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

An Editorial by Coyote, Ten Ton Hammer's Resident Humorist

For those of us of a more virginal background, the SCI FI Channel has long been our mistress. She's been there through the good, dragged us through the bad, and has shown us worlds that lay somewhere in between.. Yet no matter how rocky our relationship has been in the past, we still turn to her for comfort and the occasional late night alien encounter booty call.

And now we're about to take our relationship to the next level.

The SCI FI Channel has announced a partnership with Trion World Network that promises to bring us what we've all hoped for and feared at the same time: a SCI FI Channel based MMOG. And while the details of this unholy union are still vague, I consider myself well enough versed in the world of Sci-Fi to bring you an educated guess on exactly WHAT this MMOG will be.

SCI FI Channel Logo

As this game will be the brain-child of my favorite cable television station, it will undoubtedly contain one of the three following themes:

The End of the World

It's a bleak future.

Many years from now (due to our own folly or possibly the folly of an alien/robot/bug people invasion) the world is left in ruin and only a rag tag bunch of B-movie actors have survived. And despite only having a few guns and a couple of badly stereotyped throw away characters to sacrifice, they're able to overcome all odds and save the day.

In truth, it doesn't matter who they are fighting. The concept is solid; simply throw "ocolypse" at the end of any innocent sounding word and it instantly become sinister. Robo-ocolypse, Dino-ocolypse, Hobo-ocolypse, it's all the same to the SCI FI Channel, and it sets the stage for the perfect MMOG world. SCI FI Channel movies are truly the pen and paper "Rifts" of the gaming world and leave countless doors open for expansion. Savage lands are always teeming with mutants, animals are always genetically altered and grow to impossible sizes, and there is always a mohawked bad guy in face paint who needs to be stopped.

The end of the world is the perfect beginning.

It wipes the slate clean and gives the creators of the MMOG a blank canvas to paint upon. Only when humanity is finished can you truly begin, and any character, idea or plot point that doesn't fit the mold can be blamed upon radiation or some other "end of times" boogeyman.

It's brilliant.

Giant Mutant Snakes

If the SCI FI Channel is known for anything, it should be its love of really angry, really large snakes.

Boa vs. Python. Cobra vs. Anaconda. Rattler vs. Ron Jeremy. Regardless of title or premise you can be sure of one thing. A monstrous snake (be it reptilian or trouser) is about to start counting calories in the form of screaming campers. Snarfing down fat kids like popcorn without ever slowing down, these snakes become fork tongued eating machines. And if John Schneider can't stop them with limited commercial interruption, no one can.

Part of building a successful MMOG is building the perfect villain. If the bad guy is too familiar to us then there is no fear factor, no excitement. Too alien and we cannot relate and we lose interest. But never has it been said that a villain is too "snakey".

People fear snakes for a reason: They're creepier than hell.

Now multiply that by a thousand, add in a craving for human flesh and you've got yourself a bad guy that would give Freddy Krueger nightmares. Snakes are the perfect addition to a SCI FI Channel based game, and you can bet that no matter what the medium or basis of the story is, at least one of these bad boys will be found slithering in the darkness. Just pray that it’s not Ron Jeremy.

Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together

Trion World Network Logo

Like getting peanut butter in your chocolate, the SCI FI Channel loves to take two already awesome things and blend them together until you get such a high dosage of kickassery that only Rutger Hauer and/or the dude who played Coach (on the television show Coach) can save the day. For example:

A tornado is a pretty impressive demonstration of nature's power. It is more than capable of killing hundreds in an instant, reducing even the largest building to rubble and it can even send cows flying in a mooing death spiral. It is truly a thing to fear.

But that's not good enough for the SCI FI Channel.

They need more. They need a bigger and better tornado, something that no one has seen or could possibly expect. They need something that only Michael Ironside or possibly Treat Williams (pending contractual obligations) can stop.

They need a nuclear tornado.

Because the only thing you should fear more than a tornado leveling your town, is a tornado leveling your town as it makes your hair fall out in big fluffy clumps. And the SCI FI Channel feeds upon that fear as it mixes radiation with wind to give you the hybrid from hell. But it still doesn't stop there. Take any two really awesome or deadly creatures or disasters and combine them. Any two. If you do it for long enough you will eventually come up with something that the Sci-fi channel is currently working on.

Monkeygators? Count on it.

Killer Bee Storm? Saaay, those clouds look awfully dark...and buzzy...

Dino Hurricane? I think I saw the promo for it last week.

The point is, if the SCI FI Channel is going to make an MMOG, you can count on it being so jam-packed with awesomeness and Richard Grieco voice-overs that you will go into shock and need a syringe full of geek-insulin (Mountain Dew) in order to survive. And while I'm always hesitant when it comes to new and unannounced MMOG's, I have to admit that the SCI FI / Trion team up has my interest picqued.

Especially if it means that Kevin Sorbo will finally be making it into the digital world, because you know...

...we worry.