Roundtable Discussion #26: December 2009 - Fan Edition

[Sonic 296]

Its the final day of the year and this is the final CNCNZ.com Roundtable for 2009. And to finish things off, the fans have given us the questions for this one. But I must say that this is a just short 4 question one for this month. And due to time constraints I've side stepped this edition and left myself off the panel, but our regular panellists are all present and accounted for, plus 1 new name. Topics in this month's Roundtable include C&C 4 Storyline Expectations, Main Concerns with C&C 4, An MMO Future, Ideas for the New Dev Team.

 

Here is the panel for this month.

• Nmenth - CNCNZ.com Forums Moderator
• Gben- CNCNZ.com News Team
• Lion - CNC Den
• Banshee - Project Perfect Mod
• Chickendippers - CNC World
• Ryan - Planet CNC
• Mighty BOB! - CNC Source
• NODSOLDIERGIRL - CNC-247
• Nathancnc - CNC Sector

Click here to read Roundtable Discussion #26.

[Luk3us 63]

An interesting roundtable.

 

On the first question its kinda sad how everyone is "hoping for the best", I am too. But given EA's past track record... Most likely it will be average, good if we are lucky, but anything more seems wishful thinking...

 

At least EA have promised no lame fade to white endings.

[sith_wampa 6]

I think I would ask to have C&C split into two brands. On the one hand, have the casual branch of C&C - the rumored Facebook games, the iPhone apps, the cartoony Red Alert series etc to bring in revenue from the casual market. Simultaneously, have a second branch of EALA dedicated to a complete franchise reboot. I know reboots are becoming cliché, but I think it's about time C&C had blank slate to start from scratch. Call it just "Command & Conquer", release it in August 2015 (smack bang on the month of the 20th anniversary) and make it a gritty spiritual remake of the original Tiberian Dawn. No cartoony units, no cheesy unit dialogue. Hire creative directors from BioWare and Valve and make it a truly immersive and fascinating story. Avoid just straight out repeating the story of the original games so it can be fresh and familiar at the same time. I think if you promoted it as a hardcore, well-developed singleplayer RTS game with a Generals-style multiplayer component, you could really get the hardcore market onboard.

I think this is an excellent idea. Look at Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen and how well they did. They were just improved versions of the classic games that everyone loves. It's easy to take something that's already great and add a little to it to make it better. Imagine how much fun Red Alert 1 would be but on the massive scale of Zero Hour or Kane's Wrath. I'd love to see new cinematics even if Kucan (forgive me Kane) needed to be replaced. I honestly think EA is incapable of making anything new and good out of C&C, so remakes are a terrific option.

[Gben 20]

Just reading through everyone else's answers.

 

I'm thinking that C&C4 appears to be market motivated not fiction motivated. If I can borrow the infamous Avatar, this film took a long time to make because the technology didn't exist to tell it. It would be nice if C&C4 was a story waiting for technology to tell it. Rather than what might appear to be a market than can be mined by a strong IP. No that doesn't make sense. Let me try again...

 

It would be nice if the C&C4 started in the writers room, then the game designers looked over the script for interesting ways to tell that story.

(Rather than look at the top selling games in the genre, borrow some concepts, and slap on a loose story.)

 

The story should have motivated the gameplay and the innovation.

[NODSOLDIERGIRL 2]

Just reading through everyone else's answers.

 

I'm thinking that C&C4 appears to be market motivated not fiction motivated. If I can borrow the infamous Avatar, this film took a long time to make because the technology didn't exist to tell it. It would be nice if C&C4 was a story waiting for technology to tell it. Rather than what might appear to be a market than can be mined by a strong IP. No that doesn't make sense. Let me try again...

 

It would be nice if the C&C4 started in the writers room, then the game designers looked over the script for interesting ways to tell that story.

(Rather than look at the top selling games in the genre, borrow some concepts, and slap on a loose story.)

 

The story should have motivated the gameplay and the innovation.

I agree I think so much more effort and imagination could have been put into C&C 4 but they could surprise us in the end.....I hope they do.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

Speaking of Avatar (which you should all go see in 3D), I have the Art of Avatar concept art book (only US$30), and it has a preface about suspension of disbelief written by Peter Jackson. Here's an excerpt:

 

"Suspension of disbelief." That phrase has long been used as a way of describing the necessary relationship between filmmaker and the audience. It's a quaint, slightly cynical concept, in which both participants admit that "we know this is a lot of nonsense, but let's forget that for a couple of hours and allow ourselves to have some fun." The suspension of disbelief is an unspoken contract that has served the needs of moviegoers and moviemakers for over one hundred years.

 

But occasionally a movie comes along that takes us by the scruff of the neck and propels us headlong into an experience so strong and profound that such agreements are rendered instantly redundant. These are the movies that live with us our entire lives and, some would argue, shape our lives -- films that touch both heart and mind and compel us to surrender completely to the power of the experience. This has happened to me maybe ten or twelve times in my life and doubtless, for each of us, the list of these watershed movies is unique and particular to our life experience. One of the great strengths of cinema is its diversity; there are films to suit all tastes, films that connect on many different levels, films that appeal to different age groups and cultures, and films that speak very powerfully to specific audiences. However, every once in a while we will see a movie that transcends cultural barriers, genre, and taste -- a film that lives on in the minds of the audience, years after the fact, a film with a story, characters, and dialogue so memorable that it creates its own mythology. The image of an ocean liner splitting in half, a man falling away from the camera and plummeting into the sea, a box of long-stemmed roses flying apart to reveal a sawed-off shotgun, a watery tentacle snaking across a room, a playground atomizing in a nuclear blast, a woman and a man standing on the bow of a ship, faces to the sun, arms outstretched -- these are the images that stay with us long after the lights have come up. These are the stories we remember and treasure and relive over and over again. Stories that, for many of us, become defining moments in our lives.

...

Avatar is a fascinating mix of drama and science. Everything in the film has been designed and built with the utmost care and attention to detail -- not just the costumes, but even the buttons on the costumes. Not just the trees of Pandora, but the leaves on those trees and the tiny insects crawling on the leaves. This is a world with an entire ecosystem, where there are gases in the atmosphere and minerals in the ground. It is a world that has evolved over time and that abides by its own internal laws of nature and logic. But at its heart, Avatar is a story that speaks to a universal truth about our place in the world, and the things we value and the things we choose to destroy. It forces us to confront the issue of who we are and what we want, and to acknowledge the simple truth that, as a species, we are bound to a common fate, and so the future of humanity is in our hands. The message of this film is: Character is destiny.

(The whole preface is about twice as long as that.)

 

Tiberian Sun was actually really close to accomplishing what the last paragraph describes. It was evolving its own rich ecosystem that followed laws of nature and logic, and what happens to those laws when Tiberium comes along and throws a wrench in those laws and comes up with its own rules. Then there was the drama of human survival in an increasingly hostile environment, while at the same time, the age-old human aggression still had us fighting each other over opposing ideologies. It portrayed a world where people were not infallible, not even the GDI, who could be accused of only helping the first-world. The future was wildly unpredictable and potentially terminal.

 

All of that feels as if it has been given up in order to accommodate gameplay ideas. Although it is true that gameplay/fun should be a higher priority than realism, these are not mutually-exclusive constructs of the mind. The world that was created used to be moody and serious, which lends itself to more realistic elements such as things making logical sense. To speak of Avatar and the concept art book again, they indeed crafted a believable world on Pandora. They discussed back and forth quite frequently with NASA on the design of the spaceship that traveled from Earth to Pandora (the ISV Venture Star) and the Valkyrie shuttle that takes our main character down to the surface. They took into account real nuts-and-bolts technical constraints that these vehicles could face in the real world, such as heat ablation of exo-atmospheric reentry, centrifugal artificial gravity, heat radiation in space, structural integrity, etc.. My cousin is a Marine and he says that he is very impressed with the minute details they have on the military equipment such as labels and warnings like "Do not step" et all on the Amp Suits, Samson transports (the ones that look reminiscent of Huey helicopters), or the Dragon command vehicle. Even the local flora and fauna have insane amounts of research put into them such as believable respiratory systems, muscular functions, motion/kinematic studies, skeletal structures, and so forth.

 

In stark contrast, in a world that used to be serious and moody, Tiberium was changed without reason, lots of things were cut out, the canon was obliterated, the designs are now cartoony and unbelievable as opposed to lending themselves to a dark and gritty world, the unit dialogue is beyond stupid, the gameplay doesn't match what the story is supposedly going to deliver... I could go on and on. It doesn't feel as if EALA has put much thought into the specifics of the world of C&C4 -- as if they just had the concept artists make some stuff and if their response was "That looks good to me" then they put it in the game, regardless of if it meshes well with the other aspects of the world, or with logic or laws of nature. It just feels so artificial and gamey now; like a sports game or an arcade game that shouldn't be taken seriously. It is no longer its own world, just another competitive multiplayer RTS thing. I can't possibly become emotionally invested in something like this, I can't take it seriously, not when the game doesn't even take itself seriously, unlike the older games where you had a stake in the unknown twists/turns/outcomes of the dramatic story. It's painfully obvious how backwards the in-game presentation is compared with what we've been told about how gritty the story is supposed to be; so much so that the thought of suspending disbelief becomes laughable and it makes you constantly aware (in your face) that your belief has not been suspended. EALA has all the resources to make a game, except maybe the most important resource of all -- creativity. They're approaching it from the wrong direction.

Edited December 31, 2009 by Mighty BOB!

[Silverthorn 0]

Wow, when I read that roundtable, I find it very sad, similar to how I am when C&C4 is like this. Anyway,

 

1. I'm not really sure how they will do it, but I prefer the story writers to follow some of the great fans' ideas. Take Valdez's Kane's Wrath story, the way he wrote them, is far superior and better than EALA's. Not just in terms of the whole universe storyline, he also even wrote the way how to introduce the new units such as the C&C3 technology (Or just regular 4-legged Nod MCV) to the Avatar, including how to recover the Nod tech in Mission 2, instead of a Steel Talon lab, he wrote a Marcion-controlled Temple Prime instead.

 

http://www.petroglyphgames.com/forums/inde...agined-version/

 

From what he has done, he nearly tied all of the loose threads (Westwood style) while EA still leaves many of them behind.

 

2. I'm with Lion, Nodsoldiergirl & Nathan, it's just doesn't feel like the older C&C games. Not like Westwood's, not even the older C&C3.

 

3. Since I no longer have the interest to buy the game, I can now breathe a sigh of relief. But in this case, I'll be watching the sales to fall. The sales will fall even faster is when the monthly subscription fee is in use. I'm with Nathan, back to the old Westwood C&C! No WiC or DoW clones!!

 

4. I'm with Nmenth, the old school is always better (Same case I'm with Lion), veterans will care for you, don't worry about those newbie fans & casual RTS players saying "You EALA create the C&C game is already outdated, MOVE ON, Westwood is dead, you morons!", they can hurt you, but we veteran fans can hurt you even more if you continue to mess up the franchise. A lost fan like myself already pierced your heart, now that's super hurt.

 

Lastly, follow what Nodsoldiergirl said, EA, I suggest that you listen to us ENTIRELY, we direct the whole franchise for you, don't let your directors lead the franchise, we fans will repair the franchise instead. Take this quote written by Nyerguds & a friend of mine.

 

Argument? I haven't heard one single decent counter-argument. Everyone says "okay, so, yeah, the game is pretty fun", but IMO there's really nothing left for people who want a C&C game.

 

As I said before, EA should learn from the Pokémon games. Nintendo never changed the game format of those one tiny bit, and yet they still sell like crazy. Because they GIVE FANS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT.

 

Maybe that's what the developer's tactics after all. I believe idealism is good, it's money that tainted idealism, and thanks to the reasons like "you can't do that, it won't sell that way" or "it's too idealist, let's use what sells right now." or "This is what's being a trend right now, let's follow it and see how many profit we got." then idealism became some kind of bad guy.

 

There are proofs, I believe user mod games like Counter strike and DotA was born from idealism (although there were more factors joining in later), untainted by money (or profit), and see how great they were right now, even counter strike beats the name of Half Life and DotA beats the name of Warcraft 3.

 

People's mind are awesome, it's money that makes them not as awesome as it should be.

 

Wow, Banshee, you're talking about bringing the CGI back, yes, that's what I'm talking about. I don't care if it's super expensive in this modern time or not, just give us what we want, OR we will give you what you DON'T want!

Edited December 31, 2009 by Silverthorn

[ApornasPlanet 9]

Very well said Mighty Bob! If I could, I would give you the C&C franchise!

 

Edit:

 

By the way, how much would it cost to buy the rights to C&C?

Edited December 31, 2009 by Trukem

[Nmenth 291]

By the way, how much would it cost to buy the rights to C&C?

Probably more than the community could pool, but it would be pretty interesting if the fans bought the franchise, possibly a big historical moment too.

[BioBen 3]

Probably more than the community could pool, but it would be pretty interesting if the fans bought the franchise, possibly a big historical moment too.

 

I can see that going badly...

[sith_wampa 6]

Probably more than the community could pool, but it would be pretty interesting if the fans bought the franchise, possibly a big historical moment too.

Haha that would be epic. Get some rich fan like John Cena to buy it and then the fan hierarchy will pay him off down the road.

[recover 2]

Yay, I got the first question. Again.

 

It was interesting to read everyone's thoughts. Regarding my question, I agree that EA will probably not tie up all the loose threads, by choice, so there is some mystery left for the next C&C game. I just hope they don't sacrifice good possible story elements by doing so.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

Heh, people always chatter about buying up the IP. I'm sure it would be at least tens of millions of dollars, possibly even a hundred million.

[Silverthorn 0]

Tell me about it, it'll only be a dream to do such a transaction.

[Gben 20]

Fans are only good at criticising, so buying the IP would be a disaster.

 

But anyway the Fan's don't need to buy the IP, we can just create an alternate fiction through mods. Lets just start a mod competition for best fiction/SP.

(Hint! Hint! Hint!)

 

Oh and great post Mighty Bob....

[Sonic 296]

By the way, how much would it cost to buy the rights to C&C?

Why do people suggest such unrealistic ideas

[Luk3us 63]

I can see that going badly...

 

Indeed...

[Nmenth 291]

Why do people suggest such unrealistic ideas

I don't think anyone would seriously consider it. It is just a joke (at least to me).

[Mighty BOB! 5]

Well, I think a lot of people just hold it as a wishful thinking sort of thing. Kind of like how I wish someone would pull up to the curb in a Ferrari while I'm on the sidewalk and say "Here, you can have this" and toss me the keys. It isn't going to happen, but it would be nice if it would.

[Nmenth 291]

If I had a few piles of money laying around and no need to worry about ever using them up, I might consider buying the franchise. Of course, if I had that much money, I'd own my own computer game company and it would make sense that I buy it anyway. I would never want to hand the franchise over to a hundred thousand crazy C&C fans, that would be chaos. The only way it could really work was if one to a dozen or so people actually owned the rights, but that isn't the community, and who is to say those would handle the responsibility any better than EA?

[sith_wampa 6]

If I had a few piles of money laying around and no need to worry about ever using them up, I might consider buying the franchise. Of course, if I had that much money, I'd own my own computer game company and it would make sense that I buy it anyway. I would never want to hand the franchise over to a hundred thousand crazy C&C fans, that would be chaos. The only way it could really work was if one to a dozen or so people actually owned the rights, but that isn't the community, and who is to say those would handle the responsibility any better than EA?

There would just have to be more people involved. Have an executive branch with a dozen elected super community members in a sort of oligarchy fashion. Then have a branch with 100 or so fans who are also elected. And the third branch would just be for anyone to join. The branches must 2/3 agree for something in the game to be changed.

 

Of course this is purely fantasy.

[Inferno 22]

I wouldn't trust the fans with the franchise tbth