Alpha testing sign-ups are open for City of Steam

Back in November I had the chance to interview the "City of Steam" developers, Mechanist Games, about their upcoming steam-em-up F2P MMO.

The developers have been hard at work on the game ever since (no doubt using coal powered, mechanical computers with brass keyboards) and you now have the chance to get a key to the upcoming alpha sneak test of the game. For a chance to get into the alpha test you'll need to head on over to the official City of Steam website and sign up for the newsletter.

No date has been set for the test yet, but according to this thread on the City of Steam forums, Mechanist games is targeting it to take place within the next month or two.

In the mean time here's the latest gameplay trailer from the game, which shows the different classes of the game in action:

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4 Tips to the Sith Empire in SWTOR

My work as a Sith Inquisitor has sent me across most of the planets in the galaxy of Star Wars: The Old Republic by now. It's been a great experience all in all I think, but I must say that there are some things in the world that boggles my mind.

No, it's not things like "where do Twi'lek's lekkus go when they wear a closed helmet?", or "how come I get my own interplanetary starship at level 18, but I can't buy a damn hovering scooter until I'm level 25?"

"Here's the key to your personal starship, sir. What? You want a scooter? Oh, you're gonna have to prove that you're a responsible adult before I can get you one of *those*."

Instead I've made some observations about the Sith Empire and some questionable decisions that they seem to have made and I've come up with 4 pieces of friendly advice for them:

How long does it take to empty out the four tombs that are *just adjacent* to the Sith Academy?!

Seriously guys, you've been on that planet for years and there are still priceless artifacts sitting in plain sight, literally a few minutes walk from the largest concentration of Sith scholars in the galaxy!

Now I know that it's nice to be able to give your budding apprentices a task, but wouldn't it be a lot better to just make a round and clean out the tombs and then place some trophies or something that you can ask the students to grab?

Rediscovering James Cameron’s Aliens

I'm glad to be able to bring you another article by Jordan Siron. Jordan has previously written about the first "Alien" movie and what he thinks makes it so great.
This time Jordan takes on the sequel "Aliens" and illuminates us as to why he thinks it is a lesser movie than the original.

The (not so) cleverly named Aliens has been considered by many fans to be the best in the series. While I respect others’ opinions, I am afraid I have to respectfully disagree. Directed by Hollywood Hot Shot, James Cameron, Aliens is vastly different in terms of tone, themes, and effects. It’s so different from Alien that one such as I have often wondered if it had originally been planned as the first entry in a totally different franchise. It is by no means a bad film – it’s downright entertaining, to say the absolute least – but it left me a tad sad over what might have been.

The Story
It just so happens that the planet from the first film has since been colonized, but all contact has been lost. A team of Marines, accompanied by Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and an obnoxious bureaucrat (Paul Reiser), venture to the planet’s surface in hopes of discovering the catalyst behind the radio silence. The team discovers the entire colony has been torn asunder by the titular creatures, and must fight to survive.

SWTOR forums - Revenge of the Fanboys

As I start working my way deeper into a MMO I will inevitably start visiting its forums to learn more about the game and pick up tips and advice from my fellow gamers.
Such is also the case with Star Wars: The Old Republic, and so I have recently started trawling through the SWTOR forums in order to squeeze a little more Force juice out of my lightsaber (ewww..).

Visiting forums on the internet is usually a dubious pleasure as they tend to be populated by around 20% normal human beings and 80% beings of pure satanical evil and stupidity.
But even with this classic 80/20 split in mind I still found myself riled by the level debate on the SWTOR forums, which frankly makes the patrons of the Mos Eisly cantina seem like a bunch of well mannered girl scouts (hell, even Mr. "oh-no-there-goes-my-arm" had the politeness to explain to Luke that he didn't like him before he attacked).

"Well, some of the side missions are a little boring, if only...OH GOD, MY FACE!"

The prime offender on the SWTOR forums seems to be a bad case of Fanboyism, a condition that is commonly seen in early MMO adopters and dedicated Star Wars fans.
This condition, commonly contracted through large amounts of social isolation and/or repeated blows to the head, renders the person completely unable to tolerate any sort of criticism leveled against his or hers object of love.
Indeed, even a slight questioning of the incredible awesomeness of their personal fetish is met with withering stares and guttural grunts of warning.

And so it is that the SWTOR forums are filled with people being absolutely demolished for attempting to question any part of the game.
It really matters very little how the original poster tries to frame his criticism, everything from the most politely and rationally presented argument to the most obvious piece of trolling flame bait gets treated with the same broadside of hate and denial from the raging fanboy community.

Coming up on Light Speed Gaming on the week of January 9th

First week of 2012 is over and after all the post New Year buzz has died down we're left with the cold and grey reality that is January.

But fear not, as Light Speed Gaming is hear to cheer you up with brain paralyzingly* amazing science fiction and gaming content *(actual brains may or may not be paralyzed, not a guarantee).

Looking back at what I had for you this week, I started by cheering everyone up with a long rant about the problems of storytelling in Star Wars: The Old Republic and how I feel that the format of a MMO is negatively effecting my enjoyment of the storytelling.

At least we found out that Firaxis is making a "proper" X-COM game. That was good news!

After that ray of cheerful sunshine came my book review of Savage Scars, a decidedly unexciting Warhammer 40k novel that I must advise you to steer your Battle Barge clear of.

So two happy posts and then on to talk about the horribleness of the auction house system in Old Republic.
BUT! This time there was a silver lining to my complaining, as I explained how the terrible GTN auction house UI might be a good opportunity to get rich.