Articles: Red Alert 3 Community Summit 2008: Part 5: Day Two and C&C Portal

The Ritz Carlton (and the people in it)

When we got back to the Ritz Carlton, bastion of luxury that it is, I decided to delay sleep a bit more (careful and not-so-careful readers may begin to notice a pattern here). I went to meet Ryan from Moddb and Smurfbizkit from MidEast Crisis 2 in their room. Along the way, I had the interesting experience of standing in an elevator with two Ritz Carlton guests who obviously were not there for a video game summit. They were quite surprised to see me, attired in a Red Alert 3 t-shirt adorned with Soviet symbols and Russian writing, standing in the elevator and calmly getting off at the eighth floor. Maybe they figured it out eventually. In any event, when I did make it to Ryan and Smurf’s room (two fellow Red Alert shirt-clad individuals), we talked about modding in general for a bit, then Ryan took out his digital recorder and did a quick interview with us about our upcoming projects (C&C Labs and C&C 3: The Forgotten for me, MidEast Crisis 2 for smurfbizkit). I honestly forget even what was asked, though I remember being happy with how I answered. I have no idea what Moddb plans to do with the piece; it’s theirs now, so I hope they put it to good use. Ryan, if you’re reading this, shoot me an email when you publish the interview.

 
For the record, the attendees of this summit were in no way influenced by our wonderful accomodations,
featuring views like these. We promise.


Intent on getting some sleep, I returned to my room only to find Tim “HeXetic” Gokcen (of PCNC) and JohnWE (of C&C Files) discussing the day’s events. Forestalling sleep some more, I joined them in a good discussion about C&C, EA, fansites, Mark Skaggs' dog (don’t ask, it’s not relevant, and not even that good of a story), and the community. We watched John’s video and offered some comments on it, reluctantly obeyed Aaron’s request that we not post anything, and (eventually) went to bed. It was a fun night, and Tim was a fine roommate.

Our room. Nice place, isn't it?

Day Two

Day Two began with us getting ready and meeting Aaron downstairs at 8:15am AST sharp (for those who have not attended summits, AST is Apoc Standard Time, which is code for about fifteen minutes late). At what I will generously say was 8:25am, Aaron arrived (to the cries of delight from fellow community members—evidently he is usually much tardier) and we piled into taxis for our trip to the EALA studios, where we ate a nice breakfast. My blueberry hotcakes and eggs were good, thank you for asking. After some hands-on time with the game, the presentations resumed. I can’t talk about the gameplay, but suffice to say, I have almost every detail from all three sides in my notebook (JohnWE also does), so I hope what I’ll provide for you in a few weeks will be well worth the wait. Until then, there are a few interesting presentations to talk about.

 
Apoc, late as usual, and the group dining in the EA cafeteria (dubbed "EAts")

C&C Website
By Andre and Colin (I do not have their last names—sorry)

This presentation outlined the new C&C website (about time). This website is designed to be a hub for the C&C franchise as a whole (primarily C&C 3, Kane’s Wrath, Red Alert 3, and whatever follows it *cough* expansion *cough*). Unlike the current C&C site, which is primarily designed and run by GameSpy, this one will be entirely owned by the C&C team. It will be the first EA game, I believe, to have such a site, though it appears there will be some integration with EA staff for forum moderation, perhaps. The team is working on ways to tag and rate content posted to the site, as well as to link the game and the site much more cleanly. They are also hoping to develop their own stat tracking, though, upon being questioned, they said this would not be ready for Red Alert 3 (so it is back to GameSpy once again). Another neat feature is the development of user profiles which carry from game to game. Also new is the development of what they are calling “groups” and “teams”—which seem like mini-ladders and clans, but which also seem a ways off. In principle, I liked their ideas quite a bit: stronger integration with the game, better cross-game user tracking, and better user-to-user interaction are all desirable. It is all, of course, in the implementation. The first parts of the website will roll out this summer and additional features, Andre and Colin repeated often, will be added with time. It seemed to me that some parts of the rollout, namely the increased unit profiles, were already beginning to make their way out, though on the old platform (those profiles received strong community-wide support when we were asked about them, by the way). This presentation was a typical PowerPoint presentation—there was not really a demo on which I can comment—but it was definitely something interesting and something on which to keep an eye.

Two pictures from the website presentation, highlighting some improvements to come

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Adding Depth to the Game
Part 3: Sound Immersion and Music
Part 4: SAGE Audio and Medieval Times
Part 5: The Ritz Carlton (and its guests) and the C&C Website
Part 6: Worldbuilder and Modding
Part 7: Community Presentations
Part 8: Conversations with Developers and Conclusions