The Apparent End of C&C

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

http://kotaku.com/5401542/rumor-eas-cuts-i...mic-maxis--more

Apoc's twitter says:

Just wanted to let you guys know that I am safe, haven't quite hit my nine lives yet =) But a somber day nonetheless, to say the least

[Havoc89]

That practically confirms it.

[AlienXServers]

What a sad day for us all.

[PermaGrin]

can find more about it at http://www.gamasutra.com/

Least they will stop fucking up the C&C name (4 is poopy so far). And if you read more at gama, you will find that they just bought a company for 300 million.

[maty]

Wow.

That's 1,500 more people in the games job market.

I'll never get a job ffs

[=HT=Duro]

killin C&C and The Sims .. well ... they will lost more $$$ than they will gain with this cut .. Ubisoft need to buy the C&C name .. im sure they will be able to make better game than EA

[Demigan]

This could actually improve the C&C game. All those programmers will know this is their last program they make there (it said they would be fired AFTER it was finished). So if they can set a high standard and show off what they can do, they have a larger chance of actually getting a job elsewhere.

Yours sincerely,

Demigan.

[Sn1p3r87]

QUOTE (Demigan @ Nov 11 2009, 11:46 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This could actually improve the C&C game. All those programmers will know this is their last program they make there (it said they would be fired AFTER it was finished). So if they can set a high standard and show off what they can do, they have a larger chance of actually getting a job elsewhere.

Yours sincerely,
Demigan.[/b]

Yeah guess so

[Ric]

Hard times for all, my thoughts go out to those that have/will lose their jobs at EA and anywhere really. It does leave you wondering how long Apoc along with his various projects including C&C TV and CommandCon will be going if C&C 4 is to be the last C&C game. Not much profit to be had in keeping a community alive for a dead series and to be fair it's near impossible to give measurable statistics for community work. You can't prove that you've helped sell x number of games and without a business justification you get the boot.

Hopefully I'm wrong though and the C&C community continues to get the support it deserves from EA.

Ric

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

QUOTE (PermaGrin @ Nov 10 2009, 10:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

can find more about it at http://www.gamasutra.com/

Least they will stop fucking up the C&C name (4 is poopy so far). And if you read more at gama, you will find that they just bought a company for 300 million.[/b]

Unfortunately C&C4 will still be released.

[Jointn00b]

I said it so often, and i'll say it again:

I HATE YOU EA!!!!!!!

oh well... like said before hopefully tiberian twilight will be the best game they ever made...

[Qbert987]

QUOTE (Jointn00b @ Nov 11 2009, 06:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I said it so often, and i'll say it again:
I HATE YOU EA!!!!!!!

oh well... like said before hopefully tiberian twilight will be the best game they ever made...[/b]

Agreed on all points

[PermaGrin]

I remeber waiting and waiting for Generals to come. I bought it and was VERY disappionted. So I made the handle EAsucksNUTZ. Then they banned me for slander on my first night online. :angry:

[Havoc89]

If anything they will probably care even less now because they are losing their jobs and instead will just say fuck it I dont give a damn about this game if it means me being fired. I doubt the quality of the game will go up, I'm almost positive it will go down, and the quality was already quite low to begin with, especially when it isnt worthy to be called Command and Conquer if everything is so different and pointless.

[Jayrun]

No new generals or renegade game in future because EALA cant make good games anymore.

CnC4 will fail.

[Guest]

They'll bring back the C&C team once they get out of the recession...

[Demigan]

Reading a bit about the game. i think they made only one real mistake so far: You cannot make buildings, except some defencive structures.

While making a new gameplay by creating a vastly superior MCV, the abscense of buildings is too great I think.

The MCV can build while on the move, then deploy to drop the units. But what about building factories to have additional build capacity? The more then iconic but almost legendary tiberium refinery's? How will you earn money if those aren't available? If it's oil derricks and tiberium spikes I think the game will go stale quite easily: destroy the spikes of your enemy and the game is as good as won. And how will GDI combat tiberium if the refinery's aren't there? What happened to that big bad MARV, a refinery in it's own right, is it just so much armoured scrap metal in the new gameplay?

There won't be any use to having infiltration, what is there to infiltrate? The game dumbs down to scouts, flankers or damage dealers and tankers. Even in TW infiltration was always a danger, shadow teams, snipers that paint targets for juggernaughts, rapid drops of engineers with VTOL's at the back of a base, wormholing your way in or teleporting. Having lots of forces was a bonus, an intact base a priority. Having several buildings destroyed could cripple you.

Having one thing to rely on, your MCV, and almost nothing else, is going to make a whole new concept for the game, but I think you lose too much without buildings you can place yourself.

[TigerXtrm]

Is it so strange that the development team is being let go after the franchise has been stopped? C&C4 is going to be the last game in the series so there is no real reason to keep that team around anymore (in sight of economical cutbacks, that team would actually be first on my list to kick out after the game is completed).

Maxis surprises me, though, since The Sims games have been doing pretty good.

[maty]

Quit with the EA hate. They're a business, and if they're at risk of closing - what else are they going to do? Unless you're self-employed, no job is completely safe. Other companies have made cutbacks in the last 12-18 months. EA is just surviving.

EA owns a lot of popular brands - Criterion for example are EA.

And quite often as soon as a game is finished the company kicks off a bunch of the team. Its commonm practice - bit extreme kicking off a whole department though.

Whats to say that the studio made such a ass-up of C&C they popped on EA's "make redundant" radar? The studio has to take some responsibility for a shoddy game. You can't always blame the financiers.

Besides, C&C aint dead. Keeping APOC on means we'll still have a thriving community, which is what C&C is all about! Heck, we're making a C&C title aren't we?

As long as the fans are alive, so will C&C.

[PermaGrin]

^^ I have hated them ever since they made this game called Command and Conquer Generals, which in fact, had nothing to do with Command and Conquer.

[DeathLink6.0]

I don't care if the CnC team gets kicked or not or if C&C continues or not. I never played ANY RTS online. For me, C&C started becoming unappealing with C&C Generals because of the horrible SP-Campaigns which had nearly no atmosphere or story.

All my interest is focused on C&C Renegade and Renegade X.

QUOTE

If anything they will probably care even less now because they are losing their jobs and instead will just say fuck it I dont give a damn about this game if it means me being fired.[/b]

Totally agreed. This starts with the quality of the models (except the buildings which are missing completly).

[Ric]

I imagine that this far into the production cycle they probably have the majority of the units in and ready to go. I'm not sure they'd have much left to mess up. I suppose it all depends on when they plan to release but if they are to be let go by March 2010 and they're already looking at a beta (if there isn't already one) then I imagine a lot of the visual work has been done.

Ric

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

I've "disliked" them every since they fired off the main Westwood guys, followed by the cancellations of Renegade 2, Continuum, and Tiberian Twilight. I still remember those days, a sad time in C&C history indeed.

I've spent more time playing Renegade, C&C 95, Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 individually than any of the EA C&C games combined x 2.

I didn't like Generals as it was not a C&C game, it brought a lame singleplayer, and did not bring anything new to the RTS table. It was pretty much just a modern warfare version of War Craft. I only played it because of the lack of C&C games at the time. MidEast Crisis and MidEast Crisis 2 was what Generals should have been.

I didn't like the 4 year gap where no C&C games were made and the community was completely neglected.

I liked C&C3's gameplay, but not its less than consistent story.

I was not going to like Tiberium, but it never came out anyway.

I didn't really play RA3.

I probably will not be even buy C&C4 for reasons I cannot mention (yet).

[maty]

Then hate on the C&C guys, and the EA guys making those decisions.

There are some amazing guys within EA who you're tarring with the same brush. There are some great studios, some great developers at EA who are widely regarded as the best in their field.

Just sayin'. I've been to EA Guildford, its probably the best-equipped studio in the UK, staff are treated fairly (free cinema, gym, 5 day week, 9-6, free drinks - the list goes on). There's certainly no reason to be hating on them.

Hate the people involved, not everyone. Its like hating the cameramen for a bad film.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

Oh you know I don't dislike the people. We've had some friends at EALA over the years and they're definitely nice people, but I don't necessarily agree with their opinions of where and how C&C is headed, both for the previous games and now.

Obviously this ending of EALA was not their decision, but a lot of what's been happening with C&C over the years was their decision.

Don't get me wrong, I like the people a lot, and the community managers have done a great job with this community. But firing Westwood and trying to fill their shoes was the worst decision they've made.

[maty]

BTW after 1,500 jobs going?

EA are now recruiting to "maintain capacity" in most "cost-effective areas" (i.e. Asia... ).

Heh.

[Gandjak]

Seriously, since Westwood was bought by EA, they have released only shit games excepting Renegade (multiplayer only), and Emperor battle for Dune.

In the EA era, in all the C&C game, the "US likely" side is allways shown as the good ones, and their enemies (communists, NOD) shown like idiots (soviets in RA 2) or mindless fanatics (NOD since TS).

Tiberian Sun was medium, with ugly graphics and design.

Red Alert 2 a pure joke

Renegade was a poor shit in solo mode (oh yeah once again the good GDI angels against thoose really bad mindless fanatics of NOD). Multiplayer was, surprisely, purely awesome.

Command and conquer generals : the apogy of EA evident pro-US patriotism. Not a C&C game

Red Alert 3 : even further is the ridiculous path chosen for the series since the 2. EA believed that showing boobs of some top models would have been enough to make a great game.

Comand and Conquer 3 : not bad, but too much futuristic for me.

[Guest]

QUOTE (maty @ Nov 13 2009, 09:43 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

BTW after 1,500 jobs going?

EA are now recruiting to "maintain capacity" in most "cost-effective areas" (i.e. Asia... ).
Heh.[/b]

Hey, I'm fine if the Chinese/Japanese want to make C&C. LoL, just expect a lot of fireworks instead of explosions when your tank blows up. And instead of tanks you'll have dragons.

[der Papst]

QUOTE (DeathLink6.0 @ Nov 12 2009, 09:22 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't care if the CnC team gets kicked or not or if C&C continues or not. I never played ANY RTS online. For me, C&C started becoming unappealing with C&C Generals because of the horrible SP-Campaigns which had nearly no atmosphere or story.[/b]

I fully agree to that.
I play C&C since 1995 when tiberian dawn was released.
C&C 1 - C&C 3 (the real C&C 3, which means tiberian sun) had a unbelieveable atmosphere.
RA2 was a small step backwards.

Renegade fullfilled the dreams of every C&C-Player, who have not wished to drive a mammoth or seeing the battlefield from the eyes of a soldier?

The end of Westwood as it was swallowed by EA also marks for me the end of C&C.
Generals had nothing in common with C&C but the name.
It was the last C&C i've bought, but it was a waste of money.

[Jointn00b]

What's all this with the 'Generals sucks' thingie?

I think generals is good because it had a new concept to it.

It had nice gameplay, and especially the new concept of it was nice. The fact that generals had factions which could actually excist made it quite appealing to me.

Furthermore generals was just like any other C&C only with better 3d graphics than TS and TD (i don't count RA to C&C as i completely hate the series). And AI's on hard were actually DIFFUCULT to beat lol.

I know the campaign had no depth to it and basically sucked, but I didn't play generals for the campain. I played generals because the overall gameplay was fast paced and full of action just like any other C&C

[Qbert987]

true, I just was playing Generals online last night. there were some awesome moments.

Maybe we could buy C&C now! :lol:

[DeathLink6.0]

Don't understand me wrong. I have nothing against new concepts and why not a modern warfare C&C or other new C&C Universes? I thought about my own factions for a C&C game and drew concepts for buildings and stuff. My idea e.g. was a complete Sci-Fi C&C but I stopped thinking about that because I heard of Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander and especially SupCom fulfilled my dreams.

I did not like generals for being "un-C&Cish". I don't like Generals because gameplay & story aspects. The waypath AI and enemy-AI was horrible. The singleplayer campaign was no campaign - it was senseless row of boring missions without any story or characters. The only good things were the three remarkable factions, the great music which really fits to their factions and units (and how you can combine them). Act of War made everything better than Generals in the eyes of a singleplayer.

CnC TW was more a classic CnC but it at least a (more or the less good) story in comparison to generals but it wasn't very well thought out with its steps foward and backward in the tiberian history. CnC TW had some kind of atmosphere but the music was boring. Waypath-AI and enemy AI was okay. Anyway it became boring for me very quickly.

AR3? Never tried - because of the DRM cr** but it had a building grid. C&C 4? No buildings, DRM/online-force - No way! I like building/destroying bases.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

I agree with Deathlink - yeah, Generals was unC&Cish, but that's not the only reason why I didn't like it. The singleplayer was just downright boring and not challenging, the storyline was inexistant and tacky at best (why were the US and China teamed up? What was the GLA fighting for? What's with the racist themes?), and overall the game did not bring anything new to the table. It replaced Westwood's Tiberian Twilight, and was just a modern warfare version of Warcraft. The game was very average, and considering it replaced the development of Tib Twilight, Renegade 2, and Continuum, we all should've expected much more.

[maty]

QUOTE (Speedy059 @ Nov 13 2009, 11:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey, I'm fine if the Chinese/Japanese want to make C&C. LoL, just expect a lot of fireworks instead of explosions when your tank blows up. And instead of tanks you'll have dragons.[/b]

So what about all the talent in the UK, US and Canada? Its that sort of workforce behind this mod, its that area that breeds almost all of the games design talent. Our countries have a long history of games design. You're happy to sell all the talent out for some dragons?

P.S. Japan doesnt count as a cheaper Asian industry - Japan is the biggest games developer of them all!

[Lewbio]

I quite enjoyed tiberian wars and Kanes wrath. During the run up and release of C&C 3 i thought they put a lot of effort/fanfare into it. Maybe they could lisence the IP to petroglyph ¬_¬.

One of my worries is the support for the game post release if they are going to be letting developers go.

I remember when C&C3 first came out, I had loads of errors where it would crash to desktop with some directx runtime error stuck in less than 640x480 and 8-bit colour.

Whats this I hear about no buildings in c&C4? It's what made Dawn of war 2 a bit crap for lultiplayer for me.

[thrash300]

I don't know why many people see this as a bad thing.

AT LEAST EA Gaymes won't whore the great C&C series anymore. That also means that EA gaymes will give less about mods of based off of C&C makes. Hey maybe they will let Westwood work on C&C agian since they apperantly don't give a damn about it and are cutting the developers meaning that they don't plan to have a future with C&C at all. I hope that the TT patch won't be affected by this.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

Actually EALA is still working on C&C games in the future, just not the same team. The current team members are being either fired or moved, C&C is getting an almost completely new team.

[thrash300]

QUOTE ((NE)Fobby(GEN) @ Dec 9 2009, 12:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually EALA is still working on C&C games in the future...[/b]

Where did you read that?.

[Lewbio]

I hearrd they may still make games for the tiberium universe, but I think the games revolving around nod/gdi/kane saga will be coming to an end.

[An4x1mandr0s]

Just Because they are closing the EALA sub-studio DOES NOT mean that they will stop making command and conquer games , sorry to kill your dreams guys.

In my opinion , command and conquer was killed the moment that Westwood decided to stop Developing Tiberian Incursion and Continuum to help their other games (like E&B) , EA is not (was at least) known for patience at the time , Renegade 2 though... It's actually Dice and ID Software's fault that EA canned that one (I mean come on , They were going to release the First battlefield and ID was about to release Doom3 ... (which ended up being delayed )

So It's not ALL EA's fault that Westwood close , they did some mistakes too ... like all humans do ...

Back on the Topic :

If they dropped the franchise , then it would fall on the community to keep it alive ... and maybe one day we could all unite under one banner and buy the franchise's rights

(Just a dream i know)

[NodGuy]

QUOTE (Lewbio @ Dec 12 2009, 10:41 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I hearrd they may still make games for the tiberium universe, but I think the games revolving around nod/gdi/kane saga will be coming to an end.[/b]

Ok, so if its not about Nod and GDI... what else could it be about? And do not say the Scrin

[Jointn00b]

QUOTE (NodGuy @ Jan 4 2010, 10:54 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ok, so if its not about Nod and GDI... what else could it be about? And do not say the Scrin[/b]

idd, GG game over lol.

although i'm kinda interested in the scrin. i mean in C&C 3 they were all around, and nowhere in C&C 4 is there a notion of them while the scrin leader said 'Prepare full invasion force' at the end of the scrin campain. So are they completely gonna drop that?

[Demigan]

QUOTE (Jointn00b @ Jan 4 2010, 11:56 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

idd, GG game over lol.

although i'm kinda interested in the scrin. i mean in C&C 3 they were all around, and nowhere in C&C 4 is there a notion of them while the scrin leader said 'Prepare full invasion force' at the end of the scrin campain. So are they completely gonna drop that?[/b]

What about the forgotten? They are going to make a huge comeback in this game (trying to survive while all tib recources are not under their control). But are they going to be playable? If so, how will they be playable?
And yes, the scrin. It would be incredibly stupid to have an entire campaign, end the tiberium saga without ever explaining how the scrin are going to invade.
It would be even more stupid to have them find a solution through the game to seal off the treshhold tower even before the scrin attack. And I hope they will give the scrin a different approach to the MCV's. 'we have a flying tower for MCV, but when we return to earth, oh deary me the MCV's we use in our attack forces are almost exactly like the MCV's now deployed by our opponents, what a coincidence'. While I'm all for making a balance in a game, giving everyone the same choices and only slightly different construction options isn't going to cut it.
My suggestion for them would be to check up on an old game: earth 2150. 3 races, all with a different way to build, mine, create energy, with a bunch of basic weapons everyone has and a bunch of special weapons which are unique for each race. And still, it has a GREAT balance throughout the game.

Yours sincerely,
Demigan.

[NodCommander]

I think most of us here would agree that CnC made by EA games is dead anyways. Mod comunity ftw!

[Zombieguy]

Sad to see the team go but this is not the end of C&C. They will return to making an FPS. I am positive. The rich storyline gives them the luxury of choosing any plot in the huge universe of C&C to capitalize on at the time of their choosing.

QUOTE (maty @ Nov 16 2009, 06:11 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So what about all the talent in the UK, US and Canada? Its that sort of workforce behind this mod, its that area that breeds almost all of the games design talent. Our countries have a long history of games design. You're happy to sell all the talent out for some dragons?

P.S. Japan doesnt count as a cheaper Asian industry - Japan is the biggest games developer of them all![/b]

Just because the talented artists and game theorists were dominant in western countries doesn't mean the talent cannot be nurtured elsewhere. The rest of the world is quickly catching up. Russians put the first satellite into space, Americans landed first on the moon. Does't mean the other less developed won't follow suit. They will eventually catch up. Nobody imagined at the time of the Apollo moon landings that one day China would launch its own manned rocket into space and nobody imagined that India would ever be able to send moon orbiters to collect data.

The big corporations have always wanted to break down every trade barrier possible including sovereign nations trade laws that might affect them negatively from operating there. And the most of their work over the past 40-50 years have been a tremdous success. Look at the world today...the concept of individual countries (depite numerous wars) is being slowly eroded as globalism drives change. A top advisor in the Cilnton administration in the US told once that we won't be living in "countries" in the future.

Corporations are defining the restructure of society and driving innovation. Also a global presence enables them to get access to previously hidden markets and help minimize costs. Imagine the trillions of dollars companies like IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Dell...etc etc have saved for themselves by moving vital operations to Asia. They get cheaper labor and don't have to bother with employee benefits while at the same time giving the same efficent service.

QUOTE ((NE)Fobby(GEN) @ Nov 16 2009, 02:52 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree with Deathlink - yeah, Generals was unC&Cish, but that's not the only reason why I didn't like it. The singleplayer was just downright boring and not challenging, the storyline was inexistant and tacky at best (why were the US and China teamed up? What was the GLA fighting for? What's with the racist themes?), and overall the game did not bring anything new to the table. It replaced Westwood's Tiberian Twilight, and was just a modern warfare version of Warcraft. The game was very average, and considering it replaced the development of Tib Twilight, Renegade 2, and Continuum, we all should've expected much more.[/b]

I think claims of Generals being racially or culturally offensive is absurd. Funny thing is the same people who say this don't complain about the absurd Cold War-era stereotypes put on Russian units in many previous C&C games. Take RA2 for example; Russian units all suffer from American sterotyping. The Russian conscript unit can be seen stretching and yawning (like as if that's so true!). But then look at how much respect Communist China seemed to get in Generals!

See anything ridiculous here?

Stalin killed millions of innocent Russian people and Russia was an enemy of America = Russsian units in C&C have negative American stereotyping all over them.

Mao killed millions of innocent Chinese people but China never was an enemy of America = Chinese units gets glorified in Generals.

Absurd.

It's hypocrisy and bigotry of the highest degree. But in the end it's all a game made by westerners and they are going to inject their own sense of racial/cultural stereotypes humor into it. I think we should just leave it at that because if Russians or Arabs made C&C, let's admit it, it ain't gonna be so pro-western. It's not even worth to take sides in this issue of alleged racial themes.

[NodCommander]

I just wish that EA will stop abusing CnC already..

[Queenhunter]

QUOTE (PermaGrin @ Nov 11 2009, 09:21 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I remeber waiting and waiting for Generals to come. I bought it and was VERY disappionted. So I made the handle EAsucksNUTZ. Then they banned me for slander on my first night online. :angry:[/b]

That is Funny LMAO!

Well, I can remember a time when EA was great, respected, and inventive.

All things must end. hopefully C&C will not, I have enjoyed C&C since orig. release.

[MARKO]

the more simple C&C4 gameplay will make more fans of C&C RTS in general.

[punko24]

QUOTE (Gandjak @ Nov 13 2009, 05:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Seriously, since Westwood was bought by EA, they have released only shit games excepting Renegade (multiplayer only), and Emperor battle for Dune.
In the EA era, in all the C&C game, the "US likely" side is allways shown as the good ones, and their enemies (communists, NOD) shown like idiots (soviets in RA 2) or mindless fanatics (NOD since TS).
Tiberian Sun was medium, with ugly graphics and design.
Red Alert 2 a pure joke
Renegade was a poor shit in solo mode (oh yeah once again the good GDI angels against thoose really bad mindless fanatics of NOD). Multiplayer was, surprisely, purely awesome.
Command and conquer generals : the apogy of EA evident pro-US patriotism. Not a C&C game
Red Alert 3 : even further is the ridiculous path chosen for the series since the 2. EA believed that showing boobs of some top models would have been enough to make a great game.
Comand and Conquer 3 : not bad, but too much futuristic for me.[/b]

1. Renegade is Westwood
2.TS was a good game, the graphics were really good for there time (really nice) for its time, i still like them! dont be retarded
3. ^^ RA2 is a really good game, really good from westwood i played it alot and might play it again
4. Of Cource MP was good, it was Westwood, No Suprise.
5. Generals was to burn time
6. again, RA2 was exelent, ra3 campain was "WOW BAD" and its errm/meh game
7. C&C3, lmao too futureistic, awwwwww, its fine for me. I like it and its set at a good time but campain could be better, alot better not bad for ea O_O

-LaserOfFury, My Response Of "Corrections"

---EVA~Transmission Termanated!---