by John Hoskin on Sep 23, 2008
Welcome to the 921st Edition of Loading...
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Daily Column
Loading... your first 'ding' of the day.
First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.
If the Top 10 isn't enough, we also show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)
Warhammer Online - 200 BPM World of Warcraft - 125 BPM Age of Conan - 35 BPM Tabula Rasa - 12 BPM Lord of the Rings Online - 9 BPM EVE Online - 9 BPM Everquest II - 8 BPM Vanguard - 6 BPM Stargate Worlds - 5 BPM Guild Wars - 4 BPMWarhammer Online is in your face no matter where you go. Many of you have played it and as I noted yesterday, first impressions are very relevant at this point. Does the game have a hook or is it simply another MMOG churned out of the game mills to march across your wallet and monitor like so many hammers from Pink Floyd's The Wall?
Jay Johnson posted his educational and entertaining Warhammer Online: Five Favourite Things today. Jay touches upon many of the aspects that I enjoy about WAR. Here are a few more with a sprinkling of what I don't like. If you haven't purchased the game yet, perhaps this will help you make your decision.
The Good
PvP is one size fits all - If you enjoy battlegrounds in WoW then the scenarios are made for you. Better yet, when they are over you are sent back to where you were before the scenario took place. You can finish the quest that you were on without making a huge run from a city. If you prefer world PvP then the Realm versus Realm battles are literally never ending. Perhaps best of all, you can level while you PvP. You don't need a $5,000 computer to run WAR - I haven't had a true desktop gaming machine in about six months. My Voodoo machine packed it in and became the second boutique machine (Alienware I'm looking at you) to disappoint me and become a very expensive doorstop. I play WAR in bootcamp on a Mac Pro. Sure, I'd prefer that WAR was native to Macs like WoW and Spore are, but I can't have my cake and eat it too. Play With Friends Right Away - Travel between starting zones is easy and available within the first hour of gameplay. If you don't like the look of Elves then play a Dwarf and join your poncy Elf buddies to quest, PvP, etc. Community Is Key - From the moment you start playing you feel like you are part of something larger than your character. The War is in your face. You can't miss it. Everything that you do seems to affect the status of the war (shown by a huge coloured bar on your U.I.). Quest Helper - Quest objectives are all shown on your map by a red circle. You know that somewhere within that circle is the item, mob, place, etc. that you need to find, kill, talk to. There is no need to jump out to a quest database for answers. They are all right there in front of you. Public Quests - As you travel you are naturally directed to areas where everyone is working together toward a common goal. When you complete the goal everyone is thrown into a lottery for what can end up being exceptional loot. Simply filling your influence bar (another mini-leveling method) will grant your character access to loot that is better than the regular quest rewards.The Bad
Population Imbalance - Destruction seems to outnumber Order everywhere that I go. This is fine in scenarios where the teams are always built from even numbers, but in the world PvP this makes it very difficult for Order to succeed. The design team has implemented ways to help alleviate this problem, but so far it seems easier for players to simply jump ship to the winning side which escalates the problem. Auction House - Why can't auctions be available in more than just the capital cities? Most things in the game are convenient. Auction Houses are not. It's a minor gripe, but this aspect of the game seems to be out of sync with the rest of the design philosophy. In fact, it is so much so that I feel I must just be missing something. Queues - See population imbalance. I wish I knew how to fix this. I really dislike waiting to play a game that I paid for.What do you like and dislike about the game that you play? Hit the Loading... forums and have your say.
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Ten Ton Hammer Epic Thread of the Day [Compliments of Karen Hertzberg]
Sometimes they're funny; sometimes they're foolish; sometimes they're flaming;
sometimes they're cool. Whatever this one happens to be, it's
our Epic Thread of the Day.
====================
From our WAR: General Discussion Forum
WAR is to WoW what DAoC was to EQ
TehPr0
started something when he stated that Warhammer Online was an
alternative to World of Warcraft, not competition. Do you agree?
Is WAR poised to be a WoW killer, or is the Next Big Thing still on the
horizon somewhere? Is TehPr0 just another WoW fanboi, or do his
comments make sense? Check out the thread and add your own opinions.
Awesome Quote from the Epic Thread:
"Okay, I read the entire thread, but I'm mainly responding to the
original post because at this point it might be headed for a flame war.
In Psychology, there's a little principle called "Hindsight Bias." The
fact that you've played WoW for a long time and know everything about
it clearly influences your perspective a whole lot ("I knew WoW was
good the whole time!") while WAR doesn't have that advantage."
- Lafkak
====================
Do you have a favorite Epic Thread? Let us know!
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12 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 226 in September! 2430 in 2008!
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks to Phil Comeau for the links and Real World News]
Images/Video
World of Warcraft: WotLK Preview Video of Drak'Tharon KeepInterviews
Champions Online: Q&A with Brian Urbanek NC West: Publishing President David ReidContests
Caption Winners: Kralle and Gizmo3kOp/Eds
Warhammer Online: Top 5Guides
Warhammer Online: White Lion Masteries Warhammer Online: Chaos Leveling Guide - Tier 1 Age of Conan: Character Creation Age of Conan: PvP Gear List, Part 2 Lord of the Rings Online: Aughaire Quest Guide Vanguard: Monster Project - Deshian the Despoiler Vanguard: Monster Project - GlitteracticacookieHot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to:
Warhammer Online: Top 5 Champions Online: Q&A with Brian Urbanek World of Warcraft: WotLK Preview Video of Drak'Tharon Keep Age of Conan: New Game Director - A Look at Craig Morrison Warhammer Online: It Don't Mean A Thing If You Ain't Got That Bling Warhammer Online: It Don't Mean A Thing If You Ain't Got That Bling - Part Two Warhammer Online: Collector's Edition Head Models Warhammer Online: Jeff Hickman at LaunchReal World News
Boy recovering in fatal Scottsdale crashThanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com.
- John "Boomjack" Hoskin and the Ten Ton Hammer Team