C&C Labs News

Our in-house Lion is at it again, releasing the latest version of his Advanced AI Mod for Zero Hour!  Version 0.61 beta has now been released to the public.

From here on versions will be released in smaller increments such that by version 1.0 all of the Generals have been modified.

This latest version features a teaser of sorts for what's to come in terms of unit AI in the next few versions.  The version features a new system for aircraft intelligence, especially for Aurora bombers.  The tactics used are very effective and the bombers take care not to be shot down unless they are headed for a high-priority target.  The Airforce General and the Superweapons General are the main benefiters from this improved strategy.  The MiGs have not yet been modifed to utilise these improved tactics.

A few bugs were also fixed in this version, including issues with slow base building and a bug where the Super Weapon General wouldn't save up enough money to rebuild.  (Thanks beta testers!)

To test out this mod's improved AI, why not give a match versus the new and improved Airforce General a whirl?  And if you find any bugs or poorly functioning AI, be sure to point it out in the Advanced AI Mod Forums.

Frank will be exclusively providing sound effects and music for the team on their top secret project, which some of you had already speculated Frank has been working on since last year before joining full time!  Here's to new beginnings!

• No cubicles
• Lots of Snapple
• New Ping-Pong table
• Killer Top-Secret Project!
• Sombrero-wearing intern

I know it's been nearly a week since we've released anything from All-Stars. However, quite contrary to our lack of releases, we've been making alot of progress. We're nearly reaching 50% of modelling done and nearly 20% overall done. We've recently released several screens on this front page but I forgot to add them to the All-Stars screenshots page. I've added them and also added a new screenshot for you all. Here's a thumbnail.
                                                                     

It's the Prism Tank in-game, and it's firing at some helpless infantry. As you can see in the screen, we're tweaking the ability of the prism beam to actually refract from the target to another nearby target. Just like the original unit could in RA2! Be sure to check it out at the screenshots page. Enjoy all the screens and there will be more to come as we're making even more strides than before thanks to our new modeller, Slick_mk1! He's new but he's already doing a ton for the team and for All-Stars. Keep checking back often!

Guys, Petroglyph doesn't have the rights to C&C. EA owns the C&C brand. The Petro guys are doing their own stuff.

What Mark said is true. What you saw was a concept / inspirational piece of art that we did over a year ago that displays on our internal EA monitors here at EALA. Concept art is our "What if?" avenue to explore things we may or may not want to do in the future with game content, a certain look, or atmosphere / tone.

FYI, it's an image of a Scrin Primal defending against a GDI attack on a Scrin base. Obviously, the primal is winning. =)

And yes, there are still a bunch of us ex-westwood guys here.

After having a guilt trip of hoarding all the good screenshots, I decided to be a benevolent staff member and release one.  Hopefully this will keep Blbpaws off me for a few days. ;)

This screenshot features my two latest additions, the Air Force Command Center and the Apache Longbow.  No rewards for guessing which is which.

How about a news round up? Cowboy Style? Nah, I didn't think so either. Mods:

Latest Mod Developments include-
• The Finest Hour total conversion mod has released a single player demo!
• Vietnam Reborn is a ZH mod. They have released some pictures for your pleasure.
• Armageddon Mod is progressing. They have launched a forums, but no website yet.
• Call To Arms ZH Mod has released some new renders.
• Blitzkrieg 2 is planning some fixes in the patch for v035. They are also offering help to those who are having troubles with their language not being supported.
• The Energy Mod is showing some great progress in their plans. Check it out.

Community:

• Uni of CNC Unleashed has posted this week's news roundup. Definitely worth checking out for all of the latest CNC community news.
• Lion of CNCDEN has released a reworked version of the first Generals map he ever made - entitled Lion Country - for Zero Hour. CNCDEN also has four new fan-submitted Zero Hour maps, so be sure to pay them a visit!
• CNC World could use some staff. See if you can help 'em out.

Time for my rant about something. I always sort of give one when I do a round up. Turned on your TV today? Turned onto TechTV? Oh! No! It's gone! What's this G4TechTV, you ask??? It's a sad excuse for channel, that's what. I beleive they have a show called: Players. The show should be called "Pretenders". The shows that replaced the witty, entertaining, and downright fun to watch techtv programming are mindless, sad excuses of programming. Take the video game review show for example, do the're actual "ratings" seem to reflect what they think? Not at all. They're ratings are downright random. Half the time, they play very little of the game and just unlock the rest. Heh, they even dropped "Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow" for being too linear. Where did computer help go? To the unemployment line. See, incase you don't know... *deep breathe* Paul Allen owned techtv until he sold it like a car with a bad transmission and Comcast bought it up to merge it with G4 (THE GAMERS TV CHANNEL!!! Or maybe just 13 year olds with no brains) because they thought the broad audienced Techtv which had a wider following would match well with their small and mindless channel which has an audience that can be described by any combination of the following:

• 12 to 13 years old males
• Sports acne
• Licks frozen metal pipes for fun
• Wears ALF t-shirts and low cut shorts
• Owns a PS2 because it has the most games
• Buys a game because the box "looks awesome"
• Buys games because it was cheap at Walmart and he's a fan of the cartoon

Tell me, where do all the TechTv fans go? Well, not to NYC or New Jersey. After all, they don't even get G4TechTV because there is no agreement to broadcast in that area. How poor is that? The place most fans have been going is the the phones and the internet to drive up some support. Click Here to read the article that has a couple ideas on what to do if you're pissed, too. Maybe I'm going hard on G4, but I don't think so. They're programming bites. If you meet a single one of the requirement above and disagree with be, don't even bother emailing me. I know what you will say. The fact is, Comcast did a boneheaded thing. Now the g33ks have to crawl back under their rocks. And apologies for the longness from me. Anyways, have a nice day!

This C&C Generals: Zero Hour tournament will feature the greatest players from around the nation battling head-to-head for remarkable prizes. Anyone and everyone who wants a chance at winning the astounding prizes offered can sign-up and join in on the action! More detailed information for the EverLAN Summer 2004 event can be found HERE. Online registration will open for the event in early June, and seats will go quickly!! 

I decided to take the incentive and launch this week's poll myself seeing as I had an idea for one.  This week's poll question is: Tank Battle Royal - Who wins? And the choices are the Apocalypse tank and the Overlord.  Cast your vote on the right!

Here are the results of last week's poll:

Is it time for GW to have a layout change?
Yes	13
No	9
Layout? Who cares? All I do is go to the forums!	4
Total Votes: 26

Keep in mind that we do watch the results of these polls carefully as signs for what we should do.

In other news, it appears our server had some sort of a hiccup, as all of yesterday's newsposts, including CommieDog's "|-|4x0R" post, heh, were unfortunately lost.  For those who didn't read it, the jist of it was that CommieDog now has newsposting access here at Generals World to post new CnC All Stars screenshots.  Most of the posts in the forums seem to have survived the server bug though.

I'd also like to apologize for the lack of updates on my part the past week or so.  My primary computer was (and still is) offline so I am unable to adequately update the site or check my email.  I'm working to get it back online as soon as possible.  It won't be up and running again until Friday at the earliest, however.

Yes, yes, I know. It's been forever since we've released some screens. Not to say we are not hard at work, though; we've modelled and skinned alot of units, so be ready for an onslaught of screens in the coming weeks.

Anyway, these two are the first of our "action" screens. One note on the screen with the Prism Tank: the actual prism beam will look different in game (and we have already animated it) but we don't have a screen of it in action yet so this will have to do for now.

Also, I'd like to say "thanks" to CommieDog, Warnwar2003 and aConcernedCitizen for their INI, skinning, and modeling help, respectively.

Anyway, here are the screens!