing or experiencing events outside of our real
world experiences. Plays, television, cinema…they all take us
elsewhere. And now video games do that, too.



Don’t get me wrong; I don’t believe that reality is an awful thing that
must be escaped from at any cost. In fact, reality is where it’s
at…most of the time. But we humans start flexing our imaginations in
early childhood and I believe it’s important that we never stop
exercising them in as many different ways as we can. Gaming provides
another venue for imagination.



Are MMOGs not realistic enough, too realistic, or just right? Have your
say in the Loading... forum.

style="font-weight: bold;">  style="font-weight: bold;">Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day



From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=589">Aion
General Discussion Forum



href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46860">Spam
is totally out of control!!!



I'm
morally opposed to the exclamation point. As punctuation goes, I find
it overused. But in this case, I'm going to let the poster of this
thread in our Aion forum, MikeHawthorne, get away with not just one but
three of them in the title of his post: "Spam is totally out of
control!!!"



Spam in Aion is
totally out of control--there's no question. The gold spammers hit
Atreia very early on and, as they've amassed more stores of virtual
currency, the problem is increasing. Via character names like
Yffmydggie, they're cranking out messages in chat channels (so much so
that you often can't read the real
channel chat), sending /whispers, and even dropping in with in-game
mail. The problem is epidemic and, although NCSoft appears to be
working to alleviate some of the spamming (I've seen system
messages telling me that players Xxxx and Yyyy have been banned for
spamming advertisements), it continues to rage out of control.



Do
you share MikeHawthorne's frustration with spam in Aion? Do you have
suggestions for how to deal with it? Share both your hostility toward
gold spammers and your tips for eradicating them in today's href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46860">epic
thread.



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

Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread



"Nezekam's public
channels are a
completely lost cause. It's nothing but the gold spammers spamming each
other now. The text scrolls so fast you can't even read them unless you
stop the scrolling.



The whispers oh god the whispers."



- Anacche

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



Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us! 6 new Ten Ton Hammer
MMOG features today! 26
in October! 1,074 in
2009!



Ten Ton Hammer at EVE FanFest 2009


NEW!
Video:
DUST 514
Overview and Gameplay

This three-part video answers some of the questions swirling around the
newly announced MMOFPS DUST 514 and its ties to EVE Online. First, in
planetary interaction, Senior Producer Torfi Frans Ólafsson and Noah
Ward will set the stage by showing the need for and benefits from
having boots on the ground. Creative Director Alti Mar Sveinsson will
then deliver a point by point overview of DUST 514 that gives some
background on the game and addresses many of the concerns voiced by EVE
players. target="_blank">EVE
Online Dominion Expansion Screens

The details of Dominion were covered - in painfully
stream-of-consciousness style - in our live blog from yesterday's
panel. While there wasn't too much in Torfi's presentation that we
didn't know, it was more than worth the while to see the kind of planet
improvements you'll glimpse in these screenshots. target="_blank">Goonswarm's
Darius Johnson at the EVE
FanFest 2009 Alliance Panel

Former GoonSwarm CEO Darius Johnson stole the show again this year at
the EVE FanFest 2009 Alliance leaders panel. Arriving 30 minutes late
and dressed in full "aeronaut" attire, Johnson did his yearly review of
propaganda and fan mail from CCP censors, offered his artistic take on
the Delve war, showed off some disturbing images from Goon gatherings,
and did the Goons proud by answering audience questions to the best of
his visibly intoxicated ability. target="_blank">EVE
Online Incarna Teaser
Trailer

EVE Online's more hardcore element has long questioned the time and
effort CCP's putting into the newly renamed Incarna project, which will
allow players to step out of their pods and into stations for the first
time. While this year's FanFest lacked last year's Walking in Stations
playable demo, Senior Producer Torfi Ólafsson hinted at a
new and more serious "twist" to Incarna and offered us this teaser
video. target="_blank">CCP
Reveals More Details about DUST
514 at EVE FanFest 2009

DUST 514 (pronounced five-fourteen) is the newly announced MMO
first-person shooter currently in development at CCP Asia. This new
MMOG that shares a world with EVE Online was announced at EVE Fanfest
2009 and Ten Ton Hammer Editor-in-Chief, Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle, was
there to catch all the info. target="_blank">EVE
Online's Economics and "Unholy
Rage" Video

For this year's EVE Online economics panel, Dr. Eyjólfur
"EyjóG" Guðundsson, EVE Online's Lead Economist,
schooled us on market info and much more. The focus of the panel was on
the positive economic and performance effects of the ongoing "Unholy
Rage" initiative. Unholy Rage has led to the banning of over 18,000
accounts for illicit RMT (Real Money Trade), a more balanced economy,
and (most surprisingly) 15% less server-side CPU usage per user.

Today's New MMO Coverage
and Features

Ease
of Access - Case Studies in Accessibility and Popularity of MMOGs

Ask just about anyone in the industry for one word to describe why
World of Warcraft is so successful, and if they don't say "Blizzard,"
they'll likely say "accessibility." What does accessibility mean? Is it
as simple as lowering the barriers to entry or offering casual players
a shot at succeeding in the endgame? We'll attempt to define
accessibility, then examine three case studies in an accessible MMO, an
inaccessible MMO that by many accounts failed, and an inaccessible MMO
that became a success story. style="font-weight: bold;">EVE Online
Editorial: Sins of the Solar Spymaster #28 - Irresponsible Speculation
Edition!

Chaos, distrust, breaking alliances, and anarchy are just
a few things that could be coming to Eve Online. This week The Mittani
examines the new sovereignty mechanics and what impact combat and ship
changes might have on the Eve Online universe. style="font-weight: bold;">Aion Lore: The Day
the Tower was Lost

There are many different theories floating around as to what really
happened on that fateful day in Aion lore when the world was quite
literally ripped apart. Sepharious takes a closer look at a few of the
possibilities, shedding some new insights into the cleverly crafted
lore of the Elyos and Asmodians along the way. style="font-weight: bold;">WoW Feature: Getting
Ready for Cataclysm

With at least a few months until Cataclysm is released what should
players be doing to get ready for it?  Byron “Messiah”Mudry
looks at some possible answers to just that question in this week's WoW
feature. style="font-weight: bold;">Champions Online
Comic: Zeroes - "Selfish Endeavors"

Champions Online is based on superheroes. The big, the bad,
and the bold all share Millennium City as their home. But what about
the less than average caped crusaders? Who will tell their story? This
week a healer defends her battle-strategy...badly:

Hottest
Content:

Video:
DUST 514
Overview and Gameplay Ease
of Access - Case Studies in Accessibility and Popularity of MMOGs target="_blank">EVE
Online's Economics and "Unholy
Rage" Video style="font-weight: bold;">EVE Online
Editorial: Sins of the Solar Spymaster #28 - Irresponsible Speculation
Edition! target="_blank">Aion
Exclusive Heiron Zone
Tour
Video target="_blank">Phasers
Set to Beta - A Star Trek
Online Q&A
with Craig
Zinkievich target="_blank">Fallen
Earth - First Impressions href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/co/guides/world/southwestdesertzone"
target="_blank">Dungeons
& Dragons Online: An
Overview of the Favored Soul and Monk href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/co/guides/world/southwestdesertzone"
target="_blank">Champions
Online: Southwest Desert
Leveling Guide href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/guides/general/asmoaether_pt1"
target="_blank">Aion
Asmodian Aether Gathering Guide 1-100 Thanks for visiting the
Ten Ton Hammer network! 

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