I've spent $0 and I'm level 50 and really enjoyed the game. But waiting for recharges was a real pain, I would have rather just paid one flat rate and gotten to play unlimited
When I said the game was too finished, I meant it was too far along in the process to change. Some times the industry will call that Beta (but the true definition of Beta has been so horribly abused and twisted that I don't like to use it). As much as you'd like to think the paperwork involved Free to Play, the reality is the paperwork involved 401Ks, Employee insurance, Payroll, What happens to our Mac software, what happens with our partners, etc... Very little paperwork involved games, just the business part of business. In the cycle of game development, things like Levels and Weapons and Characters are done before the game is finished. You often have artists and modelers with nothing to do while the programers finish squishing bugs and such. That's when you start on DLC. When I talk about DLC, I'm talking about the Console version. Look at our history with DLC to see how we treat it. Marathon for the XBOX we added extra multiplayer levels from Marathon 1 and Infinity. Flick fishing we added a new location, new fish and a new game mode. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WAS HELD BACK OR CUT OUT OF WARPGATE TO BE SOLD AS DLC As far as that Tech Crunch article, don't quote it. It's not only badly written, but has no fact checking. They just rushed to be "first post" and didn't bother to research a thing. About a release date. I can't give one yet. It's soon. The powers that be (and by that I mean my bosses, Ian Smith and Colin Smith of Freeverse) don't want to put a date out yet. Can you trust me that this will make sense when you look back on it? I will try to keep everyone posted and updated from here on out. I got a bit of tunnel vision and forgot about everyone.
Thanks for the info Hippieman. Quick question, will trailers and gameplay demos (videos of gameplay) be released as we get closer to the release date?
How long until the first update to warp gate that WILL include DLC? Sure, it wont be released with it, but this is Ngmoco here.
The game will ship with 3 DLC items. A starship and credit packs (not at all power cells or anything like that, more like how Maffia has respect points you can start with. But that's not right either. More like do you want to start the game with $5000 or $100,000? Like the Blood Armor in Dragon Age). Additional DLC will be after release. Trailers and such will start showing up as we move toward release. Regarding ngmoco and Specifically Warpagte. ngmoco has seen the game very little. Mostly me just showing it to them on my iPhone. They have not been involved in the design at all. They are not going to interfere one bit. This is a freeverse game from start to finish.
Is it still being developed for the Ipod Touch 2nd gen as well as the 3rd gen? Remember an article saying it would run great on both systems, but the 3rd gen would have more graphical effects that would be activated automatically.
Yes. The game runs on every single iDevice out there. iPod Touch 1st Gen, iPod Touch 2nd Gen, iPhone Edge, iPhone 3G all run the same assets. iPod Touch 3rd Gen, iPhone 3G S - Run the same assets, with additional OpenGL ES 2.0 features adding enhanced graphics. But the game was also designed to play in a way that if the frame rate drops (like your iPhone decides to check email) it does not impact the game. In our tests the lower-end devices like iPhone Edge and 1st gen iPod touch got in the 20-30 frames a second range. (Again the game is more strategy/exploration than twitch based). the iPod Touch 2nd Gen has the best performance, hitting 60 FPS at times. Followed by the 3GS and 3rd gen iPod Touch. We are still a few weeks out. You'll know we are getting close, as all the marketing will start showing up. In regards to price, a final price has not been set yet, but I think everyone will be very pleased with it (no, it's not going to be Free or 99 cents).
I know this might have been discussed in previous articles, but is Warp Gate an open ended game, or does it have a specified storyline and endpoint complemented by some degree of free exploration? (E.g. Galaxy on Fire vs Space Miner?)
Warpgate works more like Grand Theft Auto. You can reach the end of the main story line. Then go back to finish other Missions you didn't take. And continuing exploring and trading and blowing up other ships.
Thanks. I imagine there will be a lot more info coming out at GDC. I'm getting really exciting as the game is so close to shipping!
I've been playing Escape Velocity Nova and X3: Terran Conflict again. Well, X3 isn't like Warpgate, but Escape Velocity series is.
Is this game going to have an iPad specific version? Like higher resolution and less cramped controls.
My guess is that it will have an iPad version, that's probably why its taking so long to come out. And probably why their will be more info on it at the GDC, which is rumored to have info on launch titles for the iPad.
I think it will be a great move to have this game on the iPad. I will be really surprised if it isn't to be released for that platform. Especially the level of graphical detail has been said to vary according this which iDevice you use. My bet is that it will come out for all the iDevices to coincide with the iPad launch. From the gameplay videos that has been circulating for a good few months - perhaps it's somewhat similar to Flatspace? It's 2D space combat anyways. Can't see Freeverse upgrading this to 3D combat even if they have reworked a lot of the game.
