It’s no great secret really, that despite its many shortcomings the MMO business is doing quite well. As far as making a few bucks go they really hit the sweet spot with this one; design a game that never ends, and charge people by the month to play it. It’s ingenious.

The problem though (that is, with ingenious ideas) is that everybody wants a piece of the action. Design a game that makes millions, and millions will begin re-designing your game. Of course, those millions are more often than not Korean, and as Koreans are about as good at emulating the success of World of Warcraft as a sock is a condom, things tend to turn south fairly quickly.

Skip ahead a few years and you’ve got an industry made up almost entirely of these ‘WoW clones’, and e

A Week in the Wrath of the Lich King

By Neramaar

If you’re reading this, then you probably already know that today marks the one-week anniversary for the latest World of Warcraft expansion – Wrath of the Lich King. You also probably know that with its release, a plethora of new content and features were added to game, the level cap was raised to 80, and an entire new continent – Northrend – was added for players to quest and explore. What you might not know however, is how it all turned out. Read on to find out.

Viva le France!
Undoubtedly the question on the mind of most gamers at the minute is who was the first player to reach level 80? Well, wait no more – this achievement was completed by the French player Nymh, who made it from level 70 to 80 in only 27 hours. By using extensive knowledge gained in the WotLK Beta Test, and with the help of an out-of-party Priest to assist with weakening enemies Nymh achieved a gaming world record, and has my fullest congratulations. The following days saw many players reaching the elusive level 80 cap, and with any luck it shouldn’t be more than a few days before I too join their ranks, and face the many

"Spore is a bit like Lego. If you are the kind of person to buy a kit, assemble it and that's that - Spore will not be for you. If you like to assemble new things from lots of kits and apply them to different circumstances - then Spore may just be what you are looking for." –Luther Blissett (Australian Gamer Forums)

When Age of Conan was first released I avoided it like the plague. I did this not because of the hefty price tag or the monthly subscription, nor the gigantic download or the fear of it being a bad game – I did it because I was scared of losing another 4 years of my life to a great MMO. You would need to have been living in a different solar system to avoid the hype of Age of Conan, and after hearing about the new combat system and amazing graphics I feared another WoW.

But alas, a few short months down the track and the temptation was too much to resist. I decided that it was time to put the fear of MMO Addiction behind me, and take a chance with a game that clearly deserves my attention. Thus it saddens me to say that the next few days of

If you haven’t read last week’s article ‘The Gamers’ Guide to Writing for Games — Part One’ yet, I suggest you take a peek at it before reading further here. That’s partly because you’ll find that information relevant when reading ahead, but mostly because I get paid more if you do. Why the honesty? Because self-promoting (as nasty as it sounds) is one of the best ways to achieve success in this here writing business, and that’s mainly what I’ll be talking about today. Getting started. Getting better. And getting known.

Getting started, getting better, getting known; and get hired

Getting hired in the writing industry (and doubly so when writing for games) is a long, tedious and often painful process — and unfortunately, there