When to Hire a Professional for Garage Door Repair

Over the course of time, it is not uncommon for garage doors to

suddenly start to show symptoms of malfunctioning. It may be something

as simple as a spring that needs to be replaced or it could be the

Want to Be a Better Boffer at LARP Events?

Improving your boffing skills is sometimes easier than you think! There is the old adage of practice, practice, and more practice. But one week I learned more than I thought I ever would, standing outside of the boffer circle. It was an experience that I did not expect and will not soon forget. Due to an injury (which had nothing to do with boffing) I was unable to participate in the battle, but had committed to bringing weapons. So I thought I would just go and watch. And it was interesting what you can see without a boffer in your hand.

Warhammer Scenery

Those familiar with the fantasy game of Warhammer know perfectly well that it deals with combat situations between different armies. These fictional battles take place in the 41st millennium. The miniature figures and scenery associated with the warhammer game is set at 1:65 scales. Among the various items located in these online stores are the Warhammer Fortress walls and gateway. You can also find an abundance of trees and hedges to help decorate your miniature battle fields.

What Creates a Good Gaming Community?

And in that case, what creates a good game?

In an effort to figure out just what exactly draws people into a game I've done a lot of reading online about online RPGs, MMOs, etc to hopefully impact Ashianae's Journey in a positive way. There is an incredible article at Gamesutra.com called "Rethinking the MMO" which can be found here - the article is good and provides some insight on features and concepts needed in order to successfully pull off an MMO. While the article includes a great deal of information for someone willing to read a bit, the most important aspect mentioned in the article is game play that is fun. That's to say, one of the biggest game killers in game development can be "boring game play". This leads to the question of "How do you make your game fun?" It's a question that plagues me consistently, because while I can envision our game being fun, and including elements that tend to make games fun.. how can you be sure that your concept will lead to "fun" game play, and keep people engaged?

What Group of Gamer Are You?

Earlier a typical gamer used to be a male typically in the age group 16-19 years. But today there are older gamers in the gaming community. According to some surveys the average age of the male video gamer in US is 35 years and in UK is 23 years who have been playing video game for over a decade. Also it is estimated that nearly 40 percent of the video gamers are women.

Wish You Could Get More Video Games For Less Money? You CAN!

According to a survey on Gamespot, the average person buys at least one game a month. Some buy as many as 4 games a month. For simplicity, however, we're going to just focus on those people that buy one game a month. What I'm going to show you is the simplicity of renting video games online and how you can save hundreds every single year by doing so.

World of Warcraft Wallpapers

World of Warcraft is not always just playing the game. Check out the scenery every once in a while. Take a picture make it pretty and let everyone else know about it.

Ever play World of Warcraft and just liked the scenery? I have that's why I started making World of Warcraft Wallpapers. There extremely easy and can be a lot of fun at times. Here are some quick Tips on how to make your wallpaper pictures right.

Swapping Video Games As a Route to Cheap Gaming

Video gaming is an expensive hobby, but, as this article will demonstrate, it need not be! Most of the expense is due to the price tag of new video games and the fact that many video games have a short life span - be it a great but quick to complete Xbox 360 title or a PlayStation 3 game that simply loses its appeal quickly. This article will consider video game swapping as an alternative to purchasing new video games out right.

The New Face of Real Time Strategy - Halo Wars

With the extreme popularity of real time strategy games in the PC world (games like command and conquer, red alert, age of empires, the list goes on and on) you would think that these games could port over to console systems and become an instant success. Especially considering the easy access to multiplayer live gaming like the PlayStation and Xbox systems have delivered with all of their popular racing and fighting games.

Productivity Purgatory - Broken Picture Telephone

Need a convenient scapegoat for the current economic crisis? Blame this highly addictive game that will manage to cripple the world's workforce for at least the rest of time.

WoW Strategy Tips

There are loads WoW strategy tips that are available to you from the web, the problem is, there are so many completely different choices available, the question is, which World of Warcraft strategy guide is top for you?

Why You Should Join an Online Gaming Tournament

This is not promo - the author removed the promo sentence in the article. Be sure to read and see if the author made the changes before copying the previous PA notes.Online Gaming Tournaments are ideal if you enjoy playing games either on your computer on a games console, and want to take you game playing to a different level. Perhaps you've always wondered how you'd manage against other real opponents, or maybe you and your friends want to take on the world at your favourite games.

Why I Started My Own Armory

Believe it or not it all started with comics, when I was at an anime convention, I love Anime. Anime, in addition to manga (Japanese comics), is extremely popular in Japan and well known throughout the world. Anime itself is considered a form of limited animation. To give you some background info about anime, the weapons are really big and unusual.

The Old School Rant

 Our youth today do not comprehend what makes a video game special.  They approach their purchases based on superior graphics and on-line functionality.  A night of gaming consists of trash-talking to other gamers, ruining their experiences.  They have not grown up with the innocence of gaming that generation x had the pleasure to.  Back when Nintendo and Sega games were a bunch of sprites traveling from left to right, the programmers focused on game play, the cornerstone of what makes a game so unique.  Today's games do focus on that same concept, but our youth seem to ignore it.  It doesn't help their case that companies like EA and Activision churn out sequels every year, and turn once great gaming concepts into bland experiences.  Examples include the Tony Hawk series, Medal of Honor, Tomb Raider, Madden and now the EA developed Skate 2.

Tasks of the Game Master

Most of the advanced role playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons or the Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game require the use of one person to act as an arbitrator in the game, someone to help set up the adventure, keep everything running smoothly on track, and to handle all of the threads that each player or character might be involved in. The Game Master will be one who helps the players with keeping track of all of the rules of the game along with moderating the players so that chaos does not take over the game.

The Forgotten Demographic - How Female Gamers Can Make Your Games a Success

Rarely do you walk into a video game store and see many game titles catered exclusively for the female game audience. There is virtually no big box support for such titles as they spend millions of dollars catering exclusively to male audiences. After all, conventional wisdom would suggest that since only games for males are being made, that only males are interested in playing video games. This couldn't be further from the truth, a fact often overlooked by larger game publishing companies such as EA, Activision or Take-Two. The statistics alone disprove the notion that girls are not interested in spending time playing video games. The Sims is the best selling game of all time and a large amount of its success can be attributed to its loyal female fan base. 40% of all girls in Australia that participated in a survey admitted to spending time online playing video games as well. This is a global trend that as more game enabled devices are available, so does the potential audience for your products. From personal experience I can attest to the power of focusing on the female gamer audience and the amount of success it can bring to your game portals. Hopefully this article can shed some light on what you can do to acknowledge the female audience and entice them to use your product.

Video Game Tester - Get Paid to Play Video Games

Ever since the economy started going down the drain, a lot of good, hard working people lost their jobs. Most people don't even know where to look cause their so used to having a job and following the same routine every week. But what if i told you, you can make top dollar playing video games? No it's not too good to be true.

Virtual Worlds For Kids - Safe Or Not?

Virtual worlds for kids have been popping up all over the place since the announcement of Club Penguin being acquired by Disney for 350 million dollars, each one hoping to be the next Club Penguin.

For the uninformed, Club Penguin is a virtual world built for the kids where they can buy items, such as pets, clothing, food, etc, and get jobs to work for money. They can socialize with other players, throw snowballs and dance with each other, etc. It is a essentially a social and gaming platform for kids.

The Role of the Cleric in Role Playing Games

The Cleric is one of the most long standing playable character classes in many role-playing games. This role is also one of the most expansive and potentially powerful characters usable, depending on the edition of the game that one is playing.

Steampunk As a LARP Game?

Steampunk, a term that can be used loosely in terms of fiction, has been around since the 1980's.  Remember the 2003 film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?  This film literally popularized the steampunk genre.  It is listed a sub-genre of fantasy and exploratory fiction.  While steampunk can be found in any genre, whether it be historical, futuristic, or goth, often the era that steampunk is often used in would be the 19th century, or the Victorian era.  The predominant theme would be science fiction or fantasy, where fictional technological inventions would be created and used.

The Next Club Penguin - Where is It?

At the time of Club Penguin's acquisition, there were 12 million registered users, with about 700,000 of these paying subscribers. Each of them paid an average of $6 monthly, bringing the monthly subscription revenue of Club Penguin to an approximate 4.2 million dollars. To top it off Club Penguin was also making money off virtual goods and online merchandise. For a 3 man team sharing that amount of dough per month that's pretty good money!

Should We Still Be Gaming Past Our 30th Birthdays?

I am 34 years old. Still a young man you would say. So why is it that when I speak to my nephew about video games he always looks at me in a funny way and suggests I should have better things to do at my age?

Male Vs Female Role Playing Games

First please note that this article is not saying that all women are one way, and that all men are another way. This is just an attempt to understand some of the statistical differences in the trends between the type of imagination games that women prefer as opposed to those that men prefer.

Social Networking and Gaming

Several years ago during the early days of the worldwide web it seemed almost impossible to reason with the eventual success of the internet. Today we are in the throes of the next stages of fast developing; ground breaking social networking which has been a direct offshoot of the internet revolution. There really isn't one day that goes by where a new feature, attraction tool hasn't been incorporated on to the major social online community sites.

Role-Playing Werewolves

The werewolf is a powerful symbol of the primitive animal that still lurks within the polished façade of the modern human. It is an idea of the fierce and wild monster within finally escaping the boundaries of the mind, and in so doing, transforming the body, the soul, and the spirit of the person into something more fierce and terrifying than any man or beast alone.

Pokemon Cultural Impact

Pokemon have had a very important cultural impact in many countries where it has been imported. In Japan, Pokemon became popular, selling more than one million copies of Pocket Monsters in 1996. At the Tokyo Game Show in 1997, players could get the Mew Pokemon by downloading their games. The result was a queue that was 4 km, with some people camping overnight before the show. Arriving in the United States, the Red and Blue versions sold more than 200 000 units in two weeks, then continued to sell at an average of 800 000 units per month. Both versions were the best games sold by Nintendo. At that point in time they were the best-selling games in the history of video games. Pokemon Pinball was the game released on Game Boy and it sold even more quickly, with more than 262 000 units sold in 20 days. The series that was distributed by Hasbro toys were also commercial successes. As the television series grew in popularity, so did Hasbro which surpassed its main competitor, Mattel, in 2000. The games were so popular that Hasbro was unable to gather enough toys to satisfy demand. Wizards of the Coast had the same problem with the card game collectibles, and has sold over 50 million cards between January and March 1999. As of July, 1999, Pokemon had generated more than $ 5 billion.

Simplify Life With Online Pills Known As Community Websites

These communities are websites, which enable the user to chat with each other and also enable the users check their status of being online. Newer ways of doing this are one of the greatest things that human being have ever done in their existence up till now.

Should Kids in Gaming Communities Be Tested For Future Robotic Military Jobs?

The United States Air Force has increased their robotic unmanned aerial vehicle training and can no longer fit into the current facilities, and therefore an entire new training facility and squadron is being created in Alamogordo, New Mexico just to help fill the demand.

So You WSo You Want to Join a Boffer Group?

So you would like to find a boffer or L.A.R.P. group near you?  Well first you have to choose what type of group you would like to play with.

Online Backgammon For Everyone

Backgammon is one of the most exciting ancient games in the history of mankind that is still actively being played today. With the dawn of the internet, the popular board game has reached almost epidemic proportions around the world. This phenomenon is understandable to anyone who has played backgammon online. Online gaming providers offer to the public a safe, reliable and an up-to-date platform. Playing online backgammon with family and friends can be great fun with endless hours of entertainment. If you want to broaden your horizons and play with countless people then playing Backgammon online is the way to go. You can be of any standard to play and you get the opportunity to play backgammon with thousands of people all over the world at any given time for fun or money.

Deaths Caused by Video Games

Believe it or not, but video games have actually killed people. Some games are held responsible for physically killing people and also some games have actually driven people to their deaths (I know crazy right?). There are actually several reported cases of death caused by video games every year however only some make it on the news and become popular. These 4 examples are just few of the many cases of death caused by video games but these are the most popular so take each one into consideration so you won't be the next person on this list!

Halo Wars Gaming Community - The Necessities

With the upcoming release of the Halo Wars Real time Strategy game, there has been a myriad of new Halo Wars communities, sites and blogs popping up. Some are just small time blogs talking about rumors, or possible characters that might play a role in the new game. Some are sites dedicated to tricks and tips or becoming the first to get their glitches and cheats online. The remainder seem to take the shape of an online community.

Invading the Wrong Space

The past brings up a lot of subjects, your first girlfriend, space invaders, the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers. So what happens when you put two of them together? And yes your girlfriend and invading her space would make a good story but that's not the correct combination now is it? Recently at the GH ART exhibit held at the Games Convention in Germany a piece was featured that depicted the 9/11 attack using space invaders.

How to Earn Lindens And-Or Get a Job in Second Life

So you're in Second Life and you want to make some lindens. You may not be sure where to go next or what to do to make some virtual cash. Well the good news for you is that you found this article! As you may or may not know by now, Second Life is not like other MMORPG's out there. You can not just go out and kill bats and rats for an income like you can in other popular online games. However, there are several options to make money so you can buy that outfit you want!

Harry Potter Roleplaying

When you choose to take a piece of literature and expand upon it, either through roleplaying, or through some form of fan fiction, there are a number of choices that you have to make. First and foremost is, will you stick to the logical and chronological timeline that was laid out in the book? If you choose to follow the chronology of the book you can either choose to replay something that was written, simply mirroring what is in the story, or you can fill in gaps that the story doesn't cover, such as time periods which were glossed over, or events which were not described in great detail.

Laying Plans - The Art of War by Sun Tzu

I was reading through some of the texts of the Art of War by Sun Tzu and considered how some of the doctrines he wrote down applied to the current video gamer while playing some of the strategy war games which are now in fashion. I thought I would have a look at some of his texts and see whether they applied to the logic of the computer.

Is Swapping Video Games With Other Gamers a Better Way to Play New Video Games?

Every gamer goes through the process of buying a new video game - playing it to boredom or completion and then moving onto the next game. For some, the retail value of £40 (~$60) for most new video games makes moving onto the next game a tricky task, making gaming an expensive hobby! This article will discuss several methods of buying/getting new video games available to gamers and consider whether video game swapping sites represent the best possible value to a gamer when moving onto a new video game.

Habbo Hotel and Online Virtual Worlds

Habbo Hotel

No longer is the internet the enclave of the academic and business user, now leisure users probably outnumber both, the popularity of online worlds like Habbo reflect this trend.

How to Join Second Life

you would like to join Second Life and see what all the fuss is about. It is actually free and easy to join. I will explain here exactly how to join step by step, just follow these simple instructions and you will be on your way to an amazing virtual world.

How to Play Dungeons and Dragons Game - It's Really Not That Hard

So maybe you've heard about  the Dungeons and Dragons game and are curious as to what this is all about. Possibly you've heard about playing Dungeons and Dragons online, and now your interest is peaked. This article is going to explain a little about the game and how you can get a group of friends around the Dungeons and Dragons table.

Become a Virtual Entrepreneur - Second Life Tips

Many people refer to second life as a game, however actually I think it's much more of a community. There is no way to win the game, it's just like life! To compete in second life you will rely on property and money, much the same as in our world! When you first start exploring the second life world you will see that everything in that world is made by people just like you!

A Few Tips on Etiquette in Gaming

I'm not Polite Polly, and I'm not Ms. Manners, but I'd like to help you anyway with your game etiquette. Playing games can be frustrating at times and you can become angry, but that doesn't mean that you should express your anger in the game. What you read here should give you the chance to still have fun, while not ruining the mood of others during a multiplayer game.

An Incredible Online World Awaits You at Second Life

Have you ever wanted to assume a character and explore a wonderful online world without worrying about getting killed by bandits, gangsters, or dragons? Well, there is an immense online environment in 3D where you can go called Second Life. It's easy to register, and it's free.

Become a Paid Game Tester by Taking 3 Simple Steps!

If you want to become a paid game tester without going to college and without getting any sort of formal training, then follow these 3 steps.

Building Relationships Through Video Games on the Internet

These games have become tools specifically put in place to attract new consumers to the video game industry. It's the perfect solution, since the online games never deteriorate and are affordably available to a large audience. The games are innovated, and not necessarily like any traditional video games that are reserved for computers, gaming systems, and even cellphones.

Computer Networking - Enhancing the Gaming Experience

There was a time when people would rave about 2-D arcade games such as Pac Man, Pong, and Space Invaders. Since then, the gaming industry has turned itself into a moneymaking behemoth, and has connected itself to other industries as well such as music, merchandise, and advertising. Video games nowadays come in different forms and genres, and one of the most exciting types of gaming is through computer networking.

Copy Your Favorite Game and Stop Spending Money on Originals

Many teens love to play video games. I see it and here it everywhere, from middle school to college. At first I thought that in college not so many students would choose to spend money on video games and sit around and play them. Yet when I enter the dorms, it is quite often that I see people playing Halo, Guitar Hero or many other games. And why not? After a busy day, there is nothing wrong to sit back and enjoy your favorite game.

Attracting Members to Your Gaming Clan

Something all clans need, and so few are any good at. Attracting members can be a bit difficult, especially at first. With so many options in the clanning world today, you have to ask yourself what separates your clan from any other. Put yourself in the shoes of a gamer wishing to join a clan, and compare yourselves with the competition in your game of choice. Does yours stand out? Do you appear organized? Professional? Identify the type of member you want to reach, be it casual gamer, hardcore gamers, or even a mix of the two. Through experience, a few ways I have learned to attract members have been:

Catering in LRP - The Options Available For LARP Catering

Eating out on a live action Role Playing Event, a catering guide for Larping. No matter what the duration of the event you are going to you will no doubt need to eat and drink. Here are the different options that players tend to choose when going on a live action role playing weekend and a few thoughts on each.

Championship Video Gaming

Video games have become a treasured pastime around the world with the increased capabilities of computers and console units. Massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) have a fan base into the millions with World of Warcraft being the biggest draw of the day for online role playing.