CNCNZ.com 26 Years And Counting

[Plok 320]

Posting anniversary posts is bittersweet these days. On one hand, I've received some feedback in the past few months from game researchers who are glad that a center of information for the Command & Conquer franchise still exists, but on the other... the community is just not there anymore. A few long-standing mods get updated, a few memes circulate here and there, but the days of Command & Conquer's peak community activity seem to be long gone, so there is little to follow in terms of news. However, the multiplayer charts on the cnc.community website still show a blip of life, meaning people continue to play the more popular titles with their friends at the very least, so it's nice to see the series itself is not forgotten - it's just not spoken about as much.

The only """official""" activity we got in the past year was EA licensing the franchise out to an yet another mobile game studio, with the punching bag du jur being called Command & Conquer: Legions by Yorha Studios and Level Infinite, shown at this year's Gamescom. Except it would have been a punching bag if the community at large wasn't so used to being offered proverbial poison that is presented as a delicious cake, so hardly anyone could even bother with an angry reaction, just a quiet but firmly cold shoulder.

As eyes of RTS fans turn to upcoming titles like Tempest Rising, Stormgate, Homeworld 3, ZeroSpace, DORF, Dust Front and others, and while the current RTS torch is firmly held by the resurrected Age of Empires franchise, I suppose I can't blame people for wanting to move on.

I'd just like to take the opportunity to shout out all the people in the community who are still, despite the aforementioned lull, maintaining the graphics renderers, multiplayer servers, modding communities and toolsets, tournaments and the other surviving websites, as well as all of you who keep streaming, posting let's plays and making fan art/animations. The very fact you still support this very franchise instead of a more active one shows that you do it out of love for the series. I may not have shared the space with you as long as this site has, but I'm glad that I have done so regardless, and will continue to do so.

[SetfallAS 1]

Hopefully there will be new CNC RTS games to play, the classics are relying on mods to keep the heat up.

[Nmenth 289]

I don't think official C&C will come back in any acceptable capacity. C&C only lives on in its community now, but Kane lives.

[ApornasPlanet 9]

I still hope for an official Tiberian Sun & Red Alert 2 remaster before 2030.

EA have to release C&C titles in order to keep the trade mark and that's why we get the occasional mobile games every now and then. I don't know much about that legal stuff but a remaster would also count towards the trade mark right?

Here's a bit about that from Wiki:

 

Quote

Trademarks rights must be maintained through actual lawful use of the trademark. These rights will cease if a mark is not actively used for a period of time, normally five years in most jurisdictions. In the case of trademark registration, failure to actively use the mark in the lawful course of trade, or to enforce the registration in the event of infringement, may also expose the registration itself to become liable for an application for the removal from the register after a certain period of time on the grounds of "non-use".

 

[Plok 320]

5 years isn't the case in practice, at least not for most publishers. EA still holds a LOT of IPs and trademarks that they haven't done anything with in decades, but still have valid copyright to them (Wing Commander, Nuclear Strike, early Firaxis titles, Lands of Lore, Nox, etc. etc.)

[ApornasPlanet 9]

That's too bad! It would be interesting to know how trademarks in gaming really work in practice.

What do you think about C&C Legion? Who's the target audience and will it be more successful than Rivals? What's their reason for developing it do you think and can it be related to keeping the C&C trademark or do they actually believe they will make money on it?

Edited November 6, 2023 by ApornasPlanet

[ProfileName097 0]

Even if the community isn't as active as it was, I hope this site will still be around.   C&C was one of the first games that got me into PC gaming and this site was a good source of news and info for anything C&C related.   Still can't believe I haven't made an account here.  Maybe I did, but I forgot a long time ago.  Oh well.   Only other C&C related fan-site I frequented back then was Renegadeskins.   Was looking for mods that weren't available in more popular sites like moddb for Renegade.  Sadly Renegadeskins is also another dead C&C community site.  At least it's still around, but there's something sad visiting the site knowing i'm probably the only visitor there.

Even with the upcoming C&C Legion being another mobile-slop.  I hope its a signal that another major C&C project is in the work.  Maybe a remaster of TibSun and RA2?  Hell, before we got the remastered collection, we had that C&C mobile game and we thought that really was it for C&C.

It'll be funny if them making mobile games of C&C is actually them trying to secure funding to make the next big game. 

[Plok 320]

On 23/01/2024 at 11:35 PM, ProfileName097 said:

I hope its a signal that another major C&C project is in the work.

This normally is the case, but not for C&C. We already got C&C Rivals without a proper game being planned at the time. Petroglyph themselves aren't aware of any TS/RA2 remaster plans, either.