These comments make me critical.
What is the franchises roots? It's as far as I concern Jagged Alliance 1. This is not Jagged Alliance 1 but a prequel.
The main goal is to bring back? It was never lost. This isn't UFO, JA didn't have that many titles. And concerning turn-based the space-to-pause function in Back-in-Action works just fine.
I guess as roots he means "what jagged alliance is known for" - and in that regards turn based combat is probably the main aspect. The mercs and their personal story + the free world were the other aspects.
BIA got rid of the turn based combat and afaik also decresed the mercs personality.
JAO however got rid of the mercs personality and the free world.
reboot or reset...well...depends on how you define it...guess that JA BIA is called a reboot because it took the old game but "modernized it" by changing it's core values. And he wants to go back to the original game to not lose them. That's how I understand it.
1st of all, Commandos series was way better at tactical gameplay .. even in real time. So that's big.
2nd I hate this war setting. Dudes .. not that I'm blaming MoH COD etc.. but seriously. put some effort into it. No plot is the worst choice you can make.
3rd no confidence in the project. Its subjective, don't see the engine working smoothly, don't see graphics being updated
Commandos and JA shared the same timespan and I kinda thought like "you can only like one of these factions" - and I decided for JA. Comandos was nothig but a puzzle game for me with combat graphics. I disagree that it had better tactics, but that is mainly because I think you were forced to these tactics, while in JA you could play with and without tactics, you had the freedom to use the tactics you wanted and that made it more tactical for me if you know what I mean. But imho that's a matter of taste.
Cold War however does not mean WW2. They didn't say in which year it took place but I guess it will be in the late 80s.
In JA2 you can read that the AIM was founded in 1991, so if they stick to it, it should be right before that.
In a subterranean Montreal bunker in 1991, three men, known only by their aliases Colonel Mohanned, Commander Spice, and The White Asian, found themselves in the heat of an armed struggle without access to enough manpower to end the hostilities. With great effort, they secured financing and located the people they needed to put an end to the conflict.
The underground channels they developed became known as the Association of International Mercenaries. Vowing that others seeking justice should have access to professional soldiers, their assembled team of men and women became the original members of A.I.M. Commanders engaged in small scale, private conflicts adopted the organization as a prime resource for labor.
About the kickstarter:
I think that a goal of 350k $ is a lot of money for such a project. I don't say that they don't need to money to make such a game, but I mean that it will be very hard for such a game to get that amount of money. I guess in their position I would have taken 150k as goal, maybe cut the game a bit, add more by stretch goals and in addition look for additional investors. I think they will have a hard time reaching the 150k with the pitch they have. If they already had some gameplay video to show this might have been different.
I think they should have added an "early bird" option like most of the other "bigger" kickstarters did. Like 200 spots for 20$ to get an initial spike.
I also think that they should have more pledge levels and add bit by bit. A jump from 25$ to 50$ is very bad imho, especially when most players pledge in these regions. I think they should have added an additional level for the soundtrack and so on. Same goes for the physical levels. If I wanted the map I would have to pay 500$.
I am a big fan of the series, but right now the pledge levels and price structure seems highly unattractive to me and instead of the maybe 150$ I am willing to pay for such an "old love" I only pledged the minimum of 25$. I just don't see I get anything worth my money for the other levels.
Also I am wondering about stuff like the the naming of skills in one pledge level.
There are 5 Spots for players to name a skill. So how does this work? JA2 does not have any skills like that. Or do you want to have some player renaming "first aid" to "healthskillz"? For me this means that they will use and ability system. Like you press a button for "Adrenaline Rush" or "Snap Shot" or something like that as you do in JAO as far as I remember (or in any MMO).
Also JA was weapon-porn as they said in the intro. However in the comments they said:
We're aiming for realistic weapons - For names, we're trying to take a humorous approach.
which does not sound very great to me.