Quick Community Roundup.

Banshee · Last edited by Banshee on Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:06 pm; edited 2 times in total

Today, my colleagues from the university are restarting their classes. I didn't have my vacations yet. I'm stuck with my graduation final project yet. My objective is to figure out a method to transform the voxel models used by Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun into 3D models that could be used in other games. So, I'm either working at the dissertation that I'll have to write about this work or at the Voxel Section Editor III, which is being used to test this method. To make my job easier, I'm just generating the mesh with vertex normals and colours. And I've already finished this part of the research. The text is also nearly done and its revision just needs to be finished by my teacher. My ambition goes a little bit further and I want part of the future work done when I present my work to my teachers and the existing features of the program to work correctly. I've already coded a method to generate texture coordinates and textures itself.I've recently got shaders working at the VXLSE III. Right now, I'm fixing a couple of interface problems that Mortecha reported me a while ago with the Right/Left and Top/Bottom views and I'm creating an auto-repair tool for the program that makes testing easier (you'll only need to download the vxlse III executable and the program downloads the other files for you once you run it for the first time). I've already reformed most of the program code and, in the end, instead of becoming the version 1.4, I might release it as 2.0 due to the massive amount of features included in the current SVN build.

So, that's my today's excuse for not posting much news here in these days. But, hell, we cannot leave the site without news for a long time, can't we? So, let's get some basic news running:

Official Command & Conquer News:

-> Command & Conquer 4 will be released next week and the beta is gone. As far as I could play, and I haven't played much, the game is fun, but I've really missed the base building and this pop cap annoyed me as well. It doesn't feel like a Command & Conquer game, although it seems to be a nice real time tactics (RTT) game. As a newbie on C&C4, I've noticed that the units that starts with the offense class were a way better than the other classes, for both GDI and Nod (specially GDI) and I was really lucky to choose it in my first time. I had no problems to wipe a Nod defense enemy base and hold two control nodes against a Nod support class player until the end of the game. I guess my rivals were just as newbie as I am in the game. Anyway, the main attraction of this game for me is the single player campaign. I like the tiberium storyline and, although the inconsistences seen in C&C3 deteriorated its quality, I'm still curious about seeing the end of Kane.

If you wanna a quick glimpse of the story, I recommend you to watch the C&C Comic's first episode. Of course it has several inconsistences with Tiberian Sun and even Tiberium Wars. I.e.: I'd never be unprotected in a red zone near so many huge crystal tiberiums like that mad ex-farmer was, but anyway, the episode is fun, nonetheless.

Quote:

EPISODE ONE - AN UNEXPECTED HERO. The year is 2068, and Tiberium has nearly destroyed our world. Christian Pierce, a young farmer and militiaman who is quickly losing his livelihood to the encroaching crystals, leaves his family and heads for the nearest GDI Blue Zone to find work. But what he finds there isn't just a job. It's destiny. Watch it HERE.

C&C Community News

-> CNCNZ has been spotting a lot of articles about Tiberian Twilight recently and Sonic has even started an interesting discussion about the new DRM system featured in the game. I rarely post news about these things, but one of them, from Sam Bass to Gamasutra has called my attention. According to the article, Sam Bass explains the Starcraft II will be good for the genre as a whole. And here is what he uses as an argument:

Quote:

"Hopefully [StarCraft II] will sell a bazillion copies, and a bunch of people will become much more educated in modern RTS play, and get back online and start playing the games," he explained. "I think, in the end, it’s a good thing."

Unlike some of the other C&C sites, PPM is a fan site where news does not need to be unbiased, so yes, I do expose my opinion, in case none of you haven't noticed. It is a fan site and its news works more like a blog than a professional news source. So, I just feel like I'm an uncivilized or uneducated creature after reading the quoted paragraph from the article. First of all, online play interests them because they have control over your access to the system, in short, piracy may not provide this feature most of the time, so you really have to buy the game. But that's ok and understandable and it doesn't annoys a casual gamer like myself. However, disliking online game does not mean lack of education. I don't like playing competitive online matches and I believe that there are many people like me. I don't want to rush into keyboard shortcuts to build faster than the enemy, go with a pre-calculated build order, or scan every interesting part of the map all the time and micromanage things as fast as possible. This might be the competitive playing style, yea, but it is a way too much mechanic to be honest. I expect to have pleasure when I play a game and not stress. I prefer to play a bit slower enjoying the bits of the game and playing it more like chess. Plan your move, analyse the alternatives and then move when things are ready. No rush. No stress. Perhaps trying a little rush to surprise the enemy once in a while doesn't hurt. But hitting the keyboard frenetically and micromanaging stuff like a freak when playing the game is a big no for me.

Regarding the DRM discussion, CNCNZ showcases an interesting case that happened with some Ubisoft games. What happens to the users who try to play an offline game in a game that requires internet connection for everything when their servers get a denial of service? The answer is simple: you can't play it unless you get a crack (which already exists for the Ubisoft games mentioned in that article). That's not a good deal for those who actually paid to play the game. Discuss it at CNCNZ Forums.

-> CnC Labs has one new 6 player map for Red Alert 3 called Uhud Battlefield created by Azacpi. Check the minimap below. If you enjoy it, click on it to download it.

-> CnC Guild's tutorials and downloads were fixed a while ago. There are a lot of interesting tutorials for Red Alert 2 and C&C3 modders in that site. Check it out if you need some help or some tip.

C&C Mod News

-> Tiberian Dawn Redux was featured in the february's edition of the benelux PC Gameplay magazine. Thanks to 0warfighter0 for scanning it. Click in the picture for a higher resolution scan:

-> Doom Desire Public Beta was recently released by mevitar, who claims to be unable to continue the mod due to real life issues. The mod is a total conversion that brings at least 6 factions (USA, Eastern Asia Alliance, European Union, USSR, China and United Arabian Nations), a huge set of new units with new gameplay mechanics. It requires NPatch Special Edition. You can download the mod and its musics packs at this forum topic at Revora.

-> Contra has several new renders with new chinese weaponry. China has gained an apocalypse device and a King of Fire. But don't worry, because USA showed a reponse very quickly called Cyborg Commando. Check all screenies at the Contra site.

-> Mental Omega's leader, Speeder, has showed some interesting maps featured in the next version of Mental Omega. Here's one of them:

As you can noticed, this map was originally created for Red Alert 3 and fully converted to Red Alert 2. Do you wanna see more RA3 maps on RA2, check Mental Omega's site.

-> The Forgotten total conversion for C&C3 has pictures of the third mission of their campaign, which will feature HD quality movies. Here's one. Click on it for more.

And this is what I could collect for now.

Finally, we cannot end this news without reminding Aro's birthday, which happened yesterday. Congratulations buddy, I hope you enjoyed it and gained a lot of cool presents.

Aro · Alcohol Fueled **Joined**: 10 Sep 2006

Thanks mate, that really made my day. Smile

DaRTzO · Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:19 pm Post subject:

Any chance speeder could release those ra3 maps for the ra2 online community? They would make good maps for competitive multiplayer after a few touch ups of course #Tongue