A new interview with Michael Rowland, Codemasters Online's producer on Jumpgate Evolution, has been posted in the Developer Blog section of the official Jumpgate Evolution Web site. He said that the team has just completed the Alpha milestone in the MMO and that the group is working to ensure that the servers are ready to go for Beta. While he could not confirm when the Beta test will begin, he did hint that some may see the Beta this year.

The majority of the interview focuses on Rowland's position, but he did emphasize that he is excited for the dog-fighting battles and PvP.

It’s that Wing Commander/Freelancer game people have been secretly wishing for with the persistent online world the early games were missing. I already have my joystick set-up to take on the early testers in our closed beta and prepping myself for some awesome dog-fighting and PvP.

The full interview can be found below or here.

Q:Who are you and what is your role at Codemasters Online?
A: Hi, my name is Michael Rowland and I am a Producer at Codemasters Online, specialising in Massively Multiplayer Online Games.

Q:What project specifically do you work on?
A: My current project has me based out in a space station within the Jumpgate Universe, having previously moved from Middle-earth and my house in The Shire. Having left my pony behind, I now get to fly around in a Heavy Fighter destroying pirates and aliens… it’s an interesting shift.

Q: What exactly does being a Producer entail?
A: As a Producer I essentially project manage the game, the budgets, the people and all that less than interesting stuff around the game which makes the game happen. The overall goal is to make a great game, on budget and on time and keep the men upstairs happy, the guys playing it happy and the guys making it happy. I occasionally have time out to do the odd interview, visit the occasional event and of course evaluate the game.

Q: What sort of tasks do you perform on a day to day basis?
A: Day to day is very different. Email is scarily prevalent in everyday life and is the main communication tool between ourselves and the various departments involved in the development of the game. I am in constant communication with the Dev Team be it feedback on the code from design ideas to build deliveries. My role involves managing the needs of many different people and departments be it Marketing, Community, PR, Legal, QA, Localisation, Web, Operations, Network Operations, Customer Service, Design, Finance and eventually the Live Operations Teams.

Q: What sort of technical requirements have to be met in preparation for Alpha, Beta and then release?
A: These key milestones and their requirements can differ from project to project. Alpha is the proving ground for core concepts and main features, games should be in a functional and playable state though not necessarily in a high quality state. Beta should be the point where the game is progressing to a better quality with further feature refinement and the core mechanics of the game is a pretty good state. For an MMO much of the technical backbones are in a reasonably complete state, hosted in a real world environment and at a point where the game is viewable by select members outside of the main development team. At Launch the game and service should be at a reasonable stable state, main features working as intended and the game of a good quality. Being an MMO, new features and updates are something that can be added to build on the game, address issues that have crept through and enhance the game ongoing.

Q: What are you currently working on?
A: Right now we have just completed the Alpha milestone in Jumpgate Evolution and planning in a host of new content plus a number of technical features to support the game for launch. We’re also working on localisation to support the European player base amongst a million other things like building ships and space sectors.

Q: How is Jumpgate Evolution looking from a production, and consumer standpoint?
A: From a production standpoint the game is coming along very nicely and there’s a strong focus to keep the quality high throughout development, so much so that we’ve been using the Alpha builds at a number of consumer shows such as GC Leipzig and PAX. Seeing people dog fighting in space, joystick in-hand, eyes fixated on the target reticule brought a big smile to our faces. As we populate space with vibrant new sectors and “special” content that just adds to the excitement hat we’re going down the right lines… the network of tunnels in one of the asteroids reminded me firstly of Descent and then the Millennium Falcon as it hid from the Tie-Fighters in The Empire Strikes Back… some very happy memories.

Q: Can you tell us a little more about what sort of preparation is being made to get Jumpgate Evolution into a Beta state?
A: Preparations are being done to ensure our servers are ready to go, so the latest server hardware is in our data centre now and being prepped by the Net Ops Team. Server code itself is also being worked on as well as all the technical stuff that links up the billing systems, tools, etc that most people don’t really think about. Game code itself is being worked on extensively to populate the world with more content, iterating on current and work in progress features and the ongoing process of bug-fixing and testing. The Marketing and Community teams are also doing their bit by getting word out for the Closed and Open Beta sign-ups to enable us to get game and service feedback, for those interested you can sign up at http://www.jumpgateevolution.com/ fill in a couple of fields and help us with aspects of the entire service.

Q: What are your objectives for when Beta begins? Are you looking for anything in specific or for players to just drill the game code?
A: There’s a number of different aspects we’re looking to test from systems outside of the game environment such as the Player Account System, the integration between that and the game and of course the game itself. That real world test is core to ensuring we have a reasonably stable launch, fortunately Codemasters Online have a number of MMO launches under our belt and many lessons have been learnt from each one. As we move through the different stages of beta our objectives will change so early on we’re very interested in game feedback and how people play the game, later we’ll be going through compatibility testing with the massive variety of PC builds throughout the world and then the traditional en masse “let’s see how many people can break the server” test.

Q: Will we see Beta this year?
A: Some may see the beta this year… that’s all I’m willing to say ;)

Q: What are the challenges of being a Producer for a Publisher?
A: The main challenges are having to work away from the Dev Team and not seeing that day to day progress with the game. Not being able to see the Art team create and implement that awesome new Capital ship or finding that breakthrough coding fix that means we can through in more content at a quicker rate is very frustrating, especially as a lot of Producers are control freaks… it’s what we do :D

This of course gives me a great excuse to go out and visit the team every few weeks to catch up with them and see the excellent progress being made, seeing that new ship on an Artists screen being touched up one day and then in game the week after gives myself and the team a very good buzz.

As a Publishing Producer you are faced with the additional teams involved in getting the game to market, so there’s a lot of management of people within the other departments mentioned earlier, ensuring their priorities are met. Of course everyone believes their priority task is important, so a key skill is being able to prioritise their tasks on a project scale. As you can imagine, communication is a core skill internally and externally.

Q: What are the perks of being a Producer? What is it that makes the job enjoyable?
A: Being a Producer can be incredibly stressful keeping everyone involved happy and productive, on budget and on time. When that all goes to plan, then you have a very happy Producer. Of course you do get issues from time to time, some of them biggies, but there’s a tremendous buzz when running around having to get something fixed and ready for a particular deadline, and once done and dusted, a sense of satisfaction is felt… a feeling often seen around major events or just after.

The biggest perk though is making games, it’s not a one man job and being able to co-ordinate the people, tasks and costs to produce a great game and then seeing it on the shop shelf has to be the biggest buzz. Despite the stress, disgruntled other halves and the long days I love what I do and I love what other game studios do, and I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by people who feel the same way which enhances that enjoyment tenfold.

Q: What made you decide to be a Producer?
A: It was a long road to get to where I am now. I started life working in Quality Assurance, firstly at a brewery making beer and then followed my way to the Codemasters QA department. This is really the point where you get to work directly with the Development Teams who hate you and love you at the same time. It’s a great place to start learning about the industry and to discover the intricacies of delivering a game to the masses. I had worked with a number of teams and found that I really wanted to work with external studios as a Producer; we have a studio dedicated to working with studios outside of Codemasters and the team was awesome. This was my overall goal but I still wanted to learn a little bit more about the industry I call Game, and was asked to become one of the first Community Managers at Codemasters, working solely on our Action titles (I’m a big PC gamer and shooter fan). I took on this role and spent a good couple of years working with our great CodeM community from FPS titles to the RTS titles, eventually moving onto the MMO titles. At this point my taste for Production escalated and I joined the Online Studio as an Associate Producer and to take control of the current and upcoming MMOs.

My thirst for making games and to be a part of that team getting the game out grew, and I was fortunate enough to be put in charge of managing the Lord of the Rings Online MMO from pre-production to launch and subsequently the post launch content.

So to cut a long story short, I thought it would be cool and I was right :D

Q: What made you decide to join Codemasters Online?
A: David Solari our glorious leader was a key reason. Let me warn you, I have another long story coming up so you better go get a cup of tea and get comfortable.
So back before we had Codemasters Online I was in the PC Brand Team as a Community Manager, working with Sam “Satine” Russell and a couple of the other guys including Mr Solari. We all worked very well together and wanted to explore the MMO and Online space a little more, we essentially wanted to publish and service MMO games which no-one in Europe was really doing at that time. And so began the formation of Codemasters Online through business cases, game negotiations and recruitment. We went from a team of four people to forty in a year and have grown massively since then, we’re around 3 years old as a department and I’ve not looked back. The guys I work with are great friends and excellent in their jobs, making my job easier, and being apart of something that is as big as Online gaming puts a smile on my face. It’s the way gaming is going and we’re in a fortunate position to be able to offer that experience to a lot of people, be it customers or new development partners.

I was also offered cookies and no-one can turn down cookies.

Q: What are your personal expectations for Jumpgate Evolution?
A: Jumpgate evolution in it’s early tech demo stages showed a lot of potential in where it was going and myself and others in the team were extremely excited about the title, so much so I asked to be put onto the team to work on it, leaving behind my hobbits. The NetDevil Team themselves are a great bunch of guys and there’s a tremendous skill set and passion amongst the team which in turn gives the Codemasters team a burst of passion themselves. The game will be fantastic and over time it will become greater, that I have no doubt. It’s that Wing Commander/Freelancer game people have been secretly wishing for with the persistent online world the early games were missing. I already have my joystick set-up to take on the early testers in our closed beta and prepping myself for some awesome dog-fighting and PvP, though I’m finding age and reaction speed have a very direct correlation to one another. Let’s hope that my Zimmer frame ship mod makes it into the final game.