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Jumpgate Evolution : Event Sectors
Posted Sep 01, 2010 by Suzie Ford
Joe Grubb is the Content Designer at NetDevil for Jumpgate Evolution. He started at NetDevil back in November of 2009 and has since crafted hundreds of multi-step missions to inject the Jumpgate universe with a living, breathing world. A few months back he was integral in the design of JGE’s Sector Warfare System – a mission system that will help JGE deliver PvP space combat to the MMO market on an unprecedented scale. We’ve asked him to take a brief moment and discuss a new feature in Jumpgate Evolution that takes full advantage of this new system – Event Sectors.
Greetings all! I’ve been asked to take a moment and discuss an exciting new feature we’ve been building in Jumpgate Evolution – Event Sectors. In a nutshell, an event sector is a non-instanced sector that is available to players for short durations (this could be once a day, once a week, etc. – depending on how rare we want a particular sector to be). Event Sectors emphasize immersive, repeatable content; content structured to blend player vs. player and player vs. environment while supporting each faction’s unique goals and ideologies and remaining fictionally relevant.
Read more Jumpgate Evolution: Event Sectors.
I loved the original Jumpgate, but im a bit worried Netdevil have bitten off more than they can chew with this one.
So basically these are going to be like Warhammer Online Public Quests on Steroids? Sounds good to me ;)
I'm definitely keeping an eye on this one, and I'm glad to hear that they have identified what they could be improving, and working to make that happen.
These guys may actually make a space based mmorpg that doesn't suck for new users.
Well the info is certainly dribbling out slowly, but man, when it does come out it's defiitely not uninteresting.
Sounds good but I think that the overall war effort will be forgotten in all of these repeateable stuff. Just like in WAR where it does not matter who wins or not but it is just repeteable scenarios over and over ad nauseum.
The thing to remember is that these event sectors are just one part of the overall PvP / FvFvF system, as is mentioned in the blog. I see your concerns, but if other elements focus more on the overall war then I wouldn't be concerned about it.
Hmm... I thought Jumpgate was dead, glad to see this is not the case.
Another nail in STO's coffin?
The new vid and now this! Looking and sounding very promising.
That sounds pretty damned cool - especially that final example. PQs on steroids indeed!
-waves @Ara- 'sup bud?
Certainly could be interesting... depending on how it pans out when it comes to game play experience, as personally I can't see myself logging in every 1st Monday of the month or whatever just to get in on the event sector action.
It would certainly only be something I'd get involved in if I happened to already be logged in playing and something was going down nearby, rather than something I set a gameplay schedule around.
I do think it's a shame they are currently slating off communal goals however, having a faction v faction v faction engagement suddenly get gate crashed by a choatic zerg swarm of Conflux that don't care what colour you used for paint they just want you dead would of added a interesting if somewhat brief paradigm shift to the regular game experience.
Story and setting can be made to avoid this... but gamers are people, and very narrow perspectives are formed over time in a unchanging environment.
Hey Mulligan good to see you.
I like the sound of this in theory, but there has to be some goal or some prize at the end for the winning player, note I said player or players, and not faction.
Id like to see epic loot for the players taking part, or some sort of token that can be collected and handed in for big items, this would drive the item driven players to actually take part.
Still waiting, and hoping for some more info on what's in the game for guilds.
Sounds good to me. Public quests are really fun imo.
I really want a space shooter mmo and this game has been looking more fun than most other mmo's.
Cryptic doesn't need any kind of help for that, they do it SOLO :p
Giant space battles with 3 different factions sounds great to me. I 'm definitely interested. Though one thing kind of bothered me in the developers letter:
I hope they aren't intending to cut communal goals for factions that are supposed to be at war with each other. That would be the main aspect of the game for me. Hopefully they were just talking about cutting the AI from such communal battles. I want to feel loyalty and camaraderie among my faction. The communal goals sound like a great way to do that, in my opinion. It sounds like the developers may be afraid to let thier players fail. Maybe I am one of the few who actually feel that way?
In my opinion, nothing rips a community apart faster than individual prizes. How can there be loyalty and camaraderie among a faction when everyone is just out for themselves (to get the prize)?
That makes sense. And is reassuring.
Sorry for triple post.
i am glad they are taking time to get this right. it has great potential
I believe they mean working with your enemy feels strange. Not working with your own faction.
It would, I agree.
there was a jump gate before this jump gate!?!
There still is, last I saw.. I had tried it a while some years ago but there was only like 5 people playing or something, so didn't stick around for long heh
But I've been waiting for JGE since then.. although they are taking it in a different direction
This game is bloating like a pancake with too much yeast...It will either implode or end up with alot of features all unfinished
Since Hermann left, the game has turned into a "PvP or die" type of game that I'm not interested in. This is yet another example of an attempt to force people who don't want to PvP... to PvP. They know they won't have enough people who actually want to fight each other in the game, so they have to try to lure people into the pvp spaces for cannon fodder/griefer food. Eve's been trying this for years, and failing.
From past talks at E3, Jumpgate does have a PvE side to it... so it is not all PvP oriented. Also the reason CCP/EVE has failed at this is because they force players to loose everything. Why in anybody's right mind would you spend weeks building up a ship only to throw it into PvP and loose it. Yea CCP must not have thought that one through.
Exactly my concern. This has turned from a rather interesting game, in to just another forced PvP gankfest. They would likely have more success in the Asian markets with such dynamics. They are much more tolerant of forced PvP gankfests than the western markets are. Its too bad, as the orginal design looked like it was going to be a lot of fun.
Makes sense. Wasn't it said on their forum last year that the new Producer was from Mythic?
Yeah, the original game came out in October 2001 and continues to trudge along with a small but passionate player base. For more info, go to http://www.jossh.com . There's a free trial period, so check it out. The Jumpgate flight engine is (IMO) extraordinary.
Sounds very exciting. I am eager to find out more. :)
I actually was not interested in this game until reading this.. seems like somehow everyone else is of the opposite opinion.
These features, if implemented, will be fairly revolutionary.
I also give credit to these guys for working hard to get this game into a more polished product before release, I remember quite a while ago the company was having financial woes.. at which point most companies would have tried to push an unfinished product out the door to try to cut their losses.
Yes eve is failing becosue its only game that only climbs up with subs. :D
No, EVE is doing rather well. But it is in many ways an exception, and the evolution of Concord and the high sec rule set demonstrates that CCP understands its market demographics. Would that such could be said of NCsoft ^^
Im watching this.
This game has tweeked my interest, I hope they can deliver. Meaningful RvR in space sounds like fun!
I have 2 eve subs... and I almost never enter low sec/zero sec. I do PvP in games designed for PvP from the ground up (WW2 Online, the shoebox shooters, GA, APB, etc). Eve's subs continue to creep up, but if you removed the isk farmers/macro miners from the list, it'd shrink quite a bit. Then if you removed all the extra accounts from everyone, there'd probably be only a couple thousand REAL people playing ;). Seeing the screen shots of that guy 10 (I think it was, maybe it was 12)-boxing Eve made me want to puke.
But, Eve does have a place for people who don't want forced pvp to play and be successful. It's sounding like JGE dropped that plan and went with the forced PvP setup that fails every time.
Vapourware...
JGE is the new 10 year development cycle DFO... not saying that's a bad thing ;)
Make no mistake, this is a PVP game. Or very close to a combat sim. This harkens back to the days of the original Jumpgate. Back in the days when combat sims were still quite popular, before the rise of World of Warcraft and the MMO trend, which reduced gaming to endless grinds against NPC's and click-and-watch combat. Back in those days, gaming WAS Pvp. You logged on to fight other players. Classic Jumpgate said, "why just have one arena and a deathmatch? Lets expand it with a multisector persistent world and add content, economy, faction/war system". The formula worked well. It was intensely fun to fly around and blast your opponents in fights that actually took skill (remember what that was, click and watch gamers?), but at the same time be a part of a persistent world that mattered. All the content was there to support PvP. There were "Conflux", a form of NPC randomly floating around in sectors, but the majority of people merely saw them as mobile targets to practice your aim on. Nobody saw battling NPC's as your career path in Jumpgate. Nearly everybody was in it for the Faction vs Faction PVP. Because that was heart and soul of the game.
I know lately the MMO genre has pretty much conditioned gamers to think a certain way. But with Jumpgate Evolution, I think some people are looking at it completely backwards. It is not an MMO full of quests and mobs and lavish PvE content, which happens to feature consensual PvP as a side attraction to cater for PvPers. It is a combat sim with PvP at its core, which happens to provide an MMO persistent world to take part in. Flip your expectations upside down and realise what the core of the game is about, and you'll realise how absurd some of your complaints are.
This is a space game, but it couldnt be further from Eve Online. This is not Eve Online.
People saying Jumpgate Evolution forcing PVP on people is a bad thing. That is absolutely absurd. I think people have been brainwashed by MMO-kill-a-rat-and-ding mentality for too long. Imagine logging in to a deathmatch, battlesim, or first person shooter, only to complain when people actually want to fight you? Log in to a counterstrike match, only to seek out NPC's and level up shooting rats? Its a PVP GAME! I respect it's not for everybody, so perhaps this game just isnt for them. I for one am glad that this type of gaming is being resurrected.
Endlessly bullying dumb computer oppenents over and over does not have the same thrill as batling it out with a living, thinking opponent. Especially when it is based purely on skill, strategy, and wit. Not just level and equipment. I liken it to playing sports. Imagine grabbing your raquet and heading to the court to play some tennis, only to obsess over your shoelaces and new gloves, practice over and over hitting a ball against the wall, brag about your new high level headband, then go home. Thats PvE in a nutshell. Bugger that, i'd rather just play against my mates and enjoy the GAME - win or lose. While the equipment and lore is an essential part of the game, the core is still about PVP.
Its frustrating when Jumpgate Evolution is boxed in as an MMO. People make false assumptions of what "MMO" means, and it would be easier if Jumpgate was classified differently like "Massively Shooter" or something.. So, of-bloody-course it has PVP as its central focus. All else is just the trimming to make that experience in-depth and persistent.
Honeslty, I think it is time the industry coined a new term for these types of games. "MMO" seems to be associated with RPG's and level-up-whack-a-rat games, so it shouldnt be applied to games like Jumpgate Evolution.
You are more than welcome to your perspective, but I've heard this countless times before. I'm NOT interested in what ever excuses, or justifications are used to promote forced PvP. The fact is that it is and will likely remain a nich market in the west. I'm LONG past tired of looking over my shoulder, watching for gankers and griefers who get their jollies by ruining other players experience. Its too bad JGE has taken this path, as the original vision looked like it was going to be quite enjoyable. Oh well, there are many other games to play.
Vaporware
I'm concerned about the following line
Feature simple game play mechanics in a complex environment, not complex game mechanics in a simple environment. We plan on having a ton of these event sectors… we don’t want players relearning the game play mechanics with each one. We do, however, want them to be blown away by the environment each and every time.
To me that sounds like the system will lack depth and therefore re-playability. If you actually did make the system complex then the out comes won't come off as scripted. I'm tired of WoW style raid content and what I mean by that is, scripted events that, once cracked, all people have to do is follow rule book. There shouldn't be a rule book to follow.
This game sounds awesome, and all the new features we hear about periodicly sound great too. The only problem is we are not playing it. Reading the running commentary on how awesome something is, over and over and over, and how it's evolving, gets really old after awhile if nobody can actually experience it. Netdevil must have a LOT more money than we think they do, to keep a game in house for so long, even after 'pre-orders' were made.
I think I just crapped my pants after reading the example they gave at the bottom of the article. Although I think they'll probably fail to meet anything close to this, it's still exciting to know developers dream for this sort of thing.
Now if you'll excuse me *waddles to the nearest rest room*
The question is how will they handle large fleet battles without the lag monster slowing everything to a crawl? Kudos if they can do it, but I have to see it to believe it. Eve still has issues to this day and they have probably the most expensive hardware setup in the business.
Expensive hardware helps, but coding is probably the key.
Even bleeding edge hardware and brilliant software design will only take one so far. I suspect that EVE is running up against one of the consequences of a shardless system. They may literally be over running the technical capacity that exists at this point in time.
This sounds like quite a dynamic to spice up things in the universe of JGE :)
So, did they actually decide they can't compete with EVE sandbox-wise and switched it to theme park instead...?
Did they throw out all the great AI stuff they've been talking about all this time...??
I absolutely hate scripted missions made by some mission designer... Their earlier AI stuff is what got me interested in this game... NPC ships flying around for their own purposes, being able to send off an SOS signal if a player attacks them, and depending if there's ships nearby that are friendly to them, you got some serious heat on your six, or else, you might have had easy profit.
Nobody expects JGE to be massive like EVE... their star systems are all the identical anyway, EVE's size is bogus. Having 20.000+ stargates to 5.000 identical systems is a less than clever way of structuring and instancing space. Its really just annoying. And EVE pve content is the pits, designed by people who's ideas seem to run out at 3 different mission concepts. Worst, you can't fly your ship or aim your guns, its all calculated for you. In large fleet battles, you jump into a system, and the server is overloaded, so you can sit there for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, with no controls working... when you relog, you find you're dead, with a loss that equates to many hours ultra-boring cash grinding. The only way I can even deal with the cash grind is by watching tv or browsing the web at the same time.
Lots of people I know are waiting for another sandbox where you can actually fly your ship, regardless of EVE's deep economic side. EVE is for masochistic merchant souls, not for pilots who want to fly and explore.
Plenty of room for JGE to be special and succeed as a less massive mess of code than EVE is.
Plenty of time for JGE to add more stuff later, just make sure flight is good and space is not an over-instanced annoyance. Don't underestimate how much people hate instancing... of 5 people I started to play PotBS together with, 4 left because they found the instancing annoying. AoC I had 3 friends leave cause they even thought that was too much instancing. I thought AoC was ok.
The one thing EVE got right is the idea that players will make their own fun. Players don't need mission designers to tell us to do more weakly repeating things.
You just provide good flight, ships and good space, with an AI that does a good job of making it a busy world with logical possibilities.
Would you rather be handed missions to do with largely fixed enemy arrangements, except for some random spring-trap factor and fixed reward, or would you prefer to spy out NPC ships leaving an ultratanium factory, follow it at a distance and wait for a good chance to take it down, being unsure if you'll get interrupted by nearby NPC ships or other players?
To the EVE fanbois: I played it since 2003... after 6 months, I was basically just waiting for something where you can fly your own ship. Nothing ever got released. I got over 100 million skill points and the game hasn't gotten any better. I was in two great wars, repelling BoB from the North, and later kicking BoB out of Delve. The moments of fun were so short in comparison to all the work and waiting around, working at a gas station for real world money can't possibly be any less grindy.
For real, many a night, camping NOL, the fleet commanders had someone read a book to the fleet over Vent, just because you sit and sit and sit for hours - the whole night... I mean I like books and all, but here I was thinking I was gonna play a video game.