The book is meant to be a supplement to the instruction manual, not a replacement though all the info is there. The first chapter is all newbie. Strictly how to do your job. Teaching that reviving can get another gun up to keep you alive to revive someone else, landmines are limited so place them usefully, newbies should leave the flamethrower strapped to someone elses back…little ones shouldn’t play with fire. The simple stuff. Second chapter is straight objective lists. Exactly what you need to accomplish to win a map. Chapters 3 (allied job functions), and 4 (axis job functions) split each job category map by map and tell useful ways of getting the job done, with illustrated maps showing where to go. Chapter 5 is team strategies, I’m still working on these. I’ve been collecting notes from as many good players as I can talk to. As far as team strategies are concerned I know I can’t be the last word. There’s too much good info out there for me to pretend I know everything. Chapter 6 is very short, a small chapter about leagues, clans, and tourneys. I may even add a bit about q3 radiant, though this may not be the right chapter. Not how to work it, just that it’s there. Chapter 7 has appendices which list rank, medals, keyboard shortcuts, chat shortcuts, weapon descriptions with a fairly accurate detail of accuracy vs. power. Everything you should be able to find quickly.
All in all I think I wrote a good guide. Should take a newbie to the next level, and then some. Maybe not to the point where he knows what l337 means but close enough that he’ll learn if he isn’t driven away by his bitter lack of skilloz.
I am in contact with Prima, them and Sybex are my two remaining possibles. Prima is good, they take 30% unagented authors to publication and they know how to get a book to sell, but honestly selling is less important to me than it is to them. The real trick is marketing, they don’t want to market a guide for a game thats freeware because the video game retail stores have a strategy guide and no game to sell next to it. Makes them not wanna stock the guide since they can’t book a double sale. At least that’s what the Editor at Brady Games told me.
Of course she had to ask me what Return to Castle Wolfenstein was. She’s got no game so I of course lost all respect for her and Brady in one slice. I mean Brady doesn’t even make a guide for that game for petes sake. It’s wolfenstein. Need I say more. Anyone with any gamer roots feels me. if you know what up up down down left right left right B A B A stands for you feel me. All I know is I spent a year and a half testing 3rd party format QA for Sony, and I want out of the box. I want to give the great games the credit they deserve instead of picking apart pieces of crap from Mud Duck games.
Wow, that was a rant…lemme just step off this soapbox for a sec. Thanks for the suggestions. It helps rejuvenate me to get this into someone elses head beside mine. I will go through the gamer mags, I hadn’t considered that. I use writer’s market, kind of a directory for publishing houses. Mainly my frustration stems from the fact that a great game isn’t “marketable” as a guide. Where’s the love of the game itself.
ANTIHERO
