Profile: IstvanND
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• • JUMPGATE HAS BEEN OPEN SINCE 2001

  • Let me try to validate some of the comments in this thread a little bit.  First of all, it's true that Jumpgate Evolution is not just a cleanup and revamp of Jumpgate Classic.  It will be a substantially different game in significant ways.  However, it is very important to note that the original chief designer of Jumpgate Classic, Scott Brown, is still heavily involved in overall design of Jumpgate Evolution, and you should consider that both games are attempts to fulfill his design goals (at very different levels of resources and technology).

    Jumpgate Classic was the result of a tiny team of developers with little prior game industry experience building their first MMOG on a shoestring.  With late 1990's tech.  Jumpgate Evolution is the effort of a somewhat larger and vastly more seasoned team now including experienced developers, backed by a stable company and an established publisher.  Naturally the products are going to be quite different in terms of polish and technical maturity.  Jumpgate Classic reveals itself to be a quirky, somewhat niche or even "cult classic" product, confusing to many yet deeply beloved by others.  Jumpgate Evolution is aiming at the mainstream of online gamers, though we of course expect it to continue to appeal very strongly to flight simulation and twitch/FPS fans and have made many of our design decisions accordingly.

    Jumpgate Evolution will include and extend the kinds of gameplay available in Jumpgate Classic, attempting to improve upon and go well beyond what exists in the older game.  We're also adding many things that Jumpgate Classic never had, things which players of modern MMO games simply expect.  A vast number of things that the original Jumpgate Classic design team or the game's later maintainers (myself included among the latter) wanted to do with Classic, are now being done with Evolution.   We've made logical extensions to features, improved the game's backend infrastructure in more ways than I can keep track of, and made huge technical improvements to the capabilities of the fundamental systems such as rendering and network layer (and the old game itself was never even pushed to its technical limits).  The user interface has been utterly redesigned, several times now, resulting in a tremendous and demonstrable improvement to the new player experience.  Witness the playability seen at the Codemasters Connect '08 event.  That was an extremely pre-alpha showing, and we've worked hard since then to make things even better.

    In so many ways Jumpgate Evolution is a competely new product.  However, some of the lore of Jumpgate Classic, the feel of that game, and most especially the excitement and compelling nature of its gameplay, are all things that we are working to carry over into Jumpgate Evolution.  I have very little doubt that people will judge the games to be two of a kind.

  • Posted: 10/10/08 4:12 PM
    Jumpgate Evolution
• • What ENGINE?

  • I hope Darkfall isn't vaporware.  Those guys claim to be trying some very interesting things that haven't been done successfully in a mainstream product.  Assuming I can put together the time to actually play, I'm looking forward to trying the game myself and seeing how the product does in today's online game market. 

  • Posted: 10/09/08 1:59 PM
    Jumpgate Evolution
• • What ENGINE?

  • Please note that DANCER is not a development engine at all, but simply a nickname used for the original flight physics code.

  • Posted: 9/23/08 2:11 PM
    Jumpgate Evolution
• • General: Laura Genender Memorial

  • Terribly sorry to hear this sad news about Laura.  I met her as Taera when she moderated an IRC dev chat some of my teammates and I participated in several months ago.  She was very professional as well as delightful to work with in that often difficult environment.  My humble condolences go to her family, friends, and coworkers.

     "May the gods go with you, and watch over you, in all the empty places where you must walk." - old Egyptian blessing

  • Posted: 8/20/08 3:46 PM
    General Discussion
• • is this like eve?

  •  

    Originally posted by Kyleran
    

     The developers have been quoted as saying they one day envision large scale fleet battles that involve capital ships, so yes, there will be large ships that are piloted by a joystick.  

    Sorry, Kyleran, I'm afraid it's as Newt indicated.  We're not deliberately trying to be tricksy.

    Although it is absolutely true that we envision large scale fleet battles involving capital ships, we are not presently  considering allowing players to directly pilot the capital ships.  Piloting capital ships with joysticks is not necessarily an eventuality the game will support.

    What we are considering is permitting players to call in and assign targets to capital ships, but this is expected to be a privilege restricted to players with very high political ratings with their nation, or are leaders of powerful squads (our term for guilds/corps).

     

     

  • Posted: 6/05/08 11:58 AM
    Jumpgate Evolution