meth: Have you had time to follow much C&C wise? C&C 4 post release support has not been good, the ladders still don't work and we miss you.

APOC: I've been quietly keeping tabs and noticed the same myself. It's simply because the current C&C dev team lacks the resources to support and are focused squarely on rebooting the franchise. That's the 100% fact and it has 0% to do with lack of care which I can't blame the community for thinking, but that is the 100% truth. It's the reality I faced on Feb 1, 2004 when I officially became your CM during the dark days of no Zero Hour support. That infamous 1.03 patch didn't magically appear out of thin air, I had to camp out in between Mark Skaggs and Harvard Bonin's office doors for many nights. Sometimes that is the reality we have to face, and it's sincerely one I fought in the name of the C&C community a number of times, and won, and lost, not every battle is won. When the team rehires a Community Manager, I have no doubt you'll start to see support pick up, or at the very least, feel a stronger two-way communication.

But the community cannot pin it on THIS dev team. If I can give the current development team with Sam Bass and JVC some strong defense, they are working incredibly hard on the future of the franchise and it's hard for me to say to you guys at this stage, but their time is better spent on resetting the foundation of the franchise, so it can be reboot properly and put back in its place as one of the best RTS games around. That was the original plan after we released Red Alert 3; C&C 4 was a transformation of a C&C specific multiplayer game, but based on market conditions and such at the time, we had to drastically change that plan. After C&C 4 CommandCOM, the community response to the gameplay was evident that process didn't have the greatest hope of succeeding, but the dev team once again poured sweat and tears in to making that game as great and unique as possible. C&C 4 may not have been C&C's best moment in the sun, but the current C&C dev team is definitely taking some key learning's from it, don't fear. I would say The Matrix Revolutions and the final Star Wars were significantly worse, and I'm sure Twilight: whatever it's called will be too. Come on now!

At this point, the current C&C dev team is feeling the unfortunate outcome of that process from a negative community standpoint (i.e. how you guys feel right now), but inside their secret cave, they are reaping the benefits of finally having massive room to breathe and create the next great instalment in the Command & Conquer franchise, time is finally on their side. You can't make a great RTS game in 13 months and the fact our former C&C team did that nearly 5 times in a row (especially if you count BFME 1, 2, ROTWK, KW, RA3: Uprising), and produced consistent 80+ AAA titles nearly every time is one of the most unheralded and unknown miracle success stories of the video game industry ever. We should write a book on the years 2002 – 2008, or just give a tell-all to WikiLeaks.