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Black Prophecy interview confirms station walking feature, post-release
Let's face it, playing a sci-fi MMO where your ship is essentially your avatar is a deal breaker for some gamers. Typically we're referring to EVE Online when 'ship-as-avatar' discussions come up, but CCP's game will soon have company in the sci-fi MMO genre, with Jumpgate Evolution and Black Prophecy both on the way. Anyone who's played EVE knows that, yes, you do create a portrait-style avatar during character creation but what you see throughout gameplay is your ship. This will also be the case with Black Prophecy, although character avatars will be 3-D. Black Prophecy's developer Reakktor Media revealed that they'd like to take this a step further and introduce the ability to walk about in stations, post-launch. Black Prophecy's development director Simon Bachmann mentioned this in a recent interview. Simon told Sheila "Jube" Lewis at IGN's Voodoo Extreme: "Your ship is your game character which you can equip like you equip your player avatar in any other MMO. Next to your ship you will also have a fully customizable 3D avatar of your pilot which will appear in conversations with NPCs or other players. This special avatar will become more important in the so called 'Station walking' feature which we plan to implement in one of the future game updates post release."
Black Prophecy creators reach out to the community
Black Prophecy is a space-based science fiction MMO in development at Reakktor Media in Germany, which we've covered a bit here at Massively. But the fact is that Reakktor may not be a company that many MMO gamers are all that familiar with. The Black Prophecy team has decided to try and remedy this, with a Q&A in their community forums that introduces a bit about CEO Kirk Lenke and development director Simon Bachmann, as well as their approach to the game.Ultimately, the Q&A answers some of the questions that people have about Black Prophecy, both in terms of game mechanics and the business decisions behind getting the title published.
Black Prophecy community manager Christian Schuett on premise of the game
There are new massively multiplayer online games on the way which aim to change how we play ship-based sci-fi MMOs, bringing a more dynamic system of combat in space. One of those titles is Black Prophecy from Reakktor Media. 'Fast-paced real-time combat' is something that Reakktor Media emphasizes as one of Black Prophecy's strengths, which should be good news for gamers looking forward to having dogfights with other ships in space. Massively caught up with one of the key individuals behind Black Prophecy this past week, development director Simon Bachmann, who told us about some of the game's specifics. Jim Rossignol from Rock, Paper, Shotgun also got some details about Black Prophecy when he spoke with Reakktor Media community manager Christian Schuett, which is definitely worth a read if you're interested in the title.
Massively speaks with Black Prophecy development director Simon Bachmann
Massively is watching the influx of sci-fi MMOs very closely and we're happy to point out that gamers will soon have a number of options for space-based gameplay. While gamers will be flying and dogfighting in Jumpgate Evolution this summer, there's another dark horse in the running for your play time: Black Prophecy, a sci-fi MMO in development at Reakktor Media. Whereas the reigning sci-fi MMO title EVE Online has a well-deserved reputation for appealing to a hardcore audience, Black Prophecy is decidedly more casual. This is a design decision that Reakktor feels will keep their game accessible to a wider audience, although they state that hardcore players will still find the content is engaging on a collective level. We fired off some questions to Reakktor Media's Simon Bachmann, development director on Black Prophecy, about what the game will offer sci-fi fans and some of what we can expect from Black Prophecy's gameplay.%Gallery-46991%%Gallery-51088%
