Hi there,
I'm one of the developers at Coreplay and just wanted to clarify 1 and 2:
1. All the assignments add XP. Are you sure you didn't just miss it? E.g. after lockpicking a door your merc should definitly be rewarded XP (if lockpicking is successful)
2. You can shoot further away than the length of the FOV if you target the enemy manually. However, the further away, the less damage you deal if you hit. Of course, the chance to actually hit also depends on the distance. The FOV for your own mercs is mainly used in the guard mode (and it's only shown in pause mode when guard mode is active) and for triggering a pause when a new enemy is being seen (if you enabled this). In guard mode, mercs automatically fire on enemies in FOV. This has obvious advantages, but manually targeting is more effective (aim at head). In guard mode and with high perception values (= large distance FOV) you run the risk of alerting the enemy unnecessarily by firing, so use it with care.

Is this game 3D or 4D? What I mean is how will the engine handle a situation when your merc and an enemy sees each other at the same time. Will the fourth dimension(time) be used to determine which of them fires the first shot. Will a pistol shoot before an AR, and an AR before a sniper rifle. If this is the case, how advanced will this calculation be? Will character stats or stance, weapon weight or attachments, snap-shot or aimed shot play a part in this?

Scopes and sights will be available, but how about lasers and tactical lights? Since you're using an engine that uses precalculated lighting I assume the TL, if included, wont show a cone of light in dark conditions.

Will I be able to play the game on a computer without an internet connection?

Finally a rant about my pet peeve, no modding support. A small Russian company called Apeiron released their Brigade E5 without any mod support, and realized quickly that it was a big mistake. They tried to correct that by releasing an ad hoc mod kit, but since it wasn't included from the start of development it turned out almost useless. Sure, you could add a few new weapons and characters, but that was about it. When they released the sequel, 7.62, they made sure the mod kit included parts of the source code so that modders could create new missions and other interesting things.
The lesson here is that a game in this genre wont have a big market unless there is a reason to come back and play the game again, and again. And if there's no new content when that happens, chances are the game will stay on the shelf collecting dust, or worse, never get bought. Going back to my own experience with 7.62, which had very low sales numbers the first year, but since I and others has constantly put our love and time into improving the game, I suspect the long term sales has improved because of it.

And let me know if you need any help convincing the marketing department how important mods and an active community are for these type of games;)

How can you check out your weapon more closely, is there some sort of database where you can see weapon stats and 3d model or is the 3d model only used when a merc holds it in his hands?

How about the quality of said weapon models, how high polygon count would be "normal" for the coreplay game engine?

Does a weapon get dirty and worn after it's been used? Do they overheat and jam? If so, how does the repair system actually work?

How does the looting work? Does it all show on the ground inventory after a battle and you can pick the goodies you want? Does it stay on the ground or does it disappear after a while?

Knowing that Back in Action has no fog of war, only 1 attachment per weapon, and no plans for being modifiable, has put me in a poor mood in regards to pulling out my wallet and purchasing the game. I've only ever purchased 3 games "brand new," and I was seriously considering doing so for BiA, but I'm now certainly going to hold off till I hear a good number of firsthand player accounts, and/or a free demo is released within a week of the game's release.

The Bear Pit community have accomplished some truly amazing things, and I have no doubts that if the only change that was made before release was to allow for modding, these guys around here would be driving customers to the cash registers for years to come.

While I understand your skepticism regarding fog of war and no modding support, I don't really understand why 1 attachment per weapon is such a big discussion point.

I don't know the polygon count right now, but as it is only used in the world view and you cannot zoom in that close, it's probably not that high. Regarding the engine: Can't talk about our engine in particular, but nowadays most engines are usually fillrate or pixel shader limited. Depending on certain features, CPU may also be a bottleneck. E.g. if you're creating stencil shadows on CPU, the poly count of the meshes casting the shadows does matter, while for normal rendering poly count is not that limiting anymore. That's why you usually use a special low-poly version of the model for casting the shadow (you usually already need a special version because it needs to be a closed volume).

I don't really understand why 1 attachment per weapon is such a big discussion point. This is a detail that depends a lot on the surrounding game. This 1 attachment slot may influence the game as much as 4 attachment slots in other games, simply because it might be more powerful or because it actually enforces the player to specialize instead of just grabbing everything and putting it on the weapon. From a design view, 1 attachment slot may be beneficial compared to 4 attachment slots. It really depends on the game, and it's something you can't decide on without playing the game. Not always more is better.

However, don't forget that providing official mod support for a game is not something that comes for free. There might be license issues (certain software that may be required for full modding is probably only licensed for use at the studio, for example). Also, you definitly need to put in a lot of manhours to provide good mod support. That having been said, I'm still sad that no modding support seems to be planned currently. However, I'm quite sure that people will be able to open and edit at least the basic files after a while of investigation. If I remember well, I've read at the official forums that BC does not intend to stop modding approaches, but please check that yourself.

Swaller

I will certainly avoid you from now on

You won't be alone... :giggle: (sorry, that was too good of a setup, couldn't let it pass)

Dieter, what the hell is that supposed to mean?

Shiny 3d graphics and explosions will not keep me entertained to slog through this stupor.

But lastly, whoever designed those portraits?
That person should get fired and laughed at, i could draw better faces with my dick.

BC (I hope I have some support from the JA veterans when I say this.) You could have used a cell shaded 3d engine with destruction physics; pour everything from JA2 (+ some minors upgrades) into it; give the community some mod tools.
And I swear the veterans would be on it like a junkie on a kilo of coke. You would have gotten some very good reviews for the depth of gameplay that is rare these days and made some cashflow for JA3.

as someone who has played JA for so many many years and owns physical copies of EVERY JA ever released, regardless of how amazing or poorly this game is done/received, the fact that i will forever love JA, this game will have a sale from me and i only hope that more continue to be made!

You sir are the perfect customer for these folks--willing to blow $50 for a new box that says JA on it regardless of the quality of the contents. So, let me ask you this ... if this game is the steaming pile of crap that most people expect it to be, will you buy the sequel too just because it has JA in the title?

Oh yeah, forgot about that. Not that it would matter any more - the ball on that one has been dropped ages ago, so basically this is all just beating on a dead horse, anyway...

The more bitching = The more free publicity

Let's let it go.

Maybe, if we look at it as a different game, different universe, different game altogether than it might be an okay game?