target="_blank">Space operas are similar to the
way they're named. These immense science fiction movies and television
shows are epic in their scale and grand in their scope. Although we
rarely target="_blank">see a fat lady singing, these
forms of entertainment commonly have massive spaceship battles where
enormous capital ships launch hundreds of fighters that swarm around
the ships like target="_blank">bees around a hive.


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Jumpgate Evolution is hoping to reinvent space combat for video gamers.

While this is a common sort of experience in movies and television
shows, the restrictions of video gaming systems has - for the most part
- eliminated massive spaceship battles from coming to the interactive
entertainment format. As much as we all desired to be href="http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/millenniumfalcon/index.html"
target="_blank">Han Solo, href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPltMMvhxpY">Wedge
Antilles, or href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7NaxBxFWSo"
target="_blank">Alex Rogan (The Last Starfighter
anyone?), it just wasn't possible with the systems available. However,
the developers at NetDevil have tried to bring those sort of spaceship
combat to computer gamers for years, and now they are closer than ever
with their upcoming MMOG, href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/306"
target="_blank">Jumpgate Evolution (JGE).
Recently, Codemasters (the game's publisher) announced that JGE had
achieved over 150,000 beta registrations, and they're hoping to press
into the closed beta phase in the very near future.



Since it's been a few months since Ten Ton Hammer checked in with the
Jumpgate Evolution crew, we got on the phone with NetDevil's lead man,
Hermann Peterscheck, who took the time to update our staff with some of
the newest details on the upcoming game.



Perhaps some of the most exciting details I learned about Jumpgate
Evolution in the interview was the fact that capital ships are
not only going to be included, but that players will be fighting,
protecting and interacting with them in major sequences. With an Anakin
Sywalker - or should we say href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anakin_Skywalker"
target="_blank">"Ani" Skywalker - like "Yippee!"
we listened to Hermann discuss some of the more intriguing parts of the
capital ships and how players are going to interact with them.



"They’re going to be a big part of the game," Peterscheck
answered. "Just the other day, the guy that’s working on the
capital ships had two of them in the game fighting each other, and
there were swarms of AI starships fighting with them. It’s
that whole Star Wars sci-fi giant space combat that we’re
trying to recreate in our game."



"I don’t want to talk details until we’ve locked
everything down and we can actually show something," Peterscheck
continued. "That said, I think people are going to be very impressed.
They’re definitely a mechanic that we’re going to
use in PvP and PvE. You might have a “destroy the enemy
fleet” sort of scenario in PvP, or have to fight a giant ship
that you’ll have to go take out in PvE. When those things are
flying around and launching ships, it’s very, very cool."


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There's nothing more exciting than a giant ship bearing down on your little pea shooter, right?

While the closed beta testing for Jumpgate Evolution is still in the
starting gate, waiting to be released like href="http://horseracing.about.com/od/famoushorses/a/aa052304a.htm"
target="_blank">Man O'War during his racing days,
the NetDevil team has been doing plenty of internal and focus group
testing on their space action MMO. With this in mind, I asked
Peterscheck what people really found appealing when they first sat down
to play through Jumpgate Evolution. What portion of the game really
caught their fancy?



"Our experience from watching people play the game tells us that people
like and respond well to large scale battles, fighting massive enemies,
PvP, and then the exploration side of the game," Peterscheck said. "On
the subject of exploration, if companies don't have enough
diversification in their environments, players burn out even if the
mechanics are great. target="_blank">World of Warcraft is very good at
making players feel like they're entering a whole new area when they
move from zone to zone. We've tried to emulate that and give players
completely different areas when they jump from area to area, and it's
cool to see players enjoying that experience and saying 'Wow, this is
cool! Wow, this is cool!'"



Exploration can certainly lead to some interesting encounters,
especially if an individual happens to wander into a zone that houses
some more difficult enemies than a player is ready to handle. That sort
of experience either ends in a quick death or retreating faster than href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM5Gwzk3Vfc"
target="_blank">Bugs Bunny from Elmer Fudd. My
next question to Hermann revolved around the idea of helping a player
feel heroic while still keeping the difficulty level appropriate for
that player's experience. Hermann's answer was quite epic, and here's
what he had to say:


style="font-style: italic;">We’ll definitely have
enemies of varying skill, and this will be represented by a
“level” that we give the NPCs in the game. If the
player is level 10 and the enemies are level 15, they’re
obviously going to be much more challenging than if they are at five. I
think that system works well and has been a proven mechanic in games.
style="font-style: italic;">


"But I think the
challenge of making players feel heroic is the real hard part that
designers have to face. It’s the design challenge; you want
to make something challenging enough that you feel like you overcame
something, but not so challenging that it’s impossible. I
think the only real way to do it is to tweak things till the feel that
way and feel right. But it’s important, as a game developer,
to believe that you’re creating a heroic experience for the
player rather than punishing the player and trying to beat them.

style="font-style: italic;">


We’re not
trying to make experiences to “beat” people, we
want to compel them. Sometimes that may mean making something that is
incredibly difficult and takes tons of time and strategy to defeat a
particular boss. But in other cases, it just means that you play a
little longer and get a little stronger, and you can take out that ship
that was previously very difficult.

style="font-style: italic;">


There is no real magic
bullet for that.




The other side of that
is all the little things that come into play. If you’re
fighting a whole group of ships, it’s how the ships look or
sound when they explode. Or the sounds of the missiles being fired. Or
the sound of the engines. Do they look like mean ships? All of these
play into the idea of getting that adrenaline rush when you get into
the dogfight.


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Can Jumpgate Evolution bring the space combat genre back to life?

As the final question to part one of our interview, one of the biggest
reasons the Ten Ton Hammer staff contacted Hermann again was to discuss
the 150,000 beta applications and what that means for the future of the
game. Although mainstream titles like href="http://warhammer.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank">Warhammer
Online and the World of Warcraft beta tests boasted hundreds
of thousands of beta testers each, it's no small feat to capture the
gaze of fans without even having a closed beta test active. Trying to
find testers, especially without a permanent beta test going on, is
like trying to herd cats. So how did Peterscheck feel about their
accomplishment?



"We feel really good about it," Hermann said. "It’s exciting to think that we’ve got
150,000 people anxious to get in the game and we’re not even
in a large player population beta stage yet. "



"Most of the beta sign-ups you see for a game come after people have
logged into the game for the first time and are talking to their
friends letting them know how cool the game is inside," he finished.
"It’s definitely motivational for us."



If you'd like to learn more about Jumpgate Evolution and read the
conclusion to our entire interview, make sure you keep reading Ten Ton
Hammer!


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Jumpgate Evolution Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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