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There's this one game I've heard of called APB...

'Aight, so after airing my greviances about text-based LARPing being to rampant on this shitfest of a forum (and subsequently being proven right in the same damn thread), I've decided to step up and attempt to slap some balls and get a regular video game night going. No @VERTi60, not creating a text-based LARPing session about video games, actually playing video games. I know this community centered around video game mods don't do alot of this, but bear with me. First of, I am not going to suggest we play any type of Grand-Strategy game, or anything that may take more than one session, because we tried that already and it was a gigantic disaster. 1 month for planing before we could start, and now another month of waiting for the second session to get going. I'm going to drop three games to start of with, whose barrier to entry cash-wise are fairly low and because I really want to play the multiplayer portions of these games again. Two of them function similarly to eachother, one does not. ALRIGHT LETS PUT NUTS TO BUTTS THEN MENTLEGEN. 1: Monday Night Combat Watch this video, it gives you a basic overview of how the main game mode plays out. It's everyone's favourite blood sport of the future, Monday Night Combat. Push your bots into the enemy moneyball, build defense, murder your enemies and humiliate them by slapping your balls on their forehead after you're done. Generally close to the MOBA genre in it's core mechanics, you must push your two lanes of droids into the enemy moneyball to gain all of da money and win the game. Build base defenses at pre-ordained locations with funds you get from crushing enemy drones and enemies, or send out a giant mechanical gorilla to hunt down enemy players. Yes, that is a thing you can do. Play as 6 unique classes, your 'Pro' fighters: The Sniper, a wannabe neckbeard that does what his name implies, snipe people. The Assassin, a weeb stealth class that can backstab and be a proper annoying prick. The Support, an Italian hacker mobster that can upgrade and deploy turrets and heal shit. The Assault, the Quarterback of the whole team. Comes complete with a bullcharge ability. The Tank, also another quite straight forward class. High health, and a big lazer gun used to roast scum with. Also has a sick beard. The Gunner, like the Tank he's got lots of HP. But he's got a big as fuck gun. That he can deploy with. Which gives him the highest level of dakka in the game. Aside from that, each class has 4 upgradeable abilities, one for each of your three activatable class abilities (Assassins stealth, Supports turret etc.), and one that increases your health and defense. You can also enter the game with a loadout of sponsorships deals that alter your characters stats. For instance, entering with a Sponsorship from Ammo Mule will increase your guns maximum ammo, if you support steroid use you'll get increased maximum health, and so forth. Classes maybe swapped at will in the spawn room, but you won't get a full refund on your abilities, roughly 70% of your money spent on these will be refunded and can be used again. The Game runs on a dedicated server system, so we could either host our own or invade one if there still is one. And all of this can be yours for a mere 4.5 Euromonies, or your regional equivalent. 2: Battleborn Battleborn died because it was released right next to Overwatch and it fucking hurts. The multiplayer is at it's core very similar to MNC, you have your lanes that your drones push, you have to push all the way to your enemies base to destroy their last defense robot, or feed a gigantic autistic murder robot more robots than the other team otherwise he will kill you. Yup. What differs majorly is the presentation. Wheras MNC takes itself seriosly in it's role as a Future Bloodsport, Battleborn is a game that's entierly about killing someone and then rubbing your balls in their face. Multiple times. As a Hyper-capitalist insane robot German. That's what is so fun with this game: The built in banter system with the massive numbers of taunts and voice lines delivered between rival characters in game. Hell, even the Defense Robots will flip you off if they manage to kill you. The game has alot of character, very reminiscent of the Borderlands style as it's from the same developer, but not in the same obnoxious manner that Bodermemes 2: Reddit Writes A Videomeme: The Revengememeing did it. As said, the Gameplay is very similar to MNC. Your character has two abilities plus an ultimate ability unlocked later on in the game. You can bring a loadout of three activatable items which can alter you character stats, just like sponsorships from MNC. You however level your abilities a little differently. Every character has a level, it goes from 1 to 10. At every level your character genetically changes and you get to level up your character and alter how an ability works. Like using a Grenade Launcher? Here, you can add another 40% splash radius to that ability. Or maybe you'd prefer to deal more damage on direct hits with your Grenade Launcher? It's a pick and chose that can completely change how your character plays every game. Selecting characters are permanent, so no character swapping mid game. As it's closer to your traditional MOBA in this regard, most classes fall into the Holy Trinity of Support/Healer, Tank and Damage Dealer. You'll have to carefully craft your party to maximize your chance of success. Or you can just play whatever and dick around while having fun as most characters have some ability upgrades which gives them life steal/health regeneration/shield regeneration anyway. A quick multiplayer game in one of the multiplayer modes. Do note this is a casual console player. AND ALL OF THIS CAN BE YOURS FOR THE ONCE-IN-A-LIFTEIME PRICE OF WHAT YOU PAY FOR YOUR INTERNET. Yup, the Multiplayer part of the game is free-to-play with all 30 characters on rotation. All you need to spend to play this is your time downloading it. 3: Warhammer 40k: Space Marine Space Marine is a game about being a Space Marine, a 8 feet walking Super Human wearing a tank, using a Machine Gun Rocket Launcher to destroy the enemies of Man. Yes, this is awesome, you have no choice in what you think of this. It is just great. It plays radically differently from the other two games, being closer in playstyle to your average third person shooter. You have three modes, Team Deathmatch/Point Control/Dreadnought Mode. Team Deathmatch, fairly straight forward. You have two teams, you kill eachother until one reach the target score and win. Point Control is also fairly straight forward, there are a set number of points on the map. You capture these points to gain score. Whatever team reaches the score limit first wins. And then we have Dreadnought mode. Oh boy, Dreadnought Mode. In this mode you start of fighting for control over a capture point. Whatever team captures the point first has their highest scoring player turned into a Dreadnought. What is a dreadnought? Well, it is a sarcophaegus that have more armour than the Maus and bigger guns than the Yamato. The Player interred in this Dreadnought must then kill as many players of the enemy team as he can before they destroy him. When he gets destroyed, the point respawns and the circus starts all over again. The Team with the most Dreadnought kills at the end of the game wins. As for the gameplay, it's pretty straighforward. You have a gun (mostly), you point it towards your enemies and try to kill them. But how you try to kill them changes between what class you are playing. Tactical Marines are your bread and butter, medium armoured and versatile. They have the largest selection of weapons available to them, and can even equip two primary weapons with the right loadout. Their weapon choices include: Bolters (Assault Rifle), Storm Bolter (Shorter ranged SMG), Meltagun (Shotgun), Stalker Bolter (Light Sniper) and the Vengance Launcher (Sticky Grenade Launcher). They also come equipped with a Combat Knife and Bolt Pistol for close combat. Assault Marines/Raptors: Your Close Combat powerhouse, equipped with a jump jet so you can leap around the sky like a madman. The fastest class, but with the least durability. Comes with three weapon varities: A Chainsword (It's a Chainsaw Sword) + Bolt/Plasma Pistol, Power Axe/Chainaxe, or A GIANT FUCKING POWER HAMMER. Devastators are your heavy weapon specialists. Slow and fat, these lads carry the meanest, baddest weapons in the game. Only class that can't dodge roll. They have a few overly balanced weaponchoices: Heavy Bolter (An MG42 on Steroids), Plasma Cannon (It's a Mini Nuke Launcher essentially) and Lascannons (An Anti-tank rifle in the lore, it's a Big Dick Sniper Rifle here). Generally gets fucked in the aft-hole if not protected or positioned well. That's about it. Oh yeah, you have seventeen years worth of customization of your Multiplayer Character. You can make them look as painfully terrible as you wish with thousands of cosmetic combinations. Or you could use a few of the pre-made skins and actually look half-decent. It is up to you. A little more costly than the others, at 20 Euromonies for the base game and another 7 Euromonies for the Dreadnought Mode DLC. The game regularly goes on 75% sales though so it's just a matter of waiting. Alright that's fucking it. Post your own suggestions for games we could potentially play and what days you are generally available so we could maybe schedule something like this regularly.

🚴‍♀️faster!!!

Blame Jeod for tossing in a hand grenade before the ink was dry on the day star post.

Challenge accepted. Welp, here's to another 48 hrs of full-on activity that I have [nearly] no time to read!

Plot twist: We join the game with Liten, and then promptly start a chat mafia game right there.

It was there to play a comedic roll if nothing else, and because I enjoy pretending I've done something right because I have a massive inferiority complex. I care, because I truly enjoy these games and I've always hated how they died and was unceremoniously buried in an unmarked grave due to their circumstances. Being part of a "Gaming" community, I figured maybe I could convince a few people it was worth their time, even considering the state of these games, get a few lads togheter and have the same fun I remember having all those years ago. Atleast now I can say that I tried.

Sorry about the Roadmap image guys, it should be fixed now!

Well then, I found some time to post this, so let's go! I hope that Jim will get to read this, and if he does, hi there Jim, best of luck on the ''new'' title! How much "updating" is acceptable? Balance changes, usability improvements, UI improvements...? Should the balance be changed or stay the same? Or should there be a "classic" mode and a "remastered" mode? The choice between a ''classic'' and a ''remastered'' mode is the best possible option. The classic balance already works in the original games and should be easy to port over to the ''new'' game. It will allow old time fans to enjoy what they know. That said, the remastered mode is something great as well. It will allow you lads to experiment with the game's balance and, in some cases, also allow you to fix some of the old balancing issues that plagued the older games. I mean, some of us would love to play Red Alert without having to spam Mediums and Heavies to stand a chance of winning. Meanwhile the classic mode will satisfy the players that just want to play a new-old game. A win-win situation if I'm honest. Best part is that you'll have a ''balanced'' game from the get go while still being able to update the remastered balance. Should UI elements from the new C&C games like sidebar tabs, multiple unit queuing etc. be part of a remaster? Definately. One of my bigger gripes with the older titels were the huge lists of units on buildings and the fact that there wasn't any queuing. Honestly, the best side-bar was included in Command and Conquer 3. It had all the necessary tabs, ease of use and the flexibility. Didn't want to see that much? No problem, simply deselect everything and you only have your minimap. Have a bunch of units or a big construction list? You can scroll through the list. RA3's sidebar was worse due to the fact that it had big edges. That said, if the sidebard simply covers a part of the screen and not the map, like in classic games, then having a less flexible (but still with the tabs and scroll features) sidebar would work fine. Overal, the UI was best in Command and Conquer 3. However, honourable mention goes to Generals, which bottom bar allowed for extensive use of abilities and production/upgrade lists. So yes, I'm in favour of modern UI elements. It is important to note that there should be a classic mode for this as well. This to prevent a classic game with multiple build queus. So the normal remastered mode and the classic mode quicker production when you have multiple factories of the same type. Should waypoints, attack move and other modern RTS elements be incorporated in a remaster? Definately yes. Waypoints, attack move and other things like reverse move are great quality of life improvements that also allow you to control your armies and inividual units with more precision. These things allow players to control engagements and give the players time to micro specific units to gain an edge in battle. So yes, great stuff. Beyond it being great and all, today's younger gamers expect options like these, so including this is a no-brainer if we want to raise interest in classic RTS with the younger gamers among us. is there anything "sacred" you would advise NOT to change in Remaster? Astetics and ambience. This is something that all classic games did very well. And what I mean with this is that the games should stay true to their original astetics and ambience. This doesn't mean that a Cnc95 remaster should stick with the old 2d engine, but the graphics should stay true to their models of the original game. The world and shaders should do the same. This basically means that the gritty and serious Red Alert 1 should stay that way with its own unit models while Red Alert 3 should stay cartoony in its own way. So no cartoony Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 1 and no gritty Red Alert 3. Additional thoughts The little details that provide additional gameplay There are quite a few things in the classic games that tend to get forgotten in newer games. One of these things are forest fires. This was present in quite a few games. A flame unit or an explosion would set a tree alight which would then spread the fire towards neighboaring trees until a trigger stopped the spread. The best part about this was that the fires, at least in Generals (try it!) could damage units and kill infantry. It has happened more than once that I've managed to burn an army of infantry by simply starting a forest fire. Next up I'd like to mention roads. In the older games, most non-walking units would gain a speedboost when moving across roads (especially wheeled ones) wile gaining a speed penalty when traversing difficult terrain (especially wheeled units). This mechanic was lost after Tiberian Sun. However, I do feel that it can have a tactical and strategic purpose. Roads functions as quick reinforcement lines among other things. Take a look at it, they can make map development a lot more interesting. Steel division 44 has a quite interesting road system in this regard. Another classic element is the spread of the map's resource. In the older games, Tiberium and Ore would spread across the map wherever it could if left alone. This excludes hard, well maintained, pavement, but it added an element to the game where you felt as if you were playing on an unregulated part of the world. Finally, I'd like to mention the death animations for units. Command and Conquer 3 lacked these. And I don't mean actual death animations, I'm talking about a variety of death animations. In Cnc3, an infantryman would just fall to the ground when it was killed by a flame tank. In Cnc95, the infantry would run around while on fire. Similiarly, seeing units melt from Radiation in RA2 was a lot of fun. Go take a look at the older games and find out if you can find more of these fun details. Maps Short one. Beyond re-creating the classic maps and introducing new ones, maybe would be a good idea to look at the most popular maps of all games and introduce them as well. To mind come Tournament Desert (Generals), Cabana Republic and Infinity Isle (RA3) and many others. Sounds and effects Something that was lacking in the newer games were great animations. Sure a lot of stuff looked and sounded great, but not all of it. Especially RA3 suffered from rather poor sound effects and a lack of ''oomph'' behind units and weapons. When we see a big rocket launcher we want to hear a ''Vwhooosh'' instead of a dinky ''Wush'' and when the rocket hits, we want to hear a big boom and see a big boom, not a dinky ''tick'' and a small explosion. Take a look at, for example, the Rise of the Reds mod for Generals and Mental Omega for RA2. And, beyond the Cnc series, then the two Company of Heroes games do an amazing job at effects and especially sounds. Physics The final point of today. Physics are a lot of fun when implemented well. For a bad example, look what happens to units and buildings when they get hit by a nuclear warhead in Cnc3. They simply play their death animation. Now look at Generals. If an army or base gets hit by a big blast, units and rubble will fly away from the impact crater and come back to the ground. Each unit, shell and piece of rubble had its own weight. This determined how far it would move if hit by a large blastwave, if it would be light enough at all. Battlemasters fly further than Overlords. Rubble flies all over the place. Beyond that, things like the destroyable towers in the tutorial mission in Generals gave you a sense of weight, physics and the idea that you were fighting in a real world. That's it for now. I'm running out of time. In any case, best of luck with the remaster, whichever game it might be. Hopefully we'll be able to do this again in the near future.