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Jumpgate Evolution Interviews: System Talk With Scott Brown
MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh sat down with NetDevil's Scott Brown from Jumpgate Evolution to talk about the game's progress and some of its more interesting systems.
By Carolyn Koh on May 20, 2009
When I last saw Jumpgate: Evolution (JGE), it was at Penny Arcade Expo in August of 08. Then, attendees were treated to a slice of the game; hands-on play of a newbie mission. I was impressed then, although I had never played a space combat game at any length, not because I didn't want to, I could not because the games gave me vertigo. Wing Commander, X-Wing, Freelancer, Privateer... you name it. They all gave me vertigo, so I've been following JGE closely. I want to pilot a space craft! Since then, our correspondent Sean "Pasanda" Cullinan has had the chance to write a hands-on Preview of the game, and Scott Brown, President of Netdevil was in attendance at the 2009 LOGIN Conference with Game Manager Grace Wong, but without his trusty side-kick Hermann Peterscheck, Producer of JGE. So amid jokes of not letting Hermann out until the game is ready, Scott gave me a status update on where they were on development.
"We are feature complete at this time," he said. That is to say, all the systems are in place. The back end is connected; all the parts of the game that needs to be there are there, but for completing the planned content.
"We're in friends and family beta right now," he continued. "As a game, we're there, but as a commercial title, we're not there yet. We're still working through iterations and polishing, polishing and more polishing."
;)
Scott talked about the issues they were working on, and one is the presentation of missions or quests. "You've seen the way most quests are presented. It's the general WoW model. You get your quest screen, your menus... all very static. Great for a mission journal maybe, but rather lacking when you are trying to create an immersive experience." Yes, we are all familiar with Farmer Brown sending us to take a sack of grain to Farmer Smith, who sends us back to Farmer Brown with thanks, gain XP and gold. Then Farmer Brown has another quest for you. What Netdevil is after is making the missions more that that. Perhaps when Farmer Brown sends us to Farmer Smith, along the way, we find a wolf stealing his chickens. Is that part of the quest?
"Things happen," said Scott. "Don't just expect to deliver a shipment of widgets from one sector to another in a mindless FedEx delivery. Stranded in a multipart mission? You may think so."
Manufacturing is the other system that Netdevil is working through at this time. Manufacturing facilities can be found throughout space. Some of them are known, some others you discover via missions and through exploration. Some are of alien technology and many are abandoned and in contested space, so getting to them might be a bit of a challenge. You never know what you might get either. "You can fail, you can crit," said Scott, "there's some anticipation since there is some randomness in the outcome."
There are also recycling centers in space. Much like the manufacturing facilities, they are found in different sectors and they reduce the junk you put in them into basic raw materials. Maybe they will be useful to you and maybe you might hit the jackpot with what you stick in there. No doubt, all the possible returns will be found in a Jumpgate Wiki somewhere two months after launch, I joked, but that segued nicely into their idea of exposing their data. "Most data will be out there in XML for fan sites to grab and use," said Scott. "There's no need to recreate the world or mine through code to populate item databases."
That, in turn, segued into their mining system. JGE is skill based. Thusly, you acquire licenses to do most things, such as pilot licenses for various classes of ships and licenses to mine various ores. Use that skill often to earn XP and graduate to more advanced licenses. Moving up the skill tree and specializing will provide you bonuses in that particular skill. Mining will require a mining license and a ship that can equip a mining laser. Then it's looking for an ore node and using the laser to dig the ore out of the asteroid.
;)
Currently, I found out as Scott flew this way and that in order to find a Recycling Center to demonstrate how it worked, there's no way of marking where manufacturing facilities and recycling centers are in a sector of space. One would think that the coordinates could be programmed into your ship's computer and you would get a vector and directional beacon to it, no? "I'm taking notes!" said Scott.
Players won't be able to track mining nodes the same way. They are instant and random spawn within a sector. That is to say, the moment you mine one, another pops up immediately somewhere else. Independent of player population, if there are 20 nodes in the sector there will always be 20 nodes in the sector. Players who are mining at the time just have to find them, and that currently is a visual exercise.
Scott went on to show the Capital Ships and toured around the galaxy. "The smart player," he said, "will probably use a combination of damped flight and undamped. Particularly in combat, flying under Newtonian Physics will give a skilled player the advantage as that allows you to be travelling in one direction and yet have the nose of your ship pointed in another to rake other ships with fire."
Scott also spoke proudly of their AI systems, systems which have received much kudos from players who have been lucky enough to test them. "Our AI systems scales to player population and we have advanced AI against AI involvement. It's all interconnected. When you jump into a sector and find yourself in a fire fight, their reaction to you depends on your involvement and your relative faction with them."
"There are several alien factions that hate everyone else in the universe, and yes, you can definitely be damaged in cross-fire," said Scott. In-game death means only opening your wallet and paying the repair mechanic at your last station or the sector grave yard. Of course if you have another ship at the station, you can jump right back into the game with that one if you're a bit short.
The game looks fabulous with its intense, highly saturated graphics. Space isn't a black void in JGE's universe. It's filled with asteroids, ships and structures, and the high contrast of lights against dark areas. All these also help keep the player oriented in space as most structures have a recognizable "this-way-is-up" look. Unlike the USS Enterprise which was accidentally hung upside down in the very first Star Trek pilot, large ships have a deep hull before rows of light emitting windows begin and have vertical structures above that.
Still on the subject of graphics, Netdevil has also crafted very different designs for various ships and each faction will have their own unique theme and variation in their ships. Since this is a ship combat game, player avatars are simply 2-D representations at this time. You will not be able to get out and walk around in the game at launch although Scott said that avatars are undergoing a revamp at this time. This is not to say that you won't be able to get out of your ship and walk around in a limited social space in the future.
;)
The high-contrast, deeply saturated graphics are also Netdevil's way of addressing the question of gamers with relatively low-end systems. "It's about getting the most out of so little. We designed for low, low, low minimum specs," said Scott, "as we are designing for a game that won't look dated six months after it launches."
We looked at the clean, uncluttered UI that overlays the screen and guessed at what the icons represented, and got most of them, which pleased Scott. What about the cockpit view, I asked.
"You know, not one day passes when at least six team members [don't] ask after a play test when we are going to put that in. Don't worry. It will be in. Just like vehicular games must have the 3 views - first person, third person and cockpit with the steering wheel and dash visible; Jumpgate: Evolution will have three views. First person, third person and cockpit with the cockpit demarcation lines, even if going by other space games or movies... cockpits may not have the glass demarcation lines."
Of course the cockpit view from a small nimble fighter may be quite different from a large lumbering heavy tank, but the cockpit view will still be there! Speaking of ships, we were shown a Battle for Space scenario. These scenarios are the space equivalent of DAoC's three-faction RvR system. Each faction is building a battle station in space and the others are taking them down.
"There are any number of missions that will involve squad combat," said Scott as we toured one which took us deep into the caverns of an Asteroid. "The fast nimble ships will be required to take out the defense turrets, the larger to back them up with fire power and protect the main tank which is required to take out the heart of the installation."
We looked at the size comparisons of a Capital ship which could be 2km long compared to a little fighter no larger than your Honda. Think of the WWII movies you've watched. You've got the one man Corsairs, the two man Dive Bombers and then you had the B-29 Super Fortress, up against an Aircraft Carrier.
In closing, I asked "What did you do to craft a game that doesn't give susceptible gamers like me, vertigo?"
"Well, Hermann suffers from it too," was the response, "but it mainly has to do with frame rate. We tested on Grace too, who suffers worse from it." Grace rolled her eyes as she remembered the many sessions where she had to rest with her head on a desk after a playtest, but agreed. "I think it's the frame rate. They found the optimal frame rate that prevents vertigo."
"We want to ship a game that looks good and is fun to play," said Scott with a smile and a wink, "And I'll let Herman out when it's ready to ship."
I'm getting a little more hyped for this one. Really nice that they will add cockpit view. I really wonder whether Black Prophecy made 'em decide to do that pre-launch instead of "sometime" afterwards. I can't say it is bad in a gamer's point of view to have two upcoming titles compete for domination in the reflex space mmorpg genre :>
for me it realy doesnt mather who will win as long as either of em is a very good space game
"The fast nimble ships will be required to take out the defense turrets, the larger to back them up with fire power and protect the main tank which is required to take out the heart of the installation."
So we're going to have melee dps ships, ranged dps ships and tank ships....(anyone want to bet on "healer ships"?) .needed for boss encounters...but it's not WoW in space?
I grasp that you have to have different roles in combat and all...but that sentence reads like someone who is applying the standard MMO pardigm to space combat....
I agree. It does sound like standard MMO game design. I hope they haven't pigeonholed themselves into a format, but were more thoughtful in regards to ship size and weapon loadouts, - a power drain vs. damage sort of thing.
I already can see people asking following questions:
Manufacturing Facilities can be found? Are they gonna be spread (seeded) around the galaxy like some roids or something? Or there will be some sort of attachment to at least small inhabited worlds / complexes nearby same as recycling centers?
Will you have to drag a ship load of materials through some dangerous space to reach those or there will be star gates of some sort? Hmmm.
You cant track the roids? How wide is the area of the sector? In EVE asteroid belts are marked and you can warp to them, it sounds like JGE will be utilizing fantasy MMO node spawn system type across the sector/map. So its actually possible that roid may spawn right in front of your nose and you will just run into it and blow up? Hmm. So who is gonna spend time to improve skills to hunt roids when you don't even know where to look? And no scanners of any type either... Another Hmmm.
Oh, and there is no ccordinate system either? Well thats a big HMMMM.
"AI systems scale to player population.." So if I jump to a sector that like 100 people just were in and AI summoned hundreds of ships when I end up there alone I'll be just eaten up very quick. Another Hmmm.
Battle For Space scenario. It sounds like a shooter "demolition" mode. Except that instead of FPS shooter we will be playing space flight sim and shooting each other with space ship guns. It sounds fun and very odd. Nobody ever done this thats for sure. I see fun in it I also see how some people will get frustrated since most of the shooters will go after builders and you can't shoot flying ship as easy as you can get a "headshot" on someone with a gone in a first person view. Will ship have 'heads'? That you can one shot the ship by destroying that 'head'? Will we be able to place any defence equipment? Its gonna be a MESS... Another Hmm, this time its a weird humming of curiosity and sense of failure.
Squad Based Dungeons. So the guy who said that in some cases battle mechanics will be similar to fantasy MMORPGs is right - there will be boss, there will be a 'tank' ship, there will be DPSers and support ships. As further it goes as more odd it becomes.
I am imagining a talk between Peterschak and his teammates:
"Guys, imagine the game, similar to what you see out there on the market - Bosses, classes, dungeons, fps shooter game modes. And now put it all into open space, create a different classes of ships, dungeons that are built into huge celestial space formations, and mix it all with some crafting, mining in MMORPG style and no sensation of location whatsoever. I think its gonna be a great game. Its unique, it has similarities to existing games so it won't be completely alienated by the players, it has familiar game modes and familiar feel of mining and crafting..."
JGE definitely sounds like something very new and fresh and gives the same feel based on what is already unveiled. I wouldn't bet much money on the fact though that JGE will find very wide interest. Some of the game modes remind me of a mess of ships flying around blowing up each other like a crazy chaos in Killzone 2 in multiplayer death match. Well we'll see. But it sounds really risky. I bet some people will be looking forward to play JGE thinking that it will offer them some sort of quality space adventure. But from a certain perspective it looks like its gonna be a multiplayer shooter, only in space and in space ship cockpits.
Oh the Negativity!
Guys & Gals, I am sorry but I think you are taking some explanations too literally and making some assumptive analogies.
Having Roles in Combat doe snot equal having Classes, in fact there is no Classes per say in this game, you do not make a DPS a Tank or a Long Ranged Hitter, you can be all of them if you wish. Because it is the Ship not the character.
Because roles you have in RL too.
Try to immagine a WWII Naval Encounter.
You have the Aircraft Carriers, these are the Capital Ships, then you have the Fighters who's role is to protect the Bombers, whose role is to Bomb the Target Ship, from the enemy Fighters.
You can have high altitude Bombers and Low altitude precision Dive Bombers.
Now lets take this a Step Further, Immagine Star Wars,
You have the Mon Calamari Cruisers and the Star Destroyers these are the Capital Ships, then you have, the Fighters, Interceptors the Bombers. You can also have the Corvettes and other utilitary, support and specialised vessels.
So..I really do not see what is the problem with having Fighters that play different roles, it is how it works in RL too, it is not an idea taken from an MMORPG, the MMORPG takes inspiration from RL.
The beauty of it all is that you may have several ships, you may have an Interception Fighter, a Bomber a Long Range Support and a Cargo ship, today you get on with your friends and you feel like providing escort and expecting to dogfight then you hop on to your fighter, tomorow you may feel like staying at a distance and providing fire support you jump in your gunboat, another day you want to shoot those missiles and boms you jump in your heavy fighter.
You are not locked in to one Class like a mainstream MMORPG.
Yet, different roles exist because there is different needs.
has anyone played X-Wing? Tie Fighter? How about Wing Commander? How about Starlancer?
have you ever played some of the Missions with Waves and Waves of Enemy Fighters Amongst Capital Ships shooting at eachother? Wasn;t that a chaotic furball?
Well, that is what combat is like in the Skies...and by extension in the SCi-Fi space.
What did you have in mind instead? A select and forget fest?
I had some of the greatest excitment in some of the games mentioned above, shooting Torpidoes while dodging Capital ship AA fire and keeping my 6 clear, was just pure fun, and the massive battles which are aimed by JGE try to capture those forgotten feelings of some of these games or movies and bring them on to the old and new generations of players once more.
Now, you say there will be dungeons? And why not? What is wrong with that? Space is full on surprises and great Locales, why not take it a step further with a little bit of immagination and offer unique Locations that offer unique challenges to the players for a varied experience?
And the Bosses? Well, in the above WWII RL example and the SCi-Fi SW example the Boss is that big Capital Ship that needs to be taken down as per the Mission Objective, how well people execute and coordinate their roles during the mission will determine success, not unlike the planning and execution of any RL Combat engagement.
So why the negativity? I think it simply has the potential to be great, my only concerns are as always, how certain systems such as the skilling up curves and the economy are implemented these impact gameplay more than anything else. But not the fact that there will be different Ships that have different Pros and Cons and specific mission Roles, or fantastic and Diverse Locales.
As a final note, thanks for the Black prophecy reference, I did not know about that game, I just saw its trailer, and I think it will be a strong competitor as well, it definitelly has a different approach both gameplay and artistic, yet it also has commonalities, it also has Epic Storyline missions and instanced Unique Locales, and it is aiming Casual players too, yet I am intreagued by its Modual Ship Assembly Approach.
Cheers, and try to sleep on the positive side tonight!
I personally didn't mean to be negative :). I just tried to constructively comment-question the specific article parts. As I said - we will see. When JGE is out it will be clear as day what type of game it is. What I am saying is that if JGE is a type of game I described - fps shooter only in space, those games are usually single player with multiplayer mode and those games last only so long. When you create MMO with a similar concept it is kinda risky for the game success.
JGE by itself is already specific genre game that may not appeal for example to a lot of WoW or other MMORPG players that find fun to kill rats and goblins. I am really just thinking about how well JGE may do. Too much thinking, I know. Game is not even in closed beta yet but then again I didn't make any conclusions, just laid out my personal concerns. Some things, like a lack of coordinate system, no tracking abilities make me think of JGE like a "Space Force" just online version, which would honestly not be as exciting as I thought.
In any way I will definitely play the silly game, and I know that its going to be silly, in a good way. There will be a lot of blowing up things, a lot of fun and flashy animations and I will play this game until I get sick. Because except EVE there is nothing really in space and online. And EVE gets boring sometimes. Hopefully JGE will be a good mix of action AND strategy. Not just a pure arcade feel which is not bad either. I liked "Space Force" too, just wanted JGE to be much more complex than a regular arcade space shooter. Like I played "Tabula Rasa", it was innovative and fun. But after a while grind made it boring and devs couldn't manage to keep servers open. I hope that JGE won't inherit the same fate due to it's uniqueness. Hopefully devs will be open minded enough to create all kind of content and not just stall players with grind either PvE or PvP kind.
If all fails, there is at least the Old Republic to look forward to. But I really want JGE to be great. I love space flight'ers.
Screenshots are just awesome. Like this one: http://images.mmorpg.com/features/3063/images/3063_4_t.jpg - simply amazing effects. I can't wait to get in game, max out all the graphics, get like 8xAA and just sit in awe for the first hour while I am flying around stuff. Graphics are jaw breaking and I am really looking forward to JGE. Just please, devs, don't mess it up :-).
I see, well, this will be interesting upcomming year, there is three Space oriented games comming out, JGE, Black prophecy and Star Trek Online.
As far as JGE is concerned, it will have Avatars down the line, they said they are working on them already these will not be in for launch thought. And if we want to dare to be immaginative I really see now reason why it could not expand to Capital Ships as well.
There have been many games with bigger types of "vehicles" such as WWII Online with its Destroyers and Bombers that do are multi-crewed, I can;t see why it could not work in space too, with multi turret positions a bridge etc.
If anything Star Wars galaxies has Millenium Falcon and equivalent sized ships and you can walk inside em while in flight too, decorate them, multicrew, pilot and turrets etc etc.
Something that has been done already, can be done again, no excuses.
So the long term, I think relies on the capacity of the creators to expand upon their game with features that open up new possibilities and gameplay avenues for the players.
It is going to be difficult to choose which one to play, I do hope they all come with free Trials so we can at least get a better idea, buying 3 MMORPG's in the same year is not good for anyone, most people do not subscribe in multiples specially Clans and guilds that wish to commit in the long term.
Man, after seeing this - Black Prophecy HD Game Play trailer (BIG - 445MB) JGE looks like a baby comparing to papa BP =D.
Just take a look at this full scale DX10 image from 3DMark Vantage and compare to both BP and JGE =D. I am a graphics junky, so I may after all to lean towards BP, but I will definitely try both.
Grafics should be not most important thing game hawe to offer. For me what game offer content wise will keep me playing it. I hawe sme conerns with JGE, i would love to play open beta to clear some of my worries. If there will be no open beta and it seams there will not be if they still plan to release it in June i will wait for ome positive feedback on noet backing this title.
BP does feel a bit more developed than JGE. Ship Modulation system, Clan Modulation Bases etc. But BP is level based. So from what I see some equipment be only available by reaching a certain level, and level means grind no matter how you look at it, either its a mission or kill grind so JGE after all maybe a bit more appealing to me as a casual player since its skill based.
There is Pros and Cons to both which makes decisions even harder.
BP has a more serious look and (according to them Next generation Graphics), but JGE is going for the Lower Spec Scalability, in the end, in my experience, Gameplay is what is the most important because it is what you stay with after the initial graphics awe is gone.
So, BP may have some better looking graphics (some of the Locales with the thousands of asteroids are breath taking), yet what good are these if we lag the moment 30+ players go in a battle?
(Plus I am really really tired of having to upgrade my computer with every new game that wants to push the envelope and really ends up falling short of it too, not to mention that this causes clans and guild to split because not everyone can upgrade at same time...and then most end up simply playing something else, because the ties with our friends are more important than the game in the end...at least it is how it happens in my guild, so in the end a game that we can all enjoy together has priority).
Then BP might be level based, but it is aiming the Casual Crowd, leveling will be fast according to them, we have no idea how this is implemented in JGE, all I know is that Casual or Hardcore, most prefer shorter leveling curves just enough to learn and understand the game, and then long term playability, that does not depend on leveling ones character.
BP has modular Ship building this is going to be a big attraction for the creative and immaginative, on the other hand JGE has the experience from JGC, I played JGC very early on, before they added Guild Bases etc, and it was pretty balanced.
JGE will have Newtonian Flight plus Dampened Flight, if you have not experienced it, it is really a blast, BP sems to have only Dampened Flight (it feels like Star Wars Galaxies Space Flight).
Both will have Epic missions for PVE or PvP, with huge Capital Ships, to be taken down.
I am not sure however if BP will have the Ship Roles, since ships are custom made, people may tend to design multirole ships rather than have several clearly defined Ship roles which does affect how a battles plays, with clear role you have a basis of organisation timing and tactics, without it may simply devolve to numbers and zerging.
Another plus for JGE is the fact of the 3 factions and the FvFvF approach (RvR), three is better than two, at least DAoC has proven that, and it is not clear to what extent BP is RvR.
Finally, we do not know how the economical basis will work, how does one make money, how is mining implemented etc. BP looks like it is taking the abundance road, meaning there can be an asteroid field where all asteroids can be mined for something, not unlike EVE (I prefer this approach personally), JGE, looks more like the short end of the stick in that regard where you have to hunt for nodes to mine like your average Fantasy MMO (I dislike this approach), making it a mini game rather than an experience.
So it will al finally hinge(in addition to scalability), for me and friends at least, upon what approach to the economics the games have, this is the basis of any game in my opinion specially ones with Competitive element. No one likes to have to PVE in order to PvP, and if there is to be some type of loss (from ship to cash) the capacity of the player to recuperate from loss in a timelly manner is crucial to long term commitment.
Above all, we are first and foremost here to have fun, not seek a second job.
We shall see what will come :)