Loading... There's Norway You Should Miss It

Welcome to the 827th Edition of Loading...

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Daily Column

Loading... there's Norway you should miss it.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn't enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

Age of Conan - 200 BPM World of Warcraft - 42 BPM Lord of the Rings Online - 16 BPM EverQuest 2 - 13 BPM Warhammer Online - 10 BPM Guild Wars - 9 BPM EVE Online - 9 BPM Lineage 2 - 9 BPM Vanguard - 8 BPM Tabula Rasa - 6 BPM

Live from Norway, it's Sunday night, errr Monday afternoon. Leave home at 10:30am Sunday and arrive at the Oslo hotel only 26 hours later (by the clock). This timezone thing is a killer. Obviously, I don't have much to tell you about the trip or the Age of Conan launch event just yet, but I'll have something small for tomorrow and then after the event, well, hopefully something stellar.

My itinerary is simple. I fly from Toronto to Newark, New Jersey (a 1.5 hour flight) where I then switch planes, airlines and terminals to wing my way to Olso (approximately an eight-hour flight.) I'm not a giant of a man, but I'm no pip-squeak either. At six feet tall and 195 pounds I'm a bit of a square peg in a round hole when it comes to fitting into seats on airplanes which were apparently built to transport 14th century Europeans where the five feet and six inch tall versions were veritable giants.

Travel for these events inevitably means that I'm trying to write the column while sitting in an airport. Most airports have wireless access, heavy on the "less" for about $9.95 a day, which in case of journalists means $9.95 for the two hours or so that you are sitting at the gate. That's pretty expensive Internet access, so one would expect that it was blazing fast and came with a coffee. Not so. I have now waited almost two minutes for google to load. That's not slow. That's stopped.

...and it did... stop that is. I should have something interesting for you on Wednesday. Tomorrow is event day, so cross your fingers for some tasty bits from the Funcom team.

Until tomorrow. 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.

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[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links, headlines and taglines.]

11 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 97 in May! 1116 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Images/Video

Gaia Online: Monster Screenshots Street Gears: New Trailer Video Dofus: 4 New Map Screenshots

Interviews

World of Warcraft: Legacy Items Revealed Petroglyph Studios: Creative Director Joe Bostic

Op/Eds

World of Warcraft: How Hardcore Are You? World of Warcraft: Competitive PvE

Community

Age of Conan: Clan Soup Issue #9 Vanguard: Dalmarus' Chronicles Warhammer Online: Guild of the Month World of Warcraft: Arena Battles Continue

Guides

Age of Conan: Assassin Class Portal Lord of the Rings Online: Tier 2 Woodworking Price Guide

Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to

World of Warcraft: Preview of Wrath of the Lich King World of Warcraft: Preview of the Deathknight Warhammer Online: Flying Solo EVE Online: Ambulation Presentation from NYC ComicCon Mabinogi: Product Manager Ray Cheon Top 10 F2P Games - Week 3 Jumpgate Evolution: Lead Writer Keith Baker Game Over Podcast: Ep 18 - Brasse Shines Like Gold

Real World News

Man jailed for throwing M&Ms at police

Finds out that they really do melt in your mouth, not in your handcuffs

Goldfish missing from pond in backyard

Neighbour's cat held for questioning, but he's playing it koi Man fends off shark with eye poke

Nyuk nyuk nyuk, ah, a wise guy!

Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com. Thanks to Phil Comeau for doing the heavy lifting with the links, headlines and taglines!

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