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jeffnz

I'm drafting a letter to EA

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So I'm drafting a letter to EA and this is what I wrote so far. I'm not going to ask people to agree with me, I just want to offer my opinion. Some people might say "that's controversial, man". Who cares? Alex Jones was controversial when he blamed the CIA for the September 11 attacks... immediately after the event, too! He just got new sponsors and his operation has grown massive since 2001. Also, End Of Nations was based on a controversial theme, I think it's great and more people should pitch it! Everybody's doing it. Megadeth's new album shows the statue of liberty with her head cut off - and that's an American band with a pro-American frontman. I want EA to cash in on the idea of an American dystopia.

 

A synopsis of my draft - TL;DR version below (my PDF is two pages, don't forget to scroll)

 

First paragraph: I highlight the failure of CnC 4 despite EA's insistence on financial estimates and "safe investment"

 

Second paragraph: I explain why DRM is bull**** and how digital licenses reduce piracy, just like streaming and legal mp3 downloads have reduced piracy. There's no need for DRM.

 

The rest of it: I suggest an idea of mine that would feature similar themes to Tiberian Sun, factions similar to those in Generals, and potential units that could come from anywhere in the series. In the direction the world is going I think it's only fair that we make a scenario in which America is the evil faction which tries world domination. The Russians and Chinese would be somewhere between good and evil.

 

Justification: DARPA and the Pentagon come up with some really creepy sci-fi stuff. They really do believe that future wars will be fought with drone soldiers, or with ai-assisted humans and robotic assistants which replace some infantry roles. The NSA even wants ai to do system administration, because ai would never leak.

 

-------- More detail ---------

 

I'm sick of CnC stories in which the Americans are the good guys, and the player must defend the Pentagon and the Whitehouse. The only landmark in CnC I ever liked was the world trade centre towers. I laughed at that when I was 15 - stupid American game devs putting the WTC into a game, only to have them blown up in real life. At least they're still there if you boot up Red Alert 2 :P

 

Bottom line:

 

If you guys don't agree then write your own letter to EA, and debate me here. I think political reality is sadly lacking in some games - I'm looking at you, Generals. USA should have had the rebel ambush power. They could use it against Assad when Generals 2 or 3 comes out. It could be in a DLC called Generals: The Covert Operations. You play a sub-faction based on USA, but with CIA black ops stuff where you control terror cells to start conflicts and wear down your enemies by making them fight each other. Then you have to evacuate your special forces and spies, which is where conventional units would come in. If EA won't make a game like that, then I'll make it myself one day. I'll keep pitching it until someone else uses the idea. I won't even take credit for it or ask for a cut.

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Must not feature Americans as “the good guys” (see: Iraq War 2003, Libya coup March 2011, the attempted invasion of Syria August 2013, and the coup in Ukraine, February 2014)

 

What does it have in common with computer game? Really...

 

As for what a future CnC game should include, I say look at the theme of End Of Nations, Endgame: Blueprint For Global Enslavement, and Megadeth’s album artwork for Endgame, and Dystopia. American gamers like to live in fantasy world where the enemy is always radical Muslims or “extreme nationalist” Russians.

 

I think no-one lives in some kind of fantasy world. Gamers just play what they get.

 

Rest later...

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One letter stating the obvious will achieve nothing. You have no guarantee anyone at EA would read it, anyway.

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To whom it may concern

 

Well, that's a good way to get your letter trashed. Companies want you to take the time to find out who you are writing to.

 

how come Command & Conquer 4 received 345 reviews on Amazon, 76% of which were 1 star out of 5?

 

When C&C4 came out, the C&C community was extremely hostile toward it and it is likely many if not most of those reviews were the results of fanboyism. C&C4 did well enough financially, holding a spot in the top ten game sales for a surprisingly long period of time, the only thing that matters to EA. I think C&C4 is terrible along with the rest of us, but since you are trying to argue facts, don't misplace them with opinions and manipulated statistics.

 

why do small companies not have DR in their products? Obviously the theory of DR is garbage.

 

That is quite a leap. Again, I think DRM is terrible, but so is your argument. Big companies like EA spend up to three times more on advertising their games than what making them costs. They ensure that as many people across the planet know about their games as possible, and as a result, are at a far higher risk of piracy than some garage-based indie developer whose advertising is Facebook and YouTube let's players.

 

If EA Games is to use the Command & Conquer intellectual property again, it should follow these rules:

 

You make no case for why your apparently arbitrary rules should be followed, aside from listing a few military incidents under the assumption that anyone reading them already agrees with your political opinion of America's military decisions.

 

You then descend into a ramble that makes up the bulk of your letter that appears to be half idea-pitching and half anti-America speech. But your pitch isn't even presented with any humility, instead worded as you are commanding EA to obey you as if you own enough stock to sit in on a share-holder's meeting.

 

In conclusion, your arguments are ill-founded, your political agenda off-putting, your pitch incoherent, and your sense of authority misplaced. EA would be generous to even finish reading it before tossing it. If you want them to take you seriously, this needs a massive rewrite.

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Well, that's a good way to get your letter trashed. Companies want you to take the time to find out who you are writing to.



Good point, after they shut down Victory Studios I wonder wtf is left to write to anyway?! :o It seems they will assemble a studio when they have a project.

When C&C4 came out, the C&C community was extremely hostile toward it and it is likely many if not most of those reviews were the results of fanboyism. C&C4 did well enough financially, holding a spot in the top ten game sales for a surprisingly long period of time, the only thing that matters to EA. I think C&C4 is terrible along with the rest of us, but since you are trying to argue facts, don't misplace them with opinions and manipulated statistics.



I wasn't aware of the game doing well, so that changes it for me. I won't write a letter along these lines seeing as I've got the facts wrong. Good comments from folks here thanks everyone :)

Check out Tropico 5 for some fantastic multi-polar world stuff - they insult everybody (US/Russia/China/Saudi Arabia) it's just fantastic ^_^ it feels like a half-baked game to be honest but the humour was great. It was like mad magazine but more subtle and less obscene. I'm going to check out other avenues too, and see what's on Steam... when I have money and a proper internet connection. I'm not confident that the best strategy games of the future will be CnC. Surely they cannot remake Tiberian Sun or Red Alert. They could make another Generals but would it even have a campaign?

-----

I haven't been following the CnC community that much these past 10 years. In 2006 I recall being hostile toward CnC 3 and last month I actually bought it and I agree that it was good, besides some stuff in the cutscenes, like Killian going from being a sulky bimbo to being a vindictive whore. The gameplay itself was good. I hope that I'll find other strategy games (besides CnC 3 and Tropico) that will be worth buying. CnC 4 sounds weird with the base building change (if you can call it base building). I doubt I'll ever play CnC 4 considering it has DRM. In New Zealand our internet is such trash that download/uploading to Australia is a million times faster than to the US. I'm waiting on the new undersea cable before I go depending on US or European servers. That's why I'm more interested in doing development of my own.

Fun fact: I wrote to many members of Parliament re the US-ISIS alliance against Assad and encouraged others to write to their MPs. Also, in New Zealand's capital city Wellington the 9/11 truth movement handed out 8,000 DVDs (if I recall) and thousands upon thousands of flyers (in a small city of about 300,000). Everybody in Wellington talks about politics so the activists there carved up, even though the mainstream media branded us as terrorists (just kidding ^_^ ). So that collapse of the "official" narrative is dead in so many ways, and in so many countries. I didn't even know anything about Sputnik until this week, it's a Russian govt media platform in several languages... on top of their TV network which is in several languages too. Every forum I'm on, whether it's here or gamedev or anywhere else, there are people from all over the world playing games, and not everybody has English as a first language.

Hideo Kojima did really well for diverse opinions in Metal Gear V. You don't play as an America hero who greases A-rabs, you play as an American but for a private military which does humanitarian things, like rescuing child soldiers or animals from war zones. Plus there are at least 3 characters with various nasty effects of combat (injuries of sorts). I don't know what the translated versions of MGSV are like but I think that MGSV and Tropico are more interesting to a foreign audience (I use the word foreign loosely here).

What I'll do is I'll rework my ideas into a series of short essays. Edited by Sonic
Merged 2 posts here.

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If you want an innovative point of view for the game story, you should ask EA to sell the IP.

Tiberian Dawn was drafted over the prevailing hipocrisis of its time - a war based in warlords and their grandiosities against private contractors affected by budgets and bureaucracies.

Don't search for a trend for a new story, search for a rupture in the current boredom. Then, you have to create a bad guy that wants to pile money and produce weird weapons so we can send a decaied army against him or her, with lots of tanks and their fancy abbilities.

 

Added Later:

This is an example of a different plot:

  • You can have a group like Isis sellling oil and drugs to keep their ground in the area;
  • You can have a country like Turkey that is actually the protagonists of the story, because they are a kind of airbag between Russia and Europe in the "north of" middle east (while Europe is another airbag between Russia and US). This faction is small compared to other forces, so they are always under pressure. Turkey would suit well for this role because of their prominent weapons industry;
  • You can provide an invaded country in the story(like Syria) to provide the battlefields for the game. Here, a place like Brazil is a good option, because we have so many theaters in the same country. (A South American conflict could be a good criticism opportunity too, provided it's not stereotyped);
  • You can have mercenaries as a sub-faction, sometimes helping the turkish faction to attack the terrorists or rebalancing the game, helping the terrorists, providing new weapons. I mean in the story. IN Skirmish mode, they would be a faction of their own;
  • You can have a country like Russia that simply wants to preserve air space control (and a pipeline corridor) and sometimes invade the battlefield to assure that.

Also, to reflect this current conflict, some groups are specialized in recycling wreckages, which is a prevailing feature of the Syrian conflict today.

If you're interested in probing a SA conflict, let me know and I write some funny stuff.

Edited by Sonic

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I applaud your enthusiasm and dedication but sending stuff like this to EA will change nothing. Unless you have a direct point of contact within EA's corporate structure.

 

If you want an innovative point of view for the game story, you should ask EA to sell the IP.

 

**** mate, that's never going to happen, read my article http://www.cncnz.com/features/articles-editorials/the-state-of-the-command-conquer-franchise-where-to-from-here/

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Leave out the politics, especially when it's conspiracy stuff like the "coup in Ukraine". The claim that the Americans are always the good guys isn't even accurate. Zero Hour end with China being the world's new superpower after the Americans let down their NATO allies. The Tiberium games generally feature GDI units voice-acted by Americans, but that's true for Nod too.

 

I'd say that RA2 is the only game that is really pro-American (if we want to use that term). Even in RA3, one of the bad guys is an American, though the Allies are the good guy faction.

 

Overall, the letter just reads like one big, highly political, anti-American rant. EA is just going to bin it independently from the non-political points you make.

Edited by TaxOwlbear
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@jeffNZ, you are better writing that letter to EA's CEO and their corporate leaders. The new EA CEO doesn't care much about C&C, not unless someone can influence an inception to them. It's going to take a lot of Yuris and Kanes to influence their minds. ;)

Edited by zocom7

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Well, I was referring to the goodguy americans approach.

I don't think they will sell for 2 reasons:

A ) EA wants to do something about it and

B ) anyone able to put a price on the franchise will do something about, which EA don't want it to happen, market wise speaking.

Like said before, C&C4 was lame and performed well finantially.

 

I think part of what EA is gonna make with the franchise is related to Generals: why they created it. That's why they tried to make Generals2. And I think that game is not totally over, it's just on a stand by. The busines model was uncertain, not a problem with the game itself.

Edited by Chimas

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What's this? Another pointless letter/petition thread?

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I still want to mail something about strategy games. I reckon EA should do another Generals that has a campaign and multiplayer, but not as goofy and cute as the original Generals. They could make it under the CnC trademark though I think they should make new IP. Imagine Generals with blood, and people being vaporised by lasers :)

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Guest Rabbit

Did you uhh... did you miss the whole episode where EA did actually build a second Generals game but it got cancelled during alpha testing?

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Did you uhh... did you miss the whole episode where EA did actually build a second Generals game but it got cancelled during alpha testing?

 

They were making a new Generals which had different sound effects, and I presume it was multiplayer oriented. Did it have blood and people being vaporised? Did the troop crawler still say: "twwwwoop craarlar signing eeeeen"? So apparently they cancelled it to save a bit of money, but officially they said it was cancelled because the community didn't like it. That sounded dumb, they should have released it. Alpha... ALPHA? And they have no intention to release it?! Maybe it did suck. I never played it, I just read about it. Apparently it didn't include a campaign.

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They were making a new Generals which had different sound effects, and I presume it was multiplayer oriented. Did it have blood and people being vaporised? Did the troop crawler still say: "twwwwoop craarlar signing eeeeen"? So apparently they cancelled it to save a bit of money, but officially they said it was cancelled because the community didn't like it. That sounded dumb, they should have released it. Alpha... ALPHA? And they have no intention to release it?! Maybe it did suck. I never played it, I just read about it. Apparently it didn't include a campaign.

Dude, why did you attempt to argument something you're visibly not informed on in the letter?

 

It was multiplayer-focused, and once the Free-To-Play format was announced mid-development, campaigns were of uncertain status, but they firmly stated they'd launch them, only separately from the main game. And yes, the game was canned when it was in alpha stage, after many people got the chance to test it out. Also, they cancelled it because Victory Games was taking too long for EA's taste, and they didn't bend over to every EA's wish (but they did to every-minus-one...). The gist of the development is here (which reminds me, I'd better finish that up): http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer_%282013%29#Development

 

Blood and vaporization have nothing to do with anything and are a poor thing to grab on to.

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I don't see a point to write such letter to a company, which makes great profit in gaming industry for years... especially when unknown somewho is trying to point out what managers has done wrong. I doubt it will be read by anyone in charge...

 

They'd be interested, if you had some experience in gaming industry and could show up results in marketing by selling crapy game to millions worldwide...

 

I don't want to cut you down to size, but it really looks like an idea made up by some confident kid in middle school, who tries to prove himself that his opinion has a value. If your idea has nothing related to experience or profit - then it isn't worth to be listened. I wouldn't read anything from nameless somewho implying me how to run buissness... i bet you neither.

 

 

Russian units should speak Russian when selected, and Chinese units should speak real Mandarin (not the stupid, derogatory fake accents from Red Alert and Generals).

 

You know that Russian have different accents across the nation? Same goes to Chinese. Russian language sounds different in big cities. It's more "tough", while on countryside it sounds more like Ukrainian. Chinese speaks not only Mandarin, but also Cantonese, Shanghai etc. You have to pick one, and it always will be the most common. I don't care is the accent fake or not. Game might be more appealing this way, but it won't sell only by good voice-overs.

 

BTW if we are talking about C&C roots... i really miss missions in Poland (Białystok in C&C95, Łódź in RA)...

Edited by Traymen

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That's why we have Ani-Toonspiracy

Edited by Sonic
Removed unneeded quoted text
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In your opinion, your project is the answer to everything, Masonicon.

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I've seen conflicting information. According to Plokite_Wolf's link to Wikia there was a single-player campaign but I read else-where that there wasn't one at all. Hmm anyway.

 

Because of the blunder of Generals 2 the entire game will go to waste. Even so, I think Generals 2 should be the next CnC, but they'll be spacing it out and it won't come within the next 3 years. They'll need to make another one from scratch. I would love to see another Generals. After all, the original Generals came out when CRT monitors offered the best colour and contrast. I would've been about 12 at the time of the original Generals game. When I was 14 I ran it on a Dell with an Intel Celeron and integrated graphics. It was far better than my neighbour's PC at the time - their PC could barely handle Tiberian Sun! Happy days. I look back now wondering how I enjoyed the game when the framerate was so slow, and scenes took 3x longer to run their course. Haha.

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That's why we have Ani-Toonspiracy

 

Have the what now? Something irrelevant?

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I've seen conflicting information. According to Plokite_Wolf's link to Wikia there was a single-player campaign but I read else-where that there wasn't one at all. Hmm anyway.

 

Single player campaigns were announced and planned for release in 2014 http://forums.cncnz.com/topic/18178-command-conquer-campaigns-to-launch-in-2014/

Obviously they never got to that stage.

 

You can read through all of our news coverage of the cancelled C&C from the beginiing all way to it's demise http://forums.cncnz.com/tags/forums/C%26C%2B-%2BFree%2BTo%2BPlay/

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Guest Rabbit

That's why we have Ani-Toonspiracy

Not Exactly

I'll have you know, I logged in purely to downvote these two posts.

 

If you can name one reason your toonspira**** is legitimately relevant to the conversation at hand, I will tip my fedora and leave, good sir. But until then, I will reiterate what I have been saying the whole time. Shut up.

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