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 inupdate 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

Hey,

I have been involved from the beginning and expected a small JA2 which is moddable. The videos, licence and the JA2 focused kickstarter-campaign lead to this expectations. Otherwise I would have never pledged or supported the campaign or pledged only (a minimum)! So you needed these expectations to attract a lof of backers. And I think only with the support of 2 major kickstarter-projects we reached the goal for JA2.

The overall design and gameplay is good, as you said, still not 8/10. I can also live with the fact that there are no new features, we expected from a sequel as well. Still I think some of the requested features (shop!) are more confusing now than they are in JA2 (Selling items vs. traditional trading window!). This is just one example where you agree to disagree. 

So far I did not vote on steam as I waited for the announced features (weapon attachments, etc). A lot of them are now in and stealth finally works, which makes the game so more fun! 
I would give you guys 7/10 if during gameplay I did not run into so many little issues that are frustating for me as a gamer. And while playing I don't think: UI is crap, no prob it was a small budget. No I expected more and scream every time annoying things pop up or items stuck on the screen. When defending a town in JA2 I could be overrun by enemies but use my mercs to defend it. Now we have to walk out of town and defend on the streets until the militia is strong enough. That is something I never expected, even with this low budget. 

To be honsted, the UI and item management are the worst things in the game, stategic map and income and contract management are solid but too basic in comparison to JA2 - so here a lot of points are lost. For new player it could be enough to enjoy it. I can honestly give only 6/10. Which means the game is fun sometimes, has a lot of things missing I expected and fails in some areas. But overall the game is playable and reminds me of playing Jagged Alliance. The story and missing dialogues (+ animated portraits) don't let you go deep into the characters (-1). We can only live with it because we know Shadow and Ivan from JA2. But new player in steam scream: Where a the JA2-like dialogues with voice over and story!? Can we agree that people today expect this no matter the budget?

To be fair, one who knows the development and budget, should give +1 (so again 7/10) for your support, commitment to the game and community. But that is usually not included in a rating for a game.
So thank you for listening to the fans (best example: crosshair) and keep on the good work. Hopefully steam reviews and some magazines and online reviews will change as well. At least to a 6/10 or +60% recommendation. I am sure with more time to develop, iterate and more budget, the game would received a great rating you guys deserved.

Well said, you pretty much summed up the sentiment of the majority. Unfortunately, I will disagree with you on giving a brownie point due to low budget. Reviews should have no bias and no sentiment, game should stand on its own. And on it's own, unfortunately, this game fails to deliver.

As for expectations, Full Control has noone to blame but themselves. There was no media blitz, there was no hype building, you guys had full control (no pun intended) to either make or break this game. Your decisions, both with design elements which are extremely frustrating to many players, as well as business (even if they were well intended or you had no other choice due to budget) are yours and yours alone.

Yes, there are people on both sides of the spectrum. There are ones that feel cheated and deceived and wish nothing less than FC's total demise. Then there are those who blow hot air up people's asses, exaggerating mundane features, etc. Which actually makes matters worse, because it only fuels the fire of the opposite group.

Bottom line, it was a good effort, you did what you could, noone can deny that. Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough for many, and thus the numbers speak for themselves.

While I understand where you are coming from I think this scenario where you kind of give an ultimatum where the consumers have to give positive reviews or you will stop updating the game can only backfire. Mostly because more than likely most of the people giving negative reviews don't even read these forums. Secondly, I'm sure a lot of users on this forum are like me and have refrained from giving a review in the first place because of the (incomplete) status of the game.

I am glad you're impartial Syrop. In your unbiased opinion the players are divided between "those who feel cheated" and "those who blow hot air". Nice job.

REALLY?

I see stellar reviews for Wasteland 2 (a game with $3M budget) and Dead State (which took 3 years to make) on Steam. And you know what? Those might be decent, but when it comes to combat, they aren't even on the same planet as JA:F. So JA:F actually managed to surpass on a core feature both a game that had 10x its budget and another who had 3x more development time. That's not "hot air" at all when it comes to JA series. But for haters the good parts of JA:F are always a footnote. While the stuff THEY WANT is always a huge minus. Guess what... your oppinion is just yours. There are people in this world who don't see things your way.

BUT...

Fact is, nothing FC will do would please the JA community.Why?

Well, blame us. The modders. We spoiled everyone for 14 years with free stuff. Some bad, some good, some awesome. But free. Of course everyone yells RIPOFF!! SCAM!! when they're asked to pay money for a JA game.

SO...

Speaking in my own name, I do feel responsible for the fate of JA:F. And I do feel obligated to give it a FAIR chance at least by making sure it gets proper mods from the community. Only then we can compare it to JA2 or v1.13 or whatever you want to compare it to.

This update just made FC lose all its credit. The production values for this game are worse than Back In Action. Promised features were broken, non-existing stealth, non-existing story, game breaking bugs, broken AI, broken destructible environment, no lock picking, attachments etc. 

Be realistic and honest here Mr. Lund, you delivered a sub-par product, and you know it. You can blame 'outsiders' for the poor meta rating, however as a backer myself I have to say that your company didn't deliver. Although I didn't expect a full fledged campaign like JA2, I did expect a game free of game breaking bugs and working fundamental gameplay. However, this game is broken on many different fronts and lacks many key features.

It is a shame though because your company does show the potential of being able to create a worthy successor. But during this project you didn't budget properly, didn't manage properly (wasted resources on adding features that were not needed/expected while omitting core features), and hardly involved the community on key aspects of the development such as UI and interrupt system. 

One of the key sellings points of your kickstarter campaign was to bring back the MERC personalities and dark humor of the original games. FC totally failed to do this. The MERCS and characters have no personality at all,do not resemble anything like the original (only their pictures). Moreover, the lack of voice acting basically killed the entire atmosphere of the game. The game has no soul. 

​

@Scope112 - you by any chance even tried to play 1.1.2?

I mean one can really understand FC's point when they DO FIX STEALTH, they DO FIX THE AI, they do FIX BUGS, they ADD MORE CONTENT and people come here and keep repeating, like you just did:

Can you try to be LESS informed about how the game actually is? Why the hell would they bother to fix anything if people don't even bother to check them?

--

Are we actually having a discussion here or just trolling FC? 

You misread what I said. Those two groups are on extreme ends of the spectrum. Many if not most, myself included, are somewhere in the middle. More importantly, my point about being unbiased was more towards reviews and media articles, not personal opinions on the game enjoyment. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, journalistic integrity should not be compromised due to personal attachment to people/studios/projects/etc. Extra points due to budget, small team, etc have no place in the tally. That's where I'm coming from.

Syrop, please respect the facts:

• I you find game breaking bugs, they will be adressed.
• Stealth is actually working. You just need +75 points in stealth at least, to see it really.
• Attachments are finally in.

Everyone commenting here should at least give the last update a longer play.

Overall, Shanga, it is hard to defend a game by just focusing on one topic (combat) and therefore expect a 8/10 and of course budget is much worse than wasteland2. You can defend a game by looking at its budget and customers will propably understand. That does not mean these guys will be satisfied or it will generate more sales. To make sales, the game must meet expectations. And they vary from "must be like JA2 (me included) to "oh cool, a new mercenary game-must-have".

It is not only the reviews (or the modders that spoiled us) that are to blame. There is also some things that are not good enough which generated poor sales (UI, no voice overs for story, frustration with confusing game design, and expectations, not full feature set after release with bad reviews following!). We expected bad reviews, remember?, after the rushed release?

The game has its fun elements and nice maps and is overall worth playing. So it should have a bit more sales. That is what FC in my opinion wanted to state. It is not overall what many expected.

PS: In an email about wasteland2 the producers talked about the mini-budget (3M) for wasteland2 and people doing games congratulated them for doing such a well received game in that time and budget. I think that FC feels very dissapointed that no one of us get this (it is hard as a JA2 fan) that the game is excellent for its tiny, tiny budget. So to stay positive - well done FC, next time get 3 Millions to make a better game with 9/10 reviews :)

. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, journalistic integrity should not be compromised due to personal attachment to people/studios/projects/etc. 

Journalistic reviews, yes, ideally. Although we all know how that works. Now if journalist's would actually give a rat's arse about their jobs, they would care about the fact that a game they destroyed gets massive improvements. But they don't. We live in the Steam age, where games are consumed like bags of jellybeans. But...

Steam user reviews =/= journalism

Metacritic user reviews =/= journalism

Forum posts =/= journalism

If you want to blame FC for anything, blame them for going to Steam on Octomber 2014 and being as naive as to think anyone would give them any slack. There rest of the arguments raised against them can be raised against ANY game, no matter the budget or the size of the company.

..

Only thing I don't get about the rabid haters are what they stand to gain if the game gets axed. If there was a direct competitor, I'd see where they are coming from. But there's nothing. We won't get BIA2. Killing JAF won't even make JA:O a better game. All they will achieve is to kill the entire JA franchise for good.

GG.

 In an email about wasteland2 the producers talked about the mini-budget (3M) for wasteland2 and people doing games congratulated them for doing such a well received game in that time and budget.

Lol, I bet they did. $350k looks like a big lump of cash, but if you divide it by 20 people and then further by 12 months you get the amazing sum of $1400/month/dev. Don't even deduct taxes or office rent/expenditures, because you might find out you end up with less funds than people on wellfare get.

unfortunately i have to agree whole heartedly.

I had really high hopes for this game...

the promises made were frankly unrealistic but i wanted to believe FC.

but in the end FC bit of more then they could chew. :(

I see that potential in the game but i dont expect mods to fill the huge void of missing features - sadly.

maybe next time.....

I'm not sure this was supposed to be directed at me :)) I'm perfectly aware what's in and what's not. No harm, no foul.

FC are great guys but JAF couldn't deliver in many ways. From the start the special thing about jagged alliance for me are the personalities of the mercs and the interaction between them and npcs / the game world. That were my expectations from the beginning. A jagged alliance game with cool commentaries and with mercs that have soul.

Sorry to say that but in that case the game fails totally. No animated portraits, no emotions, no deep communication between the mercs, no good voice acting, no voiceacting for the npcs, no cutscenes, no intro, no life and soul in this game.

On top of that there is no good story that keeps you playing the game. There is none! Characters like deidranna helped so much that you hate the regime and that you wanted to destroy it. In JAF there is the prince, faceless no soul nothing you could hate him. And that means all the npcs in JAF are faceless and without animated portraits, good dialogues and good voice acting you can't tell a good story and you can't bring life in this.

That killed the game totally for me. And I hate so say that but even BIA has more soul and life than JAF and BIA is still a bad game.

I must say Scope112 is right in many ways. In the end maybe the FC guys are great and the budget was too low but all the fans wanted a small JA2 from the start and FC couldn't deliver.

Whos fault is that? I guess no one made a fault. They tried and failed thats ok. That doesn't mean that JAF is totally shit. There are good elements and ideas in it. So I give FC respect and credits that they tried to do such a project. 

I think the reality is that a jagged alliance game can only be made by a studio with devs with more experience and with a huge budget in the background. Everything else can't handle such a big project.

I don't know how Steam Early Access works and therefor have nothing to say whether it was a smart move or not. From Steam user perspective, it gives amazing exposure to something that may not see the light of day otherwise. Also, don't forget, that Steam crowd, including some so called rabid haters, was the target audience of this game. I mean it wasn't really sold to people who play Sims or Dungeons & Dragons. Therefor, if your supposed target audience doesn't agree that this game is good, something is wrong with your product or how you sell it. Obviously, it's too late right now to go back to the drawing board.

one thing i noticed, is that FC is quick to blame someone instead of looking at errors they may have made. calling the customers rabid haters is not helpful. i dont think there are people out there who try anything in their power to damage FC. they simply didnt like the game and most likely dont have the nostalgia which led me to back this game so the arent willing to cut FC and JAF some slack. afterall the spend their hard earned cash on a product, and they are entitled to an oppinion.

FC has to admit that they rushed the game and set their priorities during development incorrectly and on top of that didnt live up to the expectations for many.

but this is all the past now.

maybe in the future there are chances to improve upon JAF- be it through some DLC or Addon....

KS and Steam audiences simply don't mix. 

They are two crowds with mentalities at the opposite end of the spectrum. KS backers invest in good faith and pay full price, double, triple or more and expect to be involved in development. Steam users will rage until they can get the game for 85% sale. And don't give a shizz about development. They want a toy to keep them entertained for a few days until they move on to next sale.

But yes, it's too late to cry about that now.

I think Thomas only wants people to be fair and at least acknowledge there's JA:F is decent game now in its own right. And it is. I've played JAF alpha, beta, JA:F @ release and JA:F 1.1.2. And the improvement was massive.

Guess it's time to get my ass in gear and do a full Twtich playthrough. Maybe that will get people give the game another try.

So this is it - Jagged Alliance THE END.

The only hope is that a good developer and publisher will catch this iconic series and will lead it to victory, but I guess that will not happen, because of the bad games in the past and because of the community that is too old and critical so that no one will invest in such a risc project. Even if someone would invest we could expect a new game maybe 2030? 

Thank you for the update. Sadly it says exactly what I thought it would. Seems like we are not gonna get any more features. Well, the only thing I am really missing, the merc interactions etc. have been out of the question since before release anyway. Hopefully Shanga et al. can do some great things in the long run in this department and/or others.

Thank you for all the work you did. Even though I wish for more, I very much appreciate everything you did. I'm looking forward to getting my box. I hope you don't run into too many problems with the unexpected change of plans.

Okay!

Let's skip the pity party and get right to the point: If FA is done with updates, who can I pay to make the tactical elements of the game fully functional? Somebody take my damn money.

"Encouraging better reviews on Steam" is about as strong as a dying fart on a blustery day. As in, we're going to be waiting forever for that to pay dividends.

I get it, FA is burned out. So who can step into their place? There's modders here. I know, I've been to the Bear's Pit.

Let's just figure out a way to fix it.

Oh but FA, before you go, can you please at least fix the bug with all the female characters stuck in prone... it's embarassing.

I've played the V1.0 game and only now I see a new release and there seem to be a lot of bugs fixed and new features added. But I've playing without a problem so I don't care about the bugs. Although I should mention I haven't been on it that much and just got my first mine + n/s marino. So it is as you said definately not a bad bug ridden game. But V1.0 might be called low on features. Not that it makes the game really bad, but it causes it be boring or repetitive faster for some people. I don't really mind though.
But if I read post like this: http://steamcommunity.com/app/256010/discussions/0/617319460945917035/
Which seem factual and non-bashing then I tend to agree.
I know the budget was really low, and I can't get how you ever thought you could manage to get all those features in for 350k. So I never really expected that all those features would be in the game, its just simply to much work for 7 people in a year (7 people a year is 350k budget).
But nevertheless I have fun playing it and hope people like the v1.1 more so more features will be added.
PS I hope I can load my V1.0 savegames in v1.1, haven't gotten around to download or test v1.1 yet :).

Alright FC, I backed your game well over $3,000 in a variety of packages and support (running contests) for the KS.  I know you all work hard, but I'm sure you can do a lot better than a grovelling email asking to make positive reviews of the game.  The issue wasn't expectations, the issue was releasing the game in a hurried and unfinished state.  People who mostly bought the game on Steam at launch and felt cheated were scathing and you can't say you weren't warned. If you are relying on word-of-mouth for your sales (which you surely must have, since there was even less publicity for the launch than there was for the KS), then you should surely have treated your fans who were warning you about the various bugs and problems with a little more respect, because they were the ones you needed to go forth and preach the good news.

For the record, I've not actually reviewed the game on Steam.  I've been waiting for the update that I can say hand on heart it's a solid game and I'm still waiting for that update. So in the spirit of a happy new year and all that, I've changed my approval of all negative ratings from agree to disagree.  And put down a few thumbs up on the positive ratings.  But I'm still waiting for that patch that I can honestly say it's a good game.  I am willing to give low budget titles a good rating.  Space Pirates and Zombies and Creeper World are both games I spent hundreds of hours playing and they're like DIY made-in-your-basement type games because they're just fundamentally fun.  But I'm not seeing that with JAF yet.

I've said before that I like you guys, and that hasn't changed much.  But that email was a little bit much to stomach even for me.  That's not how you write to your large backers.

@gdalf: I can feel with you. I told every guy on the planet about this kickstarter campaign and that they should support the game and wrote in many forums to spread the word and said that this will be the JA Game we were all waiting for.

On the paper from the kickstarter campaign it should be the game we all have been waiting for. BUT we know the story...

I looked every day on the kickstarterpage if the guys from FC made it, that they reach the goal and spread the word every day. I was one of the first who wrote a positive review to the game on steam where many people said I am stupid and why I support such a shitty game. I said the answer is easy, because IT IS JAGGED ALLIANCE and the guys of FC sound like they know what they are doing.

I backed the game and never thought about the result, because what FC said sounded so good and I thought man there is a team that really knows what is to do and what the fans want and need.

Maybe still this is true in some ways but too many features weren´t implemented in the game which sounded so great.

I heard things like deep conversation system to influence npcs/enemies or sneaking around enemies in night sectors or classic funny merc commentaries and interaction or back to the roots with the good round based combat system. All this in a old school 80´s scenario. I thought OMG this is it! That must be backed and supported.

But in the end it is just a OK-Game where no feature can keep up to JA2. 

Just wanted to say to FC I already wrote many many positive words about your campaign and game that I couldn´t do more even if I wanted!!!

And to be honest the game isn´t worth all that support. Sad but true.

Thomas is right to give the community a push.

I mean look since release the game progressed a lot. We could feel this change in the forum here and on steam. In the time before release and on release people were just screaming "another failure", "you gangsters robbed us" and stuff like that. Now the vibe is completly diffrent its much more friendly.

But this didnt reflect in the reviews, they didnt really change since release at all. Some people even complain about stuff that is not an issue anymore.

Im sure the developers knew that they released to early but what can you do when you run out of money? They tried to get some extra money with sales but where should the sales come from if the game has a crappy rating, none of the articles notice the progress and most of the reviewers wait till the game is almost perfect to give their rating?

I also waited until after the attachments were in to give my rating. But there is no need to wait any longer. In the end a steam rating distinguishes just if the game is ok to play or not. In numbers 6 out of 10 or higher. I give the game a 7/10. (OK, im biased but who isnt?)

There is no room left for extra credit but i still remember how Coreplay/bitcomposer treated the community when BiA was developed. Here with FC i feel they treat us with respect and try to please the hardcore fans. You dont see that often.

I am pleased to see that a lot of people took thomas words to heart. The numbers are a lot higher now, almost 50%. We should also poke the journalists that they update their articles.

I think it´s a fact that the bad reviews are a result of the rushed release. Nothing was finished at this state. Many features were not working or weren´t even existent at all at this point. The release version was a bad game. You can´t blame people for giving bad reviews when you deliver such a game. Most of the reviews simply come in the first weeks after a release.

All the backers in the forum said this would happen, but FC didn´t listen. Now they blame bad reviews to be the problem. Meh .... Imo they should have believed in the project and taken a loan to prevent that.

After all the patches they delivered the game has improved a lot, and i have gotten to like it more and more. I want to say i respect that kind of commitment, and i respect that FC did keep most of their promises in the end. For the money they had, they did a great job.

But at the end the bad reviews are a result of their choice to rush the release imo. If they had released the game in the state it is now, the reviews and steam "thumbs up" would be way, way better.

edit: i have written a good review (german) for the game with tumbs up. Every backer who hasn´t done this yet should do so. It´s a total of 348 reviews atm, so your vote does count. Now that the game seems to be at it´s end we can all do so.

Yep, these guys are right.

First off, that email went to KS backers. Who supported the game in good faith. You don't scold those who paid you in advance. It's not them who raped the game in Steam reviews, it's the Steam Early Access crowds you went to in October, despite all warnings. 

A great guy like gdalf, who indeed went to all possible extents to support the KS campaign, is fully entitled to feel offended. He was the funder behind most of the BP contests, awareness campaigns, etc. Don't scold gdalf, thank him and the likes of him for actually having $350k to make a game (we do remember how close to failure that was, don't we?).

--

That being said, I do have faith the community is more mature and can take this for what it is - a last push to save the game. Yes, once again, the KS backers could save you from the hands of the trolls you went to in October, hoping to reap great sales and amazing reviews ^^. Would they do it? 

Probably, when and if you understand that they deserve all the respect in the world. 

And the biggest sign of respect will be to say "look, this is how far we were able to take the game, here are the tools and the documentation for modding, take it away from here and make it bigger and better than we could". Not "this is the end". 

If you wonder why people are reluctant to give you praise for 1.1.2, there is a simple explanation: because 1.1.2 is how the game was expected to be at release. I clearly remember testers saying "don't release it now, spend 1-2 more months on it, PLEASE!". Give them the right to be a little pissed off for being both ignored and 100% correct. 

--

So the final message to FC is:

It's time to step back with grace, not in anger. And good things will happen. You're needed more on the documentation and support front now.

And the final message to backers is:

We're past the "I told you so" point. You were right. Now it's about having your investment go into something that will keep you entertained for years to come or about having invested in a tiny game that you play in 2 days from start to end. You decide if holding a grudge against FC is the right thing to do...

I have been active enough on the forums during the alpha phase and after it, so you should know better than accusing me of trolling. I clocked in over 40 hours in the game, so I think I am very well entitled have my own opinion. Furthermore, I have played every game in the series, from JA1 to JA2 and JA2 UB and community version 1.13, as well as mock up attempts such as Jagged Edge. I have given numerous arguments that indicate that FC just failed to involve the community, set wrong budgets, and did not have any proper time/project management. If you like I could provide a more detailed/argumented review for you.

Shanga, you seem to be advocating for FC all the time. Perhaps you have too much time on your hands to actually spend 3 years of your life to mod the game into a decent successor of JA 2. The majority here pledged and expected a decent successor during release. We expected a solid game similar as JA2 (in mechanics and RPG elements as was advertised in the Kickstarter) with improved graphics, but a (much) smaller campaign. We did not pledge for a game that is broken during release and might get patched up to an acceptable state by the community after 3 or more years. Let's be honest here, during release the game could be scored at most 5/10 and that is being generous. Now with the improvements I might give it a solid 6/10 rating. Overall, FC didn't really deliver on any front. During the release none of the features were actually finished or working properly. We, as the community, warned the studio numerous times, however FC was stubborn and still launched.

Yes, I can commend FC for releasing patches that improved the game alot, which made the experience somewhat enjoyable. However, the state in which the game is now still does not live up to the expectations set during kick starter. Again: where are the MERC interactions? Dark humor? what happend to the story? Base building? What happened to the voiceovers? No roofs? Not to even mention the tons of bugs/annoyances that the game in present state still has (e.g. game sometimes doesn't properly calculate hit chances, unusual amount of friendly fire).

Shanga you are entitled to think this game is the best thing since creme fraiche, however I am as well entitled to believe that FC did a very poor job. Coreplay's JA: Back in Action was a subpar game, but at least the production values and release version were of higher standard than Flashback. The game atleast did not have game breaking bugs. 

It is inexcusable that FC cannot even live up to 50% of the vanilla version of JA2, which is currently a 15 year old game..........

@Scope

Dude, you make a post saying JAF has no attachments and you want me to read anything else you say as being "objective"? Attachments have been implemented MONTHS ago, like 2 weeks post-release.

That's why I said you're trolling - when you complain about something, complain about REAL stuff that's missing. Saying there's no stealth in game or the AI is broken without giving specific examples helps nobody. Because both Stealth and AI got a massive overhaul. Maybe they're not perfect, but they're definitely not "broken". Not in 1.1.2.

You can hate JA:F as much as you want for all I care. Just don't post b/s.

@scope, well creme fraiche is disgusting so in that case the comparison might hold :) hahahaha :)

Shanga, there WERE no attachments during release, right? There WAS no stealth during release, right? Weren't these supposed to be BASIC features of the game? What about MERC interactions? KS video mentioned those as a KEY feature, however they are STILL not implemented.

Put your fanboy glasses off and be open for a real debate. It seems you are the troll here. You cannot accept when someone has a different opinion than yours. I actually provide argumentation for why I consider the game to be subpar, while your attempt to nitpick my reasoning is laughable.

Please go read my second post again, and find ANY point that you can really dispute. Please let me know.

If you really believe that my opinion/reasoning is wrong, then please present some facts which dismiss my arguments instead of using foul language. I will be the first person to admit my wrong.

Are you familiar with the concept of game patches? Or you only use software that's 100% perfect on release? Beating the same old drum about how the game was on release helps with nothing. Everyone, including Lund above acknowledged the game was bad at release.

The whole point of the above message from Thomas was this: do you still think that JAF 1.1.2 is the 40% game it was on release? If you valid reasons to believe that, state them. 

The 1.1.2 and the patches before that were honest work done to improve the game. Dissing them just because 2 months ago the game was bad it's not helping anyone. Want to point to merc interaction as missing - fine do so and I'll +1 you. But your first post way off that mark. And I am not trolling you, just fed up with people spreading hearsay instead of actually giving feedback (negative or positive, I don't care). 

Sorry if I overreacted and offended you, anyway. I must've spent too much time on Steam forums.

That's all.

Game patches in my humble opinion are meant to fix bugs, however the patches did not just fix bugs, the patches have been used as a primary means to implement new game features. These game features should have been part of the game already during release. This in my opinion is actually cheating/deceiving the customer. I would not have pledged any money if I would have known that FC would conduct their business in such a way. The game was not advertised as being a game in 'continuous' development. FC did not present any explenation for why they made these decisions which I am entitled to as an investor (no matter how small). The latest post of Thomas Lund even suggests that I am just an 'outsider' who is unreasonably complaining. This is far from reality, because as clearly indicated in this post and my previous ones, FC did nowhere near deliver the product that was promised.

As I mentioned before, I rate the game a solid 6.0/10 now. The present game functions well, has some enjoyable moments, but lacks soul, features, and the real Jagged Alliance flavor. It still is not half as good as the vanilla version (so NOT 1.13 version) of JA2 (a 15 year old game). 

Appologies accepted Shangha. However, you still did not provide any arguments that refute mine... Since you have been very loud earlier, I would like to hear solid argumentation that counters mine. Good luck!

I'm sorry if some backers feel offended by the post. Don't think you should take it personal. Yes it's aimed at Steam reviews, but as all backers ended up having access to steam there's also a lot of the review that are from backers. 

What we're asking is simply for those who have reviewed the game to give it another look or for people who haven't reviewed it yet to give it a chance. 

Surely shouldn't be considered as a pointing finger with the statement "you did this". It's a combination of a lot of different elements and surely several elements could have been handled better from our side.But if the support of the game is to continue, we need to the score to rise, which is the sad truth. 

Scope112 is 100% right. Maybe if the game gets animated portraits, advanced comments, new UI, more voiceacting, a better working combat and AI the game will be good. But this is the question if the modding guys can fix that. Is the UI now unchangeable because it is hardcoded? I really don't like it, because it doesn't match this 80's setting and has no atmosphere.

So for sure I guess the most said what was wrong with this campaign. Now lets hope the modding guys and maybe sometimes FC can bring us the promised features in the future. 

@Scope - your view of patches is strangely limited. Would you have prefered paid DLCs instead of free patches with new features? We all know a lot of high profile companies who went that road.

As for 1.1.2 actually being the game that it should've been at release, I do agree with you. Even 1.1.2 and some extra missing features (like merc interactions). 

Then again - the game was patched. It's in version 1.1.2. Every gamedev company does this. It's how the business works. It can be even worse - aka get a broken game then have the dev ask you for more money in form of paid DLCs. But Full Control had the decency not to go down that road.

----

You asked for arguments. Here they are:

Stealth was broken on release because the AI alert was triggered instantly as you entered a sector. I am very well aware of that, because I was one of the first who reported and documented that bug back in beta. That's not the case anymore. If you are outside the AI view cone, you CAN SNEAK. You can also use silenced sniper weapons and kill the AI outside his view range without him even knowing where death came from. What does game lack? Better SMG balance and a stealth crtical bonus damage that would make suprise melee attacks worth the trouble (that didn't work 100% in JA2 either, but I think it's do-able in JA:F).

Promised features during a KS campaign are those you PAY FOR. They are called Stretch Goals. They're met or not. They have a clear budget and they kinda oblige the developer to stick to the plan once the funding is done. What you read or heard from the devs plans, if it wasn't funded as a strech goal is just wishful thinking. Yes, they wished to make a lot of things with JA:F. Everyone is holding them at gunpoint about the first 2-3 updates they posted on KS, talking about what they wished to make. But those were never stretch goals. Maybe that was the mistake - if they had put base building and voiceovers and interactions as clear strech goals, with clear funding needs, people wouldn't be up in arms now.

Non-existing story is false too. There's a story, albeit a shorter version of the one mentioned on KS. Maybe you want to call them on not providing proper storytelling. That I can agree with. In JA2 you had Queen+Elliot cutscenes every major event. Here you have some radio static telling you in a text format ... something.

Game breaking bugs? Not in the last v1.1.2 playthrough I've had. They existed, they were fixed. As game development works.

No lock-picking - finally ONE thing you're 100% right. No moving doors (open/close) either. They did admit they intentionally moved this to the bottom of the priorities list. And considering they put attachments, shotguns and stealth on top, I can't disagree with them. Lockpicking was an interesting distraction in JA2. Vital to the gameplay? Not in my book, but I can agreee it's a nice feature to have.

Attachments - we won't go into this again, we had them 2 weeks post release, in like the first major patches. And they're very cool and nicely done, way better than JA2 system was.

But how about LBE gear? We had v1.13 feature since release in JAF.

How about fully externalised  NPC/RPC, item/weapons, game functions that took v1.13 team years and years to pull out of JA2? We got them right off the box with JAF and they werent' even a stretch goal.

And how about the map editor? We were supposed to get it at $400k tier. We never funded it. And we got it. For free. Sir-tech made you buy JA2UB to get a map editor and it took them more than one year to come up with it. And was buggy as hell.

I could go on, but fact is there are things that are missing and things that we got for free. In my eyes, those are balancing each other with the 1.1.2 update. JA:F might not be the perfect game you dreamed of, it might not be JA3, but it's definitely not the crap game 60% people make it look like on Steam. As a personal oppinion, it's actually better in some respects than some way more overhyped titles. But that's another issue altogether.

Have I made myself clear now?

Not just the backers can help to improve ratings. FC can help, too. It´s not just the steam reviews people like to depend on. It´s also the reviews of gaming websites. In the time of kickstarter most of them have gotten used to recheck up on games after some time, because they know what patches can do.

So FC can do something as well. Simply write them a email that the game is at the state it should be at release, and ask them kindly  to test it again now and reconsider their reviews. Imo this also helps a lot, because people often want detailed reviews from professionals about a game before buying it.

It´s not a big effort. Just write a general letter and spam it all over the gaming sites. Tell this your superiors and we can all work together in the end to raise the overall score.

The steam reviews are at 50% now, but it will be hard to get much more in a small time period. You cannot undo the "thumbs down" from release.

@JAF Admin

If you need a list of those websites, just ask the backers. I´d be glad to list most german ones, and i guess others know some in their native language, too.

We have a full list of all the sites we sent out review requests to and who responded. Some have already been poked for a re review, but I know for a fact that reviewers rarely spend time on doing rereviews. 

Nevertheless it can't hurt, but need to make sure it doesn't end up being Spam for them. 

I have a feeling game magazines reviewers most of the time go with the general flow. I have yet to see a game reviewer in the written press have the cohones to go against the flow. So maybe rushing the game to a re-review now might be too early.

We can all agree 1.1.2 is a solid little game. Maybe lacking a few enhancements, but playable in its own right.

I for one will focus on getting the modding started with all the documentation people need to get it done properly. And we'll see what happens next.

PS: And you are right, JA:F did gain a massive 10% boost on Steam since 1.1.2 release... go figure... I guess nobody noticed that.

Sorry your mistaken, the boost to 50% positive ratings came from yesterday to today. The first time i checked yesterday it was at 44% and that was after the first boost.

The sorry is for the nitpicking. ;)

Yep, you're right. Seems KS backers did read Thomas correctly and with 2 or 3 exceptions, they went Steam and rated up the game yesterday and today.

But imho the most positive aspect is that all have at least 1h of gameplay (actually most have over 5-6 hours with some over 40h). It means people are playing the game and are not speaking out their arses.

I rated the game, on the back of this - didn't realize there was such an issue.

It's not perfect..it's more JA1 than JA2 at the moment, but it's getting there.. been taking a break from it and playing Shadowrun: Dragonfall, which I picked up on a whim - and love it!!! There's no video, the combat and environment interaction is simplistic compared to JAFB and it's a smaller game, but it has great character and personality and that's all been done by text - the whole story is text based - lots of reading, but totally worth it. The characters have personalities and stories and that's part of the game.

I'd be happy if JAFB was similar in story-nature with all the elements it has now (plus retreat from in sector and combat with militia, which I dearly miss).

Keep up the good work Thomas, I look forward to playing this game for years to come.

It is a big issue, because FC is way past the moment when they were developing JAF out of the $350k we provided. They've been investing own money into it for a while now. And who would keep pouring money into something people rate negatively no matter how hard you try to improve?!

Besides, they don't make money selling hotdogs and pizzas. They make money selling games. If JAF sales are being hurt, there is no money for development. It's as simple as that.

So I think I wrote a decent review with both, pro and contra. To be fair, one should know before buying that a lot of stuff is frustrating or not implemented at all, things you would expect from a JA title. So overall we have now 52% positive and I think 60% would be the goal.

A recommendation to play the game is ok, as long as the review itself states the pro and contra. To glorify this game with fan glasses is the wrong way to review it imho.

Hopefully FC will support the modders from time to time so that we get animated potraits and more story, perhaps voice over. The basis even for explosions is there, we just need to activate it somehow. Thank you Shanga, gdalf and all others for support and discussions here. I do not regret to be involved here during development, as it was fun, is a solid game to play and I learned a lot about game development and about JA from this community. And thanks again to FC for beeing involved in twitch, forums and emails.

Thank you all.

Agreed. Nothing would make me more happy than to get back to modding games and running Bear's Pit instead of arguing about JAF on forums.

I want FC to feel confident they have a community to rely on.

I want the community to feel confident they have a dev to rely on.

When that happens I'll happily turn my attention to making new sectors and adding new content to the game. Seeing JA:F because what we all wanted and hoped it could be should be the only goal. The best response to those who hate JAF now would be turning it in a game they'd give their first born to play. 

@Andreas/Thomas et al. I appreciate you were trying to relay the tight spot you are in and I have no argument there.  Fully understood.  I just hope you realise that broad brush language is risky and can backfire especially as you don't know for sure whether it was first-time buyers or original backers who were doling out the poor reviews.  I see there's been a nice swing around on Steam so you have got some mileage, but honestly I hesitate to buy games with even a 'mere' 60% rating so it still has some ways to go.

But what I hope you guys can strive for is to use that rating boost as sufficient to drive some other investment to do one last big 'reboot' like Shadowrun:Dragonfall (and SRR didn't even do badly, just that Dragonfall was so much better).  I would be happy to pay for a DLC that really did the trick.  Maybe just one headline new combat feature like RPGs/LAWs (surely the art of delivering an explosion from distance can be worked into the game mechanics with a little effort, even if all it amounts to is (long range) grenade throwing with different animation?) and a major sub-quest with new merc or  two or something, and use that to announce that all the patching under the radar has turned the game into something really worth taking seriously.  Sell the 'little game that could' pitch hard, because that's what you've got.

At least some of the bad review are from backers because a couple of people said they were backers.

They shouldnt do a dlc with rocket launchers. Because they said in the kickstarter campaigne that it would be part of the base game.

Kickstarter update 9:"We will cover a wide variety of weapons that are divided up into these classes:

• Pistols
• Submachine guns 
• Rifles 
• Assault Rifles 
• Sniper Rifles 
• Shotguns 
• Light Machine guns 
• Grenade and rocket launchers 

"

Maybe FC underestimated how short the budget is. Maybe they promised too much. To be honest im not even 100% sure what was promised and i dont really care. But others do.

I know how the sittuation is. But if would ask money for things that people think was already promised for the base game its fuel for the haters.

But there is another thing the community could do. At the moment there is no lets play with the newest version in english on youtube. Somebody could make a nice video in full HD and show how far the game has come.

Someone could do an introvideo mod. If its possible. Just the release trailer as intro video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK7XjzUDWRs

We can also look in the steam reviews and if their arguments are no longer valid we could tell them very polite about the changes that they missed.

RANT - DON'T READ IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED:

People just don't make the difference between saying "I will go to the shop and buy lots of apples and oranges" and what happens when you pull out your wallet at the counter and you find out you can afford only X kilos of apples and Y kilos of oranges. They have the same mentality like a 2 year old who will drop on the floor of the shop and yell he wants the latest X-Men toy, despite the fact that you barely have money to put food on the table.

Turns out some haven't gotten past that stage when they grew up (although nobody does an age check on Steam, you do expect that from 10 years up you can reason with them).

As much as you tell as 2 year old that he will get the toy for X-mas, cause it's expensive and you have to save up, if he's a brat, he'll yell his heart out. I teached my kid the value of the money as my parents did that to me and he never pulled such a scene on me, but what I've seen in some reactions on Steam beats America's Super Nanny best-of. So I unless you have a Super Nanny textbook at hand, I doubt you will reason with some of those mentioned.

/RANTMODE OFF

If Full Control had proven they're incapable of conceiving a decent story or programming a game that's fit the JA  name, I would've been their first critic. They will never forget the bear wrath that they had to endure when they failed to come up with a proper proposition in their Kickstarter launch.

But they earned a lot of credit with their work. They might not be financial masterminds able to turn a dollar into ten, but they're honest, hardworking and open. In their desire to be open and honest, yes, they promised a lot of things which people made them regret they mentioned now. But for me it's more important to have a developer that shows they have the heart in the right place and a good plan rather than a developer that keeps quiet and in the end turns out with a completely screwed-up game (Coreplay anyone?).

This is why I am helping them as much as I can and I will continue to do so. Despite being tagged by "fanboi" or "profit seeker" by some, I feel like the end result of this quest is worth more than the risk of being trolled here and there. 

Unlucky "statement" imo...

not only can it bite FC into their behinds to make their backers partly to blame for the negative reception (when clearly it was the too early release, mixed with too much promises during the KS campaign)..

but if they are unlucky this can blow a whole other level of "shitstorm", when some of the "critics" get wind that FC asks for positive reviews... be careful what you wish for guys...

I´m totally on Shanga´s page here. It´s more important for backers/players/modders to have a developer, that actually cares about the game, and it´s important for a developer of that kind to have a community trying to be productive, honest and understanding. If both sides work that way, the game could easily grow further than we expected. (especially through modding)

Last time i have checked the user ratings on steam are at 52% positive. Also i want to point out, that all the "helpful" reviews (that show up on standard) are all positive at least on the german side. These reviews are honest. Overall they say don´t expect a JA3, but it´s a good game worth buying, despite some missing features you might expect in a JA game. They all say you will have a JA feeling playing the game and that the negative reviews mostly come from the point of release, where many things were not finished or polished (also much less content included). I think that is worth a lot... and not only the percentage of positive reviews.

P.S.: i totally love the new death animations. I don´t know if it was a bug, but one time when a grenade hit a corpse was blown over half the map in a rag-doll manner. Made me smile and remembered me of the first laugh in JA2, when a head unexpectetly blew off splatter style.  If it is a bug, please don´t change it FC :)

I still have some suggestions how to improve little things. Things that seem important, but imo don´t take a lot of effort to fix, but that´s not the thread for this. I simply hope there is room for little adjustments after all.

And at last...

@ FC... you have earned my respect, and despite all the critizism i do at the forums here i want you to know i do understand your situation and want you to succeed with this game. You´ve done a great job so far, but you´ve been pulled down by a low budget ... please don´t drown. That´s all.

Speaking of death animations I had such a wtf moment when I used shotguns upclose and blew an enemy across the street. 

so, what can we do to help?

Hey Thomas, again I have to say it´s all about communication (or the lack of). At least on the German Steam side there are now almost only thumbs up reviews as Glettkin stated. So if you see this kind of response within such a little amount of time, say at least a few words of gratitude to your community.
I think no one here expects a huge cake or some other free stuff. It´s words that matter the most. And at least on your own forums you or anyone from your staff should respond to this. For my part I have not seen such a rapid change on Steam so I think it´s pretty need what the people did there. And it proofes that you still have a lot people that want to support you.

So at least take 10 minutes to talk to them!

Find a cure to HIV.

There are two kinds of things that can be done. Advertisment and Development.

Advertisment can be anythink. How about an cool lets play?

Development means to create mods. If thats youre department make a mod with moving cars, C4, simple Weapon mods or make cool maps and make a video of it. Underwater Base? City in the skys? Talking animals? Ninja Turtles? Story Mods?

Make a fan website and write articles. Google the articles about the game, look why they are outdated, make an account there and write wise guy comments. Maybe the journalists do a retest or maybe someone reads your comment and decides to get intrested in the game.

Or just play the game and make a best of video of some cool or weird moments.

I wanted to do that all along. At first i didn´t have a good inet connection for a long time. That´s over now. Now i have 3,5 mb/s down, 0,7 mb/s upload and 7 ms ping. Is this sufficient for a stream? I have never done a stream before.

What kind of recording software (free software) do you recommend to record my sessions? And how much performance does it take? The performance issue is a thing because my PC has only a dual core 2,7 GHZ, 8 GIG RAM, and only one Nvidia 550 TI (1024 ram).

Thomas made a very good and honest post on Kickstarter. In case you did not read it yet:

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

Yes - I (Thomas) am going to write back and thanks everyone for taking another look at the game. We didnt want to throw out a lot of comments yet, as it could be misunderstood and/or drive the entire discussion in a wrong direction.

You needed more than 0.1h gametime to give it a proper look (if you were critical about it) and the entire purpose was not to get you to fake anything to cheat people into buying. We neither want it to sound that we accuse the backers of being the cause of anything. I mean - thats why we wrote to you and not the mad crowd on Steam to try to have you give it a new chance and give your vote.

WE ARE HUGELY GRATEFUL that you as our backer community overall have given the game another look and given it a thumbs up generally. We are also aware of the trickiness of communicating in text only, and its damn hard sometimes to write neutrally about something as passionate as something you dedicated 1.5 years of your life towards and feeling it being treated unfair.

We are humans, fans, have feeling too. The entire situation has cost several people their jobs. People I value, have a friendship with and we all did unhumanly possible things getting as much game into JAF as possible on the core bare-bones budget. Worked their asses off, several who worked for free because they love this game so much. And what they got for it was (mostly) a kick in the nuts and a stab in the back.

Seeing something crumble that you've built and nursed as your little baby - for reasons that in some ways feel unjust - hurts a lot. Please remember that sometimes when you point fingers at developers (talking generally here).

So yes - this was a desperate call for help from you. Not a threat. Not blame. Not pointing fingers. But a last effort call for help if you think the game worthy of it.

But this entire thing calls for an update next week rather than a basic comment here. Just needed to give it a little time and not reply to troll posts (if any). I've stayed away for some days reading only very very few posts to not get hurt, angry or similar. Now seeing the positive effect makes me smile again for a bit.

Thanks!!!!

I can't help you when it comes to streams, but I use Open Broadcaster Software to record for YouTube and it doesn't seem to have a big impact on my PC. It is also supposed to be a great software for streaming, although I never used it for that. I was recording with a mostly much worse PC than yours (slightly better CPU, but much less RAM and much worse GPU), so it should work with your system. 

I am very sorry to hear that people lost their jobs. I can't do much to help right now, because I am stuck with work, so my positive review on Steam (although it's completely burried, thankfully now also by a lot of positive reviews) and on YouTube from release have to be enough for now.

You guys have my sincere thanks and best wishes for the future, whether you can put any more resources on this game or not (of course I hope you can) and whatever those might be. Once I have some more time, I'll get some positive videos on YouTube (not that a lot of people will watch them) and maybe try to do some modding (although that might be out of my expertise or just plain bad, so I won't promise anything).

Yea, sadly that's the darker side of these "crusaders of truth" who claim it's their God given right to rate a game like "scam!!!" or "ripoff!!!". People who put a year's worth of work and dedication into a game lose their jobs, companies go bankrupt, an epic franchise like JA is thrown to the trash bin.

All because FC shared a dream with the community and ran out of funds to make it true, do they deserve to be branded like liars and cons? They didn't ran away with the money. They didn't come 12 months later and say "sorry guys, we ate too much pizza thinking how cool the game will be and ran out of money". 

No, they actually produced a game. Good, bad, it's a product we can play.And improve.

A big thanks to all those who helped to counter the asshollery that went on too much on Steam reviews. Keep it up. And the end result will be good for everyone.

Yeah, my steam post count must have gone up from around 10 before JAF to at least one, possibly several hundred now and most of those must have been after launch arguing with those idiots. I subscribed to JAF's Steam forum because I wanted to help other players who ran into trouble, which worked until launch. However, after that I ended up constantly arguing why 'feedback' that's not constructive is not really helping (not to mention all the insults, where one guy said to me "shame on you" when I tried to argue against it, shame I happily take btw :D). Thankfully those guys mostly finally found something better to do with their lives (or maybe they finally enjoy the game, I highly doubt any of them would admit that they might not have been 100% right).
Of course I'm not talking about everyone that said something negative, I had my fair share of that as well, where I thought something was lacking. I am only talking about the guys that just bash the game and/or devs without having anything constructive to say.

Also something FC might want to remember when doing low-budget games: do not over-extend.

People are complaining Linux version has problems. People complain Humble Bundle version is outdated. People complain Mac version is dunno how.

Do the basic Windows/Steam game perfect. Then do a proper Linux port. Then do a proper Mac port. Simultaneous support for 3 separate ports is developer hell. Instead of having 3 types of OS users happy, you have 3 types unhappy.

I'm on Linux and I don't have issues. With patch 1.1.2 the mod support is also doing fine.

Until now I had only two issues. I contacted the FC support and in less than 24 hours they fixed my problems. That's awesome!

 Really, Linux is going well. In my eyes FC has done a very good job. Call me happy. :-)

Great to hear that 1.1.2 works well on Linux. More +1 for FC I guess, but the point was trying to shoot too many rabbits at the same time may end up with no rabbit. 

I mentioned Linux because I did notice a few negative reviews coming from Linux users. Maybe you could drop by Steam and explain to those people how to set it up properly so they enjoy the game too and stop complaining.

Yes, I'll try to drop by Steam and do what I can, time permitting.

The reviews are at 54% now. Seems like quite a few people have taken the message to heart. Lets hope that this trend continues a bit longer and that it will help the sales at least a bit.

Yes, hopefully the game will recover to Positive in time. The damage done by the trolls was considerable though. It will take more than a favourable reviews to fix it. That's why I am drumming the Community Edition everywhere, we will need every talent or resource we can get. 

Status Update? What is going on with the game? What are you planning and where are the Boxed Games?

Very unfortunate to see the game at the state it is now but hopefuly it will get better over time... That being said, it has improved since launch. However, I'm interested to know where my box at? Dishing out 250$ for the digital game sounds a bit steep. All the best for FC.

Dunno if we´ll ever see or hear anything anymore.... sad path this game took..

I guess you can post your wishes for JAF here, or you can pull out a coin, make a wish and throw it into the fountain. Unfortunately it´s the same.