EA Q1 - Is there anything "sacred" you would advise NOT to change in Remaster?

[Grant 401]

EA_Jimtern:

Quote

Let me ask, is there anything "sacred" you would advise NOT to change in Remaster? Obviously that's a difficult proposition when not revealing the exact plan, but more in general. For example, many of the threads so far have said its okay to make UI updates.

 

[chem 233]

What do we majority* agree on so far?

 

1 Improved harvester AI

2 Improved graphics (1point someone made is this would make it look red alert 2 esc graphics, in the cnc1 style)

3 A remake so close to the original that our pro skills will be directly transferable, also the same feel

4 No out of syncs or other annoying crashes

5 Compatible with all commonly used windows versions and support with future ones

6 Get rid of right side advantage

7 Get rid of bottom range advantage

Anything else is only an option e.g rebalances (like improved weapon's factory strength/mrls early for gdi  or reduced base creeping/ conyard build speed bonus like aftermath on ra1) and not the official game?

 

That's it?

 

 

Also do you think what we want is already in the future scope for cnc.net ?Will the talented staff here eventually get all these things or are some of them simply impossible?

Edited October 30, 2018 by chem

[ZAIN 58]

Do not change the basic gameplay of the game, and fix the bugs , just support old games with newer versions of windows.

[fir3w0rx 432]

18 hours ago, Grant said:

EA_Jimtern

Let me ask, is there anything "sacred" you would advise NOT to change in Remaster ?

Well, to 'remaster' something, by definition, NOTHING should be changed, only ENHANCED.

But since everyone else here is making suggestions (and some not even answering the question ), feel free to go buck wild with additions:

• more single player missions
• better modding capabilities
• more cinematics
• a replay feature
• 10-player mode

and whatever else you can think of. ***BUT***... please do not change the game-play (game mechanics and overall 'feel' of the game). Oh, and don't lose the source code this time!

Edited October 13, 2018 by fir3w0rx

[cn2mc 184]

Fix South advantage, make air units selectable/targetable, fix harv pathfinding. That's it. People talking about balance changes etc. with their walls of text don't appear to know what 'remastered' means.

Keep balance the same and only fix bugs and control issues, this means no unit/building stats should be changed.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Ferret
Merged

[Grant 401]

35 minutes ago, cn2mc said:

@Nyerguds

Yeah, I tried to explain that as best as I could, but he doesn't get it. I've always thought about it: can this harv issue actually be resolved with a hack?

Please keep to the topic at hand, if you want to discuss this open a new thread. Cheers! 

[fir3w0rx 432]

28 minutes ago, JamesRyko said:

Its interesting i guess that they're choosing to work with them. Although I''m not 100% certain I disagree with the decision. What is it about OpenRA that you feel like makes them the wrong people for EA to be focusing on? 

I have nothing against them or their version of the game(s), but that's just it - THEIR VERSION of the games. There is also nothing wrong with a remake, but I prefer a remaster. Also, if I'm right about EA using their source codes, I think it's unprofessional (not to mention funny) that they can't come up with their own.

I think the OpenRA community are the right people to kick-start all this, but the wrong people to ask for opinions regarding how the final product should be.

[EA_Jimtern 9]

Hello CnCNet Community,

This is Jim Vessella from EA.  I wanted to post here and let you know I am reading all the comments in this thread and greatly appreciate the input you have provided so far.  We absolutely want the CnCNet community be heavily involved in this Remaster initiative, as this community has been instrumental in keeping the classic games thriving all these years.

Please continue to engage here on the forums, in Discord, or on Reddit, and we're looking forward to share more details in the near future!

Cheers,

Jimtern

[blooddrunkreaper 2]

Personally I would say keep the units, videos and gameplay the same then update things like textures and audio along with bug fixes

Edited October 12, 2018 by blooddrunkreaper
Typo

[Myg 69]

Well this is a hard topic. Ideally we would like the preservation of the blood and sweat of the team which initailly designed the game(s). We are nostalgic to the experience we had when it was first out and to change that experience might upset the balance of nostalgia.

Although the following might have no effect on that:

Bug fixes, new resolution modes, continued compatibility for latest versions of windows, multi-thread support, more modern multiplayer options, maybe a higher quality Art/GFX/sound/Voice/music experience, more hotkeys to name a few.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Myg

[DAIJOUBU? 9]

If you're doing pre-RA2, I want the same game with more options and cleaner high res

If you're remastering something later than that just make sure we can at least tweak existing mods to work the same

[Chad1233 11]

This is about C&C95 and RA1 is it? Well for all the original C&C games I would like higher resolution graphics but keep the buildings, ships, and vehicles faithful to their original designs.

[[NRA]Rocketeer 20]

I hope its a red alert 2 remaster, if you guys marketed it well and got it onto steam you could have yourselves a real esports rts on the market. You have a lot of regions with high level players. Either way I'm happy the franchise is being looked at in this way1

 

 

[GriegKaun 3]

Concerning RA1 and older, I would love to see updated graphics, but of course faithful to their designs like Chad1233 said, and an updated UI that is easier to go about using than the two-column scroller. The most sacred thing I could say that shouldn't be changed are the base concepts of units and factions. I think that was where I felt RA3 fell flat since it tried to change up everything a bit too much.

 

As for RA2, if it were possible to overhaul the game entirely with a new look, but the same layout, gameplay, and faction styles, I would be all for it. And if Generals were to be remastered, I could definitely see it looking like the cancelled Generals ( unfortunate ), with graphics and gameplay worthy of a  2018+ RTS.

[Holland 97]

The ability to mod and make mission is what made the game very interesting to me and many others, talking about Tiberian Sun especially. I'd pay good money for a platform for creators: creating your own voxels, mods, missions, balances, and anything creative

[miguel747 1]

I would see:

1 - Same gameplay (some balance units and builds are needed)

2 - UI interface - more social interation, keep in mind the chat into the game is too old. messenger must show in the center (like blizzard chat)

3 - Entire compatibility (moderns system - alt tab), pause and unpause gaming.

4 - Support community with new revamp balance and keeping game alive. (like starcraft 2 and other MOBA games)

[AchromicWhite 314]

Yeah, a remaster is not a remake, it's a remaster.

The core game needs to be in there 100% with the OPTION to turn on better graphics, UI updates, tweaks or overhauls in balance etc.
If you try to skimp out on this and get in there and change it all, even though you might please some people a lot, I can guarantee you'll piss of a whole lot more.

The big thing here that you can do is to add more modes to the game... one of the ways you can do this is with something similar to the "arcade" in StarCraft. This not only allows EA to make all sorts of new game modes, you could make a true C&C MOBA even... but this allows the community to come up with game modes.

[Holland 97]

RANKING LADDERS (and clans)

This was perhaps the most important part of the game's successfullness.

A big ladder system including, monthly, weekly, monthly map compitions, mod players compititions, map creating compitions, mod making compititions, clan compitions, 

And a system to easily look up clans and names etc.

[weaveR 17]

Keep bookmarks and have the same CnCNet hotkeys not the original hard to reach Westwood ones CnCNet did a good job picking hotkeys and adding hotkeys I always used to struggle to click sell to sell my Construction Yard when a Engineer is about to capture it and quickly repairing with a hotkey is a must it can make all the difference between keeping or losing a structure.

Fix the weird build menu custom resolution glitches. Fix 6 player out of sync glitch. Add spectator mode. Add achievements same usual stuff keep it the same game basically with better graphics and more reliable connections.

Remastered games can be good I liked the PS4 Crash Bandicoot remaster even though I could have just played the original games on an emulator. The achievements make you feel special even though no one cares except yourself.

Just thought of something else make the original games maps compatible with the remakes!

Edited October 13, 2018 by weaveR
Added make original maps compatible with the remakes

[erik93203 2]

I would love/like the Prism tank to stay the same.
Mods/new-maps was also a thing that brought me back to the game at the time Red Alert 2 was new. I would love to download new maps and play them.

At the time it was console vs PC, and i would love to come back to the PC because new maps were available.

Now days i see new games that are remastered use the unreal engine software, but i wasn't a real big fan of that. For example when they made Renegade X, i love the new looks of it, but i don't like the feel of it. it just doesn't really remind me of the classic renegade because of the completely new engine. This is just a tip coming from me, i don't know if other people feel the same about Unreal Engine thing.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Ferret
Bold text took up too much space

[DoNotMakeCnCRemasterPlease 5]

The game title is sacred, reject "Remaster"


What "Remaster" is in practice:
- Serious attempt to kill the original game and its alternative platforms dedicated to it (e.g. CnCNet)

On top of head reasons why:
- No original gameplay - Faithful (on the surface) enough to bleed the original game to death,
but not actually faithful enough to be technically close to the original (forget Q-move or manual non-queued production sidebar in Red Alert 1 for example).
- Heavy DRM that will require internet connection to EA's servers from time to time or all the time even in single player.
- No LAN
- Multiplayer only through EA's servers. Kills platform competition, no support for community alternatives like CnCNet.
- Likely data mining / analytics / AI learning, making you the product in the end.
- Support likely to end in few years after the initial milking, which is what EA has done to every C&C title, but this time it can't be resurrected and the original game is worse of by the damage.
- Confuse the original game's name. Remaster isn't actually a remaster.
- Game will cost money again (not a problem necessarily if "Remaster" had any benefits)

Of course not everything listed will necessarily happen, but it seems to be very likely that most will.
Mega corporations are not your friends, they are looking to exploit you with all their might.


Solution: New C&C title that aims to be C&C with classic mechanics is fine but definitely not "Remaster" or everyone will lose.

[Ra2Nub 30]

The problem I always had with modern RTS games is that they feel and play really slow. Generals was example already a much slower game than RA2/YR was. The reason why I love RA2 as much as I do is that its an insane quick game that can end very fast, but can also last long if both players are good. Warcraft 3 which is a RTS game by Blizzard is my second fav RTS game, but is already much lower ranked for me than RA2 is just because of how slow and more advanced that game is.

RA2 (YR) is really simple to learn but very difficult to master. 

In short, here's what I would love to see in a RA2 remaster if it were to happen

- Everything improved related to network/internet so lag is much less common
- Improved custom map support so it can have potential to become as powerful as the Warcraft 3 custom map community (powerful map editor)
- Same game play with same game play speed but improved graphics (aka Starcraft Remastered)
- An option to have an official 'balanced' version of the game while giving users the option to play the original version if they wish
- The feel of the original games: Improved but same art-style, etc
- Quality of Life improvements so controlling everything is even easier
- Bug fixes

So, if let's say EA decides to make a RA2 game out of the RA3 engine which plays as slow I will already know for sure I won't touch the game at all.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Ra2Nub

[sgtmyers88 22]

I just hope they aren't getting jealous of the fan/mod community and pull a CBS and start shutting down fan projects like what was done to the Star Trek community. If anyone hasn't followed that debacle, you should look it up to understand my fears.

Projects like Renegade X, & Generals Evolution and even Tiberian Sun Rising are ones that stick out in my mind the most for being at risk. And of course with me being the creator of the Tiberian Dawn Redux mod, it would be fair to assume that it could also be on their radar as well which rightfully gives me cause for concern.

Edited October 13, 2018 by sgtmyers88

[ore_truck 106]

Support the classics. Dont change anything other than bug fix, AI pathfinding and making the game compatible with newer windows. Make it sound more like a patch than a remaster, because the original games are good enough on its own right now and I have no issues or need for a remake. The only thing that makes it unplayable is the out of sync errors that sometimes happen in Tiberian Dawn.

And most importantly, don't touch/fix anything that's not broken, or you'll end up breaking it.

[Grant 401]

A remaster to me (personally):

1. Gameplay should remain true to it's original release.
2. Sharpening up, making those graphics really true high definition.
3. By all means update the UI, like the sidebar, the main menus, but be careful with the order/structure of where items live in that sidebar.  Will really break that muscle memory if things are moved too much.
4. Keep the original music, and/or add additions but it's gotta be by the great Frank Klepacki

[Garrison 2]

In English

Hello, being FAN of the saga Command and conquer, I would like to see a sequel to command and conquer Generals, the 2 was canceled in 2013 and since I do not live properly: /, I would like that if you remasterize one of these beautiful game, that you do not touch ABSOLUTELY not GAMEPLAY !!! The games are just excellent, the best RTS of the genre, improve the overlay, more beautiful textures, cinematics more bluffing, different vehicles why not, but still having the same gameplay of the old! For my part, C & C Generals is the best in terms of construction, we are not stuck on its starting area, I can put a depot, a barracks, a complex where I want, in terms of military strategy it does not there's nothing better ! I do not like having to stay in my starting area and build in a boundary around my headquarters.

Make us dream Gentlemen, No LOOTBOX, no FREE TO PLAY !!!!!

We just want a C & C Nine! all clean! and why not a true C & C 4, Tiberiuem wars, and even better a Generals 2!

Thank you

En Français 

Bonjour, étant FAN de la saga Command and conquer, j'aimerai voir une suite à command and conquer Generals, le 2 a été annulé en 2013 et depuis je ne vis plus correctement :/, J’aimerai que si vous remasterisez un de ces magnifique jeu, QUE VOUS NE TOUCHIEZ ABSOLUMENTMENT PAS AU GAMEPLAY !!! Les jeux sont juste excellents, les meilleurs RTS du genre, améliorer l'overlay, de plus belles textures, cinématiques plus bluffantes, des véhicules différents pourquoi pas, mais toujours en ayant le même gameplay des anciens ! Pour ma part, C&C Generals est le meilleur en termes de construction, on n'est pas bloqué sur sa zone de départ, je peux mettre un dépôt, une caserne, un complexe là où je veux, en termes de stratégie militaire il n'y a pas mieux ! je n'aime pas à devoir rester dans ma zone de départ et construire dans une limite aux alentours de mon QG.

 

Faites-nous rêver Messieurs, Pas LOOTBOX, pas de FREE TO PLAY !!!!!

 

On veut juste un C&C Neuf ! tout propres ! et pourquoi pas un Vrai C&C 4, Tiberiuem wars, et encore mieux un Generals 2 !