EarthBreakers

[roweboat]

 

I'm sure many of you have seen this already! Looks cool, I'm not a fan of cell shading, but I guess that's the world we live in...

 

I wonder if it'll basically be a carbon copy of Renegade or what else they might add in.

[isupreme]

god that is horrible.     I know nothing about it but.........   its like an endless conglomeration of cut scenes.

I assume this P.o.s.  has no real team play?

only cool parts are where it reminds me of this awesome game i like to play called Renegade X

 

[roweboat]

11 hours ago, isupreme said:

god that is horrible.     I know nothing about it but.........

 

Don't be so quick to judge it then XD

[MajesticSausage]

We were discussing it at the pug on Saturday. 

I'm surprised they have released such a poor quality video tbh. I'd say it's fairly obvious that this is very early stages proof of concept stuff so I agree that it's best not to judge it too harshly, but I feel like even for a pre-alpha video this is shonky.

My guess is that some old Westwood heads (and nostalgic new folk) pitched this internally at Petroglyph but now they need to prove the business case for it (is there any audience for it) for development to continue, so the "trailer" is a hastily thrown together attempt to test the waters.

Personally I'm all for it. I suspect I'm not alone in thinking that Renegade was a diamond in the rough and did a lot of very cool things nobody else has done then or since (I mean we're all here playing renX right.)

Totem arts have proven that updating the core design can polish said diamond and push it into being something truly compelling, in fact I suggested on saturday that whoever pitched Earthbreakers was using RenX and it's small but active community as an important data point.

I  think Petroglyph are a solid developer and expanding upon and experimenting with the bedrock Renegade laid down is only a good thing. I've always felt Renegade is a fascinating if flawed games and its ideas deserve a chance to be explored.

I really hope it goes the distance and they get a chance to polish it up into something more compelling.

*BOINK*

[roweboat]

Here's the description from the Steam page:

 

ABOUT THIS GAME

Earthbreakers is a team-based PvP multiplayer game which combines the most enjoyable elements of FPS and RTS! You and your team battle for territory and harvest rare resources, while building and customizing your team’s base. Choose an infantry combat class, defend your base and supply lines, construct and pilot powerful military vehicles, and ultimately annihilate the enemy's HQ!




Earthbreakers uses a team purchase system to build an RTS-style base. Each building unlocks new infantry classes, vehicles or upgrades depending on the structure built. Do you build a factory to unlock new, more powerful vehicles, or do you build walls to aid in base defense? The choice is yours! Bases consist of six primary buildings, wall defenses and a selection of defensive turrets.




The resource, Vilothyte, is the lifeblood of a base; you use it to purchase new structures, higher ranking infantry classes and vehicles. Resources are collected by a harvester and returned to a refinery. Protect those harvesters to ensure success!




The world of Earthbreakers is a harsh place that requires guts…and a big gun! Multiple infantry classes are available, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Higher ranking classes must be (just like an RTS) unlocked by building one or more structures. Play as a Soldier to fight on the front lines! Play as a Technician to repair vehicles and keep your fellow teammates alive! Or play as a Firefly to burn enemies from a distance!




A good soldier can be even better when driving a tank. Multiple vehicles add the firepower needed to destroy base structures. Drive the Pulse Tank to destroy enemy harvesters and turrets! Use the Atlas APC to get your troops to the battlefield unscathed. Or pilot the Tiamat Artillery system and lay waste from a distance!




Earthbreakers race to collect Vilothyte wherever it is exposed! The game locations will be varied and present new obstacles. Each map will include two full base layouts, capturable locations, natural hazards, sniping positions and unique elements that can help or hinder your battle plans.


The Story

The year was 2045. In a time of global unrest, riots and civil war, scientists discover a new form of matter, Vilothyte, that can be used both to create any element or used directly as a power source. Considered a cure for the Earth's resource crisis, a system of satellites was placed in orbit which would scan for the materials needed to create the material and fire conversion bombs. Designated the “Earthbreaker Project”, It was said to be safe and would never target populated or endangered areas.

The first test was highly successful, creating enough Vilothyte to power the eastern seaboard of the USA for a week. The system was placed into full operation. It seemed the world was saved...until the hacker group Devolve removed the safeguards!

It is now 2060. The Earthbreaker system has slowed, but the orbital bombardment never completely stops. Most of the countries of the Earth have devolved into groups of city-states. Each sends out Earthbreaker teams to collect material whenever a bomb strike occurs. Combat over the bomb craters is fierce and never ending!




Content Summary
 

• Earthbreakers includes two full factions, each of which contains:
  -12 FPS infantry classes ranging from grunt soldiers to elite heroes.
  -11 Structures, 9 of which teams must coordinate to build.
  -6 drivable vehicles (plus a harvester) including light speedy units to tanks.
• Targetable satellite superweapons
• Multiple location maps to fight over.
• Support for player-run servers.
• Support for up to 32 players per team (team size is map-dependent).
• Support for solo play with bots (“practice mode”)

[roweboat]

From what I've read and heard, Petroglyph tends to release games in buggy or unfinished states.

 

If that's true it might be a case of a great potential wasted, but we shall see!

 

I'm sure were all hungry for anything with "Command and Conquer Mode", cuz that's what this is lol.

[yosh56]

I'm 99% certain that death sound at around 0:33 is ripped straight from Renegade. 

 

Looks like a good concept, but way too early to be showcasing.... I mean, there was FPS lag in the video itself......

[Mystic~]

Earth-breakers, haha, sounds like fracking... I hope what Majestic said about it just being a proof of concept is true. I saw they've already recycled C&C Universe into their 8-bit army games. I'd rather they recreate and remaster Renegade/Renegade-X if they get the necessary attention and approval, perhaps similar to how they got their hands back on their original IP for a remastering of Tiberian Dawn. I really dislike the cartoon feel of recent games, especially those explosions and neon guns.

I've got a great idea for their next game, C&C Nox *cough*, real-time fantasy action RPG.  

[roweboat]

4 hours ago, Mystic~ said:

I've got a great idea for their next game, C&C Nox *cough*, real-time fantasy action RPG.  

I used to play the hell out of Nox, hell even more than Renegade.

I was a big part of the hacking community back in the day.

[Canucck]

If Petro is already remaking C&C games why doesn't this one use the C&C brand? It's interesting that they'd start this now while doing HD remakes of the other games, and sounds very much like a passion project imo. Is it known if anyone from the (former) community is involved?

[Mystic~]

Quote

I used to play the hell out of Nox, hell even more than Renegade.

What were your in-game names, favourite servers or clans? I used to play a Firestorm on Euro Arena and American CTF, my highest accomplishment was probably playing for Daze before my account was hacked and compromised. A Spanish dude just had a go at recreating the basics and put it on Steam under the name Drain Live, released next month, it's not Nox, but similar, good for a fast inspired indie remake.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1092150/DrainLive/


Perhaps EA will get into more partnerships once they realise that the Westwood crew or Petroglyph had a winning formula and they will work together on more well funded and to become popular reboots ala Renegade.

[roweboat]

12 hours ago, Canucck said:

If Petro is already remaking C&C games why doesn't this one use the C&C brand? It's interesting that they'd start this now while doing HD remakes of the other games, and sounds very much like a passion project imo. Is it known if anyone from the (former) community is involved?

EA still has ownership of the C&C brand.

 

9 hours ago, Mystic~ said:

What were your in-game names, favourite servers or clans? I used to play a Firestorm on Euro Arena and American CTF, my highest accomplishment was probably playing for Daze before my account was hacked and compromised. 

I went by Magi Master (Mågï Måᶊtȇr) (you can guess which class i preferred lol) [before I came up with the nick roweboat] - I was apart of XtC. I was good Nox friends with a guy named Burn3r. Dude was brilliant lol.

I don't remember servers too much, I liked playing Quest and CTF the best.

It was nearly the only gamed I played from like 2001 - 2005 or so. As the population dwindled, we had to turn to editing the .ini files and I even learned a bit of hex code to keep the game interesting lol

Edited November 24, 2019 by roweboat

[Guest dg1995]

I kinda like it that Petroglyph is kinda aiming to add more variety to the base gameplay of Renegade.(Since Renegade can become too boring sometimes)

Adding freedom in base building is a good feature imo.(Since then every match will feel different due to the bases looking different in each map.)

 

Hope they manage to pull it off.

[Reivax]

On 11/21/2019 at 5:41 AM, isupreme said:

god that is horrible.     I know nothing about it but......... 

fortnite graphics on Renegade

at least if there are lot of players, i'll try to grab a few of them to our sect Renegade X 

[Movoza]

But.... this ís CnC.... With only slight differences.

I know that's obvious, but I want to write it out anyway.

Single resource that can be used as both construction material and power source? Looks like a crystal? Probably dangerous? Requires a harvester? Falls from the sky and creates a crater? Vilothyte and Tiberium both fit the bill.

Fine. They might've added base building, but if RenX had this goal from the start we probably would've gotten it.

Change classes? Designated buildings? Probably even satellites that can rain down death and destruction with a superweapon? I see few differences.

Even if this is footage to test the water, they botched it. Like stated by others already, there are huge framerate drops in the video (fire!) And there are practically only quick shots of "ACTION! MOVEMENTS! EXPLOSIONS! FIREEEEEEEEE!". No establishing, no tranquility or info. It seems they had 3 buildings, 1 infantry and one tank ready and made a video on the Mac laptop of a dev. And with a fortnight style graphics I wouldn't expect such frame loss?

I would be afraid they set themselves up to fail. High pressure from bosses wanting results, possibly a small team and apparently inferior hardware compared to the RenX team.

And one more important point. There seems to be no A-symmetrical balance. It'll probably be the same factions battling it out with the same units, meaning every map has to be symmetrical according to the balance junkies that are only satisfied when they hold the OP guns. Renegade was always great in this. The balance was close, although vanilla had, especially in the later days, an advantage with NOD. But that actually made me happy, as sheer health and firepower wasn't winning from the quirky high tech stuff (although one could argue about the arty being the reason for this).

 

 

Oh and yes........ BOINK? 

How dare they.

 

But if this is an elaborate 1st of april joke, I'll applaud the devs. The more I think about it, it must be. Such a cheeky boink....

Edited February 24, 2020 by Movoza
Fixed typo

[Demigan]

I like the shell-shading. Not for it's aestetics but for the (I assume) easier load times and better frame rates it gives without sacrificing too much eye candy. The biggest problem is that it's usually too candy-cane-in-a-neon-workshop colored.

I like the idea of breaching walls, building and such, but can they pull that off correctly? It's not like you can just add base-building with some units and think it's going to be fine. Levels need to be designed properly, bases need ways to be destroyed without it being impossible to defend. And how do the crystals work? They seem to drop from the sky and be harvestable. Does that mean that to get the resources you need to get there first and harvest it? Could be interesting. That way you have the end-goal (base destruction) with secondary goals to get an advantage and defeat your enemy (control crystal drops, control area's where you can launch attacks from etc).

reading the backstory, why are these people fighting? The first trial powered the eastern seaboard for a week! A single city-state would need just a few drops to be completely self-sustaining for years.

So besides the "BOINK", Mammoth Tank much?

Edited February 24, 2020 by Demigan

[Reivax]

caugh

basically, if i want to play a C&C shooter i've choices, OG Ren and all the unknown and abandonned famous mods of W3D Hub' team, with their players who have good tastes like play this horrible shitty Interim Apex 
caugh intensifies
but if most ppl plays RenX, it's for reasons (i guess)
and i bet 20 meowcoins and a beer it's due to engine, graphics and stuffs
so, basically
if you put another Renegade-like with fortnite art style
well.. i'll not enjoy to play it, i prefer Renegade X style
cuz kinky sakura
and cuz ramjets
and cuz boinks
and cuz i love to spam alt+1 and ayaya

uh, i guess i really need to sleep now

[Mystic~]

Anyone else watching today's game play live stream?

https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561197966223757?fbclid=IwAR3nvFVUrOnN1qpumw076c9OMXJCkwbPLC-wpbTmp1UlNNXhrSc26I5pMtk

[isupreme]

I checked it just now for a few minutes.   

I found the gameplay seemed alot different from renx.  Maybe it is just the team size  but they spent alot of time preparing for battle and not much time fighting together as a team. 

I did like a few things which could be used in RenX, for example when they purchase a character little symbols tell them what the other players are running. 

[Mystic~]

Quote

Maybe it is just the team size  but they spent alot of time preparing for battle and not much time fighting together as a team. 

Everything seems a much quicker pace, but until it's released I'm not sure they're going to develop rush tactics, I can't tell if there's any sort of armoured personal carrier to encourage group infantry rushes. I got really bored watching people repair things and seeing people use the flame thrower class and both sides are exactly the same just different colours. It felt like I was watching a game of paint ball and the suits remind me of something like Halo, which I never got into as I never had one of these consoles, but there's lots of bunny hopping just like Unreal Tournament and other games.

I think I like the idea of purchasable turrets, weapon upgrades, walls and buildings and they have 'bunker buster' bombs for buildings rather than C4 on control terminals. The harvesters are the most awesome thing in the game, in one clip I saw something go wrong with the physics engine and it got blown into the air and out of the map, which was funny.

The art style looks nice in some areas like buildings and at close range, but it looks terrible at distance with the cut out filter style tree with black outlines. There's too much emphasis on their cartoon explosions, fiery trails and napalm everywhere, you almost can't see what you're doing or shooting at. I definitely think I would miss the mammoth tank, stealth tech, rail-gun weapons and the different factions.

I take that part back, I can see they have mammoth tanks.

Edited June 17, 2020 by Mystic~
amendment

[Mystic~]

Demo is available now, I'll be on this evening with a bit of luck.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1188870/Earthbreakers/?fbclid=IwAR0huO-LVZz6ybdeRZwMX7_vMpQXyXmE12yBnDbTQgqvjvmwyE89zl3Mahs

[roweboat]

I'm gonna try and check it out soon too! I'm still on the fence about it...

[Mystic~]

Well I saw at least one other Renegade-X player.

Tank battles are not as enjoyable as Renegade yet, you can't see anything for much of the time and they handle like a ship in the water. 

[roweboat]

Yeah the game felt very floaty. And units seem to move way too fast for their size, it feels very strange.

And the explosions are all nearly blinding.

 

I've always been more a fan of "realistic" art direction. That's why I've always been pleased with the work done in Renegade X.

 

Earthbreakers almost feels like a step backwards...

 

But I always see critics complaining that RenX is "slow and boring". ...I'm not sure what they expect out of an RTS FPS hybrid. If you want more FPS, go play call of duty.

[Mystic~]

I also noticed the running element, speed can be upgraded lots and on top of this they have the stem injections from other games, I found it extremely difficult to shoot some people with tanks or turret weapons. It's like the Neo crate Fffreak created. There's no fall damage yet, and there's a lot of bunny/grass hopping going on with the player combat.

Even at this stage of the game it's a lot of fun, but playing the same map over and over is a bit tiring. The infantry combat is much faster than Renegade, and the tank battles are much slower and require greater precision, I don't get the same impatient feeling I get when the stamina bar in ren goes flat and I like the fact I can own an advanced character for just 200 credits, you just have to upgrade them as you go along. I'll get bored eventually probably, but there's still a lot of content not unlocked in the demo. I actually enjoy solider on soldier combat in EB, and it remains relevant throughout the whole game, but in Renegade this just feels like an early game thing that you must eventually move on from into better classes to help the team, so I sort of feel we're missing a trick, but at the same time they don't have anything like a mobius, sbh or LCG yet.

I was listening to a load of intuition this morning in mind about the game, about the C&C brand/franchise, Petroglyph and EA... it's almost as if Petroglyph would like the C&C brand back, but I don't think EA are going to allow this... but at the same time EA is not really producing good C&C games any longer and the mobile game I felt was some sort of gimmick to cash in on mobile gaming.

Still looking forward to whatever this new Tiberian Sun content might be for Renegade-X.

[isupreme]

Well, that was fun.

What do you all think now that the demo is done?

I agree with roweboat it seems like a step backwards compared to Ren X

Like mystic i enjoy the sheer soldier vs soldier fight  that seems to be short cut in ren X.    I liked the way you incrementally improve your ability instead of the save a bit and then buy the uber game changer item ,method RenX supports.

Quote

I was listening to a load of intuition this morning in mind about the game, about the C&C brand/franchise, Petroglyph and EA... it's almost as if Petroglyph would like the C&C brand back, but I don't think EA are going to allow this... but at the same time EA is not really producing good C&C games any longer and the mobile game I felt was some sort of gimmick to cash in on mobile gaming.
 

I think i feel ya there.    I interpreted it as :   Petroglyph is being respectful of where  RenX has gone.   There is so much to respect in the journey of RenX.     Could it be petroglyph is a bit envious and respectful both?

Edited June 24, 2020 by isupreme

[Mystic~]

I think it's too early to compare Earth Breakers directly with present Renegade-X as it's only an alpha demo. You would have to compare it to Ren-X as it was in around 2013. I only saw a few people, including yourself and Sytharn who played.

I like some aspects of the soldier and sniper combat more than Ren, I like the fact I can be sniped without it being an instant head shot take down and I don't have to keep wasting credits to re-purchase characters. The assault rifle combat is really enjoyable, where as Ren soldiers are in reality just as weak and feeble as the RTS game made them to be. However I don't like the way flame throwers are a spammy class that can run after you, I prefer how they work in real life. I also don't like all the rocket spam and I'm not sure how I feel about unlimited ammo yet. The EB tanks aim, handle and manoeuvre horribly compared to Ren, but I realise I miss painted units and I'm not all that fond of camo designs, didn't the Ren flame tank used to be a menacing red?

I also like the build-able walls, which you can run around and shoot from. The demo map reminded me of Paradise, somewhat, but maybe not quite as good. It's nice that tanks all spawn in a row and you don't get queues of people outside the weapon's factory or on the strip... I think the plane animation is one of the main limiting factors. Petro have their experience from Renegade but aren't held to the RTS C&C experience.

I don't like the incredible speeds people can run on stems like it's a football game, the armour looks so so, like a Halo or Unreal Tournament game. There's no communication mechanics beyond team chat, no public chat, lots of vehicles were still locked out of the game. The coin collecting sound seems immature and like a mobile transaction arcade game.

[Carlos_Mendoza]

On 2/24/2020 at 3:10 PM, Reivax said:

uh, i guess i really need to sleep now

sleep infidel, sleep