If you were interested in medieval hack n slash game Chivalry: Medieval Warfare when it was released but haven’t gotten around to purchasing again, eyes up. This weekend the game is free to play on Steam.

There is also a sale on the game, the 4-pack and the complete edition which includes the Deadliest Warrior expansion that lets you play as something other than one of the various forms of medieval knight available; for example a samurai or a Spartan. all of these are currently selling for a massive 75% off and with Steam that’s the discount you’re often told to wait for in the big sales.

For those of you who don’t know, Chivalry is a game where teams fight each other with weapons such as swords, bows and other things. There are arenas, death matches and castle sieges to play, which gives a nice rounded choice of play. Also, it’s possible to remove limbs from enemies. That’s cool.

It was a few months ago that CCP put out the call. They asked the players of EVE Online if they wouldn’t mind submitting a bunch of voice comms for a secret project they were working on.

Although it was revealed at EVE down Under what the project was, it’s only now that we can see the result – a trailer called simply “This is EVE” to explain the game’s complicated and ever-changing environment to new players and those who are just curious.

It’s a good decision. EVE is a rare thing, a game that is shaped in a lot of ways by the players themselves and their actions. Groups form, alliances are forged and broken, players are attacked and attack others; and it’s just grown so much that for someone on the outside it must be terrifying to attempt to fathom. Using the voices of players to tell their stories gets the very people responsible for forging such a virtual universe involved in explaining just what EVE is to them and to others they fly with every day.

You can check it out below, but be warned – this is the uncensored version. There is also a censored version available though if you’d rather watch that one.

If you can’t see the embed above here’s a link to the video: [x]

If you don’t follow the DayZ community closely here’s something you might not know. One fan has been coding a project for the last seven months that is essentially DayZ but in a top-down fashion, with updates going onto his Tumblr. Now it’s been made officially available by Bohemia on their store.

Russian fan CannedBits has been working on the project known as MiniDayZ and has coded in the typical DayZ experience – spawn with nothing, scavenge for something, shoot zombies, watch your back for your fellow survivor. Of course, it’s not the full experience that DayZ offers. A top-down is very different from an MMO after all.

The initial reception on the DayZ community subReddit has been a little underwhelming though, and CannedBits seems disappointed in this saying that “I see mostly overhyped rage here… “Its really sad, that people get mad from free stuff.”

DayZ figurehead Dean Hall was full of praise for the game though saying of it “I think it’s awesome, amazing, addictive, and brings something really new to the experience. I’m so glad you’ve been able to make it even better!”

To get a copy of the game you need to register an account on Bohemia’s site after which you can visit the studio’s store to pick up a ‘free’ copy of the HTML5 coded game. Otherwise head over to the experimental servers for the DayZ game proper where amongst other things it’s now possible to be a cannibal… although not recommended if you have another option.

Steam’s Early Access program has been going for about a year and a half right now, and since then although a great many games has passed through it that otherwise would not have… it’s gotten a bit of a reputation for letting some developers get away with selling an unfinished game to customers and then never finishing the game. And that’s just the surface, the rabbit hole sometimes goes much deeper with some infamous games and even lead to them being removed from Steam entirely (*coughthewarzcough*).

Valve has always wanted to be hands-off with the entire thing, not wishing to interfere with the process but it seems that enough is enough. Valve are now setting in place some rules and guidelines for Early Access developers, and the rules at the very least are etched in stone.

First Valve defines what an Early Access game is by saying that it’s a chance to “invite customers to get involved with your game as you develop” and get feedback that will allow for the game to be developed to best fit with what the audience is looking for. But they also note that “When you launch a game in Steam Early Access, there is an expectation by customers that you will continue development to a point where you have what you consider a ‘finished’ game”.

There are three concrete rules that need to be adhered to now, that are as follows:

• Developers need to make it clear on any third-party sites they use to sell Steam keys that the game is not in a completed state. This means that they must include the Early Access branding and a link to Steam’s Early Access FAQ.
• Developers should avoid making promises about the future, such as release dates and additional content. They can talk about plans but try not to make it sound like they will definitely happen – “Customers should be buying your game based on its current state, not on promises of a future that may or may not be realized.”
• Steam Early Access titles should not be made available for purchase on Steam any later than it is made available elsewhere. The game should also be made available for a reasonable price.

There are also a set of guidelines, which are more like a checklist of mistakes past Early Access Developers have made in the past:

• Don’t launch in Early Access if you can’t afford to develop with very few or no sales.
• Make sure you set expectations properly everywhere you talk about your game.
• Don’t launch in Early Access without a playable game (tech demos don’t count as playable games)
• Don’t launch in Early Access if you are done with development.

Sometimes it takes things going wrong to finally set them right, and things must have gone wrong to make Valve go against their typical hands-off policy with regards to Steam. Here’s hoping that the new rules and guidelines will cut down on Early Access issues and those who deliberately exploit the system will now be dealt with by Valve for breaking rules that have finally been set.

Developers of long-running fantasy MMO Runescape announced that they’ve begun work on a new game, a first-person shooter called Block N Load.

As you might be able to guess from the title, the game takes place in a blocky landscape that resembles Minecraft, but there’s a reason for that. The game is a team-based shooter, 5v5 and besides the typical shooting of an FPS, Block N Load will let players build their own defensive and offensive encampments as well. Sounds interesting.

Six playable characters are available, which include a robot obsessed with weapons, a chemistry-loving female doctor and a Mexican ninja. It will not be browser-based or free-to-play, unlike the game Jagex is well known for right now.

The beta for the game will take place this Winter and can be signed up for at the special Block N Load website Jagex made for the game, while the full release will be coming to Steam in 2015.

Beta sign-up: [x]