Steve "Istvan" Hartmeyer, a developer on Jumpgate, has written an insider's perspective developer journal on the evolution of NetDevil's space-based MMORPG over the last few years.
;) Jumpgate's development over the past few years can be split into two phases: a post-release phase and a post-expansion phase. During the post-release phase, NetDevil spent most of its energy ensuring the company's survival, since the original US publisher for Jumpgate, 3DO, relinquished control of the game back to us in late 2001, and in fact went bankrupt shortly thereafter. To keep the company going, NetDevil obtained a contract with NCSoft to develop a new MMORPG title, Auto Assault (now nearing release), while a limited development team continued to maintain Jumpgate.
As NetDevil focused on our Auto Assault contract and started a growth surge, the remaining Jumpgate team produced "Episode 2: 'Attack of the Conflux'", which released in March 2003. This expansion added player-owned stations (Jumpgate's equivalent of housing seen in other MMORPGs), more ships to fly, more AI features, piracy support, and numerous smaller enhancements to the game. |
You can read the full journal here.
