Elite77

I don't think it's a matter of trends (but if it is, I definitely like how 90s media looked). Some colors are more suited to certain genres and tones than others. The JA2 colors were very well suited to a gritty almost American looking world (even though the setting was in latin america), and I thought worked extremely well for depicting a very average, run of the mill, run down setting and world, with green grass, dark brown mud, slightly off-white walls inside of buildings, and regular carpet or tile floors that you'd often see in offices in America or Canada around that time period. And I don't think the old characters have been bastardized, people need to relax a bit. I do think that lots of people have a smug demeanor, illustrated by the smirking expression, which is what can ruin the tone and who the character is supposed to represent very easily, but aside from that, I have no serious problems or issues with portraits or anything like that. There may be things I would change with JA3, but those things are not the portraits. I do think that the overall tone of JA3 is a bit "let's go on a fun adventure", indiana jones a bit, or Hardy Boys a bit. Comes off as a little bit unserious. While in JA2, the tone was very much, from the get go, you are met with a middle aged villager, a mother, Fatima, who wasn't particularly good looking or young or anything, just an adult living in this world with real life obligations and so on, who lost her husband to the war, you then meet run down rebels, who are very mistrusting and are clearly at their wits end, after being bombed by Deidranna's forces. But I'm also sure this has to do with the marketing more than anything else, not the writing itself, because we saw the writing in JA3 via the beta footage, it was perfectly serious and how I would describe JA2 and JA3 should be. JA2's writing was very much...serious with a small cherry on top of ridiculous encounters, but lots of things that happened in JA2 were not funny, they were very brutal. Moustache-twirling villain brutal, 90s action tv show or movie brutal, but brutal never the less. A brother was looking to rescue his sister from being pimped, there was some crazy looking kingpin. It wasn't dark, but it wasn't "fun", it wasn't "adventurous". There's a difference between making things very dark and gloomy and depressing, and depicting very terrible acts as this kind of simple, morally unambiguous perhaps depictions of "you know exactly who the bad guy is, he acts like a bad guy, he uses violence and has henchmen, he steals the girl for no reason other than he is bad (or steals any other innocent), he has a monologue or a speech". Lethal Weapon is a good example, with how some installments had clearly bad guys, who used force and violence, who presented very clear examples and scenarios of tone that wasn't dark per se, or gloomy or depressed, but was nevertheless serious and valid for an action type of context. Die Hard is an imperfect example. Rush Hour wasn't un-similar. Lethal Weapon is a good example to use for reference, for what a JA2 tone should look like, in my opinion.

I'm only hating because I assume nobody from Firaxis is here, and I would phrase my words differently if they were. However my fundamental statement, I think, is true. If XCOM 2 or even XCOM 1 didn't beat around the bush and go full time units, complex stats and perk mechanics, complicated items, complicated levels. If they did that, they'd sell even more copies, and not just copies, but the audience would be just as passionate as our people are about Jagged Alliance today. It's not just about selling copies, how far the support goes is also important. I bought plenty of games for 50 bucks in the past, and have already forgotten them. Why is this not the same for Jagged Alliance 2. Because they committed to complex mechanics, and 1.13 expanded on that complexity. And XCOM 2 did make everything, especially with WOTC more complex. But it was still a bit arcadey for my liking. And a bit too simple, even in the arcade direction.

But is this true. Or is the wider audience a myth, that was created in 2000s by people who trivialized audiences, and didn't realize how advanced audiences are, and how willing they are to purchase a product even if it's very hardcore. I would say the niche audience and hardcore audience is bigger than the mainstream or wider audience. There are more hardcore titles like Tarkov being sold than there are not hardcore ones.

I actually don't mind Magic's redesign. Hat is a bit out there, but I don't think I really mind. Mercs portraits I would redesign: Blood, Vicki, Livewire I would just remove entirely as a merc, Fauda maybe. Bunch of others. Len. Definitely Len. DEFINITELY Len. Merc portraits I think are great: Shadow, Gus, Hitman isn't so bad, Steroid's portrait is fine, I would redesign his model outside of the portrait. Grizzly is fine, I like his beret, etc. Barry is fine, great. Red is fine. Lots of people look fine or great, in my opinion. I don't think portraits are an important core feature of Jagged Alliance, they're nice, they add "soul" as MagicShadow said, but, aside from that, they don't make or break the game. If JA2 had the same portraits but completely different mechanics, none of us would've probably played it. However, one thing I will say about Portraits: the reason why portraits were better back in the old days is because they were all 2D and usually hand-drawn, which gives the artist a lot more freedom to emote the art correctly, and also draw it to a high level of precision. 3D models are a lot more difficult to do.

Don't be that sad, the portraits are fine in my opinion. Some are...not as well done. But they also need to design the 3D model to go with the portrait, that's important. It's not just changing features around in Photoshop.

But why. Didn't I just tell you that pretty much everything aside from Fortnite is EXTREMELY hardcore and complicated? The niche dominates sales charts, not the "mainstream". Eve Online, Elden Ring, Tarkov, WOW. There are more niche and super in-depth titles than some easy "pick up and go" titles.

What if I told you, they would've sold even more by doubling down on time units/action points, and other less "mass appeal" features?

Accurate and true, niche products that try to appeal to a mass audience, to a certain extent, end up being for nobody, because the gap between the "mainstream" and the "niche" is too big. Another thing: there is no such thing as a mainstream audience. This was a myth created by publishers and financiers and marketers and other out of touch dumb***es (with all due respect) who still think in terms of Pokemon and selling consoles to kids. WOW has how many subscribers? Is WOW a mass appeal game? How much stats it has, how in-depth the meta is. Path of Exile? I can go on. The myth of the mainstream audience doesn't exist, 90% of the target demographic is perfectly happy buying extremely niche extremely difficult or complex titles...as long as they are good. I don't need to mention Elden Ring which was one of the most difficult and hardcore titles sold in last few years, but was also one of the most successful. Tarkov is another example of a hard but very successful title. Audiences absolutely want complex mechanics and serious designers and design that is already familiar with the genre. In a way, that's why titles like XCOM 1 and 2 are so funny. They come from the most hardcore of hardcore genres, tactics, which IMO is the most hardcore genre, even more hardcore and complicated than CRPG. But they make the MOST concessions to the "mainstream audience", which as we already established doesn't exist. They miss the mark completely and on purpose. They target demographic is insanely serious about their strategy, but their concessions are the greatest. They stand to gain the most money by catering to the niche, but instead they go the furthest to accommodate an inexistent mainstream audience.

Oh by the way. Can't you do basically the same process with all JA portraits with AI? AI can do this, surely.

Why does Stanley look like he's a romantic novel protagonist 🤣🤣

Silent Storm satisfied me, even though it didn't have quite the same mechanics of JA2, like no permanent progression or a real economy. All I need and want (I'm aware the comment was written to the other person) is solid fundamental mechanics that are in keeping with JA2.

If you say so, there's not much else coming out quite like it, might as well buy it to check it out.

Maybe developers would be so kind to have a stream with, or post a video interview with Ian Currie. I know it's not exactly their business to make videos, but all you'd need is just to record a video of them having a podcast style of conversation about a few topics, whether in the past, or current state of the industry, or what they did with JA3. And I think it would help PR to do so, put out a cool video. There's a big drought for this kind of content. It's funny because there's plenty of streams, but no real serious discussions about industry or JA franchise or anything like that. Only a few people do long form content on the industry like Raycevik and GManLives. Would be good PR I think for devs to do it with Ian (if he wants to of course).

Didn't said it made you anti-American, I said it made your opinion incorrect, and you questioning why the founding of America was a good thing made you anti-American.

There's a little bit of Fortnite in JA3, I will not lie. JA series was about cool action. There is humor, but not in the action. The action is still cool guys in cool gear doing cool combat type stuff.

Great example of how Magic scowls or glares, and has a different emotional expression. For future reference, developers may want to try to have more than just one type of emotional expression on the mercs faces. There's a lot of OK non glib smiling mercs like Raider, but there's a lot of mercs who are just stupidly smiling in a smug way and I don't think that's a good example of personality being displayed.

There's a bunch of other interviews I can link, and articles about Jagged Alliance and original Sir-Tech team that created it.

Being against people hating on America, means you hate everybody else. I don't think that's how that works.

Oh you're so wrong, I completely disagree. If there's not a problem I think with JA3, it's the portraits (for most mercs, was it Buns that looks kinda weird, also some other girl mercs I'm like, meh). But raider looks 10/10, so does Shadow, Gus, everybody. Only people I would change is Len, who has a stupid goatee and sunglasses, why sunglasses, Vicki, who has been completely redesigned to look like she's 12, and Blood kinda looks like Rambo now with the red headband, what's that all about. And Buns hasn't been designed particularly well in my opinion, and same for Raven, I think could be designed a bit better. And wolf maybe a bit. ASIDE FROM THAT, perfect. I don't think we need to change everything around. If somebody has criticisms, the criticisms should be specific, not just "oh everything sucks".

I don't think current graphics lack "soul" or aren't good per se. I don't think I care too much about the graphics. To an extent what you said is true, I can criticize the graphics for kind of drab or boring enviroments (at least from what I've seen), very broken down African towns, villages with shacks. But I don't think I would mind, there hasn't been a real inheritor to JA2 throne since JA2, as long as they get the mechanics right I don't care. I agree with the last part that they should just remaster JA2 or JA2 1.13, many people have said this, in youtube comments, steam, etc.

I disagree with this logic because it says that things have to be different or stand out. They don't have to be different in the slightest. Most marvel movies share many similar features. Similarity is not a fault if the similarity is in things that work and are good aspects of the genre, or just things that work period. So it doesn't matter what the new customer or not new customer thinks, especially on first glance. If JA3 is good at a mechanical level, then customers will eventually trickle in, because good titles are played for a long time, have a good fanbase on twitch, and people make youtube videos about them, and other things of that sort. The developer doesn't need to make JA3 stand out (it already does, it does many things differently to biggest title in genre which is XCOM), but.

Are you an Anti-American?

10:00 the Jagged Alliance talk starts, rather. He talks about industry stuff in later half and why Sir-Tech closed down, due to weird deals made with publishers and retailers who sold marketing space, and lots of other crap nobody wanted.

"That's not meant offensive" "But come on you know they are easy on the guns" First, great way to justify yourself, second, what's wrong with guns, you are in a forum for a game based around private military forces that use off-the-shelf pretty liberally procured firearms. Also America was created with the benefit of private firearms.

If anybody's interested, jagged alliance talk starts around the second half of the interview.