TenTonHammer.com - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Ah, fall. The air is crisp, the leaves are changing, and the evil undead are rising up to eat our brains. Halloween is always a popular season for MMO holiday events, and there's no shortage of werewolves, demons, and ghouls in your favorite MMOs this year. (The most fearful apparition of all, Zombie Cthulhu Boy Band, remains to be discovered. Maybe next year.) We'll list all the Halloween events for your favorite MMOs and demonstrate why the Halloween event is important (perhaps indispensable) to the gamer psyche in Loading... Halloweenery.

Today caps the end of the first month for Aion here in the western market. Historically speaking tomorrow will be one of the most important landmark dates for the game, as players stop to analyze the question of whether or not to continue their subscriptions. Join Reuben “Sardu” Waters as he takes a closer look at what the future might hold for the newest MMOG on the block today in Loading… Shadows and Sparks.

Look at subscription MMO pricing behavior over the course of its short history, and you'll discover some interesting things. Since the market has more than doubled since 2005, why haven't subscription fees changed? Are we paying more or less per month (factoring in inflation) than we were in 1999? When are we due for another increase? Evidence and thoughts regarding these questions in today's Loading... Follow the Leader.

MMOGs are amazing. Just a couple decades ago we could have never imagined the technology we have today. And yet, if official forums and other outlets for pissing and moaning are any indication, none of us are happy. Are we a generation of spoiled whiners? Join me, Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg, as I try to answer this question in Loading... Everything's Amazing, Nobody's Happy.

Asian MMOGs often employ an art style that embraces youth. Aion, created by NCSoft Korea and westernized for North America and Europe, is no exception. But when do childlike character models in a MMOG approach creepy, or even just plain wrong? Join me, Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg, on a journey through the Uncanny Valley in today's Loading... An Uncanny Resemblance.

There's certainly a subset of MMO gamers who are ultra-competitive. These power gamers race to the level cap, duke it out endlessly in PvP to stay near the top of the leaderboards, and aren't satisfied with anything less than the best gear. But staying on top takes a great deal of time and commitment that the average MMO player, the one with a career and family life, just doesn't have. It's to those gamers, the ones who have competitive spirits yet lack the ability or willingness to let MMO gaming consume their lives, that I dedicate this issue of Loading... Competitive by Nature, Casual by Necessity.

In the beginning, MMORPGs were social experiences. Then came the idea of "playing alone together" and group support took a back seat to a polished solo experience in many MMOs. Continuing last week's thoughts on the renaissance of grouped play in MMOs, today's column calls not for a return to clueless PUGs and lengthy grouped sessions where nothing gets done, but for a new wave of group support tools that make low- and mid-level grouping fun and worthwhile again. It's all in Loading... The Win Condition.

One of the more interesting products I've had the pleasure of
reviewing lately wasn't a game at all. Gunnar Optiks has created a line of glasses for gamers, complete with stylish and functional designs said to reduce eyestrain for those who spend countless hours in front of a computer. Using my prescription glasses and a pair of similarly shaped and tinted shooting glasses for reference, we'll examine Gunnar's claims in today's Loading... Sight for Sore Eyes.

In between the drinking and carousing at last weekend's EVE Online FanFest, I began to realize that there's one big thing that separates the average EVE player from other MMOs. And that's not that the average player is about 28 and of above-average intelligence, or that a female EVE account holder is almost a statistical impossibility. Rather, the average EVE player believes that EVE Online is their game at least as much as it is CCP's. Better yet, CCP has done nothing to discourage this belief. We'll look at how the many lessons of EVE can apply to a newly niche-driven MMO category in Loading... Whose Game Is It, Anyway?

Games come and go, but communities and friendships can last a lifetime. It is these communities and relationships that keep us coming back to our games, and are often more important than the game itself. Today Benjamin J. de la Durantaye sends out a plea to bring back the community to our games in Loading... Community Disservice.

We sometimes hear gamers complain that combat in a MMOG isn't very true to life, or that character models and environments look too "cartoony," or that a certain feature or mechanic detracts from a game's realism. But is realism truly what we're after when it comes to games? Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg talks about how too much realsim could detract from a MMOG's real purpose, to distract us from our daily lives, in today's Loading... Reality Bytes.

We sometimes hear gamers complain that combat in a MMOG isn't very true to life, or that character models and environments look too "cartoony," or that a certain feature or mechanic detracts from a game's realism. But is realism truly what we're after when it comes to games? Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg talks about how too much realsim could detract from a MMOG's real purpose, to distract us from our daily lives, in today's Loading... Reality Bytes.

Crafting systems have become a staple of MMOG gameplay over the years, only playing second fiddle to the mighty overlord of combat mechanics. Yet when compared to all of the emphasis that’s been placed on changing up the static nature of auto-attack combat to keep players more engaged during each and every skirmish with skeletal minions and monstrous madmen, crafting remains in the realm of being a monumental effort of resource gathering only to be a one click process that more often than not doesn’t pay off for all the effort involved. Reuben “Sardu” Waters takes a closer look at this aspect of the current state of crafting in MMOGs in Loading… Happiness is a Warm Sword.

The costs of developing a triple A MMOG is on the rise, while maintaining subscription numbers is getting harder and harder. On a risk versus reward scale, one has to ask how much longer will investors continue to pour money into a market, that, for the most part, has seen relatively little profit, aside from a handful of hit titles? Benjamin J. de la Durantaye takes a look at gamer expectations versus what we're offered in Loading... Show Me the Money.

Why is it that certain games draw us in while others leave us cold? Why do games that are strikingly similar in their mechanics and level of polish either hit or miss with us, seemingly with no rhyme or reason? Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg steps in to explore this issue, and suggests that there's an important yet perhaps overlooked element to MMOGs in today's Loading... "Epicness" Matters.

Finding the key to the player retention lock is the Holy Grail for most MMOG developers, yet it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact motivations that drive us to log into our favorite game month after month. The task becomes all the more challenging once you see a critical mass of players lumped at the level cap further along in the lifespan of a given title.

Filling in for Ethec as he makes his way to Iceland for this year’s EVE Fanfest, Reuben “Sardu” Waters dons his + 10 Cap of Loading… and shares his thoughts on what keeps players hooked on an MMOG long after the shiny newness wears off. That, plus a pair of WoW editorials, an exclusive Global Agenda interview on the Recon class and more await you in Loading… Characters, Classes and Carrots.

With Global Agenda heading toward the final phase of closed beta one this weekend, we asked Executive Producer Todd Harris to tell us about the recon class - the most popular class in beta so far (recon edged out the other classes with 27% of the total characters created). Recons play a much more active role in Global Agenda than just sniping from afar. Equipped with stealth abilities, traps, mines, and anti-stealth capabilities, recons are the perfect choice to wreak havoc behind the lines.

Join us as we learn more about the roles,capabilities, equipment and tactics of the recon class in this first of four part series.

If I were to ask you what was the most story-intensive, roleplayer-friendly MMO released this year, Fallen Earth might not be the first title that comes to mind. Sure FE gets bonus points for sheer genre-busting prowess - it's certainly the only active game of its kind in our list of 300+ MMOs. But if you can get past the somewhat wooden animations, middling graphics, and occasionally flaky AI, you might find yourself on the cusp of the kind of ensconcing setting and story that few MMOs can top. We'll deliver the opening salvo of our opinions on the newest indy title on the MMO block in Loading... Fallen Earth First Impressions.