142 replies to this topic

[Alias]

As I've said before, I'm pretty sure almost all of the design will change before release. The Generals Alpha is vastly different to Generals as we know it.

[CJ]

GuardianTempest, on 14 December 2011 - 12:47, said:

And since Bin Ladens death, what will they focus this one on?

I wonder where you saw any trace of Ben Laden in the first Generals -_-

[Chyros]

Bin Laden is boring. I'd much rather have;

HEHHHHHH YOU CANNOT DEFEAT MY TOXINS GENERELLLL.

[Destiny]

Heheh, the Thrax and Tankgen had the most character behind them I agree with Chyros, though. Hope they have some good characters.

[n5p29]

maybe it's Thrax's daughter. *shot*

[Soul]

Given this game isn't being released till 2012, alot can change in that much time. The Technical is so far the only unit that has my interest.

[Erich Honecker]

2013*

[Soul]

Erich Honecker, on 14 December 2011 - 23:09, said:

2013*

*Checks* Oh yeah, you're right. Off by a year, but still a long wait.

[Soul]

Q&A article, have a read.
http://www.united-fo...0.html#comments <-- How the hell do I do I link without the URL appearing like this?

Quote

UF: How is it, beeing on the 'other side' after years of beeing an C&C community fansite administrator?

EA_Cire told us that there are always two sides of a coin. On the one hand he now has a lot more influence and insight, on the other hand he misses the freedom of beeing a fansite admin and not having to backcheck everything with legal and marketing. He gets a very positive vibe from the developers, who are very interested in his insights as fansite admin and community member, because he knows what the fans want.

UF: What is EA_CIREs typical workday?

His role in the community is not beeing the most active guy on the boards (he reads a lot though!), but to influence the team in order to create a great game that the fans enjoy very much. One of the reasons for him beeing community manager is his insight in the community and beeing a voice for the community as part of the C&C developer team.

UF: How did EA_CIRE experience the Video Game Awards?

His VGA day started with the Origin leak (Origin released Generals 2 preorder information hours before the VGAs), tons of emails on his blackberry and of course fixing the leak. He was live at the VGAs until shortly after the trailer and then drove back to the office to make sure the forums, blogs and so on go smooth.

UF: Does Victory Games have a guy for hunting leaks and were some leaks intentional?

There is no 'leak guy' who crawls through the net checking for leaks. Some information was posted in hope of it beeing discovered, but the way it went down was not intentionally. For example generals2.com linking to the product site was a mistake and therefore fixed asap. In general leaks mean panic, frantic phone calls and the person responsible beeing terribly sorry.

UF: Was the map shown in the teaser specifically made for the VGAs or is there already a playable version of the game?
EA_CIRE replied that they do have more, but of course that teaser was made for the VGAs. They will release more content in the form of screenshots and videos in the next months.







UF: Since the information for the game has been released, alot of players are worried about the 'downloadable content', especially about the factions and units part.
EA_CIRE pointed out that the game is designed to be highly attractive over a long time and that there will be more content coming after time. But balance is a central point for the team and they will focus on avoiding imbalances. One thing they are looking at are the DotA-clones with their ingame stores as good DLC examples. And not everything will have to be payed for, as there will be free additional content as well.

UF: Follow up question. So factions and units will be free?
The game will be released in 2013, EA_CIRE pointed out. There's a lot of time left to make and refine those decisions, not much is final about the system right now. He again states clearly that the game beeing balanced is very important for the team. He also mentioned that feedback is highly important and that the team follows the statement 'hey, don't make it overpowered'.








UF: Will the EU-Faction be the European Union or some kind of 'Eurasian Unity League', as depicted in the Zero Hour storyline?
EA_CIRE said we should take a close look at the tank, especially the sign on the track. It would be very similar to a symbol in real life, either an organization or a confederation. (EU probably means European Union then)

UF: In an interview it has been mentioned that Victory Games joned Bioware this summer, what was the reaction of the dev-team to this?
EA_CIRE states that a lot of higher ups at EA have C&C in their heart right now. Bioware is known for quality and the team is very exited and happy to utilize the experience and quality management BioWare has (in terms of the game has to have a certain standard to be good enough for the fans). Generals 2, he thinks, will be one of the best Command & Conquer games, quality wise, which have been released over the last years.

UF: Will the cutscenes feature real persons again or will they be rendered in ingame graphics?
Frostbite 2 is capable of high-def cinematics, EA_CIRE said, but he knows the community wants real actors. Both are viable options, they haven't made a final decision in that regard. Time will tell.

UF: Does BioWare Victory have plans to release tools for mapping and modding? Or do they share the DICE notion, that Frostbite 2 is too complex for modding?
There is much time left until 2013, so the final decision has not been made yet. EA_CIRE knows how important it is for the community to get proper mapping and modding tools and strongly makes their case in the development team. There is still hope for all those mappers and modders out there.






Register to our ZH tourney on Dec, 17th



UF: Will there be a ladder kit?
Presumably not, considering none has been announced yet EA_CIRE states...

UF: What did EA think off the speculations and the mood before the announcement was made?
EA_CIRE said that the site "United Forum" won some fans in the dev-team for promoting the Generals 2 rumour, despite heavy critisism. Some developers felt sorry for them. Apart from that it was really interesting for them to follow all the speculations and they were amused by some of the rumours, for example those regarding "Alliances". They also were impressed how deep some fans digged into the website code for hints.

UF: What is going on with "Alliances"?
According to EA_CIRE those are just internet domains - for now.

UF: Why is Generals 2 already announced, although it is going to be released not earlier than 2013?
EA_CIRE joined the studio very early in the development process, at a time a community manager normally is not yet needed. But BioWare Victory wants the community to take part in the development process of the game as early as possible. The feedback of the community is going to reach the devlopers early on so that the game will be shaped in the right way. EA_CIRE thinks that Blizzard already prooved this concept to be working really good.




FOTOSTRECKE18 Bilder








UF: Can we expect BioWare Victory to redesign the units multiple times considering the community feedback, for example the controversial EU 'orca'?
Probably not multiple times, but according to EA_CIRE they definitely try to implement the wishes of the fans. He stresses that the helicopter shall not be regarded as GDI orca!

UF: How does the C&C Community Manager spend christmas?
EA_CIRE will stay in the US to relax and celebrate at the beach, perhaps he is also going to visit San Francisco together with an old friend from Germany.

UF: A final message from EA_CIRE to the community?
EA_CIRE: "Rejoice for an kick-ass C&C game!"

Also possibility of modding .

Edited by Soul, 15 December 2011 - 14:19.

[Z_mann]

If they are smart, they WILL recognize how powerful mods are for the vitality, popularity and spread of the game. I mean just look at Warcraft and its maps/mods. Blizzard spent a lot of effort to produce an editor that is both powerful and simple (enough) to use, the trigger system is very intuitive - even a kid could figure it out. The result: people literally bought the game for the mods. An offshoot little map turned into a tournament phenomenon and spawned a whole GENRE of multiplayer games. And, of course, they made a profit. The only problem is that it isn't the kind of easy-to-plug-into-a-spreadsheet profit that CEO's and CFO's like.

Banning mods WILL cripple this game forever. I really hope they realize that.

[Chyros]

Z_mann, on 17 December 2011 - 13:05, said:

Banning mods WILL cripple this game forever. I really hope they realize that.

That is their intention.

[Z_mann]

Well, that's not much of an intent then, is it

[Chyros]

It's not very good for sales if a game's longevity is too long. This goes for any product, btw.

[Raven]

They will not release modding tools if they plan to spam a CnC game every year!

[Chyros]

^Exactly. Modding is a thing of the past, it does not fit in the modern gaming community anymore. Unfortunately.

[Alias]

Chyros, on 18 December 2011 - 10:27, said:

^Exactly. Modding is a thing of the past, it does not fit in the modern gaming community anymore. Unfortunately.

Only for the really greedy companies.

Total War games still have a pretty strong modding scene, even though it took a couple of months for the tools to come out for Shogun 2, despite there being rather sizable DLC packs as well.

One doesn't need to look further than Relic (why, you used to be a good developer ;_; ) to see how bad the DLC infection can go. You'd never guess the developer for Company of Heroes, which had constant patch and balance updates for about 5 years, would resort to pay-for-everything.

Hopefully EA/Bioware doesn't go as far as Relic did. Thankfully, we do have a glimmer of hope in the fact that most of the Mass Effect 2 DLC was actually decent, sans the costume packs and whatnot - hopefully some of that attitude rubs off onto Victory/EA.

But yeah, modding is either going to be completely not there or too difficult to even bother. The days of extracting an archive and editing INI files is sadly over.

Edited by Alias, 18 December 2011 - 11:04.

[Wizard]

Alias, on 18 December 2011 - 11:03, said:

One doesn't need to look further than Relic (why, you used to be a good developer ;_; ) to see how bad the DLC infection can go. You'd never guess the developer for Company of Heroes, which had constant patch and balance updates for about 5 years, would resort to pay-for-everything.

Hopefully EA/Bioware doesn't go as far as Relic did.

That is actually a little unfair. DoW II and Space Marine are both moddable (the later only in SP), but I would say that Relic do stil support modding. Not to the same degree they did, but better than most. DoW II is proof that you can have both modding and DLC and it works.

[Alias]

Wizard, on 18 December 2011 - 12:43, said:

Alias, on 18 December 2011 - 11:03, said:

One doesn't need to look further than Relic (why, you used to be a good developer ;_; ) to see how bad the DLC infection can go. You'd never guess the developer for Company of Heroes, which had constant patch and balance updates for about 5 years, would resort to pay-for-everything.

Hopefully EA/Bioware doesn't go as far as Relic did.

That is actually a little unfair. DoW II and Space Marine are both moddable (the later only in SP), but I would say that Relic do stil support modding. Not to the same degree they did, but better than most. DoW II is proof that you can have both modding and DLC and it works.

Moddable to an extent. While there are mods for the W40k games they're not the easiest thing to mod.

That's not the problem though - this is.

[Raven]

I really don't have any hope for mod support in gens 2 since giving an SDK would mean that other games made out of FB2 including BF3 or whatever shooter that gets released next year would also find themselves being modded since its the same engine.

[Sgt. Rho]

Wrong. CnC3 and KW use the same engine, but you can't mod KW with the CnC3 SDK. The engine setup with Frostbite is also very different to what it was in the engine they used before that.

[Raven]

I have seen KW mod tool that is fan made floating around. I thought it was derived from the CnC3. If that is not the case, then we have better hopes of seeing a mod support at least some time after the release.

[Krieger22]

Raven, on 19 December 2011 - 02:36, said:

I really don't have any hope for mod support in gens 2 since giving an SDK would mean that other games made out of FB2 including BF3 or whatever shooter that gets released next year would also find themselves being modded since its the same engine.

Well, Need for Speed: The Run also uses the Frostbite 2 engine, and I wouldn't mind it being modded for better performance on PC due to the shit optimization it has, poor performance from higher minimum requirements than BF3 and the fact that EA Black Box simply doesn't or doesn't seem to give a fuck about it (Console versions also have had patches, while PC has had none).

Edited by Krieger22, 27 December 2011 - 07:50.

[Gen.Kenobi]

They better have modding tools... Seriously... C&C isn't C&C without moddability.

[BeefJeRKy]

If Victory Games remake Generals in HD, I will be upset. I want something fresh but in the same spirit as the original. Honestly, as long as the game is able to entertain me, I should be good. Frostbite engine should give some interesting physics and terrain effects.

As has been mentioned, the age of mods is pretty much dead, and the age of DLC is upon us. Knowing Bioware, the DLC should be substantial though.

[n5p29]

dat Technical voice...

Edited by n5p29, 03 April 2012 - 05:37.