f13.net

A wide variety of single-pilot combat and utility ships ply the spacelanes of our jumpgate network. All ships may be described as either combat or commercial vessels. However, there is considerable variance in ship design based on intended role, and by the specific nation, faction, or corporation that produces and uses the ship. For example, the Slipstream is a Solrain combat ship classified as a patrol fighter and produced by an industrial division of the Zelcane Trust. Its characteristics differ from other patrol fighters that belong to the Octavian Imperial Navy or that are produced by a Quantar corporation. Even individual Slipstream-class ships may be customized by the pilot’s choice of loadout and other modifications, either emphasizing a strength of the class, or mitigating a weakness. The options available to pilots for customization of any particular ship vary by the specific ship class.

The first ship any rookie pilot gains experience with is a trainer of some sort. These spacecraft are usually classed as "shuttle trainers", but within the Octavian Empire it is conventional to refer to their training ships as "patrol trainers". Universally, trainers are inexpensive light-duty utility ships meant for use by inexperienced pilots. They tend to possess outstanding handling characteristics and can mount light weaponry, but are only capable of mounting minimal extra equipment.

Combat Spacecraft range from Light Paramilitary Patrol Craft used in the Core Sectors, to Heavy Assault Fighters capable of devastating attacks on Capital Ships. Fightercraft obviously are heavily armed when compared with civil and commercial vessels, but the various ship classes differ in qualities such as speed, maneuverability, weapons loadout, and defense. Each national navy also possesses its own design tendencies, and even factions and corporations may field their own unique military spacecraft to protect their interests or territory.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/PatrolFighter_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Patrol or Packet Courier

The Patrol Fighter class results from outfitting a lightweight shuttle hull with improved power systems and weapons hardpoints. While not truly a military-caliber vessel due to their light armor and limited armament, Patrol Fighters make outstanding paramilitary support and local intercept craft, and are used as training vessels by all national militaries. Unfortunately, its combination of combat utility at a low price also makes the patrol fighter the most common ship class operated by independent groups in unregulated space.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/LightFighter_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Intercept

The Light Fighter category emphasizes speed and maneuver over a heavy armor and weapons payload. These military ships are often used as Interceptors, as second-line defense forces, or even as Scout craft if more specialized ships are not available. Some models are considered "artist’s ships", and chosen over fighters with heavier armament by senior officers who prefer the advantages gained by flying a nimble ship.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/MediumFighter_EN.jpg)
Specialty: General Combat

The mainstay of any space fighter wing, the ships of the Medium Fighter class are the standard against which all other military ship types are measured. They provide good firepower and maneuverability in one package, though varied designs and loadouts may emphasize armor over speed, or weapons over shielding.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/HeavyFighter_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Military Escort

Relying on armor, shielding, and a large armaments package, the Heavy Fighter class represents the big bruisers in a military fighter wing. Stereotypically unmaneuverable, a Heavy Fighter’s strengths are its endurance under fire and ability to deliver devastating firepower against a target. Heavy Fighters are outstanding in roles guarding strike craft, or when a Capital Ship or Commercial convoy requires a combat escort.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/ScoutFighter_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Reconnaissance

Representatives of the Scout Fighter class are generally stripped-down Light Fighter hulls with supercharged drive systems. The speeds these ships reach make them ideal for rapid intercept and no-contact reconnaissance roles, but they cannot survive in an engagement for long without support from heavier, front-line fightercraft.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/AssaultFighter_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Strike

The Assault Fighter can be taken as an extreme evolution of Heavy Fighters adapted to strike mission roles. Typified by a capacity to mount anti-capship torpedoes, these fighters usually sacrifice speed and maneuverability for warhead payload. Often retaining the ability to mount adequate guns and plenty of anti-fighter missiles as well, these heavy combatants may mount a significant threat to the interceptors tasked with eliminating them. That threat will be further compounded by the escort fighters with which any wise commander guards them.

Noncombat ships can be divided into two broad categories: transports and miners. Spaceflight can be dangerous, so although commercial ships emphasize cargo capacity, they all possess at least light armament, and often substantial armor and shielding. Most ships of any commercial class allow good customizability through addition of equipment and general modifications.

(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/CargoShuttle_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Light Transport

A heavier shuttlecraft with more extensive cargo space but less power and space for armament adequately describes the several ships of the Cargo Shuttle class. Many possess additional utility features such as nonweapon hardpoints. Cargo Shuttles tend to receive extensive in-sector use for rapid transport of small cargoes, and are very commonly flown by novice commercial pilots.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/FastTransportVessel_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Blockade Runner

Members of possibly the most romantic ship class in known space, fast transports are used as speedy packet vessels, local small-cargo delivery, and of course, by pirates and smugglers. A relatively small cargo capacity is balanced by the ability of the ship to meet its schedule ahead of time and usually under budget. Fast transports are also commonly able to mount a light but respectable armament, and this combination of weapons and ability to disengage makes them well-nigh irresistible to pilots operating on the fringes of local regulations.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/TransportVessel_EN.jpg)
Specialty: General Cargo Transport

The unsung and unheralded backbone of commerce, the transport class of hauling vessels includes all manner of mid-size cargo ships used for regional transportation. Transports have a substantial cargo capacity, but retain good handling characteristics, making them popular with independent pilots as well as local and regional hauling firms. Some models sacrifice a fraction of their cargo space for upgraded defenses, making them ideal for delivery missions to unfriendly locales.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/CargoTow_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Heavy Cargo Transport

The most commonly seen heavy hauler in known space is the single-container cargo tow. These beasts of burden are slow to accelerate when laden, but usually can mount good shielding and very respectable armor, making them ideal convoy vessels whether escorted or not. Each accommodates a standard industrial deep-space cargo container, making for a very significant cargo capacity.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/DualTow_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Heavy Cargo Transport

The largest single-pilot freighters now in regular use, the Dual-Container Cargo Tow, or Dual Tow class, literally doubles the capacity of a regular Cargo Tow by mounting two standard containers rather than one. Ships of this class maneuver slowly and have an unattractive thrust-to-mass ratio when fully loaded, but their ability to move large profitable cargoes is unparalleled. Despite being armored, shielded, and possessed of some light defensive armament, these vessels are usually seen with at least a minimal escort when encountered outside of the Core sectors.

(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/Prospector_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Local Mining

Built around a relatively small hull, Prospector class vessels are frequently seen in use by independent, small-time miners. Maneuverable and speedy, these ships are only limited by the relatively slight load they can carry. They can be highly convenient for local mining operations near the Core, as well as for prospecting expeditions in unfamiliar sectors.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/LightMiner_EN.jpg)
Specialty: General Mining

Light miners are mid-sized mining craft based on a transport class hull. They usually offer at least two mining hardpoints in addition to defensive armament. Cargo, handling, and speed are all typical of transport-class hauling vessels. Ships of the light miner class are common in corporate mining fleets, and are often owned by small independent mining concerns or even individuals.


(http://213.225.146.236/images/microsites/jump/HeavyMiner_EN.jpg)
Specialty: Deep Space Mining

The largest mining ships in known space, the heavy miner class employs a standard deep-space cargo container as its hold. Even though these vessels usually operate in well-protected industrial zones, they are typically well-armored and shielded themselves. As a class, these ships are bulky and do not accelerate quickly, but they offer adequate customizability and once filled, can transport a very respectable load, thereby profiting their owner or operating corporation.

    * "Jumpgate is primarily a combat action game that is based on licenses that are achievement based, although some of the licenses do require a minimum level." -Anna "Spellbound" Steffer
    * Licenses allow players to acquire and use a wider variety of new and improved ship chassis and gear.
    * There are no class restrictions on what type of license a pilot can use because there are no character classes in Jumpgate

    * Ranks are the Jumpgate equivalent of levels.
    * The maximum rank is probably going to be 60.
    * Licenses are rank based.
    * A player buys his/her first ship at rank 5.
    * It takes about an hour of play to reach rank 5.
    * Experience earned towards leveling is helped out by soft grouping.

Sector Control

So apparently the days of whizzing through the rings of a beacon are a bygone era. Sector control is going to be done through placing and defending assets in a sector. The example used was a battlestation. One squad will build a battlestation in a sector, and then control it. Some other squad then has to come in and destroy/capture the battlestation, and then replace it with one of their own. This will entail guarding while the construction effort takes place, bringing in the necessary supplies, etc.. Also, apparently some equipment will only be able to move via transport (like, say, a turret I'm guessing), so you can't just make hundreds of light transport runs. Someone is going to have to fly a heavy hauler with a turret on board (from the turret factory, wherever that might be.. more on that later).

Game Map

The game map in the current alpha build is basically a placeholder that will be replaced later with the actual game map. It did have two levels, though, with the overview map showing the links between sub maps, and each submap consisting of various sectors. The placeholder map looked to have about 8-9 submaps, and 7-8 sectors per sub map. Jumping between sectors looked like it took several seconds. Didn't get a chance to ask if that was to be addressed or not. The hour and a half went REALLY fast.

Capital Ships

It's BIG. Hermann zoomed out with his halcyon next to the cap ship, and the cap ship didn't fit on the screen, yet the halcyon was all of maybe 10 pixels total. Flying end to end looked to take about 15-20 seconds or so (in the newbie halcyon). One sector Hermann showed us had the wreckage of several of these cap ships broken up and strewn all over the place. LOTS of wreckage.

Mining

Got an up close look at a mining node. Looks like a small protusion on an asteroid. Hermann didn't mine it, but it looked to be roughly the size of the halcyon ship itself.

Hollow Asteroids

Hermann showed off several of these, complete with large caverns inside that you could have some combat within, and one even had a full blown battlestation built within the hollow asteroid. Others had pirate bases built inside, and little nooks and crannies all over the place to potentially hide in. Also, it looks like roid masking is in.

Network Code

Hermann jumped on the hotel Wifi in the resturaunt, and played on the live server back in the Netdevil offices. Never saw a hint of any lag or jagged engine trails anywhere. Very very smooth. Also, Scorch talked briefly about lessons learned in JGC with making the game too client-centric and with JGE, built a lot more into the server end of the game to keep information out of the players hands when they aren't supposed to know it (like a ship with an active ECM, etc..). Gone are the days of hacking the network DLL and snooping the network stream for ships you shouldn't normally be able to see.

Artifacts

Apparently, artifact hunting will still be in JGE. How it will manifest exactly, we'll have to see. It won't be finding an full engine, however. It will take the form of finding a specialized power source or super-dense magnetics that will allow you to craft it into a rare engine or shield, etc. It'll still be an in-game design, but there should be very few of them.

Autodock

So as Hermann was flying around Oct Core, he flew across the docking port, and accidently docked. Whoops. He did mention that they were flirting with the idea of making docking harder as you got further away from the core, and verified that in the current build, a fully loaded tow at full speed would dock safely.

Crafting

Stations are only going to sell basic stuff and low level equipment so new players have gear available. As you progress in levels and move on to better ships, equipment becomes totally player made. Factories are going to be spread out all over the place such that some factories will be difficult to reach due to hostile presence in the area, etc... Factories will also be able to be blockaded by enterprising squads seeking to control a section of the market. The plan is to have equipment built at the factory to be the least costly to build, units being sold as stations nearest to the factory sell for the least money, and units sold nearest to the player population going for the most money. In other words, pay more for a local one, or pay less and go get it. The whole notion of the mail system discussed elsewhere where if a transport gets destroyed the item respawns to try again seems to break this paradigm, however, so not totally buying into this one just yet. Also, there's no current support for quality, etc. All of a particular widget are exactly the same, whoever it is that makes it.

Collisions

According to Scorch, the damage done by collisions is proportional to the ship's mass. So the lightweight halcyon takes minimal damage in an impact, but larger, and heavier ships will start to take on more significant damage in an impact. Probably still not fatal, but potentially crippling, none the less.

That's all for now... if I remember any more I'll add it. Hopefully someone else from the M&G will be able to add other things they learned as I could only absorb so much of the parallel conversations.

    * A player buys his/her first ship at rank 5.
    * It takes about an hour of play to reach rank 5.

I think eve proved why single player flyable capital ships are a colossally bad idea.

Err, what do players do until they get their first ship?

I did find this:


Hmmmm.  Does this mean a Halcyon can kamikazee a capital ship and bounce away with minimal damage while crippling the cap?  This collision rule just seems odd.  Generally physics dictates that in a collision, the larger mass "wins".  And the larger the differential, the more it wins by.  So a lightweight ship colliding with a huge rock would go "splat", while a large ship colliding with the same rock might merely go "crunch".

Hmmmm.  Does this mean a Halcyon can kamikazee a capital ship and bounce away with minimal damage while crippling the cap?  This collision rule just seems odd.  Generally physics dictates that in a collision, the larger mass "wins".  And the larger the differential, the more it wins by.  So a lightweight ship colliding with a huge rock would go "splat", while a large ship colliding with the same rock might merely go "crunch".

Good infoz, thanks Blood. Only disappointing thing for me is that there's nothing larger than fighters.

I guess I was having badwrongfun when I played Eve then.  :cry:

I don't play EVE and never made it past 10 hours after the tutorial, why are cap ships a bad idea?  Technical issues like lag or design issues like they are OP?

*stuff*

Jumpgate Talk to the Community Team - Week 1
Community plays a big role in any game's development cycle. We make friends, explore new worlds together and interact in ways we would do in any life-like environment.

Jumpgate Evolution will include community features such as chat, Squads and Wings – all which help to enhance the experience of playing a Massively Multiplayer Online Game.

The intention of this thread/feature is to see what it is you expect from Jumpgate Evolution in regards to development, game experience and community, as well as some additional questions on the side J

This is your chance to let us know what you’re thinking.

This week’s questions are:


Week 1 - Communication

Q: How important do you expect voice communication to be?

Q: Will you take part in voice communication or stick to text based communication?

Q: If you intend to use voice communication, will you lean towards using it more for squad based chat (in game organization) or for off topic socialization?

Q: Would you prefer to play Jumpgate Evolution with 3D directional chat enabled (this basically means voice comes from the direction your friends ship is in location to yours) or non-directional (stereo like) chat enabled?

What speed nerf? Just out of curiosity.

Separately, I can't see how many would want to take a huge step back from the player-control socioeconomic sim that is Eve to a space fighter adventure game. Eve is almost a genre unto itself.

I have a hard time believing that the much bally-who'd socioeconomy of Eve accounts for much of it's retention at all. While some people love to play the market the majority just want's to buy/sell their shit and be on their way again.

What speed nerf? Just out of curiosity.

Separately, I can't see how many would want to take a huge step back from the player-control socioeconomic sim that is Eve to a space fighter adventure game. Eve is almost a genre unto itself.

Heh, anything I don't have on my hard drive I file into the "intended" bracket. I'll believe JG:E comes anywhere near to their goals when I see it :-)

Nah, I don't think most people are there for the crafting/economy. But they're not there for the fun action-y shield-rotation dogfighting either. It's not like Eve is a good surrogate to Freespace 2. It's different in a way JG:E doesn't compete again.

Obviously we'll see someday. ;-)

I can't remember but did they ever release a target quarter when this game would release?  Something makes me want to say Q4.

When will Jumpgate Evolution be released?
We are currently aiming for Spring 2009 release.

MMORPG_Kunou: Howdy and welcome to MMORPG.com's Live Chat on irc.coldfront.net! I'm your host, MMORPG.com's Community Manager Richard "Kunou" Cox. Joining us today are members of the JumpGate Evolution dev team!
 advertisement

MMORPG_Kunou: Our guests will do their best to answer as many questions as possible, but due to limited time and a high volume of inquiries, they may not be able to answer every single one. Users are limited to one question at a time, and you will be notified if your question is rejected or discarded.

MMORPG_Kunou: To submit your question, please /msg MMORPGBot yourquestionhere. If your question was deleted, it's probably because someone else asked the same thing first.

MMORPG_Kunou: This room will be moderated during the chat; if you want to talk during the chat, feel free to visit #jumpgate.

MMORPG_Kunou: Now it's time for introductions! Feel free to start sending your questions to MMORPGBot while our guests introduce themselves!

ND_Hermann: Hi all. I'm Hermann and I'm the producer on Jumpgate Evolution

ND_Scorch: Hi! I'm Scott Brown, President of NetDevil and original developer of Jumpgate.

ND_Awen: Hiya! I'm Nicole Hamlett (or Awen) and I am Jumpgate Evolution's Community Manager

ND_Binkies: Hi Everyone. I'm Grace, Marketing Manager of Jumpgate Evolution

Community Question: slix asks, "Will Jumpgate be as "do-anything-you-want" as some other space mmorpgs, like EVE?"

ND_Hermann: Well. That's a very broad statement :). For example, if you want to drive pink elephant cars, that might be tough to do :P. Seriously though, Jumpgate is an open game in the sense that you are not forced to follow a linear path by some fixed set of limitations. If you want to mine or fight or craft, PvP, PvE, follow mission or just kind of explore around. All of that is possible and there is no required order per se.

Community Question: lordalderaan asks, "How are you gonna create a demand for the manufacturing part of the game when ship destruction does not result in item loss?"

ND_Hermann: That's actually a great question and something we discussed internally for a long time. When you think about it, though, games that have item loss are actually have far less instances of death, precisely because of the death penalty. In fact, te lighter the death penalty, the more frequent the cases of death. Compare, say, EvE with World of Warcraft, or maybe Counterstrike. It's been proven that games with item loss and without i

Community Question: AnubisX|LOVES_JUMPGATE_EVO asks, "Is the battle in JGE going to be fast paced or slow?"

ND_Awen: Jumpgate Evolution is a space combat MMO. We are very action oriented so you can expect that combat will be very fast paced.

ND_Awen: combat is real time and based on skill so be prepared to have a very adrenaline rush experience. :)

Community Question: Javeir asks, "Is there an 'end game' in JGE? If so, how long does it take to get there?"

ND_Scorch: While you can reach a max level, that is really not the point of Jumpgate and there is a lot to do once you reach that portion of the game. Since we have no dice rolls, level does not play as critical of a role as it does in other MMORPGs.

Community Question: blood asks, "How much will the game will cost at month ?"

ND_Binkies: We have yet to announce the business model.

Community Question: DLinkOZ asks, "How will death be handled?"

ND_Hermann: That's another one of those complex questions we think about a lot. For the most part we want to make sure the death penalty is not so punshing that people quit the game in frustration. Thus, currently, we basically damage your ship which you must pay to repair and put you back on the previous station. That being said - this doesn't preclude us from doing other things elsewhere.

ND_Hermann: I don't want to get into details, but we have been paying attention to the large group of people that feel there needs to be more risk and challenge, and there's ways we think we can do that, which other games haven't tried - sometimes an indication of a bad idea :)

ND_Hermann: In any case, we want to make the game challenging and rewarding instead of challenging and punishing.

Community Question: kalles asks, "Hi, when does beta starts?"

ND_Awen: Right now we're working very hard on making sure that the game is ready for external testing. We're very very close to that point. However, with that said, we just are not sure when it's going to be at that critical point for us to start the beta process. However, when we are ready, we'll make an announcement on our official website. Trust me, we can't wait to let you guys in to see all of the cool stuff that we've been working on.

Community Question: TGC_PanicMan asks, "I work by myself in a software company, I know a little bit how the way goes... Its all about Money, but is the discussion of the Players in the Forums important for the people who made dessisions?"

ND_Scorch: We have always used feedback from our community to shape the game, both in terms of features and balance. We also watch not just what people say but also what they do. By carefully measuring player actions we can gain a lot of knowledge instead of just guessing what would improve the game.

Community Question: PenguinOfDoom asks, "Will the game have non-consensual PVP, or will PVP be limited to some sort of a flagging system?"

ND_Hermann: It depends on what you mean by non-consentual. For example, if I log into a game that is PvP only, I am giving consent by playing. What we want to make sure of, is that the large number of people that do not want to do PvP have a valid game that they can play. That doesn't preclude an open PvP environment or even mixed mode PvP in PvE areas. What it does mean is that if people want to play Jumpgate and not be killed, that is a va

ND_Hermann: That doesn't preclude an open PvP environment or even mixed mode PvP in PvE areas. What it does mean is that if people want to play Jumpgate and not be killed, that is a valid choice.

Community Question: Ezequiel asks, "Where will Jumpgate be sold I.e. Online with a download, Stores, etc."

ND_Binkies: We plan to make the game available through a variety of channels. Just like what you have mentioned, stores and online channels are in the plans. :)

Community Question: Savag3On3 asks, "Will this game use any sort of purchasable ammo system? Craftable ammo? Or just "infinite" ammo?"

ND_Hermann: If you mean in game purchasable ammo for in game credits. Yes.

ND_Hermann: There are various types of weapons: energy based, ammo based, mortars, machine guns, that kind of stuff.

ND_Hermann: Some of them have "infinite" ammo, others are limited. The goal there is to create choice and consequence, not to mention game play variance.

ND_Hermann: For example, ammo guns may use less power than energy weapons.

Community Question: Asylus asks, "What are the current plans as far as the roles of AI capital ships in the game? Where can we expect to see them and what will the be doing?"

ND_Scorch: Cap ships are a huge part of space combat lore so we would be remiss to not include them. All the great space battles I can remember from various movies and games have combat scenes with fighters flying along huge cap ships.

ND_Scorch: That being said, we want the pacing to Jumpgate Evolution to be fast so players will not be flying cap ships, at least at launch.

ND_Scorch: The AI will play various roles with the cap ships where players will be asked to destroy or defend the various cap ships in the game based on the situation. [18:28]

Community Question: scathis asks, "Hello ND, I'd like to know if there will be ship custumization, not equipement change, but actual ingame diferent ship Textures?"

ND_Awen: 'Rather than actual customization of the ships, there will be different ships you can purchase through your faction rating. We've discussed having small squad logos implemented, but it's probably not something that we'll be able to implement by launch. With that said, the ship kit has infinite possibilities so you can definitely equip your ship in some very customizable ways.

Community Question: LordAlderaan asks, "Do you see PvP as a daily activity for the average player including multiple deaths per day?"

ND_Hermann: I guess it depends how good you are at PvP :). Seriously though, I suspect PvP will be a significant part of the game for a large number of players.

ND_Hermann: That is why we want to support various types of PvP game play as well as making the game advance through PvP (that is XP for PvP play).

ND_Hermann: The goal is to make it a significant game play mechanism not "the fun part that comes at the end." To be clear, I want people PvPing day 1 and day 100 and having tons of fun doing it.

Community Question: Radi asks, "During recent interviews it was said that items will only be damaged when your ship explodes. Will that change and it is current iteration of the gameplay or is that permanent change?"

ND_Scorch: First off, nothing is permanent, especially at this stage in game development. We intend to start beta with item damage on death but I can’t say how that will work at a large scale of players. So based off feedback, we will make appropriate changes.

Community Question: Obductus asks, "What are you guys currently working on, nothing really new since months? What can we expect from the beta? Any little details out there?"

ND_Hermann: It's funny how when I wait for game outside it feels agonizingly slow, but on the inside time is speeding by.

ND_Hermann: The real answer is that the devil is in the details. Getting everything right takes A LOT of time and that can be frustrating.

ND_Hermann: Specifically, right now we are working on all kinds of aspects of deployment, a PVP system for arena style play, always more content and getting ready for testing :P.

ND_Hermann: Giant moving ships looks really cool.

Community Question: K-Rizzle asks, "Will there be ways to further modify weapons...such as re-fire, dmg, heat inductance..etc?"

ND_Scorch: We are not planning for item modification at launch, though the idea is very cool!

Community Question: latinthug3 asks, "what makes jumgate evolution different than any other mmorpg in the market?"

ND_Binkies: Jumpgate Evolution offers players fast action space combat gameplay with huge battles in a persistent online world. But of course, it will have all the other cool MMO features such as auction house, crafting etc. :)

Community Question: Argo asks, "Will crafting be givin just as much dev attention as combat, or will it take a back burner like in so many other MMOS? Will it actually be engaging and fun to do full time?"

ND_Awen: That's a really great question. We're working through the crafting system now and we want to make sure that crafters have as much to do as people who just want to combat or haul. It's all about making a diverse system and we want to make sure that everyone who plays has fun. I think that because of the nature of the game, you will be able to craft full time to keep pilots well equipped.

Community Question: Blood asks, "What kind of players will play that game ? Casuals, PGM ?"

ND_Hermann: The goal is all of the above, of course. That being said there is a core group of people to whom the game appeals.

ND_Hermann: We believe this is people who liked prior space action games but have been left somewhat high and dry lately.

ND_Hermann: we want to make sure the game meets the expectations of people who played Freelancer, XvT, Freespace, and games like that.

ND_Hermann: But as with any game, if it's executed well, people find it to be fun and it draws from all kinds of areas.

Community Question: paulscott asks, "Average life expectancy of two people not moving and with 100% accuracy?"

ND_Scorch: That’s a hard question to answer exactly because there are so many variables, refire rate, shields, etc. But right now if you were just to fight a low level player it would take maybe 15-20 seconds. It’s certainly more than just one shot to kill.

Community Question: AnubisX|LOVES_JUMPGATE_EVO asks, "Will there be a story to this game, or will it be player-generated with actions done by certain guilds etc.?"

ND_Binkies: Yes there is definately a backstory to the game which will drive the in-game missions. However, actions from players will also have impact to the game too.

Community Question: DLinkOZ asks, "JGC had item loss, and people found it very easy to luanch into dire situations, so how does that factor into the no-loss philosphy?"

ND_Hermann: It's true. It's not that it's not a valid game play mechanic it's just a measurable tendancy that people resist danger as the punishment goes up.

ND_Hermann: Another thing that has changed is the variety of equipment and ships available. we want there to be many more options which then makes item loss even more expensive.

ND_Hermann: I understand that there are people who feel that without a really harsh death penalty the game feels fake or not hard enough and we're working on ways of addressing it.

ND_Hermann: I think that we have focused a lot on making the game accessible which then makes it look like we are ignoring the issues from the other side. That's not the case, it's just that you have to consider the multitude of game play styles and try and build for as much diversity as possible.

ND_Hermann: I think we have had some interesting internal discussions on how to address this very point, and hope to reveal some details to let you guys kick some ideas around.

Community Question: Slix| asks, "Will Jumpgate allow for good political pvp? For example, a world war between many guilds over control of an area or something?"

ND_Scorch: Besides typical things from shooters that we will have like leader boards and kill lists, there is an “open” PVP part of the game where players compete over maps and can try and turn space to their faction for various short term perks.

Community Question: aelena asks, "will there be a way to switch shards to be with other friends?"

ND_Hermann: Yes. Although we're working on details there. For example, most games limit it for various reasons, some of them balance, some of them system overhead. We want people to be able to play with friends as easily as possible so hopefully we can make that process easy.

Community Question: Tritian asks, "Hermann, what exactly about the JGC death penalty do you believe was too harsh?"

ND_Hermann: It's not really about what I think specifically. We do lots of internal testing and I can tell you when people die and lose all their stuff, most of them never play again :). Some people like it, but most don't.

ND_Hermann: I think that's why you see a collective movement in MMOs to reduce death penalties. That being said I think you can get both of those groups without having a half way solution and that's something we are working on.

Community Question: Javeir asks, "Why do you think JG: EVO will succede when JG original did not?"

ND_Scorch: Because I am not programming it this time! :)

ND_Hermann: Hahahah

ND_Binkies: lol

ND_Awen: hahahahaha

ND_Awen: Well measuring success is certainly arbitrary. With that said, we're creating a game now that is very accessible to all walks of MMO players. There will be a rich storyline, a solid economical draw with crafting and tradeskills, the combat is intense, it's graphically gorgeous. I'm going to play it and I'm the common MMO player right? I think that it's a matter of taking something that was really great and improving upon it. :)

ND_Awen: and uh..

ND_Awen: scorch isn't coding it this time *ducks and runs*

Community Question: Asylus asks, "A lot of MMOs on the market have a heavy storyline that the player goes through, with a number of sidequests and the like. In addition to Jumpgate's Mission based system, will JGE implement any storylines that a player can follow?"

ND_Hermann: Yes.

ND_Hermann: However, Jumpgate has always been a more open kind of game than many MMOs and we want to keep that.

ND_Hermann: There are negatives to making a game a linear narrative experience, for example, players that don't want that feel like they are playing "wrong" if they don't follow it, and we don't want that.

ND_Hermann: Thus, while we want to make sure there is engaging fiction and intersting stories through missions we don't want to cram it down people's throats. That's what awesome single player games like Fallout 3 are for :).

Community Question: Ezequiel asks, "Will there be a free-to-play area like for say... Runscape has a free to play area and a pay to play area"

ND_Binkies: Hmmm interesting idea. Although it's not in the plans now but who knows. :)

ND_Scorch: The free to play area will be called "Beta" lol

ND_Awen: hahahahahaha

ND_Binkies: hehehe

Community Question: LordAlderaan asks, "Are the RvR (as in 'PvP with permanent teams and persistant points of conflict') elements of this game gonna be based on Squads or on Nations and how do multi-national squads fit in?"

ND_Scorch: When you conquer a map, it is based on the faction of the player that takes the map. Players that contribute to this will also get additional rewards, similar to tracking agro for XP. Only the faction that captures will get rewards.

Community Question: TGC-ChakStar asks, "You said that you want a totally player driven economy. What if 90% of players wanna do PvP? Let's say all need engines but they cant be produced because the lack of commods? Are there NPC-Miners or anything that hold the stock up to a minimum?"

ND_Hermann: Then I guess that answers the "how can you have an economy withouth item destruction question" :).

ND_Hermann: Honestly though, in general that doesn't seem to happen. People are greedy and there will be those who will exploit an economy for profit, and because of that there will be those who compete against them.

ND_Hermann: I guess if it really falls apart we can also make craftin more appeling or simply find other non-player generated ways of adding items.

ND_Hermann: I think that would be a pity though... it's so much cooler if it's a player market, I think.

Community Question: Radi asks, "Some of the veteran players may not like final product that JGE might become. Istvan said that he will not stop working on JGC. Are there any major plans for JGC at this point?"

ND_Scorch: JGC is on hold other than server support while we develop JGE, we'll see how players react post release and decide what to do from there.

Community Question: Kalles asks, "Can players exit their ships?"

ND_Awen: Think of your ship as an extension of yourself. Right now we don't have plans for human avatars. It may be something that the team explores in the future, but you can be certain that at the launch of Jumpgate Evolution, you will not be able to exit your ship.

ND_Scorch: There is one way to exit your ship, escape pods.

ND_Awen: well you got me there. :)

Community Question: EdFanMH asks, "Will we be able to switch factions anytime?"

ND_Hermann: When you create your pilot, you choose a nation to align with (Solrain, Quantar, Octavius) and that is not changable.

ND_Hermann: However, you can create many pilots, so it doesn't stop you from seeing the other experiences.

ND_Hermann: Also, nothing really stops you from working with the other nations, so that is still available as well.

Community Question: ScotzMan asks, "you've already said you take on board what the community want and in hermann's recent interview with kotaku he mentioned catering to as many different gaming styles as possible, do you think there is a worry you're trying to cater to too many and breaking the game up into something thats just a mash of good ideas that may not work well together in practice?"

ND_Scorch: Certainly that could be an issue but really we are focused on making an intense action space MMO. That is pretty directed. We have put off lots of other features, like making a character based game as well for example, so that all of our focus can be on a fun space combat game. Making a game simple to learn and difficult to master hopefully will not be a design nightmare.

Community Question: latinthug3 asks, "Most of mmorpgs don't sell copies of their game in countrys from south america, what about jumpgate?"

ND_Binkies: We are working on bringing Jumpgate to as many players from different counties as possible. A couple of countries (South America included) are in the plans but we are still working on it. :)

Community Question: K_II asks, "hi ND: Will we see the Sim Mode from JGC in JGE...in any form ?"

ND_Scorch: The sim mode of classic is being reformed into our instanced PvP battles, more details coming later.

MMORPG_Kunou: This concludes the MMORPG.com Jumpgate Evolution Dev Chat! Thank you Awen, Hermann, Scorch and Binkies for your wonderful time and expertise! Thank you Coldfront for hosting us! And thank you everyone for joining us! Logs will be posted on MMORPG.com asap.

ND_Scorch: Thanks everyone for coming! Hopefully we will see you in space soon. :)

ND_Awen: Thanks so much guys!

ND_Awen: we're looking forward to the comments for sure!

ND_Binkies: Thanks for everyone's participation. Those were some excellent questions asked. Enjoyed the chat alot! :D

I read instanced PVP in there so my interest in this game just dropped.  Why are people fucking stupid.  Unless it's like dueling where you do it for shits and giggles, but if it's actually part of the game, like WAR then fail.

Regulated vs Unregulated Space

On PvP servers (hypothetical, not yet announced), all space is unregulated, meaning PvP combat is enabled globally.

On PvE servers, there are still PvP zones. These zones are known as "unregulated space" and are generally located well away from the faction core.

    * The shortest path between two points will often cross through a PvP zone, even on PvE servers. “These zones are littered throughout the galaxy, such that players will either risk going through them or plot a longer course round them.”
      -- Edge Online
    * "We could put rare minerals out in more dangerous areas to see how players compete for those resources, bearing in mind that people who don’t want to go into those areas still need fun and interesting things to do.”
      -- Hermann Peterscheck
    * The refineries and minerals, the items gained in PvP space will be specific to PvP play use.
    * "While things like blockades are really cool for those taking part, if it prevents the rest of people from making progress on their own, that is not particularly fun for those people. This is one of the things that lead us to the idea of having regulated and unregulated areas of space. If you are in an unregulated area, then you have elected to take part in a much more player run world. If you don't want to deal with the consequences of that, then it's probably a good idea to stay out of here."
      -- Hermann Peterscheck

Matrox TripleHead2Go goodness (http://kotaku.com/5064142/a-visit-to-netdevil-hands-on-with-jumpgate-evolution?cpage=1&sort=asc)

Also, it's so sad that the guy didn't get the numlock joke.

Matrox TripleHead2Go goodness (http://kotaku.com/5064142/a-visit-to-netdevil-hands-on-with-jumpgate-evolution?cpage=1&sort=asc)

Holy shit, that triple monitor setup is so full of win. DO WANT.

I like that the game interface doesn't seem to have hotbars.

Isn't that some form of female contraception........

What the hell is that?

I'm starting to feel like a dinosaur.  All these games without a reasonable death penalty: AoC, Warhammer Online and now potentially JGE.   

I understand the logic of rewarding rather than punishing players, but PvP for me becomes meaningless if there isn't some risk and I doubt that crafting will be worth squat if there isn't module and ship loss.  I was really hoping that JGE would be like Eve but with people having to actually fly their ships, looks like I'm doomed to be disappointed

I'm starting to feel like a dinosaur.  All these games without a reasonable death penalty: AoC, Warhammer Online and now potentially JGE.   

I understand the logic of rewarding rather than punishing players, but PvP for me becomes meaningless if there isn't some risk and I doubt that crafting will be worth squat if there isn't module and ship loss.  I was really hoping that JGE would be like Eve but with people having to actually fly their ships, looks like I'm doomed to be disappointed

But you want "meaningful PVP"...  and "fun" right?  and space sim and "level playing field" and "non-cerebral" ...  Was there PVP in X-wing?  Don't remember. 

So, you want good ol' days Joystick space-PVE, plus "meaningful" "non-cerebral" PVP in a "level playing field".  Ok.

lol - I guess I deserve that

Was there PVP in X-wing?

Welcome to Earth and Beyond Jumpgate part deux.

I think Eve has the best player economy and PvP of any current mmo, however I think older players have an advantage and was looking forweard to a new space sim where everyone was starting on a level playing field. 

FIFY

Foul! Inappropriate use of FIFY, Offense. 10 yards.

The screens look good. I like that each set shows a marked improvement from the prior set. They're still nowhere near Eve, but they're getting closer and looks better than any other space MMO currently live.

When's this go live again?

The combat is actually going to be joystick-worthy in this game? Unless they announce some incredible fuck-upery, I am buying this the moment it releases.

Foul! Inappropriate use of FIFY, Offense. 10 yards.

Most of the f13 EVE players have been in game for less than six months, and we're killing three times as many ships as we are losing, and the ships we're killing are worth less than a tenth of what we lose. (see the thread in my sig)

EVE levels the battlefield by having combat that rewards not being a drooling retard, and requiring veterans to ante up a *lot* more in game resources to play with the special toys. And the long term vets only really have more choices of which ship to get blown up in. Plus the most special of the special toys require substantial support from ordinary fleet ships anyway.

I still say the ships look a helluva lot like ships from EnB.  Then again, I'm sure EnB borrowed a lot from the original Jumpgate. I'm not knockin it, I liked the ship designs in EnB a lot - just needed more customization.

I am assuming this game will have the ability to do both? 

Perhaps I have a twitchy wrist or I just bought cheap joysticks... but I could never achieve the same precision from a joystick that I could from a mouse/keyboard combo.  I am assuming this game will have the ability to do both?  It would be interesting to try a joystick again... but just remember constant frustration at having the little crosshairs dance all around my intended target.

Those massively-multi-ship battles in the movies are completely idiotic.

They should take a page from the EVE experience and realize that each side will try to focus fire and call primaries.  And the only way to make that tactic ineffective that I can think of is described in the Honor Harrington novels, and is basically "all the ships in your fleet will pool their hit points" (the onboard computers coordinate shields and defenses with the rest of the fleet, so nothing gets through to any individual ship unless you overwhelm the entire fleet's defenses).

Anyway, in the Star Wars movies, the ship captains are complete idiots, picking individual targets like that, and having sub-battles.  It's the equivalent of soldiers being idiots on a battlefield and running into the middle of the enemy formations to have 1vs1's, not as coordinated charge, but individually.

But you want "meaningful PVP"...  and "fun" right?  and space sim and "level playing field" and "non-cerebral" ...  Was there PVP in X-wing?  Don't remember. 

So, you want good ol' days Joystick space-PVE, plus "meaningful" "non-cerebral" PVP in a "level playing field".  Ok.

Welp, if they have collision detection and overlapping shield bubbles, that'd solve that problem.  I know not if they'll have either, but it's safe to say collision will be in the game.  And it's quite possible there will be a shield transporting type ship, so perhaps fleet tactics MAY be relevant.  But, if I recall, the devs were trying moreso to focus on small ship 1v1 type dogfights... which is kinda gay.  Yah, they said there will be a convoy system... but exactly how the ships will interact is unknown to me.  Anyone else know?   Frakkin game is releasing in 3 months supposedly, we should know more than we do now eh?

Those massively-multi-ship battles in the movies are completely idiotic.

They should take a page from the EVE experience and realize that each side will try to focus fire and call primaries.  And the only way to make that tactic ineffective that I can think of is described in the Honor Harrington novels, and is basically "all the ships in your fleet will pool their hit points" (the onboard computers coordinate shields and defenses with the rest of the fleet, so nothing gets through to any individual ship unless you overwhelm the entire fleet's defenses).

Anyway, in the Star Wars movies, the ship captains are complete idiots, picking individual targets like that, and having sub-battles.  It's the equivalent of soldiers being idiots on a battlefield and running into the middle of the enemy formations to have 1vs1's, not as coordinated charge, but individually.

If they have a good voice chat

This happens all the time in FPS games. The question will more be about who gets attracted to JG:E. Is this for space combat sim seekers who haven't had a good game along these lines since Freelancer? Or is this an MMO with twitchy-like gametic elements in a truly 3D environment? The execution will attract the audience. I just hope they guess right.

I fear people's heads will explode if they're forced to manage Newtonian physics in a small fighter though.  They should be able to only have to worry about 2 to 3 axes if they so choose, but be gimped in doing so.

They had videos.  And didn't they have playable forms at some of the shows?

Looks like concept art, which I always hate seeing...

Its not. (http://www.jumpgate-evolution.com/news_article.php?id=8965)

(http://images.mmorpg.com/features/2623/images/2623_1.jpg)

I can't wait to slam my spaceship into the hypergate pylons and then log off in disgust and never play again!  :uhrr: :awesome_for_real:

I love what the Octavians have done with their Jumpgates.. heavy armor plating.. high density minefields... nice and friendly!

They have Newtonian and Atmospheric VIA the use of "flight assist thrusters". Its both, and it is toggled with one key.

What will the minimum system requirements for Jumpgate be?
OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
CPU: Intel Pentium® III 800 MHz or AMD Athlon 800 MHz
RAM: 512 MB+
Network: 56k modem or better Internet connection
Video: 32 MB 3D graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting
DirectX™ 9.0c (included) and latest video drivers

 :awesome_for_real: Not for those screenshots of course...

And a hands on:

"You don’t wash your dishes with a lawnmower. Even if they’re encrusted with a week’s worth of shameful burrito negligence, you do it the right way: let them soak and steep, hoping that the grime frees itself overtime. It’s an inelegant metaphor, but one that applies to the ambitious design MMO house NetDevil has planned. They’ve merged two seemingly dissimilar, dirty things together (an MMO experience and real-time space combat gameplay), and now it’s a matter of immersing them in enough development to produce a clean product."

Maybe I'm too cynical, but it sounds to me like they're basically out and saying 'Yeah, the game currently sucks and the concept we have is inherently broken, but if we keep trying to polish it for way longer than we should have to, it might end up working out.'

It's just a really bad analogy. Do we really want to compare developing a MMO to cleaning caked on grime? Especially an analogy that tells more about the life of the author than they might want?  :awesome_for_real:

And the video explains why they're taking so long with the beta.

Wing Commander Online

I prefer Independence War over all of those.

Of all the single-player space shooters EVER made, it's the only one imo that should've/could've been an MMO.

Elite.

Freespace 2.

Couple sites have launch at March 2nd - is that still legit?

Not sure if it's worth 30 bucks and a ferry ride and my whole sunday just to see the game though.  I'm not a comic book guy so the rest of the place would be uninteresting to me.

DCUO and ChampO / STO will also be on display or on panels.

Frame it as an anthropological study of certain subgroups.

Then, we’ve just added a multiple mission system so that you can take a bunch of missions at the same time , you can use those to gain faction rating to get all kinds of new ships… We’ve got a lot more to flesh out.”

Next week, on All my Circuits..

He didn't even know when beta was beginning but he did mention that they had hoped that the game would of been out already but they are still in polishing mode.

It almost sounds too WoWish to me.

  I want more Elite/Privateer.  Y'know, EVE with actual dogfights and without the suck.  This write up makes it sound like another "go to NPC for mission" diku, but in space.

You say this as if Eve doesn't have typical "go to NPC for mission" quests.

EVE is good because of the player created politics and metagame. The rest of the game is pretty dry and dull

www.Rerollz.com

If you were in New York City this weekend you would of had the opportunity to go to the New York Comic Con. Inside there were demos of many new up coming games from EA, Atari, THQ and more importantly, NetDevil’s up coming title Jumpgate Evolution which will be published and distributed by Codemasters. Jumpgate is a spacetime MMOG that will put you in the pilot seat of your very own space ship to take on the universe at large.

Many of you may already be thinking of EVE and losing interest. Stop right there because this game may bring the fun back to space. If you are the type of person who has tried EVE and fell asleep before the tutorial ended then keep reading.

In Jumpgate you actually control the movement of your ship with either your mouse and keyboard combo or a joystick so let’s take a second to go over the feel and control of both.

With the keyboard and mouse it’s relatively simple. W and S control your throttle. Hold down W and you speed up to whatever level of thrust you want and you would let go and you would stay at that speed. Going too fast? Hold down S and slow yourself down until you’re at a comfortable speed. Both A and D allowed you to strafe in either direction while Q and E allowed you to spin around a central axis. When this was demonstrated calls for a barrel roll could be heard from the crowd.

In order to control the direction in which you were flying you would move your mouse and lead your ship wherever you started pointing. Control was very intuitive and easy to master. The left button fired your primary guns, C sent of missiles if they were equipped and you had a lock on a target (you locked on easy enough by keeping up with your target), and holding down shift gave you a boost in speed. Your mouse wheel scrolled you through all the targets in your area for easy targeting.

After testing out the mouse and keyboard the joystick was brought out. Now things got a little interesting. Codermaster’s representative at the show said that there are two large groups at NetDevil that represented strict ideology of Mouse and Keyboard vs. Joystick. Each side played with strictly that setup which, hopefully, meant that the game was being developed equally with each side in mind.

The joystick control, however, was very difficult. This was perhaps because of the unfamiliarity of it’s use. Throttle was controlled by a lever and the flight of the ship was much like you’d expect any other flight sim. Up took you into a nose dive, while down brought your nose up. Left and right banked you in either direction while twisting the joystick strafed the ship. It felt very uncomfortable and took three times as long to destroy an enemy when compared to a mouse and keyboard. Looks like it will take a lot more practice.

Jumpgate Evolution offers assisted movement as well as Newtonian movement (like you see in shows like Battle Star Galactica). Unfortunately it was disabled in the demo and there wasn’t an opportunity to try it out.

With the controls being laid out lets go with a little bit of how the game is played. A new player starts off by choosing to be part of three different factions. This isn’t like World of Warcraft where it’s Horde vs. Alliance, it’s more like EVE where you pick a race but you’re not restricted with who you interact with. The faction you pick dictates which starting area you begin in. After you progress for a short period of time each faction is funneled into one common area, zone or system. From there you can choose to enter into a PVE or PVP area. The PVE areas contain missions and other trading posts. Check out this video as what to expect as a large PVE encounter early on.

What you see is fairly simple; taking out a enemy complex. Early on you have stationary objects that are easy to attack. You can observe that the NPC turrets arn’t very accurate and when they do hit they do little damage. As you progress through ranks and open up different ships and abilities NPC ships get faster, maneuver quicker and become more accurate. Basically the AI get tougher. Early on you’ll see enemy NPCs just sit there waiting for you to hit them or maneuver slower so you can get behind them and take them out. Some of the higher end PVE encounters take precision, patience and apparently organization. Think about a typical MMORPG raid.

This is where things change. If you’re familiar with typical MMOG raids you think of Everquest or World of Warcraft where you need tanks, healers and dps, a.k.a. the Holy Trinity (I will recognize that the Holy Trinity could be Control, Healing and Tanking as well). NetDevil has decided to stay away from ships that have “repair beams” or ships with strong shield to stand in front of an enemy barrage. Instead you have ships that move quick with light weapons or ships that are considered bombers, or ships with heavy weapons. Certain targets can only be hit with a heavy “nuke” and not lasers while you have faster ships that are needed to take out turrets and enemy fighters. Everyone should be moving at all times destroying targets.

It was explained that in typical raids in other games, most people are standing while doing damage or staring at player panels waiting to heal. In Jumpgate, the developers wanted to change this. Since you’re in a 3D space you are constantly moving up, down or to the right or left you shouldn’t have to be staring at one spot the whole time. This is truly an action game where you are busy playing the game rather than playing the UI. You have to be constantly doing your task of keeping a target busy or destroying it. You may have to keep enemy fighters busy as you protect your bomber group so they can do their job. Some of the larger end game events are going to be capitol ships that you are either protecting or engaging. You have to take care of enemy fighters to allow your bombers and your heavy fighter ships take care of shields and defensive positions.

This leads to the question on character classes. There are none. Much like EVE Online you can own multiple ships depending on what licenses you have. Some days you may want that quick agile fighter vs. the heavy bomber. The more you do one role the better you get at it. The higher the rank the more possibilities you have at what you can fly. You can bring up a character profile and view what you can and can not do. Your time in game is spent getting those different licenses.

But what if you don’t want to be that guy that is constantly killing things? You can also have hauling and mining vessels to work on crafting. There are specific zones in the game where you can farm the consumables to create certain ships, weapons and ammo. This is where you might see some PVP come in to play. Since certain materials can only be found in the “outer areas” that are flagged for open PVP, you may see convoys protecting ships that can mine those materials. Also manufacturing stations for certain plans can only be found in PVP areas. The best items or tools in the game will come from elder game fights and player crafted items. It’s not clear which is better or if they are equal, but this point was mentioned when the question of a player driven economy was brought up. Jumpgate wants to create a marketplace for player created items and drive the PVP areas in the game with the motivation for crafters to create what is needed to fight.

However unlike EVE, items are not lost upon death. You can not loot what other people have, or even partially. Items and materials will drop from PVP players but they will be from a loot table rather than their inventory. Other motivations for PVP will be for guild/clan controlled areas that give bonuses and statistical improvements. Information is sparse on this aspect, but players will be able to control certain areas in the game much like the meta game played on EVE forums. Whether it’s player driven or assisted by game mechanics is yet to be seen.

There are tools that bring players together. There are your typical tools such as a fully function auction house, that was seen by your author’s very own eyes. You can also send mail to each player (where it’s delivered in real time by a mail bot) and you can even send multiple items with one package, which is often overlooked by many game developers. There is a fully customizable chat system. There is support for a guild/clan/corporation system and if you don’t like large groups you can form squads of smaller groups of players for missions and smaller group play. There is also online leader boards that are tracked in relative real time. Such as kill scores, accuracy ratings etc.

Inventory is very similar to EVE Online. Each station has it’s own limited storage space with access to different ships you have available. Your character sheet is also just like EVE where you have energy points to use to allocate different shields, weapons and other items you can equip your ship with. Other features include an in-game voice chat system, fully customizable keymapping system and one thing that is unknown is whether or not you can customize the placement of the GUI elements.

All in all, NetDevil thought their game would be out by now. However they are going through iterations and making sure their game works, is polished and ready for the public eye. The graphics are amazing and the zones are well populated. The scenery is impressive as you can fly around astroids, large industrial planets giving off gas emissions or lazy asteroids floating through space with mining stations build on them. If you like science fictions and are dieing for a game without elves, this is something you definitely need to keep up to date about.

Things to be concerned about:
1) Is the map large enough to support full on end game PVP?
2) Is the game too instances or too small to give off the feeling of a real, living universe. I.e. EVE has one server, how many players are in one server in Jumpgate?
3) Does the game get stale? Is there enough things to do while playing to keep you motivated to play more and more? Warhammer was extremely entertaining until you hit the third tier and progression stopped while PVP and oRVR become lame, boring and repetitive? Is there a big enough a carrot to maintain a decent population?

We welcome comments and questions regarding our visit to NYC Comic Con. Please post them and we’ll try our best to answer as much as possible!

Make sure you sign up for beta at Jumpgate Evolution.

Umm, how can you have a working economy when your ships are never destroyed?  Or is the system that you can't loot, but the ship actually is destroyed? 

I laughed at your imagery of Tankship/Healership/DPSship though. For pure comedy alone I would have loved to see that modelled.

Great insights Draegan, thanks for taking the time.

I'd love for them to turn around and announce a uniserver, but that won't happen, not for this type of game. So instead we'll get WoW in space with some Stratholme Alchemy Lab setup to send the hardcore into contested space, while the average player won't be affected by the output because the game instead is (rightly) balanced around them.

We don't need Eve with X-Wing joystick control. We need a good sci-fi game that doesn't stupidly restrict players to the ground.

Also, if raiding turns out to be half as cool as you described hearing it, that'll be a huge win. Scenario-based space encounters where my squad is other players would be awesome on the inflated scale I've been using since my assault or defense squad was merely AI in Freespace 2. I laughed at your imagery of Tankship/Healership/DPSship though. For pure comedy alone I would have loved to see that modelled.

I would love to see a game like this having raids with a complexity similar to what we typically see in WoW.

Like a capital ship that launches waves of missiles at all bomber squads every X minutes that have to be shot down by the fighters, and a communications array that has to be bombed out before Y minutes or else it'll call for reinforcements, with ace pilots launching from the bays unless the launch mechanism is destroyed.

ohohohoohoh

I just hope they don't cave on the Newtonian Physics or whatever it is that makes fighters 'slide' in BSG and Babylon 5.

This a gamespot recording of current gameplay slightly better quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17d0GB-FyTM&feature=related

Kinda reminds of Starfox 64 which was a great game.

I hope it doesn't suck  :heart:

Heh I would say that is more than slightly better quality than my videos.

Hopefully they have anticipated such battles, what with them being so plentiful in EVE.

Man they are shooting a shitload of lasers, and I don't see any gauges going down. That's bad. Is there decent complexity? Can you do something as simple as redirect engine power from from shields and speed to lasers, in order to fire shitloads of lasers? Can you redirect shield strength to 100% aft? These were things that I could grasp at age 12, playing x-wing. How come these things are missing from current space games? (X3, I'm looking at your simplistic, no-ship-cockpit-graphics-having ass)

I get the "ehh.. that's it?!" feeling already with this one. Sad, because it's pretty. Pretty only lasts so long, unfortunately. In all aspects of life.

No.  But lasers are basic guns.  There are plenty of ammo loaded things and other weapon types including all other different buffs you can add to your ship.  Unfortunately I couldn't get any of the character sheet screens on camera, but there were a lot of slots to fill.

C'mon dude I'm not a big sci-fi geek, but I've put in my time. Lasers = require a power source. Is power unlimited? If so, that's stupid. That's all I'm saying. If they mess up stuff like that it's hard to care about other, more complex things. Which they likely fucked up as well.

You could also use an ammo weapon that had longer range, less accuracy, and used less cap.  You would also run out of ammo.  We used to spend a lot of time playing with the combinations to see what worked the best.

Is there any kind of personal development other than getting to buy new gear?

Toss in Newtonian physics if they are actually working appropriately,

I would think they would get that right first, lol, it mean they are the makers of the dancer engine. But yeah, everything i have read says the two modes will be toggle able with the press of one key.

I saw the toggle!  But it didn't work.

Huh?  Wouldn't this put a major imbalance into the game?  If you could just turn off Newtonian physics I'd think you'd have a major advantage in PvP since you've got a hell of a lot more control over your craft.

Everyone has access to it so their isn't any advantage or disadvantage, just pilot skill.

Anyone who flys exclusively in one mode is going to be at the mercy of those whom use both.  They may still yank it for that reason, but I doubt it.

Trying to use two physics and control systems in a multiplayer game is idiotic. Within one week of release, anyone who's anything will be using easy-mode exclusively.

The lot of you talking about how they can 'balance it out' remind me of the many talks had before the launch of WAR.

The fact that they're trying to do both shows that instead of trying to design the game for the arcade fans or the sim fans, they've opted for the time-tested mmo strategy of 'hey, lets just do both! that way we get twice the moneyhats!".

This will have the same results of TR trying to please both the fps crowd and the diku crowd and WAR/AOC trying to please both the hardcore pvp and hardcore pve segments. MMO's, historically, are a segment where the developers usually can't even get one gameplay style to work right; trying to shoehorn two into a game is just asking for Fail.

Fly in Assisted.
Switch to Newtonian to do a 180 flip.
Switch to Assisted.

Dampeners increase the magnitude of the Drag Force on a ship. New to JGE.

    * Dampeners can be turned on and off on the fly
    * Hermann Peterscheck invented the concept
          o Hermann's position was the JGE flight should be less “Newtonian” and more “Freelancer-ish”.
          o Members of his development team felt strongly that flight should remain Newtonian thus dampeners were added as a compromise.
          o Now that he knows how to fly, Even Hermann deactivates dampeners in combat.
    * The Dampener is a flight-assist tool. Motion in any direction other then the current direction of thrust is quickly damped out.
          o A common JGC veteran perception is that Dampeners make Jumpgate Flight feel more "arcade" and less "flight-sim".
          o Testers have said they are especially useful when starting out because they allow you to learn the game instead of learning how to fly; the latter can be a frustrating experience to rookies.
    * They are additional drag in the equation as opposed to an inverse thrust. Dampeners work as a thick atmosphere would, in terms of flight physics.

    "Flying in Jumpgate is like driving on ice. Dampeners are like deployable spikes for your tires."[2]
    -- Vinegar Goose (Jumpgate Wiki Editor)

My guess is that they want anyone trying the game to get to the fun in the short time they have to play the game. I'm pretty sure your average player would get blown up real fast like while they tried to grasp how newtonian physics work in a spaceship.

Where does manual docking get fun anyway? I mean maybe the first few times if you're into that shit... but every damn time?

Some of the best PvP fights in Jumpgate classic involved flying full speed at the station, spinning your ship 180 degrees, hitting the afterburner, and pulling off the perfect speed-dock while being shot at.

New Video! (http://us.jumpgateevolution.com/media/videos)

IGN Vault: Usually people finish off with this one, but I'm sure you really want to let us know when Beta is going to start!

Hermann Peterscheck: We're in friends and family now, and that's the last stage before closed beta, so really it's any time now. Of course, for people waiting for the beta that seems no closer than it was a year ago. [laughs] But we are getting very close.

IGN Vault: How realistic will the flight model be compared to JGC?  

Hermann Peterscheck: One of the first things we did when we started working on the game, was we tested out the game with just a random sampling of players, and we found for most people, that method of flight was very difficult to grab hold of. They were very frustrated and just kind of gave up. So we added damper, which was very controversial. We're pretty honest with our community about what we're doing, and we want to get their input early. Even without playing the game there was a lot of skepticism as to whether that was a good idea. But we've tested it internally a lot and we've now made the non-damper mode much closer to the original Jumpgate Classic flight model. What we discovered was, especially in our PvP tests, people want to have that sort of low friction space experience. So we're actually turning that down. If you're in damper mode you have a lot of control over the ship, and if you turn that off it's very sort of fluid and open. There's a much larger difference now than there was when we initially put it in. It's really cool, and if you turn if off you can feel the difference very quickly. So we're moving more in that direction.

IGN Vault: Are all items/ships going to be totally player made?

Hermann Peterscheck: Ships are not. We really want to make sure that people investing time through manufacturing and the economy side of the game can profit in a substantial way. The items that are created will be some of, if not the best in the game.

IGN Vault: Will it be possible to get player-made goods as loot drops?  

Hermann Peterscheck: Not really. This is basically coming from, if I have an item in my cargo and you kill me, do you get my item? The answer to that right now is no. There have been a few things kicked around. One thing is if you take the item from the player who gets killed then they get frustrated to the point where they don't want to play anymore. But it's cool for the player who does the killing and gets the item.

What if you blow someone up, they randomly drop something from their cargo, but they also keep it? The problem with that solution is now me and my buddy have a rare item and continuously blow each other up hoping that we can duplicate it. I remember Ultima Online had a similar mechanic where if you killed someone you could take what was on their corpse. So what people ended up doing is they didn't carry around anything that had any value. They buried their rare items deep into nested bags so no one could steal their rare items.

Something we have discussed is a hardcore mode idea. It's basically a way of not putting PvP and PvE in separate servers. People can play in PvP mode side by side PvE players. In that scenario I can imagine you can essentially have it work where if someone dies in PvP there is a random chance that they will drop something. And that might be cool, but the only thing I worry about with people randomly dropping stuff is that it disproportionably punishes certain classes and players. If you're a cargo hauler you're going to pay the highest cost for that scenario. If you're a combat pilot you just don't ever have anything good on your ship. If we extend it to equipment that's also on your ship, if you drop that super cool gun that you spent weeks and weeks getting, and somebody else now has it, that might be a way to do it.

IGN Vault: Except for the person who has just lost their super cool gun. They're going to be really sour. [laughs]

Hermann Peterscheck: I think a lot of people like that style of playing. I think their position is that they're not unreasonable, they don't want to take stuff from other people and not have the risk them self. I think they want the risk for them self as well, because the risk is part of what makes it fun. If I know that I'm going to an area that's not safe, and there are serious consequences then it does give me much more of a white-knuckle feel.

IGN Vault: Will there be someone dedicated to make sure the economy stays balanced?

Hermann Peterscheck: Yes, several people. That is one of the hardest things, and we follow the struggles that other games have. Before you're live you can do whatever you want, but once you're live it's much harder if you create some sort of loophole in your economic system. It can really ruin it for a long period of time, and people can exploit things very, very quickly and cover their tracks through laundering. It's a very rapid succession so it becomes very hard for developers. I think that it's almost inevitable that if you run a game long enough there will be things like that that enter into the system. Every time we design something it's designed from the point of view of "can it be exploited?", because if it can it will be. We try to catch all the exploits we can, but of course that's a tough one.

IGN Vault: Are you ever compared to EVE Online?

Hermann Peterscheck: All the time.

IGN Vault: Does it bother you?

Hermann Peterscheck: No, it doesn't bother me at all. I mean I think it's natural. I'm the same way. If I play a game that is of a certain style or genre and it resembles some other game, the first thing I try to do is figure out how it's the same and how it's different. In the case of EVE, where we get compared a lot is on the visual style which I consider an incredible compliment. Where we get contrasted is in game play. We don't want to make an EVE clone.

I like looking at what other people have done, and if it's done well then you sort of take it and try to make it fit into the game that you have. But you have to do so carefully because your own game has to have its own kind of flavor and feel. There have been people that have done things very, very well and it's kind of foolish as a developer to say "I know everything better than everyone else, so I'm going to do it my own way". There are things that are well established and people understand it and if they like it then you put it in your game. If it doesn't belong in your game then you don't put it in at all.

IGN Vault: What are some of your favorite games?  

Hermann Peterscheck: As far as MMOs, I've played Ultima Online the most. Obviously I've played EverQuest, I played Dark Age of Camelot for quite a while, obviously tons and tons of WoW just like everybody else, played EVE quite a bit. Then of course there are all the free-to-play games. I play pretty much every MMO that I see come out.

eso es muy BSG ey

I have no idea what that means.  :uhrr:

Ten Ton Hammer: Can you give us a quick update on the status of JGE? What are you guys working on right now?

Hermann Peterscheck: There are a couple things that we've got going on. Obviously we've been making some strides in getting the Quantar race up and going. Since that's the area of the game that we've been working on most recently, that's also the coolest section of the game, in my opinion. But new stuff is always cooler than old stuff.

As we've grown, we've realized that what works well is when you put people into spaces that feel like interiors a bit more. That's one direction that we're going with some of the content in the game. Obviously we're always working on new ships and new enemies and moving capital ships.

Of course, when we create new situations or learn something new, we certainly go back and put that into the older content.

Ten Ton Hammer: Before you go on, how are you putting players into "interior" spaces in the middle of space? Are you just creating large opjects with holes and/or caves in the middle of them? Or something else?

Hermann: It's funny that you ask that question like that, because that's really the first thing we really thought about when we decided to put more of this type of content in the game. But what we realized is that in addition to caves and holes, you can create large land masses that take twenty to thirty seconds to fly over and you can put a bunch of those masses together and lay them out in such a way that you create the feeling of being "inside" something.

You're still in space and you can fly around in these masses, but there's still a sense of framing in your area. It's like your inside a compressed, small little cave or inside the husk of a planet, but you're actually surrounded by a bunch of very interesting looking objects that you're experiencing your gameplay around.

The interiors also give you a better sense of size, scale, speed and things like that. Just flying in open, empty space isn't all that interesting, so you need things around you to give you a sense of motion, depth, and interest.

So we're doing more, much more, of that now. It works out really, really well.

Hermann: It's nice to have all three nations in the game now. We're in the mode of filling out all the content now rather than dealing with weird bugs, database issues and that sort of thing.

It takes so long to get a game to a state where it's actually fun to play then working on completing it. At the beginning, you have all the nice ideas, and in the middle it's all the brutal grunt work. That's pretty much all we've been doing the last year, so it's nice to finally be coming out of the tunnel a little bit.

Ten Ton Hammer: How are things progressing in PvP?

Hermann: That's the other thing we've been working a lot on. We've got this battle scenario with flying capital ships and you have to destroy the capital ships.  We've had internal battles, and they get pretty heated.

That's good, because people care. They're staged battles, so we're taking out random components to see how it affects the outcome of the matches. Now we're working on this torpedo scenario where players can shoot a giant missile that does huge amounts of damage to an opponent or opponents objectives.

We're tuning the gameplay around specific types of scenarios, so that one player is going to come in with a heavier fighter with one of these torpedoes attached and that player needs to launch the missile in order to take out the enemy capital ship. You can whittle it down with little lasers if you want to, but it would just take a long, long time.

It's fun to create these little strategic moments in the game. So the capital ship fight is really the first epic "battle space" area in the game, and we've been taking a lot of time doing little tests and more little tests and tuning things to see how they work. And we've been doing that for quite some time.

I'm really eager to see what the response is going to be when we actually start testing it with the public.

That said, we ARE doing friends and family testing now. So we have a limited insight into how players are going to perceive those things. Luckily with such a small test group, we can quickly adjust and retest things to make sure it's all working properly.

Ten Ton Hammer: Backtrack to the scenario you were talking about where the player has a big missile strapped to them. How does that work? Is it random chance on who gets the missile attached to them?

Hermann: Right now, you can pretty much just buy one of these big boys and equip it to your fighter. If you have a heavy fighter, you basically have a slot that's large enough to hold the weapon.

The missile itself is also different in that it's not a guided missile. Most of the other missiles in the game lock-on before you fire them. With this one, you line it up, shoot, and it just goes very slowly in a straight line. If it hits something, that object will be destroyed, pretty much.

What we realized, especially on the PvP side, is that if you want to have interesting PvP in space, you need to concentrate people around objectives. If you have two people flying in empty space, what they tend to do is fly around in circles shooting each other. Imagine a Quake match without walls. It's not very interesting.

Space doesn't have walls, and on top of that you have complete freedom of motion. You have to create things that are the center of attention, like a capital ship that you have to blow up. People will fight around the capital ship, and that capital ship also has AI and is defending itself and launching ships, so its a much more Star Wars type of experience. You have to avoid the capital ship while also avoiding its shots while also fighting the other player.

By throwing in some other crazy mechanics, like this giant bomb that I'm talking about, it creates this other objective that's going on. We've just learned from playing what works and what doesn't.

Ten Ton Hammer: What has been different about taking this kind of approach to developing your game?

Hermann: It's interesting, because this kind of approach doesn't lend itself to "grand reveals." A lot of game developers fall to the temptation of working on the next really cool unique feature that nobody else has. These tend to sound really, really good when you describe it, but when you play it's not that interesting.

MMOs tend to do it with combat systems. You hear the description and think it sounds really cool, but then you play the game and find out that you're just hitting 1-2-3-4. I'm convinced there's probably a unique, cool system in the wiring, and I don't think people are lying or exaggerating. I just think they're forgetting about the experience. If you make a cool combat system, and I don't see it, it doesn't matter.

Rather than trying to make these really cool, awesome, unique things that fill up bullet points on the back of a box or make for interesting press interviews, we resist the urge to put in new things and try to enrich and deepen the things we already have in the game. It's a very hard thing to do. As a developer, you always want to add, you don't want to refine. Refinement is less rewarding and less interesting.

Developers want to move on to something new. But my experience has been that when you refine, you always get WAY more out of it than when you add something new. It's been our approach from the start.

Ten Ton Hammer: It's like writing the next great American novel, right? I mean Stephen King will write 120,000 words and whittle that down to 90,000...

Hermann: I actually remember reading that; he writes 10 pages a night and cuts it down to one page.

A lot of studios that use that methodology have their own names for it. Blizzard calls it "concentrated coolness." Instead of making 15 character classes, make five. Take those fifteen and boil them down into the five core components and make those really strong.

It's not really an intuitive way to work, right? If you're in the development world, your develop. If you're in the writing world, you write. I mean, you can put all of these great ideas on paper, but maybe what's better is to have one idea and make it really, really, really good.

I'm hoping that that focus will pay off.

Ten Ton Hammer: What about your open PvP? You've talked a lot about scenarios and instanced spaces, what about the open PvP? Is it going to be cool and dynamic, or will people just fly in circles and shoot each other?

Hermann: It's a similar kind of approach to what we're taking to the instanced PvP. In the original game, you had beacons and you'd fly through a beacon with a control object and it would switch over to your nation and you'd get experience and money the longer you held it.

It's a similar kind of mechanic that we have in the new game. You still take over parts of space by implementing a special object that you use in particular areas. The thing that we've expanded on, and this is a great example of enriching the experience rather than expanding upon it, is a mechanic where instead of beacons we have these husks.  You go to these husks and use what we call a "mod" and there are different kinds of "mods" you an use to convert these husks.

So when you convert a husk, it basically sets up this defensible area of space, and the husk becomes this big station with a bunch of turrets on it. It'll defend itself even if you're not there. If you want to take over a part of space that's already owned, you have to go take out that defense unit and use your object on the husk to make it yours.

Of course, if you get shot down while you're in the midst of trying to control the husk, it interrupts the process.  What I imagine will happen is that there will be groups of players dedicated to taking over space.

If there's enough of those players on each side, it will turn into this constant struggle for balance that players are looking for. You want to turn the balance of power to your nation, especially if you get the glory for it. It takes time to build these installations and it takes time to blow them up again, so it gives people time to jump over and defend their stations. It creates focal points for that type of combat experience.

One of the unique aspects of Jumpgate is that you can have lots and lots of ships in the same area of space fighting against each other. You can have conflicts of up to a hundred ships fighting against each other. Of course, at some point that just becomes nonsensical, but we saw that that was cool and we want to endorse that.

You can open up your map and see what areas are controlled by the various factions, so that'll give you an incentive to go over to that area and beat that guy back. There are, of course, long term gains attached to that. Medals and items and new ships and things like that.

The core mechanic is always the key, and I think that's where the game's going to be strong.

Ten Ton Hammer: Do you think you're going to have players that just PvP or just PvE? Does there have to be at some point?

Hermann: I think there will be a blend, but there doesn't have to be.

People typically want something when they go into a game. They might decide that they want to just PvE at the start of the game, because they don't want to deal with fighting other players. However, when they get into the game they will be hearing about these PvP things that are going on in the game and seeing the map with the contention areas.

I'll be damned if there's a player out there who is active for a long period of time in Jumpgate and doesn't even try those PvP battles when it's so easy and rewarding to do so. I think people have a conception of PvP as this really hard elitist behavior, and they don't want to fail. They don't want to be embarrassed.

When we introduce it in a much more fun and easy to do way, at least at the beginning, I think we'll run into some people that are much more willing to try that aspect of our game. By natural affinity, some people are going to find that they really love that part of the game.

So what I envision happening is that the game is going to start out polarized, and then it's going to become much more meshed. That's my speculation.

Ten Ton Hammer: In a lot of skill-based or item-based PvP games, there seems to always be a focus on the "meta-builds" or the min/max build that excels at PvP. Do you think that's going to be the case in Jumpgate?

Hermann: If we do it right, there won't be. But my guess is that there will be a few ships that show up, especially in player combination groups, that really excel. It's easy to singularly prevent this sort of activity, but it's harder when people start grouping up with others.

That's VERY hard to test, because there's almost an infinite number of combinations players can create. You just have to be vigilant.

I mean, all MMOs have this problem to a degree. There is always that one build that seems to be dominant for a time, and then the developers have to be a combination of reactionary and patient.

If you're too reactionary, someone may come up with a combination that seems unbeatable but other players haven't discovered the counter to it yet. Once that counter becomes well known, that strategy then no longer works.

If you wait too long, you have created a super weapon, and if you don't address that super weapon, people stop playing. You just have to be clever and know when to do which.

 Ten Ton Hammer: Thanks so much for your time, Hermann. Best of luck with the future of Jumpgate!

As we've grown, we've realized that what works well is when you put people into spaces that feel like interiors a bit more. That's one direction that we're going with some of the content in the game.

:ye_gods: :uhrr:

:ye_gods: :uhrr:

Hes talking about the space dungeons, in this case huge asteroids and hollow planets..

What's wrong with space dungeons? Having 'terrain' isn't a bad thing. Breaks up the turn, turn, turn, turn monotony of space fighting.

Fly in Assisted.
Switch to Newtonian to do a 180 flip.
Switch to Assisted.

Everyone has access to both.  Learning how to fly both, learning when to use one or the other, and learning to take advantage of their strong points will make the best pilot.

If everyone uses EZ-Mode, then it won't matter if a few people choose to use the non-easy mode or both.  They'll be a tiny minority.  If lots of people use it, then it's getting use and people are happy.  There is no losing situation here.  Why would they remove it?

Nothing, depending on how they implement it. Flying through an asteroid cave or a huge space station would be kinda cool. Turning a flight sim into a DIKU dungeon- not so much.

Saw EXP over killed enemy crafts...There will be levels I guess?

You sure?  I could of sworn there was ranks that you can get.

I knew that.  But I could of sworn I saw levels/ranks when I got to play a few months ago.

I got confused. There are no classes though :grin:

What! Only 1 ship type?  To me that constitutes a class.

sorry it was a green sort of thing, obviously there is more than 1 ship type so this game will provide play as if there were classes.

As much "Descent" that they can inject into this game the better.  Why one would complain about this is beyond me.  Are you crazy?  Have you guys played "Descent?"

Freespace 2.

Because it's March.

so it's Eve with twitch?  anyone summarize?

Fan GDC video (http://www.justiceradio.net/podcast/090325.GDC.Netdevil.wmv).

I'm so getting 3 monitors for this.

I just bought a 24" monitor. Had I known it looked that good on 3 monitors, I probably would have waited. How do you run 3 monitors? SLI?

How does playing with friends work?  Can friends of widely different "levels" (whatever they are called) still play together and both have fun/be productive?

Grouping vs Solo play - are both supported?

Instancing?  If you have a mission to take out an objective are you screwed and forced to wait around half an hour for it to respawn when someone else kills it just before you get there?

I never played any version of Jumpgate, so I'm clueless as to what their basic approach to the game environment is like.

Need a video card to power the resolution but the best solution is a Matrox Triplehead2go (http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/th2go/) for Newegg $299 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815106011)

SLI doesn't work with multiple monitors - because Nvidia are assholes.

I'll be playing that game on my 17inch DeskAnchor tyvm!

I think the Matrox device tricks your video card(s) into thinking they are dealing with a single device. That's the beauty of it. (a quick search turned up this result - http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=2499 (http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=2499))

More on Matrox's TripleHead2Go: a recent review (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Matrox/TripleHead2Go_Digital/5.html)

I agree with whoever said:  please don't suck.  But with physics-based flying, it'll probably end up being that the best strategy is just to continuously fly in the tightest circle you can or something else equally lame (for pvp).

But give me stealth-capable ships and I will be happy.  I doubt we will see that though. 

I agree with whoever said:  please don't suck.  But with physics-based flying, it'll probably end up being that the best strategy is just to continuously fly in the tightest circle you can or something else equally lame (for pvp).

But give me stealth-capable ships and I will be happy.  I doubt we will see that though. 

I didn't see any skippy graphics.

On the battelspace video.  Cool stuff.  It was explained to me that Heavies carry the big guns that can take out big stuff where light fighters move quick and have lighter weapons.

My issue:  There was a statement made in the boss fight movie that stated you'll have heavy fighters soaking up damage and light fighters hitting the targets hard.  What game mechanic are they going to use to determine how a mob attacks?  Will heavy fighters have a 'taunt'?

Sorry for the Kotaku link (http://kotaku.com/5195403/jumpgate-evolution-when-darkness-falls), but the trailer is pretty good. Some stuff I hadn't seen yet.

This will be my personal Most Disappointing Game of 2009 if it sucks.

They mentioned 50v50v50 battles.  I wonder how many players a healthy server will be able to maintain.

I've never really been much for space flight type games (X-Wing v. TIE Fighter aside, i played the shit out of that game), so maybe this game just isn't for me, but when I look at the trailers that other people are going gaga over, I'm really just not getting it.

All they have is a space-shooter MMO.

They have no avatars.  They have no cap ship battles.   No EvElike politics.  There's no indication of any real adventure or storyline either.  All they have is a space-shooter MMO.  Might as well play ACE Online.    :why_so_serious:

Maybe we can hold out hope that they're just trying to make the game one big surprise.  Because really, I dont see anything there of any real value... if they've shown anything at all

Auto Assault in spaaaaaace.

I understand the excitement, I'm not saying I'm not excited.  I think the fact it's a space-shooter MMO is merit in itself.  But, is it enough?? 

Yes. Because we're all suffering from a lack of options. We're floating in a sea of fantasy DIKUs and are surrounded by non-MMO FPS and RTS games to fill any need. But how many space sims are there really, and how many are MMO?

JG:E gets a pass simply by existing. Which makes it worse if it sucks, because that'll mean "space sim MMOs don't work".

w/o starbases, avatars, and cap. ships, JGE suffers horribly.  I mean horribly horribly.  (sigh)

The thing that puts me off is the Freelancer feel. That three monitor setup was awesome and the graphics were awesome but...

mouse control?
3rd person perspective?

gief cockpit view and joystick control plz.

Other than that I am definitely interested. When JtL came out for SWG, I lost all my time flying in that to the point where I hardly set foot on a planet apart from to do shipwrighty type stuff.  Whether there will be the market for this, however, is another matter.

Minimum Specifications:
- Windows XP/Vista
- Intel P4 1.4GHz or better (2GHz if using Vista)
- 512MB RAM (1GB if using Vista)
- 64MB Graphics Card
- Direct X® 9.0c
- Broadband connection

Recommended Specifications:
- Windows XP/Vista
- Dual-core Intel Pentium D
- 2GB RAM
- 256MB Graphics card with vertex and pixel shader capability.

You know all that is in right? (cockpit view and joystick control)

I have to echo Ghambit's reservations. Where is the stickyness factor? Even if its absolutely seamless twitch and it gets flooded by CoD4 kids, it still won't support a subscription based community if there's not something more tangibly obtainable than one more rocket launcher slot on your car, er, ship. Auto Assault indeed.

The most significant improvement that Jumpgate Evolutions brings to the original game is the artificial intelligence (AI) built into the entire game. From the moment your ship leaves space dock you encounter any number of haulers, miners and pirates. These could be actual players; if the population on the server at that moment requires it, they could be NPC ships. The game will auto-balance according to server population to ensure that the economy is always working, albeit imperfectly. A perfect economy model would leave little for a player to do upon logging in.

Feel the need to just, blow something up? You can do that within your first 60 seconds of entering the game. The same factional combat that existed in the original exists in Evolution with the added dimension of NPC enemies. At the beginning they sit there like domesticated cattle waiting for you to slaughter them. Later on? Not so much. Only players own and build space stations with modules (and they're huge!). The addition of the AI is only to perform mundane tasks and it scales its activity with the population. More activity usually means more people.

The game's being designed to let players partake in whatever kinds of activities they desire, and, more importantly, all those activities reward you in some way, either with abilities, special awards, or experience. You could float around and destroy pirates, mine asteroids, surf auctions, manage trade routes, or engage in the game's player versus player (PvP) combat elements. Right now NetDevil is planning on having fully free-for-all and limited PvP server types available for players to dive into, which seem to be some of the central elements of the game. There'll also be instanced PvP challenges with set goals, such as tasking one team with destroying another's capital ship.

In the open servers players can band together in a squad to cut off supply routes between space stations. Items housed in different stations in JE stay there--they're not put into some kind of universal bank. So, if you're sitting at station E and want an item housed in station A, you have to call for it, at which point a ship will launch from A and try to make it to E. Along the way the vessel is vulnerable to enemy fire, so an organized squad could camp the supply line and ensure none of the packages make it through. At that point the items aren't destroyed, another vessel launches from station A carrying the same cargo, so these supply line interruptions are more of an inconvenience than anything else. A fully integrated voice chat system should help keep players all on the same page when mounting these kinds of efforts. A counter-maneuver could involve you banding together with a few others, flying to station A and actually escorting the transport vessel, which would likely culminate in a large-scale PvP battle when you run into the blockade.

Players jumping into systems will occasionally find themselves suddenly embroiled in an AI free-for-all in addition to PvP conflicts. With the various computer controlled factions players can gain or lose favor, causing them to attack or opening up new avenues of progression.
 

I never understand the 'only mmogs with elves are successful' meme.

Of the four current mmogs in the entire genre that aren't a fucking joke (maybe five if you include lotro), EVE and PS are both future based.

AO was as much of a moderate success as anything bar EQ in that era, SWG no doubt turned a profit, and Hellgate, Tabula Rasa and E&B weren't any more of an abject failure than anything else released in the last four years.

What does it mean that Jumpgate Evolution is part of the Gazillion Empire now? 

I mean, what possible effects does that have on the title?

I never understand the 'only mmogs with elves are successful' meme.

but it seems that if you are shooting for major success then building MMOs based on sci-fi properties - even established sci-fi properties - isn't the way to go.

I disagree. I'd bet monopoly money that Starcraft Online would smash it's way to #2 under WoW in short order.
Maybe SWTOR will be our big sci-fi hit. Depends on if they Failgate it or not.

We did had TR  :awesome_for_real:. Than it closed. We can all point to EvE but I'm 100% sure that play style is a evolutionary dead end never to be seen again. JGE seems to be another game on the long list of new games touting twitched based combat in an mmo and is going to fail miserably once people start moving around at 10fps.

Is there any element of non-twitch at all?  AOE EM pulse effects, stuff like that? 

Can you shut off the goddamned engine trails? (noticed them in the vid)
That's the most unrealistic and annoying feature in this game so far.  It makes my eyes explode.  And if I want to find a ship I should have to find it on radar or look real hard, not just follow the dang trail of light.
Maybe it wouldnt be so bad if they were more realistic, but right now it's literally just like looking at track-marks on underwear... leading you right to the asshole at the controls.

so, basically wow in space

so, basically wow in space

Your getting this from what......?

Its not so much the contrails (although in this game they do seem very exagerated) but the overabundance of gharish colors for everything.

Space is big, empty, and black. For people like him, you have to dress it up.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060829.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990914.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090222.html

no need to dress up.

Those are colored. (http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/index.php)

When your MMO ends up looking more like South Park than Vallejo, you have a "problem" with your artistic maturity and possibly the artistic maturity of your audience.

Vallejo as the artistic maturity end of the spectrum..? :why_so_serious:

Its not over the top for the style they are aiming for. Not at all. In fact, I'd say it looks perfect.

Vallejo, is stylized......

Yes, but "mature" somehow just doesn't come to mind given the focus of his artwork...

Really, going through the graphics, it looks like Gallente art on the more anime ships (that blue cap ship) due to curves and colors, and the rest seem very Caldari level functional and drab.

The only "cartoony" one I saw was something being chased that looked like a pod racer out of star wars. Everything else was sane and mature. Can you link what you consider to be WoW in Space?

I've never seen anything I would call a photo-realistic game that operates in a 3d environment, please be pointing me in that direction.

If I point you at Eve, or FEAR, CoD4, or other attempts to stay as close to realism as possible, we'll end up splitting hairs and start arguing if its just too much anti-aliasing that's making my panties bunch. Its highly subjective stuff after a point.

Its more that the world feels drawn rather than photorealistic. If you look at the first 3 screenshots from the official site I think you'll see what I mean. The ships have too many rounded edges to their metal plates, the shine is just a wee bit off, there's something a bit too stylized polished about it all.

Independence War had ship "trails" generated as explicit cgi on your HUD, precisely so you didn't have to "find it on radar or look real hard".

You can consider it the same deal. Computers are there to plot the target trails and make it easier for the asshole at the controls to visualize enemy's movements. They'd have these also (and maybe especially so) in the hardcore sci-fi. Because "realistic" involves trying to make it easier for the assholes on your side of the war, not harder.

If it's a HUD feature that'd be awesome!  I can turn it on/off and it adds to the overall simulationist immersion factor. [complete with a panel button]  (If I look off the HUD, they'll disapper.  Back to the HUD, reappear.)   BUT, it just looks to me like it's just hardwritten into the engine.  You see it regardless of your viewpoint, which would have nothing to do with the HUD.

Another point, where are the damned thrusters?

I think you're speculating too much.  Have we seen anything other than newbie ships?

I think you're speculating too much.  Have we seen anything other than newbie ships?

Is there anything more important than newbie ships?

Is there anything more important than newbie ships?

Nope.

And isnt this thing 'sposed to release in like a few months?

At this point I think you should probably just stop looking at Jumpgate thread because it seems you're going to hate everything you see right now or at least find something to hate.

It is true that for a game releasing in June, we know surprisingly little concrete information about it.  Apparently people still aren't even sure if ships are permanently destroyed or not. 

Actually JGE isn't supposed to be ballin AAA stuff. 

Actually JGE isn't supposed to be ballin AAA stuff. 

During the chat we’ll select 5 random attendees to receive beta keys for our Closed Beta testing of Jumpgate Evolution, which will be starting in the upcoming weeks. Be sure to attend for your chance to win a slot.

Support Gunboats
Take a heavy Gunboat platform and load it with ECM suites and combat support capabilities, and you have a Support Gunboat. These vessels are as ungainly as a Combat Gunboat, but possess heavy armor and shields that allow them to survive a pounding. While not a direct combatant, the Support Gunboat class can be outfitted with powerful radars and electronic warfare systems that allow them to identify enemy assets and scramble enemy attack capabilities over a wide area. Often used as a command ship, a Support Gunboat is an asset that dramatically increases the survivability of any combat wing fortunate enough to possess one.
Specialty: Electronic warfare and combat support
Progression:
• Recon Gunboat
• Escort Gunboat

Still, if I can make screaming torpedo runs against flak-spewing battleships I won't care.

It is true that for a game releasing in June, we know surprisingly little concrete information about it.  Apparently people still aren't even sure if ships are permanently destroyed or not. 

With the release of Codemasters Online and NetDevil's Jumpgate Evolution getting ever closer and brand new info being released on the game's ships, we thought we'd fire a few questions at Hermann Peterscheck, Lead Producer, in the hope he had his shield down for us to get a few through his defences. Read on for details on why no ship will be the obvious choice and why Jumpgate isn't an MMO only for the hardcore.

VideoGamer.com: You've just unveiled a wide range of ship categories for Jumpgate Evolution. How much variation will there be in the way they handle?


Hermann Peterscheck: That’s the primary difference, actually. If you think about traditional RPG games, classes are different because of the way they feel to play. In vehicle games this translates to the way that the vehicle feels and I think this is even more the case with space crafts. It’s important that a small fighter feels agile and manoeuvrable and that a heavy fighter feels heavy and powerful. Commercial vessels should feel like intergalactic trucks. We discovered that subtle differences go unnoticed and therefore the strong and extreme variation is much better than tons of small little differences.

VideoGamer.com: What is the biggest ship you'll be able to pilot, and how does it compare to the more common vessels?

HP: Right now the biggest ship is a double hauler and it’s around 8-10 times larger than a basic shuttle craft. To put that into perspective, that kind of ship would be about 200-300 m long. In PVP there are capital ships that you attack and defend that are 3-4 km long. We’ve also got interior maps we are working on that are even larger than that. Lots of people want player flown capital ships so you never know what we’ll do next.


VideoGamer.com: The press release mentions the trainer ships for newcomers. How will you govern a player's progression through different classes and categories? Will there be licenses or training to complete, or is access purely governed by how much cash they've earned, like Elite?

HP: Both. We start people with a ship that is easy to fly and allows for versatile activities. Combat, mining, hauling and so on can all be done with these basic utility ships. Of course, they don’t do it as well as the higher level ships, so there’s lots of reasons and opportunities to upgrade. Thus we start you in a nice, easy and fun ship to fly and then introduce the more specialized ships later. There are various things required to get ships. Some of them require faction rating, others require licenses and most of them will cost some amount of money. The idea is that we provide multiple paths for rewards – and we consider new ships to be one of the most satisfying rewards.

VideoGamer.com: You've mentioned that players will be able to customise their ships... Could you tell us a bit more about this? What's the coolest thing you'll be able to modify on your ship?

HP: So in terms of equipment we have guns, missiles, utility slots, MODs, power plants, engines, and radars. Each of those has sizes ranging from 1 to 4 or 5. MODs are specific to type. For example, you might have a combat-based mod or, perhaps, a commercial mod which may give a bit more inventory space, for example. Obviously there is a lot of variation in terms of gun and missile types. Missiles and MODs can also be countermeasures – for example we have chaff that takes a missile slot. It’s really as complex as we want to make it and as varied as the player wants.

VideoGamer.com: Will players benefit from sticking quite rigidly to one career path (combat, cargo-running or whatever) or will it be necessary to jump around between roles?

HP: Both are valid paths. I expect that players will focus in one major role but dabble in the other roles as well. There is nothing in the game that stops someone from flying a combat ship in the morning and doing mining at night, however. You don’t choose to be a “miner” and are then locked into that type of gameplay. We wanted to make a game where players were free to grow their pilots however they choose and for as long as they wish.

VideoGamer.com: On a similar note, has it been hard to balance out the different ship categories? Presumably you don't want everyone to opt for the same craft...

HP: Exactly so. Making ships is a difficult task. You have to make sure there is something about it that is highly desirable without making a super-weapon. This comes from lots of testing, especially in PVP for ships that do combat. What we tend to do is design a weakness and then offset it with a strength. For example, when we made heavy fighters we gave them 4 missile slots which made them brutal in PVP. To counter this we added minimum range to those more powerful missiles so now if a light fighter closes quickly on an undefended heavy fighter, it’s going to be bad times. This ends up creating an incentive for light fighters to defend the heavies which try to stay a bit out of range. If you just leave the heavy fighter without balancing the missile behaviour everyone will fly a heavy fighter. Thus you must answer two questions: 1) Why would anyone fly this ship? 2) Why doesn’t everyone fly this ship? You know you have it right when people argue about which one is better without reaching a conclusion.


VideoGamer.com: A lot of MMORPGs are quite focused around the prestige of attaining a certain level, or of claiming a particularly rare piece of loot. What is the equivalent in Jumpgate Evolution? Are there any ships that will only be available to the best players?

HP: I think there is no way to escape the fact that MMOs need some kind of long term and short term achievement. Yes, there are rare, hard to get ships and items in the game. The goal is that there is always something cooler for people to get. That being said, we have lots of other stuff too, such as tons of medals, in-game stats tracking, and don’t forget PVP leaderboard and ratings. I think it’s really important that each activity leads to some kind of sense of achievement. Usually it involves some new thing that I get. In one case it’s that cool looking ship, or that powerful gun. In another it might be a sweet looking medal, or maybe a title that no one else has. I think the question that is in our minds is “why would anyone do this?”

VideoGamer.com: Aside from the obvious graphical overhaul, what are the big differences between this and Jumpgate: TRI? Will veterans of the first game find it easy to drop back in, or will there be a lot of new stuff to master?

HP: Hopefully both. We’ve made a conscious decision to make the game easy to jump into and I think we have succeeded in this regard. What we have to make sure we do correctly is to provide a mixture of challenge and entertainment to all these new and returning pilots. That is no small task. There is a constant tug-of-war between something being too easy and too hard, too rewarding and too punishing. The spectrum of potential players is large and it’s impossible to appease everyone. I think, therefore, you do your best to make sure that the product provides high quality entertainment but also stay true to its core value. That sounds like a mouthful of marketing nonsense, but it’s really quite true. People will forgive something they disagree with if it’s in-line with the rest of the game and fits well. That being said, fun is king. When people stop having fun, well, that’s when we get nervous. We’re really interested in making sure that each part of the game is fun for as many people as possible.

VideoGamer.com: What kind of big “in-world” events can we expect to see in Jumpgate? Are there going to be pre-organised wars and the like, or do you anticipate that this kind of thing will happen organically?

HP: Both, again. I’ve been doing the MMO thing for quite some time and if there is one thing I’ve learned is that players will never, ever, do what you expect them to do. People are creative and intelligent. They see these games as new worlds to explore and figure out and no amount of guiding or planning will ever tell you what thousands of individuals will come up with. Thus, we are very interested in looking at what people do and say and responding to it. So, specifically, let’s take the beacon system. This was very popular in Jumpgate Classic so we’re putting it on steroids. Now, instead of just flipping a beacon and that’s it, there’s a Battlestation system built on top of it. Thus, beacons become focus points for large scale combat. Battlestions are cool, large scale combat is cool, so we just put them together. So that is a constructed event that comes from an organic experience. I can assure you that players will find interesting ways of interacting and we will be actively encouraging that with reasons for doing those things. I think too many developers see their games as a way of creating some kind of adversarial relationship with players. If a player finds some kind of cool unexpected thing, they kill it off. I never really understood that. If people figure out that flying through caves is cool, then why not build something like a fly-through-the-cave race that happens every two hours or something? If people figure out that by getting 70 heavy fighters together to take out a conflux hive, then add a new map that combines 6 hives together and see if they gather 140 heavies together. In my mind, we should always be chasing the cool.

VideoGamer.com: Finally, a personal question: what's your preference - Star Wars or Star Trek?

HP: Impossible to answer. I love the “magic-tech” of Star Wars and I love the sci-fi optimism/philosophy of Star Trek. That being said, there’s a new Trek movie coming and I’m irrationally excited for it. To get on a soap box of mine, notice that both of those IPs are hugely main stream, so I don’t want to hear about how science fiction games are hard-core or niche products. It’s not the case at all. I believe that Jumpgate could be a mass appeal game and that is exactly what we are trying to do. This doesn’t mean the game is “easy”, it just means that the reward is appropriate to the level of investment. If you play a ton, you should get much more out of the game than if you play a little bit, but if you just play a little bit, that should be fun and rewarding as well... don’t you think? There are people who read every Star Trek novel, go to all the conventions, collect all the autographs. I’m not one of them. Does that mean that I shouldn’t be able to enjoy the movie or the TV shows every week? Of course not! Why do we think that games are any different? There’s enough Trek that someone can spend their whole life in that world, but it’s also accessible enough that someone can just spend an hour every few weeks and still love it. That’s how we should be making games in my opinion.

VideoGamer.com: Thanks for your time Hermann.

To get on a soap box of mine, notice that both of those IPs are hugely main stream, so I don’t want to hear about how science fiction games are hard-core or niche products. It’s not the case at all. I believe that Jumpgate could be a mass appeal game and that is exactly what we are trying to do.

I don't think "mainstream" means what he thinks it means.
Do we have another self-proclaimed WoW killer?

Is it possible to make a game campy enough to match Ice Pirates?

That's like, not what he was saying, at all.

After seeing these gameplay videos from the beta, I'm a lot less excited about JGE. Combat looks so boring I could barely finish watching the videos. And the sound effects, what are they thinking? While the videos are supposedly from the "newbie area" which isn't supposed to be hard, watching a loading bar is about as exciting as this.

Boss fight (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-d17RyGwmY)
Kill Mission (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdBKsfMHvxA)
Delivery Mission (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW9LMKQPqQ4)

I do like leading in my flight sims, but gods forbid a technologically superior fighter craft can't compensate for flight vectors to make where you point your cursor being where the shot lands.

Then what the fuck was he saying?

Wow, that boss fight video was painful to watch. Hover in place, shoot at part of the cruiser, repeat. Did it even fight back? I couldn't tell.

From that vid. all I see is the nost of the craft pointed every which way and just shooting what's on the nose.  Speaking of which, there's nothing even remotely natural about the movement of those craft... not even slightly.

Newtonian is an option.  Did they even use it?  (I only watched one, and they didn't in it.)  Most people aren't going to fly using the Newtonian model.

That he thinks the genre of si-fi can compete with fantasy, in this space.

You took it to the extreme "Wow killer" is not what he said at all.

If you look at how well traditional Si-fi mmos fair you would see the huge gap before the line of "mass appeal" is reached, there is also another huge gap before the line of "Wow". Traditionally, si-fi is niche in this platform, extremely so. I also believe he was referring to the ability to appeal to a larger audience than simply the si-fi nerds, though the use of the focus of accessibility they have been keyed on from day one of this project.

I wouldnt even deem to call "space pew pew" science fiction.

I was hoping the newtonian option was simply unassisted flight controls.  Regardless, the ship's flight model shouldnt violate common sense, newtonian or not. 
Since it does to this degree, I dont blame people for not wanting to use newtonian or even a jstick... there's no need, and they'd be gimped.
Same thing happened with AutoAssault.

I'd almost be inclined to say that being a newb in JGE seems easier than being a newb in WoW (or even EnB) by far.  And that to me doesnt bode well.  WoW, for all its "easiness" was still something many people had to strive to grasp and go even further to master... JGE doesnt seem that way to me at all, it's just different degrees of the same pew pew pew.  It needs to be more difficult (or at least more difficult LOOKING).  It's like they took Freespace and Independence War, lowered their pants, and took a giant dump on those ideals.

Matter of fact, didnt they say they were using the same flight model from the original Jumpgate?  I hope that's a joke.

although "feels good and plays well" isnt quite enough to make a good MMO.

although "feels good and plays well" isnt quite enough to make a good MMO.

"With regard to the balance: the advantage of having three nations is that if one group gets too powerful, the other two tend to gang up on them. Of course it is possible that we'll see something like, the Octavians dominate PvP because there's a hundred Octavians, ten Quantar, and ten Solrain. I doubt that'll happen, but it is possible. Then we'll have to do stuff like put mechanics in place to cap the number of people or make sure it's balanced. We have right now AI in one of the PvP maps to work with and against the players, although I don't find that to be an ideal solution. I'm hoping it works out that the sides balance against each other because of the three sided combat. Hopefully there won't be a massive skewing, where eighty percent of a server is Solrain, or something like that. Of course, that can happen, and then we'll have to figure out good game mechanics to take care of that. I expect if one side is dominant, then the other two will work to beat them simply because they want to see the big guy fall."

They really, really, REALLY need a plan B for this.

Plan B is that they shouldnt have had factions to begin with.  Or at least, factions shouldnt be tied to any form of loyalty.
Factional warfare is what you implement when you're too lazy to give the players a real reason to fight.  I'd rather fight over resources, space, stations, and quest locations.  Just killing someone because he's Octavian doesnt appeal to me.

You are so being that guy shitting on my parade and pissing in my Cheerios on purpose.

Plan B is that they shouldnt have had factions to begin with.  Or at least, factions shouldnt be tied to any form of loyalty.
Factional warfare is what you implement when you're too lazy to give the players a real reason to fight.  I'd rather fight over resources, space, stations, and quest locations.  Just killing someone because he's Octavian doesnt appeal to me.

Dampeners increase the magnitude of the Drag Force on a ship. New to JGE.

    * Dampeners can be turned on and off on the fly
          o The default on/off key for dampeners is F12
    * Hermann Peterscheck invented the concept
          o Hermann's position was the JGE flight should be less “Newtonian” and more “Freelancer-ish”.
          o Members of his development team felt strongly that flight should remain Newtonian thus dampeners were added as a compromise.
          o Now that he knows how to fly, Even Hermann deactivates dampeners in combat.
    * The Dampener is a flight-assist tool. Motion in any direction other then the current direction of thrust is quickly damped out.
          o A common JGC veteran perception is that Dampeners make Jumpgate Flight feel more "arcade" and less "flight-sim".
          o Testers have said they are especially useful when starting out because they allow you to learn the game instead of learning how to fly; the latter can be a frustrating experience to rookies.
    * They are additional drag in the equation as opposed to an inverse thrust. Dampeners work as a thick atmosphere would, in terms of flight physics.
    * More recently flying without dampeners has been made more akin to the original JGC DANCER engine in feel.

JGE isnt really a pvp-oriented game anyways though is it?  So it kinda doesnt matter.  I'd rather just have them release the game already and worry about pvp later.

So it's much harder to design something for PvP. We design for PvP first, then we bring it over into PvE.

23rd Question: So there are a lot of opinionated veterans who aren’t too flattered with the idea of two separate flight systems like the classic JGC system and the new “damper” system. Couldn’t a more advanced player alternate between the two systems in combat which would further deeper the combat, and have the developers looked at it this way?

Answer: Right now the way the dampening works is it is an “on the fly” thing. You hit a key and you turn them on or off. We’ve seen a lot of feedback that when you turn the dampeners off it doesn’t go enough in the direction of “gliding” if you will, getting rid of friction almost completely. So it’s likely that when you turn dampeners off it will be even more sort of Newtonian physics if you will, without any kind of resistance. It’s not really that there are two flight models, it’s more like there’s one system where you sacrifice flexibility for control if that makes sense. So if you let go of everything your ship will stop faster, for example, but as a result of that you can’t do things (which I like to do) like fly in a straight line, turn around, and fly backwards while you’re shooting at things. The genesis was the control issue. If you put someone in a Newtonian flight system without any resistance most people can’t fly that. They get really frustrated and they give up and go away, but if you let them fly in a way that’s kind of with training wheels for a while what happens is when they get comfortable with it they tend to move towards the mode that’s more open and you can have that full three dimensional motion. So by having both of those options we can satisfy the one group that wants to fly that way right off the bat, but we don’t alienate the people who find it very very hard and we let them graduate into it.

I read that this morning, nothing really new there.

Jumpgate Evolution Special Edition Contains:

    * 2 in game items - Stella Ensign (+2% Nation XP bonus for every mission completed) - Stella Citation (+2% XP bonus for every kill)
    * Galactic Map
    * Exclusive Artbook
    * 5 buddy postcards (7 day trial for each buddy)
    * Quick start guide
    * Official Jumpgate Soundtrack
    * 45 days free game time

Jumpgate Evolution is a definitive action-based Massively Multiplayer Online game set in a glorious, yet fierce new universe where the sheer vastness of space is your ultimate playground.

Jumpgate Evolution brings together popular elements from all time classics such as Elite, X-wing Vs Tie-fighter and Privateer and combines them in a living, breathing persistent world. Gone are the days of point and click combat, Jumpgate Evolution puts the action at your fingertips with fully responsive reflex based controls like never seen in any previous massively multiplayer online game (MMOG).

Choosing from one of three Nations, each with sub-factions fighting for influence, players engross themselves in a visually striking universe where only the strongest survive the game’s expansive battles for military and trading supremacy.

The result is a slick space combat game that is deep and rewarding for experienced MMO players yet accessible for new players. With a galaxy of conflict and riches to dominate, Jumpgate Evolution is a simply exhilarating space combat on a vast scale.

Jumpgate Evolution on PC Features:

    * Immense Online Battles - Enter a dynamic universe and fight alongside or against thousands of players in immense online battles.
    * Elite Space Combat - Adrenaline-fuelled, action space combat set within an immense persistent universe.
    * Player Advancement – Answer your calling as you advance your online career through endless content, ships and weaponry.
    * Massive Space Conflict – Use cunning military tactics as you and your squadron destroy enormous space stations and devastating capital ships.
    * Highly Accessible - Incredibly scaleable game engine allows Jumpgate to be fully playable, even on older PCs.

They have been running a beta, right? That's not just something they are going to start next week or something...

They have been running a beta, right? That's not just something they are going to start next week or something...

Because we know having thousands of beta testers for months on end guarantees success, right?

Rhetorical question is rhetorical.

What's the average price for a game in pounds?

Dev Answers From the Forums

Manual docking, I suppose. Will most likely become a very boring procedure after the first couple of times.

Seems to me you could just make the tractoring in of the ship to the hanger bay take 60 seconds but let a good pilot manage it in 15.

If you want you can just get close and hit 'dock me' and go get a coke or you can dock it yourself to be faster.  This fixes some of the pvp problem of people playing dock/undock games too.  If they have the skill to sit outside the station and shoot people and then fly into the hanger, good for them.  If not, let them get blasted waiting for the tractor.

It's a good idea, but I don't think it's worth pursuing unless there's something meaningful attached to it, some reason for players to want to get better at manual docking.

I just can't get over the fact we're talking about docking.

Our game's so hardcore you can get killed trying to dock!

I think docking will be as simple as aiming your WOW avatar at the gates of Stormwind but just in 3 dimensions.

... From my WoW days I can surely see a good number having issues, then. Hell, just remembering how many people died trying to get into MC makes me shudder at how these types of people would fare at docking in JG:E.

People died getting to MC due to trying to shortcut things rather than actually being stupid (most of the time).

Remember you don't have to operate docking procedures with Newtonian Physics.

I just can't get over the fact we're talking about docking.

Our game's so hardcore you can get killed trying to dock!

Let's face it, this game really doesnt seem to bring a lot to the table.  So finding little "minigames" in as many aspects as possible (docking included) are pretty important. 

You have to be a troll.


How do you come to this conclusion based on what information has been released?

Then I guess I don't see how you think there isn't anything to it.

He makes a good point. There isn't much to any of the MMOs we all play.

He makes a good point. There isn't much to any of the MMOs we all play.

What Lantyssa said.

You're not going to every other thread saying, there's nothing to this game, your specifically doing it here and I'm curious about your motivation.

No matter how much he articulated himself or how specific he was about each game, if someone picked up on the pattern, they would say he was trolling. Don't take what he said so personally, especially considering he intends to play it despite his assumption. Even I see what he's saying, if you go through everything they've showed, it doesn't look like the game has that much to it, but I'll still play it.

<stuff>

I guess I'm confused then.  The game has just about everything any other MMOG has.  If you want to argue MMOGs don't have a lot to them fine you can make your argument.  But compare this game to all other MMOGs and if you still say this game has not much to it, can you explain why compared to XYZ?

Not putting it above or below any other MMO. Just stated my opinion based on what I've seen.

Ya, I'm concerened about flight fatigue, as Draegan put it. One thing Earth and Beyond got right, even in its very stunted scope, was the ability to walk around on a station/planet.

JGE is sounding more and more like an mmo hoping to sell a combat system. There is nothing wrong with that except, AoC and SpellBorn has shown what happens to those games. I really haven't heard anything coming from this game suggesting it has mechanics necessary to support fast paced gameplay. My guess; People burned by the mmo side of the game >>> Fanbois who have officially came in their pants because of the combat system.

How much non-instanced PvP is there?  If your answer is none, I am ragequitting (a game I've never played) right now!

June date is shot from the forum postings. Community manager has mentioned there's a press release coming hopefully by the end of next week. Confirmation that closed beta isn't started yet.

Scratch another MMO launch from this summer now.

Pubbies and retailers are many times the 1st to know, regardless of press release.

I would agree with you on the most likely delay (even though not has every been officially announced right?), but you use Gamestop as your reasoning?

A few things you have wrong with this post.  AOC's combat system was pretty good and well liked by most of the million or so people who bought the game.  It was the lack of a finished game that killed it for people.

Spellborn is pretty fun, I'm actually playing that now, but it's a subjective opinion obviously since many people arn't playing the game.

JGE's combat system is old.  It's been proven to be enjoyed by any twitch space game or aerial combat game.  I'm not sure what you see as "different" other than it's not DIKU.

Re: mechanics necessary to support this game.
Wat?  You have ships flying all over the place and you have to dogfight them down.  You have to destroy cap ships.  You have to destroy space stations.  You have to run from missiles and dodge in coming fire.  What's not there?  From what I played it's just like xwing/tie fighter game.

AoC wasn't selling a combat system. They just thought that plus the content, lore and graphics engine would be enough. Once again, content is king.

We don't know enough about the type and quantity of content JG:E will have to know. Freespace 2 with WoW quests will have me for at least four months like, fer shur!

3 weeks till release!   woot!    :why_so_serious:

We still going by the old date? or has something else been announced?

So basically, it's postponed but we dont have a firm date.

It’s been about three years since we originally started thinking about making Jumpgate Evolution and in those three years many of you have been following the game’s progress quite closely. You’ve watched the project grow and gain momentum as it has become what it is today. Getting the game complete and into your hands is the point we’re really eager to get to and we strive each week to get to where we can share our adventures in space together.

One of the things we’ve always promised is that we would not release an unfinished product, nor would we subject players to a sub-par experience. The worst situation for a developer is that our game does not meet the expectations of our fans. This is constantly weighed against the need and desire to release the game and let our dedicated community play the game as soon as possible. I know that many of you have seen the targeted June release date and that has generated significant excitement. As with all game development projects, we constantly have to evaluate the quality of the product against anticipation. The question always asked among ourselves, does what we have meet the expectations of the players? Is what we have a good game?

With that, let me be up front about the current state of the game from where we stand. Jumpgate Evolution is nearly feature complete, but since entering the Friends & Family phase of testing we’ve been able to bring new eyes onto the game and get solid, crucial feedback from actual players and fans. Based on these results, it is clear that the product needs more time to meet its objectives. As an example, we have received and read lots of feedback regarding the instanced and public PvP systems. The feedback has been vital in helping us polish and improve this core feature of the game. We take a lot of time in digesting and considering what people say and take feedback seriously. Given that situation I can tell you that we would rather delay the release, than let you down by releasing an unfinished product. We will continue development past June while extending the test schedules and respond to the results of those tests.

Nowadays, Massively Multiplayer Online Games have a highly competitive market and a less-than-stellar release can be the end of a title before it starts. Our passion for this game means we want to release it in a state that is complete. You have raised the bar for us and we feel a great responsibility to reach that bar and exceed it. The only thing worse than waiting is being rewarded with a product that does not live up to its potential. We’ve always had one goal while developing this game which we’ve stated over and over. That goal is to make a great, and most of all fun, space combat game. Until we, and you, are happy that the game fully meets all of those requirements we won’t release it.

We understand news of this delay is disappointing. The good news is that our immediate goal is to get the game ready for larger groups of people as we get into wider testing. This means that more people will have more time to give us the vital feedback we will need to improve the game. Once we've established our road map for the next few months we'll share with you when the revised release date is.

Thanks for your patience and continued support.

See you in space!

Scott Brown.

Link (http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?p=5243633#post5243633)

The good news is that our immediate goal is to get the game ready for larger groups of people as we get into wider testing.

This game's gonna be a holiday release.  While it's not surprising, I just really think it's unprofessional leaving that June 15th release date up there up until 3 weeks before launch.

I think it's unprofessional to stick to a date and release utter crap but still happily charge your players.

And yet more unprofessional NOT to stick to a date and STILL release utter crap, but still happily charge your players (which happens like, every time yes?).    :oh_i_see:

And yet more unprofessional NOT to stick to a date and STILL release utter crap, but still happily charge your players (which happens like, every time yes?).    :oh_i_see: