C&C Labs News Wire

— Wednesday, June 28, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 2:16:10 PM ET

PCNC Design Contest Updates

Over at Planet CNC they've got some more details on their unofficial C&C 3 design contest. Here's the update:
17:32 PST | ComradeAlexeo | Print News | Mail News
Sorry everyone, its been a while since I gave you guys more info.

I WILL ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS UNTIL 12:00 MIDNIGHT MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME ON 31 JULY. That means they need to actually be in my mailbox by then.

I will accept text-only entries, but I can guarantee that it will NOT win you first prize... no matter how sexy it is. Art submissions can be essentially anything you can think of - line art, 3D model, even a painting if you are so inclined. Submissions MUST come with at least a basic description - but you'll get a lot more points if you really write a good one :)

I've gotten a fair amount of entries so far, and the quality has been rather, er, haphazard. Bear in mind that I am judging these, and that my judgements will be publicly posted here on PCNC - so if you send me crap, I'll tell you, and by extension all PCNC goers, that it's crap. I'm pointing this out because some of you (you know who you are, and the world will know too in a month) have been sending me stuff that clearly took the total effort of about five minutes... or less.

Luckily, I've also received some truly spectacular work, so I won't have to feel too guilty giving away those prizes :D. If you want to get your hands on a Tiberian Sun platinum edition signed by Louis Castle, then you have until 31 July to send your submissions in.
More details at PCNC.

— Sunday, June 25, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 5:47:13 AM ET

C&C Conyard System to be Used in All-Stars!

In our big news, C&C: All-Stars, will use a old-style Conyard-based building system! To my knowledge, this has never been done before in a Zero Hour mod.

The system, created by our own DetoNato, allows for creation of a Conyard system very similar to the one used in past C&Cs. No longer renaming dozers to MCVs, the system forces you to build within a specified radius of previous buildings. This allows for gameplay very similar to old C&C, and provides All-Stars, a mod aimed to uniquely bring C&C together in Zero Hour, with an added element critical to doing so.

The creation and refining of this system was something we have been working on the last few months, and we still need to sufficiently balance it. We will be keeping you all aware of our progress with it and the other aspects of the mod throughout the summer, and may be look for another round of beta testers soon.

Feel free to discuss this in the All-Stars forums.

— Friday, June 23, 2006 —

Posted By: AuroraAlphaHL2 at 7:11:40 AM ET

Halogen DVD Cover Contest

The staff at Halogen have started a photoshopping contest for all who would like to participate. They want you to create the best Halogen themed DVD label you possibly can, by July 20th, 2006. You can find more info such as rules and prizes Here.
Last edited by AuroraAlphaHL2 on Friday, June 23, 2006 at 11:17:19 AM.

— Thursday, June 22, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 5:38:46 PM ET

New All-Stars News

Over at C&C All-Stars we've got some stuff to pass along. First, here are two new renders of the Air Force Command and Prism Tank by Jaymioz and aConcernedCitizen17 respectively.


Second, we've got some great news to share with you. In fact, I think I'd call it the Biggest Generals Modding Announcement Yet. I'm finalizing the details now, but you can expect it Sunday morning, around 9:30 EST. We've placed a counter in the Generals World News Wire to let you know how much time remains. Check back then. ;)
Last edited by Luckie on Thursday, June 22, 2006 at 10:12:57 PM.

— Tuesday, June 20, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 7:40:03 PM ET

Apoc Comments on the MCV

Community Manager Aaron 'Apoc' Kaufman weighed in on the development of C&C 3, specifically with regard to the current to MCV or not to MCV debate going on in the community:
...I don't think any game, ANY game, has ever been scrutinized so much right down to the very pixel as C&C 3 Tiberium Wars has been thus far, and its a testament to this community that we are arguing over the MCV, the MCV!!!!

I get it, we're talking about a major focal point of the gameplay.

Alright, well let me say something, a bit of a reveal on the MCV and there will be plenty more down the road, its too early to delve too deeply in to it. We don't want to tie players hands, but we want to streamline into a very fast game style.

Here is one piece of info I can discuss that we are working with on the MCV. We don't want to restrict the user to producing only one unit at a time (i.e. one tank at a time, one infantry at a time, etc).

Currently, The sidebar automatically acts like the Generals interface whenever you click on a building by using an additional tab containing a contextual space for whatever building is selected. This allows you to build units from multiple structures at once, but also see your construction options while away from your base. Shouldn’t be a problem producing more than one unit at a time.

Thats my tidbit of insight and there is A LOT more we are working with. We hear you on this argument. We admit that part of the reason for bringing back the MCV is for the fans and for nostalgia, but, we are changing up the gameplay mechanic use of it so its more up to date with current RTS standards, brings a new dimension to gameplay, and still carries that MCV feel that ALL of you love about C&C.

The MCV will not slow down gameplay, it will not produce repetitive matches, and it will not ruin the first 3 mins of a match which are so important to the hardcore.

I think the hardcore and single player minded folks will find a happy medium in the system as you learn more about it.

Its great to argue right now, but we're still very early in defining exactly how the MCV will work and we are listening to the community because it is a very VERY big deal.

Thank you for listening,
APOC
As I may be repeating as time goes on here, I think the MCV is something distinctly Command and Conquer....;)

— Monday, June 19, 2006 —

Posted By: Luckie at 10:23:16 AM ET

Frank On eMusic.com

Frank Klepacki's newest album has finally made it to the land of emusic.com. I want to let people know because I'm not a fan of buying CD's since they scratch and I can't stand the DRM on ITunes downloads. eMusic has been around for a while now but they're offering a 25 song free trial that means if you're a Frank Klepacki fan, the album is free + 15 more songs to do whatever you want with. They also have his Command & Conquer albums so Check it out!

And yes, I know this sounds partially like a plug for emusic.com and in a way it is. However, what's wrong with promoting free C&C music without crippling DRM? Nothing when the mp3's are high quality! ;)

— Sunday, June 18, 2006 —

Posted By: Mike at 6:43:46 PM ET

News Comments

Due to continued abuses by spambots, I've been forced to disallow news comment postings from unregistered users. Spambots have been posting hundreds of junk comments a day for some time now. Despite my best efforts, it's been too much to handle, even after banning a number of IP addresses and the use of several common spam keywords.

Visitors who wish to post comments are urged to register for a Generals World Account.

— Friday, June 16, 2006 —

Generals World Forum member SSPX may have found a link between the new Command and Conquer 3 and either Command and Conquer Generals (along with Zero Hour) or Red Alert 2.
It's a possibility I spotted...
Could CNC 3's storyline be linked with CNC Generals???
(SSPX later changed the image to show the Red Alert 2 Allied symbol for comparison)
The original story line set by EA was Red Alert, Command and Conquer, Tiberian Sun, and finally Command and Conquer 3.
Then again, Blbpaws argues that:
The general consensus seems to be that it's simply placeholder art, and any attempt by EA to connect those storylines would be an egregious mistake.
Will EA change the story line just like they have changed many other aspects of the Command and Conquer Universe or will EA stick to their original plot line? Or is could this possibly be placeholder art that EA has used by mistake? Only time will tell.

Read the discussion here.
Last edited by Mike on Friday, June 16, 2006 at 12:28:23 PM.

— Wednesday, June 14, 2006 —

Posted By: AuroraAlphaHL2 at 4:58:32 PM ET

C&C Reborn Forums

Renardin of the CNC Renegade mod C&C Reborn has announced that their forums will close on June 17th. They are going to merge with Red Alert: A Path Beyond's set of forums. Head Here to sign up.

— Monday, June 12, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 12:03:29 PM ET

Banshee Rant

Over at Project Perfect Mod, one of the voices of relative reason in the community, Banshee, posted a rant detailing EA's failures with The First Decade, and how we can expect this to translate to C&C 3, including the area of community support. Here's a snip:

One of the inovations of this new game is their focus on the story, single player experience. Thank God they finally noticed the main atribute that made the first C&C sell a lot and become a major hit, which was a well made campaign with a great storyline. Of course, multiplayer is very attractive as well and help sales. Anyway, they've made a C&C bible and hired MIT scientists to explain the tiberium. But even with all these efforts, they seemed to have lost some consistence with the old C&C tiberium games. Their tiberium doesn't follow the behaviour from the old tiberium and the lack of blue tiberium is the best way to ignore Tiberian Sun. But as I said, they are on early development stage and they still have time to sort these problems, but I still predict a gameplay very similar to Generals. Afterall, all Battle For Middle Earth games are played similarly to Generals and they had completely different universes. But now, C&C 3 comes with MCV and sidebar. But there is a high possibility that the MCV is actually a dozer with a new name. For now, we don't know much about it yet.


Full thing at PPM. I think it's important that the failure of TFD be addressed by EA, and specifically by Aaron Kaufman. In what was essentially the first product since he took over as Community Liason, EA delivered an out-sourced, poorly thought-out, horrible product that failed in just about every respect. Putting aside the fact that EA and Aaron claimed to have a development team dedicated to the product, a very questionable assertion, the product's failure to deliver has to be addressed, I believe, in order for some semblance of trust to be restored in the information given about C&C 3.

— Sunday, June 11, 2006 —

Posted By: Mike at 7:24:12 PM ET

Poll Updated

I've just updated the Generals World poll -- we've got something a bit different for ya this time. With so many sites in the community having different abbreviations for your favorite real-time strategy game series, we figured we'd ask the fans: What is your favorite way to abbreviate Command and Conquer? Be sure to vote in the poll on the right side of the page!

Here are the results from our last poll:
What do you think of the new campaign system in C&C 3?
Sounds great!
20
25%
Should be a good warm-up for online play
9
11%
Meh, it can't be worse than Generals
13
16%
We don't know enough about it yet
35
45%

Total Votes: 77

— Friday, June 9, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 6:07:50 PM ET

June Update at Frank's

Famed C&C music composed Frank Klepacki has posted a June update to his site, with news on recent podcasts for his current work over at Petroglyph Games, a company composed almost exclusively of ex-Westwoodians, like Frank. Check out Frank's site, where you can hear some old C&C music.

— Thursday, June 8, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 4:37:11 PM ET

More Details on Unofficial C&C 3 Design Contest

At Planet CNC, they've got some more details up on their unofficial C&C 3 design contest. They've announced the prizes:
FIRST PRIZE: A copy of the Tiberian Sun: Platinum Edition - signed by none other than Louis Castle, co-founder of Westwood Studios! Plus, a strategy guide for Tiberian Sun AND its expansion pack Firestorm, to help you... well, command and conquer!

SECOND PRIZE: The soundtracks from Tiberian Dawn, Tiberian Sun, and Renegade, plus a Renegade mousepad!

THIRD PRIZE: The Renegade soundtrack and mousepad!


Not a bad haul for playing designer for a day! They only have had five submissions, so get to work.

— Monday, June 5, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 10:30:50 AM ET

Happy Birthday PCNC

We'd like to wish Planet Command and Conquer a happy 7th birthday, as yesterday marked the anniversary of when they opened their doors to serve the C&C community. And many more guys!

— Saturday, June 3, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 5:49:56 PM ET

New C&C 3 Screen

The Hazardous section of the C&C 3 site that was referenced and that we posted about a few days ago now redirects to a picture of a GDI Harvester collecting Tiberium. I believe it's our first look at the Harvesters and the Tiberium in C&C 3 (click for larger version):

— Friday, June 2, 2006 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 4:25:05 AM ET

More Info on Unofficial C&C 3 Design Contest

Over at Planet CNC, they're taking submissions for their Unofficial C&C 3 Design contest. From the post:
They will be rated on:

1. Logic of the entry (this includes plausibility - can it work - and following canon - so no ORCA's for Nod)
2. Originality (this extends now to what we already know about C&C3; don't send me Mammoth Tanks!)
3. Deeper meanings (which you need to figure out on your own

...with a fourth category, "wild card" category in which artistic talent and just how much I/we like it are judged. Submissions can be in any visual format, including 3D models. A description of what it is you've created is also required and I strongly recommend you make it a good one.
You can submit them to comradealexeo@planetcnc.com. Good luck!

Links