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Twitch Plays Pokemon: Creating an oral history in real-time
When I began my phone call Sunday evening with T.L. Taylor, an associate professor of comparative media studies at MIT, I opted to check her loyalty to the one, true Helix god. "All sensible people are," she joked. Even when observing Twitch Plays Pokemon from an academic standpoint, it's easy to get wrapped up in the emerging community-crafted narrative surrounding the live, always-on event. The crowd-created stories in Twitch Plays Pokemon are enough to fill four seasons of serialized TV drama, complete with the surprising death of characters and the rise of clearly-defined heroes, villains and idolized "gods" like the Helix Fossil, all caught in a religious war. Yet it moves at a pace that can make some accounts of the multiplayer game seem outdated within hours. In fact, by the time I came back to this very paragraph, the Helix Fossil was revived and turned into the Pokemon Omanyte (affectionately called "Lord Helix" by the players). "[The channel] actually takes one of the kernels of what makes Twitch so interesting, which is turning what would otherwise be your private play into public entertainment for others," Taylor said. "What I think is great about this channel and is so fascinating is that the entertainer also becomes the crowd."
Live-action Portal fan film explores the birth of GLaDOS
GLaDOS is widely considered one of gaming's finest antagonists, but like all malevolent robots she too was once a child - A brutal, sadistic child with no sympathy for terrified scientists. That's the basic premise behind Portal: Survive!, a new live-action fan film which explores the violent early moments of GLaDOS. Despite being an amateur production, Portal: Survive! proves surprisingly well-crafted. Colin and Connor McGuire, the duo behind the short, claim that the total budget for their project was less than $500. The claustrophic interiors you see in the vignette are almost certainly a compromise made for monetary reasons, but the film's creators did an excellent job of making these limitations work toward the short's advantage. Instead of feeling cheap, these small sets lend an appropriate level of tension to the rise of GLaDOS.
Kurt Vonnegut's work joins Kindle Worlds, Kilgore Trouts rejoice
Kindle Worlds has become unstuck in time. Amazon announced this morning that it has wrangled a license for Kurt Vonnegut's work, bringing Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions and the like to the world of paid fan fiction. One rep from the author's trust called the deal a "natural extension of his legacy and a testament to the enduring popularity of his characters and stories." At the very least, it marks a turn toward more classic literature (and, arguably, legitimacy) for a program that thus far includes the likes of Gossip Girl and The Vampire Diaries. And certainly Vonnegut's vast catalog offers plenty of fodder for the prospective novelist, * and all.
Blizzard journals coming this fall from Insight Editions
Publishing company Insight Editions is coming out with a pretty cool and unique new item this fall -- Blizzard-themed journals with gorgeous covers featuring images from both the Warcraft and Diablo III franchises. These 192-page ruled journals feature sewn binding that allows the journal to lay flat while you write. Themes include a Sindragosa-inspired frostwyrm cover as well as Alliance and Horde logos in red and blue, and a duo of Diablo III covers featuring the High Heavens and the Burning Hells. Pretty and compact, the journals are the perfect place to jot down all your deepest thoughts, your most secret raid strats and ideas, or your most creative and entertaining Anduin and Wrathion fan fiction. Yes, we know it's out there. While the exact release date for the journals hasn't been revealed, you can pre-order yours for $18.95 on Insight Editions' website -- perfect holiday gift, anyone?
Amazon opens up Kindle Worlds Store, for all your licensed fan fic needs
Come on now, why are you wasting your time here, when you could be reading some Gossip Girl fan fic? Roughly a month after announcing its licensed character publishing platform, Amazon has taken the wraps off of Kindle Worlds. The site currently offers up 50-plus commissioned stories based on properties like The Vampire Diaries, Valiant Comics titles, and yes, Gossip Girl. Worlds' Self-Service Submission Platform is open to the public as well, letting interested parties make some cash (up to 35-percent royalties) by putting their fan fiction up on the site. Stories are largely priced between $1 and $4. You can take a gander in the source link below, to make some sweet Gossip Girl of your own.
Amazon launches Kindle Worlds publishing platform for fan fiction, will pay royalties to writers and rights holders
Amazon's taken a number of steps to bring different types of content to the Kindle Store, and it's now venturing into an area that has a long history with the internet: fan fiction. The company's today announced Kindle Worlds, a new publishing platform that promises to pay writers royalties for stories inspired by established works. Naturally, the original rights holder needs to be a willing participant as well, and they'll also be paid a royalty for all fan fiction stories sold (Amazon itself with retain the rights to those stories). So what are your options for now? For the launch, Amazon has partnered with Warner Bros. Television Group's Alloy Entertainment to open up three of its series to fan fiction enthusiasts, giving you the chance to write stories set in the world of Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars or The Vampire Diaries. The company's promising that additional licenses are on the way, but for now you can check out the finer details in the press release after the break and at the source link below.
Frontier adds new Elite: Dangerous pledge options, multiplayer ship video
Elite: Dangerous still has a goofy name, but now it's got a smidgeon of game footage to go along with it thanks to a newly released multiplayer dogfight video. Well, technically the clip features some gun camera footage of the game's lead programmer chasing David Braben's ship through an asteroid field. It's not quite a dogfight, but it's closer than many a fledgling Kickstarter project has managed. There's no sound, so Braben spends all of the clip's five-minute running time talking about various and sundry Elite: Dangerous possibilities. He touches on the inevitable griefing that comes with free-form sandbox games, too, saying that Frontier has "lots of strategies" for dealing with undesirables. Finally, the game's Kickstarter page has introduced new pledge options including the Writer's Pack (which enables aspiring fanfic authors to pay a chunk of change and get their stories in the game) and a couple of boxed editions. Click past the cut for the dev diary video.
Travels through Azeroth and Outland returns
Travels through Azeroth and Outland was a player-penned travelogue through all of World of Warcraft's zones, written from the perspective of a canny Forsaken narrator with a good eye for the local culture (to the extent that places like Hellfire Peninsula could be said to have "local culture"). It was easily one of the best, most unsettling, and most thought-provoking pieces of fan fiction we've ever read, and it amassed a significant group of fans among players and Blizzard alike. It even has its own TV Tropes entry. Unfortunately for us, its author Zac finished all of the zones in the game through Wrath of the Lich King content and then left to focus on graduate school. But it's back! Zac will be updating the travelogue with Cataclysm content, starting with his recent entry on Kezan. It examines the city itself and the story of the Bilgewater Cartel's entry to the Horde, but it also contains a few, shall we say, anthropological observations. ("I was relieved that no one died in the (footbomb) game I watched, a sentiment not shared by the audience.") You can hop into the travelogue at any point and get a feel for what Destron Allicant, its narrator, is all about, but I would recommend starting from the very beginning. Trust me: It will change how you experience the game, and for the better. We've interviewed Zac previously, and if you're interested in getting some background information on how he's written the series, you'll find related articles here: Lisa's World of WarCrafts interview with Zac Forsaken narrators, MMO storytelling, and why the draenei are so scary Zac's notes on his characterization of all 12 races Narrative gaps, secondary characters, and Icecrown's unending bleakness Why players aren't necessarily "the good guys"
Movellas releases fan fiction contest winners
As you may recall, we posted about a World of Warcraft fan fiction contest being held by the online writing community Movellas a few weeks back. That contest has now ended, and Movellas has posted the winners. Winners include more than a few stories about the blood elves and high elves and a check-in with everyone's favorite adorable draenei, Dornaa. With the status of the Blizzard Global Writing Contest up in the air, this seems to be a pretty decent way for people to get their Warcraft fan fiction fix instead. Congratulations to all the winners. You can read all the winning entries over at the Movellas website.
WoW fan fiction contest at Movellas
Online writing community Movellas is holding a World of Warcraft fan fiction contest. Movellas is accepting stories on a wide variety of WoW-related topics such as Thrall, your character, Thrall meeting your character, and so on. The prize list for first through eighth place includes many items from Steelseries as well as some loot codes. The people at Movellas will not be reading every entry. Instead, the stories go up on the site for the readers to vote on, and then the winners will be chosen from the most popular submissions. If you want to enter, you only have until this Friday, July 6. Write quickly, as stories are already being evaluated by the readers. If you are looking to enter the contest or just want to read some fan fiction, head over to Movellas for the full details and entries.
Captain's Log: Facing a content drought? Make up your own!
Those of you who haven't been in Star Trek Online in a while will be happy to know there was a new event system put into place after the advent of A Call to Arms. The event calendar appears the moment a player clicks on his Starfleet delta to hail Starfleet and contains a neatly reorganized mission menu as well as an hourly listing of special daily events in which players can participate. Missions range from the KDF Mirror Universe and the new Borg Invasion of Defera to the Multiphasic Event in which players who farm anomalies for crafting are granted extra rewards during the time period in question. The new event system is very helpful to those players who get satisfaction from a specific type of play as they are able to obtain extra rewards for undertaking that play during the scheduled times. Of course, events aren't the only way to spend your STO time during this content drought, and this New Year's Eve edition of the Captain's Log has a few other ideas for you...
Travels through Azeroth and Outland comes to a close
I've been pretty vocal in the past about my intense love for Travels through Azeroth and Outland. It's a five-year, player-penned travelogue that takes readers on an expansive journey through every zone in the pre-Cataclysm game. Over the years, it's attracted a lot of attention due to the incredible quality of its writing and storytelling. Not only does it have its own TV Tropes entry, but even Blizzard's taken notice, and we've gotten the opportunity to interview its writer. Even if you're not a roleplayer or all that interested in WoW's lore, Travels has an unsettling capacity to get you thinking about the deeper implications of the game's quests and become absorbed in the narrator's observations. It is, quite simply, one of the best pieces of fan fiction I've ever read and a hugely addictive story. If you haven't read it, please do. You will never see the game the same way again. But, as with all good things, Travels has reached its end. While Zac, its author, plans to post some story cues related to the Cataclysm expansion on his travelogue's forums, he's wrapped up the main storyline, and our beloved narrator -- a Forsaken named Destron Allicant -- is riding off into the sunset. I was lucky enough to talk extensively with Zac about what spurred the travelogue, how he sees the various Azerothian races, and good versus evil in Blizzard's universe.
Breakfast Topic: What is your favorite World of Warcraft fan art or media?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. With the massive number of players logging in every day to WoW, there's an equally expansive amount of art and media coming from that player base. Very few games have ever brought out such a community of creative minds showing the rest of us their vision of a fantasy world. From machinima to custom WoW dolls (I mean action figures -- right, guys?), to Horde/Alliance-themed cakes, there are a ton of different venues for artists of all varieties to express their passion for the game. I've just recently begun to start watching WoW-based machinima and have discovered there are quite a few masterpieces out there from people who seem talented enough to write or direct feature films. After the Cataclysm launch, I'm going to start an ongoing fan fiction story about a rogue and what his life is like after Deathwing ravages Azeroth. It should be plum full of adventures and high jinks! Although I'd love to include custom artwork with that story, my drawing skill ends at stick figures, so I'll have to use to screen shots. Out of all the different art, videos, and other "warcrafts," are there any you'd like to participate in? Or maybe you already check out great fan art, make custom troll outfits for cosplay, or bake cupcakes shaped like murlocs. What are your favorites?
World of WarCrafts: The Helvetica Venture
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction and more. Sample the whole spectrum on our Arts and Crafts in WoW page. Recipes, action figures, art -- the fans of Warcraft are a creative bunch, and Kyt Dotson is no exception. Rather than artwork or crafts, however, Kyt creates vivid worlds with the written word. Kyt's latest work, The Helvetica Venture, can be found on Vox Ex Machina. The story involves a starting blood elf character named Helvetica and her adventures in Azeroth, but it takes a humorous twist to the usual form of narrative storytelling. On the table nearby, taking up the only clear space in the entire room, is a green box. Imagine a box, an ordinary 5¼"x 7½" video game box sporting fold-out inserts for the cover and a preternatural lightness to its heft that belies the contents stored within. Emblazoned over the surface-above the oh-so-handsome staring face of a blonde elf with vorpal eyebrows and nuclear green eyes-display the words: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. "You haven't played one of these games before, have you?" asked the screen that comes up after she installs the game. Take a look after the break for more information about Helvetica and her creator.
The Lawbringer: The trouble with fan fiction
Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Running parallel to the games we love and enjoy is a world full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play? Finally, I return home after a bit of bliss. Fun is over -- it's time to get serious by talking about fan fiction. Sort of. You see, fan fiction is one of those areas that people love to hate, hate to love and everything in between. What is it about fan fiction that gets people so upset and so defensive? Is it the personal nature of the craft, the accusatory piggy-backing on other people's characters, or just that so much of it is mind-numbingly terrible? Who knows? Today, we're going to explore a few of the concepts of fan fiction in a very no-nonsense, barely legal way, to give you aspiring authors something to consider while writing your own fan fiction or even original content. With my post-vacation bliss now completely out of my system, thanks to reading so much terrible fan fiction in preparation, I am happy to share with all of you a story that I've been writing for the last minute and a half. Don't be cruel, now. It's pretty much going to become the greatest story ever told. Enjoy.
World of WarCrafts: Ollo Ollovious, the Technicolor gnome
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction and more. Sample the whole spectrum on WoW.com's Arts and Crafts in WoW page. There's knitting together a World of Warcraft-themed scarf or emblazoning a T-shirt with Alliance pride, inviting your game of choice to mosey along hand-in-hand with your hobby of choice -- and then there's oozing WoW-themed personality through every creative pore of your sweating brow. Jay Scullin comes from the second camp. A web designer by day, Scullin is a WoW-centric artist and blogger by night. When the sun goes down at the end of a long day, on comes his work lamp and in comes a flood of rich, color-saturated ideas pouring forth in his computer-generated artwork and a fanfic account of his character's progress through WoW. Scullin originally created this portrait of his beloved gnome mage Ollo Ollovious of Uldaman (US-A) for last year's Blizzard fan art contest. Using Photoshop and Illustrator with a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet, he painstakingly labored over some 12 hours to keep the representation as true as possible to Ollo's in-game demeanor. In yet another character-focused project, he blogs at Legend of Piket, the ongoing tale of his level 76 protection warrior's ascent through Azeroth, Outland and Northrend. Join us after the break for a brief conversation with Scullin about what keeps his creative pot bubbling with Azeroth-influenced projects. %Gallery-99054%
World of WarCrafts: Fan artists breathe creativity into their hobbies
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction and more. I've been reading an anthropological analysis of the World of Warcraft for an upcoming 15 Minutes of Fame that talks about the game as an "active aesthetic experience," a collective expression in which the participation of all is key to the entire experience. One of the things I'm most looking forward to talking about with the author is the incredible creative energy that WoW breathes into so many talented artists, writers, crafters and musicians. From WoW-themed arts and crafts that tickle our fancies to re-imaginings of the very artistic underpinnings of the game soundtrack and art itself, the World of Warcraft has inspired so many people across the world. While obviously we could invite you to scroll through our backlog of World of WarCrafts columns (and indeed, if you're interested in any sort of creative effort, we think you should), we decided to make things simple. We'd like to invite you to our new resource guide, Arts and crafts in WoW. From how-to instructions for arts and crafts, to recipe "strats" bringing you the flavors of Azeroth, to soundtracks and artwork and fan fic and more, we've gathered the best of our galleries and in-depth features together in one place. We hope you find it as enjoyable and inspirational as we do ... Welcome to the sights and sounds of the community of World of Warcraft! World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including arts and crafts, fan art, WoW-themed recipes, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself by emailing lisa@wow.com with your not-for-profit, WoW-inspired creations.
EVE blogger unveils Project Athena, a collection of fictional ship manuals
Few things impress me about EVE Online's community more than the incredible videos, artwork and fiction created by players. For the role-playing and fiction-writing communities, the game's continually-updated prime fiction acts as a canvas onto which new stories can be blended. Long-time EVE blogger Kirith Kodachi over at Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah has been an avid fiction-writer and contributor to EVE Tribune, producing several articles based on in-character technical overviews of EVE ships. Over the past two years, Kirith has been teaming up with artists and volunteer writers to collaborate on creating a more comprehensive collection of these articles. Written in the style of fictional ship manuals and presented as technical briefings interspersed with historical information, the completed project (dubbed "Project Athena") features full articles on 23 ships and their Tech 2 counterparts. Although the historical information and technical specifications have been invented by Kirith and his contributors, he's done his best to stick as closely as possible to the official EVE prime fiction. At 64 MB, the huge PDF file isn't a small download, but for role-players or fans of EVE fiction it's definitely worth a look.
World of WarCrafts: Travels Through Azeroth (and art contest)
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself; contact our tips line (attention: World of WarCrafts) with your not-for-profit, WoW-inspired creations. "This has never happened to me before. I'm a good pilot, dammit! Ugh, I know I'm going to be charged for it too. Serves me right for renting out a Cartel Zeppelin, dammit!" It was a dark, steaming jungle night in northern Stranglethorn. The ambient noise of the forest is astonishing. An endless natural orchestra of birds, insects, and mammals play in the lush canopies and dank undergrowth. Much like the Swamp of Sorrows, rain is a daily occurrence in Stranglethorn Vale. After Spirra crossed over the mountains it looked as if we would soon reach the goblin metropolis of Booty Bay. Then an unexpected storm blew us badly off-course. Spirra took this in stride, saying that it would just take a little longer, and that she could stop by Grom'gol if I wanted. Then, drifting low over the verdant jungle ceiling we heard a staccato of gunfire rise from the tangled landscape. Bullets shattered the propeller and pierced the balloon, and we streaked to the ground. It ended suddenly when Spirra's zeppelin impaled itself on a tree. Fortunately, neither of us was badly hurt. We climbed down the tree, carrying what supplies we could. Of our attackers we found no sign. ("Stranglethorn Vale," Travels Through Azeroth and Outland) Have you ever wondered what it would be like to actually be in Azeroth? To travel from place to place, staying in inns or with friends and acquaintances, taking in the sights and logging it all down in your journal? Find yourself transported as you see Azeroth and Outland through the eyes of itinerant traveller Destron the mage, as documented in the fan fiction Travels Through Azeroth and Outland. This ongoing, lore-based tale is deep -- deep enough in quantity to have accumulated years' worth of entries, and deep enough in content to be recommended by TVTropes.com. ATTENTION, ARTISTS: Submit your own illustration of Travels Through Azeroth's main character, Destron, for a chance to have your art featured here at WoW.com and on the main page of Travels Through Azeroth. Join us after the break for more details.
World of WarCrafts: March roars in like a Zhevra
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself; contact our tips line (attention: World of WarCrafts) with your not-for-profit, WoW-inspired creations. Ahh, March ... Roaring in like a lion comes a rush of WoW-inspired creativity from fans and readers. (Hopefully, we won't find ourselves sheeped like lambs by the end of the month -- but that's a matter better left to Mr. Archmage Pants.) First up, the only lambishly sweet of the bunch this week: yes, it's My Little Zhevra. This handmade custom named Zebu the Zhevra comes from thatg33kgirl at Deviant Art. (If Zebu provokes squees of cuteness overload, be sure to also check out last summer's My Lich King Pony.) Custom art for hunters, several selections of fan fiction, a custom character figure from a WoW.com reader, plus wicked wallpapers for warlocks, all coming up after the break.
