Black Prophecy launches North American open beta

Is the sudden thrust in to PVP fixed as far as the segue between the tutorial section and the faction based sections of the game? I found that the difficulty and the ability to find a group suffered greatly at this point in the game.

I was also not a fan of the floating reticule and wanted it to be tied to ship angle.

i read the item mall cripples this game so i never bothered cashing in my eu key

I think the option was "Remain Centered". I don't know at what point the option was/is there though. I haven't been following it too closely.

I think that you should be able to play that was if you wish at some point, so don't dismiss the game for that alone.

The post says "open-world" play, and a commenter here (Borick) describes the game as "lobby-based."

Can someone clear that up? Can you fly or warp from system to system, or do you queue up for PvP/missions taking place on unconnected maps?

The only meaningful zones are lobby-based.

The "open-world" is just another limited instance where anyone from either faction can pop in and blast each other.

These zones are rife with gankers and griefers, where even your own faction will gun you down with zero penalty. Personally, I was fine with the gankers, as I'm always a fan of open PvP, but the same-team griefers were annoying as hell, since there was no penalty for team-killing.

Also, as Borick mentioned, the zones weren't well-fleshed out, and even the open PvP was utterly meaningless, with no progression or rewards offered for it.

I like the looks of this games engine and the zones were really pretty. The story telling and pacing is just garbage, as is 99% of the voice acting. Its super linear and pretty restricting as well as the upgrades are not well rounded or inspiring to pursue.
All of the items need skill points spent on your character which you only get from leveling up...which is not often. So in order for me to get a new slightly slightly better gun from the vendor, I need to have spent say 4 points in energy weapons(not weapons, mind you, but energy weapons specifically as there are projectile, energy, missles etc). Well for me to spend 4 points in this I also need to have spent 4 points in an over all skill that is arbitrary that allows me to have upgrades to level 4. So I need to spend 8 points to get a gun that is one upgrade step from the starter. How many points is 8 points? Well at level 5 (a couple hours into the game) I got 3 points for leveling up.

Yup.
Have fun upgrading.

"Crafting" also is a mess right now as it takes a solid 25 mins just apply a basic +1 to a gun. That is to say, you have to sit at the screen on the space station staring at a progress bar for 25 mins. So yeah, no one is doing upgrades and crafting.

The main focus of this game is the ship to ship dogfights. Which are pretty fun! I like the graphics, the flight sim aspect, and the tools of combat. It's just got a lot a lot a LOT of passes to get this thing up to speed if they want to actually charge people money for it. We've evolved to have much higher expectations from a game like this, IMO.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. BP sounds a little weak at the moment.

I was kind hoping for a big Eve-like universe, except with combat that's actually fun :(