Tag Archives: netdevil

GamersHell has a trailer for Jumpgate Revolution, the space-based MMO from Codemasters Online and Netdevil.

The trailer is little more than a teaser, but with the backdrop being outer space it should have many peoples’ interest piqued. There’s an article along with the trailer, discussing a few of the game’s features.

It’s out later this year.

By Jerry Burns

According to this Reuters article, upcoming MMO Lego Universe will use Lego bricks themselves as in-game currency and may head to consoles after an initial PC launch.

“The more a child plays, they collect more coins and more bricks. The more you play, the more you get to build things,” said project head Mark William Hansen.

The piece adds:

Lego Universe will initially launch as a PC game, available in stores or as a download, and may eventually be available on other gaming platforms. It will operate as a pay-as-you-go subscription service at a “competitive price”, Hansen said.

Worth a read, that, especially given the game’s likely to be large beyond belief.

Speaking in this RPS interview, MMO developer NetDevil’s Hermann Peterscheck has talked in detail about moving on from the closure of the NCSoft-published Auto Assault.

“Obviously after the game didn’t do as well as expected and was eventually turned off, that’s a very difficult thing to get through,” he said. “As a team you end up spending years of your life working very long hours and when that doesn’t pay off the way you expect, then that’s certainly a painful thing. We ended up spending a lot of time thinking and evaluating why things didn’t go better and learned a lot of lessons from that which we are applying across the board.”

Auto Assault, the post-apocalyptic, car-based MMO, was turned off in March 2007. Check out the rest of the interview for lots more on NetDevil’s current baby, Jumpgate Evolution.

Developer Netdevil’s director of business development, Mark Hansen, has said that the core driving factor behind Lego getting into the MMO space with Lego Universe is to “bring alive” children’s Lego fantasies. That and making a metric truckload of money, obviously.

“What’s really unique now is that the technology is at a level where we can get more than just a single child into a single-player game,” he said. “Now we’re looking at getting a mass of children into an area to play and interact with Lego. One reason for that is simply consumer demand – kids have been asking us about playing online with Lego and their friends. They see the space and the technology – things like Club Penguin – and they want something like that. We see the uniqueness of building a massively multiplayer online game to add on value to the physical product that we have. When the child sits and plays on the floor with an army and a castle and his Lego knights – that’s what we want to bring to the MMO experience, what’s in the child’s mind. It needs to be alive, we can bring that dream alive.”

Lego Universe has no release date as yet, but a trailer’s planned for this year, apparently. The game is to feature innovations such as being able to build anything from Lego in the game then ordering the exact Lego kit online.

Codemasters MMO Jumpgate: Evolution will be released in the back end of this year, developer NetDevil has confirmed.

“We are planning on launching in the second half of 2008,” lead producer Hermann Peterscheck told VG247. “It’s really exciting to announce our partnership with Codemasters Online. They are already running some of the biggest MMO’s and have extensive experience – there’s only a handful of companies out there with their kind of breadth and depth of experience.”

The space-based game was recently picked up by Codemasters, and will be shown playable for the first time at Connect 2008 in Birmingham, UK, next month. NetDevil is an experienced MMO developer, having previously created the NCSoft-published Auto Assault. The move to Codemasters for Jumpgate appears to have been a good one for the outfit.

“There was also an instant chemistry between the way we are working on Jumpgate and the people at Codemasters Online,” said Peterscheck. “They are very responsive to our goals as a developer, which are in line with their goals as well – and in fact we have learned a lot from their experience – so it’s a great mutually beneficial relationship.”

Read all Hermann’s responses to our questions after the link.

More »

If you’re thinking of going to Connect 2008 in Birmingham next month, sign up for your tickets with the code COCON21 and you’ll get a 20 percent discount.

The two-day community event will give you access to all of Codemasters Online Gaming’s MMOs – D&D Online, Archlord, LotRo, RF Online and the newly confirmed Jumpgate: Evolution – as well as NetDevil, Jumpgate’s developer and Turbine, the team behing Lord of the Ring Online.

Pre-reduction tickets range from a mighty £100 for a VIP pass to a less strenuous £30 for a single day pass. A normal full weekend ticket is £55. So don’t forget to use that code if you fancy popping along.

The discount offer lasts a week, so if you’re going to do it, get on it.

In this chat with gamers on Jumpgate: Evolution, the space-based MMO newly confirmed to publication by COG, developer NetDevil has distiguished the game from CCP’s much-loved title EVE Online by saying its combat and spaceship control will be more fluid.

“Well obviously EVE is a point and click flight scenario and we’ll have free flight combat,” said a spokesperson. “That’s a large difference. Our space will contain both PVP and PVE models but we’re really not ready to release those details yet. I can say, that it will be fun.”

The game will be playable at Connect 2008 and will release for PC this year. Thanks, Blue.