Grimwell:
Netdevil’s first MMO game was “Jumpgate” and was set in a futuristic setting focused on ships and interstellar travel. What are the primary differences between JG and Auto Assault?

Scott:
Auto Assault is a car combat game and RPG, Jumpgate was more of a simulator. Attributes and character elements are more important in Auto Assault because Jumpgate taught us that more character development was needed.

Grimwell:
The release for Auto Assault was pushed back after your initial beta. What led you to this decision?

Scott:
Our first beta showed us that the game was not ready. We received lots of good feedback out of the beta and made a huge list of things to do to improve the game. Community input from the beta testers really counted.

We are very excited to have the opportunity to take those lessons, tear the game apart, and make necessary changes. We are going through all content in the game, breaking it into small, digestible pieces, and putting a strike team on each piece. This made it much easier for the strike teams to focus on the core elements of the game as they made changes.

We came up with a working theme for each part of the game and then tailored those parts to the theme. All art for each area is unique, so is the weather and other elements. We are going through those pieces one at a time. The delay from our beta was not about adding more features to the game, it was about going over the game as it is and refining what we have.