Just Because I Have Nothing To Say About The Throne And Liberty Open Beta Doesn't Mean I'm Not Going To Say It Anyway...

So, here's everything I really know about Throne and Liberty...

Yeah. That much.

What I do know is that there's an open beta. It starts today, about an hour and a half from now, as I write. That's 18.00 London time. No, wait, make that a day and an hour and a half. It starts on Thursday, even if some online sources say Wednesday.

As I keep saying, this is turning out to be just about the busiest gaming summer I can remember. I'm not at all sure I'd have bothered with this one if it weren't for two things:

1. It's a mid-week start
2. It's on Steam

The first is very unusual. Since I went to working just two days a week, one of which is always Sunday and the other every other Saturday, just about every short-term alpha, beta, sneak peek or pop-up test has been largely inaccessible to me. 

Companies seem to like starting these things on a Friday afternoon and finishing them around midnight on Sunday, which means I'm lucky if I can fit in a couple of short sessions. This one is a full five days and I'm only working for one of them, so it seems almost rude to miss it.

The second is a lot more common but always makes a big difference. All I had to do was open the store page in Steam, press the "Request Access" button, which granted me permission instantly, then let Steam download and install the client. That lack of faff makes me willing to try out games I otherwise wouldn't bother with. It's not hard to see why everyone wants to get their game on Steam.

That said, I do find the relationship between Amazon and Steam somewhat odd. New World and Lost Ark are both "Amazon Games" in a manner of speaking, one being developed by the internet giant, the other being published by them. Throne and Liberty is the next big Amazon game (They hope...). 

As far as I can tell, all of them are on only available on PC via Steam. Given that Amazon has its own gaming portal, runs a proprietary cloud gaming platform and has one of the biggest server rental businesses in the world, it seems a bit strange that they don't want to host their games themselves.

I'm  not complaining, although a quick google search shows some people are. I'm a Steam convert now, with all the annoying intensity that implies. Increasingly, if it's not on Steam I'm not sure I'm interested.

I certainly wouldn't be interested in a 50GB download for a five-day beta if I didn't know I could clear the unwanted husk of the client off my hard drive with a single click when it's all over. Steam does make it exceptionally easy to add and remove games. I just pressed the button and let it all happen automatically while I played Once Human. 

When it was ready I tried to log in, just in case they'd done something clever like pre-enable character creation but no such luck. I was able to do a couple of basic things like calibrate the monitor, something I've never known to make a noticeable difference. I miss the good old in-game gamma sliders that actually worked.

One thing I hadn't come across before was the option to have the whole game "Voice Guided". That seems like a really excellent innovation although I'm not entirely convinced "hard of seeing" is the accepted terminology. I was tempted to leave it on to see how effective it was but I thought I'd probably better concentrate on the game itself rather than its accessibility credentials, at least at first.

The other notable choice I was able to make was between action combat and "a classic control mode with separated character and camera controls". I think that means what has come to be known as "WoW Style" but we'll see. 

I picked that one but as I was saying the other day in a comment somewhere, I'm starting to think that I've been boiled in the Action Combat pot long enough now to feel more comfortable with that style than with tab target and hot keys. I know I keep trying to dodge and roll in older games that don't allow it and it makes me mad when I can't... 

The two modes are hot-swappable anyway so it's not like it's a big decision.

Other than that, as I said, I know nothing. Oh, except that it has something to do with Lineage. But then I know nothing about Lineage either. 

Still, I managed to come up with several hundred words about it, somehow, and I haven't even logged in yet. I could wait until the doors open then play for a while so I'd have something of substance to offer but then I'd have to log out and write the damn post and that would kind of defeat the object.

I think I'll leave it here for now but no doubt I'll be back with some First Impressions in a day or two. 

Bet you can't wait.