Jumpgate: Evolution

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 11th, 2009, 17:56

Today I read an interview with one of the JGE devs which shed some light on the gameplay and changed my expectations of the game somewhat.

Docking: Is done manually, and apparently it's not that easy. Later level stations may have you lose your ship if you cock it up. Personally I can see that getting very old very quickly - you survive a hard mission then die because your phone rings while you're docking and you prang it. Or not even that - for those of us who play(ed) Eve, imagine how many times you've docked and then picture having to concentrate on it every time or risk dying. Fun huh?

Cargo: There won't be a big one-instance hangar for your gear, but there might be a smaller facility that you can access anywhere. It wasn't too clear. Either way, this settles concerns that there'll be no need for cargo ships - there will be.

Piracy: Those cargo ships I mentioned? If you blow them up they respawn with their cargo and a small repair bill. I've mixed feelings on this - on the one hand gankers are less likely to fuck you up. On the other, where's the risk involved in trading and where's the gain to be had in piracy?

Ganking: Jumpgates will have a weapons-off area that should in theory be a safe haven from people waiting to insta-gank you when you come through. However, running to these might come down to being able to evade enemy fire long enough for your boost engines to get online and bug you out. Whether or not this is a test in skill or an exercise in futility remains to be seen, but I got the impression that the devs took the hardcore stance of allowing PvPers to horse other players into a fight whether they wanted to or not.

Death: Not as harsh as Eve. As mentioned, a repair bill and no loss of cargo/equipment. Will it make PvP pointless?

Bosses: Apparently there will be bosses, and it hints at them being big enough for you to fly inside them. That's quite interesting.

Baliame · Post by **Baliame** » May 11th, 2009, 17:59

So let me get this straight.

Docking: Shit.

Cargo: Sort of okay..

Piracy: Very casual.

Ganking: Addresses a problem, takes a good approach.

Death: BORING.

Bosses: Sounds fun for the first few times.

Post by **Roman Totale** » May 11th, 2009, 18:01

I'd quite like to fly inside my boss.

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 11th, 2009, 18:03

Possibly. I don't want to go all internet and spout OMG THIS IS SHIT IM NEVER BUYING IT or LOL THIS SOUNDS AWESOME LOL without having actually played it, but mostly I get that impression. Apart from the ganking thing - if your point is that people don't get to gank enough then I disagree. If your point is that with good balancing a skilled pilot should be able to evade being ganked, but it's still possible, then I agree. The death thing I'm going to wait and see with. I don't really want Eve FPS.

Baliame · Post by **Baliame** » May 11th, 2009, 18:14

What I mean is the safe havens outside gates, it's a good thing to a degree. But my main point would not be that you can't gank enough, it seems to me that it's more than enough, the main thing is that the game takes a very fluffy approach on PvP, such as... pretty much everything except for EVE. PvE gets very tedious and boring after a while though, PvP always offers a change.

bomberesque · Post by **bomberesque** » May 11th, 2009, 18:20

Hmm, it's really difficult for me not to look at this game through an EVE-lens and I'm afraid that the devs are doing the same. I suspect that thye've been spending alltogether too much time whoring eve forums for tips, which anyone who has ever read any eve forum whatsoever knows is a road to madness

The docking thing is pure bonkers. Imagine docking manually in Rens in peacetime, let a lone under fire. TEH LAG

As always, it will be about balance. I'm deffo going to give it a go, I just hope they're doing this on thier own terms and not from a "what would eve players want" perspective

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 11th, 2009, 18:28

Baliame wrote:What I mean is the safe havens outside gates, it's a good thing to a degree. But my main point would not be that you can't gank enough, it seems to me that it's more than enough, the main thing is that the game takes a very fluffy approach on PvP, such as... pretty much everything except for EVE. PvE gets very tedious and boring after a while though, PvP always offers a change.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. It seems like they're making PvP easy to achieve but ultimately pointless. This only sounds like a recipe for trolling, but like I said it remains to be seen.

I can't link the chuffing article, foiled by my own word felcher.

Baliame · Post by **Baliame** » May 11th, 2009, 18:41

bomberesque wrote:Imagine docking manually in Rens Jita

Rens is nothing. NOTHING.

Post by **Roman Totale** » May 11th, 2009, 18:42

pfft, docking.

Post by **HereComesPete** » May 11th, 2009, 19:29

I think it's balance toward a more casual game style, less fuck off and lose everything because you didn't have a perfect set up and twenty mates and more dinking about doing some trade-lite and shooting stuff in space.

The lack of auto-docking needs to be gone. Fuck that shit.

I think PvP should be rewarding those who actively participate instead of punishing those who just skirt around the edges and get ganked for their trouble. Instead of the care-bear/lowbie getting smashed and losing stuff, how about the gankers get a reward. It scales with how hard they gank, so five high levels shooting the snot out of one low level get jack shit or labelled as pussies or whatever. But if they roll up on a few higher levels and manage to win then they get super sweet lootz for their effort. Push the lowbie killing too far, get labelled as 'lulfag' or whatever and have intergalactic police types kick the snot out of you.

AoC had it nearly right with consistent ganking leaving you outlawed to the wilderness until you stopped killing the new players. Walk into a town and get butchered by the guards, or hunted down by people who saw the outlaw status. But it didn't offer alternatives, like bandit camps and such to access trade posts or healers. So if you went to the bad then you got royally screwed. Don't put an option like that in if it's meant to be a total free-for-all and then punish the people who use that system for their own ends, or everyone will leave.

amblin · Post by **amblin** » May 11th, 2009, 21:05

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 11th, 2009, 21:20

I'm more inclined to think the lack of any reward for PvP will make t pointless, but to have that reward without the risk to the PvPers will make it a gankfest. To take two popular examples; Warcraft = no real death penalty, no real PvP reward (I'm talking open PvP, not battleground), no real point. Eve = reasonable PvP reward, high death penalty (generally - I remember suicide kessies), PvP most of the game. There needs to be a happy medium I think.

By the way, I think the Jumpgates just turn your weapons off when you're near them. Using science.

friznit · Post by **friznit** » May 11th, 2009, 23:01

The docking thing is a feature of the original game that was constantly cited as 'what made it cool'. This was in the dark ages when computers still had VDU's though, but it'll probably stay or the fanbois will whine. The rest actually sounds like them trying to not be like Eve, but more like WoW in space, which from a developers point of view is of course preferable, given the relative popularity of the two titles.

Anhamgrimmar · Post by **Anhamgrimmar** » May 12th, 2009, 3:07

bomberesque wrote: The docking thing is pure bonkers. Imagine docking manually in Rens in peacetime, let a lone under fire. TEH LAG

Soooo, that'd be like trying to dock at Lave station, with a busted up Cobra MkIII, a cargo hold full of tharglets, and the bastard pirates have managed to nobble the station safe zone beacon AGAIN!

God i miss Elite......

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 12th, 2009, 7:14

friznit wrote:The docking thing is a feature of the original game that was constantly cited as 'what made it cool'. This was in the dark ages when computers still had VDU's though, but it'll probably stay or the fanbois will whine. The rest actually sounds like them trying to not be like Eve, but more like WoW in space, which from a developers point of view is of course preferable, given the relative popularity of the two titles.

Catering to fanboys is the road to ruin though, because they want to feel superior by being the only people who can play the game. Personally I'd like to see something that isn't Eve FPS or Warcraft in space, but that's probably too much to ask.

Baliame · Post by **Baliame** » May 12th, 2009, 13:58

Well, the extremes have been perfected in EVE (PvP extreme) and WoW (PvE extreme), I guess noone ever tried to satisfy both groups because it's much harder than staying close to the extreme and ultimately if you fail to do it, neither will like it.

Dog Pants wrote:By the way, I think the Jumpgates just turn your weapons off when you're near them. Using science.

I imagine it will fail to stop artilleries until the first major patch.

5punk

Jumpgate: Evolution

Jumpgate: Evolution

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Re: Jumpgate: Evolution