DevDiary 2 - Legacy and Writing

[WILDFIRE]

2 hours ago, Wigen said:

I like the way the creators imagined Blood the most. It reminds me most of the tough guy in American action movies. Blood went to AIM veterans instead.

Sorry for the quality. 🙂

Yes I like the look of Blood also very much. Besides Grizzly, Meltdown, Raven and Wolf he looks really gritty and serious. That is what I like and how I remember JA2. Mostly it is a serious and gritty, tough world JA takes place but with nuances of humor.

 

Most of the other mercs in JA3 look too cartoony for my taste. JA2 had the perfect balance between humor and dead serious. Some mercs were really crazy and many had a dark humor but it was never really cartoony or too colorful. You could always take the mercs serious even if they were crazy badass action figures.

[Hendrix]

  

I kinda think that Ice and Nails looks younger compared to JA2 and Thor looks a bit off somehow to me.

 

I don't recognize the JA3 Raven to JA2's at all.

[Wigen]

On 1/19/2023 at 3:40 PM, Wigen said:

My hype for the game is more and more stronger than it was after what I saw on the new trailer. I can't wait!

@Haemimont_Boian And tell the PR director that this is how advertising is done.  Well done, keep it up and I hope it will be good! 🙂👍

Edited January 23, 2023 by Wigen

[Hendrix]

On 1/21/2023 at 9:43 PM, LoboNocturno said:

This Raider guy looks like a aggressive rocker, Hells Angels vybes 😎🏍️. Really interested to see this character, hope its not Raider instead of Reaper. I assume in Legendary there is Gus, Scully & Reaper & perhaps 1 or 2 new mercs? What you guys think?

I would assume it is Ron "Raider" Higgens (Ravens husband) from JA2 and not a new character. Looks like Arulco put some years on him.

https://jaggedalliance.fandom.com/wiki/Ron_"Raider"_Higgens

[Solaris_Wave]

The new Raider portrait looks like it has been inspired by Stan Lee and his Marvel characters. I can see a mix of Reed Richards (Fantastic Four), Dr. Strange and even Stan himself 😄.

Will there be any new, slightly burnt out and unhinged mercs for hire? Anyone who's portrait shows a thousand yard stare, draws smiley faces on their frag grenades and has given his personal custom knife a man's name?

Edited January 23, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[Goliath]

Great news! 

But i also have to second my fellow posters concerns about too cartoony characters. 

JA2 was always gritty and serious. It could be comedic in situations, but that happened especially in contrast to its general grittyness.

Also the more i see the more it irks me that the mercs outfit cannot be changed. 

 

I mean which professional merc is running around in clean white pants and colorful shirts? 

I feel like this is gonna be an immersionkiller and i really hope they do change that or give us options... 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Goliath

[LoboNocturno]

9 hours ago, Hendrix said:

I would assume it is Ron "Raider" Higgens (Ravens husband) from JA2 and not a new character. Looks like Arulco put some years on him.

https://jaggedalliance.fandom.com/wiki/Ron_"Raider"_Higgens

Ohhh it seems so, didnt even think of the Raider from JA2, never really used him in those 20+ years. 😃 Was perhaps for me 1 of the more invisible characters in Jagged Alliance 2, at least imo.

 

7 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

The new Raider portrait looks like it has been inspired by Stan Lee and his Marvel characters. I can see a mix of Reed Richards (Fantastic Four), Dr. Strange and even Stan himself 😄.

Will there be any new, slightly burnt out and unhinged mercs for hire? Anyone who's portrait shows a thousand yard stare, draws smiley faces on their frag grenades and has given his personal custom knife a man's name?

Hahah to me, he gave me directly a relentless biker gang type vibe, his portrait also reminds me to Magic Mike from Vatos Locos from the legendary Blood In Blood Out movie or also to Alejandro Gillick from Sicario, would be more then happy if they could bring a crazy Mexican merc Machete like. 😉

[JJ1]

4 hours ago, Goliath said:

JA2 was always gritty and serious. It could be comedic in situations, but that happened especially in contrast to its general grittyness.

To each their own, but the original Jagged Alliance games were full of humor for me.  I was constantly laughing at lines from the mercs and other absurd things that happened.  To this day, some of the original lines make me laugh, despite having heard them hundreds of times by now.  The humor was one of my favorite parts.

[WILDFIRE]

My favourite JA3 merc portraits at the moment are definitely Wolf, Blood, Grizzly and Red. They all look great!

 

But where is my man Shadow? I hope he also gets a great portrait and 3D model like Wolf. He is my all time favourite merc so I hope he is no DLC guy. That would kill my vibe.

[LoboNocturno]

2 hours ago, WILDFIRE said:

My favourite JA3 merc portraits at the moment are definitely Wolf, Blood, Grizzly and Red. They all look great!

 

But where is my man Shadow? I hope he also gets a great portrait and 3D model like Wolf. He is my all time favourite merc so I hope he is no DLC guy. That would kill my vibe.

Very good choice WildFire, myself i like Fauda, Fidel (could be better without a jacket) & Igor Dolvich most, i love Ivan too but his outfit doesn't suit to the African environment, if JA3 took place in North America or Eastern Europe then his outfit would suit perfectly, love the Soviet officer uniform but it just looks very odd to the environment.

 

Grizzly looks promising, black beret & portrait looks good to me, possibly black top or vest and could be with green trouser which would suit or black trouse then he would have a black ops, or black merc look lol.

 

Red portrait looks good as well, seems like he has on a realistic battlefield uniform, with green beret i guess he has either tan or green tones of colour outfit.

 

Blood yea, could be promising but i would personally prefer without the red bandana (like Rambo wanna be) and Thor has nearly the same red bandana on his forehead already.

 

Wolf`s outfit, totally spot on battlefield outfit and suits to the environment very well, Wolf & Fauda`s outfits are my favorites so far.

 

Expecting Shadow will be having his traditional military outfit with heavy camouflage, i mean if Shadow would come with a jeans trouser and a purple shirt on him, that would be the biggest joke & scandals of gaming history.  😅

[WILDFIRE]

On 1/24/2023 at 6:17 AM, JJ1 said:

To each their own, but the original Jagged Alliance games were full of humor for me.  I was constantly laughing at lines from the mercs and other absurd things that happened.  To this day, some of the original lines make me laugh, despite having heard them hundreds of times by now.  The humor was one of my favorite parts.

Yes you are right but still all the humor happened in a realistic, brutal and unforgiving world. That is what I love about JA2. The humor was the light in the darkness. In the end it was no cartoony and colorful game. Most of the missions had a deeper serious background and were connected with this brutal world. The NPCs were believable and felt like they really lived in these areas.

 

There was no political correctness and many mercs used dark humor. It somehow preserved the 80s retro action movies. Do you know the movie Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Its like Jagged Alliance the movie. That is the comedy we need in JA3. Dry dark humor but in a tough believable world. The game also needs the right comedy that fits the mercs and their environment. In todays games we often see awkward bad writing and characters you can not take serious. The love is missing so as a gamer you dont care anymore. 

 

JA2 was build to have the most fun with your crazy squad and that is the reason why we all love the game to this day. So I hope JA3 also gets this gritty serious writing for its mercs/NPCs and wont follow todays bad standards. 

 

@LoboNocturno: Yes I hope Shadow gets also a true combat outfit like Wolf but with camouflage elements and his typical face paint.

[LoboNocturno]

4 hours ago, WILDFIRE said:

Yes you are right but still all the humor happened in a realistic, brutal and unforgiving world. That is what I love about JA2. The humor was the light in the darkness. In the end it was no cartoony and colorful game. Most of the missions had a deeper serious background and were connected with this brutal world. The NPCs were believable and felt like they really lived in these areas.

 

There was no political correctness and many mercs used dark humor. It somehow preserved the 80s retro action movies. Do you know the movie Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Its like Jagged Alliance the movie. That is the comedy we need in JA3. Dry dark humor but in a tough believable world. The game also needs the right comedy that fits the mercs and their environment. In todays games we often see awkward bad writing and characters you can not take serious. The love is missing so as a gamer you dont care anymore. 

 

JA2 was build to have the most fun with your crazy squad and that is the reason why we all love the game to this day. So I hope JA3 also gets this gritty serious writing for its mercs/NPCs and wont follow todays bad standards. 

 

@LoboNocturno: Yes I hope Shadow gets also a true combat outfit like Wolf but with camouflage elements and his typical face paint.

Totally agree with you but it seems like thats sadly not the case in Jagged Alliance 3 anymore. Most characters looks cartoonish & way too colourful.

[Wigen]

Wolf has a nice body armor. The color matches the gloves perfectly.

[BossWeapons]

Damn it. Shouldn't get hyped, but I'm getting hyped. Great to know they've got series veteran(s) working on the game too. Having Ian aboard is truly golden. Almost can't wait to find out about how the mercs have been written this time around and how many unique interactions one can find in one playthrough. The new gameplay snippets look very nice too, though if I had to nitpick about something, knowing the game is still very much WIP, the amount of blood being sprayed on hits is quite excessively cartoony and some of the animations look seriously stiff. Regardless, I am still excited, very much excited. Especially since... since there seems to be a sneaky I.M.P page hidden in there! Oh, don't tell me it's what I think it is! 😄

[Wigen]

On the latest trailer, in addition to photos of mercenaries, you can find something else. At the very beginning of the recording behind Ian there is also a blurred screen from the main menu of the game. I noticed that options such as "Continiue", "New Game", "Load Game", "Mulitiplayer", etc. are highlighted in addition to one option, which is gray as if it was not yet active. After watching the recording in a higher quality and resolution with guys on Discord and after a short analysis we think that this is the option "Modds" or "Mod".

At the very bottom under "QUIT" there is probably an option or tool called "Mod Manager". This option managed to read to the @Kordanor.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Wigen

[Solaris_Wave]

If JA3 is designed to work with mods right out of the box, then that is great news. The game definitely will want to be modded by people and making it as easy and as seamless as possible is certainly a welcome one. Several great games in the past have allowed for mods to be quickly activated and deactivated. Anything where you don't have to unpack the source files, try to figure out what does what and then make a cumbersome mod that requires fiddly installation is to be commended.

For me, I don't always want everything in a mod made by other creators. Also, when I have made my own mods in the past, sometimes I just want to change the sound effects or tweak the damage settings. Other times, I have made full-blown mods. Having the developers create that freedom to  modify a little or a lot is excellent.

[Wigen]

Interview with Ian Currie in the German magazine GameStar. Unfortunately, the article is paid.

Maybe someone will be able to get full access to the interview and share some interesting snippets. It is not necessary to publish the entire article.

https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/jagged-alliance-3-ian-currie-interview,3389255.html

Edited January 31, 2023 by Wigen

[LoboNocturno]

2 hours ago, Wigen said:

Interview with Ian Currie in the German magazine GameStar. Unfortunately, the article is paid.

Maybe someone will be able to get full access to the interview and share some interesting snippets. It is not necessary to publish the entire article.

https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/jagged-alliance-3-ian-currie-interview,3389255.html

Sehr gut gemacht junge 😉👍🏽

[Kordanor]

I checked the article. Deedee Boombastic is now confirmed as character (visible in the screenshots from the blog entry).
Also Ian mentions Gus as a pick in his JA2 dream team. Now this does NOT mean, that Gus is a confirmed JA3 character. But it makes it somewhat likely. As so far developers kinda tried avoiding talking about characters not being in JA3, Wink in the Stream being the exception.

Besides of that nothing in terms of new game info.

[Solaris_Wave]

I am guessing that the characters in the game are not finalised and could still see lots of revision. I do understand that the mercs all need to be easily identifiable so their clothes are very much part of their personality. You wouldn't be able to clearly tell who's who if there are five mercs all unshaven and wearing BDUs.

That said, I have thought that some of the mercs look a little too game-like and not mercs that you would hire for their combat skills. I have frequently mentioned how unrealistic Leisure Suit Larry Smiley looks for a professional for hire. Looking at the images posted by @LoboNocturno previously, you've also got one guy in a purple shirt and white slacks, who looks like you would hire him to organise a beach party for Playboy magazine. You've got the second guy who looks like an East European Duke Nukem and the third merc looking like he drives a gold Hummer and fires his Glock 17 (or gold plated Desert Eagle) sideways.

[Kordanor]

Personally I like their outfits and styles. Just some characters (from the portrait, like Nails) look too different, and kind of "generic" and "templaty". Not quite as bad, but a bit like if you used the same model for all characters and then just put a grey beard on a dummy which is supposed to be a 20 year old (as you see in some other games)

[LoboNocturno]

18 hours ago, Kordanor said:

I checked the article. Deedee Boombastic is now confirmed as character (visible in the screenshots from the blog entry).
Also Ian mentions Gus as a pick in his JA2 dream team. Now this does NOT mean, that Gus is a confirmed JA3 character. But it makes it somewhat likely. As so far developers kinda tried avoiding talking about characters not being in JA3, Wink in the Stream being the exception.

Besides of that nothing in terms of new game info.

Which screen shots ?, where ? If you mean right on this topic, where you can see its a confirmed character ? Then Bastien as well would be 1 but there is nothing confirmed, could be also just NPCs.

[Kordanor]

What I am saying is that in the article posted before (Gamestar, behind paywall) it is mentioned that Deedee is a new, recruitable character. From the screenshot alone that's impossible to tell.

So its probably a "native" you encounter and you can then recruit (like Maddog in JA2)

Bastien, as far as I know, is just some Gangster Encounter.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Kordanor

[Wigen]

9 minutes ago, Kordanor said:

So its probably a "native" you encounter and you can then recruit (like Maddog in JA2)

So it's RPC.

[WILDFIRE]

Deedee Bombastic really looks like a character that would fit in a Tropico successor but not really in JA3. Maybe it is too early to judge but overall this looks way too cartoony. It looks like a happy holiday simulation where you create your next big hotel. You can not see any fear or anger in these characters. Thats the problem when you have no animated portraits. Combined with this cartoony look makes it impossible to take these characters serious.