cn2mc

I'm giving it a chance, I'm also giving it my fair criticism. These visuals ARE the worst thing I've seen in C&C. If you're not addressing anyone or anything, better not make snide comments. If the general line is that we are all blessed that there will be a remaster and we should not question any of EA's decisions just because there will be a remaster... I'm not buying it. The thing is that those who don't think it's good will not be swayed by posts saying it's good. And posts saying it's good when it obviously isn't make their authors look either silly or under EA's thumb. And then efforts to quell the dissent make it look even sillier.

RaVaGe, I know. Hence my own irony. Back on topic: the art is bad, it deviates too much from the original, it's too shiny, and if this is the general visual style EA is envisioning for the remaster... shit.

Quite ironic how this comment brings no maturity to this discussion whatsoever, nor does it address any of the many valid points people made. Coming from a position of authority, no less.

It flat out looks like a shiny toy for ages 4-7. Not only does it unnecessarily deviate from the original in shape, it has none of the seriousness of C&C's art, which managed to capture the dread of war in just a few tiny pixels. It's obviously a half-assed effort (QED by Ezer). The people praising it are under EA's thumb, I know, but they should know that promoting this artistic misstep as something of value makes them look... maybe not silly, but unreliable. Saying this is somehow good art for the remaster is a disservice to the community, IMO. For me, C&C either ties with or is a very close second to Civilization I in my Best Games Ever list. EA have their hands on one of the best games in the world, period. I don't want a half-assed remaster with gummy bear graphics.

Doesn't look as bad in the mockup, maybe it takes getting used to. But TD isn't really a glittery game and this has a lot of glitter.

Are you sure about the engine though? I've asked this question a bunch of times and nobody gave me a concrete answer. Even if they are using the C&C engine this still looks like a bad fan effort and nothing like TD art. It's like something out of a different game. For a remaster they should be using the original renders or the closest possible approximations thereof. This is just a bad 3D model with some careful texturing that looks like something out of a bad 3D game. Nothing I would care about in this remaster.

This hits my nausea notes. It does not look like TD art at all, rather like something out of a sloppy C&C3 or Generals mod. And worse, it subtly implies that this will be a different game engine-wise.

This thread should be called 'Private Balance Mod' instead of 'Community Balance Patch'. I can elaborate on why, but it seems pretty obvious to me.

This is the main problem. Over the years, since you first started trolling cncnet, we probably haven't played more than a couple of dozen 1v1 games, and that's quite an overestimation on my part. This is a very low number of matches spread over a very long period of time, with no series lasting more than 2-3 games. Not really enough to gauge who is better overall. I am not saying that I am, I'm just saying that your bragging rights do not extend as far as you think they do. To illustrate my point, I play MrBuggy once in a blue moon too, but our series usually go into the double digits. The last one I had with him went for over a dozen games. When you've played somebody fifty or a hundred times on several different maps, then you can make this sort of conclusions. The "I beat you yesterday and that one time before, thus I am better" logic is flawed. It means that I can say I'm better than MrBuggy because I beat him 5:2 the first time I played him, but I'm clearly not. Because if I add up the numbers from all series I've had with him, it'll probably turn out he has a 55-60% win rate over me. You? You haven't nearly played me enough for us to even know what an actual statistic would look like. You either lose a game or two and run, or you win a game or two and then run again, to claim superiority. Pics or it didn't happen. Everything else you wrote in your edited first post and your reply amounts to the gurgling sound of a troll drowning in his own bile. But do please tell me, does it hurt getting a full cavity search every time you post here? I bet you sit and stare at your monitor for hours on end, waiting for a mod to approve your posts so you can bask in their glory, right? At least this forces you to be slightly more eloquent and composed than you are in your vitriolic YouTube comments. God bless YouTube, that last sanctuary for dying trolls who are running out of straws to latch on to.

Well played, but don't get too cheeky now. I've told you off for many things, but I'm pretty sure that doing cheeses is not one of them. Also, that 'late night' bit is simply funny. These games were played between 9PM and 10PM EET, which means between 7PM and 8PM in Britain, where you are. Don't make excuses for almost biting the dust on your home turf. The only comment I'll make about your hazy memories of the (actually quite distant) past is that they are very selective. Sure, you've beaten me on GA a couple of times, maybe half an year ago, and I know you hold those memories very close to your heart. It's just sad that you fail to remember some of the other games we've had back then, both 1v1 and 2v2, which didn't exactly go as you make it sound they went... But see, I'm neither a person who'll try to cover up his losses, nor am I one who will go about bragging about his wins, be they as recent as yesterday or over six months old. That is obviously your specialty. Anyway, I'm actually here to post games 1 & 3 of this series from my POV, just so you know what resolution real men play C&C in. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_xBk1pVAtA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkGSQ_r5myA It appears I stopped Obs by accident and the 2nd game didn't record.

I could respond to your wall of text, but I didn't even read it all. Just glancing through, seeing I was ever somehow angry about whatever, made me chuckle. But do keep on. It is amusing.

Lol at the claims of you always beating me or Pence having even played me recently. But do keep on dreaming. Your imagination is amusing.

May I, in conclusion to this I-don't-know-which-in-a-row narcissistic thread of chem's, make some very objective observations: bad music is always more popular than good music in the charts, bad TV gets higher ratings than good TV, most bestsellers are bad books, etc. You get the drift. It's Sturgeon's Law. Quality shines through with time and, as elitist as it might sound, for the most part only for those who have the capacity to appreciate its inner workings and original intent. The others just reap the benefit at will. Approaching mapmaking in C&C the way you have, chem, is akin to twerking to Pink Floyd. The fact we have old money maps that are still being played, be it the ancient Utah, or much newer ones like Matt's Bushlands or Manu's Circle, means they were done well, struck a cord with players, somehow filled a void in their gaming experience. If we have those maps we don't need an endless amount of clones that are for the most part inferior. I'm not against people having their fun on those tiberium slabs you call maps, most of which fit in my scale somewhere between 'visually painful' and 'atrocious'. I am, however, very much against you proclaiming that mass FFA on featureless terrain is the be-all end-all of C&C. It's also a major hypocrisy on your part, you know? With you being an enemy of base-creeping in RA because 'it wasn't how WW intended' and then at the same time neglecting almost everything 'WW intended' for how TD is to be played. There are also a lot of players who feel the need to hide from serious games behind this grand FFA ethos you're championing. I can't even remember all the names or count all the times when I joined some supposed 'pro's room and they went 'wait for more' because they can't take a loss if they can't blame it on FFA. Of course, I don't wait around because I'd rather play a couple of 1v1 matches or do something else with my time. And what do you know? When I leave, they go head to head with some poor noob right away. That's fine too, I guess, albeit a bit dishonest. But players who are afraid, uninterested or otherwise unwilling to explore the finer aspects of this game are basically being deprived of variation. If they are depriving themselves of their own will, fine by me. If they are being deprived because of lack of choice or because they are falsely led to believe that this is what the game is about, that is a problem. The problem is bigger than the maps. I honestly believe that if CnCNet only hosted 1v1 matches like Wchat did back in the day, we'd all play a lot more games and a lot better games.

I can't really comment on the strategic depth or what-have-you of maps I haven't played. That goes for mine too. They're more of an experiment in space usage rather than complex tactics. There just isn't enough room in 6P maps to make them offer that many options to the players. But the little room you have you should use to try and make those forks in the road meaningful, equal for all players, but at the same time offering different outcomes for each player individually. The classic example is giving everybody two expansion routes, one shorter and safer but with less resources, the other longer and more dangerous but leading to a bigger field. As for you map, I'd personally redesign the inner ring of boxes as they're simply too boxy or think of something else less bulky. Maybe slightly rotate the entire inner setup so players can choose between two ways towards the very middle. IDK. Experiment. It's not the Mona Lisa you're painting over.

I placed those starts with an offset on my maps because I wanted to use the space in the corners, not because it somehow balances the map better. It doesn't. Locking this spawn pattern up in your trademark circle defeats its single purpose of maximizing the playing field. Having slight asymmetries in a map will not skew the balance unless they prevent a part of the players from being able to build like the rest. A few squares of building space less won't harm someone if he can otherwise do everything the others can, if he can build the same number of refs in his spot, creep out of it as easily, harvest the same amount of tiberium, etc. The thing is, you don't really need symmetry for balance, or at least not complete symmetry. For making balanced starting points, a swastika-like design is also feasible, probably more so than completely symmetrical designs. In a swastika-like map each player's left and right flanks are not symmetrical but they are functionally the same as the left and right flanks of the surrounding players, and they fit together with them like a puzzle. Your right flank goes into my left, my right goes into the left flank of the guy that's to the right of me, and so on until we reach a full circle. Look at Cliffhanger again for reference. There people's left flanks bulge menacingly over their neighbours right, while their right flanks are more exposed to attack from that direction. White's Trichotomy and some other maps (the names of which I don't remember now) use this kind of design. Otherwise, your latest sketch looks workable but the map seems to become quite tight in the middle, which is kind of a faux pas as far as expansion paths go.

He might have improved his tactics since I last played him a few months ago, but back then I didn't see all that complex layering you're talking about, just a guy building a (not particularly) quick APC and sending it straight to my base. Switching to a secondary target if the CY is well defended is not high-end strategy, just common sense. If you're going for the rush, the APC needs to be hidden so the enemy doesn't even know it's coming. If you're APC rushing every game the enemy knows it's coming and you'll need a screen. There are a few things you can do to hide your APC. For starters, move it out of your base immediately upon construction and load the engi in somewhere out of your opponent's sight so he doesn't know if you've built it yet or where it might come from. Try to move the APC through areas of the map, which the enemy hasn't scouted or doesn't monitor that closely for the same reasons. Harass your opponent with other units BEFORE you bring in the APC, so you can draw defenders away from the target. The last part is a bit tricky because for speed's sake you want your APC to be your first factory unit and you don't yet have buggies or hummers out. You can use infantry and helis. A single helipad and some heli harassment immediately after you put your WF/strip down can throw your opponent off considerably. The beauty of it is that the pad will be done even before the APC is ready.

Why dangerous? Because you're in trouble right from the start. Both are very similar in design with the main difference that Cliffhanger allows you to base-creep towards your neighbours immediately, whereas Calderama is a bit more turtle-friendly. (cn2)Calderama.bin (cn2)Calderama.ini (cn2)Cliffhanger.bin (cn2)Cliffhanger.ini

Love beat him by playing a flawless GDI, not losing his WF or a single tank in that game, IIRC. Cliffs played a factor, you see Love reacting to the first attack and, after some slight hesitation, placing his WF in the back. Had he placed it out, where he wanted to, he might have been in big trouble. I asked that question because in your first post you made some assumptions about MrBuggy's style that I don't think correspond to the way he actually plays. For starters, he never uses buggies only, but a mix. There's also a huge difference in how he uses his buggies and bikes compared to what most players nowadays do. Since you've played him, you've surely noticed he doesn't pile a dozen or so units and then attack en masse, which would give the other player time to set up a defence. Instead, he immediately starts harassing with his light units wherever he can find a weak spot and he steadily ramps the pressure up by bringing in more one by one, very much like shifting tanks, only he tries different angles and eventually splits his forces when he has enough units to do so. Indeed, backed up by a base creep and maybe an apache, this can become almost unbearable. The thing is, he plays good and applies a lot of pressure even when he can't base-creep. The effectiveness of his buggies is down to his good control: not doing mass suicide attacks and bad trades, pulling out of dangerous engagements, always keeping them on the move and attacking something, etc. About the mapmaking thing, I never sought to limit base-creeping intentionally in my maps, much less in order to inhibit someone's style of play. In fact, you can and have to base creep on pretty much every map I've released with maybe an exception or two. The longer creeping distances and less direct paths between opponents are a product of my desire to make the maps feel larger and be more hospitable for longer 1v1 games.

If you think Pence is a good APC rusher, you're wrong.

As I said, chem, I might, or I might not release those maps. When I see fit. What did you not understand in that? Feel free to recreate the design. Also, manipulations such as 'you're depriving people' won't work. You are the one who is depriving people of a varied gaming experience by spamming shit maps.

Have you ever even played against MrBuggy or are you just making things up and repeating hearsay? It seems to me like the latter. The answer is: he's just better.

Oh, dear! We're just inspiring you to flood more. But do keep at it. Practice, etc.

Not sure this one is up to my standards, it was kind of just a proof-of-concept thing, but maybe with a little tweaking... I did make another one in the meantime that's a lot more evenly-spaced and natural looking, and I'm thinking about how to approach a third one by using this type of spawn layout and some other tricks. When I'm satisfied I might release 2 or 3 in a bundle. EDIT: I haven't played a lot on Iron Valley, but I'm pretty sure that taking the right flank gets you to your opponent faster. Merely providing a choice on where to expand towards forces the player to make a decision. On IV, if one player decides to go for his right flank and the other for his left, they will clash earlier in one half of the map with the other still unused. If they both expand symmetrically they'll split it.

I'm not trying to switch anybody to anything, OK? Nor did I say anything against money maps. I said I'm fine with them, as long as they're done properly and don't clog up the list with endless and pointless variations. Hell, some are even good for 1v1 and 2v2. But they're mostly for mass FFA, and I don't care about that particular kind of mindless fun. Regulars who only play money maps, as experienced as they might be in playing them, are playing them because it's an easy fix and hardly takes a lot of skill. Now, I didn't say that those players aren't good, but I highly suspect many of them lack essential skills. It takes a lot of experience to play low income maps, navigate actual terrain and be exposed to infantry right at the start too, you know. But anyway, I said nothing about low income maps in my previous post either. You are kind of proving my point by strongly and respectfully disagreeing with things I haven't said. So, to reiterate my two main points: - (Your) money maps clog up the list and thus give the false impression they're what the game is about by being overly abundant; - (Badly made) money maps deprive players of the opportunity to practice essential builds and tactics.

I say scrap the redundant/unfinished ones and leave the decent ones in. Maybe move them in a separate category like we have for original/covert ops maps. I have no problems with money maps in general. Experienced players will always choose a proper map when going for a serious game. The problem is with the new players. If they come to CnCNet and see that 90/100 maps are money maps, they might think it's all there is to it. Then they'd get their asses pounded with mass unlubricated buggies a few times and possibly quit the game for good or perhaps become another dull buggy fiend. There's your instant gratification. It's not the fun factor that makes money maps popular. It's the volume factor and the fact that many players don't really care to try out different maps or learn different skills. Building a big army and slamming it against your opponent is not the be all, end all of strategy.