Once a whore...

The worst possible job you can get as a freelance games journalist is writing a guide to an MMORPG. Guides are always written by the grunts, by the crazy people willing to spend 8-12 hours a day playing a game over the course of weeks in order to figure out the most efficient way to level up, specialize a character, what gear to use and so on and so forth. You will never see any actual editors working on these things, except for one poor fuck who has to coordinate the whole thing. Everyone else is a freelancer of sorts, ranging from people who do this thing for a living to progress guild members and students and the like.

It's the kind of job that is really just worth it if you're the kind of guy who is going to play the game all day and night, anyway. I had to write a class guide to SWTOR and the job just ruined the game for me. I never came back after my work was done. Same thing with TESO - I hated the game by the time I was finished and only came back a few weeks ago when I was asked to deliver a quick re-review. I had a max level character, I knew what the game was all about due to my news job, so it was quick and easy money. But I didn't want to write any more guides about this game or any other MMO, ever.

So when I was asked to help contribute to yet another class guide, I instantly refused. I didn't even give a reason, because I keep telling my employers that I don't really play MMOs much anymore, that I hate writing guides, that I want nothing to do with any of this. Why repeat myself when they already know, right?

Yeah well... they raised a pretty good point when they said I already had a maxed-out character, I had all the resources and knowledge at hand and there's really not a lot of research required here. Just write down what's already in my head, anyway. Surprisingly decent pay, too, while everyone else has been offering so little that I never really wanted to go back into games journalism to begin with. And my old PC is craving that yummy i7-4790K 4GHZ CPU and a side of juicy DDR3-RAM. Fuck.

I told them what I could and couldn't deliver and how long it would take me. Nothing is set in stone, but right now it looks like I'll be writing another big, fat guide. I'm usually too lazy for that kind of work and I don't really need the extra pay for anything, but it would be nice to run GTA V a little faster in all its glory. It's quite possibly the greatest game ever made.

Everything that could possibly ever be said about GTA V has already been said. I want to talk about how much I love the story, the heists, being able to experience the whole thing with my friends, exploring the insanely huge, realistic game world, bla, bla... look, it's fucking GTA V and you already know what it's all about. And now I'm hoping to do a job I initially refused, because I hated it, just so I can run GTA a little faster. Fuck me.

-Cat