News EA announces interest in remastering Command & Conquer games!

[OWA]

In wider community news this weekend,  long time C&C developer Jim Vessella (you may remember him from such titles as C&C3 and Red Alert 3) announced EA's interest in remastering some of the older C&C titles with an aim to release in ti,e with the 25th anniversary of the franchise in 2020. Here's his statement in full.

Quote

Fellow Command & Conquer fans, 

My name is Jim Vessella, and I’m a Producer at Electronic Arts. Ten years ago I had the pleasure of being on the production team for Command & Conquer 3 and Red Alert 3, along with being the Lead Producer on Kane’s Wrath. During those years, some of my favorite moments were interacting with our passionate community, whether at our onsite Community Summits, on the forums, or while attending various events such as Gamescom. 

As most of you may know, we recently announced Command & Conquer: Rivals, a mobile game set in the Command & Conquer universe. Following the reveal of Rivals, we heard you loud and clear: the Command & Conquer community also wants to see the franchise return to PC. And as a fan of C&C for over 20 years, I couldn’t agree more. With that in mind we’ve been exploring some exciting ideas regarding remastering the classic PC games, and already have the ball rolling on our first effort to celebrate the upcoming 25th Year Anniversary. 

We are eager to hear your feedback to help influence our current thoughts for PC and what comes next. Over the next few weeks we’ll be talking to fans in a variety of ways. In the meantime, please share your thoughts here on the OpenRA forums. 

As a long time C&C fan and developer, I am just as passionate about the C&C franchise as you are, and look forward to hearing your thoughts as they help us shape the future of C&C at EA! 

Thanks! 
Jim Vessella 
Jimtern 

Jim has also been commenting on threads around the community and has already answered a few questions. Here's what we know:

• The remastered games will not contain any form of microtransactions or monetisation.
• The remasters will not be using OpenRA's engine and EA doesn't have any problems with OpenRA existing.
• Modern system compatibility will be a priority moving forward and Jim praised the modders who keep the older games compatible with newer OS's.

With all this in mind, we want to hear what you guys would like in a new C&C game! W3D Hub is now a big part of the C&C community, so we should make our voices heard!

With that in mind, here are a few questions to think about:

• 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?
  • Should UI elements from the new C&C games like sidebar tabs, multiple unit queuing etc. be part of a remaster?
  • Should waypoints, attack move and other modern RTS elements be incorporated in a remaster?
•  is there anything "sacred" you would advise NOT to change in Remaster?

Obviously feel free to add your own notes to this thread and I will make sure than Jim sees it. This is your chance to have your say in the future of the franchise! 

[thumb]thumb_w3d.1.png[/thumb][blurb]Command and Conquer remasters have been announced! Have your say right here![/blurb]

[Nodlied]

Nice! Once I have some time, I'll definately write some things down!

[MPRA2]

I was kind of hoping eyes would be set on here (in terms of the Red Alert series, more specifically APB). I highly doubt Joe Kucan will reprise his role of Kane one final time for a remaster since he now owns a studio with his brother and has moved on to "greener" fields wink wink nudge nudge.... fuck you its a tiberium joke...

It would be nice to see EA take a look at Renegade and the W3DHub community and MAYBE work together to create some sort of Official APB/AR game with its own storyline in the C&C Universe. It probably wont happen sadly.

As I stated in another post, I'd rather EA remaster the games in bulk than just remaster 1 single game at a time, kind of like what Gearbox did with Homeworld. I'd rather them not completely remaster Generals or C&C3/RA3 since it will kind of screw with the large modding base that the games already have since they will most likely use Frostbite (which isnt too horribly modder friendly) to modernize C&C with destructibility (and its EA's go-to engine).

Better yet.... EA should pull up Tiberium, modernize it a bit, finish it, and slap us in the face with a cancelled masterpiece.

Do it EA.

Make up for your Mobile Mistake.

Edited October 14, 2018 by MPRA2

[MechanicalThighs]

I can't really comment on game balancing, but I do think that modern elements from the newer games should be added into the remastered games. C&C 3 has some super solid systems, and I love how intuitive and easy to use the sidebar is. Although I think there should be both a "modern" sidebar, and a "classic" sidebar, because I'm still more comfortable using the older style, and it'd be a nice change-up. I'd also really like to see the multiple build queues. It made building defenses and constructing attack forces much easier, while also making recovery quicker and less stressful.

 

As far as "sacred" things I don't want to see, I don't want to see the games blend together. Each C&C game had it's own unique feeling, it's own unique look, and I want those kept. The original two games should feel a bit more serious, more realistic in a way, than, say, RA2 or YR's very cheesy, almost cartoony style. Likewise, I want a potential TS remaster to have it's dark tones intact. As well, I don't want the music changed. I don't want Frank's tracks remixed at all, unless they bring him back to do it himself.

[thedisclaimitory]

55 minutes ago, MPRA2 said:

 

Make up for your Mobile Mistake.

well EA is a walking talking mobile mistake even if they get rid of there pay to win but I'm just hoping pay to win is just going to be super mild and not overly used for example we get the ability to have like say a super units and 3 new other units as for dlc it might costs idk its EA so lets say 20 bucks and premium uh 40 bucks plus the game ultimate edition includes all the remasterd games including early access for all the games um lets say at the least 120 bucks in total maybe 10-20 less including all dlc if they have any , now this is in American currency but what I am afraid is will they add new units to balance out others now hopefuly if they go for new units in this route I dont want them to over do it maybe they will add units that were taken away from the game before release or that was on the drawing board but taken off because it was maybe to op like I saw a spider walker type unit for the soviets  but it was never added and Im also afraid that if ra2 remasterd is gonna turn out to be like ra3 but even then hopefuly it wont suck because remastering the redalert games and or the tib series was my ultimate dream because I would always see those games like halo wars halo wars 2 and sometimes think why cant the tib series or the red alert series have these graphics witch was why I kinda stopped playing ra and  the tib series for a long time and why I was an off and on player but even then its a good game but I would love a remaster this cause is for classic games in 4k ultra hd or somthing like that but hopefuly it will include a frostbite engine of some sort to make it look stunning

[NodGuy]

Question: How much "updating" is acceptable? Balance changes, usability improvements, UI improvements...?
Answer: No balance changes! All this should do is provide a better paint job and make it work with modern systems. Maybe even workable on consoles.

Question: Should the balance be changed or stay the same? Or should there be a "classic" mode and a "remastered" mode?
Answer: Stay the same. Keep your ideas of 'better balance' in a new game.

Question: Should UI elements from the new C&C games like sidebar tabs, multiple unit queuing etc. be part of a remaster?
Answer: Yes.

Question: Should waypoints, attack move and other modern RTS elements be incorporated in a remaster?
Answer: Yes.

Question: Is there anything "sacred" you would advise NOT to change in Remaster?
Answer: The art style of the games. Don't make Tiberian Sun look more like C&C3 or Red Alert 1 look more like RA3. Keep it true to the theme of the game, but just with modernised graphics.

[Threve]

Don’t touch the music

Don’t touch the Units

and don’t touch Kane.

 

[Kaskins]

If I were EA to remaster an existing game, I would hope they have a better support for modding communities as Mods create new Game Genre, take a look at how Counter-Strike exist.

If possible make it possible by updating the existing game engine with enhanced stuff like how Skyrim was Remaster as the old mods can be port over rather quite easily, this is part of how Skyrim game engine works but of course this takes time and money. If EA really really really wants to make cash, they really needs to support modding communities and make a tool for them easily to access and build what the players envision and see stuff.

-ARMA2 sales has sky rocket when Dayz was announced. ( This is due to mod )

-Skyrim and Skyrim Special Edition (Remaster) has a lot of sales due to Mod support again.

-Do you want me to explain how Garry's Mod was so successful?

I presumed EA had SAGE source codes and they are kept in archive somewhere. Probably won't be that hard with the resource and manpower they had, but again this is what I think. I could be wrong. If a fan made product can be better than a official triple A's title product, that is back by a corporate giant multi billion dollar company, than there is something wrong somewhere.

I understand the whole Remaster thing about making more $$$. EA is a buisness company, not a video game developer. 😛

 

[Vancer2]

Redo CNC4. Thats all I care for. I wont have my memories of old command and conquer games ruined because they cant come up with an original idea for a game. We dont need "remasters" we have modders that essentially do a better job than the poor underpaid employees EA has under their employ. FUCK EA please DO NOT give them your money. Everyone wants to do reboots. REBOOT the piece of shit ending that command and conquer actually deserved.

Can we get the License taken away from them somehow?

Edited October 15, 2018 by Vancer2

[Bluesummers]

Ill buy it because I am a sucker

[Raap]

Using TS/FS as an example, I believe a re-master should include, but also not go beyond:

• Updated art assets that match the existing aesthetic. For example they could update all the TS/FS vehicle 'models' to be more consistent, as the ones the game shipped with were very hit and miss in terms of appearances.
• Updated environments to include more varied assets that match the setting. This including fixing the later FS campaign missions which Westwood rushed to the point where the very final missions were just a raw terrain layout with no props.
• Update audio by adding additional effects and improving the less good ones.
• Redone music. As much as we love Frank's old tracks, new tracks would be a more worthy addition.
• Updated cutscene quality by using less compression and better resolution scaling. The old cutscenes should NOT be remade (this would simply cost too much and risk losing a lot of the 'charm' of the games).
• Update the engine to make use of modern OS's and technology. This is no doubt not an easy task and likely involves re-writing a lot of the engine(s).
• Update long standing issues such as unit pathfinding and better matchmaking for multiplayer.
• Update long standing game and content issues that most people did not enjoy. For TS/FS mainly the Hunter-Seeker droid comes to mind.
• Moderately enhance the game with gentle additions such as properly enabling the 5 TS/FS Tiberium types, and allowing random meteors and ion storms to occur without having to edit ini files. It could also be a great opportunity to add axed features, such as the day/night cycle and buildable light posts/spotlight towers.
• UI enhancements.
• Last but not least, a re-master, if proven successfull, should include an optional paid-for expansion pack that adds content akin to traditional expansion packs (campaign, new units, new game modes). For TS/FS specifically it could bridge the gap to C&C3, but also present the opportunity to retcon some unpopular decisions (lack of Tiberium life and CABAL, and the near-removal of the Forgotten in C&C3).

Core gameplay and aesthetics should remain the same.

Edited October 15, 2018 by Raap

[FORCE]

These are my two cents on the 'Remaster/Revive' C&C Project by EA.

First of all, i actually don't want it. With all due respect to any respectable Developer, EA has already done enough damage to Westwood/EA L.A./C&C In general.

Are killing franchises and Studios alike left and right. I rather have C&C stay dead as it is. At least it's history and Origins are as good as ever. With EA touching that as well in 2018 again, I fear the worst.

Moving on from there. This is the following that I find important in a Remaster for C&C.

 

1: The best way to Remaster C&C is by starting at Tiberium Dawn. Simple because there are many games in the C&C Franchise and they all deserve a Remaster (Tiberium Twilight needs a complete rebooth).

2: Like the others said, unless the Cutscenes can be done again with the same level of quality (which I doubt) Keep the Cutscenes and at best update them or similar but don't remove them.

3: Don't SJW-Butcher like The Universe or Characters, Kane is Kane, not Kanyia, just to please some people with fragile ego's.

4: No DLC, or Micro Transactions in any way or form. Most of the buyers already bought these games before so it's stealing so to say to have them buy the game again, and the DLC's / Expansion Packs plus have micro transactions shoved into them.

5: Don't touch the Lore, to change it and with that I mean the core of the Lore like Dawn, Sun or Red Alert 1 and 2. 

6: Don't make the game mechanics cheesy or gimmicky for 'Meh Competitive Scene' like StarCraft or MOBA's do.

Rather a Remaster should Improve the franchise, the AI, the world, Base Buildings, Units, Pathfinding, how to make it even more of a RTS game. 

This is your guys chance to show RTS players 'EA cares' by making C&C Remaster a game that we didn't cheese trough, but playes trough and the same goes for Multiplayer.

7: Dedicated Online Multiplayer and Co - Op / LAN / Splitscreen support with proper balancing.

8: Full Mod Support. This one is a must. Command and Conquer, if not al of Westwoods legacy lives on ever since 2010 if not since Tiberium Wars or before for a important chunk due to the Modders. This is a good way to pay respect and support to those who put countless hours into the Franchise that was left behind by it's Devs but not dropped on the ground by it's fans. And let's be fair, everyone would love to Mod a Remaster C&C.

9:  Do it right or don't do it at all.

 

That's all.

 

 

[TIberiumGhost]

There are some things I have to say about this. On one hand, there are a few things that bother me. 1) EA (aka Electronic Arts) was the publishing company responsible for watering down the franchise into something mainstream (e.g. Tiberium Twilight and Tiberium Alliances) and thus butchering this beloved franchise to DEATH for the sake of the lowest common denominator. 2) A Command and Conquer Remaster? Didn't Blizzard remaster the original Starcraft a few years back? I wonder where the remaster idea came from. Hmm, I can't seem to figure it out. That is what I suspect. 3) If there is going to be a Remaster at all, I would prefer Petroglyph do it. Since Petroglyph is composed of most of the original developers of Command and Conquer and Westwood studios. Let the original developers have a hand or say in the franchise they helped to create at the very least.

Now, on the other hand, if this remaster is proposed by a True Command and Conquer fan like the rest of us, I say give them a chance. If EA doubles down on what they are known for, the franchise won't be revived. It will still be dead. HOWEVER, if these developers actually want to make a remaster that is GOOD, in other words redeem themselves, they have a green light from me. The only way to find out is to give these EA devs a chance.

My opinion on the questions to keep in mind about this remaster?

   The balance for the most part should stay the same.

   I don't mind the idea of the UI being streamlined, as long as the UI keeps most of its C&C feel.

   I can accept a UI out of, say, C&C3 or OpenRA. Clean and some really useful functions and commands like production queuing, organized tabs, waypoints, and attack move would be fantastic.

[thedisclaimitory]

17 hours ago, Threve said:

Don’t touch the music

Don’t touch the Units

and don’t touch Kane.

 

not if they can do a good job "have faith brother" kane said

and kane should be left alone the units need more words or well more stuff for them to say idk what the name for that is                                                                                                                              and the music I think they could remix them a little bit if they can do it the right way like a lot of other people have done on the internet or just use Frank Klepacki to remaster his music and after all it is a remaster not going for stuff like that is well a little lazy I should say dont be a Sheldon cooper to command and counquer if EA want to do it the right way if they do it the wrong way I would get pissed off more like a guy who goes to the bar gets drunk because EA made me depressed and in the morning a very very unhappy and a grumpy old man who has nothing to do but be angry because his child left him to well drop out of high school of course because c&c is like a child to me

[Quake]

Support Dune,C&C renegade,generals and freecode, thats the only wae of ugandan people i mean the only way to make C&C great again

[Cat]

Support the classics! The only thing I want to see changed in a remaster are bug fixes, compatibility for newer windows and better harvester pathfinding. Don't fix anything that's not broken.

And I would like to see a Sole Survivor remastered.

[Nodlied]

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.

[GraYaSDF]

As somebody from russian forums said... movies. In Full HD. I want them so hard. Especially from Command And Conquer Renegade and Red Alert 1. I hope that something still exists on video cassettes or on hard drives.

And also... music. Some tracks do not exist in high quality, for example, I cannot find Fogger or Map Select from the first Red Alert. I could make a remake of that, I have necessary Roland samples and instruments and stuff, but have no specific mood to finish that, and I still hope there is a possibility to restore that in at least 128 kbps.

Also... if players already bought the Ultimate Collection in Origin, I think it is better to make a 50% discount for them.

[FORCE]

15 hours ago, TIberiumGhost said:

There are some things I have to say about this. On one hand, there are a few things that bother me. 1) EA (aka Electronic Arts) was the publishing company responsible for watering down the franchise into something mainstream (e.g. Tiberium Twilight and Tiberium Alliances) and thus butchering this beloved franchise to DEATH for the sake of the lowest common denominator. 2) A Command and Conquer Remaster? Didn't Blizzard remaster the original Starcraft a few years back? I wonder where the remaster idea came from. Hmm, I can't seem to figure it out. That is what I suspect. 3) If there is going to be a Remaster at all, I would prefer Petroglyph do it. Since Petroglyph is composed of most of the original developers of Command and Conquer and Westwood studios. Let the original developers have a hand or say in the franchise they helped to create at the very least.

^ That, let Petroglyph Develop it and EA can then Publish it *Get's flashbacks to the early 2000's* , oh wait...

And don't fix what's not broken as others already said.

[OWA]

16 hours ago, TIberiumGhost said:

 3) If there is going to be a Remaster at all, I would prefer Petroglyph do it. Since Petroglyph is composed of most of the original developers of Command and Conquer and Westwood studios. Let the original developers have a hand or say in the franchise they helped to create at the very least.

 

15 minutes ago, FORCE said:

^ That, let Petroglyph Develop it and EA can then Publish it *Get's flashbacks to the early 2000's* , oh wait...

And don't fix what's not broken as others already said.

Just a quick FYI, whilst a lot of the developers that worked at Petroglyph were developers that previously worked at Westwood, this is not as true now as it was back in 2003 when Petroglyph was formed. 

People move on to new jobs and now there aren't as many ex-Westwood developers left at Petroglyph as some people would leave you to believe.

Stay informed guys.  

[Testament]

FIX THE MULTIPLAYER!
Desyncs everywhere, all the time. It can be nearly impossible to play a game with bots on RA2, or Generals. I want to play games of Generals with people online so badly, but it almost never goes through and we end up just giving up nearly immediately.

UPDATE FOR USE ON MODERN SYSTEMS
Heck, even with the first decade back on Vista I had to fight with it to get it to work. It would be nice to just download or drop that disc in and fire it up and have it work.

PHYSICAL COPY
One thing I really love, is that I always have a physical copy of The First Decade sitting on my shelf. Looks good and keeps me from having to constantly download it.

PROPER ADVERTISING

Get another generation interested in RTS games, it's a dying genre and most of the youth don't even know they exist. I have nephews who's eyes light up when I tell them they can play with army men on the computer with explosions and tanks and what have you. C&C is an accessible series where you don't have to be a micro wizard in order to be at least a bit competitive, and have fun.

PACKAGE LINKS TO VARIOUS COMMUNITIES ON THE INSTALL
C&C is at its best when it's modded IMO. I have spent more time playing Renegade mods than any other game over the course of my time here on this earth. Tiberian Sun comes in a close second. You get people into the fan sites and modding communities and you reinvigorate your brand. 
Now if you wanna get serious, a nice remaster of RA1 and Tib Dawn with some updated, yet faithful visuals would be utterly swell. However, I can hold my breathe on that and ask for better resolution, and the abolition of 1 click unit building micromanagement. I would also like to see a graphical update to Generals, because out of all the games that one has aged the worst IMO.

Also, it needs more PLECOSTOMUS's if you want to succeed.

PS: IceReaper from OpenRA is right, I also wanna see a redone C&C 4 (throw the rest of that crap out the window and forget that it even happened) that's at least respectful of all the work that went into the series before it and gives an actual ending instead of this gutter trash:

Spoiler

 

HEY LETS SLAM A CONCEPT ART PORTAL ONTO A BLANK WHITE SCREEN! SHOVE IT OUT THE DOOR BOYS!
You can tell there was little to no love put into that game, and its the only C&C I never actually purchased after buying them close to release day for a decade. Bring my faith back, but it'll be hard to do.
 

[Vancer2]

EA doesn't care about its customers. They never will. They will set an impossible due date. And rush it out for sales. We wont get what we want, with EA no one wins. Just leave it alone in the shallow grave where EA left it. Dont dig it up.

 

[Maraneshi]

12 hours ago, GraYaSDF said:

And also... music. Some tracks do not exist in high quality, for example, I cannot find Fogger or Map Select from the first Red Alert. I could make a remake of that, I have necessary Roland samples and instruments and stuff, but have no specific mood to finish that, and I still hope there is a possibility to restore that in at least 128 kbps.

Frank has high quality versions of the tracks streaming on his website, so they definitely exist!

[GraYaSDF]

12 hours ago, Dghelneshi said:

Frank has high quality versions of the tracks streaming on his website, so they definitely exist!

Never be sure that everything was preserved in its original form. Few projects were lost completely, some weren't. Also, there is one problem there. As he said to me, he does not own the necessary rights to record or even release something for Command & Conquer series. I guess, maybe even some project files, but... if EA ask him to do remakes... who knows, maybe they together will find those ancient folders and restore WAVE-recordings from there and re-write whole songs.

Anyway, it is just a matter of time for Frank to make a similar copy of or to remake that or this melody. As he said in our last interview, he can easily make something in Red Alert style, and Fogger was one of suggested examples. He has ancient vintage instruments from that age when he was writing songs for classic C&C, I relatively recently got samples from them too and some new extra also, so... can't wait for remakes, really)) Since his music is constantly evolving, maybe his remakes will sound better.

[GraYaSDF]

So, it will be nice moment for me to come back and write few new songs too, hah.

[Nodlied]

Alright then, time for round two!
 

Music

A no brainer, but still worth a mention. Good music has been part of Command and Conquer since the beginning. Most games have awesome tracks that pretty much everyone still remembers. However, some games have some forgettable soundtracks. The worst offender was Command and Conquer 3. That said, Cnc3 is only a minority and pretty much every other game has had a great soundtrack. 
 

Unit movement and reaction speed

One of the bigger annoyances with the Generals 2/Cnc2013 beta was the fact that the game used a Starcraft like movement system. Units would turn around instantly and had a robotic like nature when it came to movement. Starcraft units can do 180 degree turns the moment you give an order in the opposite direction. Command and Conquer wasn't ever like this. In Cnc, units had a traverse time and acceleration. Turreted units also had a turret traverse. This movement and reaction speed provided additional dept to the game without making it mandatory to know. High skilled players could use the slower reaction time and movement to their advantage to gain the first shot advantage to win a battle, or, in some cases, even use a quick unit like a Scorpion tank to run rings around an Overlord tank. This in turn means that bigger units with their slower movement, their slower acceleration and their slower turret traverse come with disadvantages. If you use a starcraft like system, these disadvantages wouldn't exist.
 

Easy to learn, somewhat difficult to master

One of Cnc's best qualities stem from this point. Everybody could jump in, fight against an easy AI and build up their bases after which they could steamroll the AI. Most things in Command and Conquer teach you as to what they do without telling you. You know that infantry with rockets are good against tanks and that cannons can wreck vehicles and buildings. The game's interface is also intuitive. This is good game design. Most players, especially today's generation, don't like being told how things work. Cnc allowed you to learn by playing. And once you got better, the quickmatch system allowed you to try multiplayer against a similiar skilled oponent as well. And when you hit the high skilled matches, the players will have learned all the tiny quirks that the earlier players had no idea even existed such as the movement and reaction speed tactics discovered earlier, or the fact that you can use a prop to block a shot form the enemy, etc.
 

Graphical choices

I haven't got a clue whether or not the remaster will be done in 2d or 3d, but I do have an opinion on the matter.
If 2d, then the game should obviously use higher res versions of the graphics of the game that it was based on (or at least similar enough). If 3d, then well, that's an entirely different story. In 3d there are two real sollid choices. The first is to base the 3d models on the ingame sprites of the old game. If we take Red Alert, for example, the gunboat would be a silly and tiny ship with a deck gun the size of a machine gun whilst the heavy tank would be really similiar to the medium tank, be it with an antena and an additional gun barrel.
The second option with 3d is to model the units and buildings after what the original devs intended them to be. Some are already visibile in the old game such as: the advanced powerplant, the chronotank, and the ore truck. However, some are not. The heavy tank is supposed to represent a dual-barreled T-80 while the medium tank was supposed to represent an Abrams despite the similarities of the sprites.
As you can see, there are many choices to consider, but what is most important is that the players can recognise the older game in the remastered one. And, well, the Command and Conquer games always displayed the units as if they could work in the universe. Grey Goo suffered from un-intuitive and boring unit design. That hasn't ever been the case with Cnc.

 

Camera angle

One of the things that is more popular in newer RTS games is to put the camera in a Starcraft like position, that is, an almost complete top-down view.  Command and Conquer, even during its 2d days had a more slanted angle that didn't allow you to look around each building while, at the same time, it allowed you to look a bit into the distance on the top of your screen. It was more of a cone than a square that's what made the Cnc camera so great. The Starcraft approach makes the game seem like it's a toy. After all, most children play with their toys from Starcraft-like top-down position. Cnc's camera always made the game feel more real and alive.

 

Closing thoughts (for now)

In the end I'm quite exited about a Command and Conquer remaster and while I was sceptical at first, the guarantee that there will be no micro-transactions has made that worry void. There hasn't been a good classic-style RTS in a long time and the fact that the game is a remaster only shows that we're going back to what made these games great. That said, if the game does offer a classic mode together with a remastered mode, then I can only be exited. The classic mode is tried and tested while the remastered mode allows for experimentation for (potential) future titles. If the game comes with good online matchmaking and good streaming/commentating integration then I suppose that the game will become better known outside of the older community, which will allow for more people to flock to the game. 
 

Once again, best of luck with the development of the game!

[Raap]

On 10/16/2018 at 6:41 PM, OWA said:

 

Just a quick FYI, whilst a lot of the developers that worked at Petroglyph were developers that previously worked at Westwood, this is not as true now as it was back in 2003 when Petroglyph was formed. 

People move on to new jobs and now there aren't as many ex-Westwood developers left at Petroglyph as some people would leave you to believe.

Stay informed guys.  

They also never made a single good RTS title, and the stuff they create nowadays isn't even worth mentioning.

They got lucky with C&C.

[MechanicalThighs]

Raap, I wouldn't say everything Petroglyph did is crap, they did quite well with Star Wars: Empire at War. It wasn't incredible, but everything was solid. Space combat was fantastic, land combat was, admittedly a bit mediocre, but decent. I think it was a great game, and I personally have a few hundred hours put into it, and it still has a dedicated fanbase that loves to mod the hell out of it.

[thedisclaimitory]

I swear if there dooing a total remaster of renagade with new kind of multiplayer im sold  im buying the series cnc remasterd pakage 

[NodGuy]

2 hours ago, MechanicalThighs said:

Raap, I wouldn't say everything Petroglyph did is crap, they did quite well with Star Wars: Empire at War. It wasn't incredible, but everything was solid. Space combat was fantastic, land combat was, admittedly a bit mediocre, but decent. I think it was a great game, and I personally have a few hundred hours put into it, and it still has a dedicated fanbase that loves to mod the hell out of it.

I fucking LOVE Empire at War, its expansion Forces of Corruption, and all of the mods from the community. I’ll actually admit that I enjoined it more than any C&C game.