Dear Thomas,

I have backed JAF with 105 USD and you might know me under the username "JayM". Like many others I would like to know what the situation with the physical rewards is (e.g. I have paid for the boxed version of the game).

I have read that with bitComposer going under you had to change plans and there are some delays but I do not appreciate FC making no statement for weeks. Many backers feel the same as you would surely know if somebody in your company would bother to check the official forum.

Likewise, backers are wondering what FC's plans for any further updates of the game are. As far as I understand, JAF is dead and will not receive any further development or even bugfixing from your company. Even though this is perfectly understandable from a financial point of view it would be a shame as the game has potential to be fixed by modders. To my best knowledge they are unable to do this, however, as per your agreement with bitComposer you can't give everybody access to the source code and modders would need the developers' help.

In case I am wrong it would be nice to know what the situation is. Sending out an email to backers or posting on the official JAF forum would be much appreciated. FC hiding from the community for weeks has probably done more harm to your company than the poor initial release and the current state of the game have, as people are left to speculate and make emotional statements.

Many people put a lot of trust and money into you and your team and feel badly let down - not just by the game itself but also by the lack of communication and treatment of the community. Please take some time to let backers know what is going on as I also believe it would be in the best interest of your company.

Best regards,
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PS: Please be advised that I will publish this letter and any reply on the official JAF forum. Under normal circumstances I would not as I believe that correspondence should be private, but due to the lack of communication from your side so far I feel that other backers have a vested interest in what you have to say on these issues.

Just wanted to let you all know that I had an out of office reply from Thomas, saying he is away from February 26 to March 8 at the GDC in San Franscisco and probably won't reply to emails before that. I guess he won't check this forum either. Getting information from FC is hard work...

Very polite. Thank you very much for your effords!

Yes, excellent idea, JayM, even if you get no answer. This would speak volumes.

Had a reply from Thomas last night - looks like we will be getting an update, hopefully even today! I thanked him for getting back to me so shortly after returning from the US.

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Hi XXXX

Back from GDC and readying up an update on physical goods, team status and everything. While you might not like the update in its entirety, its the current situation.

I’ll write things there so that all get it. Only a very small subset of players are on the forums, so only communicating there is futile. Better to go out to all backers.

As much as you wont believe it, we try our best. But the team size right now is 1. Me. And far from full time. And I simply dont have hours in the day for everything and need to prioritize my time. Answering posts on Steam, forums etc.etc. is low on the priority list in my day. I do my best to answer mails and Kickstarter forum messages send me an email - so I can easily reply. Thats why those get some attention.

Update going out tomorrow most likely. Needs to be written.

Best
Thomas

Thanks for the update, JayM.
"While you might not like the update in its entirety, its the current situation." doesn't sound very promising, but I hope they are (well he is, I guess) still working on fixing the bugs.
At least we'll get an update soon, hopefully it will answer some questions.

I would really appreciate, if someone of the backers could post the email or update sent to them via the kickstarter here as well. They are not the only ones who paid for the game ;). And the common customer deserves information as well...

Well the main point for non-backers is that due to the financial reality of JAF, there is no JAF team any longer. Full Control would have loved to keep devoloping the game, but revenue doesn't make this possible. However, as a last patch, they promised to fix the female mercs prone issue and some crash bug with the pathfinder. This should be released in the upcoming weeks. After this, it's up to modders to decide whether to support the game. Some documentation and other things should be coming at a slow phase.

I am not sure what will become possible later with modding besides creating the custom campaigns, levels and stories which is also allowed now.