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Command and Conquer Corner  "Building..."

User is offline   Lunick 

#61

View PostMusicallyInspired, on 15 November 2018 - 06:23 AM, said:

Unhatched chickens.....they'll probably throw it on Origin like Microsoft put Age of Empires Definitive Edition on the Windows Store. I'm not bothering with that. Otherwise I'd be all over this.


Hey, at least it would run from Origin. Microsoft has no fucking clue with their store
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#62

View PostMusicallyInspired, on 15 November 2018 - 06:23 AM, said:

Unhatched chickens.....they'll probably throw it on Origin like Microsoft put Age of Empires Definitive Edition on the Windows Store. I'm not bothering with that. Otherwise I'd be all over this.

Forget about that mentality! Sure, Origin is not as good as Steam but I really don't like the scenario of PC gaming = Steam. It's not that I hate Valve or Steam but a monopoly is always bad for consumers (look at Nvidia's GPU prices...) so even though other clients are worse (and yes, you have to install additional clients which is a hassle) I like picking up certain games on stores made by a specific publisher. If C&C is sold on Origin that means that EA gets more money from an individual sale and that way it's easier for the game to be financially successful (around 30% easier? :rolleyes:). And at the end it all comes down to financial success: if the remasters make good money we'll get more C&C and more C&C is good.

As for the Windows Store I have to say that while currently it's shit I'm rooting for Microsoft because the idea itself is great + MS is big enough to compete with Steam. You see, the Windows Store is nothing more than a tradtional Windows service that is managing your apps, it's an integral part of the OS itself. That means there's no client to launch so when you want to launch a game you bought from the Store you just click on the desktop shortcut and voila, it works like it used to in the old days. I like seeing that.

The problem is of course that the Store is buggy as hell and since it is a part of the OS it was also designed as a part of the OS rather than a separate service. That's why you have to mess around in the system settings of Windows 10 even if you want to choose which drive to install your games on and that's why it feels like an unintuitive piece of shit with a limited set of options. The store was made by people who design Windows OS functionality instead of storefronts and gaming services, that's why it sucks but thankfully a huge revamp is coming... eventually, they are working on it for quite a while now.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 15 November 2018 - 08:35 PM

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User is offline   ReaperAA 

#63

View PostCommando Nukem, on 15 November 2018 - 11:04 AM, said:

I'll be a happy man if we get remasters of Red Alert 2/Yuri's Revenge and TS(muh nostalgiaaaa)



I really wish this TD/RA1 remaster is successful so that we get TS/RA2 remasters too.

As for TS/RA2 remasters, that would be dream come true because that engine is my favourite RTS engine for several reasons:
1) Easiest to mod engine i have ever seen (cannot emphasize enough)
2) I like Isometric more than top down.
3) Voxel support

I even made a mod for Tiberian sun which is called TS: Enhanced: https://www.moddb.co...an-sun-enhanced

There are other much greater mods for Tiberian Sun/ Red alert 2 at moddb such as:
1) Mental Omega
2) Twisted Insurrection
3) Dawn of The Tiberium Age (which is pretty much already a TD/RA1 remaster of sorts)
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#64

It was kinda confirmed in the initial "we're thinking about this, stay tuned" announcement that TS and RA2 are coming too since they were talking about generally remastering the old games. TD + RA1 is just the first phase of this initiative, guess how far they're going will depend on just how successful this stuff will be though.

Anyway I'm more excited about what they'll do with TD and RA1 to be honest. The art in those games really needs a fairly substantial redesign in my opinion, it just doesn't hold up because it lacks finer detail. EA hired the company that did the art for StarCraft Remastered for the job so I'm not worried but in the case of SC being faithful to the original art and only remaking that in high res was a no brainer.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 15 November 2018 - 10:36 PM

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User is offline   ReaperAA 

#65

View PostZaxx, on 15 November 2018 - 10:36 PM, said:

TD + RA1 is just the first phase of this initiative, guess how far they're going will depend on just how successful this stuff will be though.


Ofcourse they will only make TS/RA2 remaster if TD/RA1 remaster turns out to be successful. Otherwise they won't do it.



View PostZaxx, on 15 November 2018 - 10:36 PM, said:

Anyway I'm more excited about what they'll do with TD and RA1 to be honest. The art in those games really needs a fairly substantial redesign in my opinion, it just doesn't hold up because it lacks finer detail. EA hired the company that did the art for StarCraft Remastered for the job so I'm not worried but in the case of SC being faithful to the original art and only remaking that in high res was a no brainer.


I too am excited. But I reckon remastering TD/RA1 is going to be harder than remastering SC as they require much more than just a modern paint. Things i would like in TD/RA1 remaster are:
1) Improved UI/sidebar like that in C&C3/RA3 or at least like in RA2
2) Multiple unit queue. No one unit at a time like in TD/RA1. Multiple factory production like in Generals onwards is debatable though.
3) Improved Skirmish options like in C&C3 (AI personalities, chose starting location, chose teams etc)
4) Improved faction vs faction balance through tweaking unit stats (But not add too much new units)
5) Modding/ Editing support (ABSOLUTE MUST)
6) LAN + good network/netcode
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User is offline   Dzierzan 

#66

Well, I am not super happy about the new remasters. They might improve graphics, music or UI. But if the balance between factions won't be improved as well, then the game will die pretty quickly. So it's gonna be like remaster for SP.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#67

Gameplay balance will be modified, we already know that much. What we don't know is how extensive that will be and that's interesting because the way I see it TA and RA1 would need some very deep changes to fix up the balance.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 17 November 2018 - 02:21 AM

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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#68

View PostReaperAA, on 16 November 2018 - 12:14 AM, said:

I too am excited. But I reckon remastering TD/RA1 is going to be harder than remastering SC as they require much more than just a modern paint. Things i would like in TD/RA1 remaster are:
1) Improved UI/sidebar like that in C&C3/RA3 or at least like in RA2
2) Multiple unit queue. No one unit at a time like in TD/RA1. Multiple factory production like in Generals onwards is debatable though.
3) Improved Skirmish options like in C&C3 (AI personalities, chose starting location, chose teams etc)
4) Improved faction vs faction balance through tweaking unit stats (But not add too much new units)
5) Modding/ Editing support (ABSOLUTE MUST)
6) LAN + good network/netcode

I'm fairly certain that OpenRA addresses at least some of these issues. But there is indeed the question of how much the original C&C mechanics constitute the core of the game.

On a different note, I've always felt that C&C: TD is more leaning towards micro management on an almost tactical level, whereas RA1 and subsequent titles are more on the macro side. It's almost like the developers originally envisioned a slightly different gameplay style than what the series ended up with, because it often seems that in C&C (at least, in the SP campaigns) you're supposed to accomplish tasks with a rather compact, limited force that you gotta keep alive as long as possible, with fairly limited resources for replacements. Later titles though involve a much larger scale of battles, which partly comes from the setting as well (Red Alert basically being the alternate history version of WWII).

For example many of the campaign maps in C&C where you have to attack the enemy base contain a back door of sorts where you can sneak through to bypass strong defences like the Nod obelisks. I had the impression that this has become much less prominent in the map design of RA1 although admittedly there's a lot more going on there generally compared to C&C.

The question is, how far can these peculiarities be replicated and improved upon in a remake? Back in 1995, computing power was probably a factor too in how some limitations were imposed, also the AI was generally pretty basic (for example in C&C all campaign maps have scripted attacks, down to waypoints that AI unit teams should use to get to the player's base). Something can probably be added or altered based on the setting as mentioned above, because C&C and RA1 are actually about completely different types of warfare, and with a different scope.

I'd probably prefer a fairly conservative remake overall, even though stuff like prefabricated buildings popping out of the ground is not particularly realistic. But then again, most of features like that in RTS games aren't too realistic in most cases, the whole concept of building a base and constructing units right on the battlefield is not the most common in real world warfare for instance (or at least, real field factories are very different from what you have in C&C games). These RTS conventions are part of the charm as much as part of gameplay mechanics.

I probably wold not welcome a change in pacing of gameplay. As far asI can tell modern RTS games often feel very fast, you're immediately pressed to quickly develop and build up a force, be it multiplayer, skirmish or campaign mode. C&C is actually pretty slow paced compared to this, even in Tiberian Sun as I remember there would always be (in the SP campaigns) a build-up phase where you scout around and develop your base, without being pressed to stay on your toes and pump out more and more units to repel continuous enemy attack waves. I think the slow pacing could be developed upon as a legitimate part of gameplay without making it too boring or repetitive.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#69

Honestly when it comes to the campaigns I don't think there should be many changes to the balance. I prefer the approach that SC2 had by keeping the campaigns and the multiplayer absolutely separate from each other so in the campaigns they could have crazy bullshit balance sometimes that made specific missions a lot more fun than they could have been if balance has to be "serious" all the time.

If that stuff is not separate you can have problems, for example in SC's Brood War campaigns there are a few minor issues that were caused by Blizzard changing the game balance for multiplayer further down the line. For example there is a protoss mission early on where you have to use the corsair's ability so the dragoon reinforcements you get could destory a few sunken colonies. In the vanilla balance this was an easy-peasy task so you could just expand your base to that location immediately but then the corsair's ability got nerfed so now the originally intended mission behavior is not there anymore (the buildings you disable come back online a lot earlier so the dragoons can't finish the job). It's not a biggie but it does make the mission harder very slightly which can mean the difference for some players.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 17 November 2018 - 04:27 AM

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User is offline   NNC 

#70

Actually the Soviet campaign in the original RA wasn't any easier than the Allied campaign, despite being an OP fraction. So I'm not sure what this "remastered" thing means. Better resolution for the videos, some dynamic lights, animated cutscenes reworked, and not sure what else. Maybe they can implement stuff like garrisoning buildings, or multiple unit trainings and a few other things. The best would be a new campaign, but how can you do it without the same actors?
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User is offline   NNC 

#71

The most famous moment of CnC series. :rolleyes:

Posted Image
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User is offline   ReaperAA 

#72

View PostMrFlibble, on 17 November 2018 - 03:15 AM, said:



I probably would not welcome a change in pacing of gameplay. As far as I can tell modern RTS games often feel very fast, you're immediately pressed to quickly develop and build up a force, be it multiplayer, skirmish or campaign mode. C&C is actually pretty slow paced compared to this, even in Tiberian Sun as I remember there would always be (in the SP campaigns) a build-up phase where you scout around and develop your base, without being pressed to stay on your toes and pump out more and more units to repel continuous enemy attack waves. I think the slow pacing could be developed upon as a legitimate part of gameplay without making it too boring or repetitive.


I get what u mean. Later c&c games like C&C3/RA3 got very rush-heavy because of high credits available and also due to multiple factory production, which is why i stated that it is debatable.
As for the unit queues, I don't think anyone would like 1 unit queue of TD/RA1 (Atleast give us a 30-unit queue like in RA2 if not more). I think this shouldn't really affect the pace as in original C&C the build times were slower and tiberium/resource gathering was also slow. As long as this isn't drastically changed, the pace could be retained.


View PostZaxx, on 17 November 2018 - 04:24 AM, said:

Honestly when it comes to the campaigns I don't think there should be many changes to the balance. I prefer the approach that SC2 had by keeping the campaigns and the multiplayer absolutely separate from each other so in the campaigns they could have crazy bullshit balance sometimes that made specific missions a lot more fun than they could have been if balance has to be "serious" all the time.


Agreed with this. Another example of multiplayer balance ruining campaign missions is in C&C3. There is a lategame GDI mission where u have to destroy 3 Scrin bases. In the original version, this mission was lot easier as u could defend ur base with mammoth tanks and also attack when u had enough of them. But when the mammoth tanks received the nerf-hammer, it became near-impossible to achieve 100% bonus objectives/completion on hard difficulty for that mission.
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User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#73

View PostReaperAA, on 15 November 2018 - 09:55 PM, said:

I really wish this TD/RA1 remaster is successful so that we get TS/RA2 remasters too.

As for TS/RA2 remasters, that would be dream come true because that engine is my favourite RTS engine for several reasons:
1) Easiest to mod engine i have ever seen (cannot emphasize enough)
2) I like Isometric more than top down.
3) Voxel support

I even made a mod for Tiberian sun which is called TS: Enhanced: https://www.moddb.co...an-sun-enhanced

There are other much greater mods for Tiberian Sun/ Red alert 2 at moddb such as:
1) Mental Omega
2) Twisted Insurrection
3) Dawn of The Tiberium Age (which is pretty much already a TD/RA1 remaster of sorts)


My brother and I used to fiddle around with the Tiberian Editor and make new "custom' units. At one point I had made a little mini mod that turned the Nod into the Umbrella Corporation and the GDI into the Racoon City Police department. The Nod Cyborg Commando was "Nemesis" with a chaingun and anti air rockets. That thing was crash happy though. Ah, those were the days...
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#74

View PostZaxx, on 17 November 2018 - 04:24 AM, said:

Honestly when it comes to the campaigns I don't think there should be many changes to the balance. I prefer the approach that SC2 had by keeping the campaigns and the multiplayer absolutely separate from each other so in the campaigns they could have crazy bullshit balance sometimes that made specific missions a lot more fun than they could have been if balance has to be "serious" all the time.

I agree, and also it's worth noting that C&C (TD) actually did this a bit too because the campaign tech trees are different from the MP tech trees for both factions (but mostly it's the "special" units like the Commando that are not buildable in the SP mode).

However what I meant to say that unlike the StarCraft remaster where they deliberately did not touch the actual game mechanics, some of these are fairly likely to get updated to some extent in the C&C remasters, apart from/in addition to possible "quality of life" improvements like multiple unit queuing. It is my understanding that the Age of Empires remaster followed the same route as they apparently updated the AI, at least unit pathfinding IIRC.

Even just by looking at the later pre-EA instalments in the series (namely TS and RA2/YR), I believe there are multiple ways in which the C&C games may -get updates and/or enhancements in the campaigns. First off there may be some scripted cutscenes running on the game engine added, which are already present to some extent in RA1 and even more prominently in Aftermath. A healing crate pickup could be oh so useful in the C&C missions where you have no base. You could get some actual urban settings in the first two games as well I guess, and generally more decorations for the tilesets. But all this strongly deviates from a conservative remake approach.

Would be nice if they brought back one cut feature though. Remember, in Dune 2 you could access your mentat and get unit and building descriptions during a mission? Apparently the same feature was planned in C&C. Some of the pre-release footage and screenshots from the game (some available here) show an interface tab called "Database" which I assume to have had identical functions to the Mentat screen in Dune 2. The unit and building renders you can see in the game manual (which were later re-used for the Mac/Win95 version sidebar icons) were apparently intended for the EVA database function.

View PostNancsi, on 17 November 2018 - 04:47 AM, said:

The best would be a new campaign, but how can you do it without the same actors?

They can still make new campaigns with text briefings only, like in the mission CDs.

For C&C there's also the possibility of EVA briefings like this:

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#75

View PostMrFlibble, on 17 November 2018 - 10:12 AM, said:

It is my understanding that the Age of Empires remaster followed the same route as they apparently updated the AI, at least unit pathfinding IIRC.

Oh yeah, Age of Empires got a complete balance revamp. They based most of the changes on this mod:
https://upatch-hd.weebly.com/
They improved the pathing too but it's not fantastic. Overall AoE DE turned out well though, it's not dead because it's shit, it's dead because AoE2 HD exists and if you play AoE online you play AoE2.

And when it comes to balance basically every single RTS that came out before SC needs these changes because SC made all of them obsolete. That game focused on faction balance a lot while nobody else gave a fuck about that before (and really there is a good reason why Blizzard started remastering from SC and not from War1 or War2).

There is one thing about SC's balance and the subject in general though: even SC isn't perfect and if you know the history of pro SC you know that it was not Blizzard that balanced the game out but the Korean scene. SC achieves perfect balance only in high level play and only on maps made specifically so none of the races are overpowered, any kind of gameplay not fulfilling those two requirements will have balance issues. It's a shame that a lot of players don't know this so basically every other RTS is getting shit from SC fans while in reality SC is a generally nicely balanced game for sure but it's absolutely not better than any well made RTS that came out after SC. RA2 or AoE2 are just as good.

And why is SC balanced in high level play? Because after a while Blizzard left the game as it was and the Koreans spent so much time with that state of the balance that they know everything about it at this point so they could even out the playing field through certain bugs and exploits. There lies the rabbit hole when it comes to balance really: for example there is a whole balance team working on SC2 but they change the game around all the damn time so the high level balance of SC1 will never be achieved because players don't have time to truly adjust and learn if you introduce new things so frequently.

Because of this I really do think that Petroglyph should do the same thing Microsoft did with AoE DE and base the new balance on a tried and tested version of the game like OpenRA. That would be a lot better than starting from scratch, especially since they have two games to balance now. The producer guy from EA said that they've already spoken with the OpenRA team and that's great because those guys can sure as shit help Petroglyph in balancing.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 17 November 2018 - 11:35 AM

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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#76

On another note, I thought that in retrospect C&C and RA1 have so many similarities that is they're completely rewriting everything they could just as well amalgamate both games into one, including using the same temperate terrain for example (seeing how the RA version is just an update of the C&C one). Would be nice to have an option for custom game battles between factions from both titles, and yes, a proper versus AI skirmish mode in C&C (but I think this one goes without saying).

At the same time I wouldn't mind if the infantry, with more detail added, would be different between C&C and RA1 (the 1.5 scale of infantry units for the original Windows version doesn't count :rolleyes:), since they actually come from different time periods. Generally, there's probably going to be a lot of work in the graphics department even compared to StarCraft Remastered because more fundamental changes are in order.

I wonder how they'll solve the faction colour issue. I should say I never liked the colour schemes used in Red Alert. At least in C&C, the GDI colour may be assumed to be desert camo (very out of place in the European theatre) and Nod's grey as the urban camo, quite like what is shown in the FMVs. However in RA the units are plain blue and red. Very neat but completely unrealistic. Makes one wonder why they didn't use some other colour schemes available, in skirmish you can get dark grey and dark brown for example. This is how the faction colours are handled in Steel Panthers (different genre but also tanks & infantry units there).
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#77

On a sidenote: it looks like AoE DE is coming to Xbox:
https://www.reddit.c...on_appears_for/

I hope this turns out to be true and Microsoft will support the mouse and keyboard functionality that just came out for the console with some games. It would be great if the RTS genre could go multiplatform without compromise, that could increase publisher interest for sure.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 17 November 2018 - 04:53 PM

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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#78

On the topic of graphics, a while ago I discovered a rather obscure Polish RTS called Tridonis which is very obviously inspired by the Command & Conquer visual style and designs but uses a higher resolution. A playable demo from a coverdisk is available here. I'm not sure if it would be beneficial for a C&C remaster to go in this direction but the graphics in Tridonis actually look pretty neat as a hypothetical "C&C in higher resolution" thingy.

A user from the CNCNZ forums carried out a community survey concerning the remaster, with the results actually showing (among other things) that out of 1,089 respondents, the majority (36,7%) voted for a transition to 3D, with a slightly smaller share of those who would like to see redrawn sprites as in StarCraft Remastered (28,9%). Another 15% chose a transition from top-down 2D to 2D isometric view along the lines of TS/RA2. Honestly I'm a bit surprised by this result.

Yet another thing I thought about is that Command & Conquer envisioned a modern conflict, implied to be happening "twenty minutes into the future", which is actually one of the central themes around which the entire setting of the game is built. For example, EVA is not simply a fancy name for the user interface, it is supposed to be military software used for remote battlefield command from a personal computer, with the player being invited to be that commander by installing the game. This is drastically different from all the other games in the series that take place in time frames outside from the present, and the commander person is accordingly a fictional character whose role the player assumes but does not necessarily identify with (TS ditched the player commander convention entirely, only to bring it back in Firestorm). I believe that great care must be taken to preserve this unique atmosphere of the first game in a proper remaster, something from which the Windows 95 Gold edition unfortunately started to deviate (for example, the high-res menu fonts no longer match the green EVA font used in the FMVs like shown above).

The thing is, Command & Conquer has become "retrofuturistic" with the passage of time. For example, the intro sequence with switching TV channels before tuning into the GDI/Nod transmissions makes a lot less sense today than it did in 1995, especially to the younger audiences. Of course it can be accurately preserved, but then again it could be reimagined in a modern way (e.g. by imitating web browsing instead of watching TV). There's no immediate answer to which is the right approach, but it highlights the fact that updating a game like C&C for a modern audience and tech goes beyond simply redrawing graphics in higher resolution and adding interface improvements.

My personal opinion is that leaving everything as it is would be a sloppy job. This leaves two viable options, either update the setting to a modern one (2018 instead of 1995), or emphasise the fact that it's 1995 while sacrificing the "twenty minutes into the future" feel and making the result a true piece of retrofuturistic fiction. EIther way it would require some creative talent to pull off properly I guess.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#79

Quote

The thing is, Command & Conquer has become "retrofuturistic" with the passage of time. For example, the intro sequence with switching TV channels before tuning into the GDI/Nod transmissions makes a lot less sense today than it did in 1995, especially to the younger audiences. Of course it can be accurately preserved, but then again it could be reimagined in a modern way (e.g. by imitating web browsing instead of watching TV).

Yeah and these days battlefield control wouldn't even be established from a computer but from something different.... like a tablet... or a mobile device:

:rolleyes:

I dunno, the thing is that if you remaster C&C I think you should do just that because no matter what the original concept was the game means different things to different people. For example I love how TD is so clearly a product of the 90s and to me it's just so interesting to see that a real life humanitarian crysis is being represented there. There is a LOT from the Chechen and Yugoslavian Wars in that game and I think nobody should change that especially since the Nod inherently has this Eastern European / Slav vibe.

With that said I'd be all over a reboot of the Tiberium universe since I think Westwood could never realize all of its potential. There is a great opportunity in there to make something more serious, a kinda "harder" sci-fi since Westwood tapped into a great subject: a sudden shift in world economy. Basically the world of C&C gets as fucked up as it is because an alien substance starts spreading on Earth that quickly becomes a precious resource on top of being toxic as hell. The GDI is a more active, militarisctic branch of the UN that wants to do its basic humanitarian job by stopping the Tiberium infestation while Eurasia thinks of it only as a resource that could help in them becoming the strongest power on the planet. The Nod gets a monopoly on Tiberium mining, that's why they can emerge as a powerful force even though they are originally nothing more than a terrorist organization. They also operate with a strong propaganda machine that gives religious significane to Tiberium so they can do all of their crazy experiments and their society embraces Tiberium to such an extent that they become infested by it or as they think: augmented by it.

There is a great potential for subtext there, it's a such a cool conflict that it can reflect on our world in countless ways. And of course the "twist ending" is pretty awesome too in that Tiberium did not hit the Earth accidentally, it was just part of the Scrin terraforming operation.
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#80

View PostZaxx, on 18 November 2018 - 04:51 AM, said:

I dunno, the thing is that if you remaster C&C I think you should do just that because no matter what the original concept was the game means different things to different people. For example I love how TD is so clearly a product of the 90s and to me it's just so interesting to see that a real life humanitarian crysis is being represented there. There is a LOT from the Chechen and Yugoslavian Wars in that game and I think nobody should change that especially since the Nod inherently has this Eastern European / Slav vibe.

I completely agree with this. I was thinking though that maybe a little tweaking would help put the whole thing into a context in remaster.

For example the intro video could be framed by showing a scene from 1995 showing a guy putting the C&C CD into his PC and then watching the intro, with the camera slowly moving over his shoulder to focus on the computer screen and the intro video itself. Perhaps this could be somehow referencing that old MTV commercial for Red Alert. That would maintain the "mythos" of the setting without having to put another layer of suspension of disbelief for the players to pretend they were back in 1995 :rolleyes:

On a different but related note, I find it somewhat striking how all the Tiberium sequels departed from the focus of the first game, which is indeed as you say centred on the real world first and foremost, and its reaction to the alien substance, while Tiberian Sun is more about the substance and its effects, with the world having completely changed and the whole story becoming pure sci-fi thing. I also like how the first game slowly introduces the player to the game world, giving piecemeal information on Tiberium, the Brotherhood and other aspects of the conflict. I think this narrative strategy was never really repeated elsewhere, even though the other games also create their own consistent worlds. Command & Conquer literally tries to drag the player inside, which is in part accomplished also by how little different its world is from ours (or at least, from the contemporary world upon the game's release).

This of course also begs the question whether a similarly structures but completely different game could be born out of the world of today.
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#81

View PostMrFlibble, on 18 November 2018 - 09:32 AM, said:

For example the intro video could be framed by showing a scene from 1995 showing a guy putting the C&C CD into his PC and then watching the intro, with the camera slowly moving over his shoulder to focus on the computer screen and the intro video itself. Perhaps this could be somehow referencing that old MTV commercial for Red Alert. That would maintain the "mythos" of the setting without having to put another layer of suspension of disbelief for the players to pretend they were back in 1995 :rolleyes:

Another idea: drop the "this is happening right now" pretense, which would make many presentation choices outdated, and adopt a "leaked douments" approach. Present it as "In 1995, a war broke out for the control of a dangerous material. The government systematically covered it up, and now, thanks to us, you'll learn the truth!"
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#82

This shit is so good:

I'm really excited to see how Klepacki will approach the old soundtracks for the remasters. Remixes? A lot of the Renegade tracks are actually remixed versions of older stuff and I love that soundtrack (basically the only part of the game that's legit good :rolleyes:).
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User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#83

Oh I don't know about that. I got a lot of good fun out of Renegade's multiplayer back in the day. Especially when my bro and I would hook up our computers, order some pizzas, and spend the day playing Generals and Renegades. It was good stuff.

It's just a shame that nobody has ever been able to go back and perfect the formula. The hardware limitations at the time held Renegades back from being as good as it could have been. It's just a concept that requires bigger scope. I'm still angry they cancelled Tiberium. That looked sweet.


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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#84

Oh yeah, the cancellation of Tiberium was a big downer for me too, that game looked really cool. Even this half-finished leaked mission intro is full of atmosphere and some awesome post-C&C3 world building:

Instead we got C&C4, dear God, EA.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#85

Hey, this exists:

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#86

Oh boy:
Posted Image
https://twitter.com/...232094862036993
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#87

That image was cool but this? THIS IS AMAZING:

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User is offline   Sledgehammer 

  • Once you start doubting, there's no end to it

#88

One of my favorite series into which I've got properly when I bought Ultimate Collection back in 2013 just for 4 bucks on Amazon (definitely one of my best investment), though before that I played Dune 2 on MD with Dune 2000 on playstation and tried RA2, Generals and RA3 at some point but not for too long. Tiberium series became my favorite with Tiberian Sun being the first despite all of its flaws (if only they didn't rush game development). Loved the fact that campaign was much longer compared to the first game and had more variety in choices along with great atmosphere, especially when it comes to some GDI maps, TS is comfy as fuck.

On the other hand Tiberian Dawn has that "funky" feeling with some realism elements, it's hard to explain, maybe it's real life references and resemblance of historical events along with mass media outlets presence, loved all those TV channels, they add a lot to the game. Plus I have a thing for Yugoslav Wars. I don't think there is anything like that yet, at least I haven't played it. I mean just look at this masterpiece:


And listen to this:


There is that feeling that the world is going to dark times and despite some cheesiness the game has pretty believable serious tone to which soundtrack also suits perfectly. Tiberian Dawn I'd place almost on par with TS perhaps, but those games are quite different and in some cases they offer different things. Gotta say I really love the plot of Tiberium universe including first RA which was a prequel to TD and before it became its own universe. It's simple and yet there is so much happenings in it and so many references, to me the game is more than just some RTS. RA2 was great, but gameplay surely took priority over everything else.
Spoiler


Tiberium Wars with Kane's Wrath were good but not as strong as previous games in term of atmosphere, wasn't satisfied with ending too, in fact I think the main game became so-so after Scrin invasion (didn't like the fact that they were bug-like, they were supposed to look different before EA fucked Westwood). The OST was a huge letdown and the worst offender, putting generic as fuck orchestra there was a huge mistake and if it doesn't work in many games CnC is suffering the most from it. Plus this is where esports cancer started to infect franchise because apparently EA was desperate for SC clone, thankfully it's not as noticeable like it was in RA3 and I'm glad that Tiberium universe had good modern 3D games. Still I like TW and KW more than RA2 I guess.

RA3 is a huge mess (even though I liked some of the shit in there, so I guess it's not bad for playing skirmish) and CnC4 never happened.

Anyway, a honorable mention to Dune 2, Dune 2000 and Emperor: Battle for Dune. Emperor is the most underrated Dune and an RTS game despite being the last Westwood game. I loved how they handled campaign there, you had a big map and could go almost anywhere while your territory could be captured too.

Here are more useful links because nobody posted patches/fixes for other CnC games beside TD:
Command & Conquer Gold patch was already posted several times, but MrFlibble was the first to post.
Tiberian Sun patch: https://forums.cncne...blems-and-more/
Red Alert 2 resolution fix (it also fixes slowdowns): https://www.moddb.co...n-fix-for-ra2yr
GenTool for Generals and its expansion, a very powerful tool, the site overall is pretty useful: https://www.gentool.net/

There is also a very good version of Dune 2000 with a lot of options (yeah, fixes/improvements packaged with original game), not sure if I can post a link or a name though, but there is this thing: https://forum.dune2k...s-new-features/

Finally if anyone here even knows about Dune 2 which started it all and would like to play it, there are the most notable source ports: Dune Legacy and Dune Dynasty.

View PostNancsi, on 03 April 2018 - 03:36 AM, said:

never got into the modern games though.

Tiberium Wars along with Kane's Wrath are worth getting into, the latter is way better, both TW and KW are pretty good as CnC games. Tiberium Wars has balance issue in campaign though because they nerfed harvesters in the game itself but didn't fix AI in campaign, so as a result it can harvest and keep more tiberium than player. Kane's Wrath is fine though as far as I know.

View PostZaxx, on 14 November 2018 - 04:44 PM, said:

I'm so fucking happy:

That's too early. With EA it should be "I believe it when I see it". They can easily ruin the game.

That said, are OpenRA devs working on it too? I swear I read somewhere that they're involved? I really hope they aren't on board. OpenRA is shit for one fact alone: they nerfed engineers because faggot developers were defeated by a guy who captured both their bases by engineer rush. It is why I don't want to bother with their so called "source ports" and I'm glad there is really no reason to bother with them thanks to the people who made patches for games. Imagine if Duke 3D weapons or Duke himself were nerfed just because someone knew how to play Dukematch better than source port devs.

View PostLunick, on 15 November 2018 - 07:32 PM, said:

Hey, at least it would run on Windows 7 or 8.1.

FTFY

This post has been edited by Sledgehammer: 13 January 2019 - 02:52 AM

2

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#89

View PostSledgehammer, on 13 January 2019 - 02:41 AM, said:

There is that feeling that the world is going to dark times and despite some cheesiness the game has pretty believable serious tone to which soundtrack also suits perfectly. Tiberian Dawn I'd place almost on par with TS perhaps, but those games are quite different and in some cases they offer different things. Gotta say I really love the plot of Tiberium universe including first RA which was a prequel to TD and before it became its own universe. It's simple and yet there is so much happenings in it and so many references, to me the game is more than just some RTS. RA2 was great, but gameplay surely took priority over everything else.
Spoiler

Heh, I completely agree with all that :) I still like TD more than TS for whatever reason. I do appreciate the atmosphere in TS, and the movies are great, but somehow it didn't feel as engaging as the first game for me. FS felt more coherent in that respect, but it's also shorter and entirely linear. Cool stuff with Nod stealing an EVA unit for their communication subplot, the missions with limited forces felt more well thought out generally. There's one in TS where you need to recover the Tacitus as Nod with a small force, that one I didn't like because it felt incomplete. You can find orange Nod which are hostile, and basically try capturing their buildings or whatever but this never seemed to be useful for the mission even though the briefing mentions these Vega's forces. I always felt that maybe you were supposed to "rescue" these units like in Blizzard games (i.e. take control of them) and use them against the GDI, but this was not properly implemented.

View PostSledgehammer, on 13 January 2019 - 02:41 AM, said:

Anyway, a honorable mention to Dune 2, Dune 2000 and Emperor: Battle for Dune. Emperor is the most underrated Dune and an RTS game despite being the last Westwood game. I loved how they handled campaign there, you had a big map and could go almost anywhere while your territory could be captured too.

Emperor was an interesting experiment for sure, but after a while (I replayed the entire game several times for different Houses) those random missions would become basically just skirmish maps with scripted secondary objectives. When I was replaying on hard difficulty, the AI would at some point amass huge armies that were too much for my video card to handle back then, with the framerate dropping to an unplayable crawl. So to avoid this I would start a mission, rush the initial troops to seek out the enemy construction yard and take it out while unfurling the base just in case the starting forces were not enough (and you have reinforcements in most missions too!). This turned out to be the most efficient strategy altogether, but would never work on a regular hand-crafted map in any previous Westwood RTS of course.

View PostZaxx, on 13 January 2019 - 12:53 AM, said:

That image was cool but this? THIS IS AMAZING

Thanks for sharing, I love this! Many of the rearrangements sound quite different, nice.

Having some nostalgia here, currently at the Renegade section. I picked this game because it was part of the franchise, and man what a disappointment it turned out to be. The first few levels kind of keep your hopes up that this is the same C&C universe experienced from the first person perspective, but the design flaws quickly make the game pretty frustrating. I totally hated how it virtually punishes you for exploration and sidetracking by introducing a very strict time factor for achieving high score for each mission (akin to the RTS titles in the series), even though each level has quite a lot of stuff to explore. And you can't just reload the level because loading a saved game automatically disallows getting the highest score possible (basically saving = cheating). To replay a level, you either save at the end of the previous one and load that game, or replay from the menu, meaning pistol start and no health/armour bonuses that you collect along the campaign (they are very handy on highest difficulty).

The story and level design creativity also seems to have run out at some point before the campaign was completed, seeing as how the game has you getting into a place in one level and then out of it through the same scenery in a subsequent level twice (that's out of a total of 14 levels), and has the characters run away from a nuke twice (well, maybe it's just me picking here already...). You have escort missions too, of the most frustrating kind (no control over NPC, which gets in the way, runs straight into enemy fire etc. etc.). Also the visual design went away from the more realistic tone of the first C&C game towards something closer to Tiberian Sun or whatever, with Nod troops wearing bright red-and-black suits and Darth Vaderesque gas masks with glowy red eyes instead of urban camo seen in the first game, the vehicle design is similarly flashy and bright, and everything generally kind of steps away from the more gritty visuals that are characteristic of C&C the RTS.

BUT, all that said, I played Renegade through several times (including pistol-start only runs to get a good score), and even though it would get frustrating more often than I'd be comfortable with, I should say I enjoyed it overall. There are some good levels with a nice change of and pace scenery (mostly in the first half of the game), and I think that I've generally grown on Renegade despite its shortcomings. Lots of nostalgia. It'd still be fun to see a more faithful experience of the C&C world from the first person view though.

Back to the concert, the dedication to John Bain is very touching.
1

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#90

That drum solo was way cool.

Loved the encore!
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