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They're also working on Lego Universe. (They also list three other "current projects" on their site, but it seems that info may be outdated, as they still list Auto Assault which IIRC has already gone belly-up.)

http://www.netdevil.com/games/lego.php

However, as I know next to nothing about the company besides what I found in a quick 5-minute perusal of their site, could you tell me why exactly that they're not "indie"?

Jumpgate was awesome.
It's not so dead as you might think.
http://www.netdevil.com/

--AC

Autoduel, not AutoAssault. AutoAssault is the new MMO vehicular combat game being developed by the folks at NetDevil.

Themis [..] is involved with a failing or failed business [..] Jumpgate

I don't know about the others, but Jumpgate - a four year old game - is still very much alive and you can play it right now if you want to. They still have a hardcore group of regular players - and the game is still actively maintained with occasional new content and bug fixes. This is not my definition of a failure.

The company isn't failing either - the creators of Jumpgate, NetDevil, are now working with NC Soft on Auto Assault, a MMO car combat game.

[gamepimp]

NetDevil is indeed the publisher of Jumpgate, the one and only *persistent world* MMORPG... spaceflight/combat simulator.

But I digress.

The developers at NetDevil are, quite possibly, the coolest bunch of dudes that own a game company there is.

See, in Jumpgate, the developers from NetDevil have not only listened to their players (we have had major game changes implemented following player-initiated ideas), they CARE about their players. In this map HERE, you can see many "sectors" named after famous/dedicated players and/or squads.

"Lothars Landing", a station in the game, is named after one of the original players, who did a LOT to advance the game in early beta. "Klatches' Hold" is named after the giant of Jumpgate fan sites, Gossip, who also happens to be the author of GLUE, a soapbox engine for blogs/discussion sites.

That's just a couple examples. Another is, they named a sector after a player's child that died in a tragic housefire. ("The Chase")

AA, like their first title, should be a great, original game, with tons of potential.

[/gamepimpoff]

Expect to see more of the same in AutoAssault - both in originality, developer understanding, and support of their playerbase.

I don't work for NetDevil, either, but those of us that have been around them for a while (especially us beta testers)can tell you - they're a great bunch of guys to buy from.

I think it'll most definitely be worth checking out. They have a history of being creative, going against the flow of "popular gaming conventions", and trying to do the best by their players. Do yourself a favor, and keep an eye on these guys.

[gamepimp]

NetDevil is indeed the publisher of Jumpgate, the one and only *persistent world* MMORPG... spaceflight/combat simulator.

But I digress.

The developers at NetDevil are, quite possibly, the coolest bunch of dudes that own a game company there is.

See, in Jumpgate, the developers from NetDevil have not only listened to their players (we have had major game changes implemented following player-initiated ideas), they CARE about their players. In this map HERE, you can see many "sectors" named after famous/dedicated players and/or squads.

"Lothars Landing", a station in the game, is named after one of the original players, who did a LOT to advance the game in early beta. "Klatches' Hold" is named after the giant of Jumpgate fan sites, Gossip, who also happens to be the author of GLUE, a soapbox engine for blogs/discussion sites.

That's just a couple examples. Another is, they named a sector after a player's child that died in a tragic housefire. ("The Chase")

AA, like their first title, should be a great, original game, with tons of potential.

[/gamepimpoff]

Expect to see more of the same in AutoAssault - both in originality, developer understanding, and support of their playerbase.

I don't work for NetDevil, either, but those of us that have been around them for a while (especially us beta testers)can tell you - they're a great bunch of guys to buy from.

I think it'll most definitely be worth checking out. They have a history of being creative, going against the flow of "popular gaming conventions", and trying to do the best by their players. Do yourself a favor, and keep an eye on these guys.

NCSoft is acting as a publisher here. The only titles developed by NCSoft is Lineage and Lineage II. Of NCSoft's other titles,

Guild Wars is being developed by ArenaNet , a group composed primarily of former Blizzard employees who worked on Diablo that left in the Vivendi Universal bankruptcy debacle over the possible sale of the games division (including Blizzard). They could have picked a name further from BattleNet, though.

Tabula Rasa is developed by Destination Games, the Austin, Texas group headed by Richard Gariott composed primarily of people that got fired from or left Origin after EA scrapped the Ultima Online 2 project. They were actually far into Tabula Rasa before being signed on with NCSoft.

City of Heroes is developed by Cryptic Studios based in San Jose, CA.

Finally, Auto Assault is developed by NetDevil .

All of these developers are completely autonomous as far as design goes. NCSoft is only the publisher and the billing gateway. For the sake of the independent developers that just happened to have signed up with NCSoft, please don't confuse their works with that of other developers.

Last night on Netdevil's Jumpgate, a pseudo-physics based space-sim, we noticed a small influx of new players. We didn't ask them, but we think it has partially to do with this.

For you EnB'ers who are on the lookout for another space-sim, Jumpgate has a (free!) trial download, with 10 days free. It's also one of the cheapest MMPOGs on the market, at 9.95/mo.

It has a robust (while not quite realistic - even in space your ship has drag. It makes it easier to fly. Otherwise docking would be a nightmare. What I don't like about the model is that ships have hardcapped "top speeds" .. but I can ignore that for the most part.) flight model. Flying a cargo tow with several hundered units of Iridium is MUCH different than, say, flying a medium fighter with no cargo. Bring your joystick for this game, kiddies.

PvP is a main aspect of the game, with guild warfare and pirate tools. If you don't like PvP, but still like combat, there are always the purple space creature menace, Flux, to eliminate. The other aspect is the realistic economy - from miners comes raw materials, which stations refine into processed materials, which combine into products like missiles and engines.

Artifact hunting is another thing to do, but I haven't looked much into it.

Granted, the graphics are slightly out of date - but it's not about the graphics... It's about the gameplay! If you're close-minded and simply want another point and click MMPOG, don't try this game. If all you've played are point-and-click MMPOGs in the past, take it for a spin. I think you'll be pleasantly suprised.

Disclaimer: I do not work for NetDevil, nor do I have any affiliation with them other than being a paying customer.

There's a game that tried this. It's called Jumpgate. They partnered with 3DO. 3DO screwed them by putting nearly 0 marketing into it and assuming all rights to the game.

Then Netdevil bought the game back from 3DO and are running it themselves, quite profitablby I might add.