2011 is the big year of one new Mod: Timeless War for C&C3 breathes new life into the Tiberiumuniverse, improves the Gameplay, adds new faction and much more. Thereby the Mod tells an alternate story line, where mankind have to face a really dark future. The Scrin conquered our planet. They transforming our world to wasteland that is overgrown by Tiberium and filled with Tiberium mutants. In the year 2047 the warriors of a world, which has been forgotten long time ago, is our only hope...
Main features:
* 1 of 3 new factions
* unlockable general powers almost like in CCG
* up to 10 ranks you can climp up in a battle
* advanced Gameplay
* ingame selectable Generals
* new building style for the new factions
* Battles can change the battlefield
* Epic-Units
* Commander-Units
* new game modes
* new battlefields
* every faction gets its own dynamic music
* animated world: more civillians, more plants, more animals, more beautiful landscape
If only I had C&C3 I'd totally try this out on release. TPoHTW was fun as hell (and buggy too ) while it lasted, so I should expect nothing less of awesome from this .
The Asen might not have modern radar and communicationtechnology, like their opponents, but for this they have the shrines.
These structures need a bit more space, as their counterparts, and they are made of massive stone, which the Asen brought from Asgard. There are crystals hanging on chains to catch athmospheric vibrations, caused by the activity on the battle field, and store them within their subatomic structure. Those information can be read by the heart of this construct, the Seeress. A Seeress is a sybil, one of the asenraces that has less muscle power, but instead of muscles she has some psychic abilities. With her tentacles she can take a look at the stored data of the crystals to send them to the local commander. Those commanders in turn can suit their tactics to the circumstances of the battle field. This means that they can advance with their troops, placing ambushes or planing and commanding tactical retreats. All by telepathic communication.
To put it simple, the shrines work almost like a modern radar system, which enables the radar ingame and unlocks T2-units. Further more you can recognize on this building which one of five Asen-generals the player has chosen because every general has its indivual shrine(s). The choice of general doesn't affect the shrine visual only, but the gameplay as well. Besides you can guess on its look (screenshots), which style of combat each general could have. You will get more details to the shrines in the general profiles in time.
Info: The effects and animations you can see on the screenshots are not final!
The Seeress sitting in the shrine:
From left to right: Shrine of Asgard, Shrine of Fire, Shrine of Ice, Shrine of Shadows, Shrine of War and the Shrine of Woodland.
I want to show you two things today about my Mod Timeless War. The first thing is the ressource system of the Asen and the second thing are the changes to the Tiberium. On the bottom of this update you will find a video I made for you.
The "Tree of Life" is the cornerstone of the Asen supplies and base building. In this structure you can train harvesters, but builders as well to build another Tree of Life, Silos and the Asen command center. So basically its a refinery with production abillities. However the Tree of Life offers some upgrades for the late game to improve the economy and structures of your base. You can also see how much "Tiberium" is stored in the Tree of Life by looking at the cart where the harvesters unload their baskets: depending on how many of the pumpkin-like Sudamis are in it.
The Asen uses centaurs, a typical asenrace specialized for manual work, for gathering ressources. On the first look, this unit looks more like a burden: barely armored, can carried only the half load of GDI/Nod/Scrin harvesters and it obvious needs more time for one harvesting route. But its advantage lies in its costs and versatility. So the Asen harvester just costs 2/7 of a regular harvester, means 400$. You simple can train them in the Tree of Life, therefore you dont need any other structure to replace the lost ones. Futher more there are some general powers you can combine with the harvester to arm it with weapons and abillities. The most important advantage is against the Scrins. Through their passive abillity they can transform green Tiberium into white Tiberium that brings the ground units of the aliens in big trouble (more details below). To protect the harvester from some threats you can move them into buildings until the danger is gone or even put them into transporters or Asen tunnel networks to get them out of combat. There are some quiete sneaky moves you can do with the harmless looking harvester.
And now to the Tiberium. In Timeless War Tiberium can cause really bad mutations and not only turns uncareful soldiers into Viceroids, but animals and plants into tiberian lifeforms as well. But the Tiberium can lose its toxic effect temporary when it becomes white Tiberium. White Tiberium dont cause damage or mutations to infantry. Instead tiberian lifeforms and ground units - of the Scrin for example - take horrible damage in time. This change is good to set traps. This effect is caused by the most Asen units and structures that gets too close to Tiberium crystals.
For one I don't like the masters of Tiberium to be hurt by what they've mastered, but heh, not that it matters anyway. Otherwise, everything looks smooth and slick. I can imagine a huge bunch of those guys CLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINK and annoying people out
In this WIP Update I want to show you one of the first Generals powers of the Asen and some improvements or progress.
I improved the ivy of the Marukai Guardian that looked quite edged before but now it looks a lot smoother and realistic. On the Shrine of Fire I replaced the candles, which were hardly visible, with stone torches.
The following screenshots show the Mysteria / Mistridium Forge in progress. Mysteria or Mystridium is an unobtainium that the Asen brought into the Tiberium universe, but I will get to this in another update.
With this update Im launching a serie of spotlights about Generals powers and super weapons of Timeless War: Im beginning with the Arrow Volley of the Asen. Bow and arrow are quite underastemeted weapons in the 21. century of the tiberium polluted world because they don't do much damage against vehicles. They don't have to, so the Arrow Volley is upgradable anti infantry ability. When the ability was launched you hear at first a loud war horn shaking the battle field which scares enemy infantry in the targeted area, so they go down to find cover. The movement speed of the infantry is now cut to half. In almost the same time you hear the echo of the release of a huge cloud of arrows. At this point your opponent has just a few seconds to react and prevent the worst. If you then hear the swish of the arrows it is too late for the soldiers to escape death.
On stage 1 the Arrow Volley is just like discribed above. Any infantry within the targeted area is slowed down and get killed later.
Since stage 2 this generals power gets an additional side effect: one spear will be dropped by a valkyrie. On the landing the Qi crystals break whereby a huge amount of energy will be released which vitalise the flora around it. A grassland apears which heals every oranic(!) non-tiberian(!) lifeform on it. Seconds later everything get nailed by the arrows.
On stage 3 there are even 5 spears. The immense amount of energy has the same effect as an EMP weapon that paralyse vehicles for 10 seconds. Also the grassland on stage 3 is much larger.
In the video above I placed some Asen warriors near the Nod troops - 6 Qi-Lancer, 4 Guardians and 2 Rangers led by Medusa. Usually they would have no chance against those Nod army: the Raider-Buggy, Militants and Black Hands would wiped out the Lancer and Guardians in no-time, the Nod-Mot would detect the Rangers, therefore they would be an easy target leaving Medusa only the chance to flee or die. Through the Arrow Volley stage 3 the vehicles became an easy-kill target instead and the Nod infantry in the targeted area was almost wiped out completly by this surprise attack.
First note: At the third level in your video the ´take cover´ effect on the infantry is no longer present.
I really like how this worked out. New features really help in advocating for the level 2 and 3 of this power. Three features (kill inf, emp vehicles and heal yours) may be a bit daunting to implement effectively, but we´ll see how that works out.
For visuals, highlight the spears more after the power has hit. On level three the EMP effect + the extended healing area makes this power last longer than just the volley, so add something ridiculous to their visuals so you can see them right away. Part of CnC3 visuals is based on this extravagant nature, and I would embrace it. They are based on releasing energy and have something to do with crystals, they deserve more than just looking like a spear. Trying to keep the visual energy aura present until after the arrows have hit may also help in continuity of the power, as it is now very predictable when the arrows will hit (about just after the aura dissipates).
@ Shirou
Thanks for the suggest, I will add some details and effects!
<< Update July 2011 - The Blade Breaker >>
I was on vacation for a while, but now I'm rolling with full steam again. In this update I want to show you the first animations of the Mysteria Forge and I show you one of the strongest Asen units, the Blade Breaker. So this time I show you 2 videos.
The Blade Breaker is a T3 unit, means you can build her after you build the Asen "tech center". But her gameplay is quite different than her counterpart from GDI, Nod and Scrins. Shes much faster and has deals a lot more damage and she's even able to do horrible damage to T4 units - know as epic units - as well. Even a fully upgraded Avatar is unable to hold a candle to her. Also she is too fast for inert units so they have problems hit her and do less damage. The dragotaur - an asen race which the Blade Breaker belongs to - is armed with a several tons heavy axe. In addition you can unlock 2 special abilities for her through upgrades to give her new offensive and defensive roles.
The axe shot is her offensive ability that makes the melee unit to an artillery unit. You need to purchase the upgrade "Axe shot traning" and a built Mysteria Forge to unlock it. If the forge gets destroyed, the ability is unavailable until you have a new one. Over longrange distance she can take down an Avatar, Mammoth, Tripod ect. with just one blow if the target don't dodge the attack. But the axe shot is really good to weaken your enemies base defense since buildings can hardly dodge at all. In addition the Blade Braker can not just run away after she used this ability. She have to open a small portal to Asgard and grap a new axe which takes about 10 seconds and makes her highly vulnerable to counterstrikes. Also the axe shot has a cooldown of 30 seconds.
The second ability is the shield hardener which can be unlocked with the "Protecting shields" upgrade of the Mysteria Forge. If you use this, she wriggles her marukai (the hair of asen) into the ground and forms a pentagram which glows in rhythmical intervals. It doubles the armor of neaby allies include herself. But while she is in this reinforcing mode she can't move or attack so she must be defended. But you can deactivate and reactivate this ability any time. With the shield hardener you can fortify outposts or protect very important units or structures. This effect does not work on aircrafts.
The Blade Breaker has many advantages, but also some really important disadvantages you need to know. Her rate of attacks is really slow, means she is vulnerable to light units and she has a bit less HP than her counterparts. Her greatest weakness are enemy aircrafts so you have to protect her against this threat with anti air weapons. Also with 4000$ the Blade Breaker is the most expensive T3 unit of all. An asen player who use her wisly and support with other units can unfold her full destructive potential.
The Mysteria or Mystridium Forge is the hub for all asen weapons. Through upgrades you can unlock new weapons and special abilities, but you can also improve weapons and armor. For some abilities like the axe shot of the Blade Breaker you need the forge as additional prerequisite.
Mystridium, or Mysteria in the asen language, is a extremly hard to produce alloy. Only the asen can produce and manufacture it since they are in one's blood. The bodies of these mysterious creatures create it to harden their bones which explains their resistance. But you can find the highest concentration of Mystridium in their Marukai, the asens hair, which is in the end their primary source of this metal. Details about the Marukai will follow in a update later.
In the last update I promised to amplify the Marukai - and thats what I going to do in this update. But first of all I wanted to draw some attention to the German-speaking interview with TMOA, admin of CnC-Maps.de. If you understand German you will reveal some interesting infos about the project Timeless War - and even if you don't understand German I hope you at least enjoy the 2 exclusive screenshots I took from the Asen airforce
Marukai (Asen hair) are probably the bizarrest of the Asen. Basicly they are thin tentacles, about 6 to 10 times as thick as human hair, which are made of stuff that is made of Mystridium by 80% on average. This stuff covers a thin nerv tract like. You could compare it to the Na'vi from Avatar, if thats easier to imagine. But unlike in the movie the Asen can use the Marukai in addition as tools, resource to use in the Mysteria Forge to create weapons and armaments but also to reinforce their structures, neural networking and communicating with their environment, super sensible sensory organs, but also as weapons and to create erngy or magnetic fields as well. Everything that look like magic is in actual fact created by the fine and highly complex structure they form with the marukai, like the pentagrams. Well, enough bored with details: now lets take a look at the Marukai Guardian.
The Marukai Guardian is a T3 defensive building or just base defense to put it simple. Here is where the Asen bring the big guns in since this building deals lethal heavy damage even to heavy ground units if you just throw them against it and it can take some damage before it crumbles - more than the equals of GDI, Nod and Scrin. Thick Marukais are wandering underground without drawing attention until they reach their target to start the suprise attack. While the Tree Fortress of the Asen cannot detect cloaked units - unless you put some units into it which can decloak enemies - the Marukai Guardian can detect cloaked enemies. But what makes it to something really special are its upgrades. By upgrading it it can do additional area damage - this upgrade is called "Hell Thorns" - to weaken groups of infantry and light vehicles or you can choose the upgrade "Gaya Force" to create an ally healing grasland and to disable a small group of enemy vehicles to strike the intruders down with your other units or base defense much easier.
Both upgrades have the disadvantage that they lower the rate of attacks the Marukai Guardian can do by a few seconds. So it is up to you to decide if you want to do more damage, stun your enemies and heal your own units or just faster attack rates (no upgrades in use). It is basicly a way to adjust your tactic to your opponent to get advantage in defensive battles. Anyway, keep in mind that you need quite a bit more free room to place it unlike its counterparts and it costs a bit more. For those who want to turtle in late game you have no choice but to build a couple of those bulwarks to fortify your base. So repair it because heavy constant fire is always a threat for a strong base defense.
I hope you enjoyed this "small" update and you hopefully got a better picture of my mythical creatures. Please forgive me my mistakes in spelling and grammar - just let me know so I can improve. In the next update I maybe show you the new Generals Power of the Asen. Until the next time!
Certainly you already noticed that there was no update to my mod for a long time, besides some screenshots on Moddb. That's because of the really big update I am currently preparing: I am planning to show you in the upcoming mega-update 1 Generals Power including proper units, 2 new units (1 of them is a hero unit) and some background story to 2 characters of the mod. Saidly I will not be able to release that update in time of the MOTY2011 event, but to show you at least some progress I made a WIP video for you.
In this video I introduce you two units I am currently still working on: Thor and the Elementalist. Both units use thunderbolts and lightning storms and the will support each other for some really nasty combos. Further I worked on my test map which will become the prototype for maps in Asgard. The world of the Asen will get a light bizzare touch since this world sometimes has its own physical rules.
I hope you enjoyed this tiny update! Please don't forget to vote for Timeless War to the Mod Of The Year 2011.
Again a new WIP update after a long non-transmission period. The announced mega update will reciece more delay because of my current mammoth project: Asgard. The giant and mighty fortress of the Asen within the same-named world.
The current plan of this fortress allows us to build 3 dozen 4-player maps on specific locations. The whole area of it might be enough to fill the same number of 8-player maps, probably even more. Why so insane huge you might ask? Not that we only need the model for new maps, but also for cutscenes, screenshots or artworks and even for the case that we switch the engine (e.g. to CCG2). Last reason is just an open door for us if we find a engine which allows us to go new ways in map size and gameplay. But thats just a possibility. The primary use of this model is to create a unusual setting for C&C3 maps to raise it to design to an epic level. Just imagine you would fight a battle in the courtyard of Thors palace, one of the possible places in Asgard, where you can look from up the mountain down to the valley or you will even see additional parts of Asgard itself. Just a marginal note: I plan a similar camera system the Omega group is using, means that you will be able to have an almost horizontal view once you scrolled near the ground. The possibilities are endless and not only for the map design.
Enough swarmed about it. Im still at the very beginning yet 'cause alot of planning was required. The following pictures will show you some of the current progress. Small note: the Blade Breaker model is just to give the Asgard the right size.
Of course there are some smaller side projects which I do in the time where I need a break from modelling Asgard. One of those projects are character models like that of Asjudemi. She has overlong red Marukai and counts as one of the Asen generals in the storyline. It is not decided yet if she will become a playable general for the regular gameplay since I already have 5 Asen characters that are planned to be generals in skirmish ect. But she will have an entrance in missions later. For the following screenshots in Milkshape3D I made a temporary skybox to cover the ugly blue background.
At long last I have another side project: the official website for Timeless War, called Timeless War Central, in its current state. For some of the images I need the part of Asgard Im just building, so Im killing 2 birds with one stone.
So thats all for the current state and I hope you like it.
After a long time with no update, there are news about Timeless War: it is now a standalone game based on the unity engine. That means the mod is cancelled and its XML code is open source for all modders around here that still work for C&C3. I thank you for everything over all those years of my mod project and hope you will like the standalone version.
1
) while it lasted, so I should expect nothing less of awesome from this 
.
