Jumpgate Evolution Dev Interview, Dogfighting Video 66
Massively recently interviewed Hermann Peterscheck, a producer for NetDevil's upcoming space-fighter MMO Jumpgate Evolution. He talks about the UI and the huge level of customization, as well as basic flight and zone design. Also available is a video showcasing space combat inside an asteroid belt.
"We're still sort of working on [ship progression], but the idea is that you pick your first ship at level five, which is about an hour or so of gameplay. Basically there's sort of forks, so you start out in kind of a beginner ship and then there's like fighting types of ships, mining types of ships, cargo haulers and within that there's sort of sub-classes. So like, there's light fighters, medium fighters, heavy fighters, bombers. There's haulers that carry a lot of stuff, but move kind of slowly and there's haulers that carry lost stuff, short little courier shuttles that move really quickly."
Re:I don't think so (Score:4, Interesting)
If a fake sound helped identify the type of craft, I'd use it.
If a fake doppler sound effect rapidly helped convey that something is approaching (whenever fake sound is played it ascends in pitch) or leaving (descends in pitch), then I'd use that too.
I'd make a fighter spacecraft be able to shoot in almost any direction - in a vacuum you can shoot stuff sideways or backwards without the atmosphere causing "inconvenience".
BTW, I've always thought it might be interesting to have network equipment make sounds that are correlated to what they are doing - via say network monitoring software. Then a sysadmin could get used to a "normal baseline sound", and one day maybe the sysadmin might just detect that something is not quite right, way before things go belly up, and before the conventional warnings come in.
Re:Dogfighting? I think not... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you need to read up on NetDevil a little more before passing judgement. This is a small group of developers who built the original Jumpgate in their free time out of their own pocket because they thought it was cool.
To respond to the GP and above... if you missed it from the comments in the article (and from original Jumpgate) the entire game environment is based on Newtonian physics. If you are piloting a large cargo ship with a full cargo load you have to deal with inertia issues, i.e. doing a full reverse burn at full thrust for a few seconds before you even think about docking at a station.
Re:Dogfighting? I think not... (Score:3, Interesting)
My kingdom for a Freespace 2.
It's Vendetta-online all over (Score:3, Interesting)
Reading their Features page, this game seems just a clone of vendetta online [vendetta-online.com]. Twitch-based combat ? Three nations to pick from ? Bots-shooting grind ? Pirate minor factions ? Epic battles with capital ships ? Player-driven economy where you deliver needed goods to space stations ? The only feature missing is the asteroid mining.
"there's like fighting types of ships, mining types of ships, cargo haulers and within that there's sort of sub-classes. So like, there's light fighters, medium fighters, heavy fighters, bombers. There's haulers that carry a lot of stuff, but move kind of slowly and there's haulers that carry lost stuff, short little courier shuttles that move really quickly"
Ah, yes, kinda like the Centurion, Behemoth, Raptor, etc...