[Raz]

RK, multidirectional thrust does NOT make for a 'more complicated game' any more than Counter-Strike is a 'more complicated' version of Jumpgate. I'll make things simple and concise.

I view that being an 'ace pilot' as opposed to just being a guy in a FPS means that you have the ability to make your ship do things it's just not DESIGNED to do. It's surpassing the limitations of your ship.

Jumpgate fighters can only forward thrust.

Were you in beta? I was. Everyone sucked, because noone had experience. Noone could circle strafe, noone could divebomb, noone could do practically anything. People would joust with ammo, for God's sake.

Why? Noone knew any better, because the flight physics were complicated, and noone had experience. There was no such thing as a 'ace pilot'.

Spend hours nowadays under training from a good pilot, and you can begin to learn these advanced maneuvers. Sometimes it takes a person many fights to perfect these basic tenets of Jumpgate flight. Sometimes someone never can.

Comparison: I tried Vendetta online. When I went out to kill those bot things, Know what I did? I held left.

Bingo, circle strafing. It's not the same. When you have too many movement options, you aren't fighting your ship's limitations anymore.

In vendetta, you can juke back and forth with ease, do barrel rolls with the touch of 2 buttons, halt momentum and go backward quickly, etc etc etc. It doesn't even feel like flight.

In Jumpgate, when I was barrel rolling and otherwise trying to evade fire, I'd be all over my joystick trying to make my movements as fluid as possible to dodge.

It's just not the same. When I see people doing beautiful maneuvers on Jumpgate, I'm genuinely impressed, because it takes a real pilot to do it. They're surpassing the limits of their craft. THAT's piloting.

[Ambrosius]

Nice post, Raz! Looking forward to seeing you around again.

In so many ways, the beaty of Jumpgate is it's downfall. So many MMOGers want to "acquire" and "train" their skills. Jumpgate requires REAL skills -- whether it's learning to fly PvP (which is about both flying and situational awareness) as well as understanding and "working" the econ -- which takes brains, intuition, creativity and persistence.

Jumpgate is very much a "sim" in these respects. And I think it's too much like work for the traditional MMOGer who would rather do offline "training" (e.g. Eve) and "build" their character by acquiring talents and skills.

I'm not a gamer, so it has never bothered me -- in fact it's the thing that makes Jumpgate so interesting for me.

[Jump]

I am proud of the fact, that over years of playing Jumpgate, I was able to master and perfect the "deer in the headlight" look.

[RazorsKiss]

*shrug*

Debating over Jumpgate isn't worth going into more detail than my first post on it. I no longer play it, and the players wouldn't want me back anyway. They don't like "religious" people there. This has been conclusively proven.

Anyway...

I still stand by my opinion. Less options + less manueverabilty = teh suck, comparatively.

I never played Jumpgate because of the flight model. I played in spite of it.

I've never made any bones about that

It's not worth debating.

[Raz]

And games like Vendetta make me scowl in disgust because people jockey around like a 3d game of tank wars.

The bottom line is that it's not feasible in ship construction or design to have significantly powerful thrusters on every side of a ship. it'd cripple itself in fuel storage, mass to thrust ratio, and available equipment room.

Not only is flight in Jumpgate a challenge, it's more realistic. If you enjoy having every possible flight maneuver a key away, you also need to accept that anyone else is going to be as good as you.

For example, I doubt anyone in Vendetta or Allegiance is ever going to achieve the iconic status of Ridgeway or Liet in terms of sheer skill. Look at what THEY can do with only forward thrust.

As a final note, less maneuverability is not 'the suck'. If you go by that philosophy let's just take away all inertia and let you instantly change directions at will. That'd take incredible skill, right? You'd have SO MANY OPTIONS.

Oh, wait. you'd just tap random keys to make yourself impossible to predict, while spraying randomly at your opponent too. That's what all those options do. They make the flight impossible to predict, and it's just an FPS, and not flight anymore. Making your flight unpredictable is supposed to be HARD.

[Ambrosius]

Debating over JG isn't worth going into more detail than my first post on it. I no longer play it, and the players wouldn't want me back anyway. They don't like "religious" people there. This has been conclusively proven.

I don't know the details of what went on there -- not sure I really want to. I'm a religious person (I think) -- part of why I was most comfortable as a Quant and did the whole Brotherhood/monk thing. But I also believe that discussing religion and politics in diverse forums (like at work or in Jumpgate) is a dangerous thing and rarely has good outcomes.

But back to that flight model . . .

[GrimGriz]

oh no, if we get off topic I get to throw my 2 cents in:

Being religious on the internet is like being gay in the military - don't ask, don't tell.

[fluid]

Originally Posted by GrimGriz

oh no, if we get off topic I get to throw my 2 cents in:

Being religious on the internet is like being gay in the military - don't ask, don't tell.

Also seen as "being a republican on the internet..."

[Jump]

Come on, stop hijaking a good thread.

[RazorsKiss]

It's a rehijack of an already hijacked thread moved to make it a dehijack.

viva la 1999!