Command And Conquer series

Define 'real'.

EA is never going to make any retail game ever again - 'retail' in the sense that you pay for it up-front and that's it. They've reached the limit of how much profit they can squeeze out of one-time payments but the industry hasn't stopped growing, hence why they're trying to push for a business model with a continuous trickle of cash, ie. microtransactions, to sustain the bloat. You don't even need to look further than history books: grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, investors realize there's nowhere left to grow and begin pulling out, crash, stabilize, repeat. That's how economy works. No matter how big the market is, it's not infinite; sooner or later, it will reach saturation and crash, which is why everyone is obsessed with not just growing, but ever accelerating growing, to squeeze as much short-term profit out as possible before the inevitable crash, so that they can survive the crash and start over afterwards.

The alternative is scaling down operations, which means giving up market share, which means even less profit, which means investors pulling out, which means a potential start of a downwards spiral.

Edited by amitakartok on Jul 7th 2018 at 3:11:30 PM

Real as in full fledged PC rts.

If they want to spam post release dlc of factions with slight variants I don't honestly mind, Deserts of Kharak tried that and it worked out okay.

I am not actualy against DLC, just lootboxes (which they have been burned on) and shitty mobile ports.

Edited by Imca on Jul 7th 2018 at 1:00:29 AM

Quick thought... what if EA just made a 3D "HD remake" of the first couple of C&C games, modernize their U Is and controls, improve the AI, and remastered the cutscene footage?

It did wonders for the first Starcraft, and it's not like it would be an expensive undertaking for EA to perform. Would also serve as a decent barometer as to how much public interest in the C&C brand still exists... I wouldn't mind buying a remade RA 1 for instance.

Edited by SgtRicko on Jul 10th 2018 at 3:33:32 AM

They wouldn't do it. Probably because it makes too much sense.

^ More like it would earn them too much legitimately earned money and praise, which they won't allow.

If I had to take a guess...? Might be how the C&C games up until Tib Sun: Firestorm are now available to freely download online. The lack of old-school RTS games on the market doesn't help either, but... Halo Wars 2, the upcoming Age of Empires and positive initial response towards the announcement of Forged Battalion (NOT the game's actual release) say otherwise.

Guess in EA's eyes, if the game doesn't have the potential to sell millions upon with the first few weeks of release, then it's simply not worth it.

EA is all about churning out a lot of quick profit to please their investors every quarter.

^ Which is why they keep consistently getting complained about by everyone and repeatedly voted "Worst Company In America" again and again.

Then again, there are other companies with the same setup of having to answer to investors every quarter yet don't have such problems.

Which makes it even sadder when you think about it because it means either A) EA attracts brain-dead investors who are only animated by numbers on a page, B) EA is run by brain-dead folks who only care about numbers on a page and the investors just roll with it, C) Both EA and its investors are brain-dead idiots or D) their investors were bought out or kicked out of everywhere else alongside the folks who run EA who were kicked out, bought out or otherwise removed from everywhere else.

There are no sane reasons otherwise for them to have a worse reputation than corporations such as Altria or Wal-Mart or Mc Donald's.

Edited by MajorTom on Jul 10th 2018 at 5:21:51 AM

Some of that is memetic, though, from the open survey they allowed. They're apparently pretty good to actually work for, but they are now a conglomerate that just... produces a generic product.

Unlike, say, even a Valve (Who seem to just lack direction and cohesion) or CDPR (who just take their time) they don't seem to innovate as much anymore; EA doesn't lead and doesn't seem to know HOW to anymore. Or really express a desire to.

It does boggle the mind how they seem to be incapable of using ANY of their I Ps in a good way. But part of that does seem to be driven by the "safe investor" ideal - go with what the market's dictating. I imagine that any voices that propose radical options or trying to push a new idea gets drowned by tonnes of marketing data showing returns on investment for Clash of Clans and how they should be increasing their deep dive into the market share reality of it...

I was pondering just now. In case EA ever realized that reboots are all the rage nowadays and decided to reboot the franchise... what do you guys would like to see in a hypothetical future C&C game? Do try to come up with something EA might actually consider making, not just what you want them to make.

Some brainstorming on my own:

• One thing I really liked was the branching mission tree from TS: optional targets are available aside from the primary theater target whose elimination will make the primary target easier. This, in my opinion, could be expanded upon with, say, something like what Earth 2140 did back in the day: instead of picking your next mission, you pick your next theater and do 3-4 missions there, then the next theater with its missions and so on. Picking a different theater on a second playthrough means not just a different mission order, but also a different order in which stuff in the tech tree gets unlocked: units you unlock in theater A you can then use in theater B whereas if you play theater B first, you have to make due without those units unless theater B unlocks them too. In-game dialogue referencing newly gained units could be changed to reflect this, like so:
  (if unit is newly unlocked)
  Mission Control: This situation calls for this unit. Here, have some. You can also build them now.
  Player character: That's just what I need, thanks.
  (if unit is carried over from another theater)
  Mission Control: You may want to consider using this unit.
  Player character: I know.
• As much as I feel some people are going to disagree with me on this, I'm thinking FMVs could be dropped in favor of engine-rendered characters. I know it's been a part of the franchise since the beginning but it always felt jarring to me. Merely voicing a character would grant much greater acting freedom for the VAs, I think, along with making their inevitable "oh, you've got to be shitting me" reactions to all the crazy shit in C&C less fake.
  • Speaking of which, make the characters draw attention to the fact that it is crazy. Don't just accept the crazy straight-faced, get surprised and/or exasperated.
  • Also. For the love of god, if you want us to actually care about the story, give us a voiced protagonist. I never played T Twilight but from what I hear, people were utterly pissed at the whole "protag's wife" subplot because without an emotional connection to a protagonist, there's no emotional connection to the protagonist's interactions with everyone else either. It could do a lot of good for a game if the player actually cares.
• Another controversial topic. There is absolutely no reason to assume EA would give up on pushing microtransactions just because we ask nicely. So then, what material could be worth paying for?
  • New units are usable not just in multiplayer/skirmish, but singleplayer campaign as well, including one or more new missions suited for that unit. This can take form of either an optional side mission for picking up that unit, a new mission inserted into the middle of a theater mission chain, or a setting on the "start new campaign" screen where one of the existing missions can be swapped out for the new one.
    • No Bribing Your Way to Victory. DLC units are useful, but not overpowered over their vanilla peers. Look at how Company of Heroes handled the issue with expansion units: the M10 Wolverine has paper-thin armor and no defense against infantry but is fast and hits hard, while the expansion-introduced M18 Hellcat is tougher and can actually shoot back at infantry, at the cost of its cannon not hitting as hard. Both units are for the same faction, they are mutually exclusive (only one can be used in a match, player picks which one before the match), yet neither is clearly better than the other; they're just good in different fields, with the vanilla unit being overspecialized and the expansion unit being more of a generalist.
  • New game modes that do not differ in just game objectives. RA2 had all bunch of interesting rules variations for spicing the game up that I think could be fun in a modern game too:
    • Low-tech units only. Maybe infantry only? Unarmed air/naval transports are exempt from the limitation in case the map requires it.
    • Mixing the tech tree of different factions. But instead of giving everyone everything, the game groups the units by category (basic infantry, basic tank, artillery, etc.) and randomizes which unit per category the player has access to, resulting in shit like Allied players having a 50-50 chance of getting either the GI or the Conscript. Build requirements are adjusted accordingly.
      • For added shits and giggles, the game can be set to periodically re-roll everyone's tech tree as the match goes on to force the players to adapt and change force composition on the fly rather than stick to a single overall strategy.
      • Another optional variation: if the match is team-based, the server host can set whether team members playing as the same faction keep the same tech tree across the entire team or it's unrestricted free-for-all randomization.
    • Funding from oil derricks only. I'd say "free cash periodically", but then nobody would play anything else.
    • A game mode that can mix all of the above. Let people decide how they want their fun served.
  • That the game should include a map editor with full mission scripting is a given. If the maps are tileset-based (unlikely because it was a memory-conserving measure for old games), new tilesets could be sold as microtransactions. If not, the map editor could be a microtransaction itself, as could be the official modding tools. Because let's face it, there isn't a C&C game since the original people haven't modded the shit out of, regardless of whether the engine was intended for it or not.

You're already displaying more creativity than the artistically bankrupt hacks who made C&C: Rivals.

I would put the Rivals developers on the level of "shovelware developers," but I feel that's an insult to actual shovelware developers who despite their asset flips and such, do their darndest to stay independent.

Thank God for game mods...

I'm thinking a good reboot would have to have Joseph D. Kunan reprise his role as Kain and have Tiberian Twilight be retconned out of existence.

...that's kinda faint praise.

Nah, I was saying the Rivals devs are lower than shovelware developers. (Or to flip it around but with a similar sentiment, "shovelware developers are better than the Rivals devs.")

It's sobering to realize that the people who developed things like Ninja Breadman have more integrity and standards than the Rivals developers.

@amitakartok: That sounds exactly like what Start Craft 2: Wings of Liberty did with their campaign. Kinda surprised they didn't repeat that formula with Legacy of the Void.

As for your idea about allowing players to unlock and mix up their unit lineups... the Wargame franchise, Company of Heroes 2 and Airmech basically proved that it could work, but the C&C fans are gonna have a negative knee-jerk reaction towards it with zero interest in even trying to give it the time of the day. Because in their eyes, if any RTS player has a unit that can potentially be min-maxed or exploited in a way that another faction or unit lineup has difficulty countering, 'the game is utterly ruined.

Makes you miss the days of age of mythologies where the entire goal was to out counter your opponents counter counters

Re: Reboots.

Would it be too much to ask to simply make a reboot along the lines of CNC 95, the first Red Alert, and Tiberian Sun? With gameplay elements of RA 2, Generals (in functional sense, things like airfields, multiple weapons firing at the same time, tunnel networks, firestorms/fire effects), and refined elements of old games.

Also, make the pathing and AI work dammit. I'm just as annoyed today that my medium tanks in CNC 95 always take the long way to anywhere instead of actually pathing anywhere as I was when I first figured out how it worked many years ago.

Screw the microtransactions, screw the mandatory need for multiplayer above all else, screw the Game Mod-unfriendliness, screw the bobblehead animations from the last few games, screw the Camp, basically SCREW EVERYTHING about the modern post-Generals CNC era.

Edited by MajorTom on Jul 27th 2018 at 3:47:02 AM

Is there still any life in this series at all?

EA's supposed to be releasing a mobile game spinoff soon called C&C Rivals, but otherwise no, only the modding community is left. And even they seem to be slowing down - development on Generals: Rise of the Reds went silent, YR: Mental Omega is receiving less and less major updates, and the majority of the other mods are either entirely dead or barely complete. At least I think C&C 3: The Forgotten was near completion, that one had some solid quality and added in the Forgotten as a faction.

Renegade X is probably the only mod doing well. Probably helps that it's been in development for over a decade at this point and has had a TON of overhauls and additions over the years, so much to the point where it may as well be a full-on remake. Plus, EA seems oddly fond of it - so much to the point where they've been oddly supportive and have generally stood out of the teams way, save for the obvious request of zero monetization.

Rise of the Reds suddenly disappearing really makes me sad.

At least it's there's still a good playable game in it's current state.

It would be a shame if Rise of the Reds just faded out.

Heck, I've been waiting for a playable single-player campaign for Russia and the European Continental Alliance. (With bonus campaigns for the vanilla factions.)

Edited by IncognitoNinja on Aug 25th 2018 at 2:51:12 AM

There hasn't been an update in about 2 years now, I think it's safe to say it's dead.

If it doesn't release on christmas, or hunters birthday this year, its safe to call it.

We might see a remaster of the older C&C games in the future