SWi74

I enjoy the questionnaire, but never liked to identify as the main character in a game. That could work. IMP just being a psych evaluation website that you get your permit from. When creating a character the stats traits/stats would be set according to your IMP profile, but changeable. If you like you could go straight to character creation. How important you asked. At first, I thought "It is important", because I enjoy it. In fact it isn't important at all. JA without it would still be just as good. I'd vote against more than one character design. It ruins the devs work on the default roster.

mind blown... I never actually looked up the devs... Somehow I thought it will be THQ Nordic with some dev close to them. Then I thought THQ Nordic were from an actual nordic country... Then you wrote Bulgaria and I was like... What the flack... I'm from Bulgaria... I've only heard about some small Ubisoft helping studio in Bulgaria and maybe some mobile/browser games... and that one Bulgarian game ages ago that I played a LOT of as a kid - Tzar. I didn't get to playing Age of Empires, but Tzar to me was what Age of Empires was for people that played it. It must have been a lot worse, but still quite decent imho. So it turns out Haemimont did Tzar... and now I'm not sure weather to be happy or sad that they are doing JA. I've heard about Tropico, but never tried it. It's a somewhat famous title with console ports so it can't be terrible right? On the upside they are an old company (about as old as JA), that managed to stay afloat all this time. If they are old school they would avoid some pretty terrible modern game design practices. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I feel like they should be able to understand and respect JA's history, layers and appeal. On the down side, we're a small country, not famous for exporting big games that I know of. I know there must be some top tier programmers, but I doubt it's a consequence of higher education in Bulgaria. Vray is Bulgarian and used to be a pretty big... we have tones of IT companies, but mainly for support and such. So get me that Canadian beer props and I'll make sure the get it 😄

Vehicles in combat could be too much to ask for, but would you ask for it? Right now they just sit there taking damage and providing a bit of cover.

Wildlife would be nice. There's also a ton of features that could be related to wildlife, such as hunting (without attracting too much attention), eating (which could also be a terrible feature, I disliked it in RDR2 even if it turned out relevant to the story)... but yeah I do hope this turns out to not be a priority, but some extra content on top of a solid JA game. I think so, too. I don't believe they intended to just take the money and make a sad excuse for a game. The stress of working with Kickstarter, the demands it implies is also a big factor.

So many was to go about answering this. I'm torn between the most interesting, favorites irl, best performance in game... I would have weirdly specific conditions, too. Like, yeah, the .50 Barret is bada*s, but it's really not a good anti personnel sniper rifle. If there were vehicles in play, however... ❤️ ambush the heck out of convoys SUVs, BTR, even tanks, yes, please! Which probably leads to another thread more important than Is there going to be wildlife in JA3 - vehicles. I disliked unrealistic weapons in JA. They were the odd ones out. I wish for the interesting guns, because of course there will be AKs and ARs. GODSPEED's evil question asked for just 3 and wasted my day thinking which to leave out... so here's 6: HK G11 - the ugliest gun. It's a black rectangle in the game, too. But you have to appreciate the reason for its existence. You can never find caseless ammo for it either, which is a great touch. Did Bobby Ray's have caseless ammo? I forget, but no, he shouldn't be able to supply that. AN-94 - definitely an interesting gun, firing two rounds with one barrel cycle, increasing double hit probability before recoil. P90 - unique magazine feed and lot's of love in games and movies, but my main reason is that I liked the idea of having a stealthy merc with a primary P90 and a sidearm of the same caliber - the Five-Seven which I also love. A compound bow - BUT not like Hawkeye or Legolas - pulling dental floss attached what can only be a thin stick with that resistance. It's hard and slow draw and aim. Not a crossbow either, nor a recurve bow. I imagine it as a very rare/unique weapon that a recruitable NPC (a sports coach?) decides to do some damage with. NOT the pros shipping out with bows punisher style - they wouldn't even know how to shoot them. Welrod - or modern equivalent if there is one. It is one of very few guns that can achieve sound suppression to the levels illustrated in movies. Suppressors are not silencers and are LOUD. The Welrod isn't, at least for a dozen shots, at which point you have to replace the rubber pads - not easy or quick. Remington Model 700 (M24) - for me the definition of what a sniper rifle should look like. The Intervention is also interesting, but again... a .50 caliber rifle is simply dysfunctional. I think a variety of older guns is a must. I always enjoyed games with older weapons as with them there's always a trade off. Each is good at one thing only. I'd hate a universally epic weapon you never have to switch from. This. Also the reason may be that national service weapons are subject to crazy high requirements and tests (heard something like 30 000 rounds without breaking down... for a pistol...). A lot of the time it's a contest, too so the winner is the best of the best... and sometimes the cheapest good option (like what probably happens at my end) :D. I didn't go that far, but that would definitely be a nice feature - Ivan protesting against using a M16. It's like refusing to work with capitalists/communists, which I think exists in JA1 and or JA2. Also I think it's great that their initial equipment is in accordance to their background and an IMP character's personality. I hope they never make them spawn with all the same stuff.

For the past 20-ish years many of us have looked for games like JA2, but didn't find anything quite like it. There were times when I played a title and thought "wouldn't this game be amazing if it borrowed some things from JA2?". Even if is seemingly entirely different. Something similar happened to Gears of War. I never owned or even tried xbox and I'm not that familiar, but it looked like they published a tactics game similar to xcom in the universe of a 3rd person shooter. That's what made it clear that it's not impossible for triple A titles to explore this less popular genre. My ideas weren't as unlikely. One is Rainbow Six: Siege, a game I enjoyed immensely for the first 6 months of its release and played for 4 years before leaving it to enjoy other titles with my now limited gaming time. If you are not familiar with it, it's a first person 5 vs 5 shooter with characters to pick from for each round. It was exactly what I imagined Counter-Strike (5 vs 5 tournament rules, not 20 vs 20 massacre) should have evolved to, as a kid. Initially it was very slow, tense, required a lot of strategy and team communication. Outsmarting enemies to try and flank them was the way to go. Later it mutated with its player base to become a very fast rush and win or die, twitch movement, shooting face to face and see who's faster kind of game. Each character was one of 3 types (1 speed/3 armor, 2 speed/ 2 armor or 3 speed/ 1 armor) and had a unique gadget. They managed to keep them distinct for quite a bit, before more operators of the same type needed to be introduced. The game started with 16, but devs were planning to release no less than 100 in the span of 10 years. They are still doing quite well and the roster... Is starting to look a LOT like AIM. Ubisoft started going more and more towards expanding the lore and biography of each character and their relationships to each other (irrelevant to game-play, but pretty solid foundation if you wanted to build something a little more story drive. And they did. They announced Rainbow Six Quarantine (renamed to Extraction, cuz of covid), which is not what I'm talking about here, but shows they are open to spin-offs. They have also been sharing a universe (mostly realistic, maybe like Sci-Fi in JA2) with other Tom Clancy franchises (Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon) and even a Mission Impossible movie. So I can't help, but think a R6 Siege game in the JA style could be awesome. Especially after Full Control's failure with Ubi being a stable (even if not a great one) developer. The other one is a Ghost Recon game. I enjoyed Wildlands enough to give the sequel's (Breakpoint) beta a try. It somehow manage to result in a poorer game compared to Wildlands in every way possible. Naturally, when I take part in a bad beta I then stop by the forum to complain about it. To the question "How can we improve the game?" I wrote that they should copy EVERYTHING apart from genre from JA2. When you think about it, it must have been right there in their brief - make a game, about a squad of spec ops dudes crash-landing on an island controlled by a hostile fraction. Start with lame handguns and loot your way up to rifles and attachments. Put some towns, rebel forces, quests, NPCs, weather, night ops, crafting, stat progression, keep guns and attachments realistic, make both stealth and loud approach rewarding... I realized JA2 set a high standard not only for its genre. It is a great game first in all its layers and then it is (probably) the best turn based tactics game. The quality of its features outranks most of the games designed 20+ years later. I was really excited when THQ Nordic got the rights to the franchise, but all the excitement died with the reveal of JA Rage. I don't like or haven't played anything from THQ, before, but it does have the much needed stability, Full Control lacked. Anyway, have you ever thought, "wow this game needs some JA features" OR "man, I wish these guys would make a tactics game"?

Not at all. Don't worry about it. You didn't actually say anything offensive, so no need to apologize. I was surprised to have someone jump on the breaks about gun details when talking about JA. Guns are a big part of the game. I feel like JA produced more "into-guns" adults (some without ever touching an actual weapon, so not qualifying as "gun nuts") than NFS: Porsche Unleashed produced Porsche fans. 😄 Talking about features is fun. We are not briefing the devs here. This is just a chat mostly about how each one of us would design it or how they wish it would play out. Of course, some ideas will be unrealistic, that's not a bad thing (as long as people don't wine about not being listened to). If I were to design this game I would prioritize character differentiation and meaningful stat progression. "One in the chamber" or more accurately "Tactical Reloads" (as opposed to Empty Reloads) and the "100 AP" system I am totally up for are both features that will illustrate the difference between characters' dexterity, experience, specialties, etc. I don't think it's a vital feature either, certainly not for capacity's sake. I think carrying with a round in the chamber irl is BANANAS (I've even heard some people don't fill their mag all the way to avoid high mag spring tension). But if I was a merc in a gunfight I'd wish somebody trained me to reload before my gun was completely empty, so I could carry on spraying bullets ASAP 😄 There are some crazy accurate replicas for air soft, btw, so I guess it's valid research. Saw a video about some Japanese airsoft champ on a trip to the states just so they could see if his skills translated to real weapons. The dude was phenomenal, first time touching a real firearm (not a replica). 😄 I like Forgotten Weapons on YouTube. The guy is an engineer/historian? (not the "firing a .50 caliber rifles at watermelons" kind of content). Just watching his videos on the vanilla JA2 guns (like Mike's G11 <3) would be beneficial for a dev in this position. Again, this isn't a demand to anyone, it's just how I'd go about it if it were my project.

Errr, wait, what? Between the 10 people barely writing here you think most are American gun nuts? I didn't think that about any of you so I guess that leaves me. No, I'm not from the USA, nor do I wish we had their gun laws (it's a horrible idea). I'm eastern European, we have the same restrictions as you OR harsher (less large wildlife to hunt and protect from out here). No, I'm not a gun nut and don't think most people here are. I know about guns as much as an average guy knows about cars. Would you call a person who knows some cylinders rotate a crank a fuel blood? I'm interested in design, it's what I do. Gun design is interesting, game design - a LOT more so. I don't know that much about guns and quite a portion of it I've learnt FROM JA2 and 1.13. Mike's gun fires caseless rounds... it's a real design, it exists and it's super interesting and I know about it because of JA2, not the other way around. Either way, there are going to be tons of toxic comments from people who know nothing about anything, especially after launch. Don't you think it's early for you to try and manage expectations or shield them from overwhelming ideas? I don't see the need to be realistic in an unpopulated friendly discussion, either. Go nuts, describe your vision, no dev cares, we're not even backers on this one. They will decide what is feasible and what's profitable. I have to say "yes" to this one. Artists have to draw people and guns here. If they don't know ANY anatomy and BASIC gun mechanics, I promise, the game would suck. They don't "like developing games", it's how they make a living. Bear's Pit like to develop games and they did a stellar work on the weaponry. This topic refers to the VERY foundation of gun categorization. It's like "1. what item?" => "a gun", "what type?" => "a semi automatic". It's not difficult to understand, nor difficult to code.

Eastern Europe, let's say, I don't think neighboring countries differ much. We got a PC pretty early on, we used to trade floppy disks of games (yes, I'm that old). The idea that they were pirated never crossed my mind. The term was not invented. A shop used to sell them, too, but I now realize they can't have been licensed... they all had the same highlighter-green label regardless of origin, studio, publisher. Duke Nukem 3d was on 15 floppy disks... first game we couldn't run. Later we didn't have a decent PC at home, BUT we had a huge PC clubs in every neighborhood (200 PCs, running all the latest games, running servers - 64 player Battlefield 1942 with the subs and carriers in play... a golden age for gaming kids for what was then 0.5 euros per hour) they never paid licenses, certainly not 200 copies of anything. It was probably money laundering, police walked in one day at the one near me and just shut it down for distribution of unlicensed software... Anyway, the point is I'm not one of the many people rooting for their only platform. I've been a PC gamer a lot longer, have a good machine for work, but I do prefer a console (for most titles) now. Portal 2 (one of the best coops on my list) did an amazing thing, putting a free steam copy in every ps3 disk. How much did they want people to experience their game in a specially designed coop campaign? I don't expect anything like that from JA3. JA Rage did release on consoles by THQ, WITHOUT being a success at all. True, this is a lot more complex and I'd hate to see simplifications in favor of console ports. Nowadays 1-dev indie releases get ports, so... it can't be that difficult for a big publisher. The extra work isn't the issue I think, but the detailed interface/inventory. Arma 3 was one that said consoles just can't handle the controls/keys/options/absurd amount of stances... Even if they manage, a delayed console release and/or no cross-platform coop will have some minimal benefits compared to initial cross-platform play. I'm not super optimistic on this one, but a guy can dream 😄

I also love the drop all items feature. I was under the impression you can moderate that by applying slow item progression in the new game settings. That way enemies drop everything, but everything would mean a revolver and a shirt for quite some time. Am I wrong?

Good point. Gear and weapon progression is very important to me. I always try to set up a new game to extremely slow item progression and Bobby Ray's to a low variety and quantities. Finding a better weapon or a bigger pocket vest in JA1 was RARE and felt amazing and I always try my best to replicate the feeling with JA2.

No, I do agree that it requires some more work to implement and some people might not notice it at all, but a lot of games with less faithful weapon realism have done it and it is quite rewarding for people who want to get super tactical and/or maximize realistic feel. A real pro (as Raider should be) would do a tactical reload before the weapon is empty and put away the magazine with its remaining rounds instead of discarding it, too.

Imagine JA3 with cross-platform coop and cross-platform progression. Imagine how that would maximize reach to gamers with all kinds of platform preference AND multiple copies of the game for some people. It's never been easier to achieve, yet I strongly doubt it ever happening...

A map editor is nice. A random map generator is even nicer. I wonder if a procedural map with fog of war is out of the question. Imagine not knowing where the SAM site would be.

You don't think they can do good work on a game they worked on for years out of pure passion, but sirtech can make a good sequel after more than 20 years of opportunity to cash in on one?

Oh, that's all I meant. I don't like mods... of anything, really. I always feel like the original devs should know best and outside modification easily undermines the foundation of a good design. But in this case the guys worked on this mod for so long and until recently (more recently than sirtech) and improved so many things that it is just hard to ignore. To me 1.13 is a mod as much as Counter-Strike is a mod. Does CS do some things better than Half Life? Yes. It does. I don't expect JA3 to be faithful to everything 1.13 did, that would be crazy overwhelming, certainly not all the optional settings. When they design a feature/mechanic they can go with something similar to how JA2 did that feature or to how JA2 1.13 did it or an entirely new mechanism. I wish they would go with some of the very basic features of 1.13 and I don't think they will present any more complexity. They are after all newer (more modern) and result in a better game (I think). JA3 is never going to pull Fornite playerbase ("Oh, I don't like turn based" as a known gamer colleague just told me). Its chance of selling anything at all is if existing fans think it's good. All new players will either be introduced to JA by a fan or try it as an overwhelmingly positive new game on steam. No-one's ever going to get it because it's easy to get into.

Thanks, trying it now.

Polls! Absolutely. Can't imagine devs would read a half of what's going on here, but polls are very digestible feedback.

I don't mean just capacity should be increased by one. The feature that is important to game mechanics is that semiautomatic weapons chamber a round by either firing OR manually. If your gun is at 0 it takes a lot more time to load. If you fire until at least one bullet is left, reloading is reduced to just putting a new mag in - no manual cambering, or cocking.

I really hope they reconsider. A 100 AP system allows for much more differentiation between weapons and character proficiency. There is a huge difference between how Raider would quad-load a shotgun vs how Ira would sneakingly try to get a shell in a shotgun. A gun with a chambered round would be quicker than an empty gun. Even newer AKs should be faster than AK-47. How do you implement this with 15 APs?

I wish I had your optimism. It would be fantastic, if they reach a half of 1.13's weapon variety. Maybe they will try, but I doubt they intentionally planned to show a specific (rarer) version in a... whatever this was, a pre-alpha, trailer mechanics? The other thing about weapon variety is that they should make the action points around 100 (like 1.13) just to be able to differentiate guns.

Any gun, really. It's just the very basics of firearms. They shouldn't let people work on games if they've never been at a range or don't understand the whole chambering cycle...

I hope for a console edition, as well, BUT only with NO sacrifice to game complexity. I imagine inventory management would be a nightmare on consoles (it is in JA Rage). Diablo 3 managed it well with some appearance sacrifices. I would chose to play on my couch to my desk any day. Maybe because I'm over 30 (most JA fans are), maybe because I work on a desk all day, maybe because I love local co-op (we used to imitate JA2 local co-op on 1 PC - I would control some mercs and my brother would control others, which is considerably worse than 1 console with 2 controllers would be). Most of all and regardless of my preference of furniture, JA3 needs to be on consoles. New gen and old gen! Because that's what a successful game would do - port to everything, sell more, develop more and better. Developing a PC exclusive leaves a huge gamer percentage in the dark about your game. I'm from a country that is barely starting to buy PS consoles, has no official xbox representation and PC game piracy so advanced you could have played thousands of games before you ever owned enough cash to buy a disk at launch day. I also lived in a country where an actual war is raging between console brands and no-one would ever think of spending a console amount for just the GPU of a gaming PC. Personally I would buy it for both PC and PS4 (can't find a reason to buy a PS5, yet). I would want to play it on PS, but wouldn't wait for a port (they are usually at least an year away from a successful release).

I think the new perspective is nice. It helps you understand why a low percentage would be low from the soldier's point of view. Also the close up would really give them a reason to draw weapons in scale and detail. Xcom's chunky weapons and elements were terrible. If we want realistic weapons with pixel-wide barrels (when zoomed out), they would have to come into focus at some point (while aiming), otherwise they wouldn't bother much with them.

It's what makes it an RPG. The treatment Xcom got was an amazing revival for the genre, but if done right, this must do better. You are right - JA has real characters and lore.