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Image Miroir

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Everything posted by Image Miroir

  1. I already played the "mode" Dead is dead in Jagged Alliance 2. It was rather simple: when a character was killed I wasn't coming back to a save, and when my main (IMP) character was killed, I was starting a new game. I'm amazed that developers spent time developing such a mode. When you purchase a DVD, or watch a movie on Netflix, you can choose to watch directly the last 10 minutes. Some people read the resume of the thriller they watch, knowing all the twists before watching a thriller. It's up to them! If game developers were fully grown up, they'd know that no one need a second mother. Now, if you need a mode not to come back to the previous save when you mercs die... maybe you're too young to play video games.
  2. @CDOcasualty it's because you have the "Brokeback Mountain edition", it happens when Steroid and Ivan become too intimate!
  3. As JA2 was released a long time ago, they had to rethink the skills to introduce options like hacking. They could also think about percentage going higher than 100%, and level beyond 10 (maybe 20). It could help to make a one-man army and eventually run/finish the game with a single merc. But whatever, the game's done and it's fine for me like that. Waiting for JA3 to be released...
  4. Without playing the game, to say "I want more of this, or less of that" is a bit ridiculous.
  5. It's why I'm more speaking of Black Ops. Please just read. But if you accept a country called Grand Chien that never existed on this planet, I don't see any drama to accept Special Forces running Black Ops missions. A character is a character. Steroid (like Ivan or any other) has a background "defined" over 10 lines. No serious TTRPG character has such a poor background. So, again, the level I present in TTRPG is much higher than what we have in JA2 (I can't speak about JA3 for obvious reasons). I'm using them daily for work, and most of the time for companies bigger than Haemimont Games. And many colleagues I know do the same, so I'm not at all overestimating AI. I'd even qualify myself as a basic AI (but professional) AI user. We're speaking about background here, character conception. What you can witness in good TTRPG right now is way far advanced than what you have in ANY video game. Everyone knowledgeable enough in video games industry would tell you. The best TTRPG went to help and develop video games 30 years ago. The complexity of worlds and characters of the best TTRPG of the 1990s still don't have any equivalent in video games. Who's speaking of plug and play??? You create "Bob who's belonging to SEAL Team 6, after 2 years in MIT, and several covert missions in Kenya... blablabla..." You make it the proper way and you have a character. You just need answer a simple grid for that "name, surname, age, unit, major accomplishment/failure, demeanor". If you're a game designer and can't create 30 fictional characters in a full week of work, change job, they need arms in agriculture! It's almost that. It just work fine for companies making billions, so I think Haemimont Games could comply with it until they make their first trillion. There's no grey area for copyright. Just read and learn. A copyright can only be related to a production achieved by a conscious mind. So, it's been ruled by law that no animal can get copyright and has there's no AI with consciousness in this world (yet), if you do it before the 2050s you don't have any problem. You can do it in Sims' for over a decade. So, if you weren't first designing a tool to easily create the faces of the characters in a professional video games released in 2023, I wonder why you call yourself a professional. When I worked on my first serious game in 2018, the designer who knew a bit of Blender (but not that much), did a dozen of characters in 7 days of work. Still the guy wasn't a game developer. In my day-to-day job as a e-learning designer, I can find, recruit, get a voice record for a 3 hours speech in 3 days. And the requirement are much higher than having Ivan to say basic sentence in Russian language. Seriously, if you want to have it done, the first think is to consider it possible, the second to want to have it done, and the third to mobilize yourself to do it. Maybe they should hire Ukrainians, they seem to be smarter and more adaptative!
  6. I never made video games, but I made serious games. I also do tabletop roleplaying games, and created so many worlds, characters, creatures and adventures, I can't count. Characters belong to archetypes, and in an environment like Jagged Alliance, you don't have so many. With a concept artist, 30 characters should take a week of work (6 per day), not more. With ChatGPT you generate the background of one of them in 15 min. With Midjourney, you create an inspiration visual in 30 min. With Wikipedia you get the unit badge in 30 seconds. Once done, you finish the visuals with Photoshop/Illustrators. You identify weapons used by special forces of these countries; most should be already in the game. So for the visual of the few new ones it shouldn't take decades. So, in 70 hours of work all the design and narrative/storytelling should be done. Now, I don't know how long it would take for developers but given a few of them I think integrating/adapting two faces per day (we already have the bodies) should not be out of reach. So, 2 faces per day makes 7 days of work for two developers. Voices? One day to prepare the contract. One day to write the sentences in different languages with ChatGPT/Google Translate. Three days to contact native speakers, and get samples. Two days to mix it all. You have everything done in a week of work. So you can make you DLC in a month, for around $8,000. It means you need around 3,000 sales to make it worthy. You don't need to change the game at all. Black Ops are infiltrating units used to act under cover or false flag. So, if it's boring, it means the game is boring as you don't have to change anything in the scenario. The motivation is just a given order instead of the money like usual for mercenaries. For sure you have your items to loot, you don't change at all anything else in the game. So, maybe my mistake it's to name it Black Ops instead of Special Forces, my mistake.
  7. It's not to exagerate. Yes you have to model the faces, for the bodies it's not needed. The back stories? It's very simple, these guys already belong to a country and a defined unit. With ChatGPT you create a background for each in barely 10 minutes. So it's a full day of work. Voices? Offer players to be part of a DLC and you'll get a lot of candidates. Choose them on a voice sample. It's barely a few days of work. These guys are black ops, so they do the same dirty jobs mercs do. So you have nothing at all to change.
  8. What about making a DLC introducing Spec Forces? With this DLC the narrative would be a little different: instead of a security contractor agency, the characters would be sent by a government, being part of a black op. The objective remains the same, but it's part of a foreign power agenda. In that DLC, you choose a nationality (American, British, Canadian, French, German, Israelian, Russian, etc.), you start with 3 new soldiers (2 men +1 one of your choice). Two of the three have a detailed background, being part of most famous special force unit of that given country; and the third character is created like with AIM (in addition you choose the unit you belong to and get the badge of that unit on your character sheet). The two detailed characters, would be of medium strength (with country related firearms). Being a little bit better than the mercs you can get at the beginning, for free as they are on mission. Not to unbalance the game, this group will not be bigger than 3 (except for special additional characters that could be related to a specific mission), even if you can recruit other groups of mercs (like usually). Such a DLC wouldn't be that difficult to create, and could please a lot of players from all around the world. With 2 detailed characters per country, it'd represent 30 additional characters for 15 countries (it's not that much work). To get the symbol of units for each country, two days of work with Wikipedia should be enough. It could be interesting to add a specific quest for these spec forces units, but the more you add into this DLC, the less it's profitable to create and release it. So what do you think about this idea?
  9. I see no problem with the mercs. First, I expect it'll change something playing this one or another within the group, otherwise the background will be pretty much useless. Second, as it take place in Africa, I expect to have several African mercs, otherwise, what the point.
  10. By definition, when a significant majority of players play a game, it's not a niche anymore... By the end of the 90s, it was clear real-time games had more audience than turn-based games. So, Jagged Alliance could reign over turn-based strategy RPG, but (unfortunately) to expect more from it is desillusional.
  11. In proportion, JA3 has less money than JA2, and the video game industry is much different now. In my opinion, they had to keep isometric 2D and improve/structure the game from JA2 or 1.13. The choice of 3D was made after 2000s. It was trendy, but technically much more demanding. Like many video games and films, Jagged Alliance was victim of the "just make it impressive". Scenarists and game designers should be the head of the project, not the developers. Now, that they have something, they should keep on improving it over a JA4 and a JA5. They also have to invest the different supports that are tablets and have it fully operational on Android and Apple OS. Doing so they can make it a major game licence by the end of the decade.
  12. It would worth a deep analysis, but I think countries who had no medieval history, who had no aristocratic structure do have a different relationship with guns. It means young countries/societies (I'd say with less than 300 or 400 years of existence) are used to have more access to weapons, especially firearms. It's logical as medieval rulers were used to provide weapons before the war and to recover them just after. This was to avoid commoners to revolt and overthrow nobility. Even if medieval system disappeared, this system lasted for over a thousand years and structured the part of the vision of civilians concerning firearms. The USA had very few border feuds and they had to face a large wild territory with a relatively weak central rulership. This helped to widespread the possession of firearms. In addition the powerful gun factories/companies promoted gun ownership. At the end, almost everyone in the USA has a gun, while almost no one in Europe has one.
  13. Metal Gear, Splinter Cell, Modern Warfare were able to do it, therefore it's possible. Many people were blaming the "politically correct", I think it died by 24th of february 2022. Till that day it was considered business was avoiding confrontation between countries; it was proven false. Now, propaganda should probably thrive for a decade or two. The main concept of business remains, a.k.a. "who's your target?" Jagged Alliance will have to clearly identify its target market. For sure there'll be political issues, but the endless debate on CtH shows gaming habits and influences are not negligible either. Now, the key element is profitability. Artificial intelligence is diffusing everywhere at light speed. And the game development domain is no exception. The AI will allow to develop games like JA in half the time if not faster before the end of 2024. Most probably, by 2025 a single year of development would equal 7 years of work of the 2010s. It'll benefit first games like Jagged Alliance, so even if it's not sure we'll play the same game in all countries over the world, we can be sure we'll have our "local Jagged Alliance" whatever the porte-manteau name it'll have. In the worst case, by the end of the decade each of us would be able to "produce" its own Jagged Alliance with the free game development tools available. At least something equal to JA2. So, live long and enjoy!
  14. Maybe we can have an additional arms dealer, one that is a collector and sells old firearms (Mauser C96, Browning BAR, Luger, PPSh-41 with drum magazine, etc.). It could bring some flavor to the game.
  15. I just love that character, I'd love to have him present in JA3 (or in an upcoming DLC). As a fan of the old "Wanted" TV-series it could be great to arm him with mare's leg rifle (a shotgun version could be fun) he could fire one-handed. Instead of hunting down 5-7 criminals, it could be a long quest where he'll track down a single notorious criminal (could be a cartel boss, a war criminal, etc.). But doing so he'll have to investigate and go through 5-7 key enemies.
  16. We can help the game with good reviews. This genre isn't the most popular but it has a significant amount of fans. I think they have to insert JA in the real world, and set it nowadays. Maybe to have a real scenario (with twists) with many side quests. Something "like" Baldur's Gate 2, but with the game mechanics of Jagged Alliance. This is just an idea, and there are so many possible. Money is important, but experience and creativity can surprise. I think over the last decade, the teams working on the different iterations didn't know the genre enough.
  17. It would be great to develop a version for tablets (even in the upcoming years), as the game could fit very well on that kind of devices.
  18. Advantage of zombies: they don't care about the mustard gas.
  19. Why not! You mean a private room in the brothel for Fox, Ivan and Steroid?
  20. I wish this game will sale well, and then will be perfected through a few DLC. That way we'll have this "perfect" JA4 we hold in our dreams in a couple of years.
  21. I hope there are all types of missions: rescue, elimination, infiltration, etc...
  22. It'll be interesting to see how far Haemimont Games went in its benchmark. Before being creative, you have to be knowledgeable.
  23. Concerning the intelligence of the opponents, you should enjoy people and take advantage of enemy stupidity. JA3 is most probably the last Jagged Alliance game not buffed by "modern AI"; soon every single opponent will be a West Point graduate! So, it's most probably the last time you'll outsmart a tactical game AI before experiencing the fate of Garry Kasparov in front of Deep Blue...
  24. That's a lot. If teams are still of 6 mercs, it means we can attack with 5 teams at once. Maps much be much bigger to allow that many mercs on a single combat.
  25. Does someone know how many teams, how many mercs we can control at the same time?
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