Hendrix

I said this several times, people has to stop looking at Haemimont as if they are trying to be Sirtech. Why? Because Haemimont is contracted by THQ (the actual owner of the IP) to produce this game. We know absolutely zero of what decisions are being made, by whom or why or what the contract stipulates. For all we know this game could look entirely different had Haemimont actually owned the IP and had they themselves had the fundings for it. We do not know and we will never know. Sirtech could do precisely whatever they wanted because they owned the IP. You mentioned Rockstar, big successful company fair enough, but why are you so certain they would get the JA right?

That would be awesome, as long as the game somehow clearly indicates what body part you are indeed aiming at so there's no confusion. Isometric 3D and "strange" camera angles can be finicky sometimes and with enemies moving a little that arm shot you are going for can easily become a shot aimed at a leg or torso instead. My experience of these mistakes being the games Brigade E5 and 7.62 High Calibre.

Ok, if you indeed are here to help then you should know that most of your post are like reading a rant written by a 14 year old spoiled girl, furious she didn't get the latest IPhone. So here's some advice. If you want people to take you seriously then get your act together and stop calling people stupid, no one respects that and in the end you yourself come across as the stupid one. Voice your concerns but do it in a civil manner. Start exercising (running/calisthenics) to give yourself some damn testosterone because that is imperative if you as a man want to be able to handle your emotions/feelings. You will be surprised how damn quick you will stop caring for what is happening to this game and start dealing with things. And stop watching porn because that completely destroys your drive and functions as a man! I don't hate you and I hardly belive any one else in the forum hates you, and I think most of us old time fans of JA2 are pretty damn disillusioned about getting a new JA game just like the classic in 1999, why? Because things fucking changes no matter what, deal with it and stop huggingyour nostalgia to death. I am not even sure if Sirtech could have successfully created a JA3 back in the early 2000 in 3D and got it "right". So stop believing you are the only one who sees the "truth" or whatever you belive the truth is. Everyone has their own expectations/hopes/dreams about this game and it is not universally shared by everyone. Some will love this game no matter what, others will hate it no matter what and then we can all pick a side and start a good ol' flame war about who is the true fan of the IP. Me on an entirely personal level thinks there is a solid base in this game at it's very foundation for something really good but right now, to me, the game looks like Farcry 3/4 Tactics rather than JA3. No matter how this title turns out, atleast it might breath some damn air into this IP again and who knows, maybe we get expansions and mods that makes this a good game, maybe in another 5-6 years we get a JA4 that is good. In the meantime I still got JA2 and no one can take that away from me.

Dude... if your bitching demeanour is what is considered normal, I rather be strange.

But aren't the 2 bore guns (to my limited knowledge) old blackpowder guns? I would guesstimate that a 4 bore with today's type of powder would be much more powerful. It is a good question of what is to be considered handheld and deployable however.

I do not even want to know how much time I spent with that JA2 Demo. 😅 Unsure though if I would get the same feeling again.

Big enough? Not when hunting "wabbits". 😁 Damn that thing could easily break your collarbone or dislocate your shoulder. You need a really good recoil absorption technique to not hurt yourself when shooting that monster! On the + side it only takes 1 shoot, hardly matter if you hit or not! 😂

Silent Storm?

A whole bunch (all?) of these are repeats of others comments but anyway... Overall it does not look like a bad game by itself, but to me it looks a bit to over the top and happy go lucky compared to JA2. Likes The overall esthetic of the game looks good, early 2000 style for the laptop etc. The sectors and environment themselves looks very good. The game has good graphics. The music sounds good of what little I heard. I think the dialogue interface looks fine. I thought the repair/doctoring interface in the strategic layer looked fine. The voice acting in itself sounds good, varied and professional. Destructible enviorments. Time of day, weather and environment has gameplay effects. Dislikes I get a Farcry'ish (3, 4) feeling of the mercs, npcs and enemies. I would like them a bit more grounded and realistic. The gameplay I saw figured mostly of Raven, Grizzly, MD and Steroid. Grizzly sounds like an entirely different character and very different attitude compared to JA2 where he had a very aggressive soundset, now I think he just sounds like a bit of a show off. For Raven I would have wished for a bit darker/deeper voice. MD was OK. I get it that finding a voice actor that sounds just the same is impossible but I think they could have gotten a little bit closer. The animations are a bit to cartoon-ish. Many of the mercs portraits on the AIM site looked like they were taking selfies. I also think many of the mercs looks younger than in JA2. Maybe the Legion enemies I saw were just "yellowshirt level" but they did not look like soldiers at all just thugs. I hope this is true and the "red shirts" on the mainland looks like they belong in an actual army. I mean in JA2 the yellow shirts were pushovers. The red shirts would indeed give you a hard time if you wasn't careful and the black shirts were scary because you knew they would put you in a really difficult situation if given the slightest chance. The game (or atleast the particular build I saw) had a odd responsivnes. A grenade went of among a bunch of unsuspecting enemies and one continued walking like nothing happened despite taking damage and the others just stood there like they were waiting for the buss. It would look really good if enemies/mercs would fall down etc when taking this kind of damage. I guess this is an effect of the switch between realtime and turnbased. The grenade and explosion taking effect in realtime and after that turnbased starts. Maybe the turnbased should kick in as soon as the grenade was thrown so the effects of the grenade could occure looking more natural? In another sceen a merc kills enemy A and then continues to shot at enemy B, efter shooting at enemy B the merc comments on killing enemy A. The comment felt a bit of by then since it occurred so late. This type of late comments occurred several times. Enemies made zero sounds when injured, this takes away the severity of damage dealt. Might not be implemented yet. I think the 10 or so actionpoints/round is way to low to differentiate guns and actions. I really think having "Almost dead animations" should be a thing. It looked very severe in JA2 when a merc or enemy were walking around holding their side and almost dragging their rifle behind them. I think the guns could use a more aggressive sound, really dislike that the revolver and bolt action rifle used the same sound. Maybe just a place holder. Unsure of the weapon progression so far. Looked like you could get rifles at a very early stage. I also hope for a bit more different gun variations. Missed a whole bunch of mercs. Spider, Static, Lynx, Trevor, Cliff, Danny, Bull, Malice, Buzz, Stephen. I probably missed someone. I hope atleast some of them will get added eventually and they haven't been killed of. The enemies free move is very nuXCOM. Just like XCOM2 the way to deal with this is to set up overwatch ambushes in stealth and then go for a kill shot on one of the enemies and therby triggered overwatch on the rest while they are scrambling for cover. Of course you try to set up ambushes in JA2 aswell but you could not get as close as displayed in the gameplay I saw of JA3. I would really prefear the interupt system from JA2 instead. There's definitely more things +/- but they skip my mind at the moment. To many "flavor" things for me to get hyped for the game but there seams to be a solid base that could lead to something really good if given enough time and resources. I don't know how far off a release of the game is, if it is this summer as someone stated I am afraid there is not enough time to polish and tweak things right (unless the build we got to see was really really old). I hope the game is still far of, at the very earliest the end if this year.

@LoboNocturno I thought you meant as a character first. Yeah I see what you mean.

I was unable to find the post were the devs stated the number of mercs, but I remember reading it that the total number of recruitable characters was 40? I could very well be wrong though.

@LoboNocturno Not that I know but I didn't get a "Billy" (the character in Predator) feel of Omryn. Omryn is shown shortly in this trailer starting at 1:38.

@LoboNocturno 5 min of Google Omryn states that it means Robust Fellow in Chukchi. Taken from Wikipedia: "The Chukchi are a Siberian indigenous people native to the Chukchi Peninsula, the shores of the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea region of the Arctic Ocean all within modern Russia." If this is correct, it might be a nood to JA2 that planed to have a Inuit merc.

Got some mercs from another old game (Wages of War: The Business of Battle) that I think would fit in nicely in JA's setting. I picked a few (I belive the total in the game was around 60) with backgrounds and or origins I thought would be diversed from the ones already in JA. Other than these I would like to see a Native American merc and a crazy Icelandic guy believing he is a Viking. Blackbeard Van Clyff received his nickname from his younger days as a gun runner, plus his resemblance to the famous pirate. On his 24th birthday, Olaf was caught smuggling guns into Turkey and spent eight years in a Turkish prison. Two years later he joined a mercenary force that led a raid on that same prison. On that mission, he lost his eye. Dragon Born in USA, but has been living in Japan since age 5. Began studying Uechi-Ryu Karate at age 11. Owns 5 martial arts schools in Japan. Has been contracting as a mercenary for the past 11 years. Says it keeps him "sharp." His hobby is skeet shooting in which he holds 4 world medals. El Toro A former street fighter, Manuel was recruited by the Mexican Government to combat the drug trade. He worked undercover for the Mexican Police for 2 years but grew tired of fighting a "losing battle." Li Tsu Li, a distant descendent of Genghis Kahn, was raised in Outer Mongolia and studied in the temples of Tibet. A warrior, philosopher, and Zen Master, Kahn has been on only one mercenary mission. He is sought after for his discipline and commitment. Nick On August 19, 1997, Kurakis and 3 accomplices robbed the FBI payroll truck in front of the Bureau's Washington, D.C. headquarters. Kurakis was later arrested when stopped on a routine traffic violation in Los Angeles, but escaped the FBI while being transported back to D.C. He has worked part-time as a merc for the last two years. Sawbones Moreau was trained by the French Army as a medic. Now an intern at a Paris hospital, he hires out as a mercenary for the thrill of fighting. The grandson of a top officer, Moreau comes from a proud military family whose service dates back to Napoleon.

@SWi74 & @Lunokhod Chill people 🍺, you are taking this thread way to serious. Sorry if I misinterpreted your intention with the thread @Taurean but the way I looked at it is: "What kind of merc would you be if you lived in the JA universe and by some very unfortunate event had to abandon your current life (Maybe your country's equivalent of the IRS is after you? Maybe the cops asks too many questions about that actor in a dinosaur costume from the kids show that got run over by a Buick?) and you had to drop down in Arulco a few days later?" In reality I am pretty damn sure every single one of us here at the forum would instinctively as well adjusted to combat as an octopus to a golf course. It is just a bit of fun stupid what if scenario in the JA universe. After all there are plenty of mercs in JA that to me (realistically) doesn't make much sense as a merc. Static, Spider and MD just to mention a few. Still they are fun and make sense in the JA universe.

Sure I wouldn't have a problem with that, as long as it doesn't come with some magical stat increase. Could even be something you loot from a named enemy and could sell to a weapon dealer for a good price if it is in pristine condition.

Yeah who knows? I hold no glamorous illusions about real combat. I know how damn chaotic just a normal combat exercise gets. I have handled myself well enough in the intense and even a couple of times life threatening situations I have been exposed to. But no one has ever ordered me to actually run at enemy fire while friends are being shot to pieces or blown up beside me. Well I know how much I could make with my skills and experience if I went to the right employeror or started my own business. But right now I prefer to have decently above average payed but comfortable job that doesn't require me to work 60+ hours a week.

Fun idea @Taurean, until I started to think about it and realised how bad I would be if someone had me fast rope from a heli in Arulco tomorrow morning. So I put my current stats first and then in parentheses the level I am sure I could reach with a dedicated training. Because I sure as shit wouldn't go mercenaring in my current state. 😂 If I remember correctly 55 was considered average in JA2 right? Atleast that's what I assumed. Name or nickname: Hank Age: 39 Height: 185 cm Weight: 95 kg Nationality: Swedish Health - 60 (max 75-80). Current largest flaw is cardio due to a strong hate for running. However I am good at physical work, carrying loads, crosscountry skiing, snowshoeing, hiking. A recent doctors examination showed a good condition of general health. Agility - 45-50 (max 60). I have injured my knees and ankles on numerous occasions so agility will never be high even with lots of training. Just less painful. Dexterity - 50-55. Actual hand eye coordination is good but I suffer from slight treamors in my hands wich sometimes causes problems when doing fine motor skills. Thankfully I am a patient enough guy to get things right eventually. Strength - 65 (max 75-80). I can move stuff around with ease. I lift weights a couple of times a week. I am strong in the same way construction workers are. Carrying heavy loads when going on hikes etc. I still build up muscles fast when I commit to it. Leadership - 40. I am by no means a leader of men but the last 5 years I have spent a good deal of work time teaching others what I know and instruct them. So I have become pretty decent at explaining stuff. I often hear that I am easy to work with and solution oriented. Wisdom - 75. No I do not think I am some clever guy much smarter than everyone else. I am a mechanical and electrical engineer. I constantly work with problem solving, I see the bigger picture of things and I often see cause and effect before others. I would rather call myself wise than intelligent. Marksmanship - 60 (max 75-80). I have handled and are familiar with a fair amount of different guns, both sporting and military. I practice shooting at a regular basis with different guns and ranges, shotgun, pistol caliber carbine, hunting rifle, scoped marksman rifle. On top of that I hunt. I was a average to just above average shoot with pistol and rifle during army training, however with a LMG I was the best out of 60 people in my platoon (wish I had gotten to compete against the whole regiment). It is fun when things goes bang! 🤠 Mechanical - 70. I did mention I am a mechanical and electrical engineer, that has to count for something right? By no means MacGuyver but I am handy as long as I got the right tools for the job, and sometimeseven whitout. I have worked as a marine engineer on merchant ships and electrical design and installations for factories and power plants. I take care, maintain and repair the stuff I own. Fix stuff around the house, renovation, improvements, electrical wiring, car repairs. But lockpicking is completely unknown to me. Explosives - 5. I can pull the pin out of a hand grenade and throw it but other than that... I know I shouldn't mess with the stuff. Could probably fast become decent with training. Medical - 20-25. By no means a medic but I have gotten some basic first aid training on regular basis during the last 20 years. Experience level - 1-2. I have 0 experience of actual combat so I have no idea how I would actually react to it. Daily/Weekly/2 week salary $900/5500/10000 I took a look at what I make today and then incriesed it to a level were I would maybe think about going in to life threatening situations, assuming it is tax free? 😎 Skill 1 - Machine guns. 😁 come on I can atleast belive I still got the skills right? Otherwise I would go with scoped rifles. Skill 2 - Handy man. Like I said I can fix and build stuff as long as I got the tools for it. Disability - Heat intolerance. I start to struggle and loose alot of endurance when the temperature gets higher than 25 degrees Celsius. Bio: Hank will be a great addition to your team in a support role. Keeping equipment in good shape, building fortifications, teaching others the right end of a gun or holding the enemy in check with a LMG is were he shines. He also shows promise as a marksman. Due to numerous injuries Hank should not be your first choice for front line combat or CQB. So far he has shown a professional and problem solving attitude and has a reputation for being easy to work with. Inexperienced and has some potential to increase physically and marksmanship skills further. Equipment Clothes - Boonie cap and green-brown-grey coloured high end outdoor/hunting set with knee protectors. LBE - Utility belt. Non obstructive vest or rig for some basic gear and magazines. 30-40 liters backpack. Weapons, ah hell let's go with what I own or plan on owning within a near future. 1. Either my Ruger PCC 9x19mm with a red dot and torch. Basic weapon for personal defense, easier to handle and more accurate than a pistol but heavier. Definitely not a weapon for prolonged fire fights or assaulting positions. 2. Or (planed to aquire) a Beretta A300/A400/1301 shotgun whitout choke. A more aggressive option and with a wide selection of ammo types for different situations. 3. Or my Sauer 200 STR rifle but with the barrel changed to caliber 7.62x51 and cut down to 60 cm and a more rugged scope. For keeping enemies at a comfortable distance. If there is money available I would put a ASE utra suppressor on it. Other gear: Buschcraft knife, some survival gear, tool box/bag and a first aid kit.

"Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood" is a great documentary for teaching people gun skills! 😁

Yeah but you know... goldplated guns do more damage... just like red cars goes faster... basic physics!

Yeah but what ever mechanic/setting one person love someone else will absolutely hate. Just because you can tune or switch off different aspects of a game would not necessarily make it unbalanced. For example if someone really enjoys the very highest tactical difficulty when it comes to the combat and only want to focus at that. Maybe they would like to tone down the need sleep of for the mercs, maybe they could just buy milita straight of whitout having to train them. I don't see that as unbalanced.

I do not see a reason why Bobby Ray's or equivalent couldn't exist in JA3. Just like in JA2, make sure that early in the game they have few low level stuff and to a price that is not really worth it. Then in the latter stages in the game it could be the only place to get really good stuff in pristine condition, still overpriced. For example good ammo could be hard to come by and BR's got plenty of it. So unless you buy it there you have to use the low quality surplus stuff the local merchants normally sell or what you manage to loot and scavenge. Or you might find good equipment but it is very worn down and has to be thoroughly repaired befor use.

@Lunokhod Well I haven't played any of Haemimonts other games so I am the wrong guy too judge them for their development skills. They are a established studio however and not some upstart developer so I will give them that. Do you know of a studio you would rather see developing JA instead of Haemimont? And would you be absolutely sure they wouldn't fuck it up? Look I am not saying you shouldn't be sceptical or vocal about the game. By no means do you have to like it. We do not know however what THQ requires Haemimont to do, how much freedom the contract allows them to have. In reality Haemimont could have very little say in the development for all we know. As for XCOM, I won't bring that discussion up again since it's been talked about enough in other threads. Rest assured there are few of us that wants that for JA.

Yupp those are some if the kinds of options I am thinking of. And maybe it does not have to be there at release, they could add it later. I do not see how game mechanics and the level of impact they have on the gameplay would be so hard to implement. It requires work hours of course. When it comes to balance, well sure you need to keep the game in some way balanced, but do the large crowd want a perfect balance all the time? Some would likely just want to conquer sector after sector whitout caring about much else, someone else want The Sims level of mercs needs and wants. The next one wants to personally equip every single milita in every sector, while someone else just want to hire milita straight of so the can get on whit the game. Then you got someone who thinks the impact of the weather effects are to harsh on the gameplay and another person who wants them cranked to 11. I do not see how you get all ends of those kinds of spectrums to enjoy the game whitout alot of different options to adjust and turn on and of. I am exaggerating in my examples above but I think you get my meaning. Yeah that's the hard part. From what they have said so far THQ seems to be content at the moment of Haemimont to try stuff out at what works and not. My largest fear is actually the shareholders of THQ demanding income and THQ then forcing Haemimont (and other studios) to release something they are not done whit developing and testing. I have worked both as supplier, contractor and purchaser and there's alot of very strange decision being made in projects simply to get a better outcome of the next quarters financial, especially at the end of the year. It does not matter if it ruins the projects, requires people do work 80 hours a week or fucks up the next serveral quarter finances.

Yeah I can understand them leaving out the most gruesome stuff. But it becomes a problem when they depict wild animals behavior in a way that just is not true.