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.

I must say that whatever camo you are wearing has got to be good because I can't even find you in that picture! I have looked for some time, wondering how tall you would be against the trees or whether I am even missing a joke, where you aren't in the photo at all and just took a photo of a scene and pretended you were in it 😆. Whatever the situation, I think it proves the importance of camo because if I was struggling to spot you, imagine the scenario where you are a sniper waiting to shoot an enemy. Any amount of time where you don't know where the sniper is, is advantageous to the sniper themselves as they have more time to line up on you, pull the trigger and end your life. Not only that, but you have given me a scenario where you have said that somebody is definitely present in the scene and I am supposed to eventually see you within that picture. It is creating a scenario where you are saying, "Somewhere within this scene is an enemy sniper. The longer you take to spot them, the less chance you have at surviving." Now imagine not expecting somebody to be there and just walking along, trying to be alert for danger, but still getting shot. There might not even be anybody waiting for you here but there could be farther up, half a kilometre away. No wonder artillery has been called in to get rid of snipers in the past.

In some games where stealth is an attribute that can be levelled up, it can be quite overpowered by the end. I was almost able to carry out some missions in JA2 entirely solo with my custom character. She became adept in stealth and carried an MP5SD. Luckily, the game didn't make those situations too frequent, otherwise it would have been too easy and killed the squad aspect of the game. I never played JA:Rage or any JA game after JA2, purely because of the negative reviews that were consistently made. I don't know if I should have bought and played them regardless, just so I could have an experienced opinion on them myself and say what I hope JA3 won't include. Was stealth forced for JA:Rage (maybe due to difficulty) or was it that it was so effective that it made any other style of play pointless and redundant?

That is what I was thinking. It looks like where your custom merc will be. One thing about releasing a screenshot or video of a work in progress, is that they are immediately open to scrutiny, as if what the developers are showing is complete and final. Things are being added and changed all the time, giving the idea that producing a preview of something is pointless because it will be criticised or soon out of date. And yet, if nothing is shown, the developers can be equally criticised as being 'awfully quiet' and that the development could be 'troubled'. This isn't a criticism of anyone by me, just an observation.

This is exactly right. I mentioned this before about how large maps will create a difference between using one weapon type over another. Not only that but if the map is large, you have multiple ways to approach and can split your mercs up into teams to attack from different directions. Smaller maps just mean you can only attack from one or two different points and just give the impression that the map designer has said, "I want you to attack from this point right here." There is no room for creativity.

There are pros and cons to having only iron sights and for having red dots (along with anything similar). Iron sights are slower as you have to line up the front and rear sights, plus the sight picture is smaller. Also, most iron sights are just plain black or dark metal, which isn't great when trying to see them in the dark. At that point, you are going more by feel. Red dots and similar are faster, have a larger sight picture and are good for most lighting conditions as you can adjust the brightness of the dot. On the negative side, optical sights can get damaged, add to the weight of the gun, can be bulky and block certain angles of view. A lot of the negatives come down to older red dots and also cheaper ones (especially imitations). Battery usage affects older and cheaper models more too. Cheap sights also have high chance of parallax shifting so the dot moves around if you don't try to look through the optic straight on. I don't understand how some people buy a gun and then mount an airsoft clone sight, of all things. I know proper sights are expensive but it seems weird to take the airsoft route, even if your gun is only to be a 'firing range toy'.

I am not bashing @WILDFIRE's post either. I understand what he is referring to. I know what you mean about games and movies giving the idea that all guns need optics now. It makes you wonder how anybody managed to hit anything when all there was was iron sights! Some people shoot better with irons than they do with the standard issued optics for their rifle but games and movies just show them for the cool factor. You know the soldier is a 'real' operator if they have an optic, suppressor, foregrip, light and laser, plus night vision goggles on the front of their helmet. You also know that the bad guy is definitely a bad guy if he carries a basic AKM with nothing else, shouts angrily, smokes a greasy cigar and wears big black Ray-Bans. Also, depending on his wealth and status, he might have loads of medals, braids and ribbons plus several Swiss watches on his arm. A beret might top it off. And yet, his AKM remains plain. These movies and games depict shotguns the same way too. An absolute cone of death wiping out anything in its path…up to about 20 feet, at which point after, it becomes 100% useless.

Your last sentence there absolutely sums it up, I think. The corporations are indeed looking for maximised profits and to do that, they will try and make it appeal to as many people as possible. While that makes sense from a business point of view, the problem with that, is that it often is a game that doesn't leave a long, positive lasting memory of it and it eventually becomes yesterday's news. Not only that, but the pursuit for max profits kills creativity and innovative ideas. It is widely known that the corporations don't want to take any risks and will kill off any budding designs being worked on. It doesn't help either when they will say something like, "Nobody plays those types of games anymore." That is something that you so often see and yet there will be many people on the internet reminiscing about a game or game genre and wishing they would return. One of the reasons why my interest in PC gaming has returned and why console gaming has died off, is because I am once again playing the games that I want to play, rather than the games that they want me to play. 'They' being the corporations. I have seen many genres and popular flavours of games over the course of my lifetime. I have seen shoot 'em ups of the 80s and early 90s, side-scrolling and isometric platformers of the same time period, the movie tie-in clones, the graphic and text adventures, tile-based RPG clones, the birth of CD-ROM and the interactive movie, the genesis of the First-Person Shooter, 3D open world RPGs and so on. Everyone tries to copy what has set a new mark and that trend will continue. What I find strange though, is that it only seems to be now, in the last decade, that the big game corporations have lost sight of what they are doing, are unsure of who actually plays games (they seem to forget that it isn't just kids and teenagers), regularly annoy customers with their pig-headed pursuit of micro-transactions and are surrounded by controversy. Plus, as I said before everything is a sequel, clone or a remaster. They wonder why their profits are declining or might have record profits but still not be as much as they wanted (what a contradiction, that is!). It makes the news how the suits give themselves bonuses while firing the actual developers or giving them peanuts. It also makes the news about how staff, especially female staff are treated. They expect us to buy game after game even if they are the same as before and each game is loaded to the gills with micro-transactions and useless immersion breaking skins (I have never played Rainbow 6: Siege but I have read all about the silly cosmetics you can buy). You want something different? "Nobody wants that kind of game anymore." Console gaming in the last 20 years brought about the big budget games with presentation matching that of movies and TV shows. It made it accessible to the masses, less 'nerdy' and many that scoffed at gaming, look at it differently. However, it has definitely hit a wall because now that is expected of every game. Everything has to be a big budget, big name extravaganza and that can be exhausting for a gamer and stunting creativity for the creators. That means, to me, that the saviour of computer games once lies again with the PC. I have seen so many creative ideas being worked on, usually by smaller companies and individuals. The only drawback with them is that so many remain in Early Access for years or indefinitely.

In some ways, you would think that a semi-adaptive camo (instead of a more expensive fully adaptive camo) would be easier to create for an individual to wear, when compared to having something on a vehicle. And yet, it appears that progress of different types of camo seems to be more apparent for vehicles. Maybe because the camo is electronically powered and a vehicle will have that in place. I recently saw a picture of a tank's thermal image being changed to that of a car. That certainly is impressive but I am wondering if it will give the game away when the enemy commander or gunner sees four cars moving together in a wedge formation! Seriously though, some kind of photo sensitive fabric might be possible to create for a single soldier. I am sure the focus would be on completely hiding the wearer by changing their profile in both actual and thermal vision, so it truly mimics the surroundings like a chameleon, whether that is some light-bending, transparent Predator cloaking system (which would probably be electronic anyway) or different technology; but what about some kind of fabric that already has a fixed camo pattern design (which needs to be just right for the environment, like the problems faced today) but it will deepen or brighten depending on the level of sunlight? It wouldn't change the whole outfit either. If the sunlight was stronger on your right arm, for example, then only the arm would change its tone. Again, I could be talking nonsense and this material would need to be light and easy to wear so you are not sweating for the benefit of the camouflage (which would raise your thermal output). I don't know how much existing camo blends in with the surroundings as sunlight changes throughout the course of the day but from your written accounts on here, it does sound like an issue.

I never experienced it when I played JA2 but has anybody experienced any situation where a merc flat out quits, regardless of their contract, due to thinking that the situation is far too hazardous and stupid for them to continue? I am wondering if they would quit, thinking that the whole campaign hasn't been thought out well enough by their employer (i.e. you) and they are pointlessly risking their life due to lack of money, manpower, decent equipment, poor tactics and seeing fellow mercs die?

I have never known a gun to be 'useless' due to only having iron sights! If you want to keep your firearm simple, as light as possible and robust, it can be worth just having irons and nothing else. I am thinking more about handguns, SMGs and assault rifles in this case.

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?

That was a fantastic post, Ian! It is genuinely pleasing to read that you are involved in JA3. There are so many of us in these forums that speak so fondly of JA2. I consider it one of my all-time favourite games and a true landmark in the strategy genre of computer games. I knew from playing the demo of it, that I had to buy the game as soon as it was possible. The game impressed me from start to finish with its attention to detail in so many ways, whether it was the graphics, sounds, environment, gunplay, role-play elements, character progression or storyline. Part of my enthusiasm for it was the story and the characters. Whether it was your mercs or the villains, there was so much personality with each of them, it added immensely to the gameplay and made you care about the progression of the campaign. Arulco wasn't just the location for various battles to take place. It felt like a war-torn nation that needed to be liberated, piece by piece, exactly as the writing intended it to be. As fondly as I will always think about the original three X-COM games, Jagged Alliance 2 really gave true personality to the genre, with proper characters. They didn't feel simply like units to control, like some blank collective. It felt like you were choosing them for their skills and abilities. It is thanks to that writing, that they also felt like they were individuals with careers, almost as if they could somehow carry out the whole campaign without your control, once you hired them and continued to pay them enough. The Developer Diaries that have so far been posted, have been a pleasure to read! It gives me great hope for Jagged Alliance 3.

Battles in JA2 always felt tense, from the beginning of the game, right through to the finale. The environment could look pretty torn up by the end. When the battle was over and the game switched back into real-time, you could look back to certain areas of the battlefield and remember how certain game turns produced a real firefight that could have gone either way for both sides. The bullet calculations definitely proved the necessity for utilising cover and going prone.

That is an important issue regarding buckshot rounds. It is vital that each pellet is calculated as an individual shot. While any one pellet has the potential to kill, individual pellets are weak and the effectiveness of buckshot is when several or all of the pellets hit. If the buckshot is cosmetic and kind of works like a slug, then that would seriously diminish the character and versatility of a shotgun. If the shotgun is implemented correctly, it can remain a useful weapon for the entirety of the game. The variety of ammo for shotguns is what keeps its relevance, even today. Also, hopefully, as the game progresses, not every enemy you face will automatically be wearing body armour. That will keep buckshot relevant, even if you are tempted to only carry slugs (and specialist rounds, like door breaching rounds).

That was a good video and one that has added yet more games to my ever increasing Steam Wishlist. Seeing some of these games in development reminds me of the days of turn-based strategy games throughout the 1990s when they ruled supreme. I am finding I have gone through both a game system evolution and revolution. During the mid 2000s, I found myself getting disillusioned with PC gaming. It remained as expensive as ever but with all that apparent power, it felt as if the games being made were always expecting top of the line PCs despite not showing enough to answer for those demanding requirements. While it will sound like I am going off on a tangent and waffling away, bear with me on this… I then saw Halo on the 1st generation XBox and was wowed by its sound, music, art direction and gameplay. While it had no resemblance to my earlier computer game years of simulators and strategy games, I loved how it enabled you to play through the story co-operatively with friends and on a game system that was a fraction of the cost. Meanwhile, on the PC, co-op play was slowly being reduced in favour of deathmatch and team deathmatch gameplay. The final straw for me was when I saw Halo come to the PC and in its transition, the co-op mode was apparently removed, leaving only single player and deathmatch modes. Despite all that power of the PC and the fanboys saying that PCs will always be better than consoles, I was seeing different. For many years, I got my fix and plenty of gaming from the 1st gen XBox and later the XBox 360. I would play all modes online, I would have lots of fun playing different games and would read about PC versions often being bug-ridden and inferior. There was the rare strategy game that would be clumsy on the console, due to using a gamepad instead of a mouse, but I didn't really miss those big strategy games. However, nothing really progressed on the consoles and if anything, variety that was there in the beginning seemed to fall away. I never bought the last generation of consoles such as the XBox One and kept seeing endless sequels, remasters and games becoming clones of one another. Everything was classed as a AAA game that you apparently had to 'get ready' for, even though too many games were being released too quickly, took too long to play and turned out to be (in my view) something I had already played over and over. Not only that but they were also often disappointing in terms of review scores. I found myself missing the variety and I saw that variety return on the PC. If you want big AAA games, they are there but there are also indie games and beyond. Co-op games are back, strategy games are thriving once more, space games of all types are there, simulators are available or being made. I look at console games being made now and feel like an old dude yelling at the 'youth of today' and talking about the good old days. It is just the same stuff being recycled. Another Assassin's Creed, another Call Of Duty, another FIFA, another Need For Speed, another 3rd-Person open world game, another Japanese RPG, another extreme-difficulty game where you fight a boss who is 30 feet high and has a sword bigger than a house. I don't care about Fortnite, battle-royale games, MMOs or MOBAs. I'm bored even typing all of that, let alone thinking about it or having to play those games. Meanwhile, on the PC, I'm excited to be a gamer again. For the fact that I have been playing games since the Atari 2600, 42 years ago, that can only be a good thing.

I don't have any experience with hunting or different types of environment vs. camouflage myself but I am wondering if the actual material and fabric can contribute negatively to how it shows up under certain light? Reading both of your comments, @Hendrix and @GODSPEED, it sounds as if it isn't just the camo pattern that might look out of place in the terrain it is meant for (if it looks too busy or too sparse) but also, if the fabric creates a certain hue to it when the sunlight hits it a certain way. You see photos showing how good winter camo can be, such as in WWII but those photos are invariably in monochrome, which in essence helps make those outfits blend in even more with the almost monochrome environment (whites, greys and blacks). Lots of experimentation is being made all the time to create better camouflage, either for personnel or for vehicles, with most of it being active and adaptive. I was wondering though about something a little less expensive or elaborate. Something along the lines of merely allowing the fabric to change its tone as the sunlight changes throughout the day, rather than more fancy chameleon-esque camouflage. As I have no experience in personal camo and the fabrics used, I could be looking into something in a round about stupid way and overthinking something wholly unnecessary, but certain fibres might end up being excellent for warmth and water resistance, while being a little too shiny (and noisy when moving around)?

Those photos are superb, @GODSPEED! It must be nice to get photos like that, just as much as going hunting itself.

For some developers, creating a game is a labour of love. For others, it is just something to put on your CV as you move from one publisher to another. The bigger the publisher and the more they 'churn' out games, the less passionate I think an individual developer will be. I can't exactly blame them though, not when the corporate suits take all the money for themselves and make demands for more identikit games, loaded with micro-transactions and 'fun' skins, only to then blame the developers when the games aren't selling.

I wonder if, since the video first came out, whether the developers have hopefully scaled back, or (even better) completely changed, the huuuuuuge and arcadey blood splatter!

How about raiding enemy convoys or supply depots for money, food, arms and aid? Intelligence could be gained by buying information from civilians or from captured officers as to where and when a convoy is travelling through a sector. Additional money and items could be gained from completing side missions for local personalities, whether they are gang leaders, resistance fighters, townsfolk, wealthy opportunists, colonials and so on. Another idea was one myself and others discussed briefly in the past in these forums. That was to have bounties for certain enemy officers, gang members or highly talented individuals.

I was thinking the aiming crosshair was just a game implement but it could be made so much more with @WILDFIRE's idea. Different crosshairs and reticles for various sights so you are in effect seeing what your mercs' are seeing when they are looking through their weapon's optics. How about affecting the view of the target through the optic, depending on their distance from the shooter and the magnification power of the optic? If aiming at a target farther away, a high power optic with proper magnification could present a larger or clearer image, compared to a red dot sight that has no magnification? I think you would have to draw the line at wanting to show iron sights though. While optics have a general similarity to one another in their reticles, iron sights are more varied, especially when you think of pistols, SMGs, shotguns, LMGs and rifles. A compromise between what is there now and a bit of variation depending on the mounted optic would be a fun implementation, however!

Animated 3D model portraits will undoubtedly be harder to create than 2D portraits and if the developers went with 2D portraits, would they look out of place with the newer game's 3D engine or with certain people's expectations (namely people who aren't longterm fans of JA2)? I know it wouldn't bother many of us, but would reviewers hold it as a negative mark against the game, even if it would be considered petty? That said, animated portraits make a lot of difference in creating a personality. I recently played Aliens: Fireteam Elite and while the 3D character models are nicely detailed and move around a little, they have no expressions or mouth movements when talking. It looks odd. It isn't a deal breaker but it is something that cheapens the whole experience, and the product itself.

Bloodcats don't need to be in JA3 but there definitely should be an equivalent in JA3! I know this has been covered in these forums in recent months but Africa is known for its wildlife of all descriptions. I would like to see both hostile and peaceful wildlife.

Some of those camo patterns give the impression that they are what the manufacturers expect civilians to believe are military grade designs. Either that or ‘tacticool’. Then again, when you see camo patterns in pink, red and orange, it makes me wonder what those are for, other than fashion. Even if pink can blend in with the horizon, the pink tone that is chosen, along with the added blacks just gives it a ‘tactical casual bedroom’ look. Reading your comments shows just how patient you need to be and how patient snipers have to be, all to get that right opportunity to take the shot. When I read your second paragraph about needing food and drink, I humorously envisioned a sniper, decked out in a ghillie suit, lying motionless, totally dedicated to the kill…while his butlers stuck out like a neon sign, walking back and forth with noisy silverware containing his full course meal and beverages. Then again, this probably happened during the colonial years. Some member of the aristocracy deciding to hunt animals with his huge gun, not far from his big white tent, gramophone, drinks cabinet and his retinue of servants and friends loudly moving around.