Matt

I was told that a disassembling and re-implementation project in C++ steered by this community to be in progress, which certainly would be interesting though legally quite questionable. I only noticed https://github.com/damiencarol/openredalert got recently imported from Google Code, but I haven't seen any public activity. Then there is also https://sourceforge.net/projects/freera/ with nothing going on and http://freecnc.org/ which at least still has some Tiberian Dawn related content left and a source code repository converted to git recently at https://sourceforge.net/projects/freecnc/ I don't know which fork descends from what. It seems the work was a bit scattered and people were scared away from writing a complex RTS game in native code leaving their projects left for dead. Also none of these clones have been embraced by the community in any way.

That looks great!

I also thought about that and did some experiments, but then I doubt anyone would want to play an OpenRA mod that mimics http://redalert1.com/ which already has a larger player base due to being there earlier and better marketing as it re-uses the original trademarks.

Well, you need DOSBox or Wine to run the original C&C and C&C:Gold/RA95 on Mac/Linux which is fine. Even commercial games are "ported" that way nowadays. If http://www.gog.com/ were to sell those, I assume that is what they would do. Also sorry, but there undoubtful engine limitations such as C&C having a map size of 64x64 and there are exploits such as the place building bug which is used in Tiberian Sun speedruns such as http://www.speedrun.com/run/wzpqonvy that reduce the value in terms of competitive play. Not sure if that is already solved with a community patch. I think this should be allowed to point out. You do not have to feel responsible or offended although in practice you pretty much took over from EA in terms of support for the classic games on this site.

The hotel looks awesome. For the Nod outpost maybe try a logo without borders to get more recognition factor with just the few pixels available.

It seems you got this the wrong way. What I meant is you are doing pretty good job with your assembly patches, launchers and replacements for the online services, that no one is really pressured into crafting a native backwards compatible re-implementation.

I guess there is no point in re-implementing the original engines with all it's hacks, exploits and limitations given how well supported the original binaries are thanks to community patches and how easy you can run them with DOSbox or Wine on other platforms.

Now I understand why they were unused. The sound sequences are too long to fit into the game. It only works with slow ascending/descending helicopters in cut scenes. heli*aud.zip

Can you upload the DOS sounds.mix file? I was trying to set them up in https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/8784

I am not sure if that is true anymore. Last year a skilled person contributed Format80 compression. https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/5781

I wouldn't bet on FreeCnC. The project is inactive for like a decade, just like all it's clones FreeRA or OpenRedAlert and looking at the C code base, I doubt anyone wants to touch and resurrect it. The only other modern Open Source game clone I know of https://github.com/ultraq/redhorizon/ halted development years ago and is also far from playable. So OpenRA is kind of the only one in town. I stopped posting news about OpenRA releases as to me this was the home of the original classics and I did not want to step on anyone's toes (again). However I can continue to post announcements like we do on ppmsite.com & friends if it is approved by the administrators here. As more developers joined us recently we were able to make a big jump with http://www.openra.net/news/release-20150424/

Yep, it will definitely improve on the original.

You can get OpenRA from http://www.desura.com/games/openra but Steam is not going to happen.

Why is the UI half-German and half-English by the way?

I really liked that editor. It was limited feature-wise, but very polished and pleasant to use. Thanks for reviving it.

There is currently no majority for removing the term "recreation" from the http://www.openra.net front-page inside the OpenRA community. It seems like the average gamer understands it better than re-invention, re-envisioning or re-imagination and has no problem to differentiate between the classics catered by CnCNet or the dead re-implementation projects like http://freera.sourceforge.net/. It would be pretty cool if everyone of our harsh critics here, would team up and revive the FreeRA project. Open Source is all about diversity.

That would be impossible as OpenRA does not just re-create the Command & Conquer: Red Alert engine, but also the Tiberian Dawn and Dune 2000, soon to be the Tiberian Sun one. We can't just disassemble the source code of all those original games, somehow try to merge it without any alterations and start building upon that which is also legally and ethically questionable.

More like equivalent to "There is already a setting in OpenTTD and someone made a NewGRF so you don't need that workaround." but okay. I got it a long time ago. There is also a challenge to work with the limitations of the classics that adds to the appeal. The best solution may be to just recommend each others projects. I added links to the cncnet.org community at https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/FAQ#this-is-not-true-to-the-original about a year ago and also advertised it on our social media pages. I am really sick of this hostility. The recent incident with Graion Dilach on www.moddb.com/games/openra who crossed a line with his personal attacks and wishing us failure, is making me angry and sad. He seems to be agitated by your aggressive and almost religious hate speech against our hobby project.

Yes, I was overly-enthusiastic when I first heard about OpenRA and thought no one else knows about it. Some forum topics here were about asking how to overcome engine limitations and most replies were about that it is impossible to achieve so I thought giving a hint on how to solve it with as an OpenRA mod would be seen as helpful. It was not really meant as advertisement. After all it is a hobby and an unpaid after work project. It took me some time that this cnc-comm.com forum (there was no CnCNet branding at that time) is really about preserving the originals even seeing the multi-player balancing as something sacred that shall never be changed while ppmsite.com is the place were people want to pass limits. I can live with that, just did not know it at first. We also avoid re-using registered trademarks and original logos like http://redalert1.com/ or http://cncnet.org/download which shows the box arts for legal reasons, so I think it is unfair to say we try to blatantly cash in on the C&C brand. It is actually avoided to not get angry letters from EA's lawyers.

The moderators actually issued a warning on me for doing that so I stopped posting OpenRA release news or hints how to solve RA95 modding problems with the OpenRA engine. This community is and always has been very hostile.

There is also http://dunelegacy.sourceforge.net as well as http://dunedynasty.sourceforge.net which both went a few steps further just like we did and they use very similiar vocabulary on their front page. I think you should wider your horizon and see that this is the way modern http://osgameclones.com/ do it.

There is also a simple strategical reason. Why should we recreate the classics 1:1 which is very hard and can never be achieved with 100% accuracy when there is CnCNet which keeps the originals alive and does a pretty good job at herding the community.

With clean room implementation I mean that is based on (reverse engineered) specifications not disassembled or modified binaries. The source code has been created from scratch, not automatically generated. The BlowfishKeyProvider may be a notable exception which is yet another reason to replace the very raw source code. I think you are misguided by the FUD that is spread in this community and repeated mindlessly. What I mean is that OpenTTD has also been extended with file formats like http://wiki.openttd.org/NewGRF that make it incompatible with the original, but also improve it's modding capabilities. If you believe "marketing" claims on the OpenRA website are not precise, you can send a patch towards https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRAWeb to change it.

The project naming is pretty much in line with other popular recreations such as http://www.openttd.org/ that also implement new file formats to overcome limitations of the original. In OpenRA's case INI was abandoned, because it did not feature nesting. http://wiki.openra.net/FAQ#this-is-not-true-to-the-original explains it and even links here to CnCNet for everyone who expected a clone, simple fan-patch or a conservative source port.

I recently cleaned up all the swearing in the source code comments, but yes https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/blob/bleed/OpenRA.Game/FileFormats/BlowfishKeyProvider.cs#L16 is still standing. My hope is that making the code readable and maintainable will help us to resolve long-standing bugs such as https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/2441.