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A developer's walkthrough of C&C2013

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A Reddit user linked to this, it's a walkthrough of the cancelled C&C2013 a month after Victory Games' closure made as a portfolio-oriented video. It's probably nothing new to the players of the alpha from the time, but it's a very good reference point, especially as it has entire sections on what the game was supposed to look like in terms of infrastructure and some intended changes on the not-meant-to-be October content patch and beyond.

Timestamps from the video's description:

00:00:00 Intro, 1v1 match Featuring GLA Salvage General
00:17:13 Explaination of the Generals' Kits
00:22:00 Perks and Metagame Discussion
00:26:00 The Road to Public Release
00:46:26 1v1 match Featuring APA Espionage General
01:02:15 1v1 match Featuring EU Experimental Weapons General
01:18:23 1v1 match Featuring EU Classic General
01:33:47 1v1 match Featuring GLA Marauder General
01:49:41 3v3 match Featuring APA Urban Assault General

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Directional artillery strikes and 3d animated generals, way cool. Multiple independent weapons on a unit sounds like it was stolen from 8-bit ;)

Why they don't just hire some temps to finish this, I'll never know. 

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If you'd ever played it you would know.

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7 hours ago, jeffnz said:

Multiple independent weapons on a unit sounds like it was stolen from 8-bit ;)

Seems like it's the only game you ever played (newsflash - it was made 3 years after C&C2013 was cancelled).

7 hours ago, jeffnz said:

Why they don't just hire some temps to finish this, I'll never know.

Go educate yourself under which circumstances the project was being developed. http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Command_&_Conquer_(2013)

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2 hours ago, Plokite_Wolf said:

Go educate yourself under which circumstances the project was being developed. http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Command_&_Conquer_(2013)

Yeah so officially it was cancelled because of "community feedback" but really it could have been a great game. There was a hiss about free-to-play but then it was decided that there would be a single player campaign. Maybe EA Games takes message boards and complaints too seriously?

At least Petroglyph released their game. That's something EA could re-learn one day in the near future. EA must have spent at least a million dollars on Generals 2 but they don't even release it because some people complained, then game was thrown into the "too hard basket".

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3 minutes ago, jeffnz said:

Yeah so officially it was cancelled because of "community feedback" but really it could have been a great game.

No, you entirely missed the bit where that excuse was pre-written by corporate heads at EA. A Victory Games employee clearly stated it was cancelled due to corporate politics, and that makes perfect sense. Victory Games was essentially forced to make compromises, like initially gutting the singleplayer campaigns to stay afloat, so they were in a sandwich between EA rushing them and the fans shaking their heads on policies that were being forced. There was more things happening behind the scenes than the public was made aware of and will likely never be aware of.

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The game would also have needed major redesignes to be even considered mediocre. A single player campaign wouldn't have saved it.

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Even if EA didn't interfere, giving the developers complete creative freedom, I wouldn't have had high expectations for the game. My experiences with it were not nearly as unpleasant as Tiberian Twilight, but the game simply was not fun at all.

While I no longer remember the long list of failings it had, one of the things that most stood out to me at the time was the forced tactics. The game was designed to be played a very specific way, and if that wasn't your style, that was just too bad, because that was what the devs were aiming for.

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Tbh I would have taken TT over it any time. At least that felt somewhat consistent in itself. Even in the early CommandCom demo we got to play.

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11 minutes ago, Nmenth said:

Even if EA didn't interfere, giving the developers complete creative freedom, I wouldn't have had high expectations for the game.

Ditto, though the F2P announcement from August 2012 was the trigger for my anticipation that the game would either get canned or would die about a month after release.

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13 hours ago, Nmenth said:

While I no longer remember the long list of failings it had, one of the things that most stood out to me at the time was the forced tactics. The game was designed to be played a very specific way, and if that wasn't your style, that was just too bad, because that was what the devs were aiming for.

Please elaborate because I'm unsure of what you mean. How was it different from Generals, for example?

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There was a secondary income source in the form of Oil Derricks which were originally intended to be a third resource (power, money, and then oil). Due to it being a stupid idea, they dropped it as a third resource and made Oil Derricks into a secondary income of money like previous C&Cs, albeit needing to be constructed rather than captured. However, it wasn't a secondary income like each of the Generals factions had, you couldn't run a base off Oil Derricks, as you could only build a limited number on specific oil deposit locations.

I don't remember if oil was unlimited or not, but regardless, the only way you could properly fund an army was to play aggressively and establish forward bases at alternate income sites, which were just more supplies and oil deposits. This made virtually any defensive tactics obsolete, and it was more of a race to see who could capture the most resource sites the fastest. Of course, every map was pretty much as symmetric as conceivably possible, which would only be fair with resource site grabbing being the absolute decisive priority.

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1 hour ago, Nmenth said:

I don't remember if oil was unlimited or not, but regardless, the only way you could properly fund an army was to play aggressively and establish forward bases at alternate income sites, which were just more supplies and oil deposits. This made virtually any defensive tactics obsolete, and it was more of a race to see who could capture the most resource sites the fastest. 

That sounds like every strategy game these days. I learned last week that CnC 3 is all about rushing to the middle of the map and building 10 harvesters. 8-bit has a similar issue when the initial resources are depleted - the player has no choice but to attempt controlling half of the map to gather the spread-out resources. Generals did it well I reckon: USA can pinch supplies with helicopters, GLA has kill bounty and black market, and China gets hackers. None of those methods require territory expansion (bounty requires attacks but nothing serious).

Having extra resources wouldn't be a bad thing if they were easy to control - if they were near, then players could save up and launch a huge attack. I don't like how RTS has become rush-oriented, where harassing the enemy at every opportunity is encouraged. All my happy RTS memories involve base building for ages, followed by The One Big Attack. Extra resources should never be the whole point of the game because it leads to absurd amounts of skirmishing. Generals had it right with a few oil structures placed around the map, it created some benefit without tipping the game completely in one person's favour. The idea of oil as a third resource sounds absurd, why not also have a quarry for gathering stone, and gazelles to hunt? LMAO

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16 minutes ago, jeffnz said:

That sounds like every strategy game these days.

Yes, I believe greater attention is being given to competitive players which make up a tiny minority of total players, but make up the majority of publicity. There may always be an ideal build order and unit set up, but unless you are a professional competitive gamer who will religiously follow a boringly unvaried sequence for optimal efficiency, that one method should not be the only viable strategy. After all, if there is only one strategy, it isn't really a strategy at all.

16 minutes ago, jeffnz said:

I learned last week that CnC 3 is all about rushing to the middle of the map and building 10 harvesters.

Resource racing started becoming high priority in TW, but playing defensively was still completely possible. RA3, with its ore mines that hold the distinction of being the worst income source points I've ever witnessed in an RTS was slightly more restrictive than TW. Nevertheless, this game pretty much went from resource racing being strongly encouraged to being downright obligatory.

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I have to disappoint you but Gens/TW has a lot more variety in strategies then TD/RA/TS/RA2. In fact if you built more then 2-3 Power Plants in TD/RA/TS mp match you're dead. RA2 was a little better off because of the increased Harvester loads which enabled you to get light infantry killers faster. Guess why "no rush 10 mins" was so much more popular in older CnC games and less and less starting with Gens.

Generals was able to cut down on extreme early game rushes because it reduced the early game income a lot and decreased early infantry damage quite a bit because of its stronger rock/paper/scissors counter system, but it mostly just shifted it a bit further into the game to people using Humvees and Missile Soldiers + Search and Destroy for USA, or a small mix of Battlemasters/Scorpions + Gattling Tanks/Quadcannons for China/GLA. Also getting at least a second supply center was crucial because of the decreased income. There were all-in rushes, but they aren't really viable vs someone who spotted them soon enough.

TW had much more varied options which were also very much dependent on the map (while previous CnC games played mostly the same regardless of the map). On some it's more viable to grab early spikes. On others you rather expand. Again on others you could do either and not have a massive disadvantage. While these eco boom strategies were the most solid ones there were also extreme all-in rushes, but they were also really hard to execute, you had to really have the timings down or you basically just shot yourself into the foot. While extreme turtling was patched out quite soon a more passive strategy wasn't an instant loss in TW compared to any of the previous CnC games.

I also have to agree with Nmenth, RA3's system was just crap, it looks clean and nice on paper, and for extremely competitive players it works quite well, but it just doesn't allow much variety in strategies. Its forced building placement took away a lot of the basebuilding which made Gens/TW interesting. In Gens as GLA you basically walled off your supply workers with your structures so they couldn't just be crushed, while USA/China had options to build more aggressive or passive expansions. In TW this was even a lot more important because of the build radius. Do you build your refinery in a more open but aggressive spot so you have a Warfactory/defenses directly on the front lines, or do you build it in a more passive location for the extra protection but longer routes for your reinforcements.

In short TW had the most options to engage and adapt to what is happening out of all CnC games. If you say it's all about rushing to the middle and getting 10 harvesters you clearly never played much of it.

 

Also harassment has nothing to do with rushing and should be encouraged. There is a difference of keeping your enemy in check, so their economy doesn't just explode, and outright destroying them as soon as possible. It gives players things to do and creates engagement with the game. Not having harassment is just watching timers and plopping down buildings for x minutes. This is not SimCity. This is not about being competitive but how, on a basic level, CnC is played. When playing a shooter, where your goal is to shoot your enemy, you wouldn't whine that your enemy shoots you immediately all the time and doesn't give you enough time to aim, but instead just learn how to get better and react faster. So why not with RTS games? When your goal is to destroy your enemy why whine that your enemy first doesn't give you a huge amount of time of unchecked growth to destroy them?

Edited by Lauren
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2 hours ago, Lauren said:

Guess why "no rush 10 mins" was so much more popular in older CnC games and less and less starting with Gens.

No rush rooms exist in other RTS titles, among very low-skilled players exclusively.

 

2 hours ago, Lauren said:

This is not SimCity. This is not about being competitive but how, on a basic level, CnC is played.

THANK YOU!!!

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You're welcome.

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Hmm... now I kind of want to make a SimBase game...

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On 04/06/2017 at 8:18 PM, Nmenth said:

Hmm... now I kind of want to make a SimBase game...

That'd be Tiberium Wars Mobile. Which is also a tower defence game, sort of.

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Well, I am currently making an RTS (super early stages), and I had a thought that I could make a base planner/defense simulator mini-game sort of thing. But perhaps a multiplayer option would allow one to start with a prebuilt base (for quick matches), and that prebuilt base could be custom designed in the base planner if you don't like whatever default pre-built bases are available.

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Hmmm... maybe something similar to the bases in Battle for Middle-earth? Where the layout is fixed, but the kind of buildings can be picked by the player?

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I was thinking more of a fixed buildable zone in which you can place whatever you want, wherever you want, using a limited amount of resources. Then you could save that as a prebuilt base template for multiplayer or have enemy forces attack it in a defense simulation to test it. Perhaps the resource limit could be lifted just to have fun with the simulation, but then it wouldn't be able to be saved as a multiplayer template.

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Well it could as you have to limit the size. You have to do that anyway or you will only be able to use flat maps.

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A resource limit on the prebuilt base would force one to make tactical decisions, such as going for more early income buildings, unit production, or basic defenses. And I don't think someone entering a match with a prebuilt superweapon is a good idea either. Perhaps there could be tiers of prebuilt bases too, depending on just how quick of a quick match one wishes to play, and maybe the highest tier could have no resource limit.

As far as flat maps though, I intend to have the terrain moveable. You can even have your engineering vehicles dig your base a moat, or build up a cliff wall if you really want it and have the time and funding to do so. So having a completely flat starting area is within the believability of the gameplay mechanics.

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27 minutes ago, Nmenth said:

As far as flat maps though, I intend to have the terrain moveable. You can even have your engineering vehicles dig your base a moat, or build up a cliff wall if you really want it and have the time and funding to do so. So having a completely flat starting area is within the believability of the gameplay mechanics.

Ooh, inspiration from Stronghold?

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