December Community Summit The NDA from the December C&C; 3 summit no longer applies, as you might have guessed. Lately we've seen tons of new previews and summit write-ups revealing new info. HeXetic's complete report is now up, and you can expect a video soon.
C&C3; Music: Steve Jablonsky? There's some hard evidence pointing to film-industry composer Steve Jablonsky being tasked with C&C3;'s soundtrack; have a look for yourself and then come sound off on C&C3;'s soundtrack in the forums.
Battlestations Midway Join epic, large-scale naval combat in this World War II RTS on FilePlanet.com
Photoshop THIS! for January 24 After a long pause, our PST is back in motion. Results of the C&C; WordMash contest are up!
Community Summit Wrap-Up The C&C; 3 December summit NDA is lifted, and HeXetic brings you new goodies.
Sunday, 28 January, 2007 – Planet CnC News
TACTICS Update 14:45 PST | Dario | Print News | Mail News The guys working on The Awakened Kingdom: The Initial Chaotic Strike (TAKTICS) have released lovely new pictures showing the in-game terrain. Believe it or not, this is actually a Yuri's Revenge mod! Check it out:
I've posted about TACTICS a few times in the past, and it's amazing how the mod is coming along.
Aliens = Scrin 14:23 PST | Dario | Print News | Mail News In case you haven't heard, the secret alien message from the C&C; 3 newsletter has been decoded. It says the following:
MESSAGE FROM THE SCRIN WE ARE COMING"
This means that the C&C; 3 aliens are indeed called the Scrin. Everyone has been sensing this since the announcement of the alien faction, but now it is official.
First up, and simplest, is word that a 150-MB official fansite kit is now available with fonts, logos, and tons of as-yet-unreleased assets - I'll go through this shortly and sift out the new-stuff wheat from the seen-it-already chaff.
Those pesky third-faction aliens have yet another secret message for us today and there's a prize of a FREE copy of the special "Kane Edition" of C&C3; to whoever decodes the message first. Here's the pic:
And here's where you post your answer, though I should warn you that a half-dozen people have already posted the answer of "Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars", which hasn't yet been confirmed as being right, but certainly sounds believable. Hey, how about lobbing a tough one at us, Predator?
Update: Predator says that the secret message is not the title of the game, though the title does have something to do with the eventual decoding -- so, in other words, keep working, 'cuz the prize is still up for grabs!
But if that contest is all but over, there's another one that you can still win - for an even bigger prize. EA is sponsoring a new wallpaper contest, the prize pack for which is not merely a free game from EA, nor even a free game plus a free copy of the Kane Edition of C&C3;, no the big prize is that the top three will get put on the Kane Edition DVD itself! Imagine your wallpaper immortalized forever... on somewhere other than my desktop.
The Command & Conquer 3 development team will pick the best 3 wallpapers to be included in the Kane Edition. Their judgement will be based on originality, creativity, and sticking to the overall theme of Command & Conquer 3. All entries must be submitted by February 9th, Midnight, Pacific Standard Time.
You've got two weeks to put together your wallpaper, so read over the rules and then get cracking!
But finally, and most importantly, is a new "Making the Game" blog post by God himself, Greg Black - also known as BFME/BFMEII's "Mr. INI" and C&C3;'s Mr. Awesome Balance Man. This blog post is entitled "The Art of Balancing". Mr. Black starts off strong with an appeal to the hard-core:
Here is a little bit of trivia that you might find useful should you find yourself playing Trivial Pursuit: Obscure RTS Designers Edition: I’ve played every Command & Conquer game ever published on the PC, including Sole Survivor!
It's not all about how awesome Greg Black is, sometimes he talks about how awesome his work is as well:
I start by testing the effectiveness of a Predator Tank against another Predator Tank. Using my trusty stopwatch, I time how long and how many shots it takes one Predator to kill another. If it takes too long, the unit won’t feel satisfying and if it’s too fast, people won’t have time to micromanage their units out of danger. Finding the initial combat effectiveness of a side’s main battle tank is the cornerstone off of which I balance the entire faction.
Having established an admittedly very rough level of balance on the Predator Tank, I repeat the process with other units as they come online, always balancing their attributes against that of the Predator Tank. After a while, a side starts to come together and the team is able to start playing mirror matches. As the other factions begin to come online, the process of that initial balance pass is repeated across all units and structures. Once all sides have come online and all have a first pass of balance, we begin the process of balance testing in earnest.
Give the whole blog post a read if you want to have your eyes opened to the kind of balancing that goes on at EA from the far preliminary stages of the game to the later production stages - like the stage I participated in last year, when I was at EALA for a week, play-testing BFMEII!
Yuri's Revenge on Windows XP/Vista 64 14:58 PST | Dario | Print News | Mail News It appears that some people have been having problems running Yuri's Revenge on a 64 bit OS such as Windows XP or Windows Vista. If you are one of them, you can download a patch at Project Perfect Mod. It's just an executable that you put into your Yuri's Revenge directory and run it.
But if you've already read it then you should take a look at page two of the comments thread where I answered some more questions people had, questions like:
What about CABAL & the Tacitus? (answer: they split for Vegas and now have an act at the Bellagio)
What about Mod support?
Where are the Tiberium flora & fauna?
Can I play with my joystick? (answer: you make me sick)
How's the AI, eh?
... And many more -- but feel free to ask your own! C&C3;: The Write-Up, where everything I know becomes everything you know.
Alf-Hari is the current #1, do you dare dethrone him?
Tuesday, 23 January, 2007 – Planet CnC News
History of RTS - Final Part 14:35 PST | Dario | Print News | Mail News The fellows at GameReplays.org have posted the final part of their History of RTS series of articles. Although we didn't see a C&C; game in the previous part, we have Generals in this one. Quite an article about it, too.
C&C; 3 Videos 12:37 PST | Dario | Print News | Mail News A while back, GameStop.com released a video featuring Ajay of Nod telling about the Nod philosophy. Now they've done the same for GDI. The GDI video features Kirce James. It's a short video, but sweet! You can find it on GameStop's C&C; 3 page, all the way down, under Downloads.
Also, thanks to CnC Den I've found another video released by a French Web site. It is 11 minutes long and has a lot of gameplay footage. In the video, you can also hear (and see) Mike Verdu doing some explaining.
Tiberium Analyis 12:34 PST | Dario | Print News | Mail News Looks like that all this waiting for the C&C; 3 demo made some people do research on Tiberium and how it works. First up is "The History and Evolution of Tiberium" posted at CnCGamer.com and written by Megaowner. Then we have a short article by our very own Chrono101, who has posted his thoughts on the forums. Through some heavy science-talk he claims that Tiberium cannot replicate in regions without water. Join the discussion!
Nod Wallpapers 12:31 PST | Dario | Print News | Mail News General Kane Nash has made another batch of C&C; 3 wallpapers for your viewing pleasure. Below we have three variants of the Nod Avatar seen through the eyes of a Black Hand trooper:
Sunday, 21 January, 2007 – Planet CnC News
Vote for C&C; 3 14:47 PST | Dario | Print News | Mail News Sweedish C&C; fans are asking everyone to vote for C&C; 3 at FZ.se. They're holding a poll on Game of the Year 2007, and C&C; 3 is one of the candidates. Currently, Crysis is in the lead, with C&C; 3 seriously lagging behind.
