{"id":73,"date":"2005-12-05T21:53:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-06T02:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=73"},"modified":"2005-12-05T21:55:08","modified_gmt":"2005-12-06T02:55:08","slug":"galciv-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=73","title":{"rendered":"GalCiv II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Check this<\/a> out. It’s the webpage for the upcoming Galactic Civilizations II<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The game is in beta, and by pre-ordering you can become a beta tester. Normally being a beta tester means signing a NDA (Nondisclosure Agreement) promising not to talk about the game. I can see the reasons behind this: A beta release will usually be full of bugs and not properly balanced yet. The last thing you want is for some yo-yo to start complaining far and wide about the bugs they find. “The game crashes!” “It doesn’t support my graphics card!” “I lost my savegame!” Since many games get a bulk of their sales in the first few weeks, and since pre-release buzz has a large effect on those initial sales, the last<\/i> thing you want is for problems in the beta to turn into lost sales later.<\/p>\n

But Stardock is taking a different approach. Money quote: (Emphasis mine)<\/p>\n


\nBeta testers receive the special Collector’s Edition of the game (all users who pre-order, regardless of where are entitled to it) plus they have an immense amount of influence over the course of game development based on their feedback.<\/p>\n

There’s no NDAs, if we’re not doing a good job making a fun game, you can scream it to the world! ;)<\/b>
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is a very bold move. Hats off to those guys. This is a risky move, but it buys a lot of trust in my book. <\/p>\n

The game looks good. Now, I have nothing to do with beta cooties. I get enough of that in my real job. But once this thing is polished and ready to go, I’m going to be all over it. The original is a real gem, and I have high hopes for this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Check this out. It’s the webpage for the upcoming Galactic Civilizations II. The game is in beta, and by pre-ordering you can become a beta tester. Normally being a beta tester means signing a NDA (Nondisclosure Agreement) promising not to talk about the game. I can see the reasons behind this: A beta release will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}