BossWeapons

I am a whole bunch excited for multiplayer, hopefully they can make it interesting enough. Always wanted to play the older games with friends. Deadly Games had player versus player mode back in the day if I'm not completely mistaken, but I never got to play against real people back then.

I fully agree with the sentiment above. Not everything has to be a fit for mobile or simplified for the average consumer. Especially when we're talking about already established brands such as what we've got here. I would love to see a whole lot of detailed sub systems in this game too, but as long as we don't steer away from what JA2 established previously I'd be fine with it. Un-modded JA2 is a pretty different experience from 1.13 which these days is probably the go to option for people playing the game, even maybe for the first time, as it comes with fixes to run the game with modern systems. Or do I just remember wrong? So far, judging from what we've been given in the form of this DevDiary, video and other media, everything's looking like it'll be pretty nice (if we rule out all the alpha jank from the visuals,) but that naturally remains to be seen how it'll end up in the long run. I'm hopeful however.

It is true that your mercs didn't really change in the looks in the older games unless you applied camo on them. But I would argue times have changed since then. Every enemy in those older games were just dudes in a different coloured tank tops pretty much. It never bothered me then, and still doesn't when I play the older games. The imagination with the visuals being so simplistic keep it from getting bothersome. The guns all have the same rifle model or pistol models too if I'm not completely mistaken. But now when we can have unique weapon models and things like that it would feel just a tiny bit odd if nothing ever changed visually on the characters. It's not a deal breaker for me and I can cope if the game never has any extra fluff to the mercs seeing the mercs already look pretty different from oneanother. Custom merc creation wouldn't be a huge hassle I would think. But so far we've got nothing to indicate it'll be an option once the game is released. If it happens that the feature is omitted for some reason, I would think it'd be a great way to sell some DLC, but that would most likely sour some folks pretty badly unless it was a part of a much larger update. I guess we'll see in due time which way the game goes and what we'll get closer to the release date. I'm still hopeful it'll be a surprise reveal in one of the upcoming DevDiaries. 😄

Good to finally hear about the game in more detail. Been lurking here for quite some time, waiting for those fabled DevDiaries to appear. Then they sneakily drop in just when I'm not paying any attention for weeks. That's a great summary of what you have in mind for JA3. Makes me hopeful for finally getting an actually good JA game which so far sounds like it's going to stay fairly close to the previous titles in spirit and mechanics. Can't wait to hear more! Now how about a whole 4 pages long DevDiary sometimes later down the line about Custom Merc Creation, eh? Wink-wink! Nudge-nudge! 😏

I don't think we need more than just helmets and body armor visible. Those two are essential, in my opinion, for any 3rd person, top-down, tactical, what have you games. It creates a bigger attachment for the unit in question when they look like they have some good gear on and makes me care for them more when I can suit my favourites in the better looking or the best armor. It also adds to the immersion. I mean, imagine playing the new X-COM games without ever having different looking armor on your soldiers. That would be pretty bland. It'll be disappointing if there's no visible equipment at all beyond guns and gadgets, or if there's no way to customise your mercs from their default looks. In a game like JA where the mercs are the heart and soul of the game one would expect to see something you can change on them. How about this then: The game currently has no custom merc option and by the sound of it it's probably unlikely to happen. This would be the perfect opportunity to introduce your own merc into the game who would get all those fancy helmets and gear shown on their body, making it your very own, special looking bad-ass without having to "ruin" the aesthetics of the established characters. Hell, if there turns out to be no way to customise any of the hirable mercs, then you could go nuts with the custom guy and make him all kinds of action hero type looking during the character creation if nothing else.