Old expectations and the "how would you do it" question

[Plok 323]

I've been wondering this for quite a while...

 

Back in the day, when you saw the announcement and didn't know what Tiberian Twilight would eventually become, what did you guys expect the game would be in the most optimistic sense? What were you hoping to see in terms of storyline and general design?

 

Also, if you were in EALA's shoes, minus the pressure from the higher-ups to push the game before it even takes shape, what would you have done in the game's development (using Kane's Wrath as the last canon Tiberium title)?

 

 

The reason I ask is that I want to see some different thoughts on the Tiberium universe. I want to see if people agree on enough fronts to form an idea of general sentiment. Perhaps a community project can come out of that?

[Nmenth 290]

You'd have to go back to the very first mention of Tiberian Twilight to find any optimism from me. In the very beginning, before we knew anything about the Crawler system beyond the fact it was a mobile base, I had hoped it would be more like a mobile outpost serving as a supplement to the main traditional base. Something akin to the deployable base outpost/expanders from TW/RA3, the Rig from TW, and the Mobile War Factories from Firestorm. Essentially, a Crawler would an instant secondary base, assuming you could get it into position and deployed before the enemy bombed it to ash.

 

The next information released on the Crawler confirmed that it would be a replacement for a normal base, not an addition to. At that point, optimism ceased to exist and I was (privately mostly) highly critical of the game. At no point, from my early access beta experience to finally playing the real thing, did I consider it "good", "fun", or even salvageable.

 

As far as storyline, with stories I actually like, I never try to imagine my own ending to them as I want to experience them as they were meant to be* without expectations.

 

(*by whoever happens to be in charge of writing them, I know Westwood had other plans originally, but that is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned)

 

 

This may not be useful to you, but as I noted above, I didn't think TT was salvageable when it was still in early beta. At this point, the only good way to deal with it is to retcon the game and put it into the "Does not exist" pile with Sole Survivor.

[Ravendark 46]

The problem with TT was it wasnt intended to be a traditional RTS game, it was planned as some multiplayer arena type of game, then they made it into TT when the original idea was scrapped.

 

Going from your hypothesis of "If you had controle of the dev process" :

 

I would scrap the foundation TT was build on, go back to the RTS roots ofc.

I would try to evolve the c&c experience tho, no generals clones or even Tibdawn/sun clones, i would start of the TW/KW ending. Maybe evolve the story towards a the more canceled Tiberium FPS future where tiberium is even more rampant and a devestated earth. I don't think i would do a return of the scrin, but more start of like pockets of scrin resistance remaining on earth, then maybe use the scrin towers as a means to take the fight of world, spanding the campaign and battlefield across planets/alien battlefields. turning the crawler mechanic into a orbital drop mechanic. Maybe involve some fleet base mechanics, by either evolving the ground rts into a space rts (doesnt need 3d movement, could be done in a starcraft like style), maybe having a flagship for research and stuff, who knows depending on how it portaits to the story arc.

 

The most important thing would be to evolve the tibeium franchise, but stay to true to its rts roots, base building, research/upgrades, veterancy and harvesting etc.

[Lauren 78]

As even with the first thing they said crawler, mobility and blabla I basically knew they went the, at the time, popular real time tactics way. As there hadn't been any of these games which I liked my hoped never existed in the first place, and the result was pretty much exactly what I imagined.

What I would have wished for: mostly just improving on the engine. The mechanics of TW are quite solid, but a lot needed optimization, like unit response times, pathing, and multiplayer connection (which did get a lot better in TT where they scrapped GameSpy).

[HOPE1134 28]

After seeing the

, I thought the game was going to look a lot darker and grittier like Tiberian Sun

[Egozi44 28]

Well Ravendark sum up most of what I thought (aside the crawler on space missions, that could be so cool, remind me of the Soviet mission on the moon in YR)

 

I did had a few hopes for the game but saw how it going to fail fans expectations,

 

The idea sound nice as a arena spin off rather than continuation to the real game

 

I can see it somehow succeed as free to play spin off, the change in gameplay and game rules are refreshing but not worth if it take over the real Tibirum saga game