GeneralJist

Is your avatar a duck? it's cute. Anywyas, Well, ya, I'd say when writing a story for any game, RTS especially, it has to be about larger than life themes, and ideas or technology that spans generations. Finding something like that. that hasn't been done to death and has mass appeal is a challenge. Another thing about RTS, is having it space themed id risky, the entire point of waging war boils down to spreading ideology and land acquisition. Moving things into boundless new worlds and new planetary conditions are risky, since it somewhat undermines those concepts. I don't think there has ever been an RTS that has spanned multiple worlds, having travel between worlds takes time, and waging war in space and new planets all take high amount of investment. There is an inverse relationship between the amount of space and the # of interacting forces in said space. High amount of land, few people in the land, less chance for interaction and conflict. Low amount of land, high amount of people . more chance for interaction and conflict. (same relationship with potential "fun" in an area.) So, if we battled over planets that's a lot of space, for conflict to happen properly between said spaces, a lot of opposing forces, of large groupings of allied forces would need to exist. Hence, I have always maintained that C&C should have earth bound conflicts. As soon as we go to bigger scaled places, we need bigger scaled forces to fill that space for proper RTS style conflict to occur. @ Traymen, I'd disagree Balance and mechanic issues are different from server hosting & multiplayer logistics. Agree with your other points tho.

Hello everyone, I posed this in this in the TW moding section, but the coverage was't so high. So, here we go: General Ad: http://www.gamedev.net/classifieds/item/4058-coders-2d-artists-3d-animators-wanted-tiberium-secrets-rts/ Direct: http://www.moddb.com/mods/tiberium-secrets We're particualrlly looking for anyone who knows how to use lighting effects, scrol mapping As well as shaders. Let me know if there are any questions or comments, thanks, -Jist

Well, I skimmed around the document. How did you determine the costs of everything? The way you did it is the common way I've seen, just list all the units and stuff you want in one huge list. It's difficult for us to get a good sense of this. From a game designer's perspective, I'd say you should break it down by roles, and then balance them across all your factions, filling out what each of your units will fill. It's rather difficult to geta sense of it all TBH. Looks liike a lot, and I'm more hten willing to help you develo this into a more workable proposal, but you've just fallen into one of the mosrt common traps I've seen. People Detail everything they want, everything, and althoguh it's cool to see what you;ve come up with, ask yourself, how much of what you just wrote up has been done before? what units behave teh same? What is differnt? You also seemed to combine Generals and RA universes. As wel as Naval. As said above, if fyou want this become more then just a cool thought experiment, then break open a spread sheet, and start transcribing them over, so people can directly compare things. It's all up tp upi how far you want to take it. Also, sorry to burst your buble, but it takes a lot for someone to be inspired and work on another person's ideas. Most of the time, it's just you working, and you have ti be fine with that. Everyone has their own ideas on how to do things, what sets you apart from them? You;ve taken the 1st step by gtting all your ideas writen down, the next is organizing and presenting tehm in a more palatable fassion.

that was a joke..... But to answer your question? oh IDK, an epic story that makes sense?

C&C vs. SC, now that would be cmpletlly redicullious.... It's not like they have any similarities or anytihng....

link to your project? Well, it's all well and good to have parallel timelines that don't mess with teh core storyline, but from the way things have been going, and are, I take the stance of why wait when you can act? I'm glad C&C has still a solid moding community, but the thing is 90% of mods look at the past of C&C, and TBH, we've had enough of that, this questions is asking about C&C's future, and without EA at the helm, why not shave the community step up? That's always been how I look at things tho. If a job isn't be done right or done at all, go do it yourself and see what it's like. I'm really sad that these days people look to Blizzard as the king of RTS, expecting them to lead RTS into the future. Where the original innovation came from others. Far be it to me to tell the community to not just burn a book because they don't like how it ended. We've had Kane for 15 years of C&C, lets see how C&C stands without him. If you can pull that off, then you've demonstrated you truly understand C&C. But if all roads lead to Kane, then what real innovation has been done? In most other contexts, we'd be board out of out minds. But not Kane oh no, not Kane.... Wouldn't it be more interesting to see a story where everyone's just cleaning up after Kane's mess? Then having Kane mess more things up again and again, hopefully one day we'll understand why? It's natural to want to understand why a person did what they did, But do you think in life you get to ask a 30 year old just how he/she planned his/her life since they were 15 to get to where they are now? of a 45 uear old and expect him to tell us since they were 30? We some how want to belive that there is a perfictly logical explination of everything in the world of why a person did what they did. And A story should have that. But, logically l is it likelly that after all this time someone writer somewhere that will examine 15 years of dialogue, story and plans across all the Tiberium C&Cs, and have acess to all the inhouse stuf to figure out the true master plan? It's like how religious folk belive there is a master plan for life, would it really help you if you knew irt all? Why does there need to be a plan? If someone handed you a shet of paper, and said, this is everythingg that you will ever do, and why, how ould that make you feel? Let Kane go, C&C is about so much more when you stop focusing on him. (sorry for the typos, I'm tired)

Rebooting C&C? Although it is much cleaner to burn down the old and bring in the new in a reboot, that would only work if those at the helm understood the story well enough to do so. But in general, reboots like saying: "let's burn down The White House (insert historic landmark/ building) So we can make a 21st century version, that would really be the best way to bring it up to current architectural and technological standards to last for the generations to come." I doubt anyone still at EA has the knowledge to continue C&C in a significant direction. Skill and ability is something else entirely. It takes a lot to understand a game franchise, what made it great, why, and how to make that again. With none, of the original C&C or few members still at EA, it's hard to imagine them pulling it off. That doesn't mean C&C's story isn't salvageable, it just takes the right team to do it, people who are committed to C&C, who grew up with the franchise, those who are willing to take the risk of making a classic RTS. Does EA currently have anyone like that? I don't know. But the world and the community are starving for something, in the classic RTS genre, Grey goo is a good example of that. So if you were to ask me about the future of C&C story? Well, I'd have to shamelessly plug my project, since that's exactly what we're aiming to do. But some frown on such opportunistic self serving promotions. So, if I wasn't part of or knew of my project, what would I say? How can you move forward if you don't know where you've been? How can you know where you are now, if you don't know where you've been? How can you move forward if you don't know where you are now? Those core questions are what needs to be answered, in life, and in this. So? In order for C&C to really thrive, and continue, it needs to once and for all let go of some of it's past. That means making a story that doesn't center around Kane, this is because Kane's story arch is 15 years old, to find people that can make sense of all of that, and bring him back, takes a lot of work. And part of the point of why Kane was so effective as a character, was because of the mystery, answer all the questions and then people move on to the next puzzle. But leave things purposely ambiguous? they can debate forever. This doesn't mean you don't need answers, you just hint at them, don't get us "Lost." A simple example as to the power of stories: A fellow writer friend once told me, "I prefer books to all other forms of media because nothing can compete with my imagination." As a story writer, it's important to understand that, It's in the interpretations of the text that give it depth. Another simple example? Literalism vs. interpritationism when it comes to religious text. Steps to take in figuring out what to do next in C&C? (I'll assume there is already a competent team and financial sponsorship) 1,determine what is to be done with TT 2. based on decision from 1, analyze the appropriate backlog of C&C history to support 1. and then find natural story lines & patterns that could be potential directions 3. continually refine the direction, a truly good story has a message and style, craft it. 4. Define how this potential direction and story is relevant to your audience & the world then, now, and the foreseeable future. 5. If you haven't already in the process of 1-4, engage with as many key contributors to C&C throughout the years, to collect their thoughts, by this, I don't mean show them your finished script &GDD and get their approval, I mean, ask them open ended question on how they see C&C continuing, and what C&C means to them. (maybe a little focusing on your themes but give them a chance to speak. They will most likely know more than you, so understand and respect that. 6. comb through all this data, looking for consistent themes 7. See which of those themes fit in the scale scope skill and budget you have available. 8. Look at the competition in the RTS market, what did/do they do well in their titles/ franchises?, and why do people like and play these games. 9. listen to the community, by this, I don't mean do waht the community tells you to, I mean actively engage the community, making them feel heard. 10. repeated 7 & 8 until you get the results you where hoping for/ expecting. 11. Support user created content in an intelligent format. 12. Keep your intensions clear and above board to everyone all the time. 13. Go make sense of all the information you've gathered, and present it in a way that may potentially suit your community, refine it continuously. 14. Formally apologize and act in ways to make up for the past, or at least, acknoldge that significant mistakes were made 15. Release and develop on an appropriate schedule And there we go, A "check list" of sorts to get C&C back on track, a point for every year eh? let's hope it doesn't take that long. Kane was right in TT, he was running out of time, we all are. The # of those C&C veterans that care are getting few and further between, most are/ have already moved on. Now go sit back and ponder what I've said, and do nothing about it, as most people do, because of one simple reason, "that sounds like a lot of work" And who are we to do anything about it? It's easy to sit here, and blather on about nostalgia but who has the time and ability to do something these days? Well ya, you're asking how to resurrect and breathe life into a franchise that's had significant setbacks, many of them, which seem due to incompetence somewhere in management, not the actual developers. Not to mention getting official EA support has been, let's say "more than difficult than any time before." TLDR? Learn from the past, listen to the present, and leave a legacy for the future. And if your curious about my project and story and How I'd continue C&C ? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CuccEDlpBOc6b9xTQ-JEX_XDQfjRdb_OqDtfPQDNNlw/edit?pli=1 http://www.moddb.com/mods/tiberium-secrets Enjoy

Updated 3/1/15 Hey everyone, http://www.gamedev.net/classifieds/item/3910-scripters2d-artists-3d-animators-wanted-tiberium-secrets-rts/ If you have a skill that is not listed, but are still bale and interested, let me know. Their nay be positions soon open in mapping and writing. Thanks everyone, C&C lives -Jist