Stellarvox Community Bulletin – Issue #3

Snowcrash · #1 25-05-2009, 15:01

Welcome to issue #3 of the Stellarvox Community Bulletin.
You may wonder why the time between this and the last issue was three weeks instead of the usual two weeks. The reason for this is that we had a short week last week due to a public holiday. Nonetheless, many things have happened which I am going to present to you in issue #3 of the Stellar Vox Community Bulletin.

As you can see from the news summary we released three new high resolution screenshots of player cockpits on which the response was simply overwhelming. Many people thought that these were concept art because of the high quality but I can ensure you that they are real in-game shots. For me these cockpits definitely bring back good ol’ Wing Commander memories and I am sure that you won’t ever want to leave those cockpits once you’ve climbed into them in the final game.

In an attempt to inspire your creativity the Archive of the Preservers forums have been installed. In these forums you can publish self-created fan art, be it graphics, drawings, music or written content. Of course you can also discuss the creation process itself, e.g. talk about drawing techniques or writing styles. Please read the introduction thread carefully as it contains the rules for publishing self-created fan art. From what I have seen so far we have lots of creative people in our community and it’s quite a pleasure to watch your progress in creating fan art. For those who wonder about the name of the forum, the name was inspired by the Church of Preservers which was found by Silpha Uranir in 2420 (Exon 275) according to the timeline.

News summary
Just two weeks ago we released three new high resolution screenshots showing one variant of the Tyi, Genide and Human Shuttle cockpits. Definitely a must see!

Tyi Cockpit - Genide Cockpit - Human Shuttle Cockpit

Our team members once again participated in several interviews speaking about interesting aspects of Black Prophecy. Pilot Renfield was kind enough to make translations of the German interviews for our English readers and you can find them in the appropriate interview threads in the forum.

Kirk talked with the German game portal Onlinewelten about the resource system, clan stations and faction PvP in Black Prophecy.

In another interview, this time a phone interview, Kirk talked with the German branch of Eurogamer about Black Prophecy and also about potential future projects.

The Asian game portal MMOsite was interested in hearing more about Black Prophecy so I spent some time catering to their curiosity.

Pierre Langer from Dynamedion was invited on to a German radio show to talk about the creation of music for games. After discussing the creation process, he also played a short montage from the Black Prophecy soundtrack. For our English readers, our “universal translator” Pilot Renfield has again made a transcript and translated it into English. You can find the translations in the appropriate thread.

Community Spotlight
In another round of the community spotlight I will again point out interesting topics the community has been discussing in the past weeks.

Pilot “Gunslinger” has started a discussion about the five favorite features he would like to see in Black Prophecy.

Pilot “Dudemanjac” wants to see some “phat” loot from the enemies he turns to dust and wants to know what you would like to see being dropped as rewards.

Pilot “Aphex” likes to ask adventurous questions and therefore asks if ships should explode into salvageable pieces, and if so, should it be possible to collect the scrap for possible re-use.

Pilot “Lomsor” is wondering about the human shuttle seen in the cinematic trailer and wants to discuss this with you.

Pilot “Aphex” not only likes to ask adventurous questions but he also likes to pimp his ship. How would you pimp your ship?

Pilot “Machine Child” wrote a very good short story. Maybe this encourages you to do likewise?

Pilot “Brika” has made an exciting fan movie out of the available game trailers. It’s definitely worth a look!

Fleet command is very pleased to see an increased influx of clan registrations. Some clans have already reached a reasonable enough size to support efforts to vanquish the enemies of mankind in the universe.

Into the future
There are still more interviews to come in the near future with different game media but also with some of our fan sites. So keep your eyes peeled and watch the Stellar Vox News in the forums regularly.

The previously announced dev diaries are beginning to take shape. We have decided to present a monthly diary in which a selected team member will talk about the specific aspects of Black Prophecy that he or she is working on. This will, amongst other things, include topics like the game’s physics and graphics but also a lighthearted view on the funny side of working for a game development company.

Another goodie I have in preparation for you is a Community Q&A where members of the team are interviewed to get answers on questions you have posed in the forums, and also to bring the people behind the curtain a bit closer to you. I will try to repeat this Q&A regularly but it will be heavily dependent on the team’s schedule.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned, and see you in the next issue of the Stellarvox Community Bulletin!