Home » JAGGED ALLIANCE 3 » JA 3 Wish List » A new approach to Jagged Alliance?
| A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #190613]
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Sun, 13 July 2008 01:17 
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 MikeT |
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Messages:7
Registered:July 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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What I would really like to see? I would like to see the whole Jagged Alliance turn based concept moulded in with real-time, first person shooter action.
In single player, you could play the game in turn based or real-time. When the game is in turn based, it's the basic original concept - view the game with a camera you can move around.
But in real-time, you can either command it like your standard real-time strategy, jump into all your mercs heads and control them first-person shooter style, or have your own character command the rest of your squad through a list of commands, and be stuck in your own characters head.
If that was combined with a real-time environment, the game would be awesome. Real economic simulation. Real supply lines. Real day and night cycles. Real weapons physics modelling and destructible environments. And massive, fully explorable maps.
Just imagine the original Arulco? You could drop in at the start and command your squad, from a first person perspective, and fight the whole battle over again.
The first person element would add a whole new layer to multiplayer, as the game becomes a tactical shooter, with the same ingrossing story lines and role playing of the original Jagged Alliance games.
Of course, that's a big undertaking. Having the original Jagged Alliance turned-based strategy style, PLUS the first person real time option, would require alot more work and experience outside of what would be required of original game concept.
But hey, the positive side is extra playability. In multiplayer, you could even have players working for the 'bad guys' in the game. As a mercenary, the player would be able to work for the highest bidder, or take a moral stance and work for the good guys only (but not for free). A multiplayer campaign could easily involve up to 100 players on an island the size of Arulco. Campaigns could last for weeks or months depending on the skill of the players and how often they play.
You could even combine the 1st person shooter element with a real-time strategy element, where a small group of players, say 16, goes up against a single player, who commands the armys of the 'bad guys' from a top down real-time strategy perspective.
[Updated on: Sun, 13 July 2008 01:21] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #190705]
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Mon, 14 July 2008 09:43 
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| MikeT |
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Messages:7
Registered:July 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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But think about this for a second guys - they're already moving into 3D environments with Jagged Alliance 3 right? 3D environments is already a given. All you think have to do, is adjust the point of view to be the characters point of view, change the game to run in real-time, and BAM you have a first person shooter.
Like I said - the original Jagged Alliance concept (turn-based strategy) is still there.
How many of you have put on 'timed turns' to make the game more difficult so you don't have hours to think about your next move? So you actually have to think fast like the situation would require in reality?
Well giving players the option to play the game in real-time, with a first person perspective, would take that one step further - you have to think of your feet, in real time.
But yet again, like I said, it's only an option.
You might not like it personally, but as a business decision, it is a good idea. It would satisfy the hard-core Jagged Alliance fans with the original turn based option. Satisfy real-time strategy fans with a real-time option (eg. Commandos), and satisfy the hard-core tactical shooter fans with a FPS option (eg. SWAT 4, Armed Assault), and regular first-person shooter fans (eg. Soldier of Fortune), and still capture the role playing elements of the entire series. That, and you could even have short matches with team based objectives.
You basically end up having 5 games in 1. Turn-based Strategy, Real-Time Strategy, Tactical Shooter, First Person Shoot'em Up, and Role Playing game.
This would provide hundreds of hours of playability. And the fact that they've already gone to a 3D engine makes expanding the game to include what I've said extremely easy.
Furthermore, it would provide good scaling opportunities. Clearly, some systems wouldn't be able to operate in full real-time realistic first person mode. But if the player just wants to play the game like the original JA series, then they don't need a system with all the bells and whistles. But for players with the latest and greatest systems, with brand new graphics cards that provide AI and Physics processing through DirectX 10, then they have a game which they can play again and again and again. In both single and multiplayer modes, and in turn-based, real-time, first-person or top-down strategy modes.
My question to both of you, who think this is such a terrible idea, is if the game came out tomorrow, at the price you would be willing to pay for Jagged Alliance 3 as a pure turn-based strategy, with a great storyline, great original Jagged Alliance style game-play, and all the things which make Jagged Alliance great, but it also had the options which I just described, would you NOT buy it? Would you say "I'm not buying this game, because it's got the option to play it as a real-time strategy and a first person shooter!"
Or as a different example - if two version of the game came out, one for $50 that was just the original Jagged Alliance concept, and one for $51 that had all the extra oprtions that I just described, would you only buy the $50 version because you didn't want to pay the extra $1 for all the extra options? What if it was $2 differ? $5? $10? $20?
If you can seriously say that you wouldn't buy it because of an 'option' that you won't use, or you wouldn't pay a little extra for hours and hours of more playability, then I'm afraid you need your head checked.
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #190866]
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Tue, 15 July 2008 15:05
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| MikeT |
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Messages:7
Registered:July 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Thanks for the input Kaerar. Clearly, AI difficulties is an issue. It's one of the reasons why I suggested that the game would scale well between systems. Alot of systems (including my own), wouldn't be capable of handling the most modern AI systems in games. However, someone with a new video card from nVidea or ATI will know that they have built in AI processing that can be accessed through Direct X 10. That does introduce difficulties ofcourse, as you're basically forcing the designers to program simultaneously for Windows XP and Windows Vista users at the same time.
And yes whilst AI can't compete with human's, the issue is that in a single player game, AI wouldn't have to. They would be, for a large part, competing with other AI that have the same AI systems they do.
As for management - well good management takes time. Carefully laid plans are not concocted instantaneously in the minds of their creators. So playing the game in real-time would require the player to find a careful balance between planning and timeliness - there is no point spending 2 hours creating a plan for an opportunity that will have passed in an hours time. There would be no point micromanaging the supply of ammunition to the frontlines when you know one of your outposts is dangerously low on ammunition and supplies. And as an option, you could probably even pause the game (in single player), to lay out your plans, give your commands to AI, including go-codes, etc (much like you can plan your operation in Rainbow Six before executing), and manage supply lines.
Like I said, the key point is to give the player options - turn-based or real-time, first person or 3rd person camera, sci-fi or realistic, locked in the head of your own avatar or the ability to jump into your teams heads. It would definitely be much more of a challenge in my opinion if you had to make plans on the fly (within reasonable limits, because clearly I can't communicate my plans to an AI soldier as quick as I can to a real person).
Implenting AI would also allow the player to delegate better. Having an AI soldier drive a truck of supplies down a well known and well controlled road would be something I can simply send them command to do. Simple tasks would be assigned to AI in a few clicks. More complex tasks, such as infiltration of enemy installations, are something that I can lay out careful plans for.
Its possible that I could simply send out orders to AI to do all the work, whilst I stay hidden and get information back from my AI. This would allow my face as the leader of a group to be concealed, so I could allow myself to do covert ops in enemy territory later, as the enemy doesn't know that I'm a threat.
As for the 5 games in 1 concept not allowing the devs to focus on making a good game in one style, well that is clearly an issue. But I think that when utilising modern AI programming, the turn based and real-time elements would blend together, in that the calculations that go on in real time are the same calculations that happen in turned based, it's just simply how frequently those calculations are done that changes. Either once every 10 milliseconds or once every 10 seconds.
I honestly think that giving the player options on how they want to play the game is where games are heading. Think Bioshock - do I save the little sisters or do I harvest them? Think Deus Ex - stealth or gung-ho run and guns? Think Grand Theft Auto IV. Think non-linearity, high replayability, wide audience appeal, and a variety of difficulty levels.
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #190934]
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Wed, 16 July 2008 14:14
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| the scorpion |
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Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH |
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yup, but it requires some time spent with ja2 to realise it operates a lot according to RPG rules
i call it an "RPG sui generis" because the RPG element would go far beyond mere squad management
also, allowing NPC's to actually live, you *can* do quite a lot in this respect, actually. It's just that the way ja2 is played, a player hardly ever sees this, so we usually don't bother with it.
reason: most of the time spent in tactical, where the player could see NPC behaviour, is during combat (no ideal moment to talk to peasents) and immediately afterwards. So around 5 minutes gametime. Of course if you only see 5 minutes of a day, you won't notice a lot of NPC's *living*
sure an NPC's shedule only has 4 entries, but you mix that with placement orders and player interaction and have a very detailed NPC behaviour with simple means, however, spread over 24 hours, you'll only notice it if it interferes with your plans, otherwise you don't notice it 
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Sergeant Major
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #190946]
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Wed, 16 July 2008 15:41
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| Shanga |
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Messages:3479
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia |
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// RANT //
Again I'll say, if Betsheda manages to screw up F3, considering they have a great RPG engine and a great TBS title on their hands they would be biggest idiots in game history.
BE5 and it's succesor, 7.62, are 3D smart-pause-strategy-games (the most common crossbreed of TBS and RTS) but everyone who has played those thinks they are so hard to learn it's not even fun. They are more close to a training simulator than to a game.
So that leaves us only with F3 to wait for. Sadly the latest gameplay video I've seen involves a lot of Quake style mutant blasting and little or no strategy. Oh dear...
// END OF RANT //
Now regarding the use of 3D in TBS games, it's obvious it would be a great advantage. Simply because a 3D enviroment is more realistic, has better physics and in general makes for better gameplay.
Why nobody has had the guts to make such a game (3D TBS) is simple: the game companies are like sheep. If one makes something 0.0000001% succesfull then it's a good thing to copy it. These companies are run by accountants and marketing managers. People who never played a game in their life. They understand only numbers, sales figures and so on.
The time of the small developer with a dream is long gone by. The only who who survived is the famous Will Wright. That's why I am buying Spore - because it has never been done and he had the guts to try something new. But otherwise there's nothing out there but copycats of the same models, repeated over and over again.
[Updated on: Wed, 16 July 2008 15:49] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #190953]
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Wed, 16 July 2008 16:37
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| Kaerar |
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Messages:2021
Registered:January 2003
Location: Australia :D |
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Hmm I think you ended the rant early there Shanga!
But you do hit upon a good point. TBS for 3D is non-existent in any real sense. I used to think in FPS terms when I looked at a possible JA2 port to 3D, but I was so wrong back then it wasn't even funny.
After having re-evaluated the pros and cons of TBS and how to implement it in 3D I do believe I have an idea that would work, plus it wouldn't lose the feel and certainly unique flavour of the Jagged Alliance style. Obviously I have no intention of placing it in the JA2 universe as that would be plagiarism and breach of IP, so I have a story that I think would be ok for it yet doesn't lose the feel of JA2.
The benefit of 3D is proper size and distance management as well as sighting. No more inaccurate object sizes to hide behind, invisible sand bags and such like. Basically the engine would determine each hit separately, maybe even including things like weather effects (rain, wind, fog). Sector size is always a difficult one, but I think with maps the size of Crysis it would work relatively well. Not too large and you are wandering forever searching for tango's and not too small you never get out of the pistol arena.
I have to say the first thing that struck me when I played Crysis with the realism mod was, how good would this game be if you could manage a commando squad JA2 style. I got bored of the FPS style and was hooked by the graphics engine. So much potential, far too high a system spec needed! Seeing as the engine really isn't optimised for gaming though (its actually a simulation renderer) it copes pretty well.
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #190969]
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Wed, 16 July 2008 18:14
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| Shanga |
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Messages:3479
Registered:January 2000
Location: Danubia |
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Here at Bear's Pit we started discussing about 3D in JA2 almost before there were 3D games made. Wanted to point this out, it's kindda funny.
A lot of years after it's clear, as you say, that 3D has evolved from being FPS-oly to being a mature gaming enviroment. It's only up to the developer to decide where the damn view camera sits - in first person, in 3rd, isometric and so on...
I've played some great strategy games, RTS only sadly, that made ME undestand that's the future.
Sadly, everything about the games of today is speed, fast-food, instant gratification, clickfest, wam-bam-thank-you-madam. Thinking while playing must've proved dangerous to player's health, so they removed it completely when TBS died.
[Updated on: Wed, 16 July 2008 18:18] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #190976]
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Wed, 16 July 2008 18:41
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| the scorpion |
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Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH |
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i've had a look at a rather recent fps video (presentation) that was far cry2. (there was a link somewhere... forgot, might have been a different forum)
I think 3d has its advantages very closely related to the size of things, to point of view and to "camera speed"
sure you can zoom in, zoom out rotate etc. in real 3d, but actually good looking are the things only if rather large, which is the most frequent look in FPS games. Zoom out for a better overview and things look worse due to lack of detail and level and especially object size will be a problem, take silent storm with its awfully tiny levels.
3d, like our real 3d world, has a big disadvantage compared to isometric because at a certain distance, things just become tiny. Characters you'd want to aim for become 3 pixels small and such... objects too small to figure what cover it could offer and such.
FP view just makes best use of this. From real world we're familiar with very little oversight, which allows to make things in the front big and scale them small farther back fast, using little ressources.
Keeping the overview over a squad and maintaining the nice optics forces tiny maps and objects like in silent storm because otherwise it'll look generic and boring very fast.
Speed. Have you ever wondered why almost every FP 3d game happens at insane speeds (okay maybe except for the hitman series and other sneak/ stealth games), where you run and fire your machine gun or rocket launcher and jump and all at once and the distance you cover in 3 seconds game time equals 500 meters map size?
I think it wouldn't still look good otherwise. Seriously, the use of 3d models, skins, textures etc. encourages making a game fast and hectic, because we know from our real world that things get blurry when we move fast, so the blurry bland generic textures look right in FP.
*edit* as opposed to this, ja2 usually plays rather static. if you have a large map and operate large ranges (and if i have 3rd person view, i'd want to take longer distance shooting, NOT like silent storm) then you have very little movement of the background gfx, so, turn-based with longer times of little shift of the background doesn't take advantage of 3d either.
now in 3d person look from behind or such it still works, but as soon as a squad which has to be visual at all times or at least needs to be made visual all of them at once, these advantages of 3d are no longer. At the distance and abstraction level of something involving a lot of tactics, these 3d advantages are minimized
IMHO that's one of the reasons there aren't really as good looking 3d tactical games compared to 3d FPS. I think it is very tricky and ressourcehungry to try making something like ja2 in 3d. Even if you have the same graphic quality, it doesn't look as good anymore because the perspective of a squad is different to the one of a single character or a single character plus a buddy of some sort.
in that respect the initial poster has a point, we'd better be looking for a game setup where something remotely similar to ja2 can be made but that can take advantange of modern graphics and tech. Just porting ja2 to 3d doesn't really benefit enough.
i'm aware that it wouldn't be ja2 anymore. I mean something that could offer some of ja2's features and still use modern looks and tech
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Sergeant Major
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #190990]
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Wed, 16 July 2008 21:03
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| the scorpion |
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Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH |
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kaerar
those games are all FPS. i never said you can't have huge maps for FPS gameplay because you can scale it so extremely given the POV. On a POV like in ja2 where you have to see at least the bigger number of squad members and some hundred meters of terrain, those levels that represent a huge landscape simply wouldn't work because as opposed to FPS games where your typical gunfight range without scope is around 10 to 15 meters, you have to actually see a freakin lot of it and be able to quickly scroll over to some more hundreds of square meters of it. The ressources to display all of this would go way beyond the Uber-requirements of current FPS. Since you can't go further with requierments than the FPS games, you can only get shittier looks, essentially wasting ressources, potential and possible customers. Developers are most likely not going to do it or at least not succesfully. That's what logic implies at least, i *do* hope a lot for the contrary, as probably mos ja2 fans might do.
Shanga
you're more talking of a physics engine rather than 3d or not. i think that's a different matter.
what's the matter with 3d and destructible stuff? The only things not destructible in ja2 is the ground you walk on (okay, rooftops as well because that works like ground) or the water you swim through. Most of the rest is destructible, it isn't my fault that the initial devs and most modmakers tend to ignore this fact ;-/
i know a big number of people think that ja2 only allows very limited destruction of ingame objects and make this one of the bigger point against ja2. Fools.
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Sergeant Major
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #191016]
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Thu, 17 July 2008 05:57
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| Kaerar |
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Messages:2021
Registered:January 2003
Location: Australia :D |
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Lol, actually it would be rather easy to set up a squad management game based on the CryEngine2. I think you missed my point there regarding map size. Remember its still TBS not pseudo TBS. So you have two groups of mercs moving up hundreds of metres apart. Its no big deal the graphical detail scales as you zoom in and out. You still have a mini-map so you can quickly move the camera to the correct position. I think a zoomable camera would be necessary though because as you gain guns like the Barrett you will need to see further and if you cannot zoom out to the Sniper's visible range you are basically stuffed.
As for resources used, its not really any more than an FPS in a busy section. For instance I get stable and reasonable framerates in Crysis (I know its an FPS). I have relatively good hardware though (having said that it is very cheap to build a powerful AMD system now, just ignore Intel and nVidia) with a Phenom 9850BE, coupled with an Asus M3A32 Deluxe mobo. Graphics will be a 4870x2 when its released (currently using a 9600GT rather well). The graphics is held back by the 9600GT to limit it to about 25-30fps constant in Crysis, which isn't bad considering you cannot see frame loss or artifacts. In fact for CryEngine2 you really need to double the true FPS figure to get the same feel in other engines.
Everything in the engine can be assigned a damage parameter so everything is destructible. So its at least as capable as JA2 in that matter.
For graphical quality well all I have to say is have you seen the game on a reasonable graphic level. If a 3D version were to be developed, that level of graphical detail (or even the level in Unreal Engine 3) will be the standard. Personally I want to have dynamic light sources, so you can shoot a lamp out of a lamp post to make the area darker at night. The Sun gives a wide focal point light source so the engine makes soft shadows on the ground rather than hard shadows and such like. Especially impressive were the light shafts which at the right times of day were stunning.
Also play Crysis on normal then with the natural mod. The difference is just amazing. Instead of having silly blue/amber/orange filters, you get really clear and crisp colouring.
If you think that FPS are the king of sys req's though you are mistaken. SupCom is the king of the CPU/GPU killers. Due to the engine design if you have pretty much anything running other than SupCom, and you don't have a dual core or 4GB of RAM good luck to get further than 2 hours into the game. Even the most powerful computers now cannot comprehend an 8 player skirmish with 2500+ units ingame. Mainly because the Sim engine cannot calculate all the actions fast enough. When you have an engine that actually calculates the rise and fall of the projectiles and the collision position of the projectile itself rather than the shortcuts taken by most RTS games you can see why its such a resource hog.
I can tell ya with a small squad of commando's and enemies on the same level as Crysis (i.e a shit load) you could have a very good game with mid-level requirements that would look very good at medium settings. Then you have the eye-candy for the higher settings and higher spec comps. There are some very simple methods to speed up CryEngine2 for example like using the software supersampling in place of anti-aliasing. It runs a lot faster and the graphical difference is minute. Its just a matter of optimising it to work for mid-level systems and having the heavy stuff optional.
Don't take it that I am just plugging CryEngine2, as I am just using it as an example. There are many different engines out there that are suitable or similar (UE3, the SupCom Engine, Stalker to name a few), but none would be ideal for a TBS at the moment. All would need a major overhaul to be suited to it.
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #191044]
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Thu, 17 July 2008 13:29
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| the scorpion |
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Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH |
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Kaerar There are many different engines out there that are suitable or similar (UE3, the SupCom Engine, Stalker to name a few), but none would be ideal for a TBS at the moment. All would need a major overhaul to be suited to it.
even then it would be a waste of ressources and time --> money, hence why it isn't done. I certainly dream of the same naive stuff as you do, but at the same time i don't think it will be done. There's a huge gap between what looks good on a ja2 like POV and what looks good in an FPS. I guess you totally omitted the entire point layed out in the last 3 postings :sleep:
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Sergeant Major
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| Re: A new approach to Jagged Alliance?[message #191055]
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Thu, 17 July 2008 19:08
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| the scorpion |
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Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH |
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shouldn't great engines like that have big modmaking communities were at least some trials could be done?
IMHO people should figure some special requirements if they want to design and engine or tweak an existing engine to fit a gameplay like ja2's.
ja2 has a lot of simplifiactions that are required for the gameplay, starting with turn based mode and isometric view. the question is how to enable that gameplay in a modern game where iso and tb would lead to bad sales/ small audience?
either keep tb and iso (or fake iso like i think shanga is suggesting) but add a lot of stuff extra so it comes closer to modern, publishable games
or go the way of BE5 rtwp and 3d but somehow add a ton of extras to save the gameplay
or maybe some even more specific properties have to be used, like iso-like 3d in certain situations and real 3d in others or what do i know
just from what there was so far, it doesn't look like somebody has already found the sweet spot in regards of designing a ja game in line with modern standards.
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Sergeant Major
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