AM: During a gameplay demonstration we attended last week, we saw a lot about the user interface - it was impressive, to say the least. One of the things we saw that we really wanted to know a little bit more about was the built-in voice communication. What's going to make it stand out from other games that have tried to implement voice communication?

Scott: Well, first off, it's included into the game, and so it's easier to use. Things like when you form up into a group, it automatically just puts you into a channel, or when you're playing PvP, you're automatically placed into a channel, or your guild can have a channel to talk. Aside from that, it's just quality. It's hard to describe without people hearing it, but Dolby has built voice technology that uses the bandwidth of other technologies, but sounds unbelievable. Typically, a comment you'll hear when you're on other voice tools is that, "oh you sound different in person!" you don't sound different in this. Whatever that means, whatever quality level you have to get to, they've somehow achieved that. You can actually really tell who everybody is, and the quality just amazing.

ZAM: From what we saw, the User Interface looked really customizable and like you guys had spent a lot of time polishing it and getting it ready for players to enjoy. What kind of support will you guys give the UI community and the UI modders?

Scott: We built it with the goal of letting people mod the UI. There's still a little bit more work to do that, so I don't know if it'll be ready at launch, but all of our UI is built in flash. This is with the idea that anybody can build something with Flash and put it in the game. Now, there are problems, for example, if you do certain things in flash that might cause the game to perform really slowly. We've still got to figure out how to educate people or how we verify this so that you don't make a mod that I download and my game experience is destroyed. We want it to be easier than that. I think that there will be some work to do, but the goal is that, eventually, people will be able to, using Flash, make their own UI.

ZAM: As JGE is a "twitch" game, how much impact will players' ping times have on gameplay, and what steps have been taken to minimise ping times' effect?

Scott: We have spent extensive time working on our network code. Even the original Jumpgate had over 200 ships all fighting on a 9600 baud modem and we have learned many more tricks to ensure the highest quality play even with some less than perfect ping times. But don't get me wrong, at some point it can make a difference. Players should shoot for under 200ms ping for the best experience with acceptable game play closer to 350ms.