As a C&C player for the last 21 years (I'm getting old
), I have a lot of input for you. I hope this helps. Please bare in mind English is my 3rd language.
First of all: thank you so much, Jim, for this announcement! You cannot believe how this made my day.
Here are my different lines of thoughts. I do realize this might ask for a significant amount of ressources.
* about remastered versus new game: I think you should eventually do both, but start with remastering the original games. So to all people talking about a new game, I'd say you're off topic for the moment. First remaster the old games, get people playing C&C again and then think about new games in the series
* about the public you're aiming for, I think there are two different target groups. First are people like us here, who grew up with the original games and are between 30 and 40-45 now. Yes, some of us are 60+ as well, let's just admit it right away
. They're looking for nostalgia, they want to recognize the feeling they had when they played the original games. The 2nd group are a younger group of gamers from 12 - 25: people that haven't necessarely ever played C&C and who we want to get into the series so they will buy future C&C titles as well (read my optimism
).
* about C&C games: it's absolutely important to remember C&C Renegade. I've played C&C Renegade for hours every single day - clan based - between 2003 and 2012. No FPS game ever came close to the experience the original C&C Renegade gave. It would be a big mistake to forget Renegade. I'll come back on this later
* you have started right by posting on the openra forums because openra gives you a lot of great lessons that I'd like to spell out for you:
- controls, GUI, pace. Some of my colleagues may disagree with me here, but I firmly believe one of the reasons why openra "works" despite the hugely outdated graphics is that it has modern, fast paced gameplay and controls / GUI. Noone is waiting, today, for red alert's single unit build line.
I read on reddit that you designed the GUI for C&C3. You do not need to look any further: C&C 3 had - by far - the best controls / GUI for RTS C&C that I can remember.
- "nothing beats the original" and "C&C is "serious business". Yes, I'm playing the nostalgic note here. This doesn't mean we want a copy-paste of the original, but the original game needs to be recognisable in the units, the atmosphere. There's a reason - in my opinion - why openra started with Red alert 1, other than technical reasons. Red alert 1 is remembered as a game where you'd really get into the skin of the commander who needs to either save the world (allies) or - even more fun - conquer it (soviets). I remember at school my friends and I - being 14 years old - discussed our tactics, not as game tactics but as realy "generals" in the army. This was true still for Red alert 2 - though the FMV's were already quite a bit over the top, it was unfortunately no longer true in more modern C&C
- keep it simple, have a level playing field. With openra, I can send a text to a few friends and have a game 5 minutes later. After one or two maps we can simply stop. If a new friend wants to try it, he knows the basics on how to play the game after less than 15 minutes. The game setup is simple: build or protect your base, harvest ressources, destroy the enemy. Everyone can grasp the concept and base game play. But at the same time, people with 1.000 hours of gameplay can still invent new strategies / combo's.
Important: everyone starts with a level playing field. There's no ranking, no unlocking weapons. We all start as an equal commander, our startegies will make the difference. This is true for all C&C games, including Renegade and this has always been an important part in the fun factor in my opinion. No need to grind for hours just to unlock a weapon.
- balance: for some reason that's beyond my grasp, many classic C&C games were rather balanced without falling into paper, scissors, rock - units. GDI was heave firepower based, Nod was stealthy and hit and run. But both factions still balanced out mostly! You'll need to stay close to the original games, but be inspired by the community changes to correct the balance slightly. For example: adding infinite infantry ammo in Renegade was a great call
- about the platform: I strongly believe you should use the same platform to remaster all RTS C&C games. This means: same game graphics engine, same GUI, same controls, same online environment
for all games but obviously different units, different atmosphere, different need for tactics. If you use one platform to remaster all games, then one could even imagine playing online matches with RA2 allies versus C&C95 Nod. It would be HELL to balance that out, but imagine the fun factor!
- about the graphics: the openra group really doesn't care, but the group of youngster you want to get involved will probably care. I doubt you can stick to original 2d graphics (like openra does), though I personally wouldn't mind lol
- about AI: a lot of us like to stomp comps. Please give us a challenge
.
* about game content: single player and multi player are obviously both a must. For the remastered games:
- I'm going to take a risk here and advize you to not include all games. I'll let others give you more input about that, I'm personally very biased towards: C&C95, RA1, RA2, YR, Renegade, C&C3.
- add all content from those original games and create a new expansion pack for each game you remaster. Attention: the original missions might need to be redone a bit to fit with the new game play controls and pace. This expansion pack will expand on the original game with new missions - dare I dream of new FMV's with some of the original actors - new maps (to make it easy: there's also a lot of quality fan made maps), maybe even a new faction that could be inspired by some of the other remastered games. The new missions could possibly add missing links in the stories between the games
- have a single player mode where you can play all remastered game missions in a set order that makes sens, where the new expansion packs link the old games with each other. Instead of the usual 10 hour single player mode, you'll end up with a huge single player experience
- For multi player: balance is obviously key. Don't forget about us comp stompers who need a decent AI
. Anti cheat needs to be kept in mind
* about C&C Renegade: I do realize that remastering a FPS may be very different than remastering the RTS games. Maybe you should simply considering putting Renegade in its current form, including the community patches (
www.renegadeforums.com --> get in contact with jonwil from the Tiberian technologies-team), in the pack or - even better - release it for free on origin. There are still servers, players, people who care about the game around only waiting for new players to come and enjoy it. The online platform is maintained by xwis, online registration needs to be made easier though. Please refer to the renegade community on renegadeforums.com for more input. It may seem a bit dead there for now, but I promise that if you make a post on there, you'll see a lot of people pop up
* I think this doesn't even need to be said, but if you could get Joe Kucan and Frank Klepacki in the project, for the expansion packs, that would be gold. I agree with what someone said above: we don't need professional acting, but we do need FMV with "serious" acting. I like to make the comparaison with star trek the next generation. There was a lot of "sci fi" stuff in there, not with the most known actors, but the acting drew you into the atmosphere. We need c&c star trek acting
.
I may add some more ideas later on, this is a good base set to start with, I think. Can you give me some feedback on feasibility?