Brothers of Arms

by **Atkara** » 07 Feb 2011, 12:47

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you Black Prophecy, a free to play space MMOG currently in Beta stage. I've played Freelancer, I liked it very much for what it is and this one tries to take the elements of what I call, "it's predecessor" to the next level. In fact, this could easily be the best effort I've seen up to this day. Space jokeys like me will propably want to have a look at it -after all, it's going to be free to play.

by **Alb** » 07 Feb 2011, 13:17

Freelancer ( sighs ... the good old days ...). Have to check that out ... a bit.

by **Atkara** » 07 Feb 2011, 13:46

Found more videos out there -most from the beta, since Reakktor lifted NDA. Looks very promising so far.

by **Alb** » 07 Feb 2011, 16:09

a german company behind that it seems ... :think:

by **Atkara** » 07 Feb 2011, 17:27

Yep, much like Egosoft, being behind the X-Series. But this one seems like a very good attempt to be what Freelancer should have been in the first place. There also will be a micro-transaction marketing system -always a catch behind free to play games- but I'd like to see the extent this would affect the overall gameplay balance.

by **Gambit** » 07 Feb 2011, 23:02

sorry to say this At, those mmos are bound to fail, look at tabula raza it was fun game but it failed after all.

by **Atkara** » 08 Feb 2011, 12:30

Juno, I'm afraid you compared 2 different things here: Gameplay in Tabula Rasa WAS taking place on other planets than Earth, but it was ground-based, unlike this one.

Some say Black Prophecy is Vindictus in space. I say it's a better Freelancer. Either way, I'm well aware it's not going to be the hit of the year. Space genre isn't as popular as it once was, but it does retain a solid player base, with the brightest example being EVE-Online.

Flying around and shooting stuff, ideally from a cockpit view, was always my kind of game. I like the looks of Black Prophecy, it's free to play so, why not?

by **Phorkys** » 08 Feb 2011, 14:43

Also liked freelancer so will definitly try it out

by **Fuchi** » 08 Feb 2011, 15:51

Freelancer was fun:) Will test this one out.

by **Gambit** » 08 Feb 2011, 18:10

What I mean Atkaras is that scifi mmo's dont work for majority of the ppl, unless you are a fan of that kind of genre, thats why I said look at Tabula it was nice mmo and new but somehow it didnt appeal the ppl.

by **Alb** » 08 Feb 2011, 18:22

I guess so Junoa ... but then with TR I at least half blame NCsoft for it. Don't really know why exactly (except that the graphic style reminded me of another NCsoft MMO .. called Auto Assault (which failed as well)).

I guess the problem with SciFi is a) Fantasy has a more broader appeal (looking at the number of fantasy MMOs the come out) and b) shooting isn't as easily implemented except of you go FPS. Maybe it is also easier implemented in that sense that for a SciFi setting you'll have to have some technology explanation for things (at least to some degree) with a fantasy you are probably bound to be a not more flexible.

Then again Eve-online and AO are still around ... so no idea how populated they are (niche at most I guess) but they are still around and seem to be supported in case of Eve-online quite significantly.

by **Gert** » 08 Feb 2011, 18:25

TR got shafted as it had a developer with a big name and vision and a publisher wanting to cash in on that.

This looks interesting - and there's a couple other space-y MMOs coming soon that are F2P - so be interesting to see how that side of MMO land goes.

by **Atkara** » 08 Feb 2011, 21:02

Alb wrote:Then again Eve-online and AO are still around ... so no idea how populated they are (niche at most I guess) but they are still around and seem to be supported in case of Eve-online quite significantly.

I've got personal experience with EVE and it has 25.000-45.000 players at any time of day, under a single server. The estimated player base is about 300.000 players.

by **Atkara** » 14 Feb 2011, 22:24

Got my beta invitation earlier today. My chance to check it out in person

by **Alb** » 15 Feb 2011, 08:07

hmmm ...

by **Phorkys** » 15 Feb 2011, 15:46

Also got beta invite , but when i enter serial key they sent me , i get ERROR: Unknown game account!

by **Atkara** » 15 Feb 2011, 16:44

To register the beta code, you must use the username you entered when you connected your Gamigo account to Black Prophecy. You can find it at your Gamigo account page, under "my profile".

by **Atkara** » 10 May 2011, 21:28

The game has gone live about a month ago. The Beta accounts have been transferred to live. Took a close look over the last couple of days and I was pleased from what I saw:

Weapons line up, a big issue for me back in beta, now uses a freelancer-like system. No more shooting to nowhere.
The prologue/tutorial isn't bad -at least I didn't have many issues getting through.
After you've selected your faction, expect open pvp in commonly accessible areas.
Crafting/modding is a simple procedure, as long as you have the components and materials.
Clan space can be claimed, their stations can be upgraded, but you have to defend them from other clans.
Mission terminals offer instanced missions for solo/group/clan, pve or pvp.
The online marketplace offers items that don't provide an endgame edge so, everything seems to be kept fair so far.

Not bad for a free to play game, not bad at all.

by **Gert** » 18 Jul 2011, 00:42

Tried this a bit and it's not good...very bland past the initial prologue (sound familiar) plus the recent content patch has caused stability & performance issues (sound familiar

)...plus the active player base is very low (most I've seen in the lower levels has been around 10). The ganking once you leave the prologue is a big turn-off as well (level 10-15s taking out lvl 7-8s isn't fun when you're questing...); oh, and waiting 25 mins (real time) to craft something is silly (unless you pay cash to reduce that).

For F2P it looks good but the big issues with content and stability (plus the fact it got pushed out to recover money) make it one to avoid atm (imo).