Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 8:42 am Post subject:
Dev Quote's thread
Subject description: My attempt at new standard source of inspiration
Well, I decided to collect a ton of random quotes that I've randomly copy pasted from the Petro forums, questions by fans answered by a Dev. I hope to see more thinking along these ideas:
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QUOTE(Valdez @ Dec 4 2007, 05:51 AM) [snapback]108112[/snapback]
It could actually be a cool game mechanic for an RTS game, enabling the ability to place down buildings (like you would with a map editor) prior to starting a game. The buildings will cost "points" to place on a permitted radius around your starting location and once you use up all your building points and are ready to commence you click some thingy and when all the players click their thingies the game starts....
The very first version of C&C3 (incursion) had this feature. You'd plan out your base ahead of time and then it would build up once you were on the map.
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Well, since I wrote FS's story --
FS ends with Slavik having reunited Nod under one rule, all now unified and awaiting Kane's return. CABAL going rogue was in some ways a test of Nod's strength. Would CABAL succeed in tearing apart and splintering Nod, or would they be able to hold together and unite? Turns out yes, they could pull it off.
Was CABAL simply testing Nod the entire time, under Kane's guidance? Hmm...
FWIW, I really don't mind what they do with the fiction -- it's theirs. As someone who likes coherent stories, I'm just trying to figure out why they've taken such an odd TiVo-like approach to get to coherency.
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RE: CABAL
Cypher is correct!
Since Erik Yeo and I came up with that particular acronym / name, here's how it happened. It came about from the definition of CABAL (i.e. a group of plotters) since Erik wanted to give Nod's AI more personality and definition than EVA ever got in TD.
We reverse-engineered the acronym from the name, which was originally "Computer-Assisted Bio-organic Artificial Life-form". I have to say that the reversal worked out amazingly well from definition to acronym.
The caballah tie-in is from the origins of the word itself, so it worked on multiple levels.
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RA2's continuity:
Yes, the solution to RA2's complete break of the RA -> C&C -> TS fiction was something that several of us came up with to "fix" the problem. RA being the prequel was what we (Westwood LV) intended for the series. It was originally called C&C0, FYI. RA2 was a great game, but we had issues with how to fit that into the timeline we wanted to maintain. We found a creative way to fix it. It's in the WWv2 C&C3 GDI campaign. Yuri, an acolyte of Kane's (Nod was experimenting with psionics in the WWv2 C&C3) is sucked into a chrono-vortex that is created by a Chronosphere that GDI inadvertently activates (along with some other RA-era tech) while attempting to retrieve the only other existing suit of powered "screaming eagle" commando armor (the first was melted on re-entry from orbit when the Philadelphia was destroyed) from the sealed tech vaults at Area 51.
Just like Einstein fracturing the timeline from "real" time with his little trip back into the past in RA, so did Yuri's presence throw off the already-altered timeline again, creating the RA2 reality. RA games would have continued in that splintered reality.
That is how it would have been explained. End of story on that.
Continuum:
Yep, stopped to help E&B out. One of the three worst mistakes we ever made at WW.
C&C Bible:
The bible was a marketing idea that none of us had any time to contribute to. The internal version was badly written, had no continuity and ignored by all of us that worked on the C&C story. It was out of date the moment it was first written and was never updated after. There were versions done later, but the internal one... yikes.
Story / versions / etc.
The C&C3 story changed with each new location / producer and time period it went through. There are at least 4 versions of C&C3 (WWv1, WWv2, EAv1, EAv2) that had different factions and story concepts. I worked on the WWv1/2 and EAv1 versions. EAv2 is pretty much TW. The WWv2 story was the one that the EAv1 was going to use as well (or a modified version thereof).
WWv1 started right after Firestorm shipped, and we voluntarily stopped it to work on Continuum. All existing design docs were given to WWP for ideas for RA2 / Yuris. Some of the units in Yuris are modified versions of that first C&C3 design.
WWv2 started towards the end of WWLV's existence, right before the consolidation. It continued on for a bit at EALA before sputtering because all of us working on it were put onto ZH.
EAv1 was the real official restart of C&C3, which we worked on in both EALA locations (BelAir and Playa). EAv1 was stopped to help LotR, Goldeneye and MoH. It was never really picked back up.
After that version, I'm going to assume that the next one was TW, since I was gone at that point.
Staff:
When WW/WWP was consolidated, many people were fired outright and others were offered jobs at EALA or EARS. Some took the jobs, some didn't. Living in a city that has no other game companies (Vegas), your reality of choices was -- stay in Vegas and find other work (non-industry), go with EA to LA or SF and maybe continue your project, or go to another company and move anyway.
All of the WWLV design & production staff that did go to EALA eventually left or were fired before TW was started on. There are still some technical and artistic people at EALA that worked on the previous WWLV C&C games.
The WWLV team didn't work on Generals, but almost all of us worked on ZH (while some were on MoH) and many worked on the LotR series after that.
WWLV/WWP:
The decisions of who decided on what project isn't as clear-cut as they were made out in the response. There were some political issues between WWP and WWLV and EA management that I won't get into because way it's too much bad blood, but the picture painted isn't the whole story.
So that's that. Done, spent, fini. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to making U@W a franchise that kicks major ass.
A-
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Without seeing the logos in color, you lose a lot of the detail.
The Scrin logo matched the Scrin perfectly. You have to remember they looked completely different in the first version.
Not fake.
Yes, that was WW C&C3 when we were fooling around with how to make the UI much sexier. That was our target goal for how it would look / work in the product.
Pretty cool, eh?
The game shot was at a lower detail. Those vids were all about nailing the UI look / feel.
ADDL: The unit that upgraded was the MDP, the Mobile Defense Platform. HUGE guns.
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Your orders in TS were processed through CABAL and to the battlefield. He's answering to CABAL, who's relaying the orders.
You can look at Firestorm as the apology for going a bit astray in TS. We wanted to get it back on-track for where C&C was headed.
I so wanted to cut that Nod buggy. You have no idea.
CABAL was one of the projects built by Kane when he had Tratos translating the Tacitus for him. Kane used his own brain patterns in making a template for CABAL's personality, which is why they share a certain bond.
Just like the Nod UFO, Kane had various Tacitus-related projects in the works before TS happened.
I think a FAQ is a nice idea for the past C&C stuff.
Cypher is right, but so are the rest of you. There's a huge lure to "what if" scenarios, because you can focus on that one issue and ignore the other forces and pressures that would change all of that around during development.
Did we have mechs in WW C&C3? A few, but the titan and others were gone.
Were there blue / yellow / red zones? Yes -- In Continuum. At the end of FS, GDI finally has the complete Tacitus to start creating tech to remove Tiberium, which they would have been using in Continuum via atmosphere processors to drive back its growth. This creates safe and unsafe zones, and gives GDI and Nod a lot to fight over.
Sounds like EA just took fiction from several of our plans -- heck they have all the designs & story we did for Continuum, Renegade 2, C&C3 v1, C&C3 v2, and others, so they have plenty to draw from and do what they want with.
I've said this before, but C&C is in new hands now, and as much as I have contributed to answering non-sensitive questions about what WW was planning (or more to the point, myself and a few others were planning), you've got to accept what they do with it, since it's not in our hands any longer.
Not trying to bring anyone down, just trying to cool you guys off and not have to lock this thread.
Let's see if I can clear some of this up:
Incursion was a working title for one iteration of C&C 3 -- what people thought was called Twilight.
We never (ok, except one time on accident) ever called C&C3 "Tiberium Twilight", everyone just assumed it would be named that because of Dawn / Sun for the first two, and it was initially meant as a trilogy of games about the Tiberium war, Kane, etc. I can't blame people for making the logic jump there though, it makes a lot of sense.
Continuum was the MMO working title. I still like that one a lot.
Renegade 2 was called Battlegrounds or something like that internally... can't remember specifically.
I never said the universes were merged, only that RA2's existence was explained.
That was my first title at Westwood. I made about half of those missions. I still remember "Cloak & Dagger" pretty intimately. I think "Eviction Notice" was in that set too, plus a few others.
Yeah, the goal was "make missions that the C&C hardcore would have trouble beating!" So, that's what we set out to do.
Hmm, ok I need to explain this a bit better.
You, the player, have EVA. It's a high-tech data/video management tool that you (the player) created and use. You are contacted by GDI or Nod and they ask for your help. Whether it's a case of mistaken identity on the part of GDI or Nod is up to you to decide.
You use EVA to interface with GDI and Nod's communications layers, factories, and other aspects of the conflict to easily control the battlefield actions of the "real" troops you're moving around.
EVA is the best piece of middle-ware ever created.
EVA in C&C1 was neutral -- it was simply the "Electronic Video Agent" that either faction could take advantage of.
Oh and another question to Petro: Why is TS and FS thus different in narratory style, and also in the way the missions are tied?
Many of us didn't like TS having a main character that wasn't up to the player's imagination (i.e. themselves). So, we killed the characters off in the beginning of FS and went back to the style we always liked in the C&C games -- talking to the player as the commander.
As for the story, we wanted to try to make a campaign where there was one definitive ending that both sides had victory from, rather than just completely opposite endings that could not both have happened. The nice thing was that both sides had very major victories (GDI could start reverse-engineering work on Tiberium, Nod was unified once again, having removed CABAL and its lazy / greedy officers) in the FS ending.
What was he then? Something Renegade suggested, or?
(Ignore this question if im out of line).
Or at least: Was he human?
Because one trivial bit of TW suggests hes neither Scrin nor human ("Dna unidentified" or something).
Kane is human, his fate tied to Earth's fate. Kane sees the Scrin as an escape from his prison.
Since my knowledge of the fiction of C&C ends before TW, anything they've changed or added is where they want to take it, and I've got no idea where that may be.
Kane wasn't an alien in the WW fiction.
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Uhm? I created once a similar thread @ EA boards and Cypher said, it's not a Chronosphere, but he would tell me, what Kane did at the end of TS (Nod ending) after C&C3 is out.
Cypher's correct. What happens to Kane at the end of the Nod TS ending isn't the chronosphere.
In many ways, C&C3 used that angle of the story (i.e. Kane's attempts to bring the Scrin) in the Nod campaign, they just played it out in a different way with a similar result...
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The water wasn't polluted from the water -- it was polluted from what tiberium was doing to the flora and fauna.
Tiberium was never intended to grow well in very dry areas, so arctic and desert it had a very hard time growing and spreading in. Water had very high salt concentrations, which also messed with Tiberium.
...at least, that was in the WW fiction for it.
CABAL had his own stronghold in the south-american Tiberium jungles... or at least that's where it would have been in Continuum.
no, it wasn't a juggernaut. You can see it in Evil Gary's site (Google is our friend). The third barrel isn't visible, however, which is very weird, even though the description claims so.
Nvm, here's the link.
You can't see the third barrel because it's a gattling-barrel (i.e. the tank has three rotating barrels)
This new mammoth was for C&C3, not Continuum. The Juggernaut had been replaced with the MDP (Mobile Defense Platform), which was smaller and more agile and packing almost the same level of firepower.
Oh, and I recently got the C&C 3 book to get more backstory and apparently McNeil (from TS, who DIED in FS) is still alive in that. That should prove that EA killed continuity.
Seriously?! Jeez. Wow.
Nod is an ideology. They believe that GDI is living in the past and not embracing the change that Tiberum has brought to the planet. They believe that GDI's destruction of tiberium is wrong. It was always intended to be a war of ideology. It just so happens that to get attention, Nod will resort to tactics (like bombings) that GDI would not.
The Forgotten had evolved to draw energies out of Tiberium directly in order to power their "unique" abilities. You can think of them like psionics and such if that helps (or even X-men lite), but they were going to have a lot of control over the battlefield and all the flora / fauna on it, as well as being able to negate a lot of Scrin powers via their abilities.
For tech, they used stolen GDI and Nod gear that they modified to their own ends. While not as strong as GDI or as fast as Nod, they were intended to be a very finesse-driven side, since your power pool for every ability on every unit and every production facility was shared (i.e. piece a unit together for 500 energy, or call an ion storm for 2500 energy, use ability X on unit Y for 1000 energy, etc.)
I don't know how the word Vrix got in there -- that was the name of our nemesis race in Earth & Beyond and was never associated with C&C.
The art in question was the Scrin builder unit for C&C3. It burrowed into the ground and began morph itself to establish a new base. Scrin base building was more like LotR's fortresses -- fixed space with plots to choose what to put where. The Scrin had to build multiple bases to have all their tech available, and there were combos of certain items that could tweak the base in certain ways (sound anything like... oh, I don't know -- walker hardpoints maybe? ).
I was very amused when Dustin and I compared notes on C&C 3 and LotR and discovered we'd both come to the same conclusion on a new type of base building concept. We've done that a few times, working completely in a vacuum from each other and having a similar idea. Really, we must share a brain or something, because the Protoss pylon teleport ability in SC2 and Novus' flow ability in UaW are identical in purpose, but completely different in delivery
Yeah, that was a concept for the Primal. It's not a ship, it's a creature.
Mullins does amazing work.
I've not really answered because the story went through multiple iterations and versions as we changed the playable factions and the key game systems. I'm trying to get it straight in my head again before further complicating things by saying something that wasn't the way we planned it.
We had also developed two completely different origins for the Tacitus, and since both stories leveraged that origin, I'm trying to remember what each included. One was centered around the Tacitus being a soul-prison for the leader of the martian force that fought against the Scrin (they knew how to beat the Scrin, but discovered it too late) while the Earth was still primordial, and the other was centered around the Scrin rebels stealing the "bible" of the Scrin -- which may or may not have been written by them in the first place -- and the Scrin Primal's crusade to recover it.
Both were interesting and had some cool reveals.
So no promises on a ton of detail. Much of it is pretty jumbled in my head at this point.
The Scrin didn't account for what effect Tiberium would have on some humans (i.e. the forgotten). They thought it would kill all humans off, but unfortunately, some that were exposed survived and actually began to be able to harness Tiberium's energies themselves. They turned out to be humankind's most powerful weapon against the Scrin, since they could control Tiberium in a way the Scrin could not, making them a huge threat. The forgotten were going to become a full faction in the expansion for the game.
Ah, OK.
Since the Nod Banshee was really a lot like the old Cylon raider itself, I don't know if they intended to draw a parallel (i.e. Nod built the craft from Tacitus information, which was an interpretation of the Scrin craft design) or if that's just how it ended up looking.
There was an aerial unit designed on paper for the Scrin, but it didn't have that name and we didn't get around to visual concept for it.
CABAL was one of the projects built by Kane when he had Tratos translating the Tacitus for him. Kane used his own brain patterns in making a template for CABAL's personality, which is why they share a certain bond.
Just like the Nod UFO, Kane had various Tacitus-related projects in the works before TS happened.
I've not really answered because the story went through multiple iterations and versions as we changed the playable factions and the key game systems. I'm trying to get it straight in my head again before further complicating things by saying something that wasn't the way we planned it.
We had also developed two completely different origins for the Tacitus, and since both stories leveraged that origin, I'm trying to remember what each included. One was centered around the Tacitus being a soul-prison for the leader of the martian force that fought against the Scrin (they knew how to beat the Scrin, but discovered it too late) while the Earth was still primordial, and the other was centered around the Scrin rebels stealing the "bible" of the Scrin -- which may or may not have been written by them in the first place -- and the Scrin Primal's crusade to recover it.
Both were interesting and had some cool reveals.
So no promises on a ton of detail. Much of it is pretty jumbled in my head at this point.
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QUOTE
- What did you plan to happen with tiberium and tiberium life forms?
Tiberium had taken over parts of the planet that GDI did not build and run their atmosphere processors near (data from the Tacitus allowed the creation of these processors, which reversed Tiberium's growth). Some areas were more affected by Tiberium than others (Tiberium grew better in moist / warmer climates), and those heavily affected had undergone complete metamorphosis of terrain, flora, and fauna. Species of all forms of life either died off, adapted, or mutated into things that could survive in those areas. Even GDI and Nod would not enter some of the (to use the C&C3 vocab) "red" zones, where Tiberium had completely taken over, as constant ion storms and all kinds of new animal and plant life was very hostile to intruders. Those areas were written off as lost causes.
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QUOTE(popcorn2008 @ Apr 8 2007, 01:41 PM) [snapback]43004[/snapback]
So in TW it is a liquid tiberium explosion that summons the scrin to Earth, "Ichor LQ Detonation". Was this planned from the start?
It was not. It was the scrin rebels that fled with the tacitus that brings the Scrin forces to Earth.
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QUOTE
Now that being said, was the storyline changed from what you guys intended Kane's original goals to be?
It's different than we had planned it, but remember it didn't go through as much scrutiny because we never got to filming stages with it. I don't know how it would have ended up with us, but it was different in the planning stages.
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QUOTE(Muk @ Jan 5 2007, 01:07 PM) [snapback]24434[/snapback]
Anything you want to share about how it WOULD have been?
Remember that tablet that Kane had in his palace in Renegade? In a vid at the end of C&C TD during the credits?
It depicts something important, and gives you a clue as to his origins.
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We went back and forth on just where the Tacitus came from, but the translation of it is really the key -- what some may interpret as a warning from it could really be written prophecy or even an instruction manual to other eyes, depending on who is reading it and what they want to get from it.
I'm curious to see where EA goes with the Tacitus now. There's several directions they could take it in from where we had it post TS/FS. Given the C&C3 story, they didn't really expand on its origin one way or another, since again, its message is open to interpretation.
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Our thoughts were always that Einstein was gambling. He didn't know what would happen, despite his theories. No one had ever time traveled, so there was no reference. Would time error-check itself at some point and erase WWII from happening in his time line? Would nothing change for them, but there would be a new time-line that didn't suffer the same fate? Would nothing happen at all, because it's the "past"?
His time will tell line is partially because he doesn't even know what to expect. "Time" -- whatever that entity may be -- will answer the question.
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All of the Scin concept art we'd done seems to have been re-done, as the Scrin didn't look like they do in C&C3, and none of the structures seem to resemble things we'd concepted. There are pieces / parts that seem to have been used in some of the structures in the release, but it looks as if a lot of them were not used.
The only few pieces from the original C&C3 that survive on-line are the Craig Mullins pieces that you've all seen.
Last edited by Pepzi on Sun Apr 18, 2010 5:47 pm; edited 3 times in total QUICK_EDIT
To be quite honest, I must say.. Reading these notes, especially the whole forgotten bit, I have to think that C&C was doomed regardless. Somebody must've been on some heavy drugs there. They forgot their own canon it seems.
The mutants, who were 'forgotten' and stuck with old C&C1 Buggies, Mammoth Tanks, and Apaches suddenly become the heroes of the whole saga compared to professionally trained soldiers? What the hell? _________________ Victory! QUICK_EDIT
I can't be bothered making a long and complex retort and dissection of that post, Volgin, because I believe that you would just misread and assume foolish things from it. QUICK_EDIT
The mutants, who were 'forgotten' and stuck with old C&C1 Buggies, Mammoth Tanks, and Apaches suddenly become the heroes of the whole saga compared to professionally trained soldiers? What the hell?
Actually, it brings a rather cool twist on the plot. The lowest of all, forgotten and abandoned, will become the saviors of mankind, not because of physical strength or psychological intelligence, but because of their natural connection to Tiberium. For Scrin, it might not have been their "blood" afterall, but something like regular weed (no, not the drugs :p) to us. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Yeah, if the Scrin expected that humanity would be wiped out, they'd be deep in shit if they arrived to find some of us unnaturally stronger.
Maybe that's why we survive, because the Scrin don't expect a fight.
All in all, the forgotten makes a really good twist, because both Nod and GDI have an ideology (to embrace or stop Tiberium) and the only ones capable of stopping the Scrin are those directly effected, but forgotten. QUICK_EDIT
Yar, 'tis a redemption story. The outcasts prove themselves saviours of humanity and so on.
Although TBH if you dropped a terraforming plant on somebody's world then came along expecting them all to be dead and finding two highly advanced factions and a group of dudes who are not only imune to your plant but heal in it and can use it to do stuf that inflicts serious pain I think you'd have second thoughts coming back, wouldn't you? _________________ Yes, work on MV continues. It is not forgotten. QUICK_EDIT
Yeah but what if the horsemen could make lightning strike and regenerate from rifle fire by being on grass? See what I mean. The fact they can use the environment that makes them powerful, not their tech. Sounds a bit mad but Tiberium was always the center of the story. _________________ Yes, work on MV continues. It is not forgotten. QUICK_EDIT
To be quite honest, I must say.. Reading these notes, especially the whole forgotten bit, I have to think that C&C was doomed regardless. Somebody must've been on some heavy drugs there. They forgot their own canon it seems.
The mutants, who were 'forgotten' and stuck with old C&C1 Buggies, Mammoth Tanks, and Apaches suddenly become the heroes of the whole saga compared to professionally trained soldiers? What the hell?
Yeah it's rather horrendously too-convenient-to-be-true. Almost as convenient as the computer virus that magically saved humanity from the invaders in Independence Day... _________________
The white lady~! QUICK_EDIT
Well I'm glad somebody sees my point... I mean come on, its as bad as saying 'Poland wins World War 2 by invading Berlin on a cavalry charge. Hitler Dead'. Its illogical and dumb.
I wish I could get into EALA, I'd like to get my hands on the betas of RA2, Warpath, and Trespasser. Pine Valley FTW QUICK_EDIT
No... it's like saying a ztyping alien substance that practically offers a scifi carte blance for weird shit arriving, then some guys get this stuff stuck in them ,the writers run with the idea and make this stuff give them boosted abilities and a kinda connection to the rest of this stuff that it had before, but now there's a dude with a brain attatched. Then they run too far with the carte blanche, fall off a cliff (causing people to go "WTF, illogical!") and get sold to some big gaming dude who borrows their head in order to make something that looks similar (same face) but is quite a bit different. Et voila, bad simile finished. _________________ Yes, work on MV continues. It is not forgotten. QUICK_EDIT
This stuff kills these people but it gives them superpowers? Well, Uranium kills people. Quick, somebody lick some Uranium pellets! _________________ Victory! QUICK_EDIT
To be quite honest, I must say.. Reading these notes, especially the whole forgotten bit, I have to think that C&C was doomed regardless. Somebody must've been on some heavy drugs there. They forgot their own canon it seems.
The mutants, who were 'forgotten' and stuck with old C&C1 Buggies, Mammoth Tanks, and Apaches suddenly become the heroes of the whole saga compared to professionally trained soldiers? What the hell?
Yeah it's rather horrendously too-convenient-to-be-true. Almost as convenient as the computer virus that magically saved humanity from the invaders in Independence Day...
Tratos was the only one besides Cabal who could translate the tacitus, his mutant qualities that include stuff of the paranormal probably enhanced his skills.
Edit: The forgotten have a relationship to tiberium that very much paralells with the Fremen's relationship to the spice melange in the dune universe. QUICK_EDIT
don't forget, WW was very inspired by a lot science fiction movies and things, and they made the Dune Games so for the love of dune you can't deny the similarity between a twisted tale of Forgotten men who are the last hope and the Fremen with their wisdom and their jihad. _________________ Hydraw Art on Facebook QUICK_EDIT
While not as strong as GDI or as fast as Nod, they were intended to be a very finesse-driven side, since your power pool for every ability on every unit and every production facility was shared (i.e. piece a unit together for 500 energy, or call an ion storm for 2500 energy, use ability X on unit Y for 1000 energy, etc.)
Is it just me or did Adam just describe the credits system for all factions in C&C3:TW but in a new suit? Seems like the only difference is that not every unit ability costs money in TW(or do they?)? QUICK_EDIT
Actually I'm pretty sure it's the support powers that cost money. For unit abilities I think only the GDI dig in bunker costs money but memory's sketchy on that. _________________
The white lady~! QUICK_EDIT
Actually I'm pretty sure it's the support powers that cost money. For unit abilities I think only the GDI dig in bunker costs money but memory's sketchy on that.
Plus call for transport and the Saboteurs Booby Trap ability. I just checked (well in a mod but anyway ). QUICK_EDIT
Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2010 9:28 am Post subject:
Re: Dev Quote's thread
Pepzi wrote:
Well, I decided to collect a ton of random quotes that I've randomly copy pasted from the Petro forums, questions by fans answered by a Dev. I hope to see more thinking along these ideas:
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QUOTE(Valdez @ Dec 4 2007, 05:51 AM) [snapback]108112[/snapback]
It could actually be a cool game mechanic for an RTS game, enabling the ability to place down buildings (like you would with a map editor) prior to starting a game. The buildings will cost "points" to place on a permitted radius around your starting location and once you use up all your building points and are ready to commence you click some thingy and when all the players click their thingies the game starts....
The very first version of C&C3 (incursion) had this feature. You'd plan out your base ahead of time and then it would build up once you were on the map.
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Well, since I wrote FS's story --
FS ends with Slavik having reunited Nod under one rule, all now unified and awaiting Kane's return. CABAL going rogue was in some ways a test of Nod's strength. Would CABAL succeed in tearing apart and splintering Nod, or would they be able to hold together and unite? Turns out yes, they could pull it off.
Was CABAL simply testing Nod the entire time, under Kane's guidance? Hmm...
FWIW, I really don't mind what they do with the fiction -- it's theirs. As someone who likes coherent stories, I'm just trying to figure out why they've taken such an odd TiVo-like approach to get to coherency.
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RE: CABAL
Cypher is correct!
Since Erik Yeo and I came up with that particular acronym / name, here's how it happened. It came about from the definition of CABAL (i.e. a group of plotters) since Erik wanted to give Nod's AI more personality and definition than EVA ever got in TD.
We reverse-engineered the acronym from the name, which was originally "Computer-Assisted Bio-organic Artificial Life-form". I have to say that the reversal worked out amazingly well from definition to acronym.
The caballah tie-in is from the origins of the word itself, so it worked on multiple levels.
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RA2's continuity:
Yes, the solution to RA2's complete break of the RA -> C&C -> TS fiction was something that several of us came up with to "fix" the problem. RA being the prequel was what we (Westwood LV) intended for the series. It was originally called C&C0, FYI. RA2 was a great game, but we had issues with how to fit that into the timeline we wanted to maintain. We found a creative way to fix it. It's in the WWv2 C&C3 GDI campaign. Yuri, an acolyte of Kane's (Nod was experimenting with psionics in the WWv2 C&C3) is sucked into a chrono-vortex that is created by a Chronosphere that GDI inadvertently activates (along with some other RA-era tech) while attempting to retrieve the only other existing suit of powered "screaming eagle" commando armor (the first was melted on re-entry from orbit when the Philadelphia was destroyed) from the sealed tech vaults at Area 51.
Just like Einstein fracturing the timeline from "real" time with his little trip back into the past in RA, so did Yuri's presence throw off the already-altered timeline again, creating the RA2 reality. RA games would have continued in that splintered reality.
That is how it would have been explained. End of story on that.
Continuum:
Yep, stopped to help E&B out. One of the three worst mistakes we ever made at WW.
C&C Bible:
The bible was a marketing idea that none of us had any time to contribute to. The internal version was badly written, had no continuity and ignored by all of us that worked on the C&C story. It was out of date the moment it was first written and was never updated after. There were versions done later, but the internal one... yikes.
Story / versions / etc.
The C&C3 story changed with each new location / producer and time period it went through. There are at least 4 versions of C&C3 (WWv1, WWv2, EAv1, EAv2) that had different factions and story concepts. I worked on the WWv1/2 and EAv1 versions. EAv2 is pretty much TW. The WWv2 story was the one that the EAv1 was going to use as well (or a modified version thereof).
WWv1 started right after Firestorm shipped, and we voluntarily stopped it to work on Continuum. All existing design docs were given to WWP for ideas for RA2 / Yuris. Some of the units in Yuris are modified versions of that first C&C3 design.
WWv2 started towards the end of WWLV's existence, right before the consolidation. It continued on for a bit at EALA before sputtering because all of us working on it were put onto ZH.
EAv1 was the real official restart of C&C3, which we worked on in both EALA locations (BelAir and Playa). EAv1 was stopped to help LotR, Goldeneye and MoH. It was never really picked back up.
After that version, I'm going to assume that the next one was TW, since I was gone at that point.
Staff:
When WW/WWP was consolidated, many people were fired outright and others were offered jobs at EALA or EARS. Some took the jobs, some didn't. Living in a city that has no other game companies (Vegas), your reality of choices was -- stay in Vegas and find other work (non-industry), go with EA to LA or SF and maybe continue your project, or go to another company and move anyway.
All of the WWLV design & production staff that did go to EALA eventually left or were fired before TW was started on. There are still some technical and artistic people at EALA that worked on the previous WWLV C&C games.
The WWLV team didn't work on Generals, but almost all of us worked on ZH (while some were on MoH) and many worked on the LotR series after that.
WWLV/WWP:
The decisions of who decided on what project isn't as clear-cut as they were made out in the response. There were some political issues between WWP and WWLV and EA management that I won't get into because way it's too much bad blood, but the picture painted isn't the whole story.
So that's that. Done, spent, fini. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to making U@W a franchise that kicks major ass.
A-
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Without seeing the logos in color, you lose a lot of the detail.
The Scrin logo matched the Scrin perfectly. You have to remember they looked completely different in the first version.
Not fake.
Yes, that was WW C&C3 when we were fooling around with how to make the UI much sexier. That was our target goal for how it would look / work in the product.
Pretty cool, eh?
The game shot was at a lower detail. Those vids were all about nailing the UI look / feel.
ADDL: The unit that upgraded was the MDP, the Mobile Defense Platform. HUGE guns.
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Your orders in TS were processed through CABAL and to the battlefield. He's answering to CABAL, who's relaying the orders.
You can look at Firestorm as the apology for going a bit astray in TS. We wanted to get it back on-track for where C&C was headed.
I so wanted to cut that Nod buggy. You have no idea.
CABAL was one of the projects built by Kane when he had Tratos translating the Tacitus for him. Kane used his own brain patterns in making a template for CABAL's personality, which is why they share a certain bond.
Just like the Nod UFO, Kane had various Tacitus-related projects in the works before TS happened.
I think a FAQ is a nice idea for the past C&C stuff.
Cypher is right, but so are the rest of you. There's a huge lure to "what if" scenarios, because you can focus on that one issue and ignore the other forces and pressures that would change all of that around during development.
Did we have mechs in WW C&C3? A few, but the titan and others were gone.
Were there blue / yellow / red zones? Yes -- In Continuum. At the end of FS, GDI finally has the complete Tacitus to start creating tech to remove Tiberium, which they would have been using in Continuum via atmosphere processors to drive back its growth. This creates safe and unsafe zones, and gives GDI and Nod a lot to fight over.
Sounds like EA just took fiction from several of our plans -- heck they have all the designs & story we did for Continuum, Renegade 2, C&C3 v1, C&C3 v2, and others, so they have plenty to draw from and do what they want with.
I've said this before, but C&C is in new hands now, and as much as I have contributed to answering non-sensitive questions about what WW was planning (or more to the point, myself and a few others were planning), you've got to accept what they do with it, since it's not in our hands any longer.
Not trying to bring anyone down, just trying to cool you guys off and not have to lock this thread.
Let's see if I can clear some of this up:
Incursion was a working title for one iteration of C&C 3 -- what people thought was called Twilight.
We never (ok, except one time on accident) ever called C&C3 "Tiberium Twilight", everyone just assumed it would be named that because of Dawn / Sun for the first two, and it was initially meant as a trilogy of games about the Tiberium war, Kane, etc. I can't blame people for making the logic jump there though, it makes a lot of sense.
Continuum was the MMO working title. I still like that one a lot.
Renegade 2 was called Battlegrounds or something like that internally... can't remember specifically.
I never said the universes were merged, only that RA2's existence was explained.
That was my first title at Westwood. I made about half of those missions. I still remember "Cloak & Dagger" pretty intimately. I think "Eviction Notice" was in that set too, plus a few others.
Yeah, the goal was "make missions that the C&C hardcore would have trouble beating!" So, that's what we set out to do.
Hmm, ok I need to explain this a bit better.
You, the player, have EVA. It's a high-tech data/video management tool that you (the player) created and use. You are contacted by GDI or Nod and they ask for your help. Whether it's a case of mistaken identity on the part of GDI or Nod is up to you to decide.
You use EVA to interface with GDI and Nod's communications layers, factories, and other aspects of the conflict to easily control the battlefield actions of the "real" troops you're moving around.
EVA is the best piece of middle-ware ever created.
EVA in C&C1 was neutral -- it was simply the "Electronic Video Agent" that either faction could take advantage of.
Oh and another question to Petro: Why is TS and FS thus different in narratory style, and also in the way the missions are tied?
Many of us didn't like TS having a main character that wasn't up to the player's imagination (i.e. themselves). So, we killed the characters off in the beginning of FS and went back to the style we always liked in the C&C games -- talking to the player as the commander.
As for the story, we wanted to try to make a campaign where there was one definitive ending that both sides had victory from, rather than just completely opposite endings that could not both have happened. The nice thing was that both sides had very major victories (GDI could start reverse-engineering work on Tiberium, Nod was unified once again, having removed CABAL and its lazy / greedy officers) in the FS ending.
What was he then? Something Renegade suggested, or?
(Ignore this question if im out of line).
Or at least: Was he human?
Because one trivial bit of TW suggests hes neither Scrin nor human ("Dna unidentified" or something).
Kane is human, his fate tied to Earth's fate. Kane sees the Scrin as an escape from his prison.
Since my knowledge of the fiction of C&C ends before TW, anything they've changed or added is where they want to take it, and I've got no idea where that may be.
Kane wasn't an alien in the WW fiction.
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Uhm? I created once a similar thread @ EA boards and Cypher said, it's not a Chronosphere, but he would tell me, what Kane did at the end of TS (Nod ending) after C&C3 is out.
Cypher's correct. What happens to Kane at the end of the Nod TS ending isn't the chronosphere.
In many ways, C&C3 used that angle of the story (i.e. Kane's attempts to bring the Scrin) in the Nod campaign, they just played it out in a different way with a similar result...
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The water wasn't polluted from the water -- it was polluted from what tiberium was doing to the flora and fauna.
Tiberium was never intended to grow well in very dry areas, so arctic and desert it had a very hard time growing and spreading in. Water had very high salt concentrations, which also messed with Tiberium.
...at least, that was in the WW fiction for it.
CABAL had his own stronghold in the south-american Tiberium jungles... or at least that's where it would have been in Continuum.
no, it wasn't a juggernaut. You can see it in Evil Gary's site (Google is our friend). The third barrel isn't visible, however, which is very weird, even though the description claims so.
Nvm, here's the link.
You can't see the third barrel because it's a gattling-barrel (i.e. the tank has three rotating barrels)
This new mammoth was for C&C3, not Continuum. The Juggernaut had been replaced with the MDP (Mobile Defense Platform), which was smaller and more agile and packing almost the same level of firepower.
Oh, and I recently got the C&C 3 book to get more backstory and apparently McNeil (from TS, who DIED in FS) is still alive in that. That should prove that EA killed continuity.
Seriously?! Jeez. Wow.
Nod is an ideology. They believe that GDI is living in the past and not embracing the change that Tiberum has brought to the planet. They believe that GDI's destruction of tiberium is wrong. It was always intended to be a war of ideology. It just so happens that to get attention, Nod will resort to tactics (like bombings) that GDI would not.
The Forgotten had evolved to draw energies out of Tiberium directly in order to power their "unique" abilities. You can think of them like psionics and such if that helps (or even X-men lite), but they were going to have a lot of control over the battlefield and all the flora / fauna on it, as well as being able to negate a lot of Scrin powers via their abilities.
For tech, they used stolen GDI and Nod gear that they modified to their own ends. While not as strong as GDI or as fast as Nod, they were intended to be a very finesse-driven side, since your power pool for every ability on every unit and every production facility was shared (i.e. piece a unit together for 500 energy, or call an ion storm for 2500 energy, use ability X on unit Y for 1000 energy, etc.)
I don't know how the word Vrix got in there -- that was the name of our nemesis race in Earth & Beyond and was never associated with C&C.
The art in question was the Scrin builder unit for C&C3. It burrowed into the ground and began morph itself to establish a new base. Scrin base building was more like LotR's fortresses -- fixed space with plots to choose what to put where. The Scrin had to build multiple bases to have all their tech available, and there were combos of certain items that could tweak the base in certain ways (sound anything like... oh, I don't know -- walker hardpoints maybe? ).
I was very amused when Dustin and I compared notes on C&C 3 and LotR and discovered we'd both come to the same conclusion on a new type of base building concept. We've done that a few times, working completely in a vacuum from each other and having a similar idea. Really, we must share a brain or something, because the Protoss pylon teleport ability in SC2 and Novus' flow ability in UaW are identical in purpose, but completely different in delivery
Yeah, that was a concept for the Primal. It's not a ship, it's a creature.
Mullins does amazing work.
I've not really answered because the story went through multiple iterations and versions as we changed the playable factions and the key game systems. I'm trying to get it straight in my head again before further complicating things by saying something that wasn't the way we planned it.
We had also developed two completely different origins for the Tacitus, and since both stories leveraged that origin, I'm trying to remember what each included. One was centered around the Tacitus being a soul-prison for the leader of the martian force that fought against the Scrin (they knew how to beat the Scrin, but discovered it too late) while the Earth was still primordial, and the other was centered around the Scrin rebels stealing the "bible" of the Scrin -- which may or may not have been written by them in the first place -- and the Scrin Primal's crusade to recover it.
Both were interesting and had some cool reveals.
So no promises on a ton of detail. Much of it is pretty jumbled in my head at this point.
The Scrin didn't account for what effect Tiberium would have on some humans (i.e. the forgotten). They thought it would kill all humans off, but unfortunately, some that were exposed survived and actually began to be able to harness Tiberium's energies themselves. They turned out to be humankind's most powerful weapon against the Scrin, since they could control Tiberium in a way the Scrin could not, making them a huge threat. The forgotten were going to become a full faction in the expansion for the game.
Ah, OK.
Since the Nod Banshee was really a lot like the old Cylon raider itself, I don't know if they intended to draw a parallel (i.e. Nod built the craft from Tacitus information, which was an interpretation of the Scrin craft design) or if that's just how it ended up looking.
There was an aerial unit designed on paper for the Scrin, but it didn't have that name and we didn't get around to visual concept for it.
CABAL was one of the projects built by Kane when he had Tratos translating the Tacitus for him. Kane used his own brain patterns in making a template for CABAL's personality, which is why they share a certain bond.
Just like the Nod UFO, Kane had various Tacitus-related projects in the works before TS happened.
I've not really answered because the story went through multiple iterations and versions as we changed the playable factions and the key game systems. I'm trying to get it straight in my head again before further complicating things by saying something that wasn't the way we planned it.
We had also developed two completely different origins for the Tacitus, and since both stories leveraged that origin, I'm trying to remember what each included. One was centered around the Tacitus being a soul-prison for the leader of the martian force that fought against the Scrin (they knew how to beat the Scrin, but discovered it too late) while the Earth was still primordial, and the other was centered around the Scrin rebels stealing the "bible" of the Scrin -- which may or may not have been written by them in the first place -- and the Scrin Primal's crusade to recover it.
Both were interesting and had some cool reveals.
So no promises on a ton of detail. Much of it is pretty jumbled in my head at this point.
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- What did you plan to happen with tiberium and tiberium life forms?
Tiberium had taken over parts of the planet that GDI did not build and run their atmosphere processors near (data from the Tacitus allowed the creation of these processors, which reversed Tiberium's growth). Some areas were more affected by Tiberium than others (Tiberium grew better in moist / warmer climates), and those heavily affected had undergone complete metamorphosis of terrain, flora, and fauna. Species of all forms of life either died off, adapted, or mutated into things that could survive in those areas. Even GDI and Nod would not enter some of the (to use the C&C3 vocab) "red" zones, where Tiberium had completely taken over, as constant ion storms and all kinds of new animal and plant life was very hostile to intruders. Those areas were written off as lost causes.
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QUOTE(popcorn2008 @ Apr 8 2007, 01:41 PM) [snapback]43004[/snapback]
So in TW it is a liquid tiberium explosion that summons the scrin to Earth, "Ichor LQ Detonation". Was this planned from the start?
It was not. It was the scrin rebels that fled with the tacitus that brings the Scrin forces to Earth.
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Now that being said, was the storyline changed from what you guys intended Kane's original goals to be?
It's different than we had planned it, but remember it didn't go through as much scrutiny because we never got to filming stages with it. I don't know how it would have ended up with us, but it was different in the planning stages.
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QUOTE(Muk @ Jan 5 2007, 01:07 PM) [snapback]24434[/snapback]
Anything you want to share about how it WOULD have been?
Remember that tablet that Kane had in his palace in Renegade? In a vid at the end of C&C TD during the credits?
It depicts something important, and gives you a clue as to his origins.
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We went back and forth on just where the Tacitus came from, but the translation of it is really the key -- what some may interpret as a warning from it could really be written prophecy or even an instruction manual to other eyes, depending on who is reading it and what they want to get from it.
I'm curious to see where EA goes with the Tacitus now. There's several directions they could take it in from where we had it post TS/FS. Given the C&C3 story, they didn't really expand on its origin one way or another, since again, its message is open to interpretation.
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Our thoughts were always that Einstein was gambling. He didn't know what would happen, despite his theories. No one had ever time traveled, so there was no reference. Would time error-check itself at some point and erase WWII from happening in his time line? Would nothing change for them, but there would be a new time-line that didn't suffer the same fate? Would nothing happen at all, because it's the "past"?
His time will tell line is partially because he doesn't even know what to expect. "Time" -- whatever that entity may be -- will answer the question.
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All of the Scin concept art we'd done seems to have been re-done, as the Scrin didn't look like they do in C&C3, and none of the structures seem to resemble things we'd concepted. There are pieces / parts that seem to have been used in some of the structures in the release, but it looks as if a lot of them were not used.
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The only few pieces from the original C&C3 that survive on-line are the Craig Mullins pieces that you've all seen.
Seems like a Cabal building. EA used Cabal as insipration for both Nod and Scrin.
Hagren is correct. That was a CABAL concept that Daniel Miller did for Continuum.
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RE: CABAL
Cypher is correct!
Since Erik Yeo and I came up with that particular acronym / name, here's how it happened. It came about from the definition of CABAL (i.e. a group of plotters) since Erik wanted to give Nod's AI more personality and definition than EVA ever got in TD.
We reverse-engineered the acronym from the name, which was originally "Computer-Assisted Bio-organic Artificial Life-form". I have to say that the reversal worked out amazingly well from definition to acronym.
The caballah tie-in is from the origins of the word itself, so it worked on multiple levels.
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It was for CABAL's faction in C&C3 (version 1).
The first image however, someone has added Nod guys and Kane's holographic image, which was not in the original concept piece. It's been 'shopped.
Several structures we did at WW for v1 or v2 of C&C3 for GDI & Nod made it into the final TW game almost completely unaltered from our earlier versions.
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Your orders in TS were processed through CABAL and to the battlefield. He's answering to CABAL, who's relaying the orders.
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hagren, on Jul 19 2007, 10:21 AM, said:
Oh and another question to Petro: Why is TS and FS thus different in narratory style, and also in the way the missions are tied?
Many of us didn't like TS having a main character that wasn't up to the player's imagination (i.e. themselves). So, we killed the characters off in the beginning of FS and went back to the style we always liked in the C&C games -- talking to the player as the commander.
As for the story, we wanted to try to make a campaign where there was one definitive ending that both sides had victory from, rather than just completely opposite endings that could not both have happened. The nice thing was that both sides had very major victories (GDI could start reverse-engineering work on Tiberium, Nod was unified once again, having removed CABAL and its lazy / greedy officers) in the FS ending.
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CABAL was one of the projects built by Kane when he had Tratos translating the Tacitus for him. Kane used his own brain patterns in making a template for CABAL's personality, which is why they share a certain bond.
Just like the Nod UFO, Kane had various Tacitus-related projects in the works before TS happened.
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CABAL had his own stronghold in the south-american Tiberium jungles... or at least that's where it would have been in Continuum.
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That was EVE, the female Cyborg Commando, running through a GDI soldier as one of the GDI commandos readies to fire at her.
It was a CABAL unit.
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Tiberium -- The plan was to keep it the same (leeching, blossoms, vein holes, green / blue / red, creatures & plants, etc.) BUT -- even at the stages we were in, the red flags were being raised by code regarding dynamically growing tiberium. The SAGE engine would have a very difficult time with a dynamic expanding resource that could cover the entire map unchecked. We never got to the point we had to resolve this issue.
So, EA could have easily been planning on going for the old way of growing, but had to modify it (and the fiction) in order to make it work within the engine's limitations. That happens more often than you'd think when in development.
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Don't forget that in Firestorm Nod stole an EVA module from GDI once CABAL went rogue on them, so the idea of them having a more malevolent EVA for Nod actually fits the fiction.
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Without seeing the logos in color, you lose a lot of the detail.
The Scrin logo matched the Scrin perfectly. You have to remember they looked completely different in the first version.
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Ok, well let's go down the list:
* Power plant -- yep, that's ours. Interesting is that we had a consistent theme in all GDI buildings (exposed girders) that wasn't carried through in the new versions.
* Mammoth tank -- yep, that's ours. It was triple barreled, and deployed into a long-range artillery (as shown in the concept), similar to the tank in StarCraft
* Fanatic -- that concept wasn't from Westwood for C&C3. We didn't have that unit.
* Zone Trooper -- Nope. Just a regular soldier in our background of an EVA briefing.
* Nod Officer -- Again, not from C&C3 from Westwood.
* Nod Priest -- Not from WW C&C3. I have no idea where these concepts came from.
* Nod Soldiers -- Not from WW C&C3
* Nod Power -- Yep, that's our original concept of the Geothermal power plant, which was originally on Cabal's faction.
* Nod Tib Refinery -- Nope, not ours. Part of a background of a sketch from a CABAL lanscape. Very loose interpretation, IMO.
* Tripod -- Not ours, again. Never did that for WW C&C3.
* Corruptor -- That concept pic didn't really define a unit -- it was aliens hitting Vegas in a mood piece. I don't remember what I listed the alien unit as when I wrote the description that the concept work was built from, but it wasn't any specific unit.
Story -- Yep, we had the Philadelphia destroyed... before the game had started. Our version started with the GDI Commando in his powered armor floating in orbit amongst the debris of the Philadelphia, flashing back to what happened up to that point. He doesn't have much time to think before he starts to re-enter the atmosphere...
FYI, the top (rotating) part of the C&C3 GDI radar is also from our original WW design.
So in that vid you have a lot of concepts in there that were either done for a different project, or were done after I left EALA. None of those that I called out were done at Westwood for C&C3.
Just wanted to set y'all straight on what we did or did not do at Westwood.
Additional: I don't understand why you'd want to compare these things anyway -- what we had earlier was simply different. EA decided to take the franchise in a different direction than a few of us old WW guys had planned, and that's completely within their rights to do, since they own the franchise. What "may have been" had WW finished it is all well and good, but it doesn't really matter since that game reality never shipped. I get it that some people are upset over what C&C3 may have been -- and we can all make things cooler in our imaginations than reality ever presents them to us -- but you may not have liked the WW version any better (or less, for some) than what you have in your hands now. We could have destroyed something you loved in the franchise and you'd be upset at us for it just as much as you may be at EA.
Personally, I'm simply glad that C&C lives on. Unless you worked for EA at the times we all did, you can't comprehend how much work and effort and risk it was for the people in charge at EALA to get the project rolling and keep it rolling. There was a lot of internal opposition to C&C for some reason (maybe it was just to how the ex-ww guys wanted to take it?), so you should be happy that any C&C game got completed (and to quality). You easily could have never seen another one again.
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I'm going to spoiler the rest of this post. If you'd like the truth about this, highlight the rest of the message. If you'd just like to think it's what you'd like it to be, don't. Your personal idea is likely cooler than the reality.
Spoiler
The artist that created that particular piece and I had a talk about this very issue once, so I'm simply relaying what he told me about it.
It's the canopy of a wrecked helicopter.
He was very amused by all the theories as to just exactly what it really was, but it isn't a UFO or a Scrin ship. It's a helicopter canopy. It was there since C&C (DOS).
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DISCLAIMER: This is ALL SPECULATIVE. Don't go asking EA about this, as it was never written down and they wouldn't know about it. This was a plan that some of us that influenced the fiction had discussed.
In dealing with C&C timeline, you have one problem -- the timeline split...
Now as to just WHAT was going to happen in C&C3 to split the timeline... well that's all just fantasy speculation now. The RA2 disconnect was completely explained by the event as well, and it all ties back into the origin of the entire C&C universe and RA's inciting incident.
So that's the timeline. RA2 didn't happen initially, so the dates would be off. Just like Einstein removed Hitler, someone changed the past yet again, resulting in the RA2 universe / split before TS could happen in the first place.
So there you go.
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Hiromoon, on Mar 8 2007, 04:43 AM, said:
Well, mayhaps they're going off the GDI ending instead, Gray?
Yeah, but see in Firestorm, BOTH endings DO happen. We did that on purpose because we were tired of having two completely different endings. It was never any fun having to completely drop one ending and go with the other for continuity going into the next game.
In the final mission, when you play as GDI, Nod is helping you. When you play as Nod, GDI is helping you. You both have an invested interest in destroying CABAL.
So while GDI is reveling in the Tacitus data they've got to start fighting back against Tiberium infestation, Nod is celebrating their re-kindled unity, carrying on united until Kane makes his return.
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WWS developed Renegade.
If you'll remember in Renegade, Mobius comments on the new strain of "blue" tiberium that he's studying...
Also, the Nod computer in the end that's malfunctioning in the temple has a very interesting acronym... hmm...
Renegade was set between C&C TD and C&C TS.
DISCLAIMER: Again, this stuff is all based on things that were never written down or were edited out of drafts, so don't go asking EA about them, they won't know about it.
RA was the start of the universe. Einstein removing Hitler is what shifted the "real" universe to the C&C one. In the original, original drafts of the RA story, Tesla and Einstein were the dueling scientists behind each side's new tech. Although the tesla tech stayed for the Soviets, Tesla didn't.
However, if you read about Tesla (the real tesla), you'll find that he claimed to have contacted aliens through his tech... hmm... now what if he really DID contact aliens... what aliens did he contact? What did the aliens do in response?
...are you starting to see where this is leading?
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> Insert here the the usual disclaimer that this is all old information, not canon, etc. <
The TS ship was one constructed by Nod off of Scrin / Tacitus data. It was a Nod design trying to mimic some of the Scrin tech in a Noddish way. It wasn't a true Scrin ship.
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Didn't ignore it... just only have bandwidth for so long per session reading the forums...
Kane built CABAL and incorporated pieces of his psyche into the machine while constructing its personality. Ever see the film "Saturn 5"? The robot learned its obsessions and murderous tendencies from the "teacher" it was connected to -- a similar thing happened here. CABAL is an extension of Kane's mind so that Kane would have a completely obedient and cunning ally. Unfortunately, the data from the Tacitus gave CABAL some other desires that allowed him to bend Kane's will and desires....
FWIW, there were 5 eventual factions planned when we were talking about C&C3 it back at WW: GDI, Nod, Scrin (first release), Forgotten (expansion 1), CABAL (expansion 2).
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RE: CABAL acronym in Renegade
Yeah, they changed it. I guess they figured it sounded better spoken or something. The name I put out was the one we created when CABAL came into existence in TS. It's not a huge change, but even I went "huh?" when I got to it in Renegade. The intent is still clear though, so it's not a big deal.
RE: CABAL's future
Yep, we had plans for him. Without going into any real detail, eventually, he'd re-emerge with a cyborg / machine faction that had its desires set on conquering not just humanity... but the Scrin as well. The creation of CABAL via the Tacitus information and Kane's mind made for a very power-hungry and ruthless entity that sought control above all else.
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They weren't buggish.
They were very angular, menacing, and closer to the key item they created and manipulated for survival (hint, hint)
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Well, since I wrote FS's story --
FS ends with Slavik having reunited Nod under one rule, all now unified and awaiting Kane's return. CABAL going rogue was in some ways a test of Nod's strength. Would CABAL succeed in tearing apart and splintering Nod, or would they be able to hold together and unite? Turns out yes, they could pull it off.
Was CABAL simply testing Nod the entire time, under Kane's guidance? Hmm...
FWIW, I really don't mind what they do with the fiction -- it's theirs. As someone who likes coherent stories, I'm just trying to figure out why they've taken such an odd TiVo-like approach to get to coherency.
Last edited by Pepzi on Sat Nov 20, 2010 9:14 pm; edited 4 times in total QUICK_EDIT
I've updated with alot of new information, by mistake I have repeated some though, I'm too tired to fix it but in the end you have twice the chance of finding what your looking for. QUICK_EDIT
Do you remember how project Regensis was Kane ztyping with humans to make them "in tune" with Tiberium? Kane knew about the Tacitus and stuff and more than likely the Scrin, and Nod constantly experimented with the Forgotten to try and mutate them into something more powerful. Its almost like Kane was building an even better army then Nod to fight the Scrin, because he knew that "normal" humans would loose, and Kane's cybernetic research was to make sure that he was in control of those mutants.
Another interesting tidbit:
Remember what CABAL says to Slavick after he is reactivated in Mission 2?
"Shall I resume operations?"
And then he goes apeshit and started making cyborgs. Now that brings me to another point.
Do you remember what one of the generals says about CABAL, and how that it is "dangerous without Kane here to control it."
What if Kane's intention was to make super mutant cyborg armies? He just masked it in a specific way, where as CABAL, lacking the "finesse" of Kane, just started doing it his own way.
Same goals, different people. _________________ You come for the modding but you stay for the Crap Forum. QUICK_EDIT
Yeah, I'd generally thought that CABAL was aiming for the same purpose as Kane was with mutants - an army to fight the Scrin when they turned up - but was doing it differently.
While Kane wanted to make the human element stronger, CABAL tried to remove the human element. Both trying to fight the Scrin.
So yeah. Kane must have known the Scrin were on their way to Earth pretty early on and already started preparations to fight against them.
I hadn't really drawn the same conclusions about "Shall I resume operations", but I guess that it does mean that CABAL had been doing something. QUICK_EDIT
No it obviously means to resume research into Tiberium manipulation to forge a cybernetic mutant army to fight the intergalactic space invaders who have yet to make a real appearance. QUICK_EDIT
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Dev Quote's thread
I mean come on, its as bad as saying 'Poland wins World War 2 by invading Berlin on a cavalry charge. Hitler Dead'. Its illogical and dumb.
