The Evolution of Jumpgate
An Inside Look at the
Revitalization of NetDevil’s First MMOG
By
Cody “Micajah” Bye
When people think of NetDevil, the games that pop readily to
mind are LEGO Universe, Auto Assault, and Warmonger. They consider
NetDevil to be the development team that “blows $#!@
up”, as the studio that just opened up brand new offices in
Louisville, Colo., and as a fairly successful group that has shown a
fulfilled product each time they (publicly) go to work.
However, not many people know the background of NetDevil, with
their basement beginnings (Scott Brown’s basement, actually)
and humble origins. Although NetDevil has existed for ten years, most
folks are incredibly unfamiliar with the company before Auto Assault.
Stranger still, most individuals are not familiar with
NetDevil’s first game, an MMOG by the name of Jumpgate.
alt="Hermann Petersheck" title="Hermann Petersheck"
name="photo_j" border="0" height="129" width="150">
Hermann Petersheck, Producer of NetDevil's Jumpgate
Evolution
Originally, Jumpgate was – and still is –
a space combat simulator. Unlike many of the sci-fi / space games that
are prowling the MMOG marketplace, Jumpgate allows for direct flight
control of your spaceship, more akin to games like Privateer, Wing
Commander, and X-wing vs. Tie Fighter than EVE Online or Earth and
Beyond. You control your ship with a movement of the mouse or a
direction on the joystick, and you fire with your mouse buttons,
joystick triggers, or wherever you map that function to. But as
NetDevil’s first game, many of the core elements developed in
the system were quite dated, everything from the gameplay features to
the graphics foundation.
To many gamers, it’s a mark of pride to
“Know Your Roots”; it’s a term used to
describe the fundamental aspects you learned on your first video game.
For many of us, that was the original Nintendo Entertainment System or
an old Atari, Odyssey, or Intellivision. For NetDevil, Jumpgate is the
epitome of their “roots” and instead of tossing the
game aside like so many development companies tend to do, NetDevil put
together a small team to expand and fully realize the true potential of
their first MMOG.
Over the course of the last ten months, NetDevil has been
overhauling, remarketing, and generally rediscovering the essence of
Jumpgate. Rumors of a Jumpgate redesign have been flying around the
Internet since the early part of this year, with more
“concrete” explanations of a revitalization project becoming
frequent as the team approached the summer convention season. As an
added exclamation point to their open house / 10th anniversary party,
NetDevil went live with the Jumpgate Evolution website and has already
started the beta sign-up process.
alt="Close-up of a Jumpgate" title="Close-up of a Jumpgate"
name="photo_j" border="0" height="113" width="150">
Jumpgates are extremely impressive, especially when
viewed up close.
As a title that was released in 2001 after a fairly lengthy
development cycle, Jumpgate has always been criticized for having
graphics that were too dark, too open for many users. Ultimately, space
can be a very uninviting place, and that doesn’t bode well
for people used to the bright colors and flashy animations of
land-based games. But space is also “fantastic” in
its own right and can (and should) be filled with stars, nebulas,
planets, and asteroids. “We tried to make very
saturated-looking space,” said Hermann Petersheck,
Jumpgate’s producer. “The original Jumpgate was
very dark, and that wasn’t very accessible to most people. We
wanted to make it easier for gamers to get into our world”
And they’ve certainly succeeded. The screenshots
that are provided in this article, along with the gallery
we’ve posted for everyone to view, give examples of the
amount of detail and color present in Jumpgate’s space, but
when you fly around there’s even more to see. In the gameplay
example we saw, you could look at a planet’s dark side and
see thousands of tiny lights, representing the civilization located on
the planet. The space stations and jumpgates are also immense, with an
individual ship barely measuring up to one of the huge
“petals” on the jumpgate.
“The original game was big, but empty,”
Petersheck confided. “We wanted to fill Jumpgate Evolution
up with these monolithic structures to fill the empty space for the
players.” The press was even lucky enough to view a prototype
of the “player run” stations that gamers will
eventually buy in Jumpgate Evolution. “Players can set their
own price on these stations. They can also insert
‘modules’ on them that have refineries, refueling
stations, and other elements that they can allow other players to
access.”
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Jumpgate Evolution Game Page.
