by Jeff Woleslagle on Aug 13, 2009
Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news and commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
A short Loading... today as many of the Ten Ton Hammer staff is deployed across North America to bring you the good news. But first, we'll discuss some of the weirdest comments we've ever heard on an earnings call as the NCSoft CFO declares Aion better than Tabula Rasa but not as good as WoW. Sometimes it doesn't pay to compare. See why in Loading... Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
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You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is The Pulse?).
Here's today's top 5 Pulse results:
World of Warcraft Aion Champions Online EverQuest 2 Age of Conan (UP 4)Biggest Movers today :
Star Trek Online (UP 11 to #19) EVE Online (UP 4 to #6) Warhammer Online (UP 4 to #7) Recent MMO Releases 7/13 - Darkfall NA launch 7/21- FFXI "Moogle Kupo d'Etat" Addon (release date) 8/4 - World of Warcraft Update 3.2 (content patch)Important Dates
8/19 - 8/23 - Gamescom Cologne 8/21 - 8/22 - BlizzCon '09 9/4 - 9/6 - Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) 9/15 - 9/18 - GDC Austin Upcoming Releases 8/25 - CrimeCraft (release date) 9/1 - Champions Online (release date) 9/9 - Dungeons & Dragons Online Eberron Unlimited (release date) 9/9 - Fallen Earth (release date) 9/22 - Aion (release date) 10/9 - Cities XL (release date) Early 2010 - APBShort Loading... today, as I'm getting ready to board a connecting flight to Austin for The Syndicate World Conference in Austin after a few hours on a few trains to Philadelphia. So that's the planes and trains, and then it's pretty difficult to get around in Texas without an automobile, so I've heard. Shunning conventional modes of transportation, Cody rented a moose to get to BioWare's studios in Canada, and we'll have the latest from BioWare and SyndiCon this weekend through next week.
Shifting gears, here's an odd snippet from an NCSoft earnings call with CFO Jaeho Lee, as reported by GamaSutra:
"I believe the performance of Aion in the US and European markets will be very successful. ... We are guessing that Aion will be -- could be -- the second [most] successful MMO in the US market next to World of Warcraft." He said it would be "very hard" to match the success of World of Warcraft, "but Aion will be a very successful product. We are very confident in it."
We're number two! We're number two! If confidence, as Charlton Heston said, is very sexy, this conference call was a pink paisley muumuu two sizes too big. No one's saying that Aion or any other game is a WoW killer, but the average gamer wants the best possible experience for his or her money. The money people always get into trouble when they start drawing comparisons.
Speaking of black marks, Tabula Rasa was a poor performer financially speaking, but did it rate this kind of muckraking?
"Ok, um, it's very unfortunate to hear the name of Tabula Rasa at this conference call," Lee said above the nervous chuckle of the analyst. "And we all want to forget and erase that memory from our performance... We did a very poor job with Tabula Rasa, and we disappointed our retailers in US markets and also European markets. Because of that, our retailers may be very reluctant to take orders for Aion."
Snotty retailers aside (most of whom are so guffawed at direct distribution by etailers, that they'll never stack up the PC titles like they once did) , I don't see the point in pounding Tabula Rasa into a stepping stone for Aion. It was a decent, if not popular, MMO with an incredibly troubled provenance. NCSoft should probably have nipped the concept in the bud when the first few iterations failed to pan out, but the resulting product was a worthy experiment with a few interesting innovations. I think the cloning concept could have benefitted from having the game design choose when to clone your character, i.e. just before major branching decisions, rather than having players clone themselves whenever they wanted to. Thus cloning became just another game design case study in how players typically hate re-playing the same content.
Of course, I'm just as anxious to put Tabula Rasa to bed as NCSoft is. But let's talk about Aion, NCSoft, not WoW or Tabula Rasa. Or we can talk about WoW and Tabula Rasa or whatever you like in the Loading... forum, and my inbox is always available for your thoughts as well.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day6 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 42 in August! 902 in 2009!
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks Phil Comeau for links and Real World News]
World of Warcraft - New Expansion = New Tamable Pets?Giveaways:
Runes of Magic Item Giveaway Champions Online Beta Key Giveaway (Premium Members Only) Aion Closed Beta Test 6 Key Giveaway (Premium Members Only)Hottest Content:
Guild Wars - Rediscovering Tyria Star Trek Online Closed Beta to Begin in October? Champions Online: Exclusive Interview on Sidekicks, Super Groups, and Supervillains World of Warcraft - New Expansion = New Tamable Pets? World of Warcraft - Vanity Pet Collecting Checklist Age of Conan - A Year Later, Part 2 The Hollywood Cycle: Comparing the MMO Industry with the Silver Screen Flight or Fight: A Look at Advanced Flight and Combat in Aion The Co-Op PvE side of Global Agenda: A Q&A with Exec. Producer Todd Harris An Advanced Guide to Crafting in AionReal World News
Colorado woman who fed bears is killed by oneSeen news you think I can mangle into a vaguely amusing snippet of text? Send it to me.
Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
-Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team