C&C Russia interviews Renegade X

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

C&C Russia will be posting an interview with Renegade X's founder Fobby on its website in Russian tomorrow. However, they have decided to give me the English transcript to post here. The interview will also feature two exclusive screenshots, so be sure to check it out tomorrow!

Here is the English transcript:

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C&C Russia: First question is really important to all C&C community members - will you really release RenX on 30th of September?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Yes, the very first beta version of Renegade X will be available on September 30th 2009.

====gameplay===============

C&C Russia: I've read the latest RenX blog, the Beta will include only two maps, right?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Yes, Islands and Field will be the two maps available in the first version. We plan on adding more maps in a later release as we finish them.

C&C Russia: I hope Hourglass come to us soon =) we are already see this map in UT3 and really like it

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Thanks. We plan on improving that later.

C&C Russia: did you plan a singleplayer mode in future?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: We don't have any official plans on a singleplayer, since there is still much to do in the multiplayer aspect of the mod. A singleplayer is definitely possible, but not yet planned.

C&C Russia: In one of your previous blogs you've said that the vehicle's appearance will alter if it is damaged or if it was repaired, it would look different from the newly built one. Is this system still implemented in the mod?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: It will be implemented in a later version of the mod. The system will also work with dirt: the more you drive your vehicle, the dirtier it will look.

C&C Russia: How aircraft will be implemented in the mod? Will helipads be included and will there be additional beacons for aiming airstrikes?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Airstrike beacons are planned as a server side option in a later release. We will talk more about those later. Aircraft will work similarly to C&C Renegade, they will still be VTOL, except with more realistic aircraft physics and cool features. They will be built from the Weapons Factory like in Renegade. Chinook helicopters will get a chaingun on each side for passengers to use, which we think will make the Chinook a lot more useful than it was in Renegade (a flying coffin). You will hear more about aircraft soon!

C&C Russia: Will we see the main, or at least defensive structures (such as guard towers, turrets)?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Of course, and they will be seen on September 30th.

C&C Russia: what about character animations? will they be remade or they will stay like in latest gameplay video?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Character animations will be remade once we get an animator that can do that for us. Right now we're using the UT3 stock character animations.

C&C Russia: How much time do you spend to the development of the project and how much of this time is dedicated to balancing out the gameplay?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: We will be working on more content and balancing the gameplay/fixing glitches all at the same time Our large team permits us to do that. As for timing, we don't know yet. We want to pump out at least two releases in the next few months, but we'll see.

C&C Russia: How will the game servers be organized and will the mod depend on the legality of the player's UT3 copy?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Yes, you must have a legal copy of Unreal Tournament 3 to play this mod. You can buy it for as little as 8 U.S. dollars these days on websites like Steam. Servers will be set up the same way they are set up in Unreal Tournament 3. We are making a new Server Client however, which will make it easy for players to view, find, and join Renegade X servers.

C&C Russia: It appears that Renegade X made Unreal Tournament 3 even more popular and make it sell even better.

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Yup. Many of our fans are C&C fans that probably would not have bought the game if it weren't for Renegade x.

====Info======================

C&C Russia: can u tell who was begin making Ren2007? whos idea and your primary goal for it.

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Well originally, a few years ago in 2006, a friend of mine was putting the C&C Renegade beta models in W3D as model replacements for the game. When seeing that, I had the idea of remaking C&C Renegade completely either on the same engine or a different engine. I eventually got together with a few other people with similar ideas and wanted to do the same thing, namely, Titan1x77, sgtmay, and Anthrax, and we decided that we wanted to work on the C&C Renegade remake on a game called Unreal Tournament 2007. So because of that, we named the mod Renegade 2007, and started secretly working on art, and building our team. We publicly announced the mod in 2007. The others I have mentioned however are no longer on the team. Unreal Tournament 2007 was renamed to Unreal Tournament 3, so we decided to rename the mod Renegade X.

C&C Russia: Do you still plan to make the project as close to the original Renegade as possible or you will just use it as the basis and make many improvements to both gameplay and design?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: This is a question we hear a lot. In the C&C community, we've got two types of fans: the people who would want everything exactly the same, and the people who would like a lot of differences and revisions. The answer is yes and no. Yes - we will have the same weapons & vehicles with almost exactly the same health and damage values, same gameplay, etc. But at the same time, we would like to be creative with Renegade X as well. For example, in terms of design, the Renegade X art style is a bit different from the original game. Our weapons, vehicles, and infantry all look more realistic and less cartoony. We're also using the Unreal Tournament 3 physics engine, which is much better than W3D's, so the way you play the game will be slightly different as well. The team also plans on adding new C&C-based game modes, new server side options that C&C Renegade didn't have, new original maps with their own interesting features, and many small improvements and adjustments to the game.

So as you see, we are still a remake of C&C Renegade and we're going with the same vision, but we are using the chance to extend and improve the original concept.

C&C Russia: How many people are working in your team and what is the estimated % of the mod's completion?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Our team usually has had between 20-30 members in the past two years. I would say about 7-10 of these members are very active, and the others are semi-active.

In terms of the percent of the mod, we don't have an official answer, since we are adding new ideas to the mod every day. Our September 30th release will be about 35% of the full mod - it will have more than 35% in terms of the content C&C Renegade had, but remember that we plan on adding new modes, and things that Renegade did not have.

C&C Russia: How much time do you spend to the development of the project and how much of this time is dedicated to balancing out the gameplay?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Character animations will be remade once we get an animator that can do that for us. Right now we're using the UT3 stock character animations.

C&C Russia: Did you try to make the project standalone like C&C Reborn or Red Alert: A Path Beyond? What exactly doesn't allow you to do that?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]:Many factors. Command & Conquer and themes relating to it are copyright by EA. Unreal Tournament is not an EA game. If we were to make a standalone, we'd face a lawsuit from EA for infringing on their C&C copyrights. We're also using some textures, animations, and meshes from Unreal Tournament 3 in our maps. If we made it standalone, we would also face a lawsuit from Epic games. Mods on W3D are only standalone because EA allows them to be, as it is their engine. Renegade X is not a W3D mod. Very few engines have this luxury, especially not newer ones like UE3. So, we thought it'd be easier for you to spend 10 USD or less for the game (and get the mod for free), rather than having us pay for an Unreal engine license (hundreds of thousands of dollars), remake all of our maps, effects, and animations using our own original materials, and take away all C&C themes relating to the mod, which therefore makes it cease from being a Renegade remake. Oh and make 0 profits from that as well.

C&C Russia:What made you change some models of the mod? Many things, especially weapons and vehicles, looked quite different before...

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Most of what we have look the same as the original game, except with more details and better quality art. We have made some different looking characters though - for example, we used the C&C Renegade concept art to design the Nod Soldier and Officer, which look similar to the ones in the original, except they had an urban camo, and looked slightly different. We felt that the concept art of these characters looked better than the ones from the actual game.

C&C Russia: This week Epic has released a new Mod SDK for PS3 that allows to use custom sounds in the mod. Does it mean that the mod will soon come to PS3 as well and will there be a Xbox 360 version?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: I don't think the Xbox 360 version allows mods, but we plan on porting Renegade X to the PS3 after the final version has been released.

C&C Russia: what do u think about C&C based mods which will be built based on RenX?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: We haven't heard from any, but we welcome the idea.

C&C Russia: will be allowed to use this beta to build renX based mod?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Yeah. We will also allow mutators for Renegade X, which is almost like a server mod that can be downloaded by joining a server. As for total conversion, we would recommend that people wait until a later release, as this beta is still early.

====Misc===========================

C&C Russia: What do you think about your potential rivals - C&C Reborn and Red Alert: A Path Beyond? What can you say about their future?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: We don't like to see them as rivals. Many of our members, including myself, have been a part of these mods, as well as RA2: Apocalypse Rising, and many other mods. I think each of these W3D mods are great, fun to play, and very creative. I don't think the development of this mod will have any effect on their communities and players.

C&C Russia: While the mod was in development some of your teammates got the job in game development industry. If that is not a secret, who exactly got the jobs and what kind of job they received?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: I don't think I can give you their names, but a couple members of our mod work with other studios around the world, while others do some freelance work.

C&C Russia: Do you have any support from EA? What are your expectations for the public's reaction on the release and how do you see the future of your mod?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Some of our friends at EA are really liking the mod. Last weekend, the EALA C&C community manager 2POC was given the opportunity to try the mod for the first time, and he really enjoyed it. So they are fans of the project, but they're not directly helping the development process.

I think the public is in for a treat on release day. I am sure most of our fans will be satisfied with the beta. We just hope they keep in mind that this is an early version, and there is much more planned for the mod. I think the future of the mod will be fantastic. As long as there are fans, there will be support from us.

C&C Russia: And the last question: What do you want to wish to your future players and modmakers?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: We wish you all the best of luck. To the fans, we've worked very hard to bring this mod to you for free. This is a dream come true for the team, and we hope you enjoy what we have done so far. I hope our fans follow us in patience for the next few releases as well. To fellow mod makers, keep up the good work. We hope to be an inspiration to you all.

C&C Russia: Really big thanks for attention and for interview. We want to wish your team luck and big and happy future for mod.

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Thank you CNC Russia, all the best! See you on September 30th.

[=HT=Duro]

nice interview fobby

[Jointn00b]

yups, nice one once again

[Jayrun]

Russian version of this interview with new screenshots is HERE

[neagu]

Wrong answer:

C&C Russia: How much time do you spend to the development of the project and how much of this time is dedicated to balancing out the gameplay?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Character animations will be remade once we get an animator that can do that for us. Right now we're using the UT3 stock character animations.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

QUOTE (dirtycopgangsta @ Sep 28 2009, 09:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Wrong answer:

C&C Russia: How much time do you spend to the development of the project and how much of this time is dedicated to balancing out the gameplay?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Character animations will be remade once we get an animator that can do that for us. Right now we're using the UT3 stock character animations.[/b]

No that's right.

[Jayrun]

Sorry Fobby, his right. one part is missing:

QUOTE

C&C Russia: what about character animations? will they be remaded or they will stay like in latest gameplay video?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: Character animations will be remade once we get an animator that can do that for us. Right now we're using the UT3 stock character animations.

C&C Russia: How much time do you spend to the development of the project and how much of this time is dedicated to balancing out the gameplay?

[NE]Fobby[GEN]: We will be working on more content and balancing the gameplay/fixing glitches all at the same time Our large team permits us to do that. As for timing, we don't know yet. We want to pump out at least two releases in the next few months, but we'll see.[/b]