The good and the bad I found in Jumpgate Evolution at E3. The gems we didn't know about and the stuff we could do without.
Here is a brief rundown of the Jumpgate Evolution demo I received at E3 2009.
Well I was in between appointments on a very busy day so I wanted to check on a hunch. Codemasters nor Net Devil were listed as exhibitors at E3 so I figured I would hunt down the Gazillion booth and see what I could find. I found it no problem tucked away in the corner of the south hall. I sashayed up and knocked on the door. It was answered by a Gazillion employee who said after I asked that they did have time to give me a demo right away. Strange I thought as most companies were booked solid, but I was very happy to get in nonetheless.
So in I walked and I was introduced to Michael Rowland. Michael is a Codemasters employee (says producer on his card) whose voice sounded like he had just gargled with broken glass before our demo. The Gazillion booth was situated next to some headphone company that was yelling on microphones all day having contests and promoting their product so this guy had to try and talk loud enough to those he was showing the demo. Needless to say I felt sorry for him right off the bat.
Now I have rocked back and forth as far as my personal expectations of this game are concerned. There are many hot topics that have yet to be determined but most likely the game will not be another EvE Online. From what I had gathered before E3 I figured the game was going to be WoW in space with an extremely casual game play structure.
Michael and I talked about the major hot topics on the forums like death penalty and so on although he only mentioned that these were yet to be determined. However we caught each other off guard when I asked the next question: would we have avatars that we could walk around in space stations with? With a very intrigued look on his face he asked "why would you want that?". I replied "well it depends on how elaborate the character creation process is, but I don't want to spend an hour creating a character nobody will ever see. Not to mention the social aspects". It's hard to socialize as a cluster of ships sitting next to each other in space. He then answered "well I am glad to hear that point of view as we have yet to determine whether there will be avatars or not. Perhaps something that will come after release".
He then showed me around a bit flying a Quantar ship in the newbie area of the game we have all seen before. Subsequently we saw some newer areas of space that were just created before the show and frankly it was all very impressive looking. As we have all seen time and time again the graphics look great. From here he started to show me some PvP in the form of mini games. I hadn't read about these before so this was all very new. There were some team death match type games along with a point capture game that took place inside a space station. From what I saw however it didn't feel there was much of a difference between this and me running around in Team Fortress 2 with a gun doing point captures.
The next part of the game he showed was the part that really changed my whole outlook on the game in a positive way. He showed me a space station, and then proceeded to tell me that this space station was able to be captured and owned by a guild. The space around it could be controlled by a guild as well including resource areas. You could mine and craft in this area for cheaper than if you did it in regular space. It's also worth mentioning that the best resources were to be found in these guild controlled PvP areas. Then came the kicker. You had to protect this from being captured by other guilds which really for the first time brought not only real world PvP but real loss to this game. You can lose this major investment of time and funds which is your space station along with all the rare resource areas in the space around the station. This came as great news to me and those who I told in earnest after the show.
CORRECTION: In talking with Mike further through email it is not Guilds that control these space stations or space but entire nations which changes things drastically. I have asked him to clarify in an email what he means. Once he sends it i will paste the entire qoute here.
Ok Mike emailed me back and here is the qoute.
"Correct, right now stations are controlled by the Nations and provide national benefits as you mentioned in the rest of the article, manufacturing rights, additional nation rating, etc. We are also looking to expand this system to allow for station maintenance by the nation and possibly more which I can’t divulge right now as it’s still on the drawing board. Yes other nations can fight for control of sectors of space which are already under control and will have to battle against the battle stations that are built, plus take control over the sector beacons. Guilds / Squads are actually going to be a driving key in strategising the space conflicts with established guilds / squads working together to control these areas of space. We will be building the guild system up to include rewards and encourage participation in these ongoing conflicts. Controlling these areas will be beneficial to all."
Well that is about all I have to share and hope I brought you some new information and a point of view you can relate to. I actually was offered some play time on the game but I just couldn't stay any longer due to other scheduled appointments. There is just so much to see and do at E3 with so little time.
I would like to thank Gazillion Entertainment and Michael Rowland for taking the time to show us JGE at E3 2009. By the way guys, the dog tag memory stick pretty but a pain; I had to dissect it to plug it into my comp :).
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