While spaceship chumps like myself are generally gearing up for both next week’s Eve patch and the Jumpgate Evolution beta a few weeks later, those aren’t the only space MMO excitements on the horizon. There’s another visually impressive offering incoming from German development studio, Reakktor Media (of Neocron fame). The Black Prophecy website has just been relaunched, complete with a lovely beta sign up form – suggesting that a playable version of the game isn’t too far away. Other than a handful of new screenshots there’s not much more information than what we got with last year’s sumptuous trailer (after the link), but the game nevertheless remains a profoundly shiny proposition.
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This game looks fantastic. I have been beta-signed-up for months, however, where is my axx!?
Beta-signup has been possible for months now, but the new relaunched site looks good and the new screenshots do aswell. Hope to get into the beta and compare it a bit with EVE which I also play.
Looks promising enough; am I correct in assuming it’s a joysticky game as opposed to EVE’s menus and clickery?
Also, from the sounds of things, this is essentially attempting to be Planetside in space (Spaceside?) right? Because the game overview on the website gives the impression that there won’t be much room for the trade-em-upping of EVE.
Looks promising, but why the hell do they want to know my address for the beta sign-up? What influence on the game could that possibly have?
@c-Row
They may want to issue out sex inspectors to come by and ‘test’ you for optimal MMO-gaming-sexual…
Not going to happen :(
I initially misread that as “menus and chicanery”.
BLOODY. HELL.
My Space-soul and I have just had our first Joygasm of the day. Thanks for bringing this to my/our attention, Jim. I’m all over this now like Shatner on a fat paycheck.
Definitely time to buy me a new PC. Hurry up, Windows 7, fferfrakssake!
I played Neocron for a very, very long time so I have some hope for this not being total balls :D
El_MUERkO: Are you suggesting that Neocron wasn’t total balls? Even though I also played it for a very long time, I did find it rather testicular myself.
Hmm, so?
This or Jumpgate Evolution?
I’ve been playing a bit of Jumpgate Classic, and have been following Jumpgate Evolution for months and months.
And yet, this sounds immediately more appealing.
Planetside in Space for the UMFW!
Does this have level grind? I’m never going near an MMO with level grind ever again.
Wasn’t the Black Prophecy “I have a dream”?
It was a good one, too.
Um, I agree with Matt. I mean Neocron FAME? Infamy, if anything. That game may have been more than a sewer simulator but I never hung around long enough to find out.
neocron holds a special place in my heart, it’s the gaming equivalent of a rich sociopath uncle
What’s up with the bizarre film grain? I mean, nothing says far-future sci-fi like simulation of 1930s film quality.
“far-future sci-fi like simulation of 1930s film quality.”
You mean is awesome on all levels you can imagine?
*cough* Fritz Lang, Metropolis *cough*
I feel like I’m being spoilt for space MMO choice. Hopefully the competition will ensure decent games. Roll on the Summer!
I got about 10 seconds into this before uttering a depressed little sigh at the ‘AN ANCIENT SECRET’ title.
I’ve really had quite enough ANCIENT SECRETS in computer game sci-fi worlds. It’s as if by being in the future all current concerns disappear, so the only things left to worry about are ANCIENT SECRETS.
Still, it looks extremely pretty!
“Modular ship design
Player ships are not sold as whole, but instead consist of modules like cockpits, wings, engines etc. All these modules are available in different shapes and sizes, which allows the players to customize their ships.”
FUCK. YES.
SOLD.
Wow 2009 might be the year of space.
They need to remove the text from that trailer, because that’s nearly the most contrived and cliched text I’ve ever seen. And I just got done playing The Linear RPG.
Modular ship design does sound awesome though, a real game (not just SecondLife which is more a graphical MU) that allows for a great degree of relevant customization would be quite cool. Though if you’re not literally slapping these things together from scratch it’s nothing new, every MMORPG has slots that you put equipment in but something more like Galactic Civilization II’s ship editor would be bad ass.
Hidden from the eye of man? My god; in the future we all share one eye? What kind of twisted dystopian vision is this?
It’s a very pretty demo though; I do like a bit of space dog fightery.
To clarify, the difference between what every AAA MMO lets you do (fill slots with various types of equipment that are visible on your character) and what the ship editor in the single-player galactic civilizations II, is that you don’t have finite or pre-defined slots. That is to say you weren’t limited to 1 wing, 1 cockpit, 1 engine, 1 afterburner, 1 trinket.
Simply having an upper limit on how much ’stuff’ a ship can have and offering modules with advantages and tradeoffs achieves the same game-play effect, but doesn’t allow for the expression of as many designs.
What I mean is that, even taking rendering limitations into consideration — because you don’t want a runaway increase in polygon levels if people decide to stack 10x as many modules as normal onto their ships — if you go from a system that allows 1 of each type of thing, to a system that allows between 0 and 5 of each type of thing, you increase the possibilities by factors.
Gameplay? Where are you gameplay? Why don’t trailers ever show the interesting stuff, namely, gameplay. They’re all graphics wankfests and “we’re in the future so the enemy MUST be some ancient group that’s lain dormant since the beginning of time and is only now waking up when we’re finally at a comparable level of technology”.
Looks great, but let’s see some actual gameplay :)
Still …. if someone stuffed even the typical WoW model (fetch, fedex, kill quests with armor, weapon and loot bits) into an actiony space combat game, I might never buy another game again.
this+ eve online would equal pwnge if the trailer is to be belived
There is only one Black Prophecy and it’s called a Damnation.
(/silly old joke that’s not originally mine)
I’m still looking for a space game that can fill the long empty shoes of “Earth & Beyond”. O how I mis E&B…
Regarding modular ship design: About time someone implemented that, means I’ve been beaten to it, but I can’t complain really.
That looks pretty chill, and hopefully the ancient secret turns out to be one of those things that’s “over there” and can be safely ignored as nothing more than an NPC source of xp and money by all but the most hardcore of RP fanatics.
Planetside IN SPACE?
Oh my yes. *beta signed*
Neocron was a great game in it’s own way… It was waaay buggy tho and the way they tried to fix it was utterly pathetic. I really hope this will work.. but I have my doubts.