Jumpgate Evolution :: Spaceships Types Revealed! (Now with more screen shots)

[Mrbloodworth]

Have any of you arguing against VO's played AoC at all?  The first 20 levels of AoC are MMO brilliance.  It is easily the best questing experience I've ever had in an MMO.  As soon as you leave the newbie island at level 20 and the VO's stop, the game is a hell of a lot less fun.  By level 50 we were all so fucking bored of the lack of content and shitty quests most of us just quit - or rerolled a couple newbies and did the 1-20 stuff over again first, and then quit.

 I recently picked up Conan on whim when d2d had it for $5 and just got done with Tortage the other night. The vo stuff didn't really do anything for me. If I hadn't been able to click through it I would've put it as a negative. It's just so much slower listening than reading and when I'm playing a game I want to do stuff, not sit back and watch like tv. When it comes to games give me stuff to do, not to watch.

And that's why they allow you to skip it, something that was recently touted as a bad thing, as if any design with voice over is impossible to add a skip button. However, just about all games are becoming more and more of a interactive movie. Look at all the top games, and you will see tons of voice, and cut scenes. Single player, or Non-mmo games are advancing to completely online games, yet MMO's are still stagnate, soon they shall be eclipsed.

[Ghambit]

I think some of you are forgetting the inherent differences between VO in a space-shooter/sim and VO in a fantasy RPG.  They're absolutely nothing alike.  The latter is cinematic in nature, the former is functional.  In games like JGE or MxO it's pretty imperative to have some kind of VoX or mission-hub, you cant just go out and find the mission-giver.  Since this is the case, you have a lot of latitude on how you can pull off giving out the mission info, since it's likely to come from only a few sources.  You also have the advantage of receiving missions on-the-fly.  One thing that's fun about this is you can be in the heat of battle and flash traffic would alert you about another mission or a changing circumstance.

I gotta say I really like MxO's system.  Missions from a main character like Mero were always voiced-over.  And you didnt always have to go running around looking for a quest-giver.  Not to mention, the mission UI itself fit the genre.   Too many games just plug in quest text and that's it.  It's important to keep the missions/quest deliverance in context - like proper fonts, animations, etc.  as there's nothing worse than a generic box with ariel font spewing info. about a dragon you must kill.   It's a total turnoff.

Really, it's the little things that count here.  JGE has an opportunity to disseminate its missions (or at least some of them) similar to old games of the past, in a creative manner that matches thematically.  So far, we see no indication that they're doing this... as usual, except for the fact they delayed release.  I really hope they use their heads here.

[Mrbloodworth]

Oh man, storm is taken his sweet time responding, I feel a new hole developing on my person. 

[Stormwaltz]

*SirBruces the hell out of MBV  *

But please, don't act like that "SOE did it" was the bulk of my argument. Thanks!

Sure, so long as you don't act like that was the bulk of my objection. Thanks!

I guess if striving for mediocrity is the goal, that system will work just fine.   

"Striving" makes it sound like imposing on the players, when -- in fact -- it's the other way around. Players like to breeze through with as little interruption as possible, particularly when they're in groups -- there's a social pressure that you don't want to "hold up" everyone else by stopping to read (or listen to) a bunch of exposition. I don't make people play the way they do, but I have to try adapting to their tendencies.

VO is a self-defeating, big-team "throw money at it" solution to a problem that can be solved with a simple restructure of quest data by the existing content team.

You guys keep towing the party line of "Its to expensive!" and "Text is good enough!". Its not like I said that same excuses is holding all this back in my other posts or anything. Those are old excuses that are becoming irrelevant, and mostly said in fear of the old ways dieing. Most players do not even read your dam quest text anyway.

The problem is that players would rather do something than not do something. From my perspective, you're trying to make quest downtime more palatable, and I'm trying to reduce it.

VO is throwing money at the problem. If you've got money, I don't begrudge you it. I'll still think it's inefficient. I cut my teeth supporting monthly content patches with a team of 8 working near-minimum wage. I'm going to do things cheaply, relying on as few outside resources as possible. My goal would be to keep pumping out content every month, because I know that with a half-decent game, that can get over 90% retention. Asheron's Call 1 survived because Christmas came every month.

I think at some point everyone here accepted the axiom that an MMORPG is sound so long as it makes more than it spends. To make a very crude analogy, I'd rather do that by making the Wii  -- presenting the old familiar in a more streamlined, accessible, and cost-effective way. From my perspective, you want to do it by making the PS3 -- glomming on expensive multimedia options that surely everyone must want.

And don't argue that VO adds immersion. Immersion goes away the first time you see someone spamming "lfg" or hear a 12 year old boy's voice coming out of a hot elf chick avatar. You want immersion, play solo.

And that's why they allow you to skip it, something that was recently touted as a bad thing, as if any design with voice over is impossible to add a skip button.

I think you misunderstood what I said. People tend to sit and listen through VO more than they tend to sit and read through text.

Text you can skim. You can't skim VO. You can skim subtitles under VO, but for some reason, people tend to do so less. Maybe it's misplaced politeness -- they don't want to cut off a speaker. Maybe cutting off VO in mid-word produces cognitive dissonance. I'm not a psychologist, I don't know. I'm just repeating what BioWare observed in testers when they transitioned from text to VO on KotOR and Jade.

Here's another log to toss on the fire. Lately I've been thinking that story shouldn't be what the game tells you, but what the player does. When you gather at the watercooler, are you more likely to discuss the backstory of Grimbane the Black Dragon, or the awesome grouping experience you had last night in Grimbane's Lair? Are you more likely to remember a quest with the movingly written appeal to save a family member, or the one where you have to hold against a tide of weaker enemies for X minutes?

In this, I think NetDevil has the right idea. Their stories will tend to unfold around you rather than bookend the quest with multi-paragraph infodumps.

[Stormwaltz]

And so it doesn't get lost in the tl;dr above:

Dolby Axon provides full surround sound, direction, position and distance attenuation. “Space will not be without sound,” said Scott, “Players will hear ships when they fly past, and you will be able to catch radio chatter.” Dolby Axon was built from the ground up for games, with dialogue leveling built in, so players will not have to spend the first ten minutes of logging in, adjusting levels and telling each other to get their mikes closer or further away or turning volumes up.

For Jumpgate, players will not have to use outside services such as Teamspeak or Ventrilo as Dolby Axon is built into the game. Depending on the game, voice chat will be served from the game servers or Dolby’s servers. Different classes of users are built into Dolby’s API and provided to game developers, so a hierarchy of users could possibly control chat. For example, when the Raid Leader speaks, all others could be muted and this rolls downhill for guilds with different class and squad leaders. Voice mods are also in their API and some provided in Jumpgate, and voice fonts are also available.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/297/feature/3552/page/1

I emphasized the bits I find interesting. The 40 year-old blobby man with a teenage female character flying on your left can sound like a teenage female, with voice coming out of the left speakers.

That's the sort of VO technology I can get behind.  

[Ghambit]

A lot of our arguments here I think also are dependant on how important the VO or quest-text is to the actual mission.  In a functional sense, if you dont read the text or listen to the VO you cant effectively do the mission.  There ARE games out there that quite literally require you to understand what you're doing before you do it, or you die or dont complete the mission.  These games are, of course, more open-ended typically.

MMOs have been devoid of this for some dumbass reason.  And I agree that simply making the same ol' quests voiced-over doesnt make it better.

Perhaps they need to do away with the "!" mechanic... wherein every objective is neatly laid out for you.  I'd much prefer having to understand a mission and locate what I need that way.

[Venkman]

VO right now is window dressing. It is indeed throwing money at the problem.

VO is not going to solve quests that nobody cares about. Kill 10 rats is killing 10 rats no matter how you wrap it. Unless killing those rats is either preventing someone else from doing so, or impacts your standing in the game world with the NPC societies.

SWTOR is going down the right path of making choice matter. That alone will ensure people pay attention. But apparently they've either got more money than they know what to do with, or they're not confident that having decisions that matter is going to be enough of a point of differentiation from WoW by itself.

The people who do design shouldn't be handling quest text.  Problems there are not a failing of having voice.

Where did I say that? When I wrote "game design/balancing/QA", that wasn't to imply that VO is one function and all of those are another single function.

I think you misunderstood what I said. People tend to sit and listen through VO more than they tend to sit and read through text

I'd be very interested in seeing that report  If we're talking RPGs, ok, I can maybe see that, merely because reading text while voice is playing is annoying. But does your quote in any way relate to EQ2?

[Murgos]

Here's another log to toss on the fire. Lately I've been thinking that story shouldn't be what the game tells you, but what the player does.

Oh, I agree with this completely.  At the moment, you select Ranger at the character screen and it gives you something that seems like it would be good for running around in the woods, shooting people with a bow and then the player gets into the game and spends all his/her time crafting in a city.

Ideally, when you spend all your time running around in the woods shooting people with a bow you should probably get labeled a ranger or, if you spend all your time in the city crafting things it should call you a crafter.

Voila, the beginnings of emergent story.

[tazelbain]

I like VO because It doesn't "remove" me from the game like reading does.

The pain I am having is VO mixed with VC, it collides and most of the time you miss what both said.

[Malakili]

Here's another log to toss on the fire. Lately I've been thinking that story shouldn't be what the game tells you, but what the player does.

Oh, I agree with this completely.  At the moment, you select Ranger at the character screen and it gives you something that seems like it would be good for running around in the woods, shooting people with a bow and then the player gets into the game and spends all his/her time crafting in a city.

Ideally, when you spend all your time running around in the woods shooting people with a bow you should probably get labeled a ranger or, if you spend all your time in the city crafting things it should call you a crafter.

Voila, the beginnings of emergent story.

If you make this game, it seems that people will complain about "lack of direction." Or say "There's nothing to do."  I'd love to see more of it though, it just seems like people don't want this kind of game in general

[Venkman]

In an alternate timeline, it was Ultima Online that spawned the future of the genre relegating EQ1 to hardcore psychos who never experienced a world beyond raiding, and WoW instead was Eve with elves.

Instead, publishers thought spoon delivered content was more palpable and marketable than virtual decision making.

I'd play UO done with an awesome budget/team and tuned to today's standards.

[Stormwaltz]

Instead, publishers thought spoon delivered content was more palpable and marketable than virtual decision making.

We spoon-feed our kids up until the point that they can use their own spoons. Most people grow beyond spoon-feeding, but everyone starts there.

You interested in the neverware project I'm assembling, Darniaq?

[slog]

I'm declaring this whole thread tl;dr.

Someone tell me what's currently going on with this game?

[Ghambit]

I'm declaring this whole thread tl;dr.

Someone tell me what's currently going on with this game?

nothing really

[Merusk]

In an alternate timeline, it was Ultima Online that spawned the future of the genre relegating EQ1 to hardcore psychos who never experienced a world beyond raiding, and WoW instead was Eve with elves.

Instead, publishers thought spoon delivered content was more palpable and marketable than virtual decision making.

I'd play UO done with an awesome budget/team and tuned to today's standards.

 Most people enjoy being consumers for their entertainment, those that don't should look at being the ones that provide it.   I don't see you lamenting that folks sit in front of the TV or buy books rather than writing their own stories using their imaginations. 

[Venkman]

Lamenting what? I'm stating a what-coulda-been, not what-shoulda-been. That'd be hypocrisy. I spent more hours /played in pre-BC WoW than I did in UO, SWG, ATiTD and Eve combined. And then there's the rest of the dikus. Truth is, for me, it's just more cathartic to blow shit up than to try and maximize a virtual social/economic lifestyle that would require I adjust something in my real one to pull off. And heck, I can't even raid seriously anymore. I'm slowly phasing out of these types of games, but as long as they keep delivering a well-polished newbie experience, and just enough something-different, I'll keep paying for them.

Of course, I'd also pay for a really well developed UO too  

Edit: I'd never heard of VG Cats comic before I just saw their link in some other thread. But the quote in this one seemed a propos:

Why make something great when good sells better?

[Merusk]

Great is subjective.  All that VG cats illustrates for me is the usual "Wah, my favorite thing isn't niche anymore and now I'm not a unique snowflake." Same as music, same as books.  There's more games out there, but the quantity of GREAT games put out remains consistent in terms of number per year.   Unless you're going to argue "Back in the day" of TSR gold boxes that every game was a classic gem that you simply MUST play.  I disagree.

Saying what "Could have been" sure sounds like lamenting to me as it's not usually said in these parts in reference to UO as anything but a lament.  Tho, yes, to me it induces shudders and chills of 'what might have been;' but then I'm not a fan of virtual lives.

[Venkman]

I'm not a fan of virtual lives.

Err, you say that here?!



And ya on the VG cats quote. I liked it for the quote itself, not the context. And totally agree on the aspect of uniqueness vs mass market. The tales of not wanting people to show up to your own success/passion (except as sheep maybe) are as old as civilization. Though back in those days, it was more about resources than crap like finding a new favorite band or whatever.

[Famine]

Nevermind, only adding to the derailment of a old reply. 

[Mrbloodworth]

Jumpgate level up:

I've got some very exciting news to share with you today about the growing development team on Jumpgate Evolution.

We've been actively hiring people for the last few months, expanding the team as we move towards Beta and launch. In the coming months we'll be introducing you to them, but I wanted to start with an announcement about someone we're really excited to have onboard.

Please join me and the rest of the team in welcoming Lance Robertson, who has joined the Jumpgate Evolution team as our new Executive Producer!

Lance has been in the business for more than 10 years, including stints as Art Lead and Art Director on Dark Age of Camelot for Mythic Entertainment. From there he rose through the studio to ultimately be responsible for the entire DAoC franchise, shipping every expansion until Catacombs in 2004. There are very few people in the MMOG development industry with such a unique background and wealth of experience.

When Mythic picked up the Warhammer license, Lance founded the team and eventually shipped the product as Senior Producer. While you may not have seen him in the media as much as other Mythic team members, Lance was a core part of the studio, and we feel extremely lucky to have him onboard here at NetDevil.

One of the reasons I'm excited to have Lance work on Jumpgate Evolution is his extensive experience and knowledge in how to create a PvP and PvE focused game. With three nations and massive scale PvP, Jumpgate has always been similar in design to DAoC, making Lance a perfect fit for JGE. He's already brought some great new ideas to the table, although the core game remains the same. I know he feels that he's learned lessons in his career that'll help us make Jumpgate even better.

I'm sure you've got a million questions for Lance and we're going to hold a community Q&A in the coming weeks so he can answer at least some of those. In the meantime I want to assure you that we're still on track to deliver the game we've always wanted to make, and that I know you're going to love. Lance, and all the other people we've hired recently, are here to get Jumpgate Evolution to the finish line!

Please join me in welcoming Lance!

Linky

[Draegan]

 

The Mythic taint is spreading!

[Mrbloodworth]

Honestly, I am thankful they are bringing that much experience to the title.

[Draegan]

I really want to play this game, so whatever gets shit out the door faster.

[Malakili]

I was only moderately interested in this game at best, until I found out its playable with a joystick, and now I'm pretty interested.

[waylander]

The Mythic taint is spreading!

Dark Age of Camelot Expansion List

Dark Age of Camelot was a good game in its day.  However the Trials of Atlantis expansion was the one expansion that tipped the game the wrong way, and alienated a lot of its RVR fanbase because TOA introduced a lot of grind.  This in turn created the need for Mythic to launch Classic servers in attempt to lure more of the RVR crowd back to their game.

So having DAOC on this guy's resume is good, but it also seems he was at the helm during the TOA fiasco that nearly wrecked that game.

I hope he brings the good lessons to JGE, and not the bad ones.

[Mrbloodworth]

I was only moderately interested in this game at best, until I found out its playable with a joystick, and now I'm pretty interested.

You just found this out? They support quite a few devices, such as:

[Lum]

The Mythic taint is spreading!

 

[Draegan]

When I got to play the game with a joystick it felt very strange.  Guess I wasn't used to it.

[fuser]

You just found this out? They support quite a few devices, such as:

Honestly support isn't really needed for the Matrox long as your game allowed for the crazy resolutions/aspect. I'd expect you could do the same with the AMD Eyefinity tech. Speaking of controls I'd like a throttle control for main engine thrust

[Count Nerfedalot]

So, he's moved up from Senior Producer to Executive Producer.

What exactly does a Producer do in Game Development anyway?  And how much of the blame for Warhammer does he deserve?

[Cadaverine]

When, exactly, did being involved with WAR become a good thing to put on your resume?  Certainly wouldn't lend any credence to their, and I quote, "extensive experience and knowledge in how to create a PvP and PvE focused game."

[UnSub]

So, he's moved up from Senior Producer to Executive Producer.

What exactly does a Producer do in Game Development anyway?  And how much of the blame for Warhammer does he deserve?

Tries to mediate between Design and Programming. Makes sure things are being produced on time and that everyone has what they need to get the job done.

[Venkman]

That. Producers are similar to project managers.

When, exactly, did being involved with WAR become a good thing to put on your resume?  Certainly wouldn't lend any credence to their, and I quote, "extensive experience and knowledge in how to create a PvP and PvE focused game."

Interviewers don't look at someone's CV and say "welp, your game flopped/missed-expectations, you'll never work in this town again!!" There's too many functions that contribute to game development, and most of them can't be blamed for the decisions made by those in charge.

Otherwise anyone who ever worked on anything but a top 10 game would have only ever one game under their belt

[UnsGub]

When, exactly, did being involved with WAR become a good thing to put on your resume?

Someone running a big team verse not running a team.
Someone shipping a product verse never shipping.

If anyone working in software for more then a year or two does not have a major failure under their belt I would be surprised.  Shipped months late, cancelled and never shipped, technically broken and unuable, wrong ideas and features, features cut, escalations and bug fixes for major customers, wrong choice of tech, consumed by a merger, unprofitable, out of business, etc.  Even working on one successful product for a few years is heading to the failure called burnout.

[Draegan]

Jumpgate level up:

Linky

He talked to MMORPG.com
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?game=297&feature=3790&bhcp=1

Nothing interesting though.