Looking great!

[Crow]

The Jagged Alliance series is traditionally my biggest video-game "heartbreaker" when it comes to sequels.

 

It appears this attempt has everything right, and I would really like to see this come to market.  Have you considered a "Go Fund Me" or similar?

 

Thanks, and good luck.

 

 

[Kordanor]

Hey there!

The game is actually produced and published by a real (and huge) publisher. So a gofundme campaign would be super inadequate for this game.

[Crow]

On 2/1/2023 at 10:33 AM, Kordanor said:

Hey there!

The game is actually produced and published by a real (and huge) publisher. So a gofundme campaign would be super inadequate for this game.

 

Why not both?

 

Nothing stops pre-orders, right?

[Kordanor]

yeah, but pre-orders are already considered rip off, as you buy a product you don't know will be any good.

Crowdfuning even more. That way you even pay money taking the risk, that you wont get anything at all.

Generally that casts a rather bad image on the publisher.

[Solaris_Wave]

Lots of people are wary of crowdfunding these days. While it is rare to happen, crowdfunded games have sometimes never been completed and remain in an alpha or beta state. Progress is slow, or things are always being added, or the vision is too great to truly make into a workable game.

For crowdfunding in the case of JA3, it isn't necessary. They already have a large enough team and publisher. Crowdfunding is more for a small group of people (or one person) that have an idea and want enough funding to make it happen.

Not every game will turn into Star Citizen, but that is probably the most (in)famous game ever that is crowdfunded as it shows that no matter how much money is thrown at it, you can't guarantee the game will ever be finished. I reckon that game will get finished but the vision is so great that by the time the game is released, nobody will want to play it because humans will have actually been able to colonise outer space for real.

I don't know what pre-orders are like these days. At one point, it was getting stupid as one games store was selling the game with one lot of exclusives, another store with another lot of exclusives and you had to decide what you wanted to see in your game. Those exclusives might appear as payable DLC at some point down the line but then again, they might not. There was always the worry that you might miss out on the complete game experience (and if you were buying the game in the first place, you want to see all of the content there is to offer) and the publishers thrived on that.

I don't know if that is even a thing now that physical copies of games have faded in favour of downloadable games. There is definitely still the issue with review copies of games not being what the retail version is like. These days, that might be where the review copy is just the 'finished' game and the retail copy is the game but absolutely festooned with micro-transactions and gambling incentives "surprise mechanics".

Bait-and-switch tactics do still happen but the public are more wary these days because of certain publishers getting away with it in the past, despite lawsuits.

[Crow]

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree.

 

Pre-orders by major studios are extremely common.

Don't take my word for it, here is a list of 75 right now, including Final Fantasy, The Elder Scrolls, Diablo, & Street Fighter.

 

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/category/0d8b3716-872d-4714-aae1-782e4d17ff31/1

 

I love JA, and have very high hopes for JA3 (especially if it is mod-dable), but no way is it bigger than those titles. 

[Solaris_Wave]

It depends on what kind of games interest you to determine what is "big". In terms of audiences, Jagged Alliance's popularity and relevance has been stagnating due to lacklustre sequels. The last good JA game seems to be JA2. Fans of Jagged Alliance are going to be those that want a turn-based squad level strategy game and other than several XCOM reboot clones, games of that kind have been rather thin.

I personally rate JA3 as one of my most anticipated games and I have an increasing amount of games on my Steam Wishlist. I looked at the link you provided and out of all of those games, only two of those games interest me (Dead Island 2 and Star Wars: Jedi Survivor). It probably wasn't useful to look at console game pre-orders as my attention is more on PC games these days and the types of games that don't work well on consoles. But that is just me.

I think pre-orders might be bigger on console than they are on PC but I don't know for certain. When I made my posts, I wasn't saying that pre-orders don't exist anymore, more that people are wary of them a lot more today. My last pre-order was Aliens: Colonial Marines back in 2013 and that was one of the biggest and most infamous of games to kill off desires for pre-orders after the bait-and-switch that occurred. It was a big thing for Aliens fans to get that game and it was nothing like advertised or shown beforehand. It wasn't very good on PC (as far as I know) and on XBox 360 it was graphically abysmal (that I do know). It caused lawsuits and revealed a lot of behind-the-scenes controversy and tarnished Gearbox' reputation (which carried on tumbling thanks to its boss). That was enough to stop me pre-ordering any games, and I was already getting exasperated by the multiple editions and exclusive add-ons depending on where you bought them from. Nowadays, I will just wait for games to go on sale before I make any purchase and consider buying any DLC.

JA3 is one game I may consider pre-ordering but if it is on Steam, is it necessary? Being downloadable, it isn't as if any exclusives from pre-orders will run out of stock, or never be available later as optional DLC.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[trueman11]

On 2/1/2023 at 9:38 AM, Crow said:

It appears this attempt has everything right

I guess this just answers what type of gamers developers are aiming at. Oh, well... At least I know from the start that this JA3 is not for me. That's something.

[Solaris_Wave]

I would not be too hasty to judge JA3 yet. The game has still got a lot more time in development. So far, the only trailers shown are earlier work. It could change a lot from now to release.

[trueman11]

On 4/4/2023 at 2:03 AM, Solaris_Wave said:

I would not be too hasty to judge JA3 yet. The game has still got a lot more time in development. So far, the only trailers shown are earlier work. It could change a lot from now to release.

I don't see how it can change from that to something in the spirit of JA2. Starting point tells A LOT about the direction devs are going. What trailers are showing right now clearly indicates the direction is modern XCOM-ish simplified shallower game.

Don't get me wrong, I would be GLAD to be wrong. I just likely won't be.

[Solaris_Wave]

Ways to avoid just being XCOM in an African safari suit is to have less cartoony graphics, action points instead of a two-stage move/shoot mechanic (sorry journalists but it wasn't a "breath of fresh air" for everyone), larger maps to allow for tactical freedom and weapon choice, fully destructible buildings, the ability to carry multiple forms of equipment and no obvious icons saying what is usable cover (the graphics and modelling should be good enough for you to recognise such terrain without needing chummy, gamer-friendly signs everywhere).

 

All of that is a good start.