Massively speaks at length with Jumpgate Evolution's Hermann Peterscheck Pt. 3

For players looking to spend most of their time running cargo between stations, will that be an option for them? Do you think they'll find other aspects of JGE appealing as well?

"I think it's kind of fun to be sort of a space trucker, and we're trying to do everything we can to make that role more interesting."

I'm surprised at what people enjoy in terms of different experiences. I kind of like stuff like mining and cargo hauling and I can do that for long periods of time. I mean I also like fighting, but I also tend to prefer the meta-games more in MMOs. So I think there'll be a mix of all kinds of different people that find different activities rewarding.

So yeah, there's certainly value in cargo hauling or mining. We have ships that are sort of built around meta-game activities like mining, manufacturing, hauling and that kind of stuff. It's a big part of the game, especially if you have a player-driven economy that's feeding it all. But even in Jumpgate Classic -- which didn't have a player-driven economy -- there were people that did that for years just to keep materials moving from place to place. I think it's kind of fun to be sort of a space trucker, and we're trying to do everything we can to make that role more interesting.

What can a PvE-focused player expect from Jumpgate Evolution and its mission structure?

There's a few different ways of doing that. If you're out in those PvP areas, there's still just normal missions out there -- collect missions, kill missions and so on. But then it's really easy to do things like make a kill mission where you kill other players. If you're talking about things like beacon capture scenarios, those are more difficult than the PvP zones because you can just be openly attacked. And so, the structure of the missions don't change so -- rather more the target changes.

I'm a big fan of that. I find it kind of irritating that there's a lot of games where they'll have PvP zones, but basically all you're doing is PvE missions like, "Go kill this mob" and in the meantime some guy is killing you. As opposed to a mission that's, say, "Our space station is under attack, go destroy 15 of our enemies." That kind of stuff is way cooler, I think. And our mission system is open enough that we can do any of those kinds of things.

Can players expect to be rewarded in the same way for PvE, PvP, exploring, mining, etc?

Yeah, I'm a big fan of multiple advancements. I love it if I'm gaining experience and faction rating, or if I'm gaining PvP points while gaining levels, or if I'm unlocking a license while I'm also getting PvP tokens. We try to stack those things as much as we possibly can -- and PvP is a great area to do that.

"Yeah, I'm a big fan of multiple advancements."

When you're in Battle Space you're getting your stats up -- we track all the PvP stats like hits, kills, deaths -- so you're moving that information along. You also get experience for wins in PvP and then you also get renown, which is basically a kind of honor system, which then allows you access to all kinds of different stuff. So during a PvP scenario, all three of those things are being affected. That way, when I'm playing in PvP I don't have this feeling of, "Oh gosh, I should be out grinding my rank or faction rating instead of sitting in here playing PvP." and it detracts from the fun a little bit. I don't want that to be the experience in Jumpgate Evolution.