- Date: 22/09/2017 | Author: Plokite_Wolf
Over the years, I’ve been through almost every active English-speaking C&C community. General, modding, multiplayer, you name it. While it is not uncommon to see some misinformed or otherwise stupid things in forums and chat rooms, I don’t think I’ve witnessed a worse case of a bollocks epidemic than in the Command & Conquer community. In a dire need to vent, I present to you my blanket responses to the common idiocies that I’ve seen in the C&C community in the past few years, and believe me, a lot of these repeat.
General
“I miss game X”
Why? You do know you can still play it, right? (Unless you’re one of the few people who had access to the Sole Survivor server)
“EA killed Westwood”
Yes (not in the moment you claim it did). And it was arguably justified. Westwood overstretched themselves with so many subpar projects in a short period of time, and the Earth & Beyond MMO failed so hard that it shut down two years after release. EA merged their assets with Westwood’s Pacific branch whose organization skills didn’t suck in the early 2000s and had a nice thing going with them for a few years. But you wouldn’t know that, you’re probably playing Mass Effect and Battlefront, that’ll show ’em. Why waste time examining the actual history of the studio you claim to love so much when you can tell EA how mad you are by buying and playing their newest games?
“I’m not playing any EA’s C&C games”
Ironically, one can most often hear this from people who play Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2, both of which were made after EA’s acquisition of Westwood, and with the latter being made by an entirely separate studio (minus audio, videos and maybe some art). Sure, if you want to deprive yourself of another studio’s work just because they’re not the other studio that you hold in religious fanboy regard like an idiot, who are we to stop you?
“Petroglyph should get the rights to the C&C franchise”
No. First of all, they are not a reincarnation of Westwood (anymore). If they were, they’d actually have some noteworthy ex-Westwood staff other than Frank Klepacki, and wouldn’t be making bland, boring and outright BAD excuses for RTS games. Seriously, who gives a damn about Universe at War and Grey Goo anymore? What have they done to make a mark in the RTS scene apart from Star Wars: Empire at War? Do you really think a company that made an absolute expandalone mess of the bare-bones 8-Bit series, and shortly thereafter announced whatever the hell Strikers is supposed to be, has the integrity necessary to create a proper game?
“When is the new C&C coming out?”
Since you ask this, you’ve apparently been living under the mother of all rocks since October 2013 at the very least. Check EA’s official website, notice that there is no mention of C&C apart from Tiberium Alliances and The Ultimate Collection, and come back here to ask the question again.
“Game X should be remastered”
Why? Is a game unplayable for you if it doesn’t have 16K graphics with 32X anti-aliasing and 240 frames per second? Is the core gameplay unimportant to you, just the graphics? Why would you sacrifice what you already have to get a meaningless remaster which would inevitably (since EA isn’t Blizzard and can’t pull off a StarCraft remaster) be incompatible with the old version of the game and would have a ludicrous cost for no reason? If you only drool for the graphics like an energy-drink-infused 12-year-old, go play Crysis or Battlefront or whatever other pretty-looking but empty game is the latest today.
“Where can I download game X”
Unless you’re looking for the freeware titles (TibDawn/Red Alert 1/TibSun) which are readily available and conveniently patched up at CnCNet, don’t you think you should either look in a certain EA-owned digital distribution service, or, if you’re that desperate to download it for free because your wallet is inhabited by a single spider, the nearest torrent site? Or you just want to be spoonfed at all times in your life?
“I lost interest in C&C after EA screwed up”
Then hand in your C&C fan card. A true fan loves something no matter what the current rightsholder does to it. Everyone else was never a real fan to begin with.
Game-specific
“EA rushed Tiberian Sun”
I wonder who made this up in the first place. Tiberian Sun was actually *delayed* several times because Westwood was tripping over their own engine, and several of those delays happened in the final year of development (November 1998 to spring 1999 to August 1999), which just happened to be the first year of Westwood’s operation under EA’s roof. EA gave them no quarter at all, uh-uh. Rade Stojsavljević, a then-WW dev, stated in a 2000 interview what exactly was the problem during development – their overly ambitious ideas and poor organization. He didn’t even mention EA.
“Tiberium Wars is probably not what Westwood wanted”
Not only did EALA keep the idea of properly introducing the Scrin, they also used Westwood’s designs for GDI/Nod Power Plants, Snipers and civilian elements like cars and architectural styles with little to no editing (but you wouldn’t know that, you never even saw the concept art for Westwood’s C&C 3 which you advocate so much). They did leave out one of Westwood’s drafts where Yuri was to be Kane’s disciple who’d go back in time and cause the Red Alert universe to happen, but that was really a damage control idea and wouldn’t necessarily have been used even if Westwood’s C&C 3 did get released, because if was just A DRAFT.
“Red Alert 3 is all cartoony”
And the first two Red Alert games aren’t? Are their cutscenes the epitome of realism and grit? Are their technologies grounded in reality? Is the overarching premise of Einstein travelling back in time to kill Hitler worthy of a Pulitzer or something?
“All Red Alert 3 does is advertise to teens who love to see boobs on the screen”
Point me to someone who only ever played Red Alert 3 for the pretty female characters, or find a legitimate argument against the game. Disliking a game or the way it was advertised is one thing, making ideas like these up out of nowhere to slander an entire game is another.
“EALA is to blame for Tiberian Twilight”
Not really. They did make prototypes for a multiplayer-only spin-off of Tiberium Wars and Kane’s Wrath aimed at the Asian market, but it was upper staff at EA who forced them to make it a full title, crowbar a singleplayer campaign in there, and slap the number 4 on the logo. Many people left the company soon after that forced decision, you know. But you wouldn’t know that, you never read interviews with developers.
(When people ask where to get Tiberian Dawn/Red Alert 1) “Here’s the link to OpenRA”
Okay, stop. OpenRA is awesome in its own right, don’t get me wrong, but the people ask for the originals and are unaware of what OpenRA does and what it has different to the originals (and it has a LOT). Stop misleading people.
(When people ask something about Renegade) “Here’s the link to Renegade-X”
Ditto.
“EA closed down the servers for Generals/Tiberium Wars/Red Alert 3 and their expansions”
No. No. No. The servers were always owned and run by GameSpy Technologies, like for many games in the 2000s (Civilization III/IV, Quake, Unreal Tournament, Total War, Dawn of War, the list goes on). Their last owner, Glu Mobile, shut them down in June 2014 (actually, left them without maintenance to die a month and a half later, after the login system malfunctioned) because they didn’t find them profitable anymore. In all the things EA did wrong, this isn’t one of them, although they were too lazy to provide an alternative. Go to C&C:Online if you haven’t heard of it.
“My Origin version of The Ultimate Collection doesn’t work”
Since you’re apparently unable to Google the ten trillion threads on various sites where the same thing has been asked in the age where information is not only readily available but overflowing, you have to disable Origin In-Game for all TUC games you’ve installed and apply Bibber’s fixed launchers. Fucking hell.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CNCNZ.com, as much as the author would subjectively like to say it were.