by Jeff Woleslagle on Sep 09, 2009
Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
More in-depth coverage from this past weekend's PAX 2009 event
is still coming your way, and Ten Ton Hammer's Reuben "Sardu" Waters
somehow found time the
whole crazy experience that has become the industry's feature fan event
in North America. Part two of two follows in today's Loading... Sardu's
PAX 2009 Journal (Part 2 of 2).
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"Biggest movers today:
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2036"Important
Dates
Ten Ton Hammer's Reuben "Sardu" Waters, especially valued by us not
only for his knowledable nice-guyness, love of MMOs, and his complete
inability to turn off his gamer side (as you'll see), made
several withdrawals on the old sleep account to journal his experience
at PAX 2009. Unprompted and unscripted, they turned out far too cool
not to share. This is the second part of his artfully constructed
running
commentary from the show, and you can check out the first part
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/74131">here.
Enjoy!
===
Saturday (PAX, Day 2)
Today was another busy day for the Ten Ton Away Team. Captain Ethec
beamed us directly down to the show floor for our first meeting of the
day with Funcom, this time to take a look at the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/74078">Rise of the
Godslayer expansion for AoC. Theres tons of cool stuff going
on in this one, and I have to admit Im really looking forward to
checking out the new content. Say what you will about the game, but
Funcom earns a +10 badge for game design in my book for being one of
the few developers who realizes that creating new mid-level content is
far cooler than simply tacking on an increased level cap and new spell
ranks.
It was also obvious that after the Day 1 stress test, the PAX
developers decided to increase the server cap as the exhibit hall was
about as packed as it could get without crashing. Most players seemed
to naturally gravitate to specific content which made questing in those
areas next to impossible. For example I never did get a chance to play
Diablo 3 in spite of my best efforts. On the plus side I did get some
hands-on time with some real gems like
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/torchlight/pax/trailer">Torchlight
which is just as cool as D3 in my book.
Getting to play Global Agenda was another highlight, even though I felt
somewhat stumpy doing my usual thing of wanting to click on all the UI
buttons to see what they do rather than focusing on the fact that I was
in the middle of a live 8v8 match. The folks from Hi-Rez were all
extremely nice and it was pretty cool to have the lead game designer
giving me pointers on how to play Recon effectively. Score one more
point for the gamers-as-developers team.
Speaking of game development, Guild Wars was the game that originally
led me down the path of studying (and currently writing about) the MMOG
industry to begin with, even if EQ will always be my first true MMOG
mistress. That said, sitting in a small meeting room with Jeff Grubb,
Mike OBrien and Daniel Dociu to talk about
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/74119">Guild Wars 2
was my personal highlight of the entire PAX experience. Even though we
couldnt really talk about specifics, Im a total lore nerd so it was
awesome seeing Mr. Grubbs eyes light up whenever Id ask a
story-related question. Hes one of those people in the industry that
Id love to have an entire day to sit and discuss game design with
because its readily apparent how much he enjoys what hes doing. Well,
that plus Im one of those nutty GW players who think things like Zhos
journal (and related quest to earn a black moa chick) are one of the
more brilliant aspects of the game.
PAX 2009 Post Mortem
Modern airport design incorporates a pretty cool gameplay mechanic
called Recharge Stations which function somewhat like location-specific
crafting stations in many MMOGs. While these are perfect for solo
gamers, theyre also almost too popular for their own good. At the Las
Vegas airport (where this is being beamed directly onto my hard drive
via the cybernetic implants in my brain) every one of these stations
was filled with very important people having very important
conversations on their very important cell phones. As a result Im
currently sitting on the concrete floor with a cramped ass and a giant
row of slot machines buzzing and beeping only a few feet from my head
as my only recourse for getting close enough to an outlet to plug my
beast of a laptop into. Its entertaining to be sure but not exactly
the ideal situation for writing about MMOGs. But just like a rock star
that puts up with the sub-par cheese trays backstage at the arena, so
too will I endure the less glamorous side of games media to bring the
fans the content they demand.
And it truly is all about the fans. Call me crazy, but Id gladly put
up with ass cramps and forgo sleep for the sake of writing about the
MMOGs we all know and love (and sometimes love to hate). Part of what
got me into this nutty world of games media in the first place is the
genuine enjoyment of absorbing game info not unlike a human sponge for
the sake of communicating it to other gamers to the best of my ability,
and for what its worth PAX has provided ample opportunity to achieve
exactly that. Seeing the absolute dedication and drive of Ethic in
action also reminds me of why TTH rocks like no other site out there.
And with that Im off to dive headfirst into getting some of our other
PAX content put together for your reading enjoyment. While the show may
have lacked a ton of massive announcements and game reveals (though
there were a few of those too), it more than made up for it in the form
of a giant pile of MMOG developers who enthusiastically talked about
their games not unlike a proud parent showing off pictures of their
newborn sons and daughters. So be sure to keep your eyes on the site as
we roll out a number of in-depth interviews throughout the week.
This is Captain Sardu, signing off!
===
Check out all the new
coverage from PAX 2009 and take your thoughts and comments
to our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46149">Loading...
forum.
From our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=6">Articles,
News & Events Discussion forum
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=45981">Champions
Online vs. Aion: Battle of the Year
It's
been an exciting month for gamers: two new games with open
betas
September launches. Champions Online has already kicked off, and Aion
will take flight September 22. Which one will win your favor? The
discussion thread that accompanied
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/73767/">Savanja's
editorial on the subject of Champions versus Aion is bursting
with gamers' opinions.
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=45981">Add
yours to the fray!
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"Not really a battle;
they are entirely different game genres. I plan to play both."
- celestian
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
MMO Coverage from PAX 2009
More from PAX
TheMore Ten Ton Hammer Features:
Comic:Giveaways:
EarthHottest Content:
Aion'sThanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
- Reuben "Sardu" Waters and the Ten Ton Hammer team