[Fearless Leader]

I'm also flying on the English European release server (nick Gortef... duh). Well... I'm there time to times anyway.

So far my impression is so-so. Of course, there are not that much space-combat-online games around so I dunno. I used to play Jumpgate and I can't help but compare other games to that.

Anyway... I got the feeling that it tries to be both Freelancer and EVE at the same time, but does not really reach either and butt-lands in the middle.

The actual gameplay when flying is almost just like Freelancer, simple and more or less attractive. Controls respond quite well, but not perfectly IMHO.
Also it has a direct support for x52 for example but damn that thing was übersensitive. So Mouse-Keyboard for me... still @£$@£€

On the other hand the menus and other gidwids are more to EVEs direction where ya actually have to click around a lot in order to do someting -LIKE LOOT the wrecks for cryin' out loud (I miss the automatic tractor beams Freelancer had/has). After an hour or two the menus become more familiar, and ya can see how to operate them but I'm still not that impressed. Perhaps I need even more time, I can see the potential when in station but when in space operating the interface takes a bit too much time... especially when there are loads of buggers shooting at ya.

One thing that REALLY bothered me when I found about it. The space is actually divided into restricted sectors, the player can move to another sector only by jumping. Ya can't just take yer time and fly, if ya try to do that an invisible wall comes into the way and the system tells ya to go back (and it actually bumps you back to the direction ya came from). Then again I haven't actually tried to do this after I got finished the introduction campaing so it might just have been during the introduction. I need to confirm this.

Oh yea the Introduction. Otherwise nice but there's this Nimbus sector which lags enourmously.

The story is actually quite amusing (yea it has a story). There are quite a lot of noticeable shortcuts in it (I dunno if ya could claim them to be plot holes... more like unexplained things that could have been explained on that point), but amusing nevertheless.

Welp, that's my thoughts. I can recommend that people try it though. It's free!

You make good points, I also find similar areas lacking, I just thought it was the US version that had these problems, because the closed beta forums are full of people asking to change all the things you are talking about.
 I see why you have to jump places, it wouldn't be fun if somebody could just fly to your mission and start messing around all the time. Also, I kinda found a work around for the  loot thing, I just key mapped the loot and target buttons to buttons on my joystick

[Gortef]

Yea the restricted sectors work when doing an "instanced" mission, that's for sure. It's even explainable by having such missions faaar away from the normal sectors.
But I think the area restrictions apply even when flying in "open space", like Pan's Junkyard. I'd like to fly around the Pan and enjoy the view.

Mmm was there a target button for a nearest wreck? If so then that is a solution indeed.

[Fearless Leader]

Yeah, that is true, it is a scenic game, but all the people at pans trying to kill me limit the enjoyment of the view.. also the hideous lag I have there everywhere

There is a key bind for looting a wreck (I remapped it to my joystick and dont remember the original key), but you have to target it first, in my experience wrecks are usually at the end of the target list, so if you hit the 'previous target' key the wrecks are usually right there.

[Gortef]

Yea I checked it out yesterday, the "next/previous-target" with "loot-all" key works quite ok to keep me more or less satisfied.

[Fearless Leader]

[innuendo] I would rather have you more satisfied [/innuendo]

[Gortef]

:F

[Fearless Leader]

 

[rhraziel]

Can people inside of this beta send invites or do you basically have to just sign up and hope for the best (I'm in the US)?

[Patriot]

New patches fixed the wreck selection to loot thing, no longer needed to select a wreck to loot stuff :3

[Gortef]

Oh cool. Perhaps I should log in to check out it again then. For a while... I doubt that lag problem is still fixed.

[Patriot]

what lag problem?

I just finished the Tyi mission, i was yelling GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!!! when i blow'd them up

[Gortef]

Me and my gaming mates were having too much lag, or packet loss -or both at the same time. Especially in FFA areas. In Instances it was usually "situation ok", but not always.
At worst the game was completely unplayable. At best it was ok.

[Patriot]

Hmm, haven't had that issue. But i suppose this comes AFTER the prologue, where i still am right now.

[Gortef]

Indeed the instanced story driven missions in the Prologue were quite ok and worked fine.

[Patriot]

Yeah, i'm getting the lag issue bad now too. Becomes unplayable for me with an outdated system

[Gortef]

It's unplayable even with my system which should not be outdated, so don't blame yours yet.

[Patriot]

Yeah, cause i only got like 20fps on average in the Prologue, and now it hangs every time i want to turn my craft

[rhraziel]

This is now open beta in the US! Going to check it out today.

[Gortef]

God speed pilot!

[redalbatross]

I just started playing this game today.

In a vacuum of space sim games (ahaha, see what I did there?), it's definitely not bad for a game that's in beta. It feels a lot like Freelancer/Freespace combined with some archetypal MMO elements like ship customization. Definitely has some promise.

My only gripe is that it's a bit unresponsive. My laptop is getting pretty dated but it usually doesn't have much trouble and runs comparable engines like the FSO engine or the DarkStar One engine without a problem, but Black Prophecy gets a little choppy. I don't want to blame the game entirely, but space is pretty empty.

To anyone who hasn't played it yes, check it out. The beta is free for now, it'll only cost you maybe 45 min or so to download.