My name is Jim Vessella, and I’m a Producer at Electronic Arts. Ten years ago I had the pleasure of being on the production team for Command & Conquer 3 and Red Alert 3, along with being the Lead Producer on Kane’s Wrath. During those years, some of my favorite moments were interacting with our passionate community, whether at our onsite Community Summits, on the forums, or while attending various events such as Gamescom.
As most of you may know, we recently announced Command & Conquer: Rivals, a mobile game set in the Command & Conquer universe. Following the reveal of Rivals, we heard you loud and clear: the Command & Conquer community also wants to see the franchise return to PC. And as a fan of C&C for over 20 years, I couldn’t agree more. With that in mind we’ve been exploring some exciting ideas regarding remastering the classic PC games, and already have the ball rolling on our first effort to celebrate the upcoming 25th Year Anniversary.
We are eager to hear your feedback to help influence our current thoughts for PC and what comes next. Over the next few weeks we’ll be talking to fans in a variety of ways. In the meantime, please share your thoughts here on the OpenRA forums.
As a long time C&C fan and developer, I am just as passionate about the C&C franchise as you are, and look forward to hearing your thoughts as they help us shape the future of C&C at EA!
Thanks!
Jim Vessella
Jimtern
Jim will be reading and hopefully participating in the discussion on the OpenRA forums and r/commandandconquer (among other places).
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 8:26 pm Post subject:
As far as I know so far from what Jim Vessella said on many places:
- They doesn't seem to have decided which games will be remastered and where will they start.
- It won't use the OpenRA engine, however, they want the expertise of OpenRA team with old C&C games.
- It won't have any microtransactions.
- They want to know what they can do in terms of balance changes and user interface changes (and I guess this is one of the objectives of this announcement being done now).
- And there is a potentially 2020 schedule (25 years of Command & Conquer franchise). QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 6:42 am Post subject:
Motivation for the announcement
On CNCNZ.com Discord:
Jim Vessella wrote:
One of the key things we need to figure out how much "updating" is acceptable? Balance changes, usability improvements, UI improvements...? These are all aspects we'll want your feedback on
On CnCNet Discord:
Jim Vessella wrote:
Let me ask, is there anything "sacred" you would advise NOT to change in Remaster?
...
For example, many of the threads so far have said its okay to make UI updates
...
What about items which impact gameplay such as Sidebar queuing, or incorporating aspects like Attack Move?
Quote:
?????J?c?
well
one of the things I'd like to see fixed in the early C&C engines is random rocket damage
EA_Jimtern
Ahhhh, great topic!
Take an example like rocket damage, is that something you would want to keep the same or fix up? Would that start to change the gameplay too much if it were adjusted?
On reddit:
Quote:
kostandrea
What I would like to see is the first decade remastered in a 3d engine with better controls a better hud. What I think should be the goal is the HUD being something close to CnC3 with production tabs and so on, multiple build cues would be great with also a toggle for those that don't want that
EA_Jimtern
Hi Kostandrea, thanks for bringing up the Sidebar and build tabs. The UI for C&C3 was the feature I produced, and I loved many of the updates we made. But we're curious to hear if people want to see that replicated in the classic games. What does everyone think about adjustments to the classic Sidebar?
Quote:
KommanderSnowCrab87
If you change any of the balancing, please make a separate game mode that replicates the original. It's my only real problem with the otherwise excellent openRA.
EA_Jimtern
Hi SnowCrab, this is another topic we would be eager to hear more about. Should the balance stay the same as the classic versions, or should we rebalance it to make them more appropriate? You mention a toggle or separate game mode which is also an interesting suggestion.
On OpenRA Forums:
Jim Vessella wrote:
Thanks for all the awesome discussion here. Balance is one of the key topics we'll want to discuss with the OpenRA community. As Orb described, you have put 1000's of hours against the classic games. We're looking forward to continuing the conversation with the mod team and community here to understand the best approach towards balance improvements.
Regarding the game:
On CNCNZ Discord:
Jim Vessella wrote:
We are starting on PC with a Remaster initiative, and have the ball rolling on our first entry. We're eager to share more details soon.
On OpenRA Discord:
Jim Vessella wrote:
We have the ball rolling on our first idea, but all games are on the table going forward
So, I guess that it means that they have already chosen the first game to be remastered.
And moving forward (or would be backward) on CNCNZ Discord:
Quote:
EA_Jimtern
We are huge fans of OpenRA, and I've actually been in touch with their team recently (You can see they posted the announcement as well)
I'm hoping as part of this initiative we can work with their team to create the best C&C experience possible
Banshee
Meaning.. that a remaster would use the OpenRA engine?
EA_Jimtern
No, not their engine. But they have great insight into the classic games
So, I believe that the game will be either Tiberian Dawn or Red Alert 1. I am personally betting on Tiberian Dawn, regardless of the multiples remakes that it has received (C&C 95, 64, etc).
Micro Transactions
On reddit:
Quote:
Electrifyer
Please no micro transactions... that’s all I want. I want to enjoy a game I pay for without having to pay more to keep enjoying it. I don’t wanna have to rebuy a game unless you’re giving me a complete expansion pack such as Yuri’s Revenge or Kane’s Wrath.
EA_Jimtern
Thanks for the post, Electrifyer. We will not be adding any microtransactions to a C&C Remaster.
Compatibility with modern systems
On reddit:
Quote:
_UniQ_
One of the things I want the most is to simply be able to install from origin and play the games. Please just start with patching all the C&C games for current OS capabilities and screen resolution so we can just download and play, instead of having to do all kinds of tricks and community patches!
EA_Jimtern
Modern system compatibility will be a top priority for any Remaster. And a huge shout-out to all the community modders who have helped keep the old games playable over the past many years.
OpenRA
On OpenRA Forums:
Jim Vessella wrote:
EA has no intention of interfering with the work of OpenRA. Our hope is we can team up together to share insights, best practices, and further grow the C&C community through this initiative.
Well let me once again express my suggestion that more things should be voxelized
Any modern gpu should be able to handle 100x what a cpu couldn't back in 2001 as far as turning voxels into vertex objects. This would allow the community to keep banging out quality voxel units and give us a great modding entry point.
PS. while we're on the topic of 3D, aniso filtering on the scene would clean up a lot of the artifacts we have issues with today with voxels...
Furthermore we should have more weather/ambient effects that can be used to make the game "pretty" without undue burden on the artists making stuff. Procedural weather, rain, smoke, cloud shadow, alternative lighting angles like sim games have these days (afternoon, morning, moonlight etc). _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
Adding modding capabilities would keep the remaster alive for a very long time.
This would absolutly be a massive selling point. An updated YR Engine to work / scale better on newer hardware that allowed modding would probably help bring more modders back to the community and increase activity. _________________
Well let me once again express my suggestion that more things should be voxelized
Please no more voxels, they're really pointless for an RTS unless you're going to be using it for combat damage. Even then it'd be a huge strain for an RTS' typical large armies. The only reason WW used voxels is because it was cheaper to process than 3D.
DonutArnold wrote:
Adding modding capabilities would keep the remaster alive for a very long time.
If it's made in Unreal Engine it would be excessively easy to mod without the need to make sure it's mod-able during development. But then they have to pay Epic Games a decent chunk of money. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Yes, if your game is free and makes no income with microtransactions or whatever, use of unreal engine is free as well. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Looking forward to see EA comes alive, finally happened, but we still need a better experience for C&C. _________________ If you are a MetalHead (Heavy Metal Fan) and don't want to be a metalhead, Just remove your metal ball from your head. �:p .
QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 24 May 2004 Location: Flanders (Be) Posts:300000001
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 11:53 am Post subject:
Banshee wrote:
It won't use the OpenRA engine, however, they want the expertise of OpenRA team with old C&C games.
What expertise? These people didn't even look into how the original games worked when they made their RTS engine. The only thing really connecting OpenRA to C&C is that they never stopped using their C&C placeholder graphics.
To me, the fact they approached the OpenRA project of all things, and not some project that actually involves the old games, like CnCNet, just shows how out of touch with the community they are. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2018 9:14 am Post subject:
4StarGeneral wrote:
If it's made in Unreal Engine it would be excessively easy to mod without the need to make sure it's mod-able during development. But then they have to pay Epic Games a decent chunk of money.
There's an EA policy revealed some years ago that Frostbite is aimed to be the studio's swiss-army-knife engine and I doubt they would drop it for a single project anyway, now that even the sports games are using it. Sure, Gen2 failed on it, but internal policies are internal policies.
@Nyerguds: Sorry to burst your bubble but as OmegaBolt's recent experience with RedRes proves, CnCNet is far away from being approachable. RR asked for a CnCNet lobby half a year before the actual public release went out and they weren't bothering until months after release and even then they had the face to hail themselves as the heroes there as well. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
To me, the fact they approached the OpenRA project of all things, and not some project that actually involves the old games, like CnCNet, just shows how out of touch with the community they are.
They've also contacted other sources (although OpenRA was first). The C&C community is quite fragmented among all the different games and fan projects so they need to listen to several sources if they want to get a good picture of what the community actually wants. OpenRA is one such significant source.
Graion Dilach wrote:
@Nyerguds: Sorry to burst your bubble but as OmegaBolt's recent experience with RedRes proves, CnCNet is far away from being approachable. RR asked for a CnCNet lobby half a year before the actual public release went out and they weren't bothering until months after release and even then they had the face to hail themselves as the heroes there as well.
I can't see how RR is directly related to EA contacting us; we can be approached and we're already collecting feedback for EA from our playerbase. You also don't need to ask CnCNet for a lobby as the lobby for each game is just a standard IRC channel that anyone can create. You only need to contact CnCNet if you want to be promoted for some visibility on the CnCNet homepage and/or the clients. Which can take some time as the pages aren't set up instantly. Also, I could also consider displaying RR games on the DTA/TI/MO/YR clients but I can't remember anyone asking me for it or seeing OmegaBolt request it in any way. _________________ CnCNet Client | CnCNet TS patches | More Quality-of-Life Improvements for RA Remastered
Joined: 09 May 2011 Location: Approaching the Great Pyramid
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 11:43 pm Post subject:
pfff
its like going thorugh wormhole to a blackhole
didn't this "exciting" thing already happen before Generals 2 ?
and what did world get... nothing
instead milking old cow, why not make new and I mean NEW C&C title(s)
as C&C itself is not bound to just Tiberium, RedAlert and "Generals" verse _________________
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