C&C Labs News Wire

— Thursday, November 30, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 3:42:35 PM ET

New C&C 3 Trailer

A new C&C 3 trailer has been released, at 54MB in Quicktime format. Odds are, this is the trailer that is included in EA's newest RTS, Lord of the Rings: The Rise of the Witch King.  You can download it from our own C&C 3 videos download section. The trailer shows some nice gameplay footage, but not much else. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's nice to see some of the visuals.

The one key part of the trailer is that it says the release date for C&C 3 will be in March 2007. Gee, who said that a while back?

For those of you who haven't been keeping up as much, there's a new C&C 3 article over at Actiontrip that outlines a lot of the new features and is a good overview of what's been going on recently.
Last edited by Blbpaws on Thursday, November 30, 2006 at 9:39:02 PM.

— Monday, November 27, 2006 —

Posted By: Mike at 6:25:08 PM ET

TPoHW Update

The November update for The Power of High-Tech Warfare Mod has been posted.  Here's a snip from the newspost:
The first pictures of the TPoHW Fortress mode have been released in the gallery. As the name implies, you build a fortress in this game type. A Citadel and a wall will be built when the game starts. In this game mode, a rush in the first minutes of the game is almost impossible because units can be destroyed at the wall easily. Be warned: your enemy is able to upgrade this wall with turrents and units for further defense. A player loses the game once his Citadel is destroyed: protect this structure - at all costs!
Check out the TPoHW website for more!  Here's a few of the new screenshots that have been released:


— Saturday, November 25, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 10:01:45 AM ET

Top Player Launches Web Site

The top Clan Wars player for Zero Hour, Dackel, has launched his website recently. On it, he has numerous videos, image galleries, replays, and stories--a neat resource for those interested in the competitive Zero Hour scene. As he says:
My main aim was to recall my eventful gaming past and to thank those who have accompanied and supported me on my arduous road to success. As for that matter, I am satisfied that I have reached my purpose. Furthermore I have a lot of fans who will be delighted at my stiff job. Finally I want to give newcomers a chance to improve their skills and knowledge by hosting countless replays, ingame videos.
Head to Dackel's site for more.

— Friday, November 24, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 12:37:37 PM ET

New C&C Newsletter

The newest version of the Command and Conquer newsletter was sent out today. Here's an overview of what it contained.
  •  The most significant piece of information is the following:
  • The mysterious third faction in C&C 3 will be revealed in the January
    issue of Games for Windows: The Official Magazine on sale December
    19th! The in-depth cover story will also include the first hands-on
    impressions for the game, so make sure to check it out!
  • In addition, there's a link to a new Q&A with Richard Taylor, the Cinematic Director for the game. Here's a snippet:
    Q: Why do you think live action videos were the right fit to tell the story in C&C 3?

    A: First of all this franchise has a tradition of live action sequences for the cut scene material, but to me the most important thing is the believability and the emotional impact the player feels when a real human being looks you in the eye. I love computer generated characters as much as anyone out there. I've been involved with cg from its earliest days, but if you look right into the eyes of a cg character do you really believe that there's a soul behind those eyes? In C&C 3 the lead characters talk directly to the player..." the commander"....they look right at you and talk to you directly. Most cg characters in games talk to each other, interact with each other, but they don't directly address the player. I think the emotional charge you get when Tricia Helfer looks you in the eye and pleads for your help will touch you like no cg character can.
    You can read the full piece here.

  • The next podcast will be released on Nov. 30th, and can be downloaded from the official site then. It will feature Mike Glosecki and Jason Bender, Senior Producer and Lead Designer, respectively.

  • Finally, there are some new Nod and GDI wallpapers, created by EA, up.

— Friday, November 24, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 8:39:01 AM ET

C&C 3 360 Interview

Over at Gamespot they have a short but decent interview with EALA Senior Producer Mike Glosecki about C&C 3 on the Xbox 360. There's some discussion about why the decision was made to port to 360, and some of the differences between the two versions of the game, especially in terms of control systems, though some more details would be desireable. Here's a piece:

GameSpot: So what motivated you to bring the Command & Conquer franchise to the Xbox 360?

Mike Glosecki: We paved the way for Command & Conquer (C&C) with our recent release of The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II on the Xbox 360, which was widely acknowledged as the first "RTS on console done right." Our innovative new control system made the RTS experience accessible to a whole new audience. Now it's time to build on that foundation with Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars (C&C3). With its fast, fluid, and fun RTS gameplay, C&C3 is a natural for the console. We're improving everything about the console RTS experience. We've made the control system considerably more accessible and powerful, improved frame rate, eliminated lags and hitches, pumped up the graphics, and upgraded the underlying technology in a number of other ways.

You can read the full interview here.

— Tuesday, November 21, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 3:34:55 PM ET

New All Stars Video!

I'm very happy to be able to finally write this newspost. While the All Stars team had a great time playing All Stars internally for quite a while now--with many of the units and ideas we're bringing back also coming back in C&C 3 news, it almost feels like we're playing that game, too--it's time you guys, who have waited (mostly) patiently for too long got to see a bit of the actual gameplay. While we're not prepared to show you guys any of the Conyard build system just yet--next video maybe--you can see many units, superweapons, and buildings in action in our new video.

The trailer mostly features the Red Alert Alliance, an army made of units from all the Red Alert games. In this trailer, you can specifically see Conscripts, Grenadiers, Grizzlies, the Grizzly Chronoshift Generals Power, Apocalypse Tanks, Tesla Tanks, Longbows, Nukes, and more, including many Tiberian Coalition units (often on the receiving end of some heavy Red Alert Alliance punishment). I think it will give you a nice taste of the mod, and our future videos will show you even more. As always, feel free to discuss the mod in our forums, where I've created a special thread for discussion of the video. Feel free to ask questions about the mod in your own threads, though some of the details may still be too much under wraps for us to give a full answer. ;)

We've got three different ways for you to view it. First, we have a High Quality Quicktime download for you, weighing in at 55MB. Second, we have a much lower quality Quicktime download for the 56kers, coming in at 6MB. For those of you who would prefer to stream it or don't like Quicktime, we have a medium quality streaming version through a Flash viewer. All in all, the video is about two minutes in length.

Enjoy!

Last edited by Blbpaws on Tuesday, November 21, 2006 at 8:35:30 PM.

— Sunday, November 19, 2006 —

Posted By: Mike at 8:18:07 AM ET

New Poll Question

I just updated the Generals World poll question.  This time around the question asks: What do you think of Mike Verdu's latest C&C 3 blog entry?  If you haven't read it yet, check out this newspost below.

Here are the final results from our previous poll:

Have you ever considered starting a fansite?
60
Yes, but it's too much work
 
21
Yes, and I have
 
41
No, why bother?
 
2
No, I hate C&C
 
Total Votes: 124

— Sunday, November 19, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 7:28:51 AM ET

New Mike Verdu Blog

Executive Producer Mike Verdu has published a new blog entry titled "A Little About Tiberium" in which he explains a bit of the background of Tiberium. There's not a lot of new information there, but it's a good introduction to some of the setting for C&C 3. Here's a snip:
During the lull between the Second and Third Tiberium Wars, GDI deployed sonic resonators to slow down the spread of the crystal in key Yellow Zones. GDI has even managed to reclaim some territory almost completely… to the point where small areas in a German Yellow Zone have been transformed into Blue Zones. This patchwork of reclaimed territory has been dubbed "New Eden"by the GDI leadership… and this amazing feat is being celebrated in the early months of 2047.

When C&C 3 opens, GDI has restored some sense of hope for the future. Unfortunately for them, Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod have other ideas about the spread of Tiberium, the fate of the planet Earth, and the destiny of the human race.
You can read the full piece here. In addition, I may as well plug my own piece about Tiberium from early this year, which might give some more information for those of you interested in it; check out the The Essence of Tiberium for more on the subject.

— Thursday, November 16, 2006 —

Posted By: Mike at 10:29:27 AM ET

C&C 3 for Xbox 360

(Thanks Lion) Today Electronic Arts official announced that Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is in development for the Xbox 360, confirming the well-known speculation within the community.

"The Command & Conquer series finally makes its return to the console after seven years," said Mike Verdu, Executive Producer at EALA. "C&C 3 will help expand the RTS genre on the Xbox 360, building off of the foundation laid by the development of The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II. EA is evolving the console controls so that strategy gaming plays and feels native to the platform."

"C&C 3 is a perfect fit for the Xbox 360," said Mike Glosecki, Senior Producer at EALA. "Xbox 360 players will enjoy the action-packed online play and watching the epic Sci-Fi story of the game unfold as they play through the single player campaign."

To read the press release in full, click here.


— Saturday, November 11, 2006 —

Posted By: Mike at 6:33:39 AM ET

New PC Gamer Article Scans

EALA Predator has posted some scans from the January issue of PC Gamer, which has just been sent out to subscribers.  The article is an interview with Michael Ironside and Billy Dee Williams, done on the set of Command & Conquer 3.
Ironside will be playing General Jack Grander, while Williams will be playing GDI Directory Redmond Boyle.  Check it out!


— Thursday, November 9, 2006 —

Posted By: AuroraAlphaHL2 at 5:30:26 PM ET

Tower Defense Screenshots

German mod Tower Defense - Trinity Force has released dozens of new screenshots showing off their new defense structures. 2 of which are the Ion Cannon and the Chain Gun:

 

More of the screenshots can be found on their moddb.com profile Here.

Last edited by AuroraAlphaHL2 on Thursday, November 9, 2006 at 10:32:12 PM.

— Tuesday, November 7, 2006 —

Posted By: Mike at 4:42:42 PM ET

New Map, Zero Hour Mission

Phe0n1x has added a new Generals Map and a new Zero Hour Mission to our Downloads Section.

The Generals map is named Goes Like Hell and is by MCD, who explains that buildings and ridges dot the map, waiting to be exploited by a tactical general.
Goes Like Hell

The Zero Hour mission is Sneak Attack by 12kill, and is a remake of Zero Hour GLA Mission 5.
Sneak Attack

Head on over to our Maps Downloads section to download these maps!

— Tuesday, November 7, 2006 —

Posted By: Mike at 4:36:16 PM ET

A Bit of Community News

CnC Source reports about a post Predator made on the Official C&C Forums in regards to the recent news steam - or rather lack thereof - regarding C&C 3 info. Here's what he had to say:
We will be sharing more of the science about Tiberium in the coming months with interviews from the MIT scientists who did a lot of the research.

Beyond that, our Executive Producer Mike Verdu has not found the amount of critical time necessary to finish his blog on Tiberium.

Right now, they are doing some more shoots for the FMV's with Josh Holloway, he is going to try and get some more of the blog finished and polished this weekend while this takes place.

I'm extremely hopeful that we'll have this blog up and ready for you guys soon.
Additionally:
We'll be showcasing more insight on GDI, discussing Tiberium more in-depth, and you will likely to get to see another fantastic gameplay trailer, footage on Mechs, we have a lot coming. Please understand information comes in waves, we can't always have new info every week or every day.

Certainly, I'll be trying to get some more flow of info out there, but we do have a lot planned for this month.
And so it seems we shall continue to wait patiently.

— Friday, November 3, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 4:52:04 PM ET

Frank K update

Frank Klepacki, creator of the music for all C&Cs before Generals, and now working with other former Westwoodians, posted an update on his site yesterday. Here's the part relating to C&C:
C&C SERIES UPDATED IN JUKEBOX:
Frank has finally come across some tunes you guys have been asking about, and now we have 'em posted! Tension, Untamed Land, Red Sky, Storm Coming, Tib Sun options Screen, Firestrom options, and Map screen themes!

Links