Welcome to today’s Bookahneer’s Geekwatch! The place about miscellaneous interesting news related to Guild Wars 2 – and on occasion, other games.
Today is more about other games than about Guild Wars 2. ;)
So far, only games that were “released” could be sold on Steam. There has been controversy about at least one game recently that got released while not being ready in the opinion of quite a lot of customers. Valve has now started Early Access Games which lets customers buy and then play pre-release versions of games – if the developers put their game on early access. If the game is free to play, there is no entry restriction. It sounds like a good compromise and much better than just the pre-sales that we’ve been seeing more and more often where you also paid the full amount but didn’t get the game for months. I understand that developing a game takes a lot of time and especially for indie developers, it’s nice that they can get some money before the game is released while the customer can get their hands on the game without having to wait for its release. I just hope that those customers know what they buy access to at that point and don’t give bad ratings because the game isn’t polished yet.
Speaking of Steam, I’ve been following one game quite closely when they started Steam Greenlight: Folk Tale. It reminds me a bit of Cultures. They’re getting closer to their kickstarter campaign and a playable demo. Imagine that, a demo! ;) You can read more about the development on their blog. I quite like strategy games combined with building villages, especially when the villagers have something of a personality. In Cultures, you could give the Vikings names and you chose who got which profession. You could also tell them whom to marry. If you didn’t, then they occasionally asked you if they could marry person X from their village. It makes it just a little bit livelier.
Star Trek Online is getting its first expansion on May 21: Legacy of Romulus. It’s also going to be free which is always great. ;) I’m not playing the game anymore as it wasn’t enough “world” for me (Star Trek needs to be about exploration and diplomacy more than just fighting if you ask me), but I’m still happy to see that there’s development and new content coming.
Last but not least, have a look at Syp’s 10/10 Project. The short explanation is: Take 10 evenings (not necessarily consecutive) and play 10 MMOs that you haven’t played before. It sounds like a fun project, so I’m going to do it as well. The problem for me is that I’ve at least tried so many of the MMOs out there, that my choices are limited. I still have 28 on my list (some that I have never heard of) and I’ll go through them to decide for my final 10. Recommendations are still welcome, of course. ;) My plan is to have at least some variety in the games I choose. Try out something that I wouldn’t play otherwise.
