C&C Labs News Wire

— Saturday, May 31, 2008 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 10:58:59 AM ET

RA3 News

A few new RA3 items of note:
  • A few new Q and A's on the forums, though not a ton of significance.
  • Gina Carano (an American actress) plays the role of Natasha, the Soviet Commando. The unit profile is here.
  • A new edition of BattleCast Primetime, episode 10.
Update: IMDB has a more detailed cast list, though unconfirmed. It looks like the Empire of the Rising Sun's commando is called "Rocket Angel." Also, the same cinematics director from C&C 3 will be directing RA3's cinematics.
Last edited by Blbpaws on Saturday, May 31, 2008 at 10:48:52 PM.

— Monday, May 26, 2008 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 2:08:17 PM ET

C&C 3: The Forgotten Announced!

The ForgottenWelcome back! In the time since we released C&C All Stars, I've gotten a lot of emails and suggestions about what we should do for our next in-house modding project. What I couldn't tell the fans who emailed was that we actually already had decided. In the middle of last August, we began work on a project called C&C 3: The Forgotten. As you might guess, it details the story of The Forgotten, a mostly-unplayable, but featured and fascinating, faction in past C&Cs.

For us, this is a great opportunity to build on our success with All Stars. While we all loved that mod dearly, and felt it was a tribute to C&C, this time around we're aiming for something a little bit different: we want to tell a story. We want to tell a story based in C&C, with real human characters, and a real campaign. The Forgotten are a perfect people to bring to the forefront of our story; they're very much a part of C&C, and just as special as the other factions, yet they are unique. We plan on exploring this uniqueness--and the resulting moral ambiguity--from The Forgotten's perspective in our campaign.

Our aim is to provide for the player new experiences, new characters, and a new perspective on a fascinating story. The Forgotten are a people at the heart of the questions in C&C. Indeed, they are the people closest to the questions posed by Tiberium. Yet they are an oppressed people, for a variety of reasons. It is our goal to tell the story of their struggle. We hope that you enjoy where the mod will take you.

Since we've been working on the mod since August, we have a playable version of the mod done (for team members only, of course) and we're very excited about it. We've taken some screenshots and done some concept art that we're ready to show now, however. You can view all of it on The Forgotten's website, part of our new hub C&C Labs--which has links to our other mods and utilities. We've also set up a forum for discussion of the mod.
Last edited by Blbpaws on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 at 2:43:37 PM.

— Saturday, May 24, 2008 —

Posted By: Mike at 6:05:52 PM ET

New RedAlert3.com Website, Premier Blog #2

EA has recently unveiled a revamped RedAlert3.com. Starting next week, they'll be rolling out unit profiles for every unit.

The second Premier Blog is also online:
The Premier is back from debuting the first gameplay demo of Red Alert 3 in a deep underground bunker in Moscow, Russia. This was not your ordinary gameplay debut for a game, Comrade. The red carpet, and the vodka, and all the Russian trimmings + an explosive gameplay demo...were pulled out to make this the ultimate experience for the many international press and community members who attended.
You can also find a ton of screenshots and concept art on the official Media page. Be sure to check it out!

— Saturday, May 17, 2008 —

Posted By: Mike at 6:03:59 AM ET

Red Alert 3 Trailer

GameTrailers has made available the first official trailer for Red Alert 3, called the Hell March Trailer. You can download it from GameTrailers below:
I highly recommend you take a look at the HD one. The gameplay footage shows some pretty interesting units in action. You'll also surely pick up on some sound effects from prior Red Alert games, in addition to the ubiquitous Hell March track.

Sonic at CNCNZ has taken a number of screenshots from the trailer, which make great eye-candy.

— Thursday, May 8, 2008 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 3:17:06 PM ET

EA Expands Copy Protection, Interferes with Consumers

(Thanks PCNC) There's an article out detailing how EA plans on using ever-more restrictive copy protection on their new games, presumably including upcoming Command and Conquer titles. The new software "phones home" (connects with EA's servers) once every ten days. Should it be unable to do this (for example, if you are traveling and don't have access to the internet, or if you're experiencing connection difficulties), the game stops working. Worse, should EA decide it's not worth paying for the cost of the servers, as they did with the online gameplay servers for all the old C&Cs, the game won't be able to connect, and thus, you can't play. In short, your continued enjoyment of the game is entirely conditional on EA deciding to support it. This is an extension of a policy--not supporting older games--that proved entirely unpopular in the past.

What happens when an expansion pack or a sequel comes out? I wouldn't put it past EA to "nudge" everyone to the new game by simply making the old ones not work. If it makes business sense for them to stop running the servers for the fans of an older game, odds are, they will. If you're one of those fans, odds are, you won't like it.

It would be nice to see a blanket denial from EA promising that they won't use this sort of software on C&C games. If Apoc doesn't address the issue soon, I'll try to raise it with him. It's things like this that make people--myself included--deeply angered at times about how our beloved franchise is faring.



Edit: After a couple days of anger, it seems EA has backpedaled on their DRM copy protection plans.  GamersHell reports:
In this Official BioWare/EA Response to DRM Discussion thread, BioWare has annouced that Mass Effect will not require 10-day periodic re-authentication (story). With online authentication, consumers now connect to the Internet the first time the game is launched and are required only to reconnect if they are downloading new game content. A similar copy protection scheme will be used with the upcoming title Spore.
Last edited by Mike on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 5:08:30 PM.

— Thursday, May 8, 2008 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 3:09:18 PM ET

No More C&C 3 Expansions; C&C Website Survery From EA

There's been a lot of speculation regarding a second expansion pack for C&C 3 (the executable for Kane's Wrath is titled, "cnc3ep1.exe"). Mike Verdu, executive producer of C&C, squashed such rumors. C&C Inside, a German site, got a denial from Mike Verdu (link in German; translation on the C&C forums, which currently seem to be having server trouble).

Secondly, for those of you who always want your voice to be heard, EA has announced a survey regarding the C&C websites. You can use it to share your opinions on BattleCast Primetime, the site design, and the content posted.

Links