Attendees of the LOGIN Conference last week had a chance to see NetDevil's demonstration of Jumpgate Evolution. The writers at ZAM were among the gaming press attendees and came away from the demo with some positive impressions, but some questions as well. They caught up with NetDevil president Scott Brown who discussed the inspiration for creating the original Jumpgate and how Jumpgate Evolution will live up to its name.
The interview specifically touches on how Jumpgate Evolution aims to engage players in ways the original wasn't able to. In that context of how the follow-up title compares to the original, Brown says, "We have a much stronger story now, with help from Keith Baker (the creator of Eberron for D&D) and we have significantly more focused PvP so players have even more reason to fight the other nations."
Customization will also be possible with the title and the developers plan to let gamers mod their UI. Brown says, "There's still a little bit more work to do that, so I don't know if it'll be ready at launch, but all of our UI is built in Flash. This is with the idea that anybody can build something with Flash and put it in the game." He does state that (presently) in some cases there can be a performance hit and they're working out ways to ensure that modders don't inadvertently diminish their gameplay experience when tweaking or outright altering the user interface.
There's plenty more info to be found in the interview, not limited to talk of avoiding the introduction of massive capital ships to the game until players really want it, and the importance of having integrated voice communication built into the client.
The last word we've received on the Jumpgate Evolution launch is that they're still aiming for a June release, but the ZAM interview with Scott Brown should provide a nice overview of the game as it stands now.
[Via Blue's News]
