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What would you do with 34 trillion dollars? That's a lot of cash,
and I daresay more than someone could spend in a lifetime. Some players
on the Azphel server of Aion got a chance to taste that kind of wealth,
even if it was for just a day. We take a look at some goofs today in
Loading... The Blooper Reel.
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One of my early jobs nearly a decade and a half ago as an actor had me
portraying the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. It was a particularly
trying role due in part to the first scene in which the Tin Man
appears. The scene was about 20 minutes long, and for that duration I
had to stand completely still on stage, under the hot lights, in a very
uncomfortable costume of foam and fiberboard. I loathed that scene. I
hated Dorothy and the blasted scarecrow for their eternal lollygagging
while I had to stand completely motionless in a pressure cooker outfit.
By the time they made it to my part to do a whole routine involving an
oilcan which enabled me to finally move, I was about ready to cleave
the taunting smiles off their faces with my fiberglass axe. Alas, that
would have made for a much more adult Tarantino-esque interpretation of
the story of the land of Oz, but it would have been gratifying.
The production was an early non-union gig with a low budget. It was
fine as a starting job for a 20-year-old. However, it was during one
particular Tuesday matinée that I learned the valuable lesson that
skimping out on props budget was a very bad idea.
It was on that fateful afternoon that our props department had lost the
oilcan we had been using. 30 minutes before curtain the Stage Manager
made some panicked calls. After all, the whole scene and song and dance
with the oilcan would be much more challenging without said oilcan. I
was no Marcel Marceau. But the Stage Manager was resourceful. Not soon
before the houselights dimmed we had a new oilcan on the props table,
and order was once again restored to Oz.
My scene came up, and I begrudgingly headed to my spot on stage, ready
to make the 20 minute stand. The scene played through, and Dorothy and
the Scarecrow made their way over to me, with their satanic grins. We
played through the scene, Scarecrow picked up the oilcan, and oiled my
joints. I failed to take much notice of the shocked look on his face as
he was doing so. Caught up in self-pity, and a little bit of excitement
at the chance to actually be able to move again, I snagged the oilcan
from him, and as the scene called for, tilted my head back, and
proceded to spritz oil into my mouth with which I was to gargle. This
time though, instead of pumping imaginary oil from the can, my mouth
was met with a lukewarm viscous liquid that was immediately
recognizable as real oil. My first reaction was one of confusion, and
as I looked at my fellow actors on stage, seeing sheer horror on their
faces, I realized that this was no back-stage prank. This was a full
blown blunder, and I had a mouthful of Quaker State.
I'll be honest here. There really is very little you can do in a
situation like that. Options are limited. I certainly wasn't going to
swallow the stuff and continue about nonchalantly singing "If I Only
Had a Heart." So I opted to spit it out. Any attempts to recover with
any sort of grace were lost as my gag reflex kicked in. The audience
was silent as I involuntarily heaved dryly. Dorothy and the Scarecrow
were no help as they stepped back hurriedly, as one is apt to do in the
presence of a friend about to vomit. But, by the grace of fortune, I
was able to settle my heaving in relatively short order, regained my
composure, stood up, looked at the Scarecrow and asked "how long has
that been sitting out?"
The audience laughed and applauded. It was clear that the little
incident was an accident, but they appreciated the ad lib and segue
back into the script. And this is true of any blooper in show business.
The audience loves it when mistakes are made. They feel like they've
been a part of something special, and for a moment, get to catch a
glimpse of the underlying reality that is a part of any show.
Gamers, however, aren't as forgiving. If a goof happens in a game, it's
usually met with rage and frantic posts. And that's just what happened
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/78789">yesterday in
style="font-style: italic;">Aion. Apparently a glitch in one of
the sieges awarded players over 34 trillion kinah. I don't care who you
are, that's a hell of a lot of coin. The bug, however, was commendably
reported early, and servers were brought down by NCsoft for an
emergency fix. Much like the Tin Man oilcan fiasco, NCsoft really had
very few options here, and eventually decided they needed to roll back
the servers a few hours in an effort to preserve the economy.
Granted, this sucks for players who had made progress that day. They
lost the fruits of any leveling or quests or items they may have
acquired during that period. The move is quite understandable though,
because the only other alternative would be to let the money stay in
game which in turn would have affected everyone. The marketplace would
have no meaning any more, and if you didn't have billions of kinah, you
wouldn't be buying anything. Reading over the forums a bit, it seems a
few did see the humor in it all, but there was also a large percentage
that were outraged. I guess bloopers really should just stay in show
business.
Grave injustice or freakin' funny? Let us know your thoughts
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=48788">in the
forums.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=139">WoW:
General Discussion forum
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb_9uH-ELJE">Whoa! Wait just a
minute here!
Given
its massive subscriber base, you might be inclined to say that nothing
of critical importance is missing from World of Warcraft. After all, it
is the MMOG to beat when it comes to success stories.
Nonetheless, our community member, Darke, has pinpointed a few missing
elements, like player housing, armor dyes and mounted combat. Not only
that, he says, "I know there's no easy programming wand but if an
isometric game from
the mid 90's [like Ultima Online] could do it...WoW should be able to
do it as well."
For lively conversation, href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showpost.php?p=412705&postcount=2">MMOG
history lessons from Ten Ton Hammer's WoW community manager, Xerin,
and more jump into href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=48749">this
thread.
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"Honestly,
I would like to see a little more character customization. My time with
City of Heroes way back in 2005 was limited but the character
customization screen was really a lot of fun. To me it has been the
only part of WoW I really had an issue with. But in the scheme of
things it was never a dealbreaker."
- Miralyn
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
4 new Ten Ton Hammer
features today! 11 in January! 11 in
2010!
Exclusive Features and Original Guides Today at Ten Ton
Hammer
Reviews & Interviews
New Hopes - A First
Look at Allods Online
One of the most anticipated Free-to-Play titles we saw announced as
under development last year was Allods Online.
For a free-to-play title, there's a lot of hopes building up to its
launch. The game promises massive PvP battles unlike any before seen in
a polished fun package. So how does it stand up in its current state in
Beta 3? Ten Ton Hammer Contributing Writer, Jason Bolton, takes a look
and shares his first impressions.
Features & Guides
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/78791">The Anatomy of Fleets in
EVE Online
Everybody in the fleet has a role to play. Together, ships cooperate to
destroy their enemies and achieve their strategic goals. Ten Ton Hammer
Contributing Writer, Space Junkie, pulls apart a fleet by the seams and
shows us the guts.
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/rom/guides/classes/dualclass_warrior_guide">
style="font-weight: bold;">Runes of Magic - The Warrior: Dual
Class Options
The Warrior is one of the quintessential classes for all stock MMOGs.
By adding the Runes of Magic
dual classing option you get to put a spin
on a die hard of the MMO world. So you probably thought by rolling up
Warrior everything was going to be straight foward. Well its not...
Join Resident Runes of Magic
player ZeroMerc as he expores the dual
classing options of the Warrior.
Getting
the most out of the World of Warcraft
Dungeon Finder
Over time the Looking for Group channel and tool in the
style="font-style: italic;">World of Warcraft has seen a huge
number of changes, none so big as occurred in patch 3.3. In the newest
patch Blizzard launched a brand new automated cross-realm Dungeon
Finder. While the tool is automated and easy enough to use, there are
several things that can really help you get the most out of this tool.
Today's
Hottest Content
-
Global
Agenda
Mission Types Interview with Exec. Producer Todd Harris - The Anatomy of
Fleets in EVE Online - Dungeons
& Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited Review - New Hopes - A
First Look at Allods Online -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/co/editorial/endgameimpressions">Champions
Online Review Part 3 End Game -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/raids/icc/plagueworks">WoW
- Guide to Ice Crown Citadel - The Plagueworks -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/loremasterachievement">WoW
- Achieving Everything: Loremaster - The Ten
Ton Hammer Best of 2009 Awards -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorial/2009yearinreview">A
2009 World of Warcraft Retrospective -
Going
Klingon -
A Star
Trek
Online
Q&A
with Zeke
Sparkes
Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer
network!
- Benjamin J. de la Durantaye and the Ten Ton Hammer team
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Aion Game Page.
