OWA

Hi everyone! Now that 2018 is in full swing I'd like to just take this opportunity to recap on what we managed to achieve last year as well as what we are aiming to do with W3D Hub this year! 2017 Retrospective 2017 was a productive year for W3D Hub! We outlined our roadmap in this thread last year: As you can see, we pretty much achieved everything that we set out to do, which is great! Work was started on fixing Tiberian Sun: Reborn and is proceeding as planned. Development work on Red Alert 2: Apocalypse Rising continued at a great pace (especially in the latter half of the year) Expansive Civilian Warfare saw a release on the launcher, which has been mostly a great success! Red Alert: A Path Beyond saw a plethora of updates that steadily iterated and added to the gameplay over the course of the year. The stats system has been significantly upgraded since the beginning of last year, but the new stats website hasn't been pushed live just yet. We didn't put together the planned media pack that we talked about, but I feel that we are slowly building the player-base up to a good number. The download manager went live, but hasn't seen too much use just yet. Hopefully this will change over the course of this year. Discord has been running for a while now and has been a great success! Integrated chat via IRC was implemented into the launcher! Hopefully we'll look at tightening this up a bit more this year as well! The bug tracker is back up and running. If you have issues to report, please submit some bugs for us! We'll be making this more visible in the coming months. Advanced Tags and Prefixes was reinstalled and works as intended! So with 2017 being a success as far as our plans were concerned, here's what we have planned for 2018! W3D Hub Roadmap 2018 A New Look First off, we have decided that the W3D Hub logo was due a freshen up for 2018, so we've updated it a bit. the layout is still the same, but it is now a lot crisper with flat colours on the text that make it look a lot more contemporary. Here's what we have decided to go with. Over the course of this month, we shall be updating the logo across all of our games, services, and channels; so keep an eye out for it! New Development Tools (SDK) Mammoth Tank Assembled We're proud to announce Mammoth; a brand new tool that we're hoping to develop and build on throughout the year. Mammoth is a full replacement for the venerable Commando Level Editor (that shipped with Renegade) that will allow for a much higher degree of flexibility when creating mods and maps on the W3D Engine. Here are a couple of screenshots: It may look a lot like level edit and that's because it is currently being developed as a reverse engineering of that piece of software, however once that is complete, we can then begin adding some more outlandish features. The viewport controls have already been improved, allowing users to use the RMB and WASD to navigate the viewport and LMB to select objects without changing between view and select modes! Special thanks to @jonwil for spearheading this project as well as @saberhawk for laying some of the initial groundwork. If you're a mapper and would like to help us develop this new tool by providing feedback on all aspects of the functionality, interface design and user experience, please get in touch with us. (@Raap and @Timeaua we'd especially like to hear your thoughts!) 3DS Max 2017 W3D Export Plugin After years of using Gmax and 3D Studio Max 8, a new 3D export plugin is finally within our grasp! With this new plugin anybody will be able to export their models and animations from new versions of 3DS Max that are 100% compatible with Windows 10. This is really big for all of us, because it allows us to make use of software that has newer features that are much more powerful (than Gmax and Max 8 are) and easier to use. Here's a screenshot of the new plugin in Max 2017. It's not quite ready, but we hope to release it sometime this year! Also, because the new export plugin has been built from the ground up, we can consider the possibility of porting it to other 3D modelling programs. We know that not everyone can get their hands on a copy of 3D Studio Max, so we are also looking at integrating the plugin to work with Blender, which is a popular free software package for 3D modelling. Big thanks to @cfehunter for making this pipe-dream a reality! Launcher Updates The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that the W3D Hub launcher has been receiving a steady stream of updates! Here's what we're looking at this year! As always, big thanks to @danpaul88 for fighting OpenReach in order to help us improve our lawn chair! User Interface After the addition of the Chat tab, work began on re-vamping the launcher's UI to make it more user-friendly and generally nicer to look at. This project is still ongoing and we hope to improve the user interface further over the course of 2018. Here's a shot of our latest internal mockups: The final design won't look exactly the same, but this is just to show you the direction we are moving forward in. If you have any feedback on the UI, please let us know in this thread or make a new one in General Discussion! Single-Client Packages Currently W3D Hub is the only download source that the launcher connects to when downloading packages. This is problematic because if we suddenly go viral, our servers will get rammed pretty hard. So to counteract this, we will be working on single-client packages! A single client package is simply the launcher bundled with one of the games. The installer will install the launcher and the packaged game, then the launcher will update it to the latest version. There are a number of free game websites on the internet that frown upon the use of launchers, so another reason to do this is so that we can get more players into the games as well. Hopefully we'll be able to accomplish this task this year too! Renegade Support Even bigger news is that we've been talking about the idea of Renegade support. Since Renegade isn't free, we'd have to get the launcher to detect a Renegade installation and then manage it that way. With that done, we'll be able to update Renegade with the latest community patches through the launcher and offer a full comprehensive listing of all currently hosted Renegade servers. If we can pull it off, it will mean that the W3D Hub Launcher will truly be the one and only Renegade launcher to serve the C&C community, which is quite exciting! Please bear in mind though that this is a pipe dream, so it may not happen. But we figured it's good to tell you guys that we're playing around with the idea anyway. Infrastructure Updates You guys may also be interested to know that we have been updating our infrastructure as well! Here are a few points of interest. Stats & Ranks System Work has continued on our W3D Stats system this past year, with a new website being developed to display all of the awesome data! This website will be mobile compatible, so that you can check your ranks on the go! Big thanks to @rantanplan, @Silverlight, @moonsense715, @danpaul88, @triattack and others who I may have missed for making this happen! Here's a small preview: We'll also be looking into the general presentation of achievements at some point to see if we can make the requirements more visible in-game. Watch this space! Forum Skins The APB skin is well underway now and should be finished fairly shortly! Here's a small work-in-progress shot. There's still some colouring to work out, but it is nearly ready! Keep your eyes peeled for the classic look around the forums soon! We're also aiming to develop more forum skins in the future for the other mods (starting with ECW) and then also one that mirrors the theme that's featured on Renforums (just for those people who love a bit of nostalgia!). You might also see that there are two new buttons for H2 and H3 on the post editor. If you highlight some text and click one of these buttons it will turn it into a cool heading, just like the ones featured in this thread! Keep posted for more news on this! Confluence After a few emails back and forth to the good folks over at Atlassian, we have managed to secure ourselves a licence to their documentation tool, Confluence. What does this mean? Basically it means that we will be able to port all of our scatted design documentation into one centralised location so that we can work much more effectively as a team. We might be able to make parts of it public in the future so that you guys can keep up with our design decisions as they happen, but we'll be evaluating it closely first! Downloads Sadly C&C Files isn't coming back anytime soon, but over the course of this year we'll be uploading some more files to our very own download system! This includes some old mods for various C&C games that we've been hoarding along with some, Renegade-specific files, rarities and more! Hopefully we'll get this stuff online as the year goes on for you guys to play around with. More news soon(tm)! Freelancers Do you want to work on content for any of our games, but don't want to have the responsibility of being a full time staff member? Then our new Global Freelancers Initiative (GFI) is right up your alley. What we want to be able to do is open a more fluid communication channel between mod leaders and people who enjoy making cool stuff for the games, so that any content that's made by fans can be picked up by us and made official even easier than before. What we aim to do is setup a channel on our Discord server for Freelancer and Devs to collaborate with no expectations or pressure. Just nice environment where you can share images and files of what you're working on, as well as collectively pool knowledge, so even if you don't know how to mod the games, we can give you some tips and tricks! Check back for more info on this soon, once we've ironed out the details! Events & Prizes This year we want to try and run more events and competitions! We have stockpiled a number of C&C posters in the W3D Hub vaults that need winning, so we'll have to organise a way for people to win them! Hopefully we'll scratch our collective heads and launch something soonish! Big thanks to our printing comrade, @CCHyper for these wonderful prizes! Game Roadmaps Here's a brief rundown of how the games are doing currently! Battle for Dune: War of Assassins More updates for Battle for Dune: War of Assassins are on the way! @TeamWolf recently posted up an update on BFD's new Emperor Worm mode map where you and several others take control of masterfully well simulated Sand Worms! Check it out below! Keep an eye out for more exciting updates! Expansive Civilian Warfare With ECW's release last December as well as launcher integration, @Jerad2142 is looking to expand on the game and add more features! He's currently working on a new mission system into ECW due to multiple player requests. It's going to be pseudo-random and be mostly assassination or fetch quests with some branching objective paths (like save the person instead of killing them sometimes). Keep an eye out for that in up and coming ECW updates! Flyin' high in San Casina! Also, if you're getting lost in the sewers, our new pal @Veyrdite has your back. Red Alert: A Path Beyond Nothing too big is planned for this year with APB. Updates will continue to roll out with @Pushwall at the helm which will further tune and refine the experience. There was an update posted last Saturday, so go and check that out! Infantry maps should be getting some overhauls at some point and there are still a few units to implement, but that requires artists that we currently don't have spare. If you are a 3D Artist or know other 3D Artists who may be interested, please get in touch! Red Alert 2: Apocalypse Rising Apocalypse Rising had an incredible second half of last year and we're hoping to keep this up with more gameplay iteration and more of a conscious thought about what maps we actually want to release with. To quote the Chinese Dozer from Generals "We have big plans!" Here's a quick shot of some Tesla Tanks playing in the snow! Stay tuned to the forums and Discord for more info as we progress through 2018! Renegade: Interim Apex Interim Apex (previously Imperial Age) is set for a new and updated release this year as well as some other big news so stay tuned! @Kaskins has been working hard on some new maps as well as a full compliment of naval units! Check out the latest update from this massive project here! Keep your eyes peeled in the coming months, because the new release will definitely be something to watch out for! Tiberian Sun: Reborn Reborn 2.0 is coming along steadily and is due out this year! There are some changes to a couple of GDI buildings that are being worked on currently and a major re-balance is planned, pending spare time to work on it. Also, Nod's very own femme fatale, Oxanna Kristos, posted in the forums at the start of March. What can this all mean? 2018 Is A Go! That about covers it for what we have planned this year! I know it's been said a lot in this thread, but stay tuned! There's even some stuff that we aren't brave enough to mention just yet, so there are plenty of irons in the fire, as they say! Thank you everyone for continuing to support us and may 2018 be a year to remember! Bring on the future! :D [thumb]thumb_w3d.0.png[/thumb] [blurb]Big news for this year! Come and see what W3D Hub's plans are for 2018! Read about updates to the community, infrastructure, tools and of course the games![/blurb]

I like the sound of these changes. Will be good to try them out when the time comes.

Happy Birthday to Kane's Wrath, which turns 10 years old today! Kane's Wrath is one of our personal favourites out of the C&C series here at W3D Hub because it's just an absolute blast to play in multiplayer! In the past we've had some epic games with the likes of @Voe, @madrox8, @Killing_You, @VERTi60 and others which we've gotten a lot of fun and laughs from over the years. CNCNZ has also reported on this, providing some of the history behind the game in their coverage as well. Be sure to check out that article here! Also, on top of that, GameReplays.org have organized the Decade Cup and it's all culminating today with the final being held today! Catch it being streamed here live on Twitch by bikerushownz and kochevnik (if you're a Russian speaker)! The finalists are Phoenix and Masterleaf, and the prize pool is $2200, which is the largest since the EA-sponsored Ladder Season 3! More information on the event is available here and last week's semifinals and quarterfinals are also available to watch. Look out for the replays of the finals somewhere soon! Here's to another 10 years to this great expansion for this great game! Here's hoping that C&C Online is still serving the community by then as well, so that we can continue to play online. [blurb]Happy Birthday to Kane's Wrath, which turns 10 years old today![/blurb][thumb]custom_thumb_kaneswrath.png[/thumb]

I really like this one:

It's presumably possible somehow, seeing as Cyborgs can trip EMP mines in Reborn, but other infantry cannot. We could also always submit a request for a scripts modification if we wanted to prototype it.

A bit of a weird suggestion, but seeing as Volkov is practically a walking tank and is presumably quite heavy because he's partly made of metal, could he be made to trigger and take damage from AT mines?

Sounds a bit like a flare gun.

The V2 isn't devalued by Kovtillery currently because artillery isn't Kov's primary role. The Kovtillery also takes a large amount of ammo to fire and has a pretty long reload time. If artillery becomes more of a primary purpose for Kov, then I can see the V2 being devalued. When I say the Grenadier "wasn't as good", I'm talking about in relation to the V2, not to Volkov. The alpha damage that the V2 deals along with the decent splash radius makes up for the fact that it's got papier-mâché for armour. Putting Kov in the position of the old Grenadier devalues the V2 because Kov is basically a walking tank. It's almost like saying "hey, you know what would be great is if we crossed characteristics from the heavy tank and artillery into one unit that has super range and the armour of a tank". After reading Raap's post and seeing him mention cinematic attacks, maybe giving Kov something a bit more interesting like an Airstrike/Parabomb beacon would serve to be a neat anti-building tool as well as allowing him to keep his weaponry somewhat similar to what it is now. I guess you have to ask yourself whether it's worth drastically changing 10+ years of Kov-gameplay consistency to give him a more defined artillery role, rather than just let him be what he is and tune him based on how he's doing. I personally wouldn't mind seeing the Flamer or Shocky get brought up to be premier building killing units for the Soviets. The Flamer seems like the obvious choice because of his role in the original Red Alert.

Wouldn't pushing Volkov into more of a siege role de-value the V2 Launcher? Having a unit that is fairly well armoured, more mobile (can strafe and use infantry tunnels) and can out-range base defences would surely make players choose the much more fragile V2 Launcher less if they can simply Kov+Heavy or Kov+Supply Truck for roughly the same results. Granted that Kov is more expensive, but I don't believe this to be as much of an issue when compared to encroaching on the V2's siege role. It worked with the Grenadier because he was cheaper than the V2 and wasn't as good, meaning that the V2 was still viable, but when you have a high tier unit like Volkov potentially stepping into that role, that's when the V2 would probably start to see less games played at high tiers. Just my 2 cents anyway.

This has now been resolved! Thankyou for your patience.

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The suggestion for the AT cannon was offered pretty much as a clear alternative to what we have now (1 shell/3 shells) since a rocket projectile would be different enough for players to understand the difference. The point of range is a fair one though as well as one that I hadn't considered. The suggestion for the AP secondary is technically the same as what it is now but without the burn damage I guess. Although, something that really bugs me currently is how fiddly that weapon is to aim (as previously mentioned). Making the projectile nice and big as well as slowing it down a bit and reducing the velocity/altering the trajectory might help the secondary become a bit easier to fire. Currently it's quite tricky to judge.

I think the primary fires are in a good place mechanically; the AP cannon could do with something akin to the dragon's breath for visibility (since it's hard to see currently), but the primary fire on the AT cannon is just fine to be fair. I've got a couple of suggestions to make the alt-fires feel a bit more intuitive though. I haven't got much time to flesh out a ton of description, so I'll just throw them up. AT Cannon Secondary - Ranged RocketGiving Volk a rocket on his secondary fire that is longer range than his primary fire, but deals less damage would help him to hit things like boats and aircraft that are far out, whilst providing a visual distinction that's easy enough for players to understand. When we were talking about this the other day @Pushwall, I agreed with you in saying that secondary fire modes that do different types of damage are really hard to communicate, but I feel that they can work if the visual look of the projectile is different enough. Perhaps even keep the tri-shot for more distinction from the primary and do something like this: AP Cannon Secondary - Flak BallVolk's AP cannon works much like the Unreal Tournament Flak Cannon right now, but the secondary fire is unreliable and tricky to aim (at least from my perspective). We could try altering the secondary to act more like the UT Flak Ball which would make it more tactile and reliable to use. Obviously liberties need to be taken on the splash damage to prevent Volk from becoming the go-to-guy for all your corridor clearing needs, but I think it could help to tighten up that secondary fire so that it isn't haphazard to use. Reference: Anyway, just a couple of ideas. Lemme know what you think.

Amazing dude! Congrats!

Gamefront is officially back from the dead! The team over at DBolical (ModDB & IndieDB) bought the rights to it back in 2016 and now the dream of re-hosting it has now come to pass! Back before it's untimely closure, Gamefront was one of the best places to find game-related files on the interent. There's a ton of old C&C content hosted over there and they are hoping that the community can help them fill in the blanks! Check out their announcement video! Check out this post here to find out more! There's also an FAQ here![thumb]custom_thumb_gamefront.0.png[/thumb] [blurb]Gamefront is officially back from the dead thanks to the guys over at DBolical![/blurb]

Renegade turns 16 years old today! This game has shaped all of our lives in some way and is the reason why W3D Hub exists as a community today! This odd little game released and captured the hearts of many C&C fans with it's unique multiplayer mode back in 2002 (and during the beta before that). The fact that the game was so flexible from a modding standpoint has pretty much brought us to where we are now. Here's a nice article about Greg Hjelstrom developing the modding tools for Renegade, most of which we still use today: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2002/02/01/cc-renegade-designer-diary-pt-7 Consequently Renegade X, the UDK re-imagining of C&C Renegade also turns 4 years old today! Big congrats to the team over at https://renegade-x.com for all of their hard work! I think Renegade X developer (and C&C Reborn alumni) FobbyGen said it best on the Renegade X Facebook page earlier today, so here's a slice of what he wrote. Check out the full post here: https://www.facebook.com/CNCRenX/posts/10156246743512431 I think that it's astonishing that even today Renegade continues to get a somewhat small but steady stream of players that keep the game alive for anyone wishing to return to it. Renegade Forums may be very quiet these days, but that hasn't stopped communities like W3D Hub from flourishing and building our own fan-bases. Keep your eyes peeled in the next few days for some more exciting announcements about some of the stuff we've got planned for this year! [thumb]custom_thumb_ren.png[/thumb][blurb]Happy 16th birthday to Command and Conquer Renegade! Also a happy 4th birthday to Renegade X![/blurb]

We've actually closed tester applications for the time being.

Something along those lines yeah. Battlefield 2 does it slightly differently where you actually repair the bridge itself using a spanner/wrench so that could be a possibility too. Although it might look a bit strange since our repair tools are the little keypad multi-metres.

If bridges were repairable, then that would probably fix the problem of destructible bridges eliminating entire routes from the map when they are destroyed.

Just to jump in on the flare discussion. If flares get disabled from being placed on rooftops, can't we just play the "Cannot deploy here" sound to communicate to players that they can't deploy the flare there? If players think it's dumb, then they are welcome to come and complain here, where we will be waiting to provide answers.

Yeah, actual pilotable Kirovs! They are a bit on the small side currently because they have to actually fit inside the War Factory, but we're planning on scaling them up a bit in the future. The current idea is to have them inflate as they come out of the top of the War Factory. The size and slowness is actually fine for lag! It's fast vehicles that cause issues. Here's a quick video:

ECW isn't worked on by the AR team. Stopping work on it wouldn't make a difference.

Oh it's possible, but with our limited workforce it's just not a priority.

Cheers @Romanov and @moonsense715. AR Team is best team! <3

If you keep your eyes on the server, a game or two might happen anyway.