RA3 Tacitus Thursdays - Chris Corry Dev Blog #1

[Sonic 295]

The Red Alert 3 themed Tacitus Thursdays continue. Executive Producer of Red Alert 3, Chris Corry, has posted his first developer blog on the Official C&C Site. And this blog is must read, its packed with all sorts of interesting details about the on going development of Red Alert 3. Here is some of it to get you started.

 

It's been about three months since we announced Red Alert 3, and as the game's Executive Producer I want to take a moment to thank the community for such a warm and enthusiastic reception. I've had the pleasure of meeting many of you in our forums (I go by the name EASmudge) or during our community summits, and am constantly inspired by your boundless enthusiasm and passion for all things Command & Conquer. I know that many of you have been waiting a long time for a new Red Alert game, and we have no intention of letting you down. I can't wait to show you all the great things that we've been working on over the last year or so - we have a lot to talk about over the next six months.

 

As I write this, I'm sitting at a makeshift desk on the first Red Alert 3 live-action cinematics shoot. It's day two of our eight day shoot and I'm sitting on one of our cavernous Hollywood soundstages, dwarfed by a 20 foot-tall green screen. I'm surrounded by a half-dozen or so of our sets, ranging from a vintage elevator car - awaiting its special-effects aided decent into our time machine laboratory - to a palatial… but wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll talk a lot about the cinematics soon enough, and especially our top-notch cast. If you liked the C&C3 cinematics, you ain't seen nothin yet; and if you didn't... well then, you'll be really surprised.

 

If you've been following Red Alert 3, you probably already have a good grasp of the fundamentals. Red Alert is back, with its fun, Saturday-matinee take on alternative history. In our universe, the USSR lives on, locked in a life and death struggle with The Allies. But this is not your father's Cold War. This time the Soviets have a new toy: a hulking beast of a time machine, and they've just taken it out on its inaugural journey - a mission to erase Albert Einstein from the history of the world. But as we've all learned from the time travel classics, this is a path fraught with peril, isn't it? When the Soviet leaders return to their newly manufactured reality, happy and confident that they have neutralized the technological advantage the Allies have lorded over them, they find that their actions have inadvertently spawned a new superpower on the world stage. And this new superpower, The Empire of the Rising Sun, isn't real keen on establishing diplomatic relations.

Click here to read more of this blog.

[nightpish 0]

Well EA are bugged it won't open with neither IE or Firefox

[Sonic 295]

The new dev blog link doesn't work for you?

 

http://www.commandandconquer.com/intel/def...id=145#NewsMain

 

Works perfectly for me. You should check your connection and/or computer before jumping to the conclusion that its EA's fault

[Luk3us 63]

Doesn't work for me either.

 

Edit: lol, now its working? Weird.

Edited May 9, 2008 by Luk3us

[Sonic 295]

Well its all good for me so I don't know whats going on.

 

I'll post the full blog below for anyone having problems following the original links above.

 

RED ALERT 3 PREMIER BLOG #1 - READ THIS COMRADE!

 

Hi, guys. Chris here.

 

It's been about three months since we announced Red Alert 3, and as the game’s Executive Producer I want to take a moment to thank the community for such a warm and enthusiastic reception. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many of you in our forums (I go by the name EASmudge) or during our community summits, and am constantly inspired by your boundless enthusiasm and passion for all things Command & Conquer. I know that many of you have been waiting a long time for a new Red Alert game, and we have no intention of letting you down. I can’t wait to show you all the great things that we’ve been working on over the last year or so – we have a lot to talk about over the next six months.

 

As I write this, I'm sitting at a makeshift desk on the first Red Alert 3 live-action cinematics shoot. It’s day two of our eight day shoot and I'm sitting on one of our cavernous Hollywood soundstages, dwarfed by a 20 foot-tall green screen. I'm surrounded by a half-dozen or so of our sets, ranging from a vintage elevator car – awaiting its special-effects aided decent into our time machine laboratory – to a palatial… but wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll talk a lot about the cinematics soon enough, and especially our top-notch cast. If you liked the C&C3 cinematics, you ain’t seen nothin yet; and if you didn’t… well then, you’ll be really surprised.

 

If you've been following Red Alert 3, you probably already have a good grasp of the fundamentals. Red Alert is back, with its fun, Saturday-matinee take on alternative history. In our universe, the USSR lives on, locked in a life and death struggle with The Allies. But this is not your father’s Cold War. This time the Soviets have a new toy: a hulking beast of a time machine, and they've just taken it out on its inaugural journey – a mission to erase Albert Einstein from the history of the world. But as we've all learned from the time travel classics, this is a path fraught with peril, isn't it? When the Soviet leaders return to their newly manufactured reality, happy and confident that they have neutralized the technological advantage the Allies have lorded over them, they find that their actions have inadvertently spawned a new superpower on the world stage. And this new superpower, The Empire of the Rising Sun, isn’t real keen on establishing diplomatic relations.

 

So that’s all fine and good. But why? Why did we pick the Empire, Japan, as our third faction? And why have a third faction at all?

 

First off, we didn’t go into the design of Red Alert 3 with the fundamental assumption that we even needed a third faction. After all, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a two faction RTS, as the first two games in the series proved. But as we got deeper into the game design, we found ourselves faced with a dilemma. We were intent on making a great game that was far more than just a retread of Red Alert 1 and 2. And yet, if we dramatically changed up the Soviet or Allies it was clear that we would lose something, something central to the spirit of the franchise. We wanted to advance the classic factions, but in a way that would still be generally familiar to anyone who had played one of the earlier games. In the end, we realized that adding a third faction was going to be the most liberating solution. The Empire allows us to stretch, to pursue something completely unique and new, without compromising the fundamentals of what makes Red Alert so much fun.

 

Conveniently, The Empire of the Rising Sun also opens up a whole new dimension of creative possibilities for the fiction, which I think you’ll appreciate once you play through the Japanese campaign. In fact, there’s a pretty big twist revealed at the end of the Empire campaign that puts a whole new perspective on many of the game’s earlier events. Of course, the iconic imagery found in Japanese popular culture allows us to do a lot of cool things with their units and structures too. The Empire has these enormous floating island fortresses that feature predominately into the story. And you can’t go wrong with the wealth of possibilities opened up by a Japanese faction – ninjas, samurai, mecha, transforming units, psionic school girls (psionic school girls?!?).

 

Well, the next lighting setup is done and we're about to go on the bell. In a few days I’ll be on a plane destined for Moscow – I’ll let you know all about that trip the next time I write. Thanks again for your support and interest in Red Alert 3. We have a whole team of Command & Conquer fans hard at work on the game, and we’re bursting at the seams to share it with you. Patience!

 

- Chris Corry

Executive Producer (aka "The Premier")

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

EA Los Angeles

[recover 2]

It's definitely EA's fault.

 

They had no intention of letting us down on C&C3 and KW either, but there's a bunch of things I think they could have made better. I think RA3 will turn out about the same.

[rEdaSbLood 1]

is it me or does chris look alot like yuri? :lol:

[BioBen 3]

lol quite true.

Woot! ninjas! I'm sold