Jumpgate Upgrade Coming Soon (December 21, 2006)

[ChrisReid]

The long running massively multiplayer space sim Jumpgate turned five years old this fall, and it's about to get a major upgrade to celebrate. The game's original publisher ran out of money a few years back, but the developers stuck it out, streamlined their operations and manage to successfully operate the game to this day. SirSkippy noticed a blurb at Kotaku about the MMO's upcoming overhaul. Few details are forthcoming on the specific improvements to expect, but improved graphics and new options seem to be a given. Jumpgate could probably use a bit of a marketing push to supplement its user base as well.

The game, sort of Elite or Wing Commander Privateer online, managed to survive both the ebbs and flows of the MMO market and the death of its initial publisher 3DO.

Although the game doesn't get much publicity these days, it still has a pretty strong user base of about 1,000 people, NetDevil's Scott Brown told me. And it's profitable.

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Original update published on December 21, 2006

 

[Saucer Boy]

one word..

woot..

Yeah, I am probably finally gotten sick and sires of the low online players.. I think a graphic update will draw in a lot of new faces.

However, I stopped playing this game because the way the game mechanics changed such as getting rid of HG and replacing them with the Military tags, making you do a couple missions before you switch back to civ. And the stat padding has gotten more restrictive as well.

I really just hope that a squad warfare system will be a solution to this problem.

As for the upgrade comming soon, would that mean an upgrade would be released around by the end of next year?

 

[Dumpshock]

Is Jumpgate really played en-masse anymore?

I remember reading about Jumpgate and seeing it in stores back when it was first released, but I've only recently been able to jump into the MMO scene.

I have always wanted to play this game, but I'm just wondering if I were to finally jump into the game, would I be wasting my time and money?

I'm seeing it as, looking at some server stats, that it would almost feel like a Single Player game that I have to pay a monthly access for.

Is the player community still active and I'm just not seeing it?

 

[ChrisReid]

As the quoted bit says, about a thousand people regularly play. They've consolidated to one universe I believe, so all the players should interact. It's substantially less than other MMOs, but there's still lots of people to run into.