C&C Labs News Wire

— Friday, June 22, 2007 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 5:39:49 AM ET

Update From EA

Filling in for Apoc, Greg from the EALA development team posted an update on the official forums about the state of C&C 3:
We're working on our next patch, which you can expect in July. This patch will be much smaller in scope than 1.05 and will address some of the key issues that remained or emerged after the patch, including certain exploits and issues with player disconnects. We're definitely aware of the issues some players are having with the most recent version of the game, and while not all of them will be addressed in the next patch in the interest of time, we will indeed get to additional fixes in a future update after that. In other words, patch 1.06 will not be the last time we update the game.

We intend to reset the ladder rankings right around the time we release patch 1.06. To be clear, you will not lose your stats--your position on the 1v1 and 2v2 ladders will simply be reset. We'll have other details about the ladders closer to the time of the reset, so stay tuned.

We're working on the Mod SDK, which will allow players to create new content and heavily modify the game, in general. I can't give you a specific date for the release, though I can say it's far along in development and is in the process of being tested and documented.

We're working on the BattleCast Viewer, which will allow people who don't even own a copy of Command & Conquer 3 to watch replays and live BattleCast matches. The BattleCast Viewer's release will be part of our initiative to help make sure C&C3 remains a lively, interesting competitive multiplayer game over the long haul.

We're listening to your feedback about play balance and watching your replays, in an effort to identify ways in which we can improve play balance in the future. As with the changes in patch 1.05, we will go about making future balance changes deliberately and methodically. We're certainly aware of some players' concerns about things like the Scrin Mothership, or the Nod Stealth Tank. Having said that, we ask for your patience as we gather all the necessary information in order to make the best possible decisions about balance. We hope most of you are generally pleased with the direction that the balance took in patch 1.05 and we do intend to continue along that same trajectory, which involves making sure that all three sides are evenly matched against each other, and that all the units, abilities, and support powers on each side have a clear benefit throughout the duration of a battle.
(emphasis mine) That strikes me as totally unacceptable. EA promised at the community summits that it would streamline its patching program, yet I see no evidence of that being the case. In effect, C&C 3 has had some gamebreaking online issue present--either the teleporting engineer one or the current health scam--since its release in March, and to leave it unfixed for what will probably be another three or four weeks is unacceptable on all levels. If this is EA's new level of support, it leaves much to be desired and leaves at least one C&C fan wishing for past days.

— Wednesday, June 20, 2007 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 10:31:40 AM ET

OMC 4 Opens

I've always thought the Open Map Competition was a great example of community spirit and community initiative that benefited all involved. I'm very happy to see that the fourth Open Map Competition is now getting underway for C&C3. From the main page:
Open Map Competition 4 (OMC4) is a C&C community world wide mapping contest for all fans of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Mappers can submit as many entries as they wish until the last minute of August 20th, 2007 on Greenwich Time Zone. It's a nice oportunity to get your mapping skills recognized by the C&C community. Older editions revealed very talented maps and brought almost 70 maps for previous Command & Conquer games, including 5 spotlighted (score over 75%) Tiberian Sun maps, 6 spotlighted Red Alert 2 maps and 3 spotlighted Generals maps. If you have any questions concerning the OMC4 contest, please email Banshee at banshee@ppmsite.com
OMC 4 is emphasizing creative maps--that means no symmetry! For more on the rules, head here. For more on the competition in general, head here. They're are also some excellent prizes to be had, for those of you who might need some motivation.

— Friday, June 15, 2007 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 4:43:08 PM ET

New Poll and Poll Results

I updated the poll today. It seemed you guys were pretty split on EA's post-release support. While the plurality rated it excellent, more than a fourth of you guys rated it as Barely Adequate or worse. I don't think that's acceptable. I wonder if it's tied to whether or not you play online, as there were (and are) more online issues than singleplayer ones. Interesting things nonetheless.
 
How would you evaluate EA's post-release support of C&C 3 so far?
154
Excellent
 
41
Very Good
 
41
Good
 
42
Adequate
 
23
Barely Adequate
 
53
Failing
 
39
Post-release better be good, since they didn't bother to fully beta test the game...
 
Total Votes: 393
Thanks to all of you who voted. This time I ask about C&C 3 as a whole: does it live up to the C&C tradition?

— Tuesday, June 12, 2007 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 2:26:43 PM ET

C&C 3 Coming to Mac

All you Mac owners who like C&C (and I hear there are several) will probably enjoy this news:
Redwood Shores, Calif., – June 11, 2007 – Electronic Arts Inc., (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced a commitment to bring its portfolio of hit games to Mac OS X. The first EA Mac titles slated to ship this summer include the wizarding adventure Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix™, racing sensation Need for Speed™ Carbon, military action thriller Battlefield 2142 and the real-time strategy hit Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars™. Being the first Mac OS X games published by EA, these blockbuster titles are being ported to take advantage of the Mac’s performance to run with stunning visuals and signature gameplay at blistering speeds. Later this year, EA will ship Madden NFL 08 and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 08 in sync with their worldwide launches.

Frank Gibeau, EA's Executive Vice President of Publishing commented, "These four games are just the beginning. We're excited to deliver key EA franchises such as Harry Potter, Madden Football and Need for Speed to Mac gamers."
You can read the full thing here.

— Thursday, June 7, 2007 —

Posted By: Mike at 9:42:09 AM ET

Patch 1.05 Live

C&C 3 Tiberium Wars Patch 1.05 is now live via C&C Auto-Update.  Just log in to C&C 3 Online and you'll be prompted to download it.

At this time many people are having problems getting the auto-update to work and are receiving an error message when attempting to update. This is likely because of the intense load on the EA servers at the moment (EA's Forums just went down) due to this highly anticipated patch. For those of you who are having trouble auto-updating, the manual patch installation files will be online at the EA servers within an hour or two - check the C&C 3 Patches page for updates.

— Thursday, June 7, 2007 —

Posted By: Mike at 8:16:57 AM ET

Patch 1.05 Going Live Today

EA Community Manager Aaron "APOC" Kaufman has posted the following update in the Official C&C Forums, indicating that Patch 1.05 for C&C 3 will be going live today.
Hey guys,

We've been approved by all the right people, agencies, aliens, organizations, you name it, we're approved, patch 1.05 is good to go and will be deploying live tomorrow. Keep your eyes peeled, we'll keep you posted once its officially on all the servers.

I'll have more info once the patch is live on everything else including the ladder reset and what that will mean.

Please note, it is likely the ladder will not reset until Friday, but we'll be sure to let you know what to expect.

Thanks again for your undying patience, believe us, its extremely appreciated and we have some great plans going forward for future patches, the MOD SDK, ladder seasons, tournaments, etc.

This is a new beginning for Command & Conquer 3 no matter how you slice and dice it. The patch should really enhance a lot of balance, technical, and aesthetic aspects of the game.

And don't forget the 4 new multiplayer maps and alternate mouse setup!

Cheers,
APOC
Can you say left-click move? How about proper refinery selling prices? Goodbye buzzer-bombs and engineer exploit. Goodbye spider-basing. Hello much needed bug fixes and balance improvements.

It's a whole new world, folks.

— Monday, June 4, 2007 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 1:29:47 PM ET

Community Notes

Few things that have happened recently:
  • GameSpy has done an interview with Jennifer Morrison, who plays Lt. Kirce James, a GDI intel officer, in C&C 3. The interview touches on quite a few topics, including how she got the part.
  • CNC Den has been adding to their collection of C&C 3 maps, with three more.
  • Red Alert: A Path Beyond has some updates, including pictures of weapons in the mod.
  • The Tiberian Dawn mod for C&C 3 has sent word of more updates. They've got a nice blog update, with quite a few pictures and a nice piece of concept art showing their progress.
  • C&C Reborn has a new trailer up. You can view it on YouTube here.

Links