Jagged Alliance: Drug Flashback

[Shaewaroz]

Maybe we could start a new topic to get more people invoved in the strategy game franscise discussion? I'd do it but my fiancé is calling me to bed.

 

[Roguey]

JA is def a strategy game because there's long-term strategy gameplay that's different from the kind of long-term strategy that exists in tactical RPGs (or the tactical spin-offs like Deadly Games and Unfinished Business).

I personally don't like it.

 

[Shaewaroz]

The Crusader Kings series will be getting sequels for the foreseeable future, so in ten years people will be playing the latest installment, not CK2. It is incredibly popular, a cult hit of our times - I'd say it's likely that it's got a larger fanbase than JA at this point.

I think you're still too focused on sales. The mere fact that everybody who know anything about strategy/tactical games knows JA2 and that most of them love it is enough to convince me that it has the broader appeal. It has had more time to will people over. This kind of appeal cannot be measured in Steam sales.

 

[Athelas]

I think you're still too focused on sales. The mere fact that everybody who know anything about strategy/tactical games knows JA2 and that most of them love it is enough to convince me that it has the broader appeal. It has had more time to will people over. This kind of appeal cannot be measured in Steam sales.

I googled 'recommend me strategy games' and picked out the first few results. They don't make a single mention of Jagged Alliance (they do mention plenty of other PC games):
http://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/2hszxd/recommend_me_a_turn_based_strategy_game/
http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=960160

 

[Burning Bridges]

Perhaps you should search in less retarded communities than steam and neogaf.

The Crusader Kings series will be getting sequels for the foreseeable future, so in ten years people will be playing the latest installment, not CK2. It is incredibly popular, a cult hit of our times - I'd say it's likely that it's got a larger fanbase than JA at this point.

.. on their iPad 7.

Which is very sad. :shrug:

JA is in a totally different genre played by different people.

 

[Athelas]

Perhaps you should search in less retarded communities than steam and neogaf.

They're retarded, but they obviously make up for a far bigger consumer base than a niche site like the Codex. The discussion was about the size of the fanbase of the JA franchise.

 

[LESS T_T]

Update: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2079547763/jagged-alliance-flashback/posts/1100631

Progress and Status for Jagged Alliance: Flashback

Dear backers,

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

In this update we will wrap up what have been going on during the last few months, and celebrate the new 1.1 release. But I also want to take some of your time to give you a status from me personally.

Release 1.1
As we mentioned back at release time, we wanted to pledge towards adding some new features. This grew fast into a “lets give everyone a small xmas gift as well”.

Our level designers took it upon themselves to create some new sectors, more story and more quests. Russian and Polish localization has been added, and the public level editor is updated with the latest content. They also added the new lighthouse mechanics which is pretty cool.

To show our good will and commitment, we decided to give this all away for free to all of you. So not only did we add all the pledged new content and features, but also more cool gameplay.

Take a look at the changelog here to see all the features, content and other details of what has been added since launch:

Link to changelog

Enjoy!

Launch and Reception
As most of you by now have discovered, JAF launched end of October. The reception has been all over the board ranging from “Absolutely love it” to extreme hatred by a small rabid core group.

While we do love the positive feedback, it is the negative one that has taken up most bandwidth online and internally at our end.

The entire situation simply makes me sad beyond words. Not only for us and our own future, but also for you and the future of Jagged Alliance.

Besides some rough edges in the game where most of those have been fixed by now, the major feedback issue really stems from expectations. And I think expectations from “outsiders” that have not been following JAF development as a Kickstarter project on a small budget, but expectations from hardcore JA fans expecting JAF to be the next JA3.

As you and we know, this project was never meant to be a replacement for JA2. It was a project where we as a fan community could in unity get JA back to its core roots of great TBS combat, modding and create a foundation for keeping the brand alive. It was deliberately set as a prequel, but it is measured as a sequel.

Stepping back and looking at JAF as a game, I think it’s a great little JA game. Its not a 9/10 – not a 8/10 either. But it has a good solid combat system that screams JA, and an ok story that has good elements. Modding wise it is miles ahead of where JA2 was when it was released. From a full blown level editor to external accessible dialogs, quests, access to LUA scripting etc we really think there is a great basis for lots of content updates in the future through community efforts.

But – we failed to do expectation management towards people expecting JA3. And there is nothing we can do at this point to please those guys.

What we can do and what we have done over the last months since release is to do our best to address whatever else has been coming up as negative feedback.

There is now improved stealth, more weapons, weapon attachments, better initial levels, a nice shop interface, improved AI and lots of smaller bugfixes and improvements.

Looking down the list of issues brought up and improvement suggestions, we have been able to improve on almost everything in the last months.

But at the same time, the gamers or even you as backers have not yet given us credit for this work by revising your reviews on Steam. We still have user reviews that are at this point hurting sales – and thus the possibility of doing future updates. Things hang in a thin thread due to bad sales with bad user review. Heck – I would not buy a game myself that has 40% positive on Steam.

If you really think JAF is only worth 40% positive, then so be it. I cannot change your mind then, and we will be forced to stop here. But with only a few changed reviews or a good handful of more positive reviews, the new gamer perception would improve a lot and possibly gamers will give the game another chance. And with improved sales, we can again do more updates and features.

So please!

Give the game a fresh look and a positive review if you like it!

Digital and Physical Rewards
The rewards are the next thing on our list now.

For digital we will get those up for you on Humble as they get produced and finalized. That will happen ASAP.

Physical is as always more tricky. Read on.

As we are getting ready to put in the remaining orders for the manufacturing, we have been working hard on the logistics of quantities, production of goods, getting quotes and finding cheapest shipping options.

Let me just say, that this is utter nightmare to go through. And if we ever do another Kickstarter, we will keep it extremely simple and preferably digital only.

As mentioned in the last newsletter/update, we have to lock down production of goods and shipping.

This means that the 81 people NOT having responded yet with their address, and who were given a deadline back a month ago for this, will forfeit their physical rewards if they don’t reply NOW. We cannot produce and ship stuff individually in the future no matter your backer level or the reason for you not responding!

Together with this update we are turning off the option to change physical address. This means there is now a 48 hour window to still give us your address. We have tried contacting you through these updates, through emails and now this final message.

We also give a 48 hour notice for credit list updates in the game or on the website. If you haven’t responded there to the last deadline, here is the last call also for you! See how to enter that in update 48

Don't mind the deadline set, if you follow the link for the credit list sign-up form.

With production of the goods starting up, we plan to start shipping early this new year. Due to shipping costs, everything has to be produced first before we can package and ship, and it will still take weeks of producing the last items before we are at that point.

bitComposer Insolvency
December 3rd bC filed for insolvency procedure and that is very unfortunate. For JAF as a game it has no immediate consequences, as our license agreement covers this scenario. JAF will live on and be available for sale.

What happens with the Jagged Alliance IP itself is up in the air, and we have no idea ourselves.

On the physical rewards side it puts us in a bit of a troubled spot, as we had a deal with them helping on the merchandise production. They have much more experience in DVD production etc, and thus it made sense to have them help us do it.

That part now falls on us, but as written above we are trucking along on a early 2015 manufacturing/shipping. It all just takes more time to process, finding vendors, making orders, collecting it all, shipping it etc. So thank you for your patience!

Whats Next
On the development side of JAF, we are forced into a skeleton crew situation for now until we hopefully see improved user ratings of the game on Steam. Will the last months effort pay off in better reviews or not? If not, then we cannot commit to anything. If yes, then we can take another look at plans.

Short term though we are fixing some bugs and updating some of the documentation. Version 1.1 will also be put on Humble in DRM free version.

Best
Thomas
CEO, Full Control

 

[Infinitron]

Hoo boy, they're fucked.

 

[Shaewaroz]

Jagged Alliance IP up for sale again?

 

[spectre]

Wow, just when I thought Full Control has hit rock bottom, T.L. whips out a shovel.
Begging for positive steam reviews, really? What's next, pictures of starving programmers?
Will the CEO suck steam user cocks? We must know.

 

[Roguey]

Release a blatantly unfinished game, claim that only a "small rabid core group" hates it, blame abysmal sales on them.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I think his request it reasonable and well worded. They think they have improved the game and need better ratings to stay in business.
He does not address the real problem however. That it is not enough to begin a sequel to a great franchise - any great franchise - and then stop half way. In that case it would have been better not to begin at all. 368,614$ burned

 

[Helly]

Jagged Alliance IP up for sale again?

Cleve will buy it with Grimoire's profits.
It will be sweet and glorious irony.

 

[Surf Solar]

Still don't understand why anyone would buy this ugly turd when there is JA2. Wonder how it feels to be made obsolete by a 15 year old game.

 

[DeepOcean]

"As you and we know, this project was never meant to be a replacement for JA2. It was a project where we as a fan community could in unity get JA back to its core roots of great TBS combat, modding and create a foundation for keeping the brand alive. It was deliberately set as a prequel, but it is measured as a sequel."

Is this the new fashion on PR circles that sequels need to be good but it's totaly okay for prequels to be kinda shitty?

 

[Burning Bridges]

The new fashion is to give six digit numbers to people who have no experience whatsoever and then be surprised that they make tons of mistakes.

 

[Volrath]

^Who can tell? The mere fact that they're still chugging out second-rate Jagged Alliance clones after all these years means that the fan base can't be that tiny.

Xcom enemy unknown was "dumbed down" but it was still an enjoyable game because it had the core turn-based combat, base management, and creepy alien vibe from the original games. I would accept a little bit of dumbing down from a triple A Jagged alliance game if they can get the vibe right. In this case, bad writing might actually help because the game is supposed to be cheesy

It was also shit.

 

[DeepOcean]

^Who can tell? The mere fact that they're still chugging out second-rate Jagged Alliance clones after all these years means that the fan base can't be that tiny.

Xcom enemy unknown was "dumbed down" but it was still an enjoyable game because it had the core turn-based combat, base management, and creepy alien vibe from the original games. I would accept a little bit of dumbing down from a triple A Jagged alliance game if they can get the vibe right. In this case, bad writing might actually help because the game is supposed to be cheesy

Alright... "We at Firaxis, we love to make games and Jagged Alliance is a venerable IP that needs a remake, but many years passed and there is the need for modernization and the use of the experience learned all those years to update Jagged Alliance to modern gamming needs. We think acessibility is the main issue and we can fix that problems on many ways, first, we will streamline the militia training so instead of you actually having some effort for training a militia you will gain experience and place point on a militia button and with enough points you can get a bonus of extra 5% experience for your mercenaries, second, skills... we changed them so you aren't penalized for having a poor skill, we removed them, instead you choose what awesome bonus you will choose at level up on that mercenary pre made class, inventory... that is too really unintuitive, each class will have a pre made loadout with you choosing only the amount of medkits or grenades you carry and some better loot later, the weight system is too punitive too... so we changed it to be a non-issue, after all this we will have a worthy sequel of Jagged Alliance on PS 4, XBox One and PC."

Man, I think Jagged Alliance won't be Jagged Alliance anymore after passing through the rape X-COM passed to generate the far inferior popamole version, unless you are the type that only cares about polygon counts, expensive motion captured animations and bored actors reading scripts made by overpaid hacks. The idea of sacrificing the core gameplay for fluff is ridiculous.

 

[poetic codex]

My main point was that the 400k (or whatever) budget that Flashback had was not enough to give us a complete Jagged Alliance experience. It's not just the gameplay but the whole package that came together which made JA2 the game it was. How many JA clones have we had? Hired Guns, 7.62 high calibre, brigade e5, Back in Action. They all failed and what they all had in common was that they felt cheap, and lacked polish (aside from other problems).

Whatever your feelings about Xcom enemy unknown, the game had polish and it helped to bring xcom back into the mainstream which could only mean good things in the future for the xcom franchise (more confidence to release games like xenonauts). The JA franchise needs a kickstart (heh) like that or it's going to die out, which would be a shame. The ideal would be to have the guys at Bear's Pit team up with the devs to act as designers and consultants.

 

[Burning Bridges]

400k would be more than enough to produce something of value.
It should just never have been given to a few losers living in one of the most expensive countries in Europe, who hardly know how to program.
Frontline tactics was an indication what to expect, kickstarter was giving welfare for a few Denish people that's it.

 

[spectre]

Looking back, it still makes me laugh that they they pulled the "rabid minority" card. We are your customer base, faggots.

Frontline tactics was an indication what to expect, kickstarter was giving welfare for a few Denish people that's it.

Yep. Full control still seem to be trapped in the mindset of a shovelware developer. While they've levelled up a bit since Frontline Tactics, it still shows in their handling of Space Hulk and JA.
Still, Space Hulk got significantly unfucked after a year, making it barely playble, but not very. I wonder if JSF is "salvageable" in any way. Redoing all the text would help a bit cause it looked like something written by someone struggling with
his second language (even the ceo has a hard time defending it), but the shitty AI, interface and no banter will most likely be here to stay.
I remember some guys at the bear pit were looking into it, wonder if there's any progress.

I think I will be revisiting this 1.1 version if I can find a good enough torrent of it. But first I need to disassociate it with JA in my mind.

 

[Baron Dupek]

What this game needs is a AAA developer with the funds to modernize the game

So big fail, with first sentence in the post.

AAA dev? Modernize? They modernize for the least intelligent human possible, use bland NPCs and put them in open world to collect shiny garbage for achievements. Ubisoft amrite?

Dude wake up.
There were dreama years back, when videogames business wasn't that big like today. Everyone were excited about games, their evolution fueled with big money. I remember it.

What we have now?
SHIT

 

[DeepOcean]

My main point was that the 400k (or whatever) budget that Flashback had was not enough to give us a complete Jagged Alliance experience.

You know... you don't need 10 million dollars to add personality, anyone half talented could come up with the basic personalities of the mercs and write something for them to say and wouldn't require millions to do it, this has more to do with they being shovelware producers that can't make a decent game even with 10 million dollars... and you think a publisher funded Jagged Alliance would be a complete Jagged Alliance experience? Common... they would cut half the game.

It's not just the gameplay but the whole package that came together which made JA2 the game it was. How many JA clones have we had? Hired Guns, 7.62 high calibre, brigade e5, Back in Action. They all failed and what they all had in common was that they felt cheap, and lacked polish (aside from other problems).

All funded by publishers that hired shovelware producers without talent anyway.

Whatever your feelings about Xcom enemy unknown, the game had polish and it helped to bring xcom back into the mainstream which could only mean good things in the future for the xcom franchise (more confidence to release games like xenonauts). The JA franchise needs a kickstart (heh) like that or it's going to die out, which would be a shame. The ideal would be to have the guys at Bear's Pit team up with the devs to act as designers and consultants.

Yeah...it depends of how you define polish, I personaly found XCOM pretty but hollow as most popamole games and after a few hours the pretty base that can't be attacked, the pretty animations that feel repetitive and the graphics that while nice are ignored once you fight on the same map over and over again. It was my luck I bought it 75% off or I would have wasted money on that crap, Xenonauts is a much better X-COM clone and while it lacks "polish" it is a much better game and was made on a tight budget as well.

 

[PosledniKovboj]

a new update in which the developers celebrate the improvement in review scores, after having whined about the same scores in their previous review and urging backers to do more reviews

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...hback/posts/1100674?ref=backer_project_update

enough said I think

 

[spectre]

^^
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