[Chicod]

My suggestion to improve the game is somewhat similar to Jumps about creating factions... but I would add a component that ties in not only YOUR rating with a faction, but also your Squad's rating with the faction. That causes your group to be more tight knit, but also can add complexity when dealing with other squads of mostly an opposite faction. If you wanted to get all fancy, you could tie this in to the bounty system.

[Eraser55]

there are so many things to concider that this kind of universe will never work in jumpgate.

want safe areas. stay in reg and join a big squad. or pay someone to protect you.

the rag,. to bad for your friends if they leave a game cause they play in fear.

Jumpgate universe should never have any kind of safety features like faction only, It should be up to players to protect their faction space. If they cant. well.. hide.. run.. spend some of your trillions hiring mercs..

[Tim]

You are clearly a sensitive guy, mr. eraser

[TheRag]

Originally Posted by Eraser55

the rag,. to bad for your friends if they leave a game cause they play in fear.

Are you really that simple minded? Fear? Why? They aren't really being hurt. They just couldn't play the game. They got tired of being a chew toy, and always dieing and having to pay the cost of a lost ship. And how much fun is it to die every time some lame jerk shoots you just because? Oh, and if not for that, they would still be a paying customer.

[Injustice]

Originally Posted by TheRag

Are you really that simple minded? Fear? Why? They aren't really being hurt. They just couldn't play the game. They got tired of being a chew toy, and always dieing and having to pay the cost of a lost ship. And how much fun is it to die every time some lame jerk shoots you just because? Oh, and if not for that, they would still be a paying customer.

Outer space is a dangerous place, somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but that's been one of the main themes of Jumpgate from the beginning. Jumps idea (under the right circumstances) could continue that theme while also allowing for a "safe" zone to nurture new pilots.

Also, throwing around OOC personal attacks in this thread is childish and pointless.

[TheRag]

Originally Posted by Injustice

Also, throwing around OOC personal attacks in this thread is childish and pointless.

You're right. It was just a knee jerk reaction to your post.

[vorlon31]

My thinking on the whole safe sector philosophy is to open up and engage as many different player styles as possible and create levels of gameplay where people can interact with others in predetermined zones. Bums on seats behind computers. The 'space is dangerous' comment that gets frequently shot off is why jumpgate, as is, remained so niche. If you applied that philosophy to a game like eve for example, do you think it would hold as many players as it does?

The trick would be to make large portions a games space to be dangerous, launch at your own risk kind of stuff and also varying degrees of protection all the way back to core stations so that player types can gravitate to where they wish to be.

These zones would in turn form their own sub communities of players who migrate up and down through the differing degrees as their gamestyle wishes change over time and who in turn create the larger community. This is something that other games have gotten right from day one and they have vast incomes for their owners/devs/etc with multiple communities of like minded players interwoven amid the greater community that encompasses everyone from peaceful miner to rampant serial killing bad ass without forcing the extremes into the same barrel of existence and excluding none.

A frontier is only a frontier if its got civilisation behind it, alone its just chaos and saying that safe zones should be just for noobs is narrow minded too, its about degrees of safety - its them bums on seats behind computers we want, the more players in game with their gamestyles accepted the better for any game dev's pocket.

[Injustice]

Originally Posted by vorlon31

My thinking on the whole safe sector philosophy is to open up and engage as many different player styles as possible and create levels of gameplay where people can interact with others in predetermined zones. Bums on seats behind computers. The 'space is dangerous' comment that gets frequently shot off is why jumpgate, as is, remained so niche. If you applied that philosophy to a game like eve for example, do you think it would hold as many players as it does?

The trick would be to make large portions a games space to be dangerous, launch at your own risk kind of stuff and also varying degrees of protection all the way back to core stations so that player types can gravitate to where they wish to be.

These zones would in turn form their own sub communities of players who migrate up and down through the differing degrees as their gamestyle wishes change over time and who in turn create the larger community. This is something that other games have gotten right from day one and they have vast incomes for their owners/devs/etc with multiple communities of like minded players interwoven amid the greater community that encompasses everyone from peaceful miner to rampant serial killing bad ass without forcing the extremes into the same barrel of existence and excluding none.

A frontier is only a frontier if its got civilisation behind it, alone its just chaos and saying that safe zones should be just for noobs is narrow minded too, its about degrees of safety - its them bums on seats behind computers we want, the more players in game with their gamestyles accepted the better for any game dev's pocket.

Actually, EVE holds to much the same principle as Jumpgate. Gate camping and random PvP happens all the time there, even in regulated space. The difference is that, since the EVE universe is so vast, a gate being camped won't deny you passage to your destination, you can just plot a new course a couple of sectors longer to get where you need to go.

There's also the "pipeline" mechanics of EVE that mean ships are only really vulnerable while jumping from sector to sector. While travelling through a sector in hyperspace, you're relatively safe from everything. The 0.0 free-for-all sectors are located out on the fringes of the star map as well so most players who aren't PvP oriented could spend years playing EVE and never step foot outside of reg space. PvP in EVE is also a lot more structured and linear, meaning it's infinitely more predictable.

[TheRag]

Originally Posted by Injustice

Actually, EVE holds to much the same principle as Jumpgate. Gate camping and random PvP happens all the time there, even in regulated space. The difference is that, since the EVE universe is so vast, a gate being camped won't deny you passage to your destination, you can just plot a new course a couple of sectors longer to get where you need to go.

There's also the "pipeline" mechanics of EVE that mean ships are only really vulnerable while jumping from sector to sector. While travelling through a sector in hyperspace, you're relatively safe from everything. The 0.0 free-for-all sectors are located out on the fringes of the star map as well so most players who aren't PvP oriented could spend years playing EVE and never step foot outside of reg space. PvP in EVE is also a lot more structured and linear, meaning it's infinitely more predictable.

And which game has something over 175 thousand players?

Vorlons post above says it perfectly.

[Injustice]

Originally Posted by TheRag

And which game has something over 175 thousand players?

Vorlons post above says it perfectly.

Jumpgate being a twitch flight sim more than anything else makes it a niche game. Despite EVE and Jumpgate boh being in space, they're still apples & oranges.

[vorlon31]

its an age old discussion that I simply fail to understand. Why the 'my way or the highway' principles? Surely you can see that with more players in game the pvp elements will thrive like never before just with player role migration as they role shift?

Jumpgate is a product, its business, one that is having some reinvestment put in at last. Now, if it were my money and reputation going to ride on the back of that investment, I would try this time to live up to the massively multiplayer element and less to the minority multiplayer ethos.

And lets be honest, Netdevil need to show that they can make massively multiplayer at some point esp with the lego dudes expecting them to produce something for the varied age group lego communities.

[Injustice]

With game developers, that's exactly what you risk when it comes to MMO's. The environment is constantly changing, constantly shifting from one abstract point of view to the other. In the case of Jumpgate as it exists today, you're looking at the perfect example. As much as we sit here and fiddle with ideas or speculate about potential changes, we haven't got a hand in what the final product will be, and truth be told, when it comes to the player base, we are a vocal minority. I'll wager the farm that the current active player base of jumpgate is less than 1% of what the dev team is striving to create a product for. This applies to everything from general gameplay principles, all the way down to whether or not there will be a server wipe.