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

hen we’re young and invincible, we believe we can become anything. From Astronauts to Aeronautical Engineers, Paramedics to Porn Stars, nothing is a stretch; nothing seems too far out of our reach. When I was young, I wanted to be a writer. More than that, I wanted to write about video games. It seemed like the logical choice really, I spent my childhood playing them; studying them, reading about them, cherishing them and criticising them — why not do it for a living?

But it was just a dream. Just one of those goals you set, but always know you’ll never really achieve. I wasn’t going to get paid to write about games any sooner than I was going to make my living designing aeroplanes or exploring the bitter reaches of space.

At least, that’s what everyone kept

The Darkfall Chronicles

A lesson in manners, rudeness, and the improper way of things

1:30 AM…1:31 AM…1:32 AM… 1:33 AM…

Hitting the F5 key on my Zboard for what I can only imagine to be the seven thousand, four hundred and sixty ninth time; I let forth a sigh of raw depression as the page begins to load once more, revealing yet again the same lifeless pane as it had every other time I had done so these past eighteen hours.

1:37 AM… 1:38 AM… 1:39 AM … 1:40 AM…

In an attempt to escape the monotony I entered once more into the forums, an infinite abyss of human deprivation and indecency; a place where deformed versions of the English language ran rampant amongst a race of creatures that were oblivious to their very existence. Wading through the unforgiving trenches in the search of information, I quickly came to my senses, and escaped back to the entrance. I hit the F5 key again.

1:48 AM… 1:49 AM… 1:50AM… 1:51 AM…

Thinking back to a message I read a day earlier—containing the second last piece to my unfinished puzzle—I decided to read it once more in the

**WARNING** This article contains information regarding World of Warcraft (WoW) – a game that since birth has attracted the worst of Internet Trolls, and continues to do so today. For the benefit of our eyes (and intelligence) please, do not read this article, or post comment below if you do not take interest in WoW.

With the release of the much-awaited expansion Wrath of the Lich King looming closer with each passing day, World of Warcraft is once again filled with a very familiar buzz – one that many of us have experienced before. It is the buzz of anticipation, the buzz of adventure, and of 12 Million people making ready for the next WoW expansion.

To make things even more hysterical, Blizzard have recently released their latest content patch (3.0.2) – adding numerous new additions to the game, the most noticeable and time-consuming being the achievement system. The achievement system rewards player's points for completing various tasks, the likes of completing a certain number of quests, exploring every corner of every zone, killing players of the opposing faction and hugging them afterwards, and killing the final boss in every instance.

Experiencing

I’ve never really met a gamer that didn’t dream of being paid to play video games. I mean, as far as dream jobs go, playing games and getting paid for it is up there with exploring space and making porn. In a perfect world, you could do this at home, games would be sent to you for free daily, and you’d receive a large paycheck at the end of the week. Unfortunately, this job doesn’t really exist. Playing games isn’t supposed to be profitable; it’s supposed to be fun, and as much as we would all like to believe it to be true – having fun and making money simply don’t mix well. Any form of profit is going to require you to work; the trick is to find a way of working while you’re playing game

Innovation – in-no-va-tion.

1. Something new or different introduced: Numerous innovations in the high school curriculum.

2. The act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods.

(Source: Dictionary.com)

I've spent a great deal of time lately wondering what we can do to save MMORPGs from their grim fate. It's no secret that over the past few years the fantasy MMORPG genre has been slowly dying, this mainly being caused by the hundreds horrible games that are released on an almost weekly basis.

As a gamer the solution to this problem is simple – stop playing them - as if we stop playing them, then companies will stop making them and we won't be bothered by the problem any longer. However, as a game reviewer the solution is not so simple. We are required to p

Online or Off? - A Writer Club Presentation

Does anyone here remember Mario Kart 64? If you do, then like me you’ll probably have a special section of your brain dedicated solely to some of the awesome memories you had playing it multiplayer with 3 of your mates. You may also have another section dedicated to the dead arms they gave you when you hit them with a red shell right before the line, and waved as you flew past and took the cup. I still have bruises….

What about Counter Strike at your local LAN café? I still remember the sound of 24 players buying their weapons and switching to their knife booming across the hollow room, followed soon after by someone yelling "Orping is for losers you camping f$%&!" It wasn’t the prettiest sound in the world but it definitely had some memorial properties to it.

Then there is the library of other games that you may have played in a darkened room with your mates too, like the Tekken series, 007 Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Halo…and the list goes on. So where am I going with this? Well, you may not have noticed but this style of gaming is basically obliterated, and replaced by the monster that is

I think the answer is no, and that the term 'addicted' is thrown around too loosely these days. I think that this newly formed 'Video Game Addiction' comes under the same category as several other 'addictions' that have popped up over recent years, like shopping addictions, sex addictions, and drinking milk from the carton addictions. Personally, I don't believe these are addictions at all, I believe these are simply bad habits and below I'm going to explain why.

Firstly, I think its important to define what exactly is an addiction, and what is a simply a bad habit. An addiction from my perspective is usually created in the physical realm, like Nicotine and Heroin, whereas a bad habit is something that is created mentally. Now in a world such as ours nothing is ever a certain (excluding death and taxes), and as such there are always exceptions to the rule. I do not believe that all physical addictions are substance based, nor do I believe that all mental addictions aren't, but the vast majority are.

So on that basis, I believe that Video Game Addiction is not an addiction at all, but simply a bad habit that can be easily remedied with willpower and self-discipline. Now I'm