ShadowMagic

@Haemimont_Vlad I assume Haemimont is in possession of the original image files or able to obtain them through their buddy Ian. Would surely help the modding community..

Can't be bothered if it was true. I believe CTH dumbs down gameplay and is meant for the next-gen lazy gamers that all want perks, skill assists and mechanics that do the thinking for them. If that makes them happy, fine. However I'd rather seen them putting time in new Merc avatars like porting the old 2D models to this game so it's more safe to say this game wants to be JA. Perhaps we will see an upgrade still. Who knows.

You bet ya. But for doing so I do not feel the need to pay full pricing when some of the important (basic) work has to be done by ourselves, the customers. Still enjoying myself with a new game of JA2 and summer is here so can wait for some months before picking the game up from sale and start fixing it. Before all, importing my avatar pic into the game and make Shadow look more like Bob Lee Swagger instead of that Dancing Bear High School Jock they came up with 😄

Nobody is ungrateful here but some are truly dissapointed with some of the decisions made. Decisions that take away some core elements of JA and being either replaced by mechanics from other games (overwatch, shared inventory) or simply not getting enough attention (Merc portraits and bio's). We/they are simply concerned (read: convinced) this won't do the franchise any good. A hybrid of JA and Xcom or whatever most probably will only satisfy a small band of "hey I played JA once type of 'fans'".

How much I welcome modding I find it very 'cheap' the base game simply doesn't come with decent characters and modders have to do that for them. Even then modders have their limitations and after all, you pay for a finished base game. I mean, If you go out there buying a car which they sell as a Ferrari, you don't expect to have to put the horse logo on it yourself and fix the engine sound to make people hear and see it's a Ferrari no? You want to make 'THE next Jagged Alliance game and sell it like that?' Well fine but your very first and most important task is refitting the MERCS in the best way possible; they form the heart and soul of the game. All the stuff around that is what you can find with many TBS games out there these days. It will cost you 6 months of writing and drawing you say? Fine if that is what it takes. Bring the characters to the forum and have customers vote for them to avoid dissapointment later on in the proces. You can say whatever you want (goes for people in here in general) but I say they did a really bad job concerning art-work and not making the Mercs look like their predecessors from JA1 and JA2 (and DG). Dialogues are really so much over the top that It isn't even funny anymore. It's cheesy and simply annoying like a bad SitCom. They used their names and gave Shadow permanent camo and that's about it. They didn't deliver here and it would be fitting if they would admit that instead of ignoring the many complaints. Can't express my concerns too often but this will cost them many sales.

Personally I see no meaning in COOP gameplay for TBS games (games that are played alone in 99% of the cases..) but good to see modding will be available soon. We may assume we can also mod / remodel existing Mercs to make them represent their JA2 images much more? (*cough* Magic, Shadow, Scope, Scully, Reaper etc *cough*). That would surely bring the much needed JA vibe to the game.

You weren't sure whether 'she' was a 'he' that just happened to like to wear women dresses huh 😜

I think they did pretty well with the weapon showcase for a change. But when looking in detail, animations still dassle me. Take @1.42 for example. Vicki (the Rasta - thought she ought to be a mechanic and glamorous girl in the past...) is emptying two clips at an enemy who just stands there like a wall and doesn't respond at all to most of the impact. Also.. good to see they did something with the massive critism about how they portrayed Magic... NOT. Running around in a hostile area with his sneakers, blazer and fancy baret.. 🤮

With this logic a 4ft midget that lifts 200 pounds on a bench would be capable of stashing away two pistols in his inventory opposed to a 7ft giant than might be able to hold one with both hands due to having less strength? Since freely translated that is what this leads to.

I do think that is important. Even JA2 nailed it by taking the Mercs health / stamina / morale / weight of gear into consideration. When being rested and of high morale, they would walk more frantically and when exhausted / low on morale moved around slowly. There would be absolutely no sense into having the Mercs run around freed sectors with their gear (in some cases even heavy machine guns) strapped on their backs weighing tens of kilo's.

I fully agree with @Dr.Kuhn. Haemimont have to make up their mind as of what their targetted audience will be. Since, like I have stated before, the current game is a mixture of just about nothing special. Not aiming at that diehard classic JA experience nor Xcom nor any other related TBS game but a hybrid that might just not turn out all too great when seeing that the potential customer base is pretty devided already. But with a little more than 1 week before launch I dont believe much is going to change and it's up to the gods. To get back on topic.. as with current explosions and running animations, not able to wear both a helmet and NVG is a design error if you ask me.

That guy just had no clue 😄 In fact this is the only time I actually read about someone complaining JA2 being inferior to JA1. :s The differences between JA1 and JA2 are not on par with JA2 v.s. JA3 by the way. Not even when corrected for the time difference between both games so my concerns (and those of others) are valid. And differences are not per se wrong but it's about making the right choices and being very careful when you shout out "we are creating a true successor of <insert franchise>" while making fundamental changes that have great impact on gameplay. Including (if not at first) the general look&feel (art-work, interface, action mechanics, physics). It all starts with making a good assessment at first. Analyzing the capabilities of your resources (manpower) and the engine that was chosen on which to build the game upon. I feel either their engine is limited (in terms of animations / explosions) or their knowledge is. The latter can be complemented by modders however. Therefor people like me still have high hopes modders can bring more JA soul to the game and remove some non-JA elements from the game.

They just used a very limited engine; basically not suitable to build a true JA game with it seems. Ergo you will get all the goofyness you see in the trailer. This project was just too much of a challenge i believe.

Proof or it didn't happen.

Enemies be like "Keep on walking, there's nothing to see here". 😄 Would be better to make it so, enemies hit by impact should lay on the ground untill all of your Mercs had their turn. Basically how it was in JA1/JA2. This is just silly.

Jagged Alliance 2 had a pretty grim tone if you ask me. The whole atmosphere was pretty depressing too because every NPC you spoken with and the background telling by IRA pictured Arulco as a bad place to live and people being submitted to a cruel regime.

Oh really? Is this an invite for me to collect a great amount of posts around the web, where (potential) customers express their concerns about characters and the way they are portrayed? Want me to count the times terms like 'cartoonish, 'goofy', 'clownesque' or 'not JA related' have been used? If you keep ignoring the fact this asset is part of the heart & soul from the classic JA games you might as well apply for a job at the devs office since they also seem to be blind to these concerns and somehow keep dodging art work related questions. It's a genuine question people would like to have an answer to. Perhaps not reworking them at release but with some patch later on. At least clarify why a lot of Mercs look like they do now and show very little resemblance with classic portraits and why they 'flandarized' them so much. And I ain't talking about 'how difficult it presumably was to make more than 1 portrayed in order to make them interact'. With 2023's technology that isn't justifiable. Too bad the devs choose to actively ignore responding to customer concerns like these. If you can't stand critism you shouldn't be in the business. Up the art-work and the game will flourish and attract more customers.

From their website: "To apply for a refund, start from your account's Order History page, find the appropriate order and click "Ask for a refund". For more detailed instructions click here or scroll to the bottom of this article. Please keep in mind that we're actively monitoring the effects of our new Refund Policy to make sure no one is using it to hurt the developers that put their time and heart into making great games. We may refuse refunds in such individual cases." Freely translated you most likely won't be able to get a refund for simply not 'liking it'. You bet they monitor play time (GOG Galaxy) and chances for a refund will shrink as time played increases. But this is just an assumption since I only made use of the refund GOG policy once and that was because of technical issues from the game itself. That went without any hassle. However, they are no charity either. But we are derailing the topic. Demos should become a standard in the gaming industry if you ask me.

Based on what? Some payed streamer I personally never heard of (quite honestly i have zero interest in people that have no real or useful jobs in this world) that was not complaining about performance issues? Time to get off your high horse. OP had a valid point. Demos are a must these days since so often crap is being sold and people are reluctant buying this game seeing key aspects being left out and game already being discounted before release. Steam refund policy won't help you out since that time period is too short and GOG doesn't let you refund 'just like that' either. Therefore waiting for winter sale might be the best option, when you most probably can pick up this game for a few dollars and *independent* reviews are out.

*Facepalm* Firstly acting knowledgeable by trying to explain a 'marketing principle' to us. Then stating you haven't read any complaints from streamers that got a beta to showcase. You got a lot to learn man.

Tl;dr Wall of text, you guys overcomplicated things imo. Too much Desperados here.. game drifts away from classic JA mechanics.. wasn't needed. Also one of the most important aspects that made JA so special were Merc portraits which hardly gotten any love. People want to know: When will you rework those to at least make it look like you tried to stick to the original look and feel of the characters. Will you go back to the drawing table before launch or will they stay the same cartoonish figures as is. Asking this for a friend...

Yeah, the story of YMCA Alliance... Goofy and immersion breaking... 😅 In all seriousness, it would be completely stupid if they did not implement a walk mode. Despite all design errors I have seen them made so far I do expect them to at least keep the walk/run toggle (doubleclick to run) in the final version.

I feel you man. Like i said before, for some reason they made some very bad choices that determine the end result. They had more than a year to rework the characters to a more serious tone for example, but still hang on to these goofy figures. Same with the colors now. It's the art-work in general that really is a let down and lowered my general expectations. Makes me wonder who is in charge there. Did he ever played the original games or is it all just a marketing trick just like 'having Ian aboard as a consultant' because if you ask me, he did a pretty bad job or had no saying at all.

Let them complete the base game and rework the Mercs first before going into co-op. There is still so many basic features missing or under developed co-op should be on the bottom of their to-do list if you ask me.

Probably toned down colors in order for people with potato PC's to be able to play the game without them frying it. Environments kinda look like the first Commando games (B.E.L.) now. Pretty dull. And the environments happened to be the only thing they did pretty well in this game.. I expect them to crank it up a little else there is absolutely no future at all.