C&C Labs News Wire

— Wednesday, September 28, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 2:26:26 PM ET

Recent Modding News

Time for a quick modding roundup:
  • Project Perfect Mod's animation contest ends tomorrow, September 29th. You can submit almost any kind of animation (building ones are the only kind you can't). More info here.
  • Even though CNC World Rebellion was cancelled recently, you can the old beta version at CNCNZ.
  • Cold War Crisis has released a new render and in-game shot.
  • Chronojam from RenAlert has posted up their changelist for version .9935. In .9935 there will be new maps, new weapons, a new vehicle (Phase Transport), numerous bug fixes and balance tweaking. Details at the site.
  • CNCDen has a new map (The Season's First Snow by mrp028) and singleplayer mission (Breaking Rank by Iron Man Maps) for Zero Hour.
  • An Act of War has several new renders and screenshots.
    Last edited by Blbpaws on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 at 6:31:28 PM.

— Saturday, September 24, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 3:20:23 PM ET

Is No News Good News?

You may have noticed that there have been just a few newsposts the last week or so. This is not because of any filtering here at GW or because we're simply ignoring the news (which has happened before, sadly); there simply is no news to report. As far as news goes, the community is silent. I don't know what EA is doing with C&C, but I sure think they are shooting themselves in the foot with their silence. Over the next eight months to a year, they're going to be a number of RTS games coming out, including BFME II from EA, Star Wars: Empire at War from Petroglyph, and Age of Empires III. You could say that if C&C is to hold its own in this next round, EA needs to be putting forth their best effort. Are they? I don't know. All I'm sensing is that the majority of fans are growing restless, which might account for the drought in news. If anything new comes along, we'll be sure to keep you posted.

— Friday, September 23, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 5:09:35 PM ET

BFME II Community Summit Report from the DEN

At CNC DEN, they have posted a report of the Battle For Middle Earth II Community Summit held in August. The report details the successes and failures of BFME1 and how the producers and designers plan on developing BFMEII and some new features they plan to implement. The report concludes with the following sentiments, which I, at least, found very surprising.
This time around, it looks as if EA is really looking to please both its casual and hardcore gamers. By introducing an improved engine, new units, and abilities they will be sure to keep fans of the original game happy, and for those that had complaints about the first Battle for Middle Earth, it looks as if EA has really taken that feedback to heart and is working on many features to help increase both this game's single and multiplayer life.

Command and Conquer recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and while Battle for Middle Earth II may not be the C&C sequel people are looking for, it looks like it will breath some new life into RTS games, and give fans of this genre something they can enjoy for years to come.
In any event, it will be interesting to see how BFME II unfolds, as if it is a hit, it could prove to be a harbringer of future things for CNC. If it's not a success, well, let's just say that there's one person over here who won't be surprised.

Full article here.

— Tuesday, September 20, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 2:53:36 PM ET

CNC World Caption Contest

At CNC World, they are running a caption contest. It's quite simple. Go to their image gallery, submit a caption for each photo, and enter as many times as you'd like. The prizes are below:
-Star Prize: Frank Klepacki's back-catalogue!
-C&C Red Strikes (RA2+YR) signed by the entire dev team!
-Signed RA2 collectors editions!
-Other goodies including mouse mats, strategy guides, figurines, etc...

— Sunday, September 18, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 4:40:05 PM ET

New Poll and Poll Results

I've updated the poll, now asking you to compare ZH to other RTS games. You can vote on the right sidebar. Here are the results from the last one:
Did you vote in the Community Awards?
Yes
6
30%
No
14
70%

Total Votes: 20

— Saturday, September 17, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 8:53:38 AM ET

Tiberium Future: A Dying World released

Over at Project Perfect Mod, they have released the latest version of their mod, Tiberium Future: A Dying World. It features an epic battle between CABAL, the Mutants, Nod, and GDI.

— Saturday, September 17, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 8:51:52 AM ET

Preview of Project Exodus

Over at Planet CNC, they have a preview of a mod being developed for YR, Project Exodus. Here's a quote:
In an early August 2005 news post, Planet CnC reported on two screenshots from Exodus, a mod currently hosted at Project Perfect Mod forums. The pictures were of structures modeled with 3D Studio MAX and Corel Photo-Paint. The praise has been unanimous, that the work was professional quality, and more professional than what EA had done.

Exodus is based on Red Alert 2's game engine and is set in a typical fictional background. It has received inspiration from many a sci-fi work, among them movies, images, renders, and books. Titles include Fallout, StarCraft, Dark Reign, Allies Revenge 2 and Tiberian Sun. Being a mod, Exodus may not at first glance differ in essence from the traditional C&C formula, or for that matter the traditional real time strategy formula, but the project leader wants to make Exodus different.
Full thing here.

— Thursday, September 15, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 2:17:49 PM ET

Updates at ISOTX

ISOTX has the latest version, 1.04, of their mod-swapping utility Mod Toaster released in both patch and full versions. MidEast Crisis also has been given an installer, and is now updated to 1.2.

— Thursday, September 15, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 2:16:22 PM ET

World Rebellion Folds

A mod with great potential, World Rebellion has been forced to close. From mod leader Thierry's post:
World Rebellion will be coming to an end, the prime reason being the lack of active, dedicated staff. In the June/July/August months the staff slowly just stopped working on the mod, not showing up at all and not showing anything. I have lost count of the amount of modders who say they want to help, so I ask them for a model or skin or whatever they do best and then they just don't show for it. Thus, in the last few weeks, I have been doing everything solo. As I know how to model, skin, bone, code and rig I was able to get a beta out, but as not one of my staff returned, I had to call it a day and make it end.

— Monday, September 12, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:05:42 PM ET

Sperry Speaks about CNC10

Over at Planet CNC, C&C creator and legend Brett Sperry said this about C&C and the anniversary:
Ten years already! Happy Birthday to Command & Conquer and to all who made it real!

Firstly, my name is Brett Sperry, and I want to thank you and all the Commanders and fans out there who helped make Westwood Studios strong. We had a wonderful run! Your support and loyalty helped us make so many great games!

My role in C&C was primarily executive producer, lead designer, and visionary--which basically means I had this idea for an RTS with a unique set of rules, controls, and story/setting.
BUT the team deserves so much of the credit too. So many unknowns. Lots and lots of design, coding, and artistic evolutions went into the first C&C, no doubt. It was a huge game to build, and even though I kicked it all off with a particular vision in mind, it was a team effort. Without the talent, skill and dedication of everyone on that team, it wouldn't have been possible!

Command & Conquer, and its prototype/pre-cursor, Dune II, was perhaps one of our greatest offerings to gaming. What basically started out as a personal challenge to myself (must strategy games be slow and "turn"-based? What would a Real Time game look like?) evolved into early prototypes of what we now call an RTS. And thus Dune II was born.
It was a game with a completely new style of play. A real time strategy game with 3 different sides set in Frank Herbert's epic world. This game was easy to learn and addictively fun. We shipped it in 1992/93, and our fans went crazy. Dune II was wonderful. It felt like a great sportscar, a magnificent engine, with great handling BUT, it needed at least one more evolution-of-design for controls. And as much as I loved Dune, I wanted the next game to have a more contemporary story and setting.

No sooner was Dune II in beta, when I began to pitch Joe and the others new ideas on how to evolve the interface and game controls much further; the mousing back and forth, battlefield-to-menu-to-battlefield dynamic gave way to a combat field that was context sensitive/"smart". It wasn't until later in development that we took the bold step of cinematics (alas, video compression was poor back then--Forgive Us!) and we got Joe Kucan (Kane) and Eric Gooch (Seth) to play the leading Nod characters. Kucan was reluctant at first, but after our London-ECTS showing in 1993/94, he realized that A) fans liked him as a villian and B) the unfinished game was already getting rave reviews.

When C&C finally hit the stores, all our hard work was rewarded by the fans and critics! Time has flown by so quickly, and it's wonderful to see support and excitement over the original C&C still to this day. I thank you all.

And Happy Birthday Command & Conquer!

— Monday, September 12, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:01:43 PM ET

SEGA partners with Petroglyph

Slightly off topic, but very interesting nonetheless! Here's part of the official press release:
SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 12, 2005

SEGA of America, Inc. and SEGA, Europe Ltd. today announced a partnership with developer Petroglyph to create an original Real-Time Strategy (RTS) franchise for the PC. Most Petroglyph team members are former employees of Westwood Studios, where they worked on the company's titles including Blade Runner(TM), Eye of the Beholder(TM), Dune 2(TM) and the blockbuster EA franchise Command & Conquer(TM). The Las Vegas-based development team are presently completing the much-anticipated Star Wars®: Empire at War(TM).

Under the terms of the worldwide deal, Petroglyph will collaborate on creating a Modern Military / Sci-Fi themed RTS franchise exclusively for SEGA. SEGA will manage all marketing and distribution activities and work hand in hand with Petroglyph to supervise ongoing game development. Both companies will announce product and release details at a later date.

"SEGA is moving aggressively toward a leadership position in the RTS category and the team at Petroglyph is behind some of the finest games in the genre," said Simon Jeffery, President and COO, SEGA of America. "We continue to rebuild SEGA as a leading publisher by collaborating with only the very best developers in North America and Europe."

"Coincidentally, this deal marks the ten year anniversary of the blockbuster RTS series which most of the Petroglyph team worked on during our time at Westwood Studios," said Michael Legg, President of Petroglyph. "We are extremely excited about our partnership with SEGA, as it will enable us to advance the RTS genre while creating fun and exciting experiences for gamers worldwide."

Full thing here.

— Monday, September 12, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 4:05:59 AM ET

Message from Apoc

Aaron "Apoc" Kaufman passed the following message along:
Hey guys,

So I’ve been gone the past 24 hours and did not realize that some re-direction of the RA2, Tiberian Sun, and Renegade sites had possibly taken place, albeit a technical error if this is true. I am a bit confused as to what this redirection is referring to because if you click the link below you can access all of these official sites as normal.

Click here for the sites.

I saw Banshees rant and of course would like to look into this.

I will say the Renegade site does look pretty slim which I will look into as well. Clearly, we did not intentionally intend to redirect any links you are trying to access directly to the Generals site and by no means is this a conspiracy to drive more people to the Generals site. Of course, we want the entire C&C community to recognize the 10th anniversary story I created at the Generals page (which will be updated on Monday with part 2 of the Louis Castle interview), but again, any redirection of links to pre-Generals games was not intended.

So, bottom line for everyone in the C&C community, click the link above, check out your favorite pre-Generals sites, and in the mean time, I will look into what the apparent uproar is all about.

For C&C love!!!

APOC

— Sunday, September 11, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 9:52:56 AM ET

Four Years After 9/11

Today is the four year anniversary of the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States. There are many memorials being held around the country today, and here at Generals World, we just wanted to take a moment to remember those attacks, the victims of the attacks and their loved ones, and the brave people who have lived on through them. Tonight, in the New York skyline, there will be two pillars of light shining upward into the sky to remember what once stood. For now, though, let us take a minute to remember it in our hearts.

— Sunday, September 11, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 9:43:41 AM ET

EA sends out CNC Survey

(Thanks CNC World) EA recently sent around e-mails containing survey's about Command and Conquer games, asking questions about our favorite storyline, what we like and dislike, and so on. They also asked questions about our opinions of first person shooters such as Half Life 2 and others, as well as the overall genre. This has led to speculation that the now canceled Renegade 2 project may be back in development (it aimed to bring the Red Alert 2 universe to the FPS genre). While personally I doubt we will ever see the game, it is interesting EA sent this survey around, and it allows us to recall the last time we received such an e-mail from EA, back on December 7, 2004, when Mark Skaggs "announced" Red Alert 3. In any event, the front page of the e-mail is below:
Note that the survey is signed "The C&C Team", which could lead to the conclusion that there is a CNC team hard at work....

— Sunday, September 11, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 9:35:34 AM ET

CNCNZ's Petro Interviews II

CNCNZ has a second part in their series of interviews with Petroglyph, and former Westwood, employees. The now have interviews up with famed Community Manager Chris "Delphi" Rubyor, and Frank Klepacki, creator of all the music for C&C before Generals. Here are snips from both:
CNCNZ: For those who worked on the original C&C, how does it feel to know you had a hand in creating what most people would describe as the game that defined Real Time Strategy?

Frank Klepacki: Feels awesome. I've really embraced it and accepted it as such. In the beginning, I was really surprised how well it was received, and even more shocked how well the music went over. I never would have thought back then that a soundtrack to a game could have that much of an impact.

CNCNZ: If you could travel back in time what would you go back and change in any of the C&C games?

Chris Rubyor: Create a community management team that would have started the day Westwood added Internet support to the C&C line.
Full text here.
Last edited by Blbpaws on Sunday, September 11, 2005 at 1:44:31 PM.

— Saturday, September 10, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 7:49:13 AM ET

More rumors...*yawn*

from the "where-there's-smoke-there's-a-smoke-machine dept."

Sorry to be so sarcastic, but the latest rumor, posted up at CNC DEN is the oddest I've heard yet; straight from the Lion's mouth:
I'm not one to spread rumors, but I received an interesting email today from a dude who works as a courier in Vancouver up north in Canada. On one of his deliveries this week he ran into an EA employee. For those not aware, EA has a studio in Vancouver. During the course of a brief conversation, he asked this employee if she knew anything about a new Command & Conquer game. She stated the following to him:

"If you're a Command & Conquer fan, your gonna like the new one coming out soon"

Obviously I have no way to confirm any of this, but I thought it interesting. Maybe it has something to do with EA porting some older C&C games to the PSP? Possibly the studio in Vancouver is handling that, I dunno. I could speculate on the possibilities till the cows come home. But I'll leave the speculation up to the rest of ya'll. I just report the news.
Last edited by Blbpaws on Saturday, September 10, 2005 at 11:49:40 AM.

— Friday, September 9, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:34:55 PM ET

Wallpaper Updates

A slew of wallpapers have been posted around the community recently. I posted two very well done ones below. Both will link to CNCDEN, where they were originally posted. They are done by Minh and Godwin, respectively.

— Friday, September 9, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:26:00 PM ET

Updates at ISOTX

Over at ISOTX, they have an update to their ModToaster program (1.03), which allows for easy swapping of mods, as well as an update to their mod MidEast Crisis (1.2).

— Wednesday, September 7, 2005 —

Posted By: Mike at 5:13:52 PM ET

CNCSeries Back Online

CNCSeries After a month of server problems, our affiliate CNC Series is back online. Everything on the site is fully functional, including their Clan System. Be sure to pay em a visit!
Last edited by Mike on Wednesday, September 7, 2005 at 9:15:32 PM.

— Tuesday, September 6, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 7:57:05 AM ET

C&C Top Ten at PCNC

PlanetCNC has a special feature called "C&C Top Ten". Here's the release:
Three full days of work. Two gigs of source files. So much memory usage Sony Vegas actually crashed due to insufficient memory. Twenty minutes of prancing around outside in a chemical suit, and tons and tons of wrangling with FRAPS and VQA2AVI. Ladies and gentlemen, this is my hommage to C&C's tenth anniversary. 15 minutes long, 109 MB big, and encoded with DiVX.
They have two versions, a high-res one and a low-res one. Get them at the Planet.

— Tuesday, September 6, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 7:52:44 AM ET

Victor Charlie F4

The guys over at Victor Charlie have posted up a render (seen below) and screens of their F-4 Phantom.


— Tuesday, September 6, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 7:50:28 AM ET

Red Alert 2: Road to Moscow renders

Red Alert 2: Road to Moscow has two new renders, both unskinned. One, the aircraft carrier, is seen below.

— Tuesday, September 6, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 7:48:34 AM ET

Updates at the DEN

CNC DEN has a number of new updates, including the winners to their essay contest, a new wallpaper featuring Lion's and some fan art, seen below, of a GDI soldier.


— Sunday, September 4, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:24:36 PM ET

New Poll and Poll Results

I updated the poll today. Below are the results from the last one:
What are you thoughts on CNC Continuum?
Great idea! Why was it ever cancelled?!
5
26%
Middle of the road. If Westwood made it, it would have been decent...
4
21%
Not a bad idea, but shouldn't they stick to RTS?
7
36%
Awful. Thank goodness someone pulled the plug on what would have turned out to be Sole Survivor 2!
3
15%

Total Votes: 19

— Sunday, September 4, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:21:42 PM ET

Interview with Shockwave team

Over at GamerNode, they have an interview with the CNC Shockwave team. There's also a media blitz at their site.

— Sunday, September 4, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:17:56 PM ET

Frank K's CNC10 Tribute

The legendary Frank Klepacki has posted a CNC tribute, done in the voice of a CNC character he voiced in the games. It's well done, and is a CNC classic. Get it here.
Last edited by Blbpaws on Sunday, September 4, 2005 at 5:51:51 PM.

— Sunday, September 4, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:16:26 PM ET

Possible RA3 logo at CNCDEN

CNC DEN has a possible RA3 logo. Lion stresses that it is not confirmed in the least and that it was sent in by a visitor. I find it surprising that the "copyright" was 2005. That would mean, assuming the logo is real, that RA3 was in development into 2005, possibly even well into 2005. Anyway, here it is.

— Sunday, September 4, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:13:18 PM ET

Aicraftkiller's CNC10 artwork

Aircraftkiller has released his CNC10 artwork. You can see it below, and get a full sized version here.

— Sunday, September 4, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:05:06 PM ET

2v2 Strat Guide at CNCR

Our affiliate CNC Replays has a nice strategy guide detailing 2v2 play in Zero Hour and how to improve at it. Get it here.

— Saturday, September 3, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 5:48:22 AM ET

Message from Apoc

Aaron Kaufman, EA Community Manager, sent an e-mail with the following message to webmaster's last night:
Hope everyone has been enjoying the celebration of the C&C 10th Anniversary. If you did not know, I have sent massive prize packs to many community leaders around the C&C community to celebrate the anniversary, and most importantly to give back for all your hard work and show of support. Ladies and Gentleman, this is no conspiracy theory, otherwise I would not be the community manager for this amazing franchise. I am pushing with passion and heart to show support and will keep doing so. The little things go a long way. I hope some of you are fortunate enough to win one of the many great prizes that were sent out.

I have a special treat for you tonight. I have made a commemorative page on our Official Generals site to celebrate the 10th Anniversary. There is an exclusive Community interview with Louis Castle, Part 1 which is now live. Part 2 will go live after the Labor Day holiday weekend. These are the top questions from the top C&C leaders around, and Louis was more than happy to answer. Note that these questions are geared towards the history of C&C, it’s a great read, and I hope you enjoy it.

I’ve also mirrored the community agenda on our page just to keep reinforcing what a great job you guys are doing.

You’ll also notice some fun quotes from past C&C developers, sharing some of their most memorable moments and how C&C has affected them personally.

We’ll have some more goodies coming your way next week, enjoy the Labor Day weekend and let’s continue to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Command and Conquer.

— Friday, September 2, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 6:52:08 PM ET

Flak's Steak House VI

Flak from CNC Depot has interviewed Banshee, of Project Perfect Mod. Here's a quote:
Flak: Where do you see the OMC going in the future? Will other game genres be included aswell? Banshee: The next OMC will probably happen in the beginning of the next year. This edition was harder to organize and required more time for submissions because contestants could submit one entry for each of the 3 games. So, I can't start another Open Map Competition in the end of this year. I've seen many people requesting me to include Renegade in the next edition. Aaron Kaufman also asked me if I could include Battle For Middle Earth. Including these games depends on the interest from webmasters that runs sites related to these games. I don't know many sites that support Renegade. Battle For Middle Earth has a larger community, but many people might complain that 'Battle For Middle Earth isn't Command & Conquer', including webmasters who helped me to organize it.
Full thing here.

— Friday, September 2, 2005 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 6:42:34 PM ET

RenAlert Revived

Renegade Alert, a total conversion for a variety of games, is returning to its roots, and is being revived for Renegade. Here's the word:
Aircraftkiller: I know we said, and more specifically I said, that RA would never be revived and that we were going to work solely on the Battlefield 2 project. This isn't the case, and after some careful consideration we've come to the conclusion that working on both projects would help the Battlefield 2 version at the same time.

Chronojam, in addition to being our finely dedicated webmaster, will now be taking on the duties of being Renegade Alert's producer until which time he's unable to continue doing so. He'll be making Renegade Alert updates, instead of myself, and the Game Updates forum will be reopened for new artwork updates.

I still lead the production of Renegade Alert in any case, but he'll be doing the majority of the work this time around and should be able to handle the load nicely. I will be taking care of other duties with RA as time permits.
More details at the site.

Links