Just Wondering.... (Relates to Jagged Alliance 2)

My heart was bleeding when i read that they decided on that....
But well, hearing that some really unknown Publisher bought the IP didn't really bring hope to me. So my real hope is that the publisher will stop development of further games before they can damage the IP - but than again the IP deosn't seem to be something a lot of companies are willing to pay for.
 
well it was always even in the past a niche game among the tactical/RPG like games. Thankefully that saved it so far from the lobotomisation that is going on in the gaming buisness with old known franchises.
 
UncannyGarlic said:
I'm with you, it's too bad Bitcomposer decided to be retarded. For drivable vehicles were you thinking purely for transportation or also for battle? I'm with you on the former but I'm not so sure about the latter.
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I suppose it would depend on the size of the battlefield. I could definitely see jeeps, trucks, tanks, and armored cars though. It's pretty silly that the tanks in Meduna are all fixed in place. Those maps would be harder if they could move.

How about artillery barrages with persistent craters? Enemy AI that divides its forces up into independent squads? I'd also like to see a more detailed weather system with wind direction and velocity that would affect a more detailed smoke and gas system.

My point is, I can think of a list of about 1000 improvements I would make before I would even consider changing the combat system. The combat system is the game.
 
I like the way how you think.

Silent Storm proved already that many things can be done with new engines. It has added a nice level of destruction to the enviroment which as well added much to the combat in form of tactics.

*To say that as well I also doubt that the same could be achieved without tourn based combat for one simple reason. Everything happens in real time and I think if you havae only 1 enemy doing 1 thing at time it costs a lot less power to calculate then letz say 50 charcters doing all sorts of things on your screen. Something many forget with tourn based combat is that it offers you time and the possiblity to add a lot of decisions in to the game without the need to sacrifice to much hardware. I always thought the AI in JA2 was for its time quite good.
 
One of my random Google queries for new good games contains "fallout jagged". I guess that games that reference these 2 classic masterpieces could prove to be something good.

NMA brought me the sad news of F3, now I read this sad news once more.

If I ever win the lottery, I'm creating an all-stars tbs / tbrpg dev team and have them create new good games. With press releases saying "f*ck mainstream, we're following a dream".

Ahh, sigh.
 
I think that is (more or less) how projects like Planescape, System Schock 2 or Deus Ex 1 have been made. Because someone had a vision/idea and tried not to go so much with what the "market needs" or people think is "mainstream". That was back then when you could still experiment with games. And create a lot of great things. Now today. They have bigger teams. More money. More resources. And in some cases even more time (albeit rare ...). And yet. Games lose diversity by a fast rate. Maybe though I am just to nostalgic. Who knows. I played for sure a lot of games in the past 15 years. But even today you get the one or other pearl thrown at you. So it is not impossible after all !

I tend to believe that they created today a paradox (and particularly those companies which did nothing else but swallowing smaller teams of developers). Now for a game to be successful it has not only to fund the original team which did the game but also have enough win that it can flow back to the leading company. So it is no surprise that some games have to sell AT LEAST 1 Million copies to be even in the margin. Costs for making games have inflated in the last 5 years a lot. And most of it is spend for marketing. A lot of it. I heard with some games it can reach 100 Million - big productions like CoD or similar.

To many times you would see people on the Bethesdian forum come up with the idea that Fallout 1 or 2 was not a success because it didn't sold something like 2 or 3 million copies. Though what is "success" ? If smaller teams in the past sold 300 000 games it was already considered a win.
 
True Crni Vuk, they seem to be caught in an infinite loop.
Even adding piracy as an excuse, where they claim to have to release to consoles as well to even reach break-even. All adding to development and QA cost, so they have to reach the largest possible target audience - the mainstream.

Quite odd that games used to be made by one or two people, who still were able to deliver a gem. These days it's equally possible to license an existing engine and create your own story, but they're still messing this up.

Of course everyone is playing into this by buying, and the reviewers by not employing a proper frame of reference. All this is giving devs a signal that they're on the right track. Kind of hard to find a way to break this cycle, but I know a few people who would be willing to put some effort into that...
 
There is a new update for the 1.13 patch coming soon (end of the month i think). Once its out i will give good old JA2 another spin. They can keep their new shiny stuff for all that i care.
 
Crni Vuk said:
Planescape
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Have you read the design doc for Planescape? The game was literally pitched as having loads of babes, "kewl" spells that turn enemies inside out, and generally mocking how boring old PnP type RPGs were.

That said, I can't say I disagree with the rest of your post.
 
Arden said:
There is a new update for the 1.13 patch coming soon (end of the month i think). Once its out i will give good old JA2 another spin. They can keep their new shiny stuff for all that i care.
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I too will be giving that a look.

+1

Even though they didn't change it into a FPS. :D
 
Crni Vuk said:
... I tend to believe that they created today a paradox ...
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I believe it all started with Marketing. Or, in the greater picture, money / capitalism. Ok, this will need some explaining - please bear with me a minute.

Until about the 70's, people believed that quality and originality sells. Tools made up to that era still survive today. Quite literally, my grandpa has a tool room filled with them - he even re-sharpens his drill bits.
Buy a tool from a random DIY store today, it's bound to break in max a year. I've had plenty of broken drill bits. And am hoping I'm inheriting that 70's tool room some day.


The same goes for cars: those built up to the 80's were unbreakable. Now they're made of polymers and crash folding zones.
Rolls Royce proves it's possible to create modern cars that last forever. That Aussie solar race and Spyker prove it's possible to run on electricity in a car that has a 'WOW' effect, and run on solar power.

HD TV has existed for quite a while. So have HD recorders (Tivo alike) and 3D television. Still, many homes go without one or the other.


What do all these examples show?


We have the means and the technology to create lasting, modular systems. That are or unbreakable, or very easy to maintain.
But, marketing found out that creating this will make companies go bankrupt whenever the market is satisfied. So, they need to find ways to sell us new stuff. Some tactics:

#1 Convince the consumer he needs something, while in fact he doesnt(who hasn't got a ton of age old stuff at home that's used once or twice)
#2 Convince the consumer that what he has is outdated, and his neighbour will 'outclass' him with the improved version if he doesn't buy (led tv? green appliances?)
#3 Sell the consumer a product that has a life expectancy of X, when X minus some months is reached and his product is defective, tell him the repair cost is too close to buying the new version of the product (and use tactic #2)
#4 If a product passes successfuly through the above steps, keep producing it with minor changes: other package, larger / smaller size - and make it more accessible to the masses (iWhatever, Fallout3).


In this system, not the maketeer / capitalist company is our culprit. They have just created a good means of generating a recurring revenue.
The consumer is the idiot. Through his lazy and unwise buying patterns, he's allowing this system to work.
True, he is tempted and confused by an abundance of choice and cleverness of marketing campaigns. But it's still HIS choice to fall for it and support the system.

Let's face it - how many of us did play FO3, although we knew it was going to be what it is? Just because they cleverly used #4?
 
After straying quite a bit here, back ontopic.

Was googling 'fall - last days of gaia' (now why didn't I ever try it), and found some of the old Fallout crew worked on it.
Clicking on the 'official site' link on wiki led me to a "The Games Company... declared insolvable by German court ... all remaining publishing activities are being transacted with immediate effect by bitComposer Games GmbH"?

Now, who is bitComposer? - click click - aha, the same company that's publishing the revamped JA2...

DAMMIT... This is even worse then Beth: this company is actively searching for more then one original game concept and turning it into non-TB eyecandy one-in-a-million games.
I'm beginning to wonder why I made a second post. This actually belongs to #5. Way too obviously does.

I wonder when the first gamer is going to take a semi-auto weapon and start shooting up staff of these kind of companies in real life. This is just maddening.
 
bitComposer is just the publisher (and a pretty good one, I got the great Call of Pripyat CE for 20 Euro), I wouldn't heap blame upon them. The problem lies with the spineless developers without a vision (or a vision that's effectively an attempt at garbage).
 
well to say that about "marketing". If a game like CoD for example would be long lasting fun they would simply hurt them self in the end. Because they sure want people to buy the "next" CoD in masses. And shorter games are also somewhat cheaper in production I guess.
 
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