[SpiritOne]

Well, they made us sign non disclosure agreements when we walked in, and they did not let us have any screen shots, nor did they give us any dates, nor did they let us pilot anything. They did however give us a tour of their nice new building (by the way, they have a Boat load of Legos), showed us a ton of beautiful conceptual art, and then we sat down with Istivan and got to watch while he piloted through several station sectors, completed a couple missions, blew up some pirates, and even saw a few flux. Then they said, talk us up.

In a word, GORGEOUS!!! Absolutely gorgeous. Also, from a perspective point of view everything is huge, the rocks, the stations, everything (except your tee tiny ship). For all the flak they got about not having enough eye candy in Jumpgate Classic, well, they have plenty in Jumpgate Evolution.

Lets be brutally honest though, eye candy will only get you so far, what about gameplay. We talked about that too. We talked about the differences in the camps between the PvEr's and the PvPr's and what each group expects out of the game, and what makes each group happy. We talked about other games and what other games have done right, and what other games have done wrong. We talked about what major differences Evolution will feature in terms of tools available to the players.

What I saw was a game that is still (unfortunately) very far away from a beta. A lot of questions that Devo and I asked were greated with "That feature is not yet implemented" or "Were not sure yet how we are going to implement that" Thats not a bad thing though, because what I did see appeared to be fairly well polished in terms of it "looked good" from over Istivans shoulder.

We got to look at a lot of ships, and a lot of stations, we got to see the new AI in place and working, out there doing its thing.

We talked about leveling for equipment vs skill based gameplay and trying to find the happy balance in between. Obviously, they have a targeted goal of players (and I was happy to hear it was a realistic number, not some pie in the sky WoW 4million subscribers) and you have to find a way to keep those players happy enough to continue to pay to play. There will be levels, there is experience gained, but there may be more than 1 way to gain experience. Meaning you may not have to go out an PvE for 3 weeks straight before your a high enough level to PvP. We talked about the use of instanced battlegrounds in WoW and how something similar "could" be applied in a Jumpgate setting making use of the old simulator. Thats not to say this is a feature being implemented, it was honestly more us musing and discussing how WoW uses it to keep the PvPr's happy.

We discussed the use of different servers for the live game, or shards. Specifically how there will be 1 server that will obviously be heavily populated with nerds, err Jumpgate Classic players. Their obvious worry is that particular server may get overloaded. We as a community should sit down and decide what shard we want to play on before the game launches, in case they don't have the ability to switch shards right away. I wont be happy unless Sol Navy is under my targeting reticule.

Im not sure really how much I can/should say about the ships. The Quantar ships (sunfishes) may be growing on me, especially after I saw a couple of them maneuvering in space, but both the Octavian and Solrain ships look great. The Octavian ships just look like they are ready to pounce. The art guys are really out doing themselves. I saw a brand new flux ship, like nothing I have seen in sceenshots or released materials yet, and I saw it rendered and flying in game. It looked alive, it was great. I saw something else, flux related, something very, very big. Very incredible.

Also, we talked a little bit about them doing something a little personal for us. As you know, AQM pilot Rockdoctor passed away late last year, expect to see a small memorial for him.

Thanks again to the folks at NetDevil.

[Tstrike3]

Spirit

Thanks for the information and excellent review by far.

*smiles*

Seems I was more right than even I thought.

[Diver012]

The thing that strikes me the most about everything I have read so far is the absolute passion they have for Jumpgate. They have had a vision from the start and have never given up on that vision...

I cant ever remember another group of people that was as open with their playerbase as these guys are. I am soo looking forward to seeing this game in action...

[Injustice]

Only a little over two weeks to go

Although I would very much love to get a tour of the new ND HQ, Vegas will have to do.

[biteme]

It sure sounds like they actually have been listening to us and that is some what comforting to know that.

BTW can you say what is the targeted numbers of subscribers there shooting for is?

[Istanbul]

Something less than 4 million. So, right around 3.9?

[Radi]

Originally Posted by SpiritOne

Well, they made us sign non disclosure agreements when we walked in, and they did not let us have any screen shots, nor did they give us any dates, nor did they let us pilot anything.

Hmm something did change. Is it because earlier there wasn't enough content, or something else?

[Istanbul]

I find it interesting that they signed an NDA, and then were told to go spread the word... LOL

[Jump]

They didn't let take a spin? That's odd.

[SpiritOne]

Istivan said he would be happy with 25000. And then detailed where he like them to come from.

[Lordopic]

At last for some reason I find it more comforting to have a report from a Jumpgate player, than a ND employee telling me how good it looks or how great it is going to be, I?m still in the *wait and see mode* but the light is getting brighter.


You should post this over on the Jumpgate Evolution forums as the game is taking a bashing in some threads. Maybe to do with the game is so far from beta and we have a forum on the rampage and out of control full of speculation and not enough feedback from any one.


Thank you SpirtOne this one post has given me some hope back.

[biteme]

25000 yay!! a new number to speculate on 2 shards in the US one in europe and one down under