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Red Alert 2: Apocalypse Rising is still kicking.


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Back in the old lands of w3d total conversion mods, a little known project that aims to produce a Red Alert 2- inspired shooter is still slowly putting out updates!

We put this update out the other day, which includes lots of awesome information on what we've been up to recently. We've got a solid team over at Bluehell Productions that is still around producing total conversion mods for Renegade's w3d engine! Our forum recently turned 10 years old, so that must be worth something!

For fans of Renegade X who don't mind more of a retro graphical style, come check us out!

The latest update can be found here: https://www.bluehellproductions.com/for ... opic=27640

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The main problem with moving to UE3 at the moment is the fact that our programmers all use C++ and don't want to learn a scripting language that is soon going to be obsolete (uScript).

We might consider it when Renegade X releases an editor pack though. We'll see.

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The main problem with moving to UE3 at the moment is the fact that our programmers all use C++ and don't want to learn a scripting language that is soon going to be obsolete (uScript).

We might consider it when Renegade X releases an editor pack though. We'll see.

UnrealScript is based on Java. You can find many similarities between the two languages. If any of your programmers use Java, then they might do fine with UnrealScript. You can read this wiki page for comparison of UnrealScript and other languages: http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/UnrealScri ... _languages

Your mod/game is great. It looks pleasing and your team has done a pretty good job so far. But seeing that the Reborn team has worked hard on their mod/game and not get a lot of players was a bit of a shame... (Same for APB) And I'm worried, as any other Renegade community member is, that this can also happen to AR. Since Renegade-X saw a lot of players and downloads, it's bound to succeed. I believe that since Renegade-X has so much attention (hopefully it will get even more attention soon), the team members get more motivation to develop this game even further. You've seen what happened to TT right? The TT team did a great job, but the player count of Renegade went down in the years of development and after the release. Now there are people who are quitting the team because they believe it's useless, for lack of a better term, to keep developing. You guys don't wanna go there. It would be a wise decision to start developing with UDK. This is only my opinion. I'm sure that for you, as a leader of the mod/game, it will be a very difficult step to make.

It is sad that nowadays people judge the game on its graphics first. I believe that gameplay is the most essential part of them game. Graphics come in second place. That might be the reason why standalone W3D games don't get as much attention as Renegade-X did and does. If you think about it, Reborn and Renagade-X are kinda the same. Same gameplay, same strategies, and familiar characters and vehicles but unique in their own way. The only difference is graphics. And that is what drives more people to Renagade-X rather than those great W3D mods/standalone games.

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Is there a reason on the BHP launcher, that there is no download link in your tab, just a tab?

Like, the Reborn tab has download and install button, APB does, and Apocalypse Rising doesn't.

But, is there a place I can download and check it out?

Apocalypse Rising isn't out yet since there a few infantry characters, vehicles and buildings still to make. There's a tab on the BHP launcher for testing purposes. Our launcher hooks into our forum, so different game builds are unlocked depending on which member-group you are in.

The main problem with moving to UE3 at the moment is the fact that our programmers all use C++ and don't want to learn a scripting language that is soon going to be obsolete (uScript).

We might consider it when Renegade X releases an editor pack though. We'll see.

UnrealScript is based on Java. You can find many similarities between the two languages. If any of your programmers use Java, then they might do fine with UnrealScript. You can read this wiki page for comparison of UnrealScript and other languages: http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/UnrealScri ... _languages

Your mod/game is great. It looks pleasing and your team has done a pretty good job so far. But seeing that the Reborn team has worked hard on their mod/game and not get a lot of players was a bit of a shame... (Same for APB) And I'm worried, as any other Renegade community member is, that this can also happen to AR. Since Renegade-X saw a lot of players and downloads, it's bound to succeed. I believe that since Renegade-X has so much attention (hopefully it will get even more attention soon), the team members get more motivation to develop this game even further. You've seen what happened to TT right? The TT team did a great job, but the player count of Renegade went down in the years of development and after the release. Now there are people who are quitting the team because they believe it's useless, for lack of a better term, to keep developing. You guys don't wanna go there. It would be a wise decision to start developing with UDK. This is only my opinion. I'm sure that for you, as a leader of the mod/game, it will be a very difficult step to make.

It is sad that nowadays people judge the game on its graphics first. I believe that gameplay is the most essential part of them game. Graphics come in second place. That might be the reason why standalone W3D games don't get as much attention as Renegade-X did and does. If you think about it, Reborn and Renagade-X are kinda the same. Same gameplay, same strategies, and familiar characters and vehicles but unique in their own way. The only difference is graphics. And that is what drives more people to Renagade-X rather than those great W3D mods/standalone games.

For the record, I've used uScript in the past and found it to be pretty bad in most cases. While our programmers may know Java, I think they relish the challenge that scripting the Renegade engine with C++ still brings. I can't blame them really, because I still enjoy developing for the engine myself. But I do hear you out about moving on; my biggest gripe with the w3d engine currently is that the export tools haven't been updated since LotR: Battle For Middle Earth 2 came out, so it's miles out of date by current pipeline standards.

Reborn had plenty of players when it was released, and it still continues to get players; nowhere near the scale of players Renegade X has currently, but that's because the amount of publicity that Renegade X has gotten surrounding it's release has prompted a lot of people to check it out. Keeping the players playing will be the real challenge.

The TT team pretty much work exclusively for us now, because we are the only team that dares to push the boundaries of what the Renegade engine is truly capable of. You can change Renegade's back-end all you like, but it's not going to create a better game because if anything like balance is touched, people would complain.

Because APB, TSR and AR are created by us, we have the power to truly innovate C&C mode in a way that even the Renegade X developers cannot do. Making a game that is faithful to Renegade still limits you to Renegade, whereas we are free to create more interesting gameplay features that wouldn't necessarily fit into Renegade at all.

We have talked about moving to UDK, but we tentatively waiting to see what UE4 is like, since it makes use of C++ rather than uScript. The other main problem we have is the amount of effort we'd need to spend just porting all of the assets over to UDK and re-rigging everything. The default UDK animations are hideous and we are currently without an animator, but I guess that working on a better engine would make us attractive to a new audience of artists.

You are right in saying that games are judged by graphics alone in this day and age, which is sad; but the main point is that you can draw people to play your game using graphics, but to keep them playing requires a lot more. In my opinion, A Path Beyond was at it's best when there was a global stats system installed with achievements and all of that cool stuff. My belief is that to keep people playing, you need to give them a reason to play; so if there are achievements and accolades available, people will play to get them.

Reborn and Renegade X are kind-of the same if you strip both games down, but then if you build them back up, you will realise that Reborn plays very different ly. One notable example is the choke-point gameplay that Renegade and Renegade X seems to suffer from. Reborn doesn't suffer from this simply because engineers cannot repair vehicles and both teams have unique ways of breaking out of their base (underground units for Nod, EMP mines for GDI). Although some of the key strategies such as APC rushing still remain, the game is a little different.

We are working diligently to provide the community with something different that's more of a twist on what we think C&C-mode should be like, but in the end you are ultimately right; a smart gamer knows that gameplay comes first, but unfortunately we can't all be smart gamers.

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Really you are right. It is all about the flux of things. New players will play if it is on a new engine, and keeping them all is a challenge I am doubtful of but keeping thousands is acceptable to me because realistically I find it definitely possible that a thousand people would stick with this. I will.

Secondly, I back the development of Reborn and other renegade clones from other universes, however I think the w3d engine is capable yet obscure so only players who know what to look for will access it. I presented it to my clan, so it isn't like I don't try. I got maybe 1-5 people interested, and not in a regular schedule but a when they are bored basis.

Generally, I think the dev team for Reborn at least in the long run, and there is still plenty of time while this game is in development open beta, should consider this game as a good platform to port their game to. The popularity RenX got could easily synergize to Reborn, being from the Tib Sun universe, and APB and AR, being more players found Red Alert universe more fun.

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  • 1 month later...

Holy shit, this makes me wonder about the tiberium sun conversion i used to play. Cant remember the name to save my life, but im definitely going to check this out. Thank you. Do you need the original renegade though?

EDIT:Nvm, no one is on any of these lol, which is a shame cause it looks like alot of work went into these. Especially C&C reborn. I remember i was so pumped for that mod, and now that its finished no one plays it lol.

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The main problem with moving to UE3 at the moment is the fact that our programmers all use C++ and don't want to learn a scripting language that is soon going to be obsolete (uScript).

We might consider it when Renegade X releases an editor pack though. We'll see.

Then find some programmers who are interested. There are plenty of them out there as renX has shown.

AR will be DOA if it gets released with the w3d engine.

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