News About the Current C&C Dev Team

[Sonic 296]

As reported in the past there have been sweeping changes at EALA, a lot of these changes saw many of Command & Conquer development team being let go. Fans are wondering who is left, who is working on the future of the franchise. C&C Community manager has explained what's happening at EALA right now in a post on the Official C&C Forums. APOC also clears up some confusion about the direction for the future of Command & Conquer games.

 

Those left from Pandemic are not involved in Command & Conquer, just to clarify anyone who thought otherwise.

 

Our current dev team is about 90% core group from our previous (in other words 90% of the people on our team have worked on our past projects), and 10% some new folks based at EA Austin, primarily Engineers, who worked with Jon Van Caneghem at his former company, Trion Entertainment. Just so you guys know, JVC (that is what we call him), created the Might and Magic series, and is an absolute RTS strategic junkie.

 

We introduced JVC awhile back, but the interview got swept under an EA finance call. That particular interview I think misstated our current direction some, while Facebook and Social Media are incredibly valuable these days, we're not making a C&C Farmville, so no worries. Though, I'm not opposed to 40 million people playing a C&C Farmville, haha. That's just not our direction, or space. And if you guys, our core community, are any indication, well, yea...you can fill in the rest of this sentence.

 

Here is the interview with a little more about JVC, and more to follow, if you missed it:

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26182/I...nd__Conquer.php

 

-APOC

I'm not one for speculation, so I won't bother guessing what's planned for the future of Command & Conquer. Despite what people are saying the franchise is not dead and is very much alive. If your interested, you can see the original post right here.

[Gben 20]

I've never really doubted the future of C&C... you don't appoint a new leader for the brand (JVC) if you don't have a plan.

A nice clean reboot is in order, and hopefully with lots of strong development.

[BioBen 3]

Time for the third generation of C&C's?

[Guest Stevie_K]

"Taking a franchise like Command and Conquer and expanding it to a wider audience is part of the strategy."

This is what has made C&C into an empty shell imo. You can't just take a game and try to satisfy everyone. In most cases the results are horrible.

 

[PurpleGaga27 40]

C&C Farmville?! I think I might have discussed that with Greg Black in a comment post in Facebook.

 

I have been a Farmville player and fan for several months now and I think only a few of the C&C community play Farmville.

[Troopzor 5]

C&C Farmville?! I think I might have discussed that with Greg Black in a comment post in Facebook.

 

I have been a Farmville player and fan for several months now and I think only a few of the C&C community play Farmville.

 

Honestly, if they made a side game of just Tib Harvesting, I'd play it lol.

 

But it fit was like "the" next C&C game then I'd be mad. I think I stated that right lol

[ill-lushtrator 0]

Well, quite recently I stumbled upon two of EA's web-browser games. One is Battlefield Heroes which is something like those Battlefield series of games from EA, but with cartoony graphics and needs a plug-in to install (I use Firefox). Then, there's another game (not sure you heard of it?) called Lord of Ultima, which is also browser-based. But I never played Ultima at all. I have no intention to play in the future though.

 

So... I think the likelihood of the C&C franchise going online - maybe browser-based in the same style like those two titles I've mentioned (there is no certainty yet, really) seems to be a natural step for EA to forward. I may not like the idea initially, others may not be too fond of seeing C&C going online casual and etc. But others might open themselves up to such new concepts. So in EA's eyes, having newcomers to an established franchise like C&C seems to be logical. You know, like Playfish Games and web-games like Pet Society/Hotel City/Crazy Planets? (I do play Pet Society on Facebook on a regular basis, lulz...)

 

But are fans of the current C&C lore willing to open up to such new web-based games?

[Gben 20]

But are fans of the current C&C lore willing to open up to such new web-based games?

 

If the fiction is strong enough, I would follow them anywhere.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

I'm not one for speculation,

I am!

 

lol, but I'm not going to try right now. Maybe in a few months. I don't know anything about this new guy (I know, I could probably research and form a better understanding of the type of things he does, and use that to inform myself as to clues about what EA is thinking), and the last direction I speculated EA taking was Generals 2, and we got C&C4 instead, so I got that one pretty wrong.

 

I guess I'll just wait and see for now. I'm not sure what to think about them still having the current team retaining a 90% ratio of people who worked on the other projects though since I disagreed with.. well.. almost all design decisions they have made over the past 5 years.

Edited April 22, 2010 by Mighty BOB!

[Sonic 296]

lol, but I'm not going to try right now. Maybe in a few months. I don't know anything about this new guy (I know, I could probably research and form a better understanding of the type of things he does, and use that to inform myself as to clues about what EA is thinking), and the last direction I speculated EA taking was Generals 2, and we got C&C4 instead, so I got that one pretty wrong.

Did you listen to the EA podcast with Sam Bass http://forums.cncnz.com/index.php?showtopic=13526. It was mentioned that C&C 4 started out as an experiment with the mobile base/crawler system but the only way they could get the money for the project was to make it a full C&C game so Sam was brought in to create a story around it.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

lol, yes I'm the first poster in that thread. But like I said, I had guessed that we would get Generals 2 after RA3 and instead we got C&C4, so the last time I tried to guess what direction they were going in I was way off.

[Pepzi 0]

This is what has made C&C into an empty shell imo. You can't just take a game and try to satisfy everyone. In most cases the results are horrible.

 

Not to mention that C&C wouldn't have been the hugely successful self-defining brand had it followed that formula in the first place.

Edited April 24, 2010 by Pepzi