Plokite_Wolf

The new patch for the C&C Remastered Collection is now live and available to everyone. There's a lot of changes, including those from the previous two beta branch patches (both documented and previously hidden ones), and possibly some new ones. Read the full change list and roadmap here. NOTE: If you were using the beta branch patches on Steam, make sure you DISABLE the beta participation for the game to receive this update.

There's been a few news in the Command & Conquer community in recent times, so here's a round-up: Direct & Dominate: Absolute Units episode 4 is out (shown above) Amars90 has conducted interviews with Frank Klepacki and Jim Vessella for United-Forum.de, and will premiere an interview with Joe Kucan on August 7th (Friday) at 20:00 CEST as part of their celebration of 25 years of C&C on Twitch, alongside content from other creators. The YouTube channel AI & Games has posted an analysis video on the AI in the C&C Remastered Collection. The annual World Series tournament in Zero Hour ended, with BoYcaH earning his first title. An overview with links to all replays from the event is here.

About an hour and a half ago, Jim Vessella posted an update on the C&C subreddit regarding changes in the beta branch of the C&C Remastered Collection, as per last week's call for community input: The Nod Cargo Plane delivery time has been normalized to 4 seconds on Normal speed The TD Weapons Factory health has been increased by 30% The RA1 naval structures have been removed from the victory condition To address the TD Engineer / APC issue, the APC now has the Repair Facility as a pre-requisite to build Harvester logic improvements AI supported in LAN mode Quickmatch map pools rotated, added selected community-made maps The full post (and it's quite a read) can be seen here.

Update on the hot topic of balance issues: https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/hsy1t0/remaster_update_and_july_balance_feedback/

The development of the second patch for the Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection is well underway, and players can test out its beta right now. Aside from an early version of LAN play, it has a feature that will bring a smile to many players - a slider which dictates the speed of Tiberium/ore regrowth, among other changes that will be officially announced once the patch is finished. Here's Jim Vessella's full update: Fellow Command & Conquer fans, Today we are inviting you to try a Beta version of our in-development patch, which most importantly includes an early version of LAN Play. Our goal in sharing this Beta version is to get your feedback on LAN Play and ensure this feature is living up to your expectations. We’re looking for both qualitative and technical feedback on the feature, especially with regards to playing multiplayer LAN games with Mods enabled (either locally or over VPN). We reinforce this is an early version, and certain elements (including AI) may not work correctly in LAN play just yet. Everyone who owns the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection on Steam is able to participate in this Beta version of the game. Please follow these steps to gain access: Go to your C&C Remastered Collection page on Steam Click on the Manage button (gear icon) Select Properties Navigate to the Betas tab In the dialog box, enter “TDRABetaPatch1” Click Check Code Once the code accepts, select the “Public Beta” branch from the drop down menu The game will now update to the Public Beta version, at which point you can play At any time, you can update back to the standard live version via the same drop down menu Please note, there are several dozen other improvements in this Beta version, which we’ll list out in more detail when the patch is officially released. However, please keep an eye out for these key items: The ability to choose the speed of Tiberium / Ore regrowth. This is now a slider in the game rules section. (0 being disabled, 1 being default, and 2-9 being multiples on default). We’re eager to see if this feature satisfies requests from the community, and we’re also looking for feedback on what the new Quickmatch default regrowth setting should be. If you saw increased framerate stuttering or launch crashing after the June major patch versus the launch version, we have an experiment you can try: Go to your C&C Remastered Collection page on Steam Click on the Manage button (gear icon) Select Properties On the General tab, select “Set Launch Options…” In the box, enter “NOSPLASHPRELOAD” Click OK and launch the game This will effectively revert the texture optimizations we made in the June Patch, and may help performance / stability with certain hardware configurations (This launch option will also work with the standard live branch as well) Please note, while playing in the Beta version, online play will be disabled and certain mods may not be compatible. Please play the Beta version and alter Launch options with caution and understand there may be a risk. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback on LAN Play and other improvements. Cheers, Jim Jimtern

I really should unpin this thread. See links in the post above yours to see the updated procedure.

You may have seen a bunch of cute and chunky Tiberian Dawn unit videos floating around the community in the past several months. These come from Benjamin Tay, an animator who worked for Lemon Sky Studios (including the C&C remasters), who has decided to make a video series of short stories with such adorable unit designs. Direct & Dominate: Absolute Units follows a GDI light scout and APC scouting around a nearby Nod(dy) base. If you're new to the series, visit the official channel to catch up.

From my experience, the performance is definitely smoother.

Today, the first patch for Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection is planned to go live. The changelog is quite long, but here is our summary: Performance issues will be resolved by loading everything before the match launches, which will prolong loading times but should reduce stuttering in the middle of the game Private (passworded) game lobbies are now available Muting players in chat enabled Overwriting existing saved games now possible Random faction choices available in custom matches Deploy hotkey now universal to all units with such a function Manual saving in custom missions enabled Tweaked balancing of the Hard difficulty mode in Tiberian Dawn Fixed bug that changed the difficulty of the mission after reloading Nod Cargo Planes no longer destructible Mission-specific fixes Various mismatching tile fixes on maps Map pool adjustments Tweaks to mod menu Jukebox now available in the main menu To read the full changelog, click here.

Give it time

Moments ago, Renegade-X: Firestorm was officially revealed after multiple teases in recent months. As can be seen from the trailer, it is a Tiberian Sun version of the game, but it will exist as a separate mode, or rather set of maps that will be available for seamless switching through map voting at the end of each round. The expected release date is fall 2020.

In his first update after the release of the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, producer Jim Vessella has shown appreciation for the positive response following the release, shouted out the work of @CCHyper who has immensely helped the project and created the new "installation" sequences, and commented on the upcoming patch. His update, in full, is below: Fellow Command & Conquer fans, The Command & Conquer Remastered Collection has now been live for ten days, and our teams have been absolutely humbled by the response from players and journalists around the world. I’ve been spending the past week engrossed in streams, articles, and community comments about the game, trying to absorb every piece of feedback players are providing. But at the same time, also just smiling as I observe players being transported back to their childhood with waves of nostalgia, hopefully providing a positive moment during these times. Congratulations and thank you to everyone in the community for helping to make the launch such a memorable event. I wanted to cover a few topics in today’s post. The first is to highlight one of the most meaningful features of the Remastered Collection - the Installation Videos. Players from around the world have been loving these sequences, with entire articles being written about the emotional reaction they garnered. But unless you went into the Bonus Gallery to read the details, you may not know that these two videos were not created directly by our development teams, but instead by long-time C&C community member, Luke “CCHyper” Feenan. Luke has been an integral part of our Community Council since the beginning of the project. When I learned Luke was a graphics designer by trade, I asked if he would be willing to remaster the installation sequences into something truly special. He created a five-second test for us, and it was instantly clear he would be able to pour the passion and attention to detail into the project. So we contracted Luke to work with us, and over the course of six months he created the sequences, brainstorming with Petroglyph and myself on how to shift them from an “Installation” sequence to an “Upgrade” sequence. We would review the progress with Luke every two weeks or so to provide feedback, and Luke’s skills and creativity were surpassed only by his professionalism. I’m so proud of Luke for creating content that will go down in C&C history, and that the first thing anyone experiences in the Remastered Collection was created by a member of the C&C community. The second topic I wanted to discuss was our upcoming patch. We’re currently putting the final touches on this patch, as we continue to prioritize and react to player feedback. The goal of this patch is multifold: Complete several of the top community requested features which just missed the launch date, including items like Private Game Lobbies and a choosing sub-factions for RA Quickmatch Address many of the top bugs which have been seen in the launch version, including a potential improvement to the framerate stuttering issue Implement some additional quality-of-life improvements, such as enabling the “Deploy” hotkey to unload APCs and multi-queue units on the Repair Facility in Tiberian Dawn (same now as RA) Iterate on our Quickmatch ruleset to ensure we’re creating the proper foundation for competitive play In total, there should be several dozen items addressed in this patch, and we’ll provide a comprehensive set of patch notes when the patch is released. Regarding the Quickmatch rules, we’ve heard strong and unanimous feedback from our engaged multiplayer competitors. In fact, we’re actually able to make several of these changes on the backend and have decided to implement several of these changes effective later today. The key changes to Quickmatch as requested by the community are the following: Increasing the Game Speed from Normal to Fast Reducing the Starting Units to zero Removing Aftermath units from Quickmatch in Red Alert (due to extreme balance issues) Adding two more maps to the Tiberian Dawn map rotation: Monkey in the Middle, One Pass Fits All We’re hoping the community can play with these changes over the next week and continue to provide us feedback as we strive to improve this mode of the game. Thanks again for all the appreciative words over the past ten days, and please continue to provide your feedback so we can improve your experience with the Remastered Collection. Cheers, Jim Vessella Jimtern

ESRGAN looks way too artificial and plastic-ey, not gonna lie.

To be entirely fair, Star Wars: Jedi - Fallen Order was a turning point. They also let Respawn Entertainment do their thing and make a game they wanted to, no microtransactions and other BS, and was the first EA game since Crysis 2 to come on Steam. Fans rewarded them with good sales and reception. Call me a fool, but I think they're waking up to some issues.

With Microsoft leading the way with Age of Empires Definitive Editions, and now EA getting first-hand experience, only a moron wouldn't learn the lesson.