LordCrash

What about at least making an effort to read the last pages instead of making ridiculous claims that were already addressed by Sawyer himself? Also: you may not be familiar with this idea, but design is a iterative process, there's not such a thing as a "vision" that goes untouched and unaltered through the whole development. Sometime you come out with a concept that sounds cool and interesting, but then you test it/argue about it and you realize it just doesn't work as well as you thought at first. Maybe you should communicate some ideas if you are quite sure about them. It's weird to see a kickstarter update which is pretty worthless now because most of the stuff has been changed only days after the publication. "Listening to the backers" doesn't mean listening to the mouthiest backers.....that has nothing to do with iteration. So how did they noticed that the idea is not so good? They thought for weeks to implement it and then decided a turn-around in two days....and I read Sawyer's reply. I just don't agree with it. If you want to listen to fan feedback how about making some real "trend investigation" instead of claiming that there were many complains about the features. And after all I thought Project Eternity would be a team effort and not a "Josh Sawyer one man show"....

So you pull off a Bioware stunt now? Leaving your vision (or Tim Cain's vision) because some mouthy people claim what the game should be like? Why not doing a proper voting on the topic? I'm pretty disappointed now how this turned out.....

The big pencil aka Tim Cain is back! Awesome update, I'm a big fan of crafting - as long as the balancing is maintained. I hope there will not be TOO MUCH crafting. But I hope that there will some very rare recipes which lead to very rare and special weapons...I like the idea of making epic items even better with single elements like special gems or things like that.... Carsomyr ftw.....

I really hope that it's just for the money. Everything else would be a waste of talent....

Obsidian.....MMO.....in one sentence???? THAT IS SO WRONG I CAN'T EVEN FIND WORDS FOR IT! Huge letdown....

Update #19 ·Stretch Goals, Competition and a Tribute Sector May 16, 2013 Dear Backers, After having reached an impressive ~ $25,000 yesterday, making it our second best day to date, we’re hard at work to keep the ball rolling. Stretch GoalsAlthough we made an update on Stretch Goals a few days ago and have reached $200,000 + opening up the Stretch Goals Box, we would like to add it to this update for all eyes to see. We know there’s still some ways to go before we reach the initial goal ,but we’re A.I.M.ing for a race to the finish. New $425,000 Stretch Goal: The new stretch goal will be a small tourist island off the coast and have approximately 10 sectors. The player will be able to travel there by boat and there will be two fishing ports located on the island. Additionally, there will be a small resort located on the island, making it popular to tourist. Players can gain an economic advantage by visiting the island as well as being able to discover so called “easter eggs” along with special unlockables. Bear's Pit JA:F Events and ContestsAs promised we wanted to give the Bear’s pit competition a mention, so here’s their hamster happy meal. SPREAD THE WORD CAMPAIGN Anyone can be the next San Cristobal bartender/gas station owner just by helping with spreading the word about JA:F Kickstarter: Rewards $125, $200 and $650 Follow this link for more info WRITE A MERC ONELINER AND WIN Also our generous friend gdalf just spruced up his $220 reward for best merc/enemy one-liner by announcing STRETCH GOALS! Yes, he's going to add even more goodies to the pack, just join the fun and give us your line! Follow this link for more info Tribute Sector As a thanks to our friends at Obsidian, we’ve decided to make a special sector in their honor. The 5000 backer sector will be an Obsidian mine, where a secret cult of scientist resides and are trying to develop a new formula to become immortal, called “Eternity”. We thank the community for coming up with these awesome suggestions :D As Jesper is still hard at work finishing the diorama the visualization of the sector will have to wait, but we’ll get it up as soon as possible and also come up with the 5500 sector. Diorama Screens Javier has been hard at work on an RPG for the diorama, here’s the result: Full Size Image That’s it for today, we’ll be sending out the press release for the diorama tomorrow, so you all get to see it It’s great to have so many new backers here, hopefully you’ll all share the news about this Kickstarter project to friends and family, we need your support for the final push! Until next time! The Full Control JAF Team

Wow, Full Control was very happy with your support of their game, Obsidian! And it was a really worthy shoutout because the numbers were very good yesterday! And so they decided to immortalize you in Jagged Alliance: Flashback! How cool is that? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2079547763/jagged-alliance-flashback/posts/482679

Update #13 : JA Intro Video and Community Efforts May 9, 2013 Dear backers, It’s holiday today here in Denmark but as you can see we are not resting. We want to get our Kickstarter back in gear and gain some more speed. Therefore we put this Video together to show people who don’t know the Jagged Alliance franchise what was so great about the game and what Jagged Alliance: Flashback will be like. So yes, for those who know the game in every little detail, this won’t be something new. Getting new fans of Jagged Alliance is one of the areas we will give some focus. More game details for the rest of you will be given over the next days! Community EffortsThe community is hard at work and have several competitions and initiatives going to promote our campaign. The success of the campaign will be determined by getting more backers. So every community driven effort counts. We are very happy about every little push you give. BIG thanks from here!!!! Steam Steam Group You can join the new steam group created by the community, in order to get a shot at receiving free steam key for the game once the game has been released, the more people in the group the more keys to give away! Bear’s Pit initiatives Merc One-liner "Write a Merc One-Liner and Win a $220 Pledge", sponsored by galf and open to all JA:F backers (and only backers). All you need to participate is a bit of inspiration and a screenshot of your pledge sent to gdalf's inbox. If you already pledged more than $220 you can always gift the goodie bag to a friend. Let's not make gdalf feel like his effort and money went unappreciated, ok? BIG BAD BEAR meme The "BIG BAD BEAR meme thread (with an occasional hamster snack)" creativity contest that we're running in order to provide social network memes for those who need to plug the game (or just have a laugh). Even FC tried their hand at this http://imgur.com/yJi4X3e We’ll have another update ready for you tomorrow and also some new Unique Tiers Until next time! The Full Control JAF Team

Update #39 : Introducing Bert the guru, Shout out, Blog update, Last days of Paypal May 8, 2013 Introducing Bert the guru In this moving pictures part of the update, Bert, our resident script guru, explains how it is possible to implement "generic behaviours" that affect all npcs in the game world, and thus increase the amount of reactions they have. He gives a bunch of examples of what you can do with Osiris, the scripting language used in Divinity: Original Sin, just to get you thinking of all the things you could be doing with it. In other words - characters in Divinity: Original Sin react. Here's the man making the reactions talking about how he's doing it. Also, in this particular movie, Thomas, our video boy, shows exactly how evil he is near the end of the movie. We're curious what Axel's revenge will be. Easter eggs inbound! Paypal pledging to end soon Paypal pledging is still possible but will finish this weekend, meaning that in practice it'll stay open until monday morning GMT+1. Right now the counter is at $57.596,60. We will add the total number of backers via paypal to calculate the size of the lair beneath the phantom forest, and at that time we'll also take stock of the amount of Facebook likes to calculate the amount of Bellegar encounters Divinity:Original Sin will feature. Pledge management We've answered quite a lot of private messages and mails about how pledges are going to be managed, and in an effort to save our fingers a bit, here's an overview of how we envision things will work: All backers (Kickstarter+Paypal) will receive an account at The Larian Vault If we need information from you to send you your rewards, you'll be able to fill it in there You will be able to add extra add-ons to your reward tier via The Larian Vault too. Not all add-ons will be available, but there will be quite a few. You'll also be able to upgrade your reward. You don't have to use the Larian Vault system, but it's going to be the most user friendly. If you don't want to use it, you'll need to wait until the moment Divinity:Original Sin releases to collect your rewards, because we can only send out one Kickstarter survey. The Larian Vault pledge management system isn't ready yet, but it will be soon enough (as in over the next couple of weeks). We'll inform you via a backer-only update when it's ready. Sending us messages There are many ways people are reaching out to us, but we're a small team so we can't answer as fast as we'd want to on all channels, and sometimes it might take some time before you get a reply. If you want to send us a message, the best way of reaching us is via kickstarter@larian.com. That's where you'll get the fastest response. New blog entry from Swen Here's a quote we ripped from the internet that was written by Tom from Evolve-PR, our fabulous PR agency who helped us a lot during the Kickstarter campaign: it's sometimes much easier to build word of mouth without involving the press; with Divinity: Original Sin, we spent a TON of time (and too much money) trying to get press to play the game... the coverage at many "top-tier" sites didn't actually yield much in terms of a return for their Kickstarter. It was only when we really dug in with the YouTube crowd that the KS campaign took off. Swen blogged about the exact same thing, but not everybody agreed with what he had to say. If you're interested in his doubts about mainstream gaming media, why he thinks Angry Joe is superior to no-name the unnamed reviewer, and how this may impact his decision making, check it out and let him know what you think. Shout out! Son of Nor – terraforming, combining elemental magic & telekinesis. Get them to their goal, then demand that they make it an Ultima Underworld style RPG featuring those awesome mechanics. We'll be drooling all over it! Cool stuff. Be sure to watch their entire movie. In Closing During the Kickstarter campaign, Thomas forced us to listen to every single day. They have 16 million views. Our youtube channel has less. You will not let Thomas win, will you?

Swen published another interesting entry on his blog! http://www.lar.net/2013/05/07/being-selective/

Wasn't that the "original" concept of a Barbarian? That he gets into "Berzerker" mode if he gets badly wounded?

That's fuc...... awesome, Tim! All hail the big pencil!

Oh yes, I will destroy my new graphics card as soon as possible.... Stupid topic, sorry....

Update #11 : Competition Winners and More May 5, 2013 Dear Backers, A short Sunday update It’s weekend and and we’re slowly but surely closing in on $150,000. We have received quite a few meme submissions and we’re so happy with them that we have found it hard to pick just one winner.Therefore we have chosen to pick 3 winners in total The winners will receive the $125 reward and we’ll post the meme on various social sites to promote our campaign and make people laugh. The Winners are *Drum roll* Congratulations to the winners ifsim, GermanMG and Lachlan, and thanks for all your submissions We’ll definitely be hosting 1-2 more competitions before the end of the Kickstarter Campaign. Team videoThe video is still being put together and due to the fact that our community manager is a community manager and not a cameraman, we need to retake a few shots to reach the quality we’d like it to have. Feel free to bash him for it in the comments :D Additional pledges and changes to Collector’s boxA few people have been mentioning that’s they’d like to both have mercenary quote/ enemy response and a collector’s edition we decided to add a Tier to give them the option to do so. New pledge Tier: $220 Aim for the eyes Tier: Yeah, that should do the trick so you get: All previous rewards + You get to choose to either write an enemy response or a mercenary one-liner. (ONLY THIS TIER) Limited (30) New Collector’s Box content We’re adding a paper map to the mix as well as upgrading the paper map to a cloth map in the $500 tier. We’ll also be adding a Jagged Alliance: Flashback credit card holder to the the tier. We’re looking forward to a new and exciting week with loads of comments, good suggestions and quality feedback. More detailed updates on the way and we are brewing up some big news to share with the press. Have a nice Sunday! The Full Control JAF Team

Update #10 : Joining Kicking it Forward and Diorama progress May 4, 2013 Kicking it ForwardThe “Friday Special” statue went really fast yesterday! Congratulations to Nicholas for having his beautifully bearded face and body forever and ever immortalized in the game. Yesterdays update stirred a lot of discussions - great! A quick followup on that is, that we are still operating on concept art and pre-production. Nothing is set in stone and we are listening. We believe in a strong story coupled with hardcore turn-based combat being the right mix. So that is our vision for this project if that is unclear in any ways. And - this is important to say - we are making an entertainment product and not a simulator. We are with Flashback concentrating on the story part, the role playing of mercenaries having personalities and the game being fun to play. We are not! going down the ultra-realistic path and trying to make a tactical combat simulator. Flashback is not the Arma of turn-based RPG action. So if we in the story have a plausible reason to have experimental and ultra limited uranium depleted ammunition as part of the story - then its going to be in there. It is not science fiction - but still fiction. The inventory and the overall user interface has to be a joy to play as well. While we believe in inventory management being part of the game (who can carry 10 MG’s including ammo?), there is still value in having things like weight that you carry around being an influence on your movement speed, stealth and how fast you become fatigued. But it simply has to be fun to use as well, so for example being able to pick up items on the screen directly without having to move over to them - totally makes sense to do. This might rub the wrong way for some and be the right direction for others. We simply wanted to make this clear up front, and with the modding possibilities there are other people than us that can work the game into that direction - or stick with some of the JA2 mods. Kick! Kick! Kick!We also believe in Kickstarter being a great alternative for working with the fan gamers and to finance otherwise forgotten games and genres. That is why we are happy to announce us joining the Kicking it Forward initiative set up by Brian Fargo and inXile. This means that we pledge 5% of the revenue of Jagged Alliance: Flashback sales back into future Kickstarter projects. We have chosen to primarily use the money to pledge towards turn-based tactical/strategic digital games. You can read more about this on http://kickingitforward.org Hamster Galore!Wow there were some great hamster memes made by you! We had great fun looking them through, so thanks for everyone participating. We will pick the winner tomorrow! So still a chance to throw your hamster meme towards us! Diorama ProgressJavier has been throwing some spare time into working up a nice AK-47 into the art style we are going for in the game. And here it is, the first ingame model for Jagged Alliance Flashback! The art style we are considering can best be described as a form of stylistic realism where the environment along with props and characters will still keep their overall proportions and details, but the textures will be mixed with a hand painted look. We want the game to be more vibrant, and the use of colors will play a larger role in establishing mood in the environment. As we produce more and more art for the diorama of the lost ruins firefight, we will share these with you! Have a nice weekend! The Full Control JAF Team

Doing a mouseover of those links gives me r00fles, wonder if it was deliberate. And no one seems to have noticed either. LoL, I haven't noticed yet...

Update #9 : Weapon Customization and Special Friday Pledges May 3, 2013 Dear Backers, It’s Friday and we are ready for another update. This time we’d like to share our thoughts on an important aspect of the game - weapons. We also have some special pledges that are ultra limited in our “Friday Special”. First come, first serve and they will not come up again. So hurry hurry!! Weapon CustomizationTo give you the high level rundown here, there are things we definitely want to do and then we also have some ideas in our mind that we want to hear your point of view upon. As a basis, we will run with Jagged Alliance 2 for stats and balance. Then look at 1.13 for balancing fixes and additional features. This approach gives us a good and sound baseline to start with. We have the following on our must have and to do list: Different classes of weapons similar to Jagged Alliance 2 (e.g. Pistols, Machine Guns, Shotguns etc.) Skill tree for classes of weapons based on usage Customization via attachment points Ammunition with different properties Weight and inventory space has influence on the gameplay (e.g. AP and movement speed) Dual wield small weapons And we have some ideas to discuss: Using a weapon will slowly damage it to the point where it's destroyed. The more you use a given weapon, the more damage it takes. You will be able to repair damaged weapon at your base at a cost (not only at the base actually, but if a weapon is nearly done, than you'll need to do it in the base). Selling worn weapons gives you less money than a new weapon would. As you use the weapon you gain skill in using said weapon to give you more damage, accuracy etc. But at the same time there is an negative effect on unlearning other skills. This counters building ultra powerful characters with 100 in all skills and then destroying the enemy. So balancing out your team suddenly matters more For the base building we want to have a shooting range, where you can both test out weapon customizations to see the effect before committing to it. And at the same time you can spend time+money on training your mercenaries. More Details Adding attachments will decrease or increase your weapon stats. The choices you make will determine things like weapon range, weight, repair expenses and most importantly, damage! Weapon customization and development is not about crafting weapons from the ground up, but taking the weapons you find or buy in the world and tweaking those by changing or upgrading their parts. Only by recruiting a character such as a gunsmith will you get access to the meat of weapon customization and repair options. All weapons are grounded in reality, so that means no science fiction, no lasers, no nothing that goes beyond shooting hard lead out of a barrel or rocket propelled explosives. 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 Weapons manufactured up to the point of when the Jagged Alliance: Flashback story takes place are eligible to be included. Weapon AttachmentsAttachments for weapons are diverse and the amount of attachments depend on the weapon and its number of slots. Slots included on most weapons are the top (scopes), muzzle (silencer, fire suppressor), under barrel (bipod, handgrip) and stocks but the amount of slots can also be expanded via modifications such as rails. Please note some weapons will have a lot of room for customization, while others will not (A pistol with grenade launcher attached wouldn't make too much sense most times, eh?). Using modifications such as rails it's possible to open up for even more attachments, like flashlights, laser sights etc. Weapons and changes to them can easily be tested in the shooting range, this allows the player to test a weapon build before leaving to conquer the rest of the map or solving optional missions. The list also does not include melee weapons which is part of the CQC training skill characters will need, which opens up for (silent) lethal, and non-lethal takedowns. Ammunition Flashback will feature several different types of ammunition for weapons, some will not be available to all weapon classes, some will be extremely expensive and rare (will require difficult raid missions of drug lord strongholds for example. You never know what a warlord has stored in his safe, do you?) while others wear down weapons after use (see Depleted uranium ammo). Taking inspiration from the 1.13 community mod, these are some of the ammunition types we really want in. Normal bullet - effective against soft armor and unarmoured enemies. Useless against heavy armoured enemies. High quality bullets - Higher quality ammunition that boosts a weapon's effective range and damage. Rubber bullets - handy shotgun ammo for incapacitating soft armoured and unarmoured enemies. Don't expect to shoot anything else with it. Useless against heavy armoured enemies. Depleted Uranium - Powerful bullets that severely damages weapons used with it, effective against all enemies. Incredibly expensive and rare. Stealth bullets - Standard bullets with some gunpowder removed to reduce weapon sound. Effectively paired with silencers for very quiet incursions. Less powder means less damage. Grenades (HE, Fragmentation and gas) - High Explosives is effective at destroying vehicles, while fragmentation is against soft armoured and unarmoured enemies. Has little effect against heavy armoured enemies. Gas is effective against all enemies not wearing gas masks (be sure you wear one when moving through areas of gas too). Heavy explosives (C4) - Available as radio controlled or timed explosives. Antipersonnel and Anti-vehicle mines - High explosives will kill or destroy anything that moves close. Rocket propelled grenades - For use in RPGs, available in HE or Fragmentation versions. Highly effective against light vehicles and all types of enemies. Special Friday PledgesAs mentioned earlier we’re adding a unique pledge every Friday and today we’re actually adding both a unique Tier and a limited bundle. $400 Tier: It’s all in the bag Tier: So bring it home and enjoy the rewards, you’ll get: The all previous rewards + A mercenary one-liner + An enemy response + You get to make a name for the enemy name pool + You get to write a NPC Quote. (ALL ONLY THIS TIER) (10) Limited $850 Tier: The magnificent Tier: There can only be one, so you’re rewarded with: All previous rewards + A statue of you or your likeness in the game, with a description (ONLY THIS TIER) (1) Limited Backer Sectors As you all know we’ve been running a poll on our website to figure out what the next sector should be and it ended up being the “Abandoned WWII Outpost / Bunker” We’ve shot the team video today and I apologize in advance for not having a steady hand! The video is being cut and processed as we speak and we hope it’ll be ready this weekend. Just needed to get the shots in before everyone escaped the office for the weekend. Have a nice weekend! The Full Control JAF Team

Update #8 : Diorama and Competition May 2, 2013 Dear backers, We’re slowly moving forward and are still confident that we’ll reach our goal once the campaign concludes. However, we still want to raise the awareness of our campaign through more social sites, as the majority of backer have currently come from press, Kickstarter and people searching for our campaign. If you’re a great redditor or top tweepster feel free to share your tips and suggestions in the comments section. DioramaYesterday we asked you what kind of updates you would like to see from us in the future and we can assure you we’re working hard at planning and producing content for upcoming updates and press releases for the duration of the Kickstarter. For a while people have been asking us to show more of the game in terms of gameplay and therefore we have decided to make a 3D diorama version of the ruins sector we’re planning, which will give you a real feeling of what we want the game to look like. You will be able to rotate the camera 360°, the distance will be fixed. Below is a very rough concept of the stage: The scene will show your mercenaries having fallen into a trap and now caught in a firefight with enemies inside the hidden ruins. We decided upon this little scene, as it would give you a visual slice of how the game could look like. We plan to follow the project as it progresses, making small dev diaries, focussing on different aspects of the diorama for each video. We’ll be covering Props, Character, Assembling all the different pieces and finally releasing the diorama for you to explore. We understand that it’s important to people to get an actual feel for what the game will look like, so we’ll do our very best to get a great looking diorama in place. Team Video You’ve also been requesting to learn more about our team and we can gladly announce that we will shoot the video tomorrow and release it one of the following days. In the video you will get a short presentation from some of the core members of the team, get to see a portion of their work and what they are currently working on. Thomas will share his thoughts on the team and we will all give you a warm goodbye. Hopefully you won’t be able to spot the community guy CompetitionAs a follow up to yesterdays update, we would like to shoot of a competition, which everyone should be able to participate in! A Killer Hamster Meme Here’s our attempt: You can copy the image from this post and alter it in anyway you want, as long as you leave the JAF logo in there. Send your attempts to competition@fullcontrol.dk and we’ll choose the best one and post it on Reddit, Twitter and Facebook. It’s a competition, so of course there’s going to be a prize. We’ll let you write a one-liner for a mercenary in the final game We’re looking forward to see what you come up with!! Have a lovely evening! The Full Control JAF Team

Update #7 : Community Coverage and More May 1, 2013 Dear Backers, A short update this evening Amazon Payments IssuesLast night we experienced some issues with Amazon payments, resulting in 4 hours where people were unable to support our campaign. Unfortunately we won’t be getting those hours back, but we’re happy it didn't happen within the last 48 hours of our campaign. If you get an error again please just give it an hour or two and try again. Reddit IAMA We completed the reddit IAMA yesterday evening and we’re very pleased with all of the questions we got on both Space Hulk and Jagged Alliance. 1½ hours just flew by, you can see all of the questions and answers HERE. We’ll be doing more of these sessions during the campaign. Community CoverageThere have been a lot of feedback and support from the community both on our Kickstarter forum, Facebook, Twitter and especially on the comment section of our Kickstarter page. We even have our very own support group called Jagged Bloodcats, and a fanmade teaser video to raise awareness for our Kickstarter. THANK YOU !!! You can see the Video and read more about the Jagged Bloodcats initiative HERE We also just started the Backer Bonus initiative and the next unlock is right around the corner: We would like to get your opinion on what the next sector should be, so post your suggestions in the the comment section of this update or at the Kickstarter forum and we’ll put them up for voting in our forum. New T-shirtWe’re also announcing that we have decided to add our lovable commando hamster as a new T-shirt option. We even added a few more elements to the image. See below: Before we end we would just like to mention our friends from Onipunks, who are currently running a Kickstarter for their game C-wars, which is presented with the headline: What happens when Cyberpunk apocalypse roguelike meets RTS in pixel art? C-Wars. Go check them out if you have a few extra $ to spare and love pixel-art HERE As the final note, we’d like you to share your thoughts on what kind of updates you would like to see us share in the near future. Character customization, weapon customization, Art style walk-through or maybe a more detailed introduction of the team - Let us know in the comments! Until next time ^^ The Full Control JAF Team

Update #38 : Hello world! May 3, 2013 We're alive & kicking!Life after running a successful Kickstarter campaign certainly isn't the same as life before running a successful Kickstarter campaign. For one thing, certain people return your calls. For another, you find yourself exploring the possibilities of Kickstarter's backend facilities. Turns out that doesn't last very long. Check out our new update movie in which David discusses how we'll get your pledges fulfilled, what happened at Larian when twitch.tv stopped last week and whether or not there will be more updates! Paypal still openFor those who still want to pledge and access Kickstarter exclusive goodness, the paypal pages will remain open until May 10th, 2013, 12:00pm PST. The Paypal counter is currently at 52935US$. RPGCodex & RPGWatch- over 10K each!!!RPGWatch & RPGCodex still have fundraisers for Divinity:Original Sin going and their counters are going completely bananas, not to mention the relevant comments (here and here) sections. We're going to organise the brainstorm that decides on the possible fates of red imps & watchmen over the next couple of weeks and already it seems the office is heavily divided over who should get an unfair advantage. To be continued for sure... Gamespot discovers Divinity:Original SinOur secret weapon to ensure we'd reach the last stretch goal was a preview on Gamespot which we'd hoped was going to be released in the final days of the campaign. Alas, the gods of internet lag & code bugs conspired against us, and we never really managed to get the play session with Kevin VanOrd going the way we managed with Angry Joe, Jesse Cox or Total Biscuit. In despair we sent through a single-player version, but sadly that meant the preview was late for the end of the campaign. Perhaps for the better, because we're not sure Swen would have managed to change the name on his passport while conducting the Kickstarter campaign Confused by that last phrase ? Then check out the preview!

Update #5 : Story Details and Backer Bonuses Apr 29, 2013 Dear backers, Thanks for getting us past the $100,000 mark! $250,000 to the initial goal with 24 days left - lets go! We’re constantly working on more art, more info and are communicating with a lot of different sites in order to raise awareness for our campaign. On that note we’d like to announce that our CEO Thomas will be doing an IAMA on reddit tomorrow, Tuesday 30th at 2pm Eastern Pacific Time (20:00 Central European Summer Time) and he will try his best to answer all of your questions We’d also like to announce that we’re starting a new backer initiative, which will be added to the main Kickstarter pages as it progresses. For every 1000 backer we get, we’ll be adding 1 extra sector to the game, which can either be special sectors with unique content or more common sectors with small hidden secrets. The sectors will be illustrated as squares, so for each 1000th backer we’ll add another square to the mix. Now lets move on to a subjects that has been heavily debated within the community and especially our Russians friends - The setting. Story Setting As you all know by now, the story is set in the late-1980s, on the Caribbean island group of San Christobal and the cold war is coming to an end. Following a coup d'état a socialist regime has been established on the island, a change that undermines the U.S. presence in the area. A vigilante Russian General, leading an elite U.S.S.R. military unit, decides to take matters into his own hands and establishes a military base right under the nose of the U.S. Seeing this presence as a potential threat the U.S. sends out order to the CIA to assemble a team of professionals to restore the democratic government on San Christobal and drive out the U.S.S.R. presence, by any means necessary. Once you reach the island you discover that something doesn't add up and that there may be more than one reason why the U.S wants to get rid of the crazed General. Suddenly you find yourself faced with some very hard choices - should you continue to fight for the U.S or should YOU decide what the right move should be. No matter what you decide, you’re not interested in a new world war breaking out and you want to make peace on the island. The story opens up here where you have to convince old friends and new people to become your trusted allies in the fight for peace on San Christobal. In the classic Jagged Alliance fashion you decide where the story goes from here and where to send your troops. The choice is yours, you can try to convince the Russian forces to join your cause, or if the best approach is to utilize the drug cartels on the island or running a mix of it all - playing every faction against each other. Story StructureThere will be a Main story - A story filled with twists and turns, where your allies quickly can turn into your worst enemies. The choice of how to solve the conflict with the Russian splinter group is yours, but they are not the only enemy you should fear. Side and optional missions cover individual background stories for mercenaries - both new and old. How did Ivan leave the Russian army and what made Shadow part ways with the military to become a mercenary? These are all stories we’d like to explore further. One of the things we really want to do with Flashback is to introduce a varied bunch of enemies. The game is not black and white, east vs. west, there are shades of grey - the russian presence introduces a massive amount of turmoil on San Christobal, and various factions will compete against each other, some more active than others. Trust will play a central role in the game, because it’s not everybody you can trust, especially the CIA. It’s entirely up to you how you proceed and portray yourself throughout the game, are you ruthless enough to leave wounded enemies to die or will you be merciful enough to gain the trust of the resistance? Factions Flashbacks story is built around an open world where the player can choose to decide his own path through the game. Many of the missions are entirely voluntary, and follows the same design principles as other open and semi-open world games. We want to introduce several other factions that the player can choose to do missions for, this in turn will open up a system based on trust - completing missions for some factions will raise their trust, while in turn it will lower your trust with competing factions. Some factions in Flashback will not participate directly in the events happening on San Christobal but will support one or more factions - or none all-together. The major factions of the conflict are: Active Factions Alpha Group, the U.S.S.R special forces splinter group lead by a ruthless hard-line general. CIA clandestine group. Resistance force Neutral Factions Drug Cartel Local Population We have a lot more news coming your way tomorrow and we’ll add the reddit link to all social sites once we go live. Until next time! The Full Control JAF Team

Update #4 : Mercenary Personalities & Backer Avatars Apr 27, 2013 Dear backers, A short weekend update We’re slowing down a bit, but we’re past the critical 20% and there’s still 26 days to go. While we’re constantly tweaking the campaign and gathering feedback, we also need to focus on getting some press coverage to raise the overall awareness of our Kickstarter campaign. We have some big news just around the corner, which we’re confident will boost the campaign and help us to reach our goal as well as improve the game. Mercenary Personalities One of the main complaints we had about recent attempts to make Jagged Alliance games was the removal of some of the humor and personality for each mercenary. “Dont fix it if it ain’t broken” - remember? So we are super happy to be able to bring back a lot of what defines the game - mercenary personality. We are going to get back to the great 2d icons for each NPC and mercenary. They simply allow for much more personality than a generic 3d head that will never have as much detail as a well drawn 2d image. Together with some cool facial animations a lot of personality and feelings can be displayed. Another very important aspect are the inter-team personalities. E.g. don’t put Fox and Buns together unless you want to listen to a cat fight making your ears bleed. While having the i-team working together will boost a teams performance. A big amount of personality also comes from the voice over for the mercenaries. While we haven’t decided yet if we are going for English with a national accent - or having Ivan speak Russian only - we definitely want to get a strong personality shining through voice overs. If you think you got what it takes to voice your favorite mercenary, or have an opinion on the English or non-English voice overs, head over to the comments section and tell us what you think! Backer Avatars For this short update we’re adding a set of backer avatar pictures, so that our backers can show their support and maybe spark the interest of other backers by commenting on other projects they’re currently backing. We’ll be releasing additional avatar sets along the way, giving you more options to choose from. A nice weekend to all! The Full Control JAF Team

Update #3 : New Pledges and Add-ons Apr 26, 2013 Dear backers, As always, thank you for all your support and valuable feedback - We’re listening For this update we’ll be covering changes to pledges, the addition of add-ons and some information on what’s to come. First of all we can’t stress enough how important it is to get the word out that there’s a Jagged Alliance Kickstarter happening and that we really ARE trying to do the franchise justice. We see this campaign as a community effort, therefore sharing the news on Forums, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn would be a tremendous help in reaching our goal and enable us to add more content to the game. Upcoming Kickstarter Updates:Old-timers We’re currently talking to a few of the people who were involved in developing the original Jagged Alliance Games as well as prominent modders of the 1.13 patch. We’re still not sure of their possible involvement in this campaign, but it’s something we’ll let you know as soon as it’s in place. The Full Control Team A lot of people have been asking for more information about the team so we have decided to make a short video from the Full Control Den, showing you where the magic happens, the team and a bit more on what we’re currently working on. We also have a Q & A video planned! The Story and RPG elements We’ll also be taking a closer look at some of the story and RPG elements we have in mind for Jagged Alliance: Flashback, which we feel are some of the core pillars of the original titles. We have lot more updates planned and also a surprise or two, so stay tuned. New Pledges and Add-ons:Pledges: We’re gonna be adding new ones and making changes to existing pledges. $65 Low on Ammo Tier: A boxed version of the game + a printed manual (ONLY THIS TIER) + Digital soundtrack + Digital map (Shipping is covered for the EU and the US but please add $25 if outside those areas ) $200 Who be the fool Tier: All previous rewards + you get to make a name for the enemy name pool (ONLY THIS TIER) Limited (50) $500 Bobby Trapped Tier: (Will now also include) Name a trash item in the game and co-write the item description (ONLY THIS TIER) $1200 Sooo Badass Tier: All previous rewards + Co-design a bad guy in the game (ONLY THIS TIER) Limited (10) $1500 You’re breaking up Tier: All previous rewards + Co-design the implementation of radio coverage on the island og San Christobal (ONLY THIS TIER) + Become the radio npc guy (ONLY THIS TIER) Limited (1) $1800 Get out your guns Tier: All previous rewards + Co-design a Mercenary in the game (ONLY THIS TIER) Limited (10) $2500 Guns r Us Tier: (WILL NOW BE) All previous rewards + Become a faction leader, we will use your name and (if relevant) use a picture of you to add a general likeness, in addition you will be added to the special NPC credits list. (ONLY THIS TIER) + Free access to all expansions + 10 extra digital copies of the game. Limited (3) $10,000 A.I.M.ing to Win Tier: (Will now also include) Become the Top Pimp (Story NPC) of the island and run your very own brothel (ONLY THIS TIER) Limited (1) Add-ons: To to add the add-ons, simply change the amount of your pledge accordingly, without changing the reward tier. If we reach our goal we’ll be able to make surveys to clarify which product you desire to add. Please note that some items are only available to some Tiers, shown below: DIGITAL Digital Copy $20 (From $25 tier and up) 2 Digital Copies $36 (From $25 tier and up) 3 Digital Copies $45 (From $25 tier and up) Digital Hi-res Map 7$ (From $5-$25) Digital Soundtrack 7$ (From $5-$25) PHYSICAL Backer T-shirt $20 (From $50-$85) We’ll be continuing to update the pledges and add-ons and will be adding a Unique limited Tier every Friday from now on. PayPal options will be added to the FAQ Until next time The Full Control JAF team

Update #2 : Tactical Layer - Core Combat Apr 25, 2013 Dear backers and friends, Day 3 in the campaign and we are super happy about your support and questions! Keep them coming, and we will work hard on keeping you up to date. In our last update we talked a bit about our ideas for the strategic layer, and this time we want to get to the core and heart of the game. We just want to briefly note that we have a lot more updates planned, covering detailed information on the ideas we have for the game. From story to world economy and customization options. Soon we'll also be making an update on add-ons and changes to pledges. We are completely and utterly dependent on your support! So please, pledge share, tweet so that we can make this Jagged Alliance: Flashback a reality! Currently we're closing in on 20% of our minimum goal, in just 3 days, which we think is a fantastic start being a relatively unknown developer and it means we're on-track. A big thank you from the bottom of our hearts, and now lets get to the meat of this update. COMBAT! Core Philosophy of Jagged Alliance: FlashbackThere is a great deal of speculation and doubts surrounding what we mean by staying true to the core and what we mean when saying words like “accessibility” or “modern”. So lets just hammer this one into the ground right away. “If it ain’t broken - don’t fix it”. This is where some of the newer games got it wrong we think. Flashback will be using the same mechanics for the tactical layer as Jagged Alliance 2. We are NOT dumbing anything down or replacing complexity with simplicity. We will try to take a look at some mechanics and see if it’s possible to tweak and improve them. A prime example of this is stealth and fog of war. So read on. But you say you are not making JA2Yes - We are not making a new Jagged Alliance 2, we are making an all new game, but this does not mean that we’re moving away from the gameplay it pioneered. We are making a new story - using the JA2 core tactical mechanics, selected pieces of 1.13 community patch as well as additions of our own. A new story means we can include a new setting, dream up new missions and introduce all new enemies - but at the same time the current budget means we're restricted in the scope of the game in terms of assets and the total amount of mercenaries, which are a scalable factor of the final budget. However, all of these elements do NOT change the core gameplay. Simply put, more money = more game content. We don't just want Flashback to be a rehash of JA2, we want to ensure that the improvements made by the community are taken into consideration. We want to show you how AIM came about and we want to expand the backstories of your favourite mercenaries. We think these are ample reasons to make a new game for both new and old fans to enjoy! Movement, Line of Sight and Fog of WarThis wouldn't be a true Jagged Alliance game without the hybrid system, therefore we are bringing back the hybrid system, enabling real time positioning your troops while roaming in a given sector outside of combat. When the enemy comes into line of sight of any squad member, the game turns into the classic turn-based combat system from JA2. Read more about that part further down. During all phases, enemies are only visible while inside line of sight and a few turns after leaving it again. To make things a little more interesting while roaming, we are adding fog of war to the game. This adds exploration as part of the game. When entering an undiscovered sector most of it will be black, and is only revealed as you explore it. This opens up a whole new dimension to the game, and we think it’s something that could really add to the tactical depth of the game. Turn-Based Combat SystemGoing into turn-based combat will be very much like JA2. You will have the standard action point system to perform movement, shooting, reloads, detonating C4 etc. The amount of action points for each turn is still depending on the state of the unit in terms of health, fatigue, stress, current stance and even possibly a more complex suppression system like in the 1.13 mod. We will not touch a lot of this and change it. It’s more about using modern computer power to visually aid the player with movement path display, information about cover, effective ranges of weapons and more. Making it more accessible for players to play the game without having to have the manual open. Enemy FactionsIf there’s one thing we want to do with Flashback, then it is to introduce a varied amount of enemies. The game is not black and white, east vs. west, there are shades of grey - the Russian presence introduces a massive amount of turmoil on San Christobal, and various factions will compete against each other, some more active than others. Trust will play a central role in the game, because it’s not everyone you can trust, not even the CIA. It’s entirely up to you how you proceed and portray yourself throughout the game, are you ruthless enough to torture your enemies or will you be merciful enough to gain the trust of the resistance? The amount of factions, the political aspect of this and the influence into the game is partly part of stretch goals - as this adds an entire new layer of art assets and balancing into the game. We will go more into this and the story behind Flashback in a later update. All the Nitty Gritty DetailsIt is important for us to give you this quick overview. It’s become apparent to us that there are a gazillion questions about the details and also a lot of personal wish lists for what should and should not be in the a new Jagged Alliance game. We’re currently in pre-production of the game so we do not have all the little details in place yet, which is also why we’re taking all your feedback in to see which direction to take the game. We will add more updates through the next weeks that will go into more depth on different aspects. For example we are looking hard at making a more deep stealth mechanism, taking weapon modification into the game and so on. But end of the day a lot of these details are impossible to answer before we know more about the final budget. Every little feature and art asset costs money to produce. And we want to make sure that we keep what we promise! Until next time. The Full Control JA Team

Update #1 : Strategic Level, Destructible Environment and more Apr 24, 2013 Dear backers, What a first 24 hours!! Super fantastic. Thanks for all of your support. We are well on the way to go beyond the Kickstarter goal, so if we can keep up the momentum this game will actually see the day of light! So please spread the word! Tell your Jagged Alliance friends! And keep interest alive in the comments section as well as the forums on the mini-site. http://www.jaggedallianceflashback.com/ Our plan from now and moving forward is to give you more deep insights into our ideas and thoughts for Flashback. We will send out updates to start discussions with you, so please discuss these things with us if you like, dislike or have alternative ideas. We deliberately have run this Kickstarter in the early stages of pre-production, where a lot of the decisions are still up in the air. So your voice will indeed have an influence! Your voice will be heard! With that said, we haven’t decided and settled on small details yet. So if you ask us if you will be able to blow up the black cow in map grid 4F with C4 that has been modified with a delay timer - we don’t know yet! Thats what pre-production is meant to give us - a game design from top and down to medium detail level. And that is where we want your input! Strategic Level Design - Base Building, Squads, Map Mechanics The strategic level in Flashback will in its core work similarly to Jagged Alliance 2 with added base building. You have a chessboard like grid on top of the world map, you direct squads of mercenaries freely around on the map and each grid corresponds to an individual level on the tactical side of the game. The size of the chessboard is going to be determined by budget of the game. This is where we scale up with stretch goals. More pledges means more environment art means more levels in the grid. You have to move troops around the map on foot, and if we reach stretch goals we also add the good old transportation options of jeeps, trucks, helicopters, boats and planes to make movement faster as well as unlock new parts of the map. We really want to do this part! As an example it would matter to liberate the port city, so that you can grab a boat to a neighbouring small island. So if you liked the system used in Jagged Alliance 2, then you will love this one as it’s basically the same ) A new feature we want to add to the strategic layer is base management. You will start out with a small landing zone and expand your base of operations as you gain access to funds. New additions to your base will add various levels of support options to your squads. From fortifying your base that help against enemy attacks to helicopter pads and recruiting a gunsmith will allow you to repair weapons and research new attachments that increase weapon effectiveness. But this is not where it ends. In captured villages we would like to rework the militia system from earlier games. Parts of the buildings used in your central base can also be built in villages - e.g. fortify specific buildings, repair shops and medical facilities. But you can’t build an air strip or a hospital, these are things you have to control to reap the benefits. The enemy will actively try to retake lost sectors, so the more you control, the more you have to lose. So it’s important to defend your central base while spending some resources on expanding your presence on the map. Leaving your base open will allow the enemy to take it, removing the support it gives to your mercenary squads. This adds much more value to the strategic part of the game and more depth in gameplay. The exact economy of the game is not finalized at this point in time. But we do want to have an economy where mercenaries have upkeep costs, where you have to have an income source and building buildings cost something. The time to decide the exact mechanics on this will be a bit later. Suggestions and Ideas are more than welcome in the comments and forums! Destructible Environment We will definitely have a level of a destructible environment in the core game. This is an essential feature and makes carrying explosives important. It also has an effect on stealth, but that is a feature we will talk about in a later update when we go into combat mechanics. Does this mean we will have full destructible everything? No - almost no games have this and we will not either. It simply makes no sense. Read on! Here are some examples of destructible things: being able to blow up a thin wall with a frag grenade to remove the cover that the enemy unit is hiding behind use C4 to make a hole in a wall to create an alternative entrance to a building cut holes in fences with a wire cutter destroy equipment like radio transmitters, power generators, cars to stop the enemy from using them Examples of non-destructible environment: you will not be able to blow tunnels into the ground to move underneath things you wont be able to have buildings collapse by blowing holes into all walls terrain pieces can not be destroyed, things like boulders, rocks etc. there is no wand of divinity that splits water to walk between islands New Pledges We have been asked by many if we could add more pledges in the lower end. So we have added the following pledges to the Kickstarter site We plan to add more later as we go along. If you have great ideas for pledges you want, then don’t hesitate to send us a message. $35 Gunnam style Tier: All previous rewards + Digital high quality map of the game world + Digital copy of the Official Soundtrack * Limited 100* $85 Umpa Bazooka Tier: All previous rewards + Get to write an enemy response (ONLY THIS TIER) Licensing, Money, bitComposer and what it all means There is some confusion about what it means that we have licensed Jagged Alliance from bitComposer. A license is a right to use a brand. Its a legal agreement where we (Full Control) get the right to use a brand name (Jagged Alliance) from the license owner (bitComposer). Licenses could be given to e.g. make a t-shirt, a movie or like in this case - a computer game. Getting a license costs us (Full Control) money. It is not free, and there is typically also royalties to be paid. Totally similar to someone making Star Wars themed lunch boxes having to pay a royalty fee for every lunch box sold. This is also true for this deal. On the sales of the game past the Kickstarter we have to pay bitComposer for the Jagged Alliance license. This does not apply to your donated Kickstarter money. This will all go into development directly. The deal goes on royalty payments for non-backers who buy the game later. If we had to make a classic publisher work-for-hire deal, bitComposer would have paid the development, owned it all and they would control the development and which features go in. Since we are licensing instead, we do not get a single $ from them or others. We have to finance the development ourselves, define the game features and story (together with you), produce it and get it into your hands by the way we think is best. bitComposer still has a say in terms of us not destroying their brand by turning Ivan into a ballerina in a pink shirt and make the game into an endless runner in iOS. But as long as we stay within the defined boundaries of the license agreement, we are free to make the game to our ideas. We are pretty much free to do whatever we want, as long as it stays in the tactical genre however. This also means, that we can use bitComposer and other 3rd party companies as resources if it helps us. For example if we want to reach out to existing Back in Action fans on the bitComposer Facebook page, we can ask bitComposer to do that. If we want to send out press releases, we can use our own press agents instead of bitComposers PR guys - so that's what we've done - used our own. If we want to do physical boxes we can ask bitComposer to broker a deal for us (since they already have contacts) or go with our own if we want. Or find another partner. And so on. Being independent simply means that WE have a choice of who to ask for help. And sometimes the most wise choice is to seek partnership and help rather than doing things yourself. You might then wonder who pays for the development. Where is the money coming from to pay rent, purchase pizza and energy drinks to keep developers running? We are throwing in money of our own on top of the Kickstarter pledges. So it’s you and us. But we simply don't have the money to fully fund the development ourselves - far from it. We are a small company with 12 employees, running independently. We don't have the backing of deep pocketed publishers and we want to stay independent if possible for our game productions. So that we can make games that we feel need to be made in a way that might not be the latest and hottest one-click mechanic that makes gazillions. So if we don't get this Kickstarter backup from you, this game will not happen. We don't have the muscle to fund it ourselves, and the worst case would be that if it fails it may, for some people, also prove that a turn-based Jagged Alliance game is a dead end. Lets prove them wrong!! We hope this clears up any questions or confusion you might have on what a licensed deal means. Otherwise ask and we will answer