Popular Post OWA Posted May 9, 2017 Popular Post Report Share Posted May 9, 2017 Kotaku UK have featured W3D Hub in a fairly lengthy article that sheds a nice light on what Command & Conquer-related projects we are working on. A while back I met a freelance journalist who was really interested in covering the work that we do here. Over the course of a few months, I gave them some info about the community and the result was this article! A link to the article can be found right here: http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2017/05/02/the-renegades-remaking-command-conquer-as-firstperson-shooters Although it's great to get acknowledged by a major gaming publication, there are unfortunately a few inaccuracies that are mentioned in the article. I've listed the facts below to set the record straight: Renegade was a 2002 game, not a 2005 game @OWA is currently moonlighting as a Seconded Game Designer at creative Assembly, so no longer a Tester (for now) Renegade X was in development as far back as 2007, so the devs didn't all leave to make Reborn in 2011 as the article suggests @OWA didn't have much of a hand in the handing over of Reborn at all. That task was masterminded by @Wallywood, who made sure that the game was in good hands before moving it back over to what was then Bluehell Productions It's Nod, not NOD (old joke is old) MCT terminals, i.e. Master Control Terminal Terminals Reborn doesn't feature Thieves The section about 2009 graphics upgrades is uninformed. Here's the scoop straight from @saberhawk: "We slowly took over the rendering engine and rebuilt most of it a few times; the original game was D3D8 (DirectX 8), all the latest things are D3D11 (DirectX 11)" Even with these inacurracies, it's really great to see this level of attention from a major game news site (even if it's only from the UK branch of Kotaku) and get our message out there that C&C isn't quite dead yet. This shows that even though we're creating games on an older engine, it still continues to spark interest, which I think is amazing. I'm really proud of what we achieve every day here and I think we should all enjoy being in the limelight as one of the few teams still standing that is continuing to carry the banner for the Command & Conquer franchise and fans everywhere! With improvements and new site features on the way, W3D Hub is going to be a community that will be around for years to come! Stay tuned for more good stuff right here! [blurb]Kotaku UK have covered W3D Hub in an exciting news article, featuring our very own OWA![/blurb] [thumb]thumb_tsr.j.png[/thumb] 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NodGuy Posted May 9, 2017 Report Share Posted May 9, 2017 This is awesome news! Hopefully this brings in more players. 6 minutes ago, OWA said: It's Nod, not NOD (old joke is old) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZ-Stalker Posted May 9, 2017 Report Share Posted May 9, 2017 Good to see some outside exposure as always, but I really wish the author hadn't used that Arty shot for the only picture that features TSR out of all the shots we supplied. Oh well - next time then. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mojoman Posted May 10, 2017 Report Share Posted May 10, 2017 Oh wow! That's really cool! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raap Posted May 10, 2017 Report Share Posted May 10, 2017 (edited) Any publicity is good publicity. Although APB's activity has dramatically improved in the recent weeks, the server is more packed than empty now and I personally believe that is due to game and server visibility issues being resolved. Frequent patches also help. Edited May 10, 2017 by Raap 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Testament Posted May 10, 2017 Report Share Posted May 10, 2017 I think that the more external publicity there is the better. I have encountered folks who have had problems with the W3DHub Launcher and view its as "sketchy" or illegitimate. The more exposure there is about how this is a grass roots effort by fans to extend the life of a cult game will ensure the survival of these mods and Renegade. There needs to be even more tertiary exposure, you damn well know people would be better off playing this in their downtime in lieu of some mobile freemium game. I hope to see more of this in the future, because it enhances the legitimacy of these projects and informs the public that they are indeed going forward with EA's blessing. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raap Posted May 10, 2017 Report Share Posted May 10, 2017 (edited) Just one comment, I do think referring to these projects as 'mods of renegade' is somewhat invalid. Mods are changes to gameplay based on the engine a game shipped with. W3D launched in 2002, but when you then apply 15 additional years of community driven engine development you start to reach a point where calling it a mod is discrediting to the work of the programming team. Then there is the fact that during BHP days, EA actually gave full permission to allow these projects to be marketed as independent games (providing no profit is generated due to using the C&C IP), and even outright gave the W3D source assets they still had - the full source code was lost, not even EA has it. But according to Jonwil, everything but the AI pathfind generation has been reverse engineered and updated, with this last thing being quite complicated. So essentially, the community has code in their hands that EA does not, top that off with an incredible number of code changes over the years, and you're more looking at a W3D 2.0 than the W3D that shipped in 2002. The vast majority of true modifications offer no engine improvements due to various reasons. You can look at a mod for C&C Generals and recognising it as a C&C Generals mod. If you compare Renegade to for example, APB, you'd not see the comparison, and the few connections you do see - victory by base destruction - is actually there by design due to both games being C&C inspired shooters (to further add to my point; APB features gameplay not native to the 2002 W3D engine in various levels). Edited May 10, 2017 by Raap 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedisclaimitory Posted May 10, 2017 Report Share Posted May 10, 2017 WHAT IF LIKE MAYBE 1,000 PLAYERS JOIN w3dhub the servers would be full nd many servers would have to be created but would w3dhub get money and get more technology and upgrades and speed the production of the games and the release of them like take for instance AR it's NOT fully developed yet but it's almost done like maybe half or maybe more if it will be released in July this year then we will be happy i not than maybe december if not that than its it 2020 will be the release 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raap Posted May 11, 2017 Report Share Posted May 11, 2017 2 hours ago, thedisclaimitory said: rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble rabbleh rabblueah babblah rabbluah rabbleh rabble rabble rabble W3DHub cannot accept revenue from the games provided. However to host services like game servers, donations are accepted. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NodGuy Posted May 11, 2017 Report Share Posted May 11, 2017 3 hours ago, thedisclaimitory said: WHAT IF LIKE MAYBE 1,000 PLAYERS JOIN w3dhub the servers would be full nd many servers would have to be created but would w3dhub get money and get more technology and upgrades and speed the production of the games and the release of them like take for instance AR it's NOT fully developed yet but it's almost done like maybe half or maybe more if it will be released in July this year then we will be happy i not than maybe december if not that than its it 2020 will be the release 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirJustin90 Posted May 11, 2017 Report Share Posted May 11, 2017 Anything that brings in more friends to help the community grow is great! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OWA Posted May 11, 2017 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2017 23 hours ago, Raap said: Just one comment, I do think referring to these projects as 'mods of renegade' is somewhat invalid. Mods are changes to gameplay based on the engine a game shipped with. W3D launched in 2002, but when you then apply 15 additional years of community driven engine development you start to reach a point where calling it a mod is discrediting to the work of the programming team. Then there is the fact that during BHP days, EA actually gave full permission to allow these projects to be marketed as independent games (providing no profit is generated due to using the C&C IP), and even outright gave the W3D source assets they still had - the full source code was lost, not even EA has it. But according to Jonwil, everything but the AI pathfind generation has been reverse engineered and updated, with this last thing being quite complicated. So essentially, the community has code in their hands that EA does not, top that off with an incredible number of code changes over the years, and you're more looking at a W3D 2.0 than the W3D that shipped in 2002. The vast majority of true modifications offer no engine improvements due to various reasons. You can look at a mod for C&C Generals and recognising it as a C&C Generals mod. If you compare Renegade to for example, APB, you'd not see the comparison, and the few connections you do see - victory by base destruction - is actually there by design due to both games being C&C inspired shooters (to further add to my point; APB features gameplay not native to the 2002 W3D engine in various levels). I think that marketing our projects as independent games, (whilst EA said we could release them as standalones) is a risky move due to the legal implications. By saying that our projects are Renegade mods, it instantly sets it apart from your average free-to-play games that may or may not have monetisation. With a mod you always know it's going to be free, which at first glance is good at getting our message across that we are free forever. I think that the best way to describe the projects would be standalone total-conversion mods. We started with a game, Renegade, and built off of that; so I think that classification fits us well without stepping into the murky waters of indie, free-to-play and freemium games. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raap Posted May 11, 2017 Report Share Posted May 11, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, OWA said: I think that marketing our projects as independent games, (whilst EA said we could release them as standalones) is a risky move due to the legal implications. By saying that our projects are Renegade mods, it instantly sets it apart from your average free-to-play games that may or may not have monetisation. With a mod you always know it's going to be free, which at first glance is good at getting our message across that we are free forever. I think that the best way to describe the projects would be standalone total-conversion mods. We started with a game, Renegade, and built off of that; so I think that classification fits us well without stepping into the murky waters of indie, free-to-play and freemium games. You'd just be limiting the appeal. Many players don't bother with mods, and the word 'mod' comes with the notion that a game is required to run them - "stand-alone mod" is a term nobody really heard of before and is easily overlooked. During BHP days EA gave the go-ahead towards doing whatever with the sole condition that no profit was generated. But your concerns aren't totally misplaced, since those loose agreement were with BHP and a C&C development team, two parties that no longer exist. Nothing was ever agreed with on paper and all it could take is one ill-informed EA legal employee to do what EA remains infamous for. That being said, consider reaching out to EA at one point to try and clear things up? Lastly, my post mainly focused on the fairness of the mod classification being somewhat discrediting to all the code reworks on the engine over the years. W3D projects are no more or less 'mods' than any games based on, for example, the unreal engine. Both W3D games and those games use modified engines that were not created from scratch in-house, the only difference is the paperwork (aka, money was paid). From purely a development perspective there is no differentiation to be made. Edited May 11, 2017 by Raap 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mojoman Posted May 12, 2017 Report Share Posted May 12, 2017 Just be like 'Hey EA can we pay you 10 bucks for the licence to this 15 year old engine?' They'd probably be up for it.. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedisclaimitory Posted May 12, 2017 Report Share Posted May 12, 2017 (edited) If EA joined w3dhub I would say hell no why because they destroyed command and conquer and after they have finished with joining us they would say ha ha we take over your company and we destory command and conquer and we finished it so bye bye wedhub or w3dhub Edited May 12, 2017 by thedisclaimitory Spelling 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invader_Zim Posted May 20, 2017 Report Share Posted May 20, 2017 Great article, it was how I found APB (beta) back in the day in gameinformer (I think) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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