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Date: July 2nd 2008

Welcome to the 861st Edition of Loading...

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Daily Column

Loading... It helps you scratch the itch you just can't reach.

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?)

World of Warcraft - 200 BPM
Age of Conan - 123 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 67 BPM
EverQuest 2 - 59 BPM
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - 43 BPM
Warhammer Online - 40 BPM
Guild Wars 2 - 34 BPM
Dungeon Runners - 31 BPM
EVE Online - 31 BPM
Dungeons and Dragons Online - 28 BPM

Unfortunately, John “Boomjack” Hoskin couldn’t make it into the Loading… cubicle today – he mentioned something about having his teeth sharpened into fine points – but rest assured that Loading… won’t ever miss a beat as long as a Ten Ton Hammer staffer has a set of digits with which to type out your daily dose of MMOG goodness. This week, Cody “Micajah” Bye (that’s me!) takes the helm of this vast ocean liner and cruises you to MMOG waters that are more virginal than anything you’d see in Age of Conan.

For those of you that are fans of the games created by Blizzard Activision, this week must feel like a small slice of heaven. Along with the announcement of Diablo III, news about Wrath of the Lich King and Starcraft II has been exploding throughout the World Wide Web. However, there are a few rumors that still remain in the air concerning Blizzard’s titles. For example, the Blizzard team was hiring developers for a “next-gen” MMOG product, but didn’t officially discuss whether that would be a continuation of the World of Warcraft franchise or something new entirely. Was Diablo III the only new project that Blizzard was working on? Or is there yet another game hidden behind a curtain somewhere?

Apparently, the editors at the German website OnlineWelten.com heard your cries of uncertainty, because in their latest video they ask Rob Pardo that very question. To make a long story short, there is a “yet to be announced” next-gen MMOG project that has yet to make its splash. Will it be announced at BlizzCon this year? If so, the Ten Ton Hammer team will be on site to make sure we get all the details our readers want and deserve.

In more titillating news, our crazed, rabid news reporters have uncovered a piece of delicious information regarding Age of Conan. According to the developers over at Funcom, the sex of your character actually affects your weapon speed. However, this isn’t due to any sort of “sexism” or “male vs. female” arguments that some people would have you believe. On the contrary, it seems that the combo animation lengths were incorrect between a number of the different animations when the male / female avatars were compared. Here’s a small portion of the much longer post by Funcom’s Svein Erik "Sharum" Jenset:

The main reason for the discrepancy in damage output that you’re seeing is that the length of an animation isn’t equal for both Male and Female characters in many cases. This is what we’re currently fixing, but there’s roughly 800 to 1000 animations in total that are involved here, and that they are significantly more “complex” than the ‘white damage’ animations mentioned above this naturally takes a lot more time.

Of course, once the length of the animations have been fully corrected/tweaked either by an animator or BCC designer then every rank (of every combo for every class) has to be re-balanced by the System Designers because, as I mentioned above, one of the factors that come into play when determining the combo damage is animation length.

Normally, I’d expect a sort of bra-burning outburst from this sort of problem, but since the vast majority of female avatars are played by men, it shouldn’t come to that. However, my ears are already burning from the amount of venom and bile that’s going to be spewed at Funcom over this mistake. Hopefully they’ll fix the issue sooner rather than later.

Finally, it looks like Guild Wars fans will continue to have the same sort free experience in the upcoming sequel that they grew to love in the first game in the series. The developers at ArenaNet have updated their FAQ with those details, and here’s the official wording:

Nope. Like the original Guild Wars, there will be no subscription fee for Guild Wars 2. You just buy the game and play it online without paying a monthly fee.

So what are your thoughts on Blizzard’s Next Gen MMOG? Is it Universe of Starcraft or The EverLost Vikings? Do you think Funcom’s animation error in Age of Conan will pull subscribers away from that game? Did ArenaNet make the right decision in keeping Guild Wars 2 free to play? Let us know on the forums!

Do tell. 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 today. ]

39 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 38 in July! 1616 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Blizzard WorldWide Invitational 2008

Previews

Reviews

Fireteam Reloaded Review

Interviews

Op/Eds

WAR versus WoW: A Day of Infamy or Celebration?

Features

Images/Video

Comics

Age of Conan: Lost in Hyboria - Like an Episode of Maury

Community

Warhammer Online: Guild of the Month

Guides

Hot Content - Or, what I took a fancy to

Real World News

School locked down after 'ninja' sighted in woods [Courtesy of Mike G.]
Luckily, he was chased off by a pirate.
'Entire Life' sold for £192,000 [Courtesy of Shayalyn]
Apparently sold to a man with lots of money, but no life
The US leads the world in substance abuse
USA! USA! USA!

Thanks as always for visiting TenTonHammer.com. Thanks to Phil Comeau for doing the heavy lifting with the links.