Game News First Jagged Alliance 3D screenshots!

[Ausir]

Tags: Jagged Alliance 3D; Strategy First

<a target=_blank href=http:///www.strategyfirst.com>Strategy First</a>'s <b>Hugo "Elusive One" Trepanier</b> has posted some <a target=_blank href=http://www.strategyfirst.com/scripts/Redir.asp?iGameID=126>brand new screenshots</a> from MISTLand's Jagged Alliance 3D. He then commented on it in <a target=_blank href=http://www.strategyfirst.com/forum/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=47;t=000060>this thread</a>.
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<a href=http://www.rpgcodex.com/peopledetails.php?id=65>Richard</a> just gave me permission to post the first screenshots taken from JA3D. Keep in mind that these are very early screens but this oughta give you all something to talk about over the weekend This is probably a pre-alpha version, meaning that there's still a lot of work to be done. I was just as surprised as you to see those today
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<i>My best guess is that these were made with the Alpha engine ("Alpha" the game).</i>
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It's actually ALFA and I believe you are correct. That partially explains why MiST has been able to pull something together so quickly, since the basic engine is already ready to use.</ul>
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You can find all these screenshots <a target=_blank href=http://www.strategyfirst.com/scripts/Redir.asp?iGameID=126>here</a>.

 

[Whipporowill]

Hm. Not too shabby engine that one... very nice Island feel to it.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Still too early to tell, but appears to be on the right track.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Yeah, it did seem to have a bit of the old JA feel. I dunno , though this one gave me a bad feeling for some reason.

 

[Human Shield]

They look weird in camo instead of t-shirts.

 

[Greenskin13]

I hope to see some urban scenes. I've always prefered those.

 

[Ultron]

Is this going to be a turn-based Far Cry? :shock:

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I want to see the interface more than anything.

 

[triCritical]

I like the tall grass.

As far as this being a TB FarCry. No way, JA is an isometric tactical squad based game. So what if it shares the same setting.

As for that goofy screen, I imagine they are just playing with the zoom option. I think these screen shots are all in one location and are just trying to show off what the engine looks like more then anything. The game looks fairly early in development.

 

[space captain]

these are the guys that did "Paradise Cracked"... none of the original JA team is involved, and neither is Sir-Tech..

oh yeh, and that engine doesnt allow for more than one level of "ground floor" - meaning no characters can stand above another on a map, climb ladders, etc. etc.... so they better fix that pronto

dont have a good feeling about this at all

 

[Sol Invictus]

Sir Tech is involved 110%, and many of the original JA2 developers are with Sir Tech. They developed Disciples 2 after they joined Sir Tech.

Where did you get the idea that the engine doesn't have a Y-Axis?

 

[Lasakon]

Sir-tech is involved to a capacity. It's widely documented that pretty much everyone from Sir-Tech who joined Strategy First were layed off. At the time they were working on the early stages of development of Jagged Alliance 3. Richard said in this thread that much of the design work that sir-tech made will be used in Mistland's version. Since Mistland is using it's ALFA antiterror engine for Jagged Alliance 3 & 3D this screenshot of ALFA pretty much proves that Jagged Alliance 3 & 3D will have a Y-Axis.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I think that this is what you meant to post.

Lookin' good!

 

[space captain]

thank god...

we need demo

 

[Lasakon]

Richard also said in this thread that all the character models in those screenshots are placeholders taken from ALFA. So we can expect some more accurate 3D recreations of all the mercs.

 

[Petey_the_Skid]

looks pretty...does anyone know why the Sirtech folks were laid off? I like Strategy First, they seem pretty good for the games they specialize in.

 

[Lasakon]

Strategy First ain't exactly rolling in mountains of money. Has far has i know the only reason they were layed off were financial reasons.

 

[Petey_the_Skid]

ah...sort of a get the company and the assets, but just use your own people thing then i guess.

 

[Azael]

Looks pretty good, but I can I blow those pretty looking palm trees to bits and pieces with a burst from my SAW?

 

[Jebus]

Remember people, these are just pre-alpha screenshots. They've still got 'bout three years more work to do.
For example, I read Richard saying somewhere (doesn't make sense, I know) they'll have to yank down the polyglon count of that engine down...

Anyway, I dunno much 'bout all that techie stuff, but it doesn't look none too shabby, that's for sure.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I don't think that 2007 is the estimated release date, Jebus.

 

[Lasakon]

Heres a very informative post by Richard on the Bear-Pit forums:

I don't know who that fellow (he or she) may be. It just happen that we had no 'female' employee that was let go in quite a while, especially not one that went to Vancouver.

The only truth to this is that indeed, we had to scale somewhat down due to a number of reasons:

Firstly, we have lost a number of employees to Ubi Soft who have been raiding us and to EA who recently opened a development studio in Montreal.

Secondly, we have been moving away from fully using third party distributors to move our products around so that we will be going direct with a number of accounts (read retail stores) in the future.

The second reason has us experiencing a short-term cash crunch which is resolving itself now but that had an impact on what was left of the teams after number one above had happened.

Since we wanted to move along with both JA and Disciples, we found a studio that had the talent to get the projects started in cooperation with me and the SFI production team. For me, it was out of the question to wait 'till we had two or three fully experienced teams on board to get started, the delay since the last games had been long enough as it was.

Beamer:
As a matter of fact, JA2 has sold extremely well, especially in Germany. The North-American sales were decent but still a deception.

As for the rest of your post, well maybe will you just be that: surprised that is.

I prefer to not believe that you are implying that you and some others are the soul keepers of the game you never made. I consider myself one of those keepers and my experience with JA dates back from, dare I say, much longer than you could think.

Granted, I did not do the game myself either besides from some consulting work on the first JA but in my discussions with Ian on design work, we always seem to see eye to eye and pretty much be on agreement.

What else can be said?

Going in 3D can be complicated if you do not take the right approach. Knowing you are working on a tactical game should give a clue to the designer of what is necessary to help the player keep his orientation in terms of camera handling. The problem with games so far has not been the fact that they were in 3D,it has been more related to programmers and design team mostly falling in love with their technology and their environments, often forgetting that they were working on a game, not a tech demo.

Market pressures also have had a role to play. People want everything, from grand scale war number of units down to the details of a Quake model. Then, they will complain if the new game they bought hogs their system.

In this case, we have to face the balancing act of providing games that are both true to the JA essence and up to date on the visual side. That is what we will be working on achieving.

Hope this clarifies some

You can read it here.