Jumping the Gate

Well - some dissenting views first. Oz's opinion and Transit's thoughts.

First of all some brief explanation. Jumpgate is an online space flyer sim, with funky physics. There are three player factions (red green and blue) and one alien rave (conflux, purple)

First Myth: Player run plot

Netdevil makes a big thing about how players can affect the ongoing sory of the world. They do this by running special 'faction missions' and 'TRI missions' I should point out that a mission in this game means running a fedex, or occasionally going and scanning (standing next to) something whilst carrying a package, rather than trying to dock with it whilst carryin a package.

Now, I'll admit that in a sense it is tre, players CAN alter the plot. They can either run these missions quickly, or slowly. This alters whether you get a new building in the game once a month, or once every five weeks.

That's it. There's no interaction beyond that. No choosing from a set of alternatives (the best there is is whether a red or a green or a blue mission is completed first - which solely changes what colour the addition is)

No way to prevent another team completing their mission (you can't see what other players are doing, so you'd have to picket their entire station, and netdevil have made it clear that they don't like PVP on *that* scale)

There's an interesting little empire builder in there somewhere - but the devs play it, not you. You don't get to build your own facilities, or even choose which facility your faction builds next. (No, spamming the forums does NOT count as game)

Myth the second: The game is friendly

Nope. The game is built around twinking. If no one twinks you, then you can't do anything. The nominal penalty against twinking (over level kit is uninsured) is worthless - you got the stuff for fre in the first place, and insurance pays less the more you die. Newbies die a lot.

You cannot kill other players as a newbie, you cannot even kill aliens (a level 20 can, and might let a newbie help...) You cannot even run AWAY from most aliens.

Now, this might be intended to try and keep you in the 'safe' areas - but the only thing newbies CAN do is run fedex - and they don't get to choose where the mission sends them.

Wrapping it up with a ribbon is the fact that all of a newbies

Myth the third: Lots of things to do

Here is a complete list.

1. Go to station A, get package B, fly to station C, repeat.
2. Go to station A, Go to station B, find package C isn't on sale, repeat.
3. Go to safe sector A, fly close to somkething without crashing, dock (fly close to something without crashing)
4. Go to dangerous sector B, fly close to something and get shot down.
5. Go to a sector, fly through the hoop, get shot down for your audacity.
6. Go to a sector, fly close to something without crashing, press fire, wait ten minutes, fly home.
7. Shoot at aliens and die.
8. Shoot at players an die really quickly AND have stations put bounties on you.

I should note that 'fly' somewhere takes about 5-15 minutes, and thats assuming no random alien decides to kill you.

My final note, before I go. The damn game does NOT like to install. It still has a godawful web login thingy that you have to do, which does NOT work on most browsers, and anyway requires 'shoot self in head' security settings. Then you have to register, and getting a pilot name approved seems to mean waiting for their system to work AND a GM to say 'yes' Then the patcher fights with your firewall, and then the game tries to go fullscreen, and dies with no explanation.