FanFic
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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.
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.
Breakfast Topic: Do you read or write WoW fanfic?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. The creative community surrounding World of Warcraft is a varied one. No matter what genre of art you look into, you will find a WoW geek making something amazing somewhere. If you search hard enough, you can find everything from fan-made jewelry to cosplay, digital art to sculpture, machinima to comic strips, and so much more. Also included in this world of WoW-based arts is the writing community. The topics covered in the writing community are as different and vast as the playerbase itself. You have your eclectic WoW blogs, the number-crunching, class-based fan sites, and everything in between. The one area of the writing community that has been getting my interest lately though has been the fanfic section. I'm an absolute sucker for a great story. Do you write fan fiction? Do you use a blogging platform to showcase your work, or do you use a site like Fanfiction.net? If you write your own fanfic, what sort of characters do you write about? Do you write about well-known characters, or do you prefer to tell the story of some unknown face who just so happens to live in Azeroth? Do you tell the stories of your characters that you play in game, or do you tell the tale of the mysterious bread lady of Ironforge? If you don't write fanfic (either because you don't feel like you could ever do such a thing, which everyone should at least try, in my honest opinion), what is the story you wish you could tell, or what is a story that you would love to see told?
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: 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: The infamous Three Dragon Azeroth shirt
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. That's right, folks -- you could do better at BlizzCon 2010 than a Three Worgen Moon T-shirt. No, we're not going retro on you and suggesting you turn back to the original Three Wolf Moon tee. What you need is something more au courant, like the Three Dragon Azeroth from MagicalMelonBall at DeviantArt.com. Sadly, this cataclysmically excellent design isn't actually available for purchase on a T-shirt ... Still, we felt the design represents a worthy upgrade from its howlingly lunar predecessor. Ready for more fresh takes on art about Azeroth? Join us after the break for a buffet with a little something for every taste.
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.
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.
Zelda Week: Stronger and more braver
The Legend of Zelda: The Light of Courage is Nintendo fandom gone horribly, horribly right. It's a tale of adventure, lazy eyes and mean-spirited pranks against an IGN forum member.The Light of Courage got its start when someone convinced an IGN poster named JoeCracker that animation company DIC was interested in using his fanfic as the basis for a new animated Zelda series. Then, to really sell the story, some guys, pretending to be Super Mario Bros. Super Show/The Legend of Zelda producer John Grusd, posted a CG "test animation" featuring a scene from JoeCracker's script. You can see that first animation above.But they didn't stop there. Two more Light of Courage videos were produced, and they are epic. The lulz generated by parts 2 and 3 of The Light of Courage make up for pretty much all the other Zelda fanfic out there. We don't even really know what to say about them, except that they're embedded after the break, and that we hope we don't have to draw you a map to help you get there. And, if you like them, the Light of Courage homepage has higher-quality (sort of) WMV versions of all the videos, and even the promise of a fourth!
