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Update in the
Works! Since NetDevil has been fairly closed-mouthed regarding the status of their announced effort to "update" Jumpgatetm, I thought I’d indulge myself in some public speculation. The primary pieces of information we have are: 12/13 – Istvan drops hints in JOSSH forum basically saying: we have been listening to what you want; we understand your frustration; and something is going on that I can’t talk about just yet. 12/20 – Scott ("Scorch") Brown reveals in interviews that NetDevil is working on breathing new life into Jumpgatetm and that ". . . major changes to graphics and AI are the main upgrades planned . . ." 12/29 – Istvan announces that Themis game management services are being replaced by an in-house GM team made up of GM Khronos and GM Thoth. So what do we know based on these fragmentary bits of data? Well the first thing I take from this is that NetDevil is demonstrating that, where JG is concerned, they are not going to act like the "typical" game development company that dumps a game at the first hint of a problem. In writing, many "first novels" are semi-biographical works that have close personal association with the author and her/his background, feelings, experiences, etc. I believe Jumpgate is a lot like that. So much of NetDevil’s "soul" is invested into JG, that they (thankfully) have an almost irrational attachment to it – perhaps supported by the rational understanding that it is a great game engine that has never really had its potential tapped. We also know that the plan is to focus on graphics and AI. We know that games like Eve have set the bar pretty high here, and meeting the graphics expectation of new players (i.e. the "first impression") will be critical to ongoing success. But to me, the more interesting part of this announcement is about AI. Right now, AI = Conflux . . . so does this mean that the upgrade work is on a Conflux upgrade? Or could it mean upgraded conflux and expanded game AI characters/features/etc? The biggest thing we don’t know is WHEN. From my perspective, with the (very) little I know about game development (and absolutely no inside information), I would set my personal estimate at late 3Q07. The other thing we don’t know is where the rest of the development list announced back in the Darkspace Dispatch 3.2 (May, 2006) Istvan’s Update column stands -- things like territorial war, privateering, and economy. I’m sure everyone will, like me, be anxiously awaiting news. We will all look at every Istvan post and try to read between the lines. We’ll look for NetDevil interviews in the gaming "press" and try to look for clues. And hopefully, we’ll also get some real updates direct from the source. You can be sure that as soon as I am given substantial news to release, I’ll get it out to the mailing list. I will not wait for a DsD issue – you’ll be getting a DSD Special Report email*. You can bet the house that whatever improvements and updates are made, 50% or more of the present and former player community will be whining and complaining. There’s no avoiding that. We can only hope that the improvements and updates result in a significant and continuing influx of NEW players because a much larger, more diverse, and (perhaps most importantly) fresh player base – with no Jumpgate "baggage" – is more important to making Jumpgate "cook" than any amount of coding, modeling and skinning. *If you’re not currently on the mailing list, all you have to do is email: darkspace@jgcentral.net. Make the subject DSD Mailing List, and in the body of the email write Please add [[JG callsign]] to the DsD mailing list.
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