Black Prophecy
Preview
Prepare for Galactic War
by Ingvi Snædal
previewed on PC
High Production Values (cntd.)
What we have seen of the in-game graphics is very impressive, especially considering that this will be a Free-to-Play game. The vast majority of Free-to-Play games have suffered from bad production values, but spouting graphics powered by the Gamebryo engine (which powers games such as Fallout 3 and the upcoming Fallout: New Vegas), it doesn't look like that will be the case for Black Prophecy. The game will also have a one and a half hour long original score composed by Dynamedion, which is sure to give the game a very aesthetically pleasing sound.
Customizable Experience
Where the game will really excel is the amount of control the player has on how he wants to play the game. The player will be able to choose if he wants to see the action through a 3rd person perspective or a 1st person cockpit view. Not only will he be able to control how he views the game, as he will also be given the choice to control his ship with the classic Wing Commander style joystick or the Freelancer-esque mouse-and-keyboard. He will also be able to control the game with a gamepad, but I think nostalgia will make the other two methods the most popular ones.
Black Prophecy will feature a very active player community where players will be able to form clans, wage territorial wars between rival clans and build a space station. The game will also allow the player to customize his ship, earn upgrade modules such as heavier shields, more powerful weapons and faster engines. The developers have stated that ship classes are “a definite maybe”. When the player customises his ship, he will have to take into consideration if he wants to be a tank or a hit and run fighter. Choosing the strongest armour, toughest shields and heaviest weapons will make his ship a flying fortress, but it will be sluggish and vulnerable to faster enemies. Choose the lightest armour and the quickest weapons, however, and the ship will basically be flying cannon fodder.
The Road Ahead
The most common thing to bring down an MMO game is infrequent updates and add-ons. Players want to be able to play a game for months at a time and always discover something new. If the updates are infrequent, players will get bored with the game and move on to the next big thing. Free-to-Play games have been especially bad at keeping the players interested for a long time because of how infrequent and minor their updates are, but how will the developers of Black Prophecy keep the players coming back to their game? According to Kirk Lenke, the CEO of Reakktor Media, they have already laid out a roadmap of content updates and add-ons so players will not have to wait to long to see added content to the world of Black Prophecy. Station walking and player housing have been mentioned as possible updates to come after the release of the game.
Many of us have been hoping for a good Space Combat game to hit the stores since the genre all but disappeared during the last decade. The genre had so many of us science fiction fans hooked that the fact that it up and left us doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. There is a big market for these games and it is a wonder why no one has tapped into it sooner. The fact that Black Prophecy is a Massive Multiplayer Online game just serves to make it even more enticing. Free-to-Play MMO games are here to stay and with a big budget outing like Black Prophecy on the way, it will definitely make many of the nay-sayers out there think twice before giving games a pass just because they are free.
