C&C Labs News Wire

— Saturday, May 26, 2007 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 7:46:25 AM ET

Comments From EA

First, Greg Black, the lead balance designer, commented a bit more about the shared ground control being implemented in patch 1.05:
Greg Black (EALA): I can confirm that players will only be able to share ground control around each other's Construction Yards (or Drone Platforms in the Scrin's case). This means, if you and I are on a team, you may build a War Factory (or any other structure) near my ConYard if you wish. Then you could place additional structures around that War Factory as desired. However, if I built a War Factory on the edge of my base, you would not be able to build anything on the additional ground control provided by that War Factory--you'd still be limited to the radius around my ConYard. In other words, only three structures will provide shared ground control in team matches: the GDI Construction Yard, the Nod Construction Yard, and the Scrin Drone Platform. Players can build additional MCVs or Drone Ships to gain additional areas of shared ground control, but their "Mini MCVs" (Surveyors, Emissaries, and Explorers) will not provide shared ground control when unpacked.

All this means players would not easily be able to team up on base-creeping tactics. This is similar to how the feature worked in previous C&C games, where you could build off of an ally's ConYard, but not off of his other structures. I previously suggested in this thread that players may be able to "hop-scotch" with their structures, so I wanted to post this as an update, clarification, and correction. We'll be keeping an eye on your feedback about this feature once you've had a chance to play with it; we think you'll like it and wouldn't have added it otherwise.

Second, Community Manager Aaron Kaufman commented on the patch's release date:
I don't want to commit to a date until our QA has signed off, and right now we're on track with that and are looking good for later this month. Sorry guys, I've burned this bridge once and won't do it again. I'll tell you the date when I am certain, but what I am confident of is, later this month (May 2007).

UPDATE: We are still on track for later-this-month which does translate right now to late-May. I will do my best to give you guys a concrete update by Monday (May 28) on the exact day and timing.

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