Black Prophecy gets a Publisher and Distributor...

is coming to the US and is going to be F2P. Woo!

http://www.massively.com/2010/03/04/...

Can't wait!

This is good news all around. Especially with Jumpgate seemingly on the back burner.

I'm looking forward to this one. Yeah, specially since Jumpgate seems to be just a myth now.

Yup, with Jumpgate seemingly out of the picture, Black Prophecy looks to be my last real hope for a true space combat sim MMO. Please don't fail!

I'm not a fan of the f2p model at all. I've yet to see one f2p mmo that I would actually want to play for any period of time. It screams to me, 'I will be a 2nd tier game with balance issues'. Would love to see a game prove me wrong but I doubt it will start with Black Prophecy. I have some hope for Torchlight, but not BP.

Copingsaw wrote:

I'm not a fan of the f2p model at all. I've yet to see one f2p mmo that I would actually want to play for any period of time.

You really should take another look at Dungeons & Dragons Online. That game has completely turned around my viewpoint on "F2P" games.

Farscry wrote:
Copingsaw wrote:

I'm not a fan of the f2p model at all. I've yet to see one f2p mmo that I would actually want to play for any period of time.

You really should take another look at Dungeons & Dragons Online. That game has completely turned around my viewpoint on "F2P" games. :)

Well, it did start with a completely different pay model.

Allods online is pretty darn good too!

The thing that gives me hope about this one is that like DDO it was not developed from the ground up to be a f2p game. The decision to change it to f2p is recent so it should be of another tier of polish.

Some good points. Perhaps I am being too hasty in condemning this game based solely upon the revenue model.

Farscry wrote:

You really should take another look at Dungeons & Dragons Online. That game has completely turned around my viewpoint on "F2P" games. :)

I've honestly never tried this game. Can you solo it? I don't think my life is such right now that I can conform to any group gaming schedule. I need to start a new topic .... 'once your married how in the hell do you find time to game 4 hours a night and keep your wife happy in the process' ... or some variation on that.

Well, the game is free, so you can certainly go and find out if you can solo.

You can play solo in DDO now, but it's fairly lackluster in a solo environment in my experience. Where it shines is playing in a party.

And yeah, it started as a subscription game, but it's been more successful (yes, more profitable) since going to a Free-to-play with premium content via microtransactions and optional VIP subscription (if you prefer that over microtransactions).

All classes can solo. Some are much easier/safer than others. Some are easier once you get the gist of the game so you might want to stay away from them as a first character. Or as is common with DnD, taking the first level of fighter makes playing every other class easier in the beginning.

There is not a lot of space in the dungeon design so sorcerors, wizards and the like will struggle more solo. Bow focused Rangers, on the other hand, are pretty powerful in solo and grouped play.

I don't really see any benefit to barbarians unless its at much higher levels over fighters and paladins. Monks are not available in f2p but they are definitely cool. It would be worth it to find a boxed copy of DDO for $5-10 to get the subscriber points to buy the monk class and or the drow race. The warforged I found to be meh and I never had any interest in the favored soul class.

Rogues are cool and it is worth it to take a level of rogue for the sneak attack bonus. It works well in solo (most fighter classes have a knock down or the like that will make your target vulnerable to sneak attacks extra damage) and even better in group play.

The one thing that DDO fails at that other games have done is make compelling perks for all the races. As it stands now, I really didn't find a thought provoking benefit for the halflings and the warforged are not powerful enough to make up for their immunity to standard heals. Drows are essentially 32 point builds with some drawbacks for playing certain classes. So you are essentially going to see a lot of humans running around with some elves and dwarves and drow are curiously rare since they are one of the more popular things to buy from the cash shop.

But now we are way off topic.

Yay Black Prophecy! I hope beta comes soon and is short. I can't wait to play.

Copingsaw wrote:

I don't think my life is such right now that I can conform to any group gaming schedule. I need to start a new topic .... 'once your married how in the hell do you find time to game 4 hours a night and keep your wife happy in the process' ... or some variation on that.

If you think that's bad, try it with a pregnant wife. One hour is hard enough to find these days, I couldn't even imagine four.

Hot!

Just got my beta invite.

I think.

I got an email today to transfer my application to some other site. I will have to do that later at home. Was that what you got? I don't think that was an invite, or was it?

KillTrash wrote:

I got an email today to transfer my application to some other site. I will have to do that later at home. Was that what you got? I don't think that was an invite, or was it?

Yeah, that's what I got. It's not a direct invite, but I'm hoping that's what it's leaning towards.

Boo! I didn't get one of those.

GRRRR...

edit: Wow! You guys are lucky. Apparently the initial invite amount for closed beta was 100. Obviously they are planning for more invites in waves.

I don't think I'm in this first round. I was never sent a download link or key, just the thing asking me to switch over my registration, which I did.

The account switching may just have been because I have a forum account and they switched the forums over to Gamigo. See this. I bet those who didn't register for the forums weren't asked to do this.

Closed Beta started according to RPS.

New E3 vids up, via RPS again

Btw, I got into the beta, but have very little to say as the game crashed on me multiple times and I kept getting stuck in the tutorial section. Naturally, I reported that and decided to wait.

Anyhow, the game is live now. Have at it.

garion333 wrote:

Btw, I got into the beta, but have very little to say as the game crashed on me multiple times and I kept getting stuck in the tutorial section. Naturally, I reported that and decided to wait.

Anyhow, the game is live now. Have at it.

I thought it was live in EU only.

Sorry, you are correct. I thought it was everyone as I'm able to play, buy I also participated in the EU beta.

Players from North America who participated in the closed beta will be able to play on the EU servers. Playing on both regions will be possible for all users once the EU and the North American versions are live. However, we are not going to offer any transfer service for the upcoming North American servers. If you decide to start playing on the EU servers you will have to reroll your characters on the North American servers again.

Furthermore the North American beta servers are deployed as we speak. We are expecting to send out the first invitations within the next 48 hours.

From here.

Can't wait!

What's the gameplay like? Privateer or Eve?

TheGameguru wrote:

What's the gameplay like? Privateer or Eve?

Privateer.

TheGameguru wrote:

What's the gameplay like? Privateer or Eve?

Prviateer/wing commander/Jump gate/etc. The MT kind of killed my interest but given that Jump Gate evolution seems defunct I may end up giving Black Prophecy a shot regardless.

Actually, I think its a bit of both. Flying around and shooting is like Privateer but there are game mechanics like EVE. For instance I believe there is something akin to null sector space where you can build and take over space stations and fight over them.

Is the game available for North America yet?