What does "Command & Conquer" mean to YOU?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 5/7/10 6:07:01 PM

Hey guys,

*PLEASE DO NOT WRITE A LONG ESSAY* =)

Before you answer this thread, let me be frank. I want to ask you questions in the coming weeks and months, I want to research your passions for C&C, but not at the expense of our forums being flame-hate filled. So I kindly ask, in threads like this, please reply with constructive answers and respect your community peers. I''ve seen all the "Westwood / dislike C&C 4" comments, etc. You've been heard and understood. Right now, I'm taking a step back and digging in to specific topics for awhile.

I posed this question on our C&C Facebook page, a lot of great short constructive answers. Let's see how we do here with the real hardcore fans.

What does "Command & Conquer" mean to you? You see those words, that name, when you see it, what do you immediately think, and expect as a game?

There is no right or wrong answer here, just looking to understand what Command & Conquer means to you. I'll leave it at that.

Thanks!
APOC

It's just a name really.

But GDI and Nod is mostly what comes to mind with C&C.

But that's only one universe though.

ommand and conquer to me has to have these key things

- GDI
- Nod
- Tiberium
- Good Story

it should also have

- bases to command
- armies to command
- land to conquer
- sequil should follow its predesasor as acurrate as possable

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 4/22/10 3:55:46 PM

EA_Apoc wrote:
What does "Command & Conquer" mean to you? You see those words, that name, when you see it, what do you immediately think, and expect as a game?

RA1.

Serious (still kinda cheesy) FMV and story, fighting on one continent makes progression seem more natural to me instead of 3 missions in Europe and it's conquered, Indoor missions (THEY ARE STILL AWESOME).............you know what, just play RA1 and you will know it all

@Madrox8

Love your sig dude

I find cnc a quite postapocalyptic story and ambient wise. The first reckognition is tiberium, infested earth, dark story, gritty cinematics, the sense of you have the leadership power, sense that there is battle between 2 factions in which i cant find which is eviil and other good.
To me it is one of the most sci-fi believable stories in gaming universe.

Gameplay wise: well designed futuristic creative units, support powers and structures fast paced battlefield slaughter, use of different tactics and unit combinations, basebuilding.

All this is what cnc is remembered for. Uniqueness.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 4/22/10 3:59:11 PM

At it's core, to me CnC is a real time strategy game (unless it's a spin-off FPS) of which the gameplay encompasses:

basebuilding,
resource collecting,
building armies,
and crushing your opponent's base with those armies.

Furthermore CnC sets it self apart from other basebuilding-RTS's with these trademark CnC elements:

the story is told through live action FMV's,
the interface is a sidebar,
basebuilding is done with MCV's,
you are able to capture the enemy's structures with engineers,
and most importantly there is no popcap.

The above is the gameplay I fell in love with and why I love CnC more than other RTS's.

(also it has to be a sci-fi setting)

Hmm... one reminded me of the map on RA1.

That was actually one of the big "conquer" views you got in the earlier games.
Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1. When you had to choose where to attack on the map, and after each mission you had "conquered" that part of the map.

That was a blast.

But we didn't get this in the sequel or other universes though...

Incia wrote:Hmm... one reminded me of the map on RA1.

That was actually one of the big "conquer" views you got in the earlier games.
Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1. When you had to choose where to attack on the map, and after each mission you had "conquered" that part of the map.

That was a blast.

But we didn't get this in the sequel or other universes though...

Yeah only a little bit in TS and then it was gone

A game where the singleplayer comes first. Where the story and the missions are taken seriously and not an afterthought to "RTS as a sport" or unlock systems and player progression to get more people playing online.

Harvesting. It was bad enough in RA3 that harvesting was replaced by mines but C&C 4's is pretty rediculous. Crystal's that are taken from the ground, flown in to the sky to be placed back on the ground to be collected, where they then hover above the head of whatever is collecting it and taken back to specific areas where they vanish into thin air. Seriously, what?

Base building. I didn't like previous C&C games online because most games were decided more by build orders and placement more than the actual combat but a lot of games do base building really well and skirmish is a lot more fun being able to build a base.

No Unit Caps. Stop that right now.

Large player count. I know older C&C games usually only consist of boring 1v1 and 2v2 matches online but I always had the most fun in RTS games playing with several friends in C&C 3 or Dawn of War Dark Crusade. It's one reason I really like C&C 4 and hated Red Alert 3.

This isn't to say I just want C&C 3 remade over and over again but that doesn't mean you should take away from it but rather add, improve and develop upon the foundations of not just C&C but of the RTS genre like every other RTS franchise has done since the days of westwood.

Seeing the name C&C makes me think of a RTS franchise with a straightforward yet engaging style of gameplay and story.

As a game, it's something easy to pick up, not because things have been removed or simplified, but because things are intuitive. Pink bullets are not intuitive. However, the little target markers on things that your selected unit counters, are. Objective based gameplay is easy to understand. Hopeless situations where a surrounded and thoroughly routed enemy is still inexplicably respawning is not. It can be fast, but more importantly it should be smooth and intelligent. Jump-jetting to take advantage of weaker rear armor on heavy units is intelligent. Having those same units being capable of turning around before their rear armor can be exploited makes jump-jetting useless and unintelligent.

Story-wise, it shouldn't pull any punches. Epic scenes should be epic, not hinted. If there's no budget to show a truly epic scene, then don't bother hinting, it just pisses the viewer off. A convenient wall hiding a supposedly epic battle outside Temple Prime in C&C3 is a good example of, "Things that just piss the viewer off." Proper cliffhangers make you want to see what happens next. They are NOT a fade to white leaving more questions about the story before the cliffhanger than questions about what happens after it. If things need to be retconned, then just do it. Putting your foot down and splitting RA from Tiberium was a commendable move.

Straightforward, smooth, intuitive, versatile gameplay and story.

Something to note is that CG FMVs are pretty much a necessity. You can show something in the typical zoomed out RTS camera, and say, "This Epic thing is doing this epic thing epically" as much as you want. But players will never really get it unless they see it in video form in first person view, just to drive the point home.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 4/22/10 6:09:27 PM

Here is a list.

What is Cnc for me?
- Base building.
- MCV's.
- Side Bar.
- Recource collecting.
- No popcap.
- No pink bullets.
- Great music.
- Great story.
- FMVs.
- A serious story with some cheesy scenes.
- Campaign that includes atleast twelve missions for every side.
- Indentity colors in multiplayer.
- A lot of fun mp maps.
- Classic cnc multiplayer.
- Unit crushing.
- Fun combat details that motivate micro. Slow turret turning speed on big tanks, dirrectional armour, etc.

- Battlecast Primetime.

Things I would like in a new cnc? (Also known as not vital.)
- Radar to be moved to a seperate structure.
- Diffirent build systems ala RA3.
- A better developed field collecting system.
- Unit buffs and debuffs depending on the terrain.
- Non cartoonish unit designs and non cartoonish shaders.
- A world map for the campaign, as descriped earlier.
- Factions having to use there strengts to cover there weaknesses.
- A balance between symmatrical and a-symmatrical maps.
- Map sizes ranging from small (RA3 Infinity isle) to big (RA2 Final Soviet mission).
- Living atmosphere. (Like killable civies in city's)
- Jukebox.
- Single infantry.
- Better sound effects. (No pew pew pew shogun please)
- The old movies wich play before/afther each mission.
- Support units like the RA3 cryocopter and TS mobile sensor array.

I could go on and on but I listed the most important ones.

EDIT:
Whoops misread you there Apoc.
This is what I immediatly think.
- MCV's.
- Kick as music.
- Tib/ore.
- Sidebar.
- Super heavy dual barreld tanks.

And ofcourse: The good old Golden CNC logo.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 4/22/10 5:05:48 PM

first of all, thanks a lot for this thread APOC

what is C&C for me?

i'll be honest, i have only played RA2, Generals/zero hour and C&C3 TW ( i haven't play KW yet) but i fall in love with the series since i played that awesome game called RA2, generals/zero hour was a BLAST, i still playing it until these days

TW is imo the most EPIC of all 3 i have played, the atmosfere, the units, the desing, the dark and gritty..... everything !!, it make the game looks so good, the grapichs were at t he top of everything at 2007 and even now some of them still jaw dropping compared to other actual games

i did so many crazy things in TW that have make the game a lot more enjoyable for me, like for example, trying to get a heroic scrin mothership and see what happend, or my favorite one, make like 10 mammoth tanks/avatars and get them to heroic and then raze everything at my sight

i'll play these games forever, they keep me entertaining, if i ever get a bit bored of them, a mod should be enough to get me playing them again, like cold war crisis for Generals zero hour, that's one of a HOT mod

anyways i feel i haven't asked your question apoc

when i see a command and conquer tittle, the main thing i always feel is, it WILL be a FUN game, and that's what matter for me, after all, games are for entertaining purpose, nothing more

my 2nd feel is to known than the game will be EPIC, but how exactly epic? what i mean with epic is, cool units, dark, serious and gritty unit desing (the C&C3 mammoth tanks were a good example of these desings), a good overal atmosfere that make you feel you are actually playing the role of you as a GDI/NOD commander, and unit quotes like in C&C3 are a MUST "we are the choosens" or "one mission, one purpose" quotes from the black hands or the "let's have some fun" MT response, seriusly, these little things, these little details, encourage one to play the game until you can't anymore

3nd and last feel, is the music, you see the C&C tittle, and you know than you will be inmersed in massive battles between your foes and not you not only feel the adrenaline of microing every of your 10000 units in battle than respond you everytime you click them with a different, let's call it, battle quote

, i love this feature, is also the music what make you feel you are really inside these battles

unfortunatly, the quality of the C&C music has been decreasing as the years pass, istead of improving, im not gonna say wh y because it's way too obvius, but for those wondering, see these vids of the music from old C&C's

now that's what i call music !!

now i'll be honest about all the C&C4 "failure"

i don't like the game either, i has a lot of things that i hate with all my force, the extremely cartoonish unit desing ( this is the tiberian universe not the RA3 one !!) the overal repetitive and boring (after a while) gameplay, no base building is like removing freeroam mode from GTA, seriusly, you have basically destroyed the heart of the franchise and let it as a empty body

that "EPIC CONCLUZION 11!!" was in few words, LAME , none of our question was ever asked what is kane? why he is in the earth, why scrins know him? were is overlord? were is the scrin " massive invasion" ohhhh wait, it didn't happend because there wasn't enough money to put them on C&C4, excuse me but this is just pathetic

why treat such a beautifull franchise as C&C is wich such a contempt for it roots, with such a hate for what make it be good, tell me APOC or anyone else, a AAA franchise as C&C is deserve a low-budget stock for it developing? i don't know how those big suits at EA work, but if something is giving you a BIG profit, then you have to keep improving that, not changing it and taking unecesary risks, easy

and to end, i don't wanna another C&C4 with another name as a uncoming C&C tittle, go to the roots again, what make the franchise good, awesome, and enjoyable and most of all, FUN !!

- decent online lobby (yeah i know we will never get a good one from EA - nfs and ccg onwards tought me that one)
- great clan support and a great ladder (we never got that from EA either, but all german cnc boards were founded on that, most of them are currently dying cause the last cnc game with clan support worth mentioning was red alert 2)
- fast paced gameplay (not like craft games, where the first 8mins are basecially 'meh' (for me as a viewer at last - the commentators most times are really exited if a drone attacks another drone for 3minutes))
- great multiplayer which keeps the people playing (that's more like a dream which will most likely never ever come true if the same guys keep makeing the decisions at EA)
- gameplay wise: easy to get into, hard to master. Doesn't really matter how this is implemented, but i would prefer a game which doesn't purely focus on microstuff.
- right-click-scroll
- sidebar (with widescreen becoming more and more popular this is the way to go)

these are my WISHES

since i am a long time cnc community member what i EXPECT from EA most likely will be regarded as flame, so i'm not posting it.

I've only recently joined the CnC world, but I've yet to be disappointed with the way it has successfully integrated humanity and elements of Science Fiction. Movies like Star Wars/ Star Trek dont explain how humans ended up in that particular universe, but in CnC the story directly applies to Earth and our species. The technology is futuristic and sometimes wacky (RA universe) but at least in the Tiberium Universe, the tech is at least plausible (to a degree. After all, we dont have tiberium here... yet

) There's also the epic struggle between GDI and NOD, and the other things that been previously mentioned.

Ok, i could write a very long essay on this, but ok, you made clear that you want short answers:

WHAT does COMMAND AND CONQUER mean to me:

-GDI, Nod, TIberium comes in my mind
-fast paced RTS action
-nice singleplayer campaigns with FMS and real actors
-JOE KUCAN
-a certain franchis that is not just a game or another video game

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