Slashdot: News for Nerds



Thank you!



Command and Conquer 3 Announced

Zonk posted more than 8 years ago | from the reporting-in dept.


pasamio writes "After years of April Fools Jokes and other pranks, EA has officially announced Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Set for PC release in 2007, they're keeping the details very close to hand but it is being developed using the next generation SAGE engine (used in C&C:Generals and Battle for Middle Earth)."

cancel ×


Also in the news (3, Funny)

Opportunist (166417) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174054)

I've heard Duke Nukem Forever is supposed to...



Stop hitting me!

New direction needed.. (5, Informative)

Komarechka (967622) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174086)

C&C Generals didn't have as much of a following as the original C&C games. I found it had more of a Warcraft 3 feel then a classic C&C game, which was a turn-off for some players such as me. It was also the first RTS game published since EA's assimilation of Westwood, and was under a different director.

Westwood is now just a shell of the company it once was, since a lot of the staff have moved on to other projects. I hope whoever is left at the development house knows how to design with the same concepts that started the franchise.

Going back to its roots is something I think this series needs to do. Red Alert 2 was the name's last huge success, and the bad sales of Renegade and the mediocre response to Generals should show that a new direction is needed.

Re:New direction needed.. (2, Informative)

WhatAmIDoingHere (742870) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174120)

If you LAN at all, Renegade is actually in high demand. It's got some fun multiplayer.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

radarjd (931774) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174173)

I personally loved Generals. I've played every C&C RTS to completion, and definitely enjoyed them, but Generals was a major improvement for me. Earlier C&C games had a side bar where you could build from. In other words, rather than clicking on the appropriate building and choosing your unit, you could queue up any unit right from the bar. I know some people enjoyed that, but I always found it cumbersome -- it took up a huge portion of screen real estate.

I also liked the present-day / near-future units in Generals. The Red Alert series has sort of a campy feel, and the Tiberium units were stereotypical. I suppose Generals has stereotyped units as well (e.g. the whole Chinese side), but they "feel" better to me, as non-specific as that is.

All in all, I just found (and find -- I still play Zero Hour) Generals to be more fun.

Re:New direction needed.. (0)

Anonymous Coward | more than 8 years ago | (#15174211)

The glow! The wonderful glow!

Re:New direction needed.. (2, Insightful)

Komarechka (967622) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174215)

You have a valid point, that its all personal opinion. I enjoyed the side-bar, it allowed for easy access to build units from anywhere, and made the feature of construction/training rally points a lot more useful. I've been a fan of the sci-fi stuff, so again, all personal prerference.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

KDR_11k (778916) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176573)

What I disliked about the sidebar is its monolithic nature. No matter how many factories or bases you have, you only have one sidebar. When we were playing 2 vs. 1 on a LAN (the one guy was a better player than the rest of us), the single player made the true observation that no matter what he does, he can't produce units as fast as we do simply because he has only one sidebar. In Generals your capabilities scale almost to infinity, if you have 50% map control alone you can churn out units just as fast as 4 players who control 50% together.

In Earth 21*0 (the only one I'm sure about is 2160 but 2150 probably does as well) there is a sidebar in which you can cycle through your production facilities so you can give new build orders even while you are watching a battle without ending up with a monolithic system. Of course it has infinite queues like every decent RTS interface so you don't need to constantly watch your queue to keep it full when you're producing hundreds of infantry units.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

init100 (915886) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177354)


In essence, you are correct. In Earth 2150 (which I have played very much) the sidebar actually appears only when a building or vehicle with construction capabilities is selected. The exception is while playing the Lunar Corporation, building construction is always available, since buidlings are constructed in orbit. When the Main Base is selected, the sidebar changes to match its production capability, just like for the other sides. And when it is deselected, the building construction sidebar returns.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

KDR_11k (778916) | more than 8 years ago | (#15179643)

Ah, so it's different in 2150. In 2160 you have a row of items below the bar for each type of construction unit/building, clicking them repeatedly cycles through the buildings/complexes (it always issues build orders to the closest drone for the UCS, the LC still builds in orbit and the ED has colony centers that spawn the buildings). If you select a building it'll show you that building's list but you can cycle through them without selecting anything so your group of units will not be deselected.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

WilliamSChips (793741) | more than 8 years ago | (#15181854)

Actually, in the original C&C(called Tiberian Dawn nowadays for disambiguation purposes), if you were playing as Nod and you had multiple airfields, you could order multiple vehicles at once. No other C&C game has that feature though, and DeeZire hasn't tried to add it, so it was probably removed from the codebase after Tiberian Dawn.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

thepotoo (829391) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175425)

You are pretty much alone in the world.
Most fans of the series prefer the classic universe, and the ESPECIALLY like the side bar, no unit upgrades, and the ability to have huge battles.
As has been said, Generals, with its unit upgrades, complex tech trees, etc, felt like a Warcraft rip-off.

CnC games are about simplicity. Generals was not.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

plague3106 (71849) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176230)

Personally I much prefered the Red Alert series. I have to admit though, I never got much chance to play the original c&c. RA2 was the best for me. Generals was fun, but it was defaintly more complex.

Re:New direction needed.. (1, Informative)

Anonymous Coward | more than 8 years ago | (#15174177)


Many of the Westwood employees got together and created Petroglyph. Their current title is Star Wars: Empire at War. It's a great RTS.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

Erwos (553607) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174199)

I'm not sure I agree. Generals with the Zero Hour expansion was a fantastically good game, even compared to favorites like RA2 or WC3, and the ratings it got seemed to reflect this. If they can pull off another Generals-level performance, C&C 3 will be an EXCELLENT game.


Re:New direction needed.. (1)

idontgno (624372) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174226)

If only they fixed the incompatibility with the Nvidia 6600 chipset. I get so tired of lime-green almost featureless terrain just because there are weather precipitation effects overlaid.

Maybe it's Nvidia's fault; maybe it's Westwood's fault. I don't know or care. I just wish I could play all the maps and scenarios without being nauseated.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

KDR_11k (778916) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176594)

It's a driver bug, I know I had that only after appling some driver patch. I'm not sure but I think it has gone away after another patch.

Re:New direction needed.. (4, Insightful)

Deathlizard (115856) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174951)

I agree. The SAGE engine frankly sucks for C&C Gameplay. If I want to play Warcraft, I'll get Warcraft. I don't want to play a C&C game that basically clones warcraft.

Blizzard RTS have a totally different feel than Westwood CTS's for those not in the know. For example, Lets say that Blizzard and Westwood added a Duck to their games. In the Westwood game, it would be a Duck and it would Quack. In the Blizzard game, it would be white breasted green tailed mallard which has a quack and a peck command, and if you built the biomek duck processing factory, you could add interchangeable beaks that would either give the pecking power more oomph, or give the duck a "Sonic Quack" that would stun the enemy for 3 seconds. C&C generals felt like Blizzard made it simply because every unit had this extra touch that wasted more of your time instead of just simply being a unit and kill or be killed.

EA simply doesn't know what they bought from Westwood. They bought it for the name and the IP when they should have bought it for that as well as the Game Devs, which were some of the best in the industry at the time.

As the owner and fan of Every C&C game ever made, (including Sole Survivor, Which Westwood buried in a landfill somewhere) I can tell you that if C&C 3 plays like generals, then don't bother. I'd rather remember what it was like rather than knowing that EA is raping the series.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

KDR_11k (778916) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176646)

Generals had C&C damage balancing. Instead of bashing and bashing at buildings until they finally explode you just pump a few tank shells into them and they're gone. But the same shells do next to nothing to infantry so you better have some machineguns ready. Try comparing the damage system in Warhammer^H^H^H^H^H^Hcraft and C&C. The only similarity is the build system, even the unit specials aren't that prevalent.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

karnal (22275) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177112)

Yeah. You know, the funny thing is, if you take a tank and shoot it at an infantry unit (and hit it), it would kill them.

Hitting and accuracy against small targets may be an issue, but hey, that could be the downfall of trying to mow down troops with a tank.

I used to love playing Tiberian Sun (or was it Yuris or RA2?...) playing with the artillery deployed would kill anything. Drop a few around the edges of your base (they were mobile, iirc) and hit anything 1.5 screens away. Even if you attempted to move said unit out of the way of fire (very unfair).

They fixed that in a patch.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

KDR_11k (778916) | more than 8 years ago | (#15179639)

If you understand each unit as a group it actually makes sense, a machinegun is much more effective for mowing down a group of infantry (especially when they are spread out) than trying to hit them with the main cannon. Though running infantry over wouldn't be possible/practical with groups, in real life that'd just end up giving the surviving infantry a clear line of fire to your vulnerable rear armor.

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

BTWR (540147) | more than 8 years ago | (#15183493)

you liked sole survivor? i tried that and i didnt get it - you were simply a level 1 car and u drove around until you died...

Did I just not "get" the game?

The biggest problem is still there (1)

caitsith01 (606117) | more than 8 years ago | (#15188019)

Looking at the screenshots so far, the biggest problem with Generals as far as I am concerned is still very evident - you can't zoom out far enough to see what the hell you are doing.

If you go back to C&C and particularly Red Alert 2, you can crank the screen resolution and see a very large area on the screen - maybe a few hundred metres or so, certainly most of your base at one time.

In Generals, you can see one or two buildings and a few units. I always found this made it extraordinarily frustrating trying to control events with any precision - you would constantly lose units and generally get lost in the chaos of a battle because you simply couldn't see enough.

If EA has any interest in making a halfway decent game, they will take a leaf out of the book of Black and White and Civ IV and allow players to zoom waaaaaaay out to a comfortable level.

Of course I am also in the tiny minority who would love to see a return to 2D graphics for the series...

Re:New direction needed.. (1)

Azar (56604) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177895)

I never played a single Command and Conquer game until Generals and Generals: Zero Hour. So I have no history with the franchise, other than with that game.

The controls were a little foreign at first, being backwards to what I was used to. Once I got past that, I discovered a highly detailed and very immersive game. I bought this game about 2 years ago and have played it consistently online with friends ever since. Last night being the most recent. :)

In my opinion, if they can make the game as good as Generals (at least with the Zero Hour additions) I'll buy it and be quite pleased. If they can exceed that, then all the better.

The single biggest issue with Generals and Zero Hour was the game "mismatch" when playing online. On my old computer, I couldn't even play a single game over the internet OR on a local lan without a mismatch. Weeks of contacting tech support were no help. After hopelessly googling for answers I discovered that problems like this were not uncommon with Generals. This likely is part of the reason why the game didn't do as well as it's predecessors.

After building a new computer about 1 in 15 games will mismatch. It seems to be more common on certain maps. (And yes, we all have legal copies of the game). So the issue is still there, and very annoying, but now it's at least acceptable.

bought all of them (1)

the_Bionic_lemming (446569) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174181)

I just bought the 10 anthology of C and C and for the past two weeks have been running thru the general set and the expansion - I love the challenges section where you pit yourself against all of the generals - I especially love the finger of death weapon - the particle cannon.

Can't wait to see the new game - I usually wait months before purchasing a new release, but I'll prolly pick this one up the day it's released.

Re:bought all of them (1)

GrumblyStuff (870046) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175675)

For shame. EA buys Westwood, guts the company and the IP, slaps Command & Conquer on an unrelated RTS, and resells the best damn games ever with the developer labeled as EA LA [] .

Fucking bullshit.[/rant]

Re:bought all of them (1)

the_Bionic_lemming (446569) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176944)

how many pairs of Nikes do you own? Do you shop at walmart? Use sony Products? Buy cd's or dvds?

Bull indeed...

Re:bought all of them (1)

GrumblyStuff (870046) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177287)

Nikes? None.
Walmart? Never.
Sony? A pair of $8 headphones a year or two ago.
CDs/DVDs? Last CD I got was Smash Mouth (l'old). Last DVD I got was Grave of the Fireflies (a gift).

Re:bought all of them (1)

the_Bionic_lemming (446569) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177362)

Well there you go - buying from sony. //evil monkey point []

Re:bought all of them (0)

Anonymous Coward | more than 8 years ago | (#15181145)

Omg this is a horrible sin you repent immediately.A cleansing ritual with burning AOL Cds.

Are you for real? (1)

Null Nihils (965047) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175958)

The parent post sounds like it was written by one of those people hired by companies to use fake online personas to promote products and generate "hype" in public Web discussion areas. I mean, its okay to be a fan of something, but the parent just sounds so amazingly artificial to me...

Re:Are you for real? (1)

the_Bionic_lemming (446569) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176861)

Yeah, I'm for real.

Have most of the versions before the generals issue too.

If you check my older posts you'll see I don't "shill" games . Unless of course, this is a brilliant move on ea games part - let some guy post for a few years on /. then when C and C 3 is announced - post as the corporate stooge he is...

God I wish I had invested in tin foil 15 years ago...

How is it 3? (1)

AndyG314 (760442) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174183)

There have been like 10 command and conquere games, how can this one be 3?

Re:How is it 3? (1)

miscz (888242) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174335)

It is a continuation of the main RTS line of C&C (Tiberian Wars). Red Alert was a prequel (Kane moves back in time, teams up with Stalin) and Renegade was FPS. As for Generals / Zero Hour I have no idea how do they relate to original C&C.

Re:How is it 3? (1)

Lanoitarus (732808) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174541)

The original command and conquer (full name Command & Conquer: Tiberium Dawn, although noone called it that) was number 1. Command and Conquer: Tiberium Sun was the second. This one is the third. RA, RA2, Generals are seperate franchises.

Re:How is it 3? (1)

Kaziel (907821) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174617)

That's one of those debatable subjects... Beyond the appearance of Kane as an advisor to Stalin in RA, there are other little things that pop up here and there, that definately imply that RA was a quasi-prequel (time travel makes details so fuzzy), like the image of a Soviet Apocalypse Tank in the Temple of Nod in Renegade. Hearsay says Westwood folks were in the process of developing a complete and offical timeline that would tie everything together into one timeline (well, other than Generals, b/c that's probably an EA only project with the C&C name slapped on it).

Re:How is it 3? (1)

Cheapy (809643) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176275)

What ever happened to Kane in RA1? I don't remember.

And C&C: Generals had nothing to do with the C&C games, it was just throwing the name on to sell more copies.

Re:How is it 3? (1)

Locke03 (915242) | more than 8 years ago | (#15179107)

It's been over 3 years, but if I remember correctly, in the Soviet ending FMV Kane kills the other advisor chick while she is saying something about the rise of the brotherhood. In the allies ending, he finishes of a heavily injured Stalin. and then dissapears.

Re:How is it 3? (1)

creimer (824291) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174338)

You want to avoid freaking poeple out with large sequel numbers. For example, how are people going to react when Star Trek 11 [] is announced?

Re:How is it 3? (1)

Half a dent (952274) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174683)

"For example, how are people going to react when Star Trek 11 is announced?"

Wasn't that the Wrath of Khan? Oh I see 11 NOT II.

KHaaaaaannnn!!! - sorry just had to.

Re:How is it 3? (0)

Anonymous Coward | more than 8 years ago | (#15174499)

There was C&C: Tiberium Dawn, C&C 2:Tiberium Sun and now C&C 3: Tiberium Wars. Red Alert was a prequel spin off to fill the time between the original C&C and C&C2. It did well commercially, so when C&C2 and it's expansion were done, they put out RA2 to continue the alternate time line and pervert any sense RA made in the C&C continuum. For example, they had Chrono harvesters and soldiers in RA2, but the technology was totally forgotten by C&C? Never made much sense to me. The technological leap from RA to C&C at least seemed plausible before RA2 came along...

CnC Timeline (4, Informative)

thepotoo (829391) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175488)

I believe it works like this:
RA1: Solviet Campaign --> CnC-->Tiberiun Sun-->CnC3
RA1: Allied Campaign --> RA2/Yuri's Revenge
The two campaigns in RA1 esentially follow two paralell universes. I believe wikipedia has a good article on the CnC universe connections here []

Re:CnC Timeline (1)

tootbrush (878155) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176303)

The C&C Encyclopedia [] is a much better resource.

It doesn't matter which ending you take, the Soviet Union falls either way. Basically, the Soviet campaign just provides background information (the Nod stuff). Therefore:
RA -> C&C -> TS -> Firestorm -> C&C3
(RA ->) RA2 -> YR

Re:CnC Timeline (1)

Clazzy (958719) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176388)

Both of Westwood's original founders (Brett Sperry and Louis Castle), as well as Harvard Bonin and Chris Rubyor, deny that the storylines are connected. A lot of what is posted on that Wikipedia article is speculation. Firstly, GDI was known as Special Operations Group Echo: Black Ops 9 before being known as GDI, and it's existence was denied until 1995 when it became what it was in the C&C storylines. The fact that Joe Kucan shows up at the end of RA1 was to keep the fans interested until TS. Besides, RA2 certainly can't be considered a proper part of the storyline as it has relics from World War 2 (the Iowa Jima monument and the ship that was sunk at Pearl Harbour, the USS Arizona is it?). Considering WW2 never happened in the Red Alert series due to Hitler's elimination, what you say can't be true.

Re:How is it 3? (1)

KDR_11k (778916) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176687)

Since they count the RA games like normal C&C titles, it'll be C&C 5 in Germany. And I guess it has cyborgs again...


Anonymous Coward | more than 8 years ago | (#15174242)

Possible Hope (4, Interesting)

Clazzy (958719) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174255)

As a member of the C&C community, I can actually say that this could have potential to be good. In many ways, they're returning to the roots of the game with GDI and Nod, live-action cutscenes (although it's unknown if Joe Kucan will return as Kane) and an immersive single player campaign. EA have actually taken some time and care to get a bit of science behind tiberium, which I feel is a good sign.
I still feel betrayed by EA for letting the community down at so many points - Generals, their interference in Tiberian Sun (look at prerelease info about the game to see what I mean), the dumbing down of Red Alert 2 (the original RA was serious, RA2 was all cartoony and not serious at all) and then the fiasco surrounding The First Decade pack they released. If they can release a solid C&C game that lives up to the expectations of myself and other C&C fans, I could probably forgive them.
Also, not mentioned there but there is to be a third side available once GDI and Nod campaigns are complete, but it's unknown as to who you'll be playing as. If you're in the US, there's a PC Gamer coming out that will have a lot of info about the game, and a Dutch magazine, PC Gameplay, also has a preview of the game.

Re:Possible Hope (0)

Anonymous Coward | more than 8 years ago | (#15174790)

(although it's unknown if Joe Kucan will return as Kane)
"Rule of thumb, Hassan. You can't kill the Messiah!"

Re:Possible Hope (2, Insightful)

identity0 (77976) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174826)

A-men. One of the main appeals of the original C&C was that it was set in a very real-feeling setting; not reality, obviously, but plausible in a good sci-fi way. You could actually believe such a world would come about, if something like Tiberium fell to Earth. There were military types fighting narco-cult-terrorist types with modern weapons on a post-cold war battlefield, and it had a very cyberpunk/speculative fiction feel to it.

It felt like it was taking place "40 minutes into the future". I especially loved the intro sequence and side selection, where you get flashes of TV channels until you get the GDI or NOD channel - very postmodern and cool, IMHO.

Then, you had RedAlert - good game, better graphics and gameplay, but WTF? Einstein goes back in time and assasinates Hitler, and that's how the C&C world came to be? The plot of the game totally ruined things for me. I didn't even bother with Tiberian Sun, which looked like total Star Wars/Trek sci-fi, without the 'here and now' feel of C&C. If I wanted that crap, there are countless sci-fi themed RTSes out there, including StarCraft, BattleTech, Dark Reign, etc.

Now, it's good that they're going back to the near future, and hopefully making it feel 'gritty' and '10 minutes into the future' again. Oh, and I hope they keep the rock music. The music in C&C rocked, the first PC games I wanted the soundtrack to.

Re:Possible Hope (1)

StarvingSE (875139) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176295)

I agree. I didn't totally like the change from "near future" to
"waaay in the future a la cyborgs/mechs/subterranean vehicles" in tiberian sun. However, I thought the overall atmosphere was pretty cool. The tiberian minerals were taking over the planet with their rapid growth (almost reminded me of the red weed from war of the worlds). It was poisoning entire populations of people, and transforming others into superhumans.

I loved Red Alert, and was totally disappointed when RA2 was corny and cartoony. I hope they don't screw the new one up....

Re:Possible Hope (1)

init100 (915886) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177794)


Yeah, I especially remember the fifth mission on the GDI side of the Firestorm expansion pack. The terrain was almost entirely covered with various forms of Tiberium, the mission took place at night, and the Tiberium was the main light source, in various shades of green and blue. It was a one-man mission, using a Ghoststalker, sneaking around various sleeping Tiberium lifeforms. Very eerie feeling, and very cool. There is no other mission that I remember that well.

Re:Possible Hope (1)

init100 (915886) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177840)


Sorry to disappoint you, but you are far off. The first game, Tiberian Dawn, was supposed to take place around 1995. The second game was supposed to take place around 2015 (I specifically remember that it mentioned that 20 years had passed since the first tiberium war). And C&C 3 is supposed to take place in 2047 according to the press release itself. So I assume the sci-fi factor will be many times higher.

It really helps to read the article. But what should I expect, this is Slashdot. :)

Re:Possible Hope (1)

WilliamSChips (793741) | more than 8 years ago | (#15181801)

Actually, TibSun starts in 2030. It says so at the beginning of the first briefing for the first GDI TibSun mission.

Don't miss out on Tiberian Sun! (1)

Cybrex (156654) | more than 8 years ago | (#15188966)

I urge you not to let Red Alert put you off from Tiberian Sun. As other posters have mentioned, the C&C/TS universe may as well be completely separate from RA.

Plot-wise, TS is a completely logical extension of C&C. Yes, it's more "out there" when compared to the real world, but not when compared with the world in the original C&C. That's pretty much a necessity in any divergent timeline plot. After all, C&C took place in what- 1995? TS takes place in 2030 (the manual is absolutely clear on this), so yes- things will be different. However, TS retains the grittiness and cyberpunk feel of the original, as Tiberium continues to spread across the planet (effectively terraforming it into an alien biosphere) and Tiberium-based technology continues to improve. Taking C&C as its starting point it all makes sense.

As far as game play goes, IMHO Tiberian Sun is the best RTS game ever made. It came out 7 years ago and I still play it regularly. I can't say that about any other game. In fact, I keep the TS and Firestorm discs in my laptop backpack all the time. (My only complaint about it is that it uses IPX for LAN play. Boo!)

The interface is clean and intuitive, the AI is reasonably intelligent, the graphics are good, and the game is just damn fun. There are a couple of minor game balance issues, but Firestorm pretty effectively addresses them. One nice point is that after installing FS you can select which version you want to play when you launch the game, so if you're not in the mood for cyborg reavers or walking artillery you're not stuck with them. :-)

Seriously, if you're a fan of C&C then you're doing yourself a grave disservice by not playing TS. It's that good.

Re:Possible Hope (2)

youknowmewell (754551) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175005)

I'd have to take exception to your comment about RA2. It's probably my favorite WinXP-playable C&C game. I remember what TS was suppose to look like, and it was a real let-down. It had really slow action, a poor interface when compared to RA2, and had serious gameplay issues (which I recently rediscovered with the release of the first decade pack). RA2, however, was certainly a much better playing experience all around. True, it wasn't as serious, but it was fun. And it looked prettier as well.

Personally, I don't hold out too much hope for this game. EA has botched things up so badly in the past that it is difficult to give them any credit. I'd rather watch Petroglyph and see what they are doing instead.

Re:Possible Hope (1)

thepotoo (829391) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175355)

doesn't matter what EA does with this game. As long as the storyline is good, that's all I care about.

Mod me troll, but the SAGE engine kind-of seems to suck. I mean, generals got old after a couple weeks, unlike previous CnC games.

When I want gameplay, I go for RA2: Yuri's Revenge with the deezire mod. Now THAT'S fun.

Re:Possible Hope (2, Informative)

sirnuke (866453) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176404)

Petroglyph will be releasing a military style RTS around the same time (actually a guess, since neither EA's or Westwood's games have solid release dates as of now). []


C&C Back in the Day (1)

SlashdotOgre (739181) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174289)

The original Command & Conquer has always impressed me. Sure it wasn't the first RTS, but in my opinion it was the first one to get it right. Both Nod and GDI were fairly well balanced, and the game had a lot of depth and replayability (most levels had multiple battle fields). The graphics were good for the time (even the FMV), and looked great when C&C Gold came out for Windows '95. There were a lot of tools out there to create your own levels, and playing friends over a LAN was a great experience. I don't know if this new C&C game can push the envelope, but I sure hope it tries.

Re:C&C Back in the Day (1)

Jeffrey Baker (6191) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174722)

C&C did have huge "replayability" i.e. addiction potential. I played it in 4-player LANs constantly. The original was hilariously unbalanced: Nod could build swarms of Nod Bikes and vast fields of Turrets at a tiny cost. GDI had no equivalent. But by the time the 1.22 version was patched up, the cost of Nod Bikes and Turrets was brought back in line with comparable GDI units.

I hope they can come out with another C&C that is just plain fun, like the original. Looking back at C&C, the graphics are hilariously bad by modern standards, but you didn't notice it at the time. What you *did* notice was a half-dozen guys with hard hats and blueprints piling out of a stealth APC you didn't see coming, and putting your Mobile Construction Yard on the real estate market :)

Re:C&C Back in the Day (1)

karnal (22275) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177154)


Oh dear god, you just reminded me about the single most annoying thing I ever encountered in that game... but it also made me want to play again and again....

Addiction is a funny thing...

Re:C&C Back in the Day (1)

WilliamSChips (793741) | more than 8 years ago | (#15181917)

To get this aside so I can type the rest of my post: The APCs could only carry 5 people at once--RA2's Flak Tracks could carry 6, but all the APCs previous to that were 5(except possibly TS--don't remember if they could carry 5 or 6). Done with the nitpick, now for the real post:
I completely agree--I still play Tiberian Sun and RA2 to this day--can't play the first two because Windows 2000 refuses to play them...*checks WINE to see if it plays them* And, since it plays, this post will have to get cut off, as I get out my old C&C and RA1 disks to install and play.

Don't forget... (0, Flamebait)

casualsax3 (875131) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174334) much as you might like to play this game - it's coming from EA. It irritates me it's even getting publicity...

Ah, the nostalgia (1)

Atlantis-Rising (857278) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174389)

I loved C&C Tiberium Sun, it was the game that really got me hooked on RTS. To this day, I still fire it up to play a multiplayer skirmish now and then. The tech tree was great, and I loved the story line. The graphics weren't bad, but when Generals came out and after I'd played it, I wished they'd taken the Generals engine and slapped a sequel to Tiberium Sun on there.
Even without that, Generals was one of the best RTS games I'd ever played.
This, if EA doesn't screw it up, has the possibility of besting any of the other C&C games by a mile. I really hope they don't.

generals is wonderful, network technology sucks (1)

Polo (30659) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174533)

You know, I really REALLY love generals and have played it multiplayer online with friends
until just recently when the bugs and network difficulties got to be too much for us.

I think whoever designed the networking code was either inexperienced or lazy or both.

Why can't they just use a SIMPLE network protocol??? For example, if you have a
firewall, you have to open up the TCP ports: 80, 6667, 28910, 29900, 29920
and UDP ports: 4321, 27900. That's just part of it. There's loads more "fun" if NAT
is involved.

What happened to games like quake -- just open one port and you're done?

I can't tell you the lost time given to configuring. I remember many nights
having to cut the play short with friends because the configuring took
loads of time at the start. I mean, you get your friends fired up about
this game, they go to play it with you and... fizzle. (by the way, we're talking
developers and network admins here... so we should have a headstart)

And the multiplayer... I can't tell you how frustrating it is to have a wonderful game
in progress (myself and 2 friends vs. 5 computers), and have the game stop early because
of either "Mismatch detected", "A serious error has occurred" (happens simultaneously
on 3 computers!) or some network glitch. We've all replaced hardware, and that's not
it. We have never gotten a generals game going successfully with 4 players for more than
5 minutes.

If a player has a network problem, it gives him an irrevocable 60 second countdown
before kicking him out. No option to pause, just an option to kick him out early.
Even if the problem is momentary, your 2 hour game is toast if he can't recover in that

So please EA, rethink how this stuff works and save us the pain!

Re: network technology sucks (1)

An anonymous Frank (559486) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174678)

Could you be using a basic hub, as opposed to a network switch? Tray and see if you're getting any packet collision.

Re:generals is wonderful, network technology sucks (1)

code-e255 (670104) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175018)

So true. I also liked Generals a lot as a game, even though it's by EA, but it's just not stable enough when it comes to multiplayer. Most of the time I could only play 1on1s because games with more than 2 players either couldn't even initialise, or I'd get "mismatch" sh*t like you said. The few times that didn't happen, the actual network performance was horribly bad. I'm not sure what the cause was, but the game was extremely sluggish. Even on normal/fast gamespeed, everything was moving at snail-speed, as if the server "clock" was just not ticking fast enough. This was with computers with specs well over the recommended ones.

Oh, and unit AI in the Generals was quite crap as well. Those huge Chinese tanks always kept bumping into each other, stopping, and then blocking units behind them, and stuff like that.

Basically, if the suits had given EALA (the developer) time to polish the engine, especially the netcode, Generals could've been an awesome RTS, both single- and multiplayer. Electronic Arts always seem to release games too early and not pay the developers to fix bugs after release. C&C3's most definitely not going to be any different in that regard. Gamers need to be more critical and not buy EA's buggy games, if you ask me. I'm still waiting for Battlefield 2 to get patched to a more stable state before I plan on buying it.

Re:generals is wonderful, network technology sucks (1)

MaineCoon (12585) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176522)


If you had bought it, you would have noticed that it's been very stable for about 9 months, and EXTREMELY well balanced for about 3 months now (since the patch that improved anti-air missiles). Balance was only a problem in the first couple months; a recent balance patch fixed the last remaining significant balance issues (all the remaining balance issues tend to come down to player preference more than a real balance problem).

I play it for an avg of an hour every night, some weeks 2 hours, and have absolutely no crashes or problems with it (it was never unstable for me anyways).

Re:generals is wonderful, network technology sucks (1)

Azar (56604) | more than 8 years ago | (#15178125)


So basically, what you are saying is that it was stable ages ago because YOU never had an issue with it? Ummm, No. 9 months ago it was still crap. I know, because that's about right when I purchased it. You know what? April was the first month that I've really been able to play it.

I am stuck on a wireless network. I have gamed over this same wireless network for about 2 years. Unreal Tournament 2004, Rainbow Six 3, Battlefield Vietnam, C&C Generals Zero Hour, etc, etc. Each one works fine and properly recovers if the wireless network does have a little hiccup. Battlefield 2 never game me more than 5 minutes of game play. Often times I'd have enough time to choose my class and starting flag and then BOOM. "Lost connection to Server" Or "Network issues" or some other random message about network problems. But then I realized it was a Battlefield game. And all Battlefield games suck donkey balls until about 9 months after they are released and are at patch level 1.2 or 1.3.

The initial patches for the game did nothing. It wasn't until recently that I downloaded the latest 1.22 patch and it now works about 90% of the time (this is the first patch in the 1.2 series I had tried. Previously, I had given up). On some servers I can play for hours and not get disconnected. On most servers I can at least get 20 minutes out of it. And if I get disconnected after that, I chose a different server and all is well. This could easily happen to any computer even on a wired network. So I'd say, they -finally- got it right. It's about time I finally got my moneys worth from BF2. Just about 9 months late...

I've kept myself from playing this entire week, because once I got into it, I'd play until 2:00am... and I get up for work at 6:30. The only other game that I've had more issues with is the "game mismatch" error with Command and Conquer Generals. And I'd get that issue when I was on a wired network sitting right next to the person I was playing with. Generals never worked once on my old computer. I had to build a brand new computer to get past that one. And I still see that about 1 in 15 games as well. If the new game has that issue, EA is going to get an earful from me.

Re:generals is wonderful, network technology sucks (1)

karnal (22275) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177200)

Amen brother.

From a standpoint of the network ports, you can choose just one port in the settings for generals, and it will stick to that - but you do have to (on your firewall) dedicate that port (UDP AND TCP - if you don't do UDP, you'll have issues, as I've found) to your internal box.

Oh yea, and the mismatches - WTF. I know they're attempting to run in lockstep so they're not being overly chatty, but look at Age of Empires (another one that me and my friends got into big time) - if there was ever a "mismatch", it would save a copy of the game on every client machine, and then one of the clients could "resume" the game, and have the participants re-connect...

Fixing the mismatches would turn Zero Hour from just an average game (in my opinion) to a GREAT GAME. We just get too frustrated at the mismatches, however, and stopped playing it after several months....

Re:generals is wonderful, network technology sucks (0)

Anonymous Coward | more than 8 years ago | (#15179204)

As a well known Mac game porting expert points out, the C&C-Generals team did a really dumb thing. They based their simulation engine on floating point and insisted on bitwise matches of results. =294 []

      "In C&C Generals, the game relied on bit-level floating point calculations being identical between players. So we'd have to guarantee every single calculation in the game produced an identical result to the the most minor decimal place when calculated on the PowerPC and the Pentium. There are enough small differences in how the compilers optimize floating point code to make those numbers not match, and so the game goes out of sync."

      Playing PC against PC was probably always going to be ever so slightly flaky as a result; maybe less so if all your opponents had the same make and model processor as you...

Re:generals is wonderful, network technology sucks (1)

Uerige (206572) | more than 8 years ago | (#15178239)

If you think network play in Generals was bad, you must've never played Red Alert. It was so horrible, but the addiction kept us trying again and again!

Yay (1)

GmAz (916505) | more than 8 years ago | (#15174675)

I am excited for this. I like the genre of the C&C series. Generals was fun, but not as fun as Red Alert 2. I do hope it goes back to the classic style.

Re:Yay (1)

toolie (22684) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177394)

To me, it seemed like as the series progressed, they got more infatuated with graphics over gameplay. RA1 and C&C1 were the best by far. RA2 was OK (the killer bimps were awesome). C&C2 did nothing for me. It felt like they changed nothing expect making fancier graphics to the detriment of gameplay.

"Close to hand"? (0)

Anonymous Coward | more than 8 years ago | (#15175309)


Is that the right turn of phrase? I'd expect something like "close to chest" like one does with a poker hand. "Close to hand" is more like Emporer Palpatine keeping Luke's lightsaber, saying, "You want this?" It's generally used to refer to weaponry placed for rapid deployment for personal defense.

Or like some documents in a closed folder labeled "Top Secret" within reach of the EA executive in plain sight where you could make a grab for it, but you won't, and which presence only serves to underscore that, "We have the information you want right here, but I can't let you read it."

I.e. "close to hand" tends to be used literally while "close to chest" is used figuratively. The context calls for a figurative phrase.

balance (0)

Anonymous Coward | more than 8 years ago | (#15175475)

RA2 and it's expansion was the last decent game to come from westwood.

One of the few games that was fairly balanced, the online top 100 rankings was
even between allied and soviet(well, iraq).

Some goodies. (2, Informative)

antdude (79039) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175556)

There are various links to drool on: #1 [] , #2 [] , #3 [] , and #4 [] for magazine scans, information, and discussions.

Re:Some goodies. (1)

StarvingSE (875139) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176436)

Wow, not to sound unoptimistic, but those GDI soldiers in the first link look very similar to the marines of StarCraft....

Where's the originality??

Red Alert please (1)

Physician (861339) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175622)

I've been waiting since I was a little kid for a sequel to Red Alert 2. The C&C universe was always boring to me. The Red Alert universe was always exciting and the games themselves were always better. Stick with the Red Alert series. You guys already put out a C&C sequel since the last Red Alert sequel.

Re:Red Alert please (1)

Xerxus (899945) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175929)

You have been waiting for a sequel to Red Alert 2 since you were a little kid? Red Alert 2 came out late 2000, with the expansion in 2001. You might not know this, but Red Alert was supposed to be the prequel to C&C95. Red Alert 2 screwed up the timeline.

There hasn't been a Command & Conquer sequel since RA2 at all. That is, unless you count Renegade, but that's not a realy RTS game anyways.

Oh, and Generals doesn't count. That was in another universe entirely.

Re:Red Alert please (1)

Physician (861339) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176053)

The "since a kid" bit was hyperbole. However, it does seem like an incredibly long time. Even if Red Alert and non Red Alert are the same universe, I still prefer dealing with the Soviets and their kind.

Lack of Care for Customer Concerns (2, Interesting)

moochfish (822730) | more than 8 years ago | (#15175696)

I loved Generals. It was an awesome game. For a while.

But I have vowed never to give EA another dime for that franchise if it's the last thing I ever do. Why? Because their commitment to their customers is crap compared to their RTS rival Blizzard. Here's what happened for you non C&G:G players:

First they released the game. It was cool. People noticed it was blantantly unbalanced. It was still imbalanced. They released 3 or 4 patches and then Zero Hour came out. Zero hour further screwed up the balance of the game. In the end, they patched it a few more times and then left it in a crippled, obviously screwed up state. I remember being so frustrated with the game being one sided that I was posting in their support forums. EVERYBODY was angry about the game. It came down to a point where people were telling prospective customers to not purchase the game because EA doesn't care about you once you cough up cash. It was only after insane amounts of anti-EA posts when EA staff finally started interacting - on a very limited basis - with the community. I remember their first post being an apology of sorts. But it was clear the higher ups were telling them to can support and move on to working on the LoTR game that was coming up.

The consensus was that the game coulda been great, but EA's lack of commitment to release balance patches (is it that much work???) killed hard core players' will to keep playing. I remember vowing to never play again until they patched the current version. I haven't picked up that CD since.

Why would I complain about the game's balance? Because the expansion set made the game have TWELVE sides and yet at the end of the day there was one or two CLEAR superior sides to play (inf and usaf). It became boring and frustrating to play when two out of three random opponents you played was one of the two cheese sides.

I don't care how shiny and flashy their next game is. I'm not giving them a damn dime. If they are going to release a multiplayer RTS and then not bother to make sure it's balanced, I'm not interested.

Re:Lack of Care for Customer Concerns (1)

greentoad (212070) | more than 8 years ago | (#15180160)

You didn't play it for long enough.

The clearly superior sides change depending on the experience of the player. You just keep learning new tactics.

However, for the very experienced player the Toxin General is the strongest.

We've been playing Zero Hour non-stop every lunchtime at work for over 2 and a half years. That's the longest I've played *any* game daily.

We patched it ourselves to limit each side's money-generators to 10 black markets, 10 drop zones, and 40 hackers... otherwise in 3v3 games, one player can simply concentrating on building a stupendous amount of money generators whilst the others protect him, then he comes out from his den and wipes the entire map clean. (if the game doesn't crash)

Re:Lack of Care for Customer Concerns (1)

moochfish (822730) | more than 8 years ago | (#15181903)

notice you had to patch it? i remember playing the game with a balance patch too. i do remember the toxic gen being very strong (esp tunnel). i played the game for about a year straight every day before giving up. i remember the GLA was tough to beat once you got into a super weapon match (china get owned by them there).

Always seemed like a pale immitation of... (2, Interesting)

MBraynard (653724) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176124)

Total Annihilation.

Blizzard is good for micromanaging. Age of Empire was good for huge wars and economic games. TA was for downright fighting and it seemed to me that C&C was going for the TA feel but never achieved it.

Re:Always seemed like a pale immitation of... (2, Informative)

MachDelta (704883) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176429)

Ok, im a big TA fan too, but you do know that the original C&C was released before TA, right? If memory serves, C&C was '95, Red Alert was '96, and then Total Annihilation was released in '97. Oh and then Starcraft appeared in 98, but who cares about them, right? :P

Also, for the record... the sequel to the most amazing RTS ever, aka Total Annihilation 2, aka Supreme Commander [] is scheduled to rock the RTS world some time in 2007. Oh hell yes. *Fanboi drooling noises*

Re:Always seemed like a pale immitation of... (1)

MBraynard (653724) | more than 8 years ago | (#15177162)

Yeah, I know, but that's not important because what the game was 'reaching for' is not relevant to when it came out. TA achieved what C&C did not.


KDR_11k (778916) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176821)

Actually C&C is more arcade-like and puts emphasis on quick battles and obvious unit strengths and weaknesses while TA takes a highly realistic approach. TA isn't just about fielding more and the right units, it's a lot about information warfare. If the enemy's scouts can spot your force before you see theirs you'll take heavy losses before you even get to fire one shot. When I was a noob I sent 20 goliath tanks towards the enemy and got them wiped out by a single HLT.

They're making a new one (1)

caitsith01 (606117) | more than 8 years ago | (#15188012)

Supreme Commander

Check it out here: link [] .

And let's hope it happens - still the best, most complex RTS game ever, all it needed to be perfect was some improvements to the AI.

I'll wait before I buy. (1)

CrazyJim1 (809850) | more than 8 years ago | (#15176576)

C&C 2 was one of the worst piles of trash to visit the PC. Dune 2 was more fun than C&C 2.

good news (1)

Launchpad Mcquack (968072) | more than 8 years ago | (#15181242)

I still play generals ever week. Im sure Ill buy it the day it comes out.

EA Games suck (1)

vanHell (593102) | more than 8 years ago | (#15182572)

EA games are developed for console(X360, etc.), because
console games dont need support and balancing.
They dont care if it is a RTS game or anything else.

Not C&C without Kane!! (1)

DeadboltX (751907) | more than 8 years ago | (#15215441)

There is something enigmatic about the character Kane [] that just makes the whole C&C series what it is, and what Generals was not.

Not only did Joseph D. Kucan [] do great acting for the games but he also directed them.
My Hero!
Check for New Comments
Slashdot Account

Need an Account?

Forgot your password?

Don't worry, we never post anything without your permission.

Submission Text Formatting Tips

We support a small subset of HTML, namely these tags:

  • b
  • i
  • p
  • br
  • a
  • ol
  • ul
  • li
  • dl
  • dt
  • dd
  • em
  • strong
  • tt
  • blockquote
  • div
  • quote
  • ecode


Create a Slashdot Account