MMORPG.com brings us an interview with NetDevil's Scott Brown about the visuals and sound of Jumpgate Evolution, together with some screens.

The Mission system is receiving an overhaul so that players aren’t presented with large paragraphs of text they have to read through. Instead, the mission will be delivered in a series of steps with much shorter text messages popping up at different stages. This was to involve the player more, to create a more immersive experience as the mission is no longer as straight forward as it may seem at first.

A voice-over system has been added at the newbie tutorial stage to help new players get into the game faster, so they are not presented with a bunch of text they have to read while trying to learn how to fly their ship, and an auto-docking system has been put into the game.

The next installment of the Jumpgate Evolution blog is now available on MMORPG. This time it is about music and sounds in the game.

A game is by definition an audio/visual experience. It is usually the visual side of things that get the most attention and so little time is spent on the other half of the equation. While visuals are critical for having a successful game, having great audio is very important. To think this deeper, try imagining Star Wars without John Williams' sound track or James Earl Jones' booming Darth Vader voice. Poor audio on top of great video can really deteriorate production value. The trouble with audio is that it generally comes late in the development cycle and all to often as an afterthought. Another difficulty is that while poor visuals tend to be obvious, poor audio tends to be a silent failure. Star Wars with slightly worse music would create a sense that "something is missing" or "something isn't right" whereas a bad special effect is much more likely to be spotted for what it is.

MMORPG has an overview of the answers given to questions forum forum members about Jumpgate Evolution.

OP by Sykosys000: I am an Octavian pilot. If I constantly get in the way of other friendly pilots to block their shots (knowing I am immune), is this considered an exploit?

Hermann Peterscheck: I suppose so. Basically, if you act in such a way to interfere with the play of others, that could be considered "griefing." It's a tricky barrier because on the one hand if you use something that we have written but on the other you don't want to start reducing the fun of the game in order to deal with outlier edge cases.

What I hope happens is that people are mature enough to not deliberately game systems in order to ruin the experience for others (assuming that is what you are referring to). Obviously there are always people who do that and all games have to deal with that. A lot of this has to do with intent and the effect it has on other players.

In addition they also have some new screens here.

Jumpgate Evolution Producer Hermann Peterscheck continues his blog at MMORPG with the combat system.

Early on our lead systems designer, Jay Ambrosini, came to the correct conclusion that all of the preliminary balancing was best done in a PvP context. The reasoning is that in PvE, the player needs to feel powerful, but in PvP the fight needs to feel balanced. Once ship classes are balanced in PvP, its not as hard to make the player feel powerful in PvE, but the opposite is not true. We spent many weeks playing just the first class of ship, the light fighter, in teams of 5 or 6 in order to evaluate what it was that made those ships fun to fly and fight. After daily battles, you begin to see what makes those ships work. We also started with the mid level ships as opposed to the low or high level ships. This is primarily because you can find the center point and then work upwards and downwards from there.

A brief interview with Hermann Peterscheck of NetDevil about PvP in Jumpgate Evolution can be found right here.

MMORPG.com: How will PvP factor into the game's lore?

Hermann Peterscheck: It depends. There is fiction behind the various battlespace scenarios, so that is one of the factors. In terms of open space there are less specific ties since we can't really predict what is going to happen. More likely, we will respond to PVP events and feed them into future fiction as opposed to trying to force it down one path or another.

The other direction is how the lore itself influences PVP. Here we consider that the three major nations are in a conflict with one another. It's not total open war, but they are definitely competitive. The personality of the nations is reflected in things like ship design and general attitude. For example the Octavians are much more regimented and militaristic whereas Solrain is more motivated by profit and gain. What we want to do is have the players feel that they identify with their nation and it's goals.

 

Jumpgate Evolution's Producer, Hermann Peterscheck talked to Ten Ton Hammer about the  lore of their universe.

Ten Ton Hammer: Three seems to be the magic number when it comes to conflicting cultures/races in MMOGs today. Can you explain why this number also works so well for you, compared to adding a fourth playable culture?

Peterscheck: Honestly I don’t know why three is such a magical number. From a balance point of view, two is much simpler as you can make a point-counterpoint design. I think what makes a three sided game interesting is that it automatically creates diplomacy. It throws a wrench into the balance of power and that creates a natural state of conflict. This might be bad in world politics, but it’s fun in games.

In a play session at the Jumpgate Evolution booth the staff of Massively saw the game in action.

Combat in Jumpgate is designed to be both simple and immediate -- unlike EVE, which is the current dreadnaught of space MMOs, Jumpgate asks players to take direct control of their ships. Instead of just choosing a target and placing a command to fire, it plays more like an actual space shooter. Brown showed me how to use the right mouse button to set a target (which also showed up in the HUD, and tracked even when the actual ship flew out of view), and then hit the left mouse button to fire. Each ship you can buy, trade, and gain in the galaxy has a base set of stats for speed, defense, attack, and so on, and then you can add on improvements to that ship (guns, missile launchers, engine attachments) to make it faster or stronger. So what they're aiming to do is make skill a big factor -- how you fly is nearly as important as what you fly.

Which folds back into their philosophy of advancement as well -- Brown repeated the phrase "unlocking choices" quite a few times as we talked. While you will be able to gain XP and currency as you play through Jumpgate (whatever you choose to do, be that mining or PvE combat or PvP combat), those earned points will go not towards increasing your own skills as a pilot, but simply unlocking the types of ships and gear that you can use, as well as the missions you can take on and places you can go. So again, skill is a big factor -- "We want to give you unlocking choices," he told us, "rather than leveling through an artificial RPG structure."

Jumpgate Evolution's Scott Brown chatted with Ten Ton Hammer about the new "indoor" battle arena, the medal and achievement system, and more, which is all shown in a video.

Now that Jumpgate Eveolution has been delayed all we can do now is wait. Wait and watch the E3 trailer.

Almost feature complete JE delayed with no set release date.

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.

An short interview with Darren Klein, NetDevil's art director for Jumpgate Evolution can be found on Massively. The interview focusses on designing ships.

When designing a ship class what comes into mind? What inspires each design?
First thing that comes into mind is scale. This is depicted mainly through the size of the cockpit and size of the engine glow on the back of the ship. Next, we try to determine a silhouette (with the art style of that Nation) that reflects the class. A shuttle/scout may be thin and agile in appearance as opposed to a heavy fighter, which may appear more bulky and armored. Transports are all designed with an on board cargo haul in mind while haulers all have the distinct "TRI" containers attached.

Once we have a basis for silhouette we add the style of the Nation to the design. Some Nations have more organic designs while others have an angular aggression about them.

What challenges come into mind when designing ships?
The main challenges are simply "does this ship look cool?" "Would you put in "X" amount of effort to buy it?" "Is it cooler than your last ship?" After that we have to determine if the ship looks the way it fly's and vice versa. This is important. If someone gets an awesome looking new light fighter and it flies like a hauler then its game over. Likewise, if you obtain a ship that looks terrible and it fly's amazing, what fun is that?

JE's blog starts on mmorpg.com, starting with ship design.

In Jumpgate Evolution, ship design is one of the most critical components in the game. When we first started working on it, we spent a lot of time with just one ship, in one sector, fighting a handful of enemies. At first we just wanted to make a ship that was both fun and intuitive to fly. This involved changing camera controls, controller input and lots and lots of unit tests. In the end it took about sixty to seventy iterations to get a flight model and control scheme that felt right.

The next thing we did is come up with what kinds of roles we wanted people to have. This was fairly simple in that the kinds of ships that people want are reasonably well defined. You want to have a quick and nimble fighter, a heavier combat ship, perhaps a missile boat of some kind. On the commercial side you need mining and transport ships. For the high end we considered things like “spy” class ships or heavy gunboats, support class ships that can repair armor or refuel ammunition and just about anything in between. It’s a really fun process to just throw ideas out and see what seems cool and fun to try.

Jim Rossignol blurbs his experiance with JE.

The first few excursions all take place within a small corridor of beautifully-rendered asteroids, with one large, hollowed-out rock as the mission base one end. First I had to shoot down a handful of low-level enemy ships, and then I had to scan some mysterious object by flying up to it and pressing the space bar (how appropriate). Then there was more combat against marginally tougher opponents, followed by the destruction of a large enemy capital ship at the far end of the asteroid belt.

Each mission is punctuated by a return to the base, where you can choose to sell loot, and to repair and rearm your ride. This early area is similar for each of Jumpgate's three factions, who go through a two-tiered starting area before mixing with pilots from other factions in the core game-world. Aside from the fact that I was flying about engaged in real-time hitscan combat - and the fact that I was piloting a fish-like rocketship instead of an elf or a wizard - it could have been the starting area of any MMO of the past five years.

Another of Gamespot's GDC articles, this one covering Jumpgate.

Brown graciously walked us through the game's basic features, pointing out how Evolution will retain all the core elements that defined the original game--space dogfighting along the lines of classic PC games like X-Wingand Wing Commander, with the trappings of massively multiplayer online games (such as missions, in-game economies, and player-versus-player battles). To that end, we were shown flythroughs of a handful of different deep-space zones which are being built to be huge, but to look interesting, full of colorful nebulas and star systems, as well as shattered planets and asteroid fields that house hidden space stations and alien infestations. In the game's current friends-and-family beta state (an extremely small, internal beta state that usually precedes closed betas), there are about 50 star maps, each about 10-15 cubic kilometers in size. Brown pointed out that in a recent beta session, about 100 player ships were in the same zone, but because of the vast size of the area, there wasn't any crowding at all. The same was true of several of the zones we saw today--the current version of the beta lets you toggle flags for all friendly and hostile ships in the zone to appear onscreen with colored markers in the distance. This sense of space should stay constant throughout the game, even though, as Brown pointed out, enemies will constantly respawn and the universe will house anywhere from 25,000-30,000 computer-controlled enemyentities at any time.

Can't find the announcement myself, but I'll take Blue's News word on it.

Fresh off a gamer's day showing off their wares, Codemasters announces a release date for Jumpgate Evolution, saying NetDevil's reworked space combat MMOG is launching in June. Celebrating the news, the Jumpgate Evolution Website now offers a new teaser video from the game.

Space combat MMO gameplay vid on Gamespot.

Jim Rossignol interviews NetDevil's Hermann Peterscheck.

Eurogamer: So let's wrap up with a quick overview of some of your content: what are we going to spend our time doing in Jumpgate Evolution?

Hermann Peterscheck: Well we have all the standard MMO type missions: defeating opponents, collecting things, or delivering things, escort missions... but we're just now implementing something really awesome which are these giant capital ships flying around - huge staged battles - and taking those out is becoming a major part of the game.

We're also working on a fairly advanced PVP system, with mass battles that have clear objectives: take out their battleship before they take down yours, hold this position for a period of time, and so on. There are two things that players have been responding to really well, and that's large groups of ships fighting each other, and taking down really large opponents, and so those are the things we want to develop for launch.

But there's loads of exploration too, we've worked really hard to make areas of space different and interesting. Also there's the player-driven economy that starts out from mining, turning raw materials into commodities, and commodities into equipment, so lots to do.

Inc Gamers have a 3 part interview by Tamer Asfahani that covers a lot on Jumpgate Evolution. The first part is here with links in the related box to the other two parts.

Just because of the diversity of space and the missions you have.  I’m half tempted to ask if you need a Babel Fish to speak to other factions.

(Laughs)  I think that really recapitulating all the stuff you already know.  There was no real main influence as such.  What we wanted to achieve in particular areas is different, so let’s look at combat.  What we wanted was large scale combat, so what we wanted was the last scene in Return of the Jedi where all those ships come in and there all battling and there are huge explosions, or the first scene of the last movie.  We watch those scenes and we think “ Wow, wouldn’t it be cool to recreate that?”

To me a big part was also Freelancer to be honest.  It always felt like Freelancer really had a very immersive, Han Solo type of experience, where you’d be going off and flying your own missions, you were on your own, you were moving a story forward, there was intrigue, you’re mining, you’re fighting.  A lot of the MMO game mechanics tie closely to a game like Freelancer.  I went back and played Freelancer, and that game, when you’re playing it you think to yourself that it would make a great MMO.  It’s an MMO and no one else is around.

New screenshots for the upcoming sci-fi, dog-fighting MMO Jumpgate Evolution have been released at the official website.

The website Strategy Informer has written a preview for Jumpgate Evolution deeming it "definitely one to watch":

The build on show for us was only in the Alpha stages, but even so it was looking pretty slick. The graphics were smooth, and it looks like they've gone for more 'bright', shiny textures. The rendering was also pretty good for such an early stage. We did talk to them a bit about specifications, and NetDevil assures us that this won't be a DX10 only game or anything like that. It will be very scalable, and they hope it will be able to run on a variety of systems. A more comprehensive look at minimum specifications can be found on the official website.

Gameplay footage vid at Gametrailers.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has embedded the GC trailer for Jumpgate Evolution into one of their posts.

Yet another preview telling us how intuitive and accessible Jumpgate Evolution will be:

Underscoring its more user-friendly bent, Jumpgate also aims to capture the kind of dog-fighting spaceship combat familiar to shooters such as TIE Fighter. It’s instant, intuitive action – potentially involving a huge number of players – and while it makes gameplay more twitch-based, levelling up not only adds the obvious benefits of extra damage to your sizzling volleys of projectiles but also helps them curve neatly towards targeted enemies. This lock-on system is a smart way of bringing together shooter and RPG elements, and is employed to clever effect to even the field between players of different levels; one lower-level raid we are shown sees players swooping in and around a heavily armed space station – but higher-level players will have their ability to automatically target its weak points disabled.

 IGN have a pre-E3 preview of Jumpgate.

While the glory days of space combat games like Wing Commander, Privateer, and TIE Fighter are apparently long-gone, NetDevil is hard at work on a massively multiplayer entry in the genre called Jumpgate: Evolution. You may read that and think, "Wait, didn't Jumpgate come out in 2001?" and you'd be correct. Jumpgate: Evolution is being designed to be just what its title implies: an updated, more streamlined game using Jumpgate's fiction and featuring fancy new graphics.

 Gamespy write up a preview for the new vision of Jumpgate.

 Jumpgate Evolution has been in development for a few years already at Netdevil, and the overwhelming vibe is that they're aren't in a hurry to push it out the door before it's ready -- a positive when it comes to an MMO. As for where Evolution stands in regards to the original's story, that's probably a question best left for a wiki-lore-keeper. The folks at Netdevil evidently take their mythology very seriously. On a basic level, it involves a race of space organisms called the Conflux (think: Cylon fighters from the reenvisioned "Battlestar Galactica") bringing the three distinct human races that comprise Evolution's factions to the brink of extinction. A good enough premise for what amounts to a massively-multiplayer take on Freelancer, is it not?

You can now sign up for Beta here.

There are a limited number of Closed Beta spots available and not everyone that applies will be admitted. Closed Beta testers will be selected based on a variety of factors, including computer system specs, game experience and community involvement. The Closed Beta is limited to players 18 years of age or older, and requires the acceptance of a Non Disclosure Agreement provided upon your acceptance.

A preview of the crafting and PvP systems in Jumpgate Evolution is up at Ten Ton Hammer. Here's a bit on the progress of the game:

As Scott explained the corporations, Hermann was piloting the ship around one of their latest “sky boxes,” a brand new upgraded look for a battle station. When Hermann got closer to one of the stations, I immediately noticed some improvements made upon the original model. Not only was the station physically bigger, but each of the pieces were more detailed; it simply looked better than it did before.

“Our art team is a victim of their own success. They keep making things look good, so I keep making them go back and improve upon their old models.”

“The scary thing is, that’s actually half the polys of the old model,” Scott said. “They’re going nuts.”

From what I could see, the new station looked exquisite, much more like a city than what I had seen previously. When I looked closer, I actually realized that the fighter Hermann was piloting had a different look as well. I made a comment about it, and Scott chimed in.

“We’ve actually designed a variety of skins for each of our fighters as well,” Scott said. “We have red, chrome, and all sorts of other things.”

As the fighter pulled up to the station, it was readily apparent just how huge the actual station was compared to the fighter. In a word, the station was immense. Even the frigates, which could have held two or three fighters, were dwarfed by the massive building.

But that wasn’t the end of the structure. Along the sides and around the different areas of the structure, the station had all sorts of factories and refineries outside for players to use. Hermann maneuvered his fighter around each of the building and asked me to imagine what the space would look like with hundreds of ships flying around the structure. I commented that it would probably look like a beehive with hundreds of drones buzzing about the structure.

Chat with the devs of Jumpage Evolution.

Join the NetDevil team in our official Jumpgate Evolution IRC Channel. There's a good chance you'll spot some of our devs! Host: irc.stratics.com::6667 channel: #JGE-Dev We look forward to seeing you there!

Carolyn Koh gets an interview from the Connect event in the UK.

“So what exactly is Jumpgate Evolution?” I asked, requesting for a description in a nutshell. It’s a spaceflight trading game. Its story, trading and economy. It’s Freelancer / Privateer Online.

“We have Keith Baker, the writer responsible for Eberron in DnD writing the back story for the game,” said Scott. “We’ve created a really rich backdrop and you write your own story. There are three nations and sub-factions. Each group provides different missions.”

“It’s all ship play,” said Hermann, “and the selection of a nation provides you a path; if you need one to follow. You will be balancing faction gains and losses when you perform missions. Factions are locked into a nation, but not to a subfaction.”

“Otherwise,” said Scott, “you are participating in a living world, and integrated system, interacting with the AI which is also moving, acting and reacting. It is emergent behavior and players are a part of it.”

Jumpgate Evolution has been previewed at CVG with the usual hype, praise and low criticism. EVE Online is used as a general comparison:

Controlling your ship is much like your average FPS, with the weighty, smooth movement and combat of FreeSpace 2 interspersed with the missions (read: quests) of an MMO that will have you hurtling all over creation.

There'll be your average "kill 10 Conflux War Sprites" quests as well as more interesting, Death Star trench-style adventures, buzzing into the heart of a gigantic intergalactic ship like an angry mosquito, and taking it down from the inside and reaping the rewards.

While (unlike EVE) you can't fly the big ships, you certainly find yourself fighting both next to and against them, usually as an agent in a bigger conflict.

An interview with community manager Nicole Hamlett is up at The Vault Network. The smiley-heavy interview seems to essentially revolve around blowing stuff up:

Beibhinn: Above, you mentioned mining, what are the other professions available to people and what are you guys doing to make sure they aren't boring or monotonous?

Nicole: Yes! It was realized early in development that an action combat game is really fast paced and there is only so much shooting and blowing up of stuff that you can do before it becomes tedious.

Obviously, a solution to that is to create downtime activities. Beyond the combat, the next best progression is of course tradeskills, so that is being implemented right now as well as a comprehensive trading system which includes an auction house, mail system and a manufacturing scenario.

However, beyond that again, the team is planning on implementing mini-games within the larger sphere. If all goes well you will to be able to play flash based games while you're in a station that will help fill the downtime.

I'm pretty excited about that. I started playing EQ as my first MMO, and I often wished that we'd had decks of cards or something while we waited for those spawns. Even while I play some games now, I wish I could take a break from the action and just chill out.
The best example of I've seen of this is actually Puzzle Pirates. You can go into the towns and play sword fighting games or cards or whatnot. It's great and it's sometimes more fun to login and do those than it is to sail and pillage.
I'm really looking forward to that phase of testing because I've found that those things can be just as engaging as the main game itself.

New screenshots of Jumpgate Evolution is up at the official website.

Ten Ton Hammer offers some new screenshots of the in-development space MMO, Jumpgate Evolution.

A new preview of Jumpgate Evolution is up at Strategy Informer. It gives a positive summary at the end though stating that at the moment the EVE fan segment shouldn't be interested in the game, which the below quote also indicates:

The most immediately noticeable aspect of the game is the streamlined interface and arcade-like combat control. This isn't a complex MMO, with the emphasis firmly on placing you into the cockpit, rather than studying a galactic map to make strategic decisions. Lead developer Hermann Peterscheck explains: “...we're really trying to focus on the space-action side of gameplay, rather than the slower elements. We're trying to make it fun and intuitive; I think a lot of MMO's aren't focused on the fun aspects enough right now”. And fun it most certainly is.

President of NetDevil Scott Brown has been interviewed by HEXUS.gaming. Here's a bit on accessibility:

HEXUS: I understand that you’re focusing heavily on making the game as accessible as possible?
Scott Brown The accessibility of the game was our main focus. If you read the development reviews of all the great games they all have one thing in common and that’s focus testing. We focused tested many things inside the game over and over again.

Focus testing is getting someone who has never played the game before and asking them about their frustrations and points where they get stuck in the game.

For example, we had a girl in focus testing and one of the mission was like, kill so many ships and the girl said “I wish you had what WOW has where it tells you how many guys you have to kill”. But, while she is saying this is actually on the screen. We were like ‘why can’t she see this?’ Well, we looked at it over and over again and realized that this message was only shown for three seconds, whereas World of Warcraft shows the same message eight seconds. So, of course, we changed the length of the message.

As we continue the saga of today's previews the next one up is for Jumpgate Evolution. IGN's The Vault Network is the culprit this time:

One of the developers' goals is to get the players to attach emotionally to the game and to this end, they have taken great care with cinematics that will impart pieces of the story. The game begins by thrusting players right into the emotional aspect of the game. Pirates destroy Bleakstone Station and, in the process, all of the player's family. Immediately, the player is thrust into action to take revenge on those pirates, and they hope the opening cinematic goes a long way towards developing a real feeling for the situation.

Ten Ton Hammer offers a video teaser of Jumpgate Evolution from Codemasters' Connect 2008 convention. It is also worth mentioning:

Check our Connect 2008 portal for more Jumpgate Evolution videos and content over the next week, as we have plenty more to share with you.

Managing editor of MMORPG.com Jon Wood has interviewed Producer Hermann Peterscheck of NetDevil about the progress of Jumpgate Evolution:

While I was sight-seeing and let’s be honest, drooling a little bit over the look of the game, the actual purpose of the demo was to show off JGE’s battle stations. There are two different kinds of station in JGE.The first is the “Core Station”. Core Stations are where players go to “transact non-combat related activities: missions, buying and selling, trading, stuff like that”. Basically, these stations serve as cities for players.The second station, and the focus of the demo, is the Battle Station. Battle Stations, as you might imagine, are well-defended fightable enemies. These stations are kind of like raid bosses that you might find in other games. They require skill and thought, people working together, and all of the elements that make MMOs grand:

“Battle Stations are staged combat encounters, the one I showed had 3 stages: 1) kill turrets which reveals a shield core 2) destroy the shield core which reveals the energy core 3) Destroy the energy core which ends in a large explosion and loot fountain.”

MMORPG.com also offer a single exclusive screenshot of JGE.

Dana Massey of Warcry.com met with the JE team at the GDC and you can read his thoughs on the game here.

With Jumpgate Evolution, the game's system requirements are perhaps the single most important sign that they have used their experience for good and not evil. A string of MMOs have recently hit the market that require machines most people cannot afford just to get a decent frame rate and that is perhaps a big reason for their lack of financial success. If World of Warcraft taught the genre nothing, it's that accessibility trumps pixel shaders every time. Jumpgate Evolution has taken the same system requirements as World of Warcraft as its baseline and created a game that is both beautiful and hopefully accessible to a vast majority of PC owners.

Steve Hartmeyer (JE programmer) talks about ship development - sourced from the offical JE web-site.

Our ship design process actually began more than a year ago, when Kirk Lunsford, our concept artist, joined the Evolution team and was tasked with creating new styles for each of the nations in the game. Over a period of several weeks, he chose general forms for each nation based on background information he was given about their cultures and outlook. Once these styles passed team review and became the “look” of each nation, Kirk began developing specific designs suited to different ship roles, such as fighters or transports. These each start as black silhouette drawings, with value and hotspot glows gradually shaded in. Kirk typically paints dozens of these in a group, but only a tenth to a third are chosen for detailed work-up.

Jumpgate Evolution has been added to our database of games and we hope to follow it continously.

Ten Ton Hammer has released part two of an interview with Producer Herman Peterscheck about the controls and combat of Jumpgate Evolution.