EA Partners with XWIS Community

[Sonic 296]

I have posted some interesting news from EA regarding the future of Westwood Online and XWIS. If you haven't read it yet you can find it right here....

EA Partners with XWIS Community Service

 

Greetings from your C&C Community Manager!

 

To continue the ten year anniversary celebration of the widely popular Command and Conquer franchise, I am pleased to reveal EA’s partnership with XWIS (XCC WOL IRC SERVER)!

 

Through this partnership, all Command and Conquer games formerly supported by EA/Westwood Online will be redirected through XWIS, thus instituting XWIS as the main online game server management team. XWIS is a community driven online game server that launched in October 2003 to replace the XCC Community Ladder. The new and improved features enabled include chat, in-game ranks, matching filters, lobby monitoring, improved Quick-Match, and fully functional automatic ladders for clans and individual tournament players. The beauty of this partnership is that you won’t have to download any external programs to utilize XWIS. All the enabled features and connections to the servers are already integrated into the supported games!

 

I’m also excited to share with you that the Strike Team will be monitoring the banning and anti-cheat controls on a daily basis and will provide technical support as needed. The Strike Team is a website built of hardcore Command and Conquer fans and is sponsored by the EA German Community Team. Their goal is to ensure a controlled and fun online environment for all players.

 

XWIS will commence a two week trial period with Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 and Command & Conquer Red Alert 2: Yuri’s Revenge. Once this trial is completed on Oct. 20th, XWIS will be supporting the following EA/Westwood online games:

 

* Command & Conquer Red Alert 2

* Command & Conquer Red Alert 2: Yuri’s Revenge

* Command & Conquer Tiberian Dawn

* Command & Conquer The Covert Operations

* Command & Conquer Red Alert

* Command & Conquer Red Alert: Counterstrike

* Command & Conquer Red Alert: Aftermath

* Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun

* Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun: Firestorm

* Command & Conquer Renegade

* Dune 2000

* Nox

* Emperor: Battle for Dune

 

EA is 100% dedicated to the Command and Conquer franchise and wants to ensure a strong and secure online gameplay environment. Long live Command and Conquer! We hope to see resurgence in the legions of NOD and GDI followers claiming ground online.

 

Good luck soldier. Hit the hot keys and get online with Command and Conquer!

So what does everyone think about this?

[Cygnus X-1 12]

HELL YEAH !!!!!!

 

this means less and less cheaters, and no more WOL !!

 

and ladders, and real ranking !!!!!!

 

now thats what I call a step foreward for EA !!

[GeneralZ 0]

NOOOOO..... I STILL WANT WOL FOR RENEGADE :flamer: :flamer:

 

otherwise i'm happy about using XWIS for RA2 and other games

 

but i liked WOl for renegade....it was simple, easy, and clear. and there werent many cheaters thanks to Renguard......

 

now they;re gonna have to make a program called XWISSPY...so servers can take both gamespy and XWIS players....more delay time...while the program is not out yet...i wil have to use Gamespy to play Renegade.....

 

:badpc::frustrated::angry::angry:

 

at least tranfer the WOL accounts to XWIS...so I dont have to create a new ID

[Guest Rabbit]

Wait, does this mean we can use Tiberian Dawn online without having to download anything or really do anything different?

[Saracen 16]

This has been on the cards for a long while... and was originally gonna be done for C&C 10... alot of testing and making sure everything works correctly has meant it has been just announced now... Good timing if I say so myself.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

It looks like the interaction between EA & the community is on the up & up (it is a slow climb though because it is quite steep).

 

Yes I hope that the WOL names are transferred to XWIS so I won't have to make a new account. But it is good that everything else necessary is already enabled and integrated into the supported games.

 

What? No Sole Survivor?

 

& what will become of our favorite WOL servers?

[CRAZY_PALADIN 0]

No Sole Survivors.~Well,no survivors

I wanna Sole Survivor!

And I wanna Renegade on WOL!!!

Unless they'll offer such many servers like WOL!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.I love Jelly-Server!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sonic 296]

As far as I can tell Renegade servers will be available, you will still be able to play as you normally would expect to.

 

Take note of the follow part I have quoted below.....

The beauty of this partnership is that you won’t have to download any external programs to utilize XWIS. All the enabled features and connections to the servers are already integrated into the supported games!

Basically you don't have to anything to your computer to continue playing.

 

As for Sole Survivor.... forget that. Westwood shutdown the old Sole Survivor servers years ago. That mistake of game is never coming back.

[Guest Rabbit]

Yes!

[Sonic 296]

Since the bulk of the Renegade players post at http://www.renegadeforums.com I checked to see if they were discussing this news as well. Sure enough they are.....

 

http://www.renegadeforums.com/index.php?t=...art=0&rid=0

[Luk3us 63]

Sounds good.

[GeneralZ 0]

well, XWIS was only good for Ra2 and the RTS games. The servers were created by individual people and u joined games

 

In Renegade, there are established community servers to join, and if ur going to move renegade, u have to work with them and BHS

 

i thin XWIS doesnt know anything about renegade, they dont care about it, yet WOL is mostly used by Renegade players.

 

at least they said they have a WOL clone as backup incase WOL goes down

[Rusty Le Cyborg 0]

As for Sole Survivor.... forget that. Westwood shutdown the old Sole Survivor servers years ago. That mistake of game is never coming back.

 

Not a mistake of a game. Just a lot of development and marketing errors.

 

Sole Survivor could have been so much more.

 

I would love to be able to play it online again. I think for the amount of necessary server space/time EA might as well have kept them online. They can't have used a lot of resources after all.

[DonCarlo 0]

Hi All

To the RENGADE players, we understand your concerns, and we will be working with the BHS guys to make sure that the Renegade transition to XWIS is as seamless as the transition of the other games.

There are indeed some issues unique to Renegade but we will be ensureing that these are overcome before switch over.

[Sonic 296]

Thanks for the update DonCarlo. Keep us informed of your progress

[Saracen 16]

I have not spoken publically about this since I actually knew back in August of this XWIS change. But I can say now, with Tiberian Sun, Tiberian Dawn, and Red Alert support back in the limelight... prepare to understand why I earn't my name... In 1997/98 I was a huge Westwood online player with Red Alert, and I played 10 matches a week for about 6 months... I only lost 6 of those.

 

Tiberian Sun was a slaughterhouse, I only lost 2 of the 100 or so games in world domination from Firestorm and 5 from about 200 or so of the Tib sun multiplayer games.

 

I was a contender and was always in the top 100 of the veteran ladders. The lack of regular play prevented me from reaching the top 25 since my highest rank was 26 in the world and I always hung around the 30-50 mark in those days....

 

I have never played Multiplayer on C&C 95 (Tiberian Dawn) so this will be a huge experience for me in this field, and may present a few suprises along the way. Hopefully I can tune my skills and become as great as I once was. But now I have a broadband connection as opposed to a 28.8k connection with Red Alert and a 56k connection with Tiberian Sun.... so time will tell :wink:

[Acerz492 1]

It's great! No more cheaters during online play!

 

Hmm...care to have a couple of rounds at YR, King? PM me if ya do. :wink:

[Guest Rabbit]

He doesn't play that... wait... do you, King?

[Mudcrutch 0]

FINALLY THIS IS AWESOME NEWS...

 

i am an avid Yuri's revenge player since its release and i was about to CAN the entire thing because of how bad its gotten online.. ! woo!!!!!!

[Saracen 16]

He doesn't play that... wait... do you, King?

 

no I don't, never found RA2/YR multiplayer appealing :wink:

[Acerz492 1]

Bah. You're no fun King. :wink:

[TheBlackOut 7]

I have not spoken publically about this since I actually knew back in August of this XWIS change. But I can say now, with Tiberian Sun, Tiberian Dawn, and Red Alert support back in the limelight... prepare to understand why I earn't my name... In 1997/98 I was a huge Westwood online player with Red Alert, and I played 10 matches a week for about 6 months... I only lost 6 of those.

 

Tiberian Sun was a slaughterhouse, I only lost 2 of the 100 or so games in world domination from Firestorm and 5 from about 200 or so of the Tib sun multiplayer games.

 

I was a contender and was always in the top 100 of the veteran ladders. The lack of regular play prevented me from reaching the top 25 since my highest rank was 26 in the world and I always hung around the 30-50 mark in those days....

 

I have never played Multiplayer on C&C 95 (Tiberian Dawn) so this will be a huge experience for me in this field, and may present a few suprises along the way. Hopefully I can tune my skills and become as great as I once was. But now I have a broadband connection as opposed to a 28.8k connection with Red Alert and a 56k connection with Tiberian Sun.... so time will tell :wink:

 

I challenge you to a RA1 duel! *slaps*

 

I killed tons of bases and people in Ra1... And I was only 5 or 6. I had a 8 win 1 loss one time. It was awesome. When I said I was 6, they all didn't believe me. Oh well.

 

http://www.renegadeforums.com/index.php?t=...art=0&rid=0

"Or in short - EA Just Killed WOL..."

 

I agree with that statement and this one, "EA has 0% dedication towards Command & Conquer"

 

I don't believe that they have 0 dedication, but I think they are pawning WOL on off to XWIS because they can use XWIS as a scapegoat. EA has been wanted to close WOL for sometime. But if they did, and there was no online play, sales would die on C&C and others, so they dump it on XWIS.

 

This is good though in alot of ways, I love XWIS. For some reason its less laggy.

[Cygnus X-1 12]

did i hear the term "slugfest" ??

 

Will they put up world domination again ??

 

cause I want in on that. Real real bad.

[Guest Rabbit]

Well, this might help bring some talk around...

 

People have been noticing that these forums have been slowing down a bit, but this might help a little, cause old games are coming back to everyone online...

[Cygnus X-1 12]

yup

 

thye should add world domination for all the games, not just TS and RA2