You think that's MS style? You should buy some Paradox Interactive games

I love the publisher (also developer) as it makes some of my favourite games, but seriously...the rule is don't buy their games until at least the first expansion

Best current example is Magicka. It's a fantastic (and very cheap) game. However, it's being patched up left, right, and centre - and often the patch breaks other things (or uncovers other flaws) that break the game for some folks, and cause problems for others.

You do understand that Black Prophecy is a free to play MMOG?

Also, it has just been launched officially, so you can try it out yourself right now!

What else could "free to play" possibly mean?

Yes, it is free to download/"purchase" as well.

I hope people playing it are purchasing it.

I'm bored of seeing generic FPS ver 5 coming out, yet if sales of alternative game types are poor, they'll keep cranking the usual cash cows instead

I've just had a scout around on the forums and now I understand how they are going to pull this off.

Basically they are going to make you wait every time you want to apply a mod to something unless you pay for accelerators in their store. Accelerators reduce the time taken to apply mods, boosters can also be bought to make you level up quicker otherwise levelling will be a serious grind.

It seems that applying a mod will take 25mins, during which time you can't do anything but wait, so you might as well go and take a shower or watch tv. The mod might also fail, which would be really annoying after waiting 25mins.

Each piece of equipment, say an engine for example, has slots to which you can apply mods to make it better. Some of these slots will be locked unless you pay to unlock them.

Obviously there will also be premium equipment that can be purchased which will kick ass.

So I think that without spending money you will be waiting around a lot, that's always painful in any game, I hate loading bars nevermind 25mins of waiting. I also think, unless you spend money to unlock slots on your equipment modules, you're likely to get your ass handed to you on a plate in pvp. No doubt pve will be okay, but pvp is likely to leave you at a serious disadvantage without splashing out.

I'll download it and take a look at it, but I have a feeling this going to piss me off. I've never paid to play any game, not sure I ever want to. Guild wars had a good model, pay once and play on forever, this grind or pay model of BP is like entropia and LOTR and in just the same way they do, this is going to suck big time I'm sure.

and if you pay too much, you're "untouchable" and then, no challenge... No Pain, No Gain...

I've been invited in the US closed beta, so I'll be checking this out over the weekend!