RTS Command & Conquer Remastered Collection from Petroglyph

[Edija]

I found Act of Aggression by the same developer more appealing than Wargame as it was more in line with the cannons of the genre (i.e. proper basebuilding).

Eugen started by making C&C copies, made with heart and skill I must say. Wargame was quite the novel approach to the RTS genre. Problem with AoA is that it's a good game, done with skill, in a genre that has no chance whatsoever. Sadly dead on arrival. I'm quite disappointed by Steel Division, despite having a shitton of good ideas (the entire Division system for example instead of tiresome "factions").

Just because they aren't being made doesn't mean there's no market for them.

There is no market for them. I am not being contrarian and by the Gods I would love a good RTS gaining MP relevance nowadays, but there have been a shitton of well-developed RTS that tried again and again and again to breach the market and failed utterly. MOBAs almost gave the deathblow to the genre, and it's not a mistery that the most played RTS are still the late 90ies early 00ies ones, the golden era of the genre.

The only logical solution to the modernization of CnC is a Company of Heroes 1 approach with base buidling, tiberium/ore gathering, combat with squad and vehicle mechanics that are akin to CoH. Scale should be bigger though to allow a certain degree of freedom for turtlefags as well. It would have been pretty easy to implement it after Generals and was the logical step the game had to take.

I've never really understood why Generals 2 failed, but my guess is that they didn't find a way to monetize and cripple it properly. Hell, if you want a design disaster there's Company of Heroes 2, poster boy for cancerous MP design.

A good Generals remake with CoH-like qualities would be awesome, but .... no chance in Heaven or Hell of that happening.

Indeed, games like that will never happen. Same thing with a Stalker-like game in the CnC universe where you would explore yellow and red zones, navigate factions and mutants, ect. Its really hard to accept the fact (this is not only the case with EA) how disconnected the Devs and suits are from the playerbase and things that would really be something the market wants. Sometimes it's even hard to understand, are they really that braindead and only capable of jumping onto the next big thing (Open world survival bullshit, Battle Royale). But I guess the guys who work at these companies and have some understanding about what the community might want, due to being part of that community, seldomly have enough leverage to pull any of the big decisions.

 

[Dayyālu]

I'd be more ambivalent.

Very passionated and very good developers have kept throwing out RTS game since the end of the Golden Age, and since the mid 00ies there must have been dozens of arguably "good" or at least adequate RTS games thrown out (without even thinking, Paraworld, the aforementioned Act of Aggression, Petroglyph's output, Desserts of Kharak) and the only ones who managed to keep up are Dawn of War and Company, arguably Eugen. Everything else died.

Suits are incredibly good at following the Big Thing. I've been around enough time to see the era of the WoW-clones (imagine the millions spent in trying to copy WoW without any success! Is someone even developing new MMORPGs nowadays?) and they flat-out refuse risks. Thus, we had C&C4 that was a zero-effort game born of a repurposed Korean Free to Play, we had Generals 2 that got shafted because no way to make if a skinner box.... even this remake is merely a money grab soon to be abandoned.

I do fear the RTS market simply isn't there anymore. "Competitive" RTS aren't a thing, and MP is mostly focused on oldies. You can do a passion project and you'll have people like me and you that will buy, enjoy, and then there's no MP scene because we're like fifty people in the world. Or you can go the DoW3 way, with suits building a game that tried to be both a RTS (sequel to one of the few RTS games that managed to build both a good SP tradition out of DoW2 and a great MP tradition out of DoW1) and a MOBA and add monetization and it sucked.

RTS are dead, plain and simple. Not that it doesn't disappoint me. At least I have OpenRA for quick games....

 

[thesheeep]

RTS are dead, plain and simple. Not that it doesn't disappoint me. At least I have OpenRA for quick games....

I agree with the multiplayer part of that equation, there's just no large audience for it.
It's hard to get into, hard to git gud, hard to stay good, and really damn time intensive.
You can just get more satisfaction from easier games in MP.

But when it comes to single player RTS, or those that offer both, there are more than enough coming out.
Tooth and Tail, Loria, Conan Unconquered, They Are Billions, Spellforce 3 (+ standalone addon, even), AI War 2, Cossacks, Northgard, Dungeons series, Offworld Trading Company, A Year Of Rain, Rusted Warfare, Stronghold, ...
And I certainly forgot a lot. Plus many of these actually have some kind of multiplayer, it's just not frequented too much.

Most of these did/do well enough to afford their developers to keep going.
Sure, not all of these are copies of the classic RTS formula, but why would they? It's not like there aren't multiple approaches to any genre.
Others are obviously smaller budget games not even aiming to compete with something like SC2.

The reason that the old ones are doing so well is not because the market is dead. If it was, those remakes wouldn't be doing well. A dead genre doesn't produce commercially successful remakes of ancient games.

The reason that the old ones are doing so well is because most of the new ones just aren't nearly as good. Especially those trying to go for the classic formula. It is really that simple. Which is weird. It's like the skill to develop truly good classic base-building RTS games has been mostly lost to the ages.
Any attempt at going pretty much exactly the same route as the classics recently (from as "far back" as Grey Goo ) failed - and in all cases you could point at the game and say "no surprise, it's not as good as X was".

 

[Curious_Tongue]

but there have been a shitton of well-developed RTS that tried again and again and again to breach the market and failed utterly.

What great rts games? Those weird looking things that get released from time to time that have none of the fun or interesting parts of a C&C or Warcraft/Starcraft type game?

MOBAs almost gave the deathblow to the genre, and it's not a mistery that the most played RTS are still the late 90ies early 00ies ones, the golden era of the genre.

Never played or even watched a single MOBA game. From what little I've seen of they have almost nothing to do with the types of games I want to play.

 

[Edija]

The reason that the old ones are doing so well is not because the market is dead. If it was, those remakes wouldn't be doing well. A dead genre doesn't produce commercially successful remakes of ancient games.

This is true, especially since all the RTS games that really brought something new and were up to the level of being fun (at least), did very well. Dawn of War was a massive success, two was successful enough especially with the Elite mod, CoH 1 and 2 are probably the RTS games with the largest MP community if you exclude Starcraft. Niche games like the Men of War series have their community as well. CnC games like Generals, Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath were successes; I don't have info on how they did financially but they were received well. The question is did EA go the route with the latest CnC games being utter crap because they wanted more money or the old formula (Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath) didn't make enough money? I'm pretty sure it's the first option. Wanting more money is not an issue per se, but lacking so much sense as EA does is rare in any industry. They sit on so many franchises that are guaranteed sources of money for any semi-competent company making games yet they still somehow fail. Anything was better than CnC 4, literally anything... Generals 2, Red Alert, even a Renegade like game, yet they went for the thing that literally made them no money and there are suits that are probably so delusional to think that the franchise or genre is failing, and not their incompetent game design.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

RTS gaining MP relevance nowadays,

I'm talking about single player games. Fuck multiplayer.

 

[deuxhero]

Even if this is good, it will flop because Origin.

 

[Zeriel]

I think what really killed RTSes was when they tried to make them all tactical and removed base building. Base building was a huge part of the appeal of these games, maybe the ONLY real appeal. I also think they lost track of the fact that the audience for multiplayer RTS with esports was a completely different market segment from the singleplayer-only RTS basebuilding guys, its why the C&C collections continued to outsell new RTSes when they were still being sold.

That being said it might just be too late, maybe I'm an old man on my porch yelling at the kids on the lawn. It's true that no one wants to make a singleplayer-focused game of almost anything these days, even singleplayer franchises are obligated to include always-online and social elements now, but I think they didn't do the traditional RTS genre any favors by abandoning its core appeal.

 

[blrrmmmff]

Dota 2 is the most played game on steam right now, and has been for some time. So clearly there is demand for a top down view clicking units around. The problem is that modern gaming companies have a mostly 'we tried nothing and we are all out of options' approach.

Generally what they do is they botch a few games of a franchise/genre and then when it does not sell they cannot admit they produced shit, they just say 'oh well I guess there is no demand for this type of game'. And call anyone who was not satisfied entitled.

And these companies are run by people like this, who allocate resources and make high level decisions like in what franchises to invest:

Look at those jackoffs, do they look like they really have a finger on the pulse of consumers? Like they can see further than their large jew noses? They only see money, they cannot visualize what sort of game might be fun or not. If those companies produce a mediocre game, those guys cannot tell. Games are merely vehicles to earn money for them. They look at a pile of games of varying quality like a sort of grey blob, and the only distinction they can make is which are the ones that made money or not.

 

[Edija]

Dota 2 is the most played game on steam right now, and has been for some time. So clearly there is demand for a top down view clicking units around. The problem is that modern gaming companies have a mostly 'we tried nothing and we are all out of options' approach.

Generally what they do is they botch a few games of a franchise/genre and then when it does not sell they cannot admit they produced shit, they just say 'oh well I guess there is no demand for this type of game'. And call anyone who was not satisfied entitled.

And these companies are run by people like this, who allocate resources and make high level decisions like in what franchises to invest:

Look at those jackoffs, do they look like they really have a finger on the pulse of consumers? Like they can see further than their large jew noses? They only see money, they cannot visualize what sort of game might be fun or not. If those companies produce a mediocre game, those guys cannot tell. Games are merely vehicles to earn money for them. They look at a pile of games of varying quality like a sort of grey blob, and the only distinction they can make is which are the ones that made money or not.

That is why indie gaming is the only hope of seeing innovation and passion projects. The suits that run the big companies have replaced the guys who were really passionate about making games back then when they were starting out. The general decline of gaming is just a symptom of the fact that gaming went from "neckbeards making games for other neckbeards, perfectly aware of what neckbeards like" to what is basically an industry trying to earn as much money as possible. Once again, wanting more money for your product is not an issue per se, but the fact that the products are now focused on the money-making by design decisions is why they massively flop. Passion projects create passionate fans, and that results in money one way or the other. Toadie of DF certainly wasn't thinking about how much money he could make with DF, still he makes money of it and will make more with the Steam release. Suits don't understand, they are the equivalent of Chinese bootleggers, they just want to invest as low as possible and earn as much from it; it worked for them for a certain amount of time since they were living of the prestige of their company names, but no one sits around in 2019 expecting a game to be good just because it is Blizzard. These times have long gone.

 

[blrrmmmff]

I think what will save gaming is if we get technology where small groups who have the artistic skills can produce something interesting.

Like for example, create a optimized jungle environment that is at least partially destructible with a few mouse clicks. Or create a building, and easily mold it and alter its textures in real time in one afternoon, with real physics and little to no weird bugs that you then have to sort out. Where all the optimization has been done already by people who really know how to do that. Instead of every studio have to do all the same technical stuff over and over again (and often poorly too). Large gaming companies would quickly lose a significant part of their advantage.

Or when a more sophisticated open source model develops for games, which I think you need a really good engine for where most technical tasks are automated. Where people can reward the modders with tokens or something. This way you could also get around copyright issues, and actually produce a good Star Wars game again. It would be for the people by the people in a much more meritocratic way.

At this point you cannot really look at larger corporations to restore gaming to its former glory.

 

[Boleskine]

"Recordings lost."

Fellow Command & Conquer fans,

First we would like to say thank you for all the feedback on the gameplay teaser reveal back in October. We’ve made an effort to read every comment that came through on Reddit, along with feedback posted in Discord and other media channels. We’ve been categorizing the feedback into various buckets, and exploring which items are feasible to tackle within the original source code and our overall production schedule. Alongside this effort, the team has already been addressing some of the low-hanging fruit items, such as the team color inaccuracies called out in many of the comments.

For the update this month, we wanted to share the approach we’re taking for one of the most important characters in the franchise: EVA. We wanted to start with a behind-the-scenes story of what it was like to record the original voice over, and then describe how we’re planning to remaster this iconic character. Below is an overview from Frank Klepacki on this experience:

“Because C&C Tiberian Dawn was breaking new ground for us at the time, and the first game in the series to kick things off, our audio department was really experimenting with trying to see what would work well. We only had just begun acquiring improved gear, but we were making do with whatever limitations we had to work with, such as average microphones, preamps, and the not-so-practical rooms we recorded in. It was the wild west of development – we cast people within Westwood Studios for various voice roles. One larger voice role however, was the part of EVA. Kia Huntzinger worked at Westwood, and our Audio Director Paul Mudra thought she might be a good fit based on hearing the recorded voice messages she left on our phones and paging she did over the intercom system. In many ways, she was the unofficial voice of the company once you made it past the front door because we listened to her throughout the day. She was excited to give it a shot, and the original voice session was recorded in a padded closet! Everyone liked the quality of her voice in that role, and the rest is history.

Unfortunately the original tapes of Kia’s performance were not found – but that being said, there is definitely inherent noise, and noticeable rumble throughout the original games files, which would have needed a lot of clean up. So we did the next best thing – we hired her to reprise her role, this time in a professional recording room! And fortunately for us, she still sounds very close to the way she did years ago.”

On a personal note, I’m so excited that Kia is reprising her role as EVA in the Remaster project. As with many of you in the community, Kia’s voice has been embedded in my subconscious after playing Tiberian Dawn over the past 24 years. In the same spirit as Frank and Petroglyph themselves, Kia has brought an authenticity to the project which just couldn’t be achieved in any other way. Kia wanted to do this for the fans and approached the recording full of passion and eagerness. We’re forever thankful to Kia for contributing to this remaster journey, and hope everyone in the C&C community will appreciate her performance. As a sneak preview of this content, Frank has compiled a sampling of Kia’s original and remastered audio lines for your listening pleasure. And of course, if you do want to play the Remaster with the original voice over for nostalgia sake, we’ll have that as an option too.

Now, some of you may be asking how we’re going to approach the “Announcer” for Red Alert. In terms of history, the Red Alert announcer was performed by Martin Alper, who also happened to be the President of Virgin Interactive Entertainment at the time. Sadly, Martin Alper passed away a few years ago, and we didn’t feel it would be the same to replace his performance with another actor. So therefore we’re going to keep that in its legacy form for the Remaster, and Frank will do his best to clean up the original audio.

We know you’re eager to see more gameplay details as well (especially around Red Alert), and will aim to share more of that content in the new year. Please continue to provide your comments in the thread below, and we hope everyone has a great holiday season.

Cheers,

Jim Vessella

Jimtern

 

[Ba'al]

Looking at the 'updated' visuals I thought this was irredeemable, but the remastered soundtrack sounds great, might have to check it out just for that.

 

[MajorMace]

The campaigns of c&c were so cool I'll give it a try just for that reason. Exact same thought process for Warcraft Reforged coming this next month (albeit, risk is higher for the latter since they apparently remade the whole maps of the campaigns, brace yourselves...)

 

[Silly Germans]

Is any of the games that Petroglyph made genuinely good ? The games that i tried( Universe at War, Grey Goo ) were mediocre at best.

 

[Darth Roxor]

empire at war

 

[Curious_Tongue]

 

[Storyfag]

empire at war

That is only because it's Star Wars, and you cannot fuck up Star Wars... oh, wait.

 

[Oracsbox]

 

[Daedalos]

Are we not hyped about this?

I certainly fucking am. Everything released so far seems to be incline.

Petroglyph is the old westwood, so heres to hoping.

 

[Terra]

The spectre of EA's involvement in the project does much to temper expectations and hype. Even if this turns out well, EA is gonna EA it up with Tib Sun & RA2 next I'd bet.

I say this despite liking everything I've seen so far. We're past due for an update on how things are progressing too.

 

[Parsifarka]

Why would anyone be hyped about the remaster of a game which has been free for years together with Nyerguds' patch, or when something like OpenRA exists?
I'm certainly interested and the care they seem to be putting into it is remarkable, but I fail to see any reason to be hyped -higher definition both in visuals and sound are nice things, but there's no novelty to be excited about.
Hopefuly it'll be a correct remaster that will allow people to uninstall C&CGold and RAftermath, but that's about it; it's what a remaster is supposed to accomplish. A proper C&C4, Generals 2 or even Renegade 2 with EA betting on a long life cycle (ayyy lmao), that would be another thing.
Maybe the remaster is a sign of things to come, but we aren't that fabulously optimistic around here.

 

[luj1]

I think what will save gaming is if we get technology where small groups who have the artistic skills can produce something interesting.

Codeless engines / visual scripting

 

[Great Deceiver]

Are we not hyped about this?

I certainly fucking am. Everything released so far seems to be incline.

Petroglyph is the old westwood, so heres to hoping.

"Petroglyph is the old Westwood"

 

[Daedalos]

Are we not hyped about this?

I certainly fucking am. Everything released so far seems to be incline.

Petroglyph is the old westwood, so heres to hoping.

"Petroglyph is the old Westwood"

Not exactly the old westwood of course, but close to it. They released Grey Goo, which got good reviews