What do you think of a Command & Conquer mod?

(Mavrik347) #1

Greetings!

I’m the Lead of a modification for Battlefield: 2, we are converting the whole game from modern combat to the old C&C Universe based on Command & Conquer, the first one, the original. Later named unofficialy as Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn by the fan base.

Here is a link to EA’s official website where it is shown as “Command & Conquer”, thats it. All the others are extensions to the franchise.

Official Site

Now as you may know as of patch 1.3 EA have destroyed Battlefield: 2 and most of the possibilities for modders (which attracted them to it in the first place). Due to this we were thinking of moving to Battlefield: 2142 but as Battlefield: 2 has destroyed our faith in EA we have thought about moving over to Activision and Splash Damage here on Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. But we need to know if there is an audience here. There is no point in us moving here if no one wants a C&C mod.

So tell us what you want and if you like the idea!

Splash Damage Devs: I don’t know if you check the forums but I really do need to know. Will you support the modding community? I mean really, (don’t just say yes like EA/DICE) EA/DICE just say yes they will and keep saying all this, then bring out ever more frustrating patches that are as helpful as a chocolate fireguard. Will you support the modding community and if so in what ways? We have some things made and ready for the BF2 engine, what about porting? Are there currently any guidlines for polycounts? Is there information on lods and cols yet? Sorry to bombard you with questions but I thought I would just get it out of the way in one fair swoop. Thank you for reading and I hope we can move over to your great creation ;).

Here is our website which does need to be updated I agree but we have some stuff ingame that needs testing before we announce it. Conspiracy of NOD

Example of our work (made for BF2 engine):

Loving the work guys and I will be one of those pre-orders! Keep it up.

~ Matt

(kamikazee) #2

Welcome to the forums!

Firstly, I’m not a developer.
But I can yell “Hell yes!” to this question. They’ve already given clues on how to change ET:QW into a Tribes-like game, so they might answer some of your questions too.
However, mileage can vary. Remember that the game isn’t released yet, and they don’t want to be caught saying things which don’t make it into the game.

As for porting: check out the Doom 3 engine. Model formats are simply the native Lightwave, Maya file formats and 3DS Max’s ASE format. For animated things, MD5 is used which can be generated from Maya files. Textures can be in TGA, JPEG, etc.
Whilst it can’t be predicted how vehicles will work, it sure won’t hurt to read how Doom 3 things work.

Good luck, and have fun!

/* Kamikazee */

(nUllSkillZ) #3

Welcome to the forums.

Will this mod be a FPS a mixture between RTS and FPS or RTS?

Not sure but I think you will get problems with copyrights if you use C&C related things in your mod/modname.

(carnage) #4

actuly with the build system in ETQW you could perhaps expand on this to the point where players are building much more then just defensive turrents to posibly base structures like factories etc that could say when build deploys a tank for the team every X minutes. also it would be cool if perhaps you took some things from a wider range of C&C games. it would defiantly be fun to deploy the tesla coil as a defensive turret

with that said you probably would get a few copywright issues and be a shame to get a lot of work done and down the line be told it all want to waste

cosidering this im pretty sure there is a lot of room and suport for a mod that expands on the rts side of ETQW and with the talent that is out there right now it could be good to develop your own styles and artwork rather then riping them out of another game

and as for pollycounts etc basing them on the current ETQW might not be such a good idea since with an rts style mod you might find you are rednering a lot more vehicles/buildings etc and so a lower pollycount might be preferable, and dont forget normal mapping that can realy work wonders for low polly models

(Mavrik347) #5

It is FPS of course yes.

Yes this is what we intend.

Guys, please dont worry about copyright, I know a guy in EA and he has ran it through all the legal milarky and I’v got it all sorted.

(iwound) #6

Hi Mavrik347 and welcome,
C&C was my first multiplayer and I’d love it if it was modded on QW.
I even made a few maps for it, ahh those were the days.
Im sure you will get good support, and good luck. :banana:

(Hakuryu) #7

It’s hard to say what people would want to play. If Quake Wars is as fantastic as many of us think it will be, then maybe people wouldn’t want to play a mod, but on the other hand everyone wants something different every once in a while to mix things up. I absolutely loved Tribes, but eventually I played (and made) a mod. Ultimately I think it all depends on whether your mod is fun or not (and how many bugs/exploits exist).

I think Quake Wars would be a great game for you to move your mod to; like the poster above mentioned, there is already a build/deployment type mechanic in the game. Other important facts are the solidity of Doom engines, the support given to these games, and the proven track record of it’s tools.

(Got-JuicE) #8

Anyone remb the Arena football mod for Tribes, that was soo fun, but can you explain how the mod woud work if it had c&c mod, how would it work, like capture the flag or what

(Mavrik347) #9

Reasonebly simple really, It would be C&C but as FPS so down hot and dirty. At the beggining of the round a commander will be elected and depending on how many credits the team earns the commander can have say Weapons Factories and Barracks or base defences built etc. Then from different buildings the players can perchase things like upgraded kits or tanks or aircraft etc. with their personal credits. That is the C&C Mode.

Arcade mode will be like C&C: Renegade, you know, strange weapons that take almost a mag to kill, basically just a mess around… arcade mode.

Then a Conquest mode where it is normal and vehicles spawn and you can choose your kit from the spawn screen or whatever like normal.

We might have a CTF mode, depending on if enough people want it.

Thats a rough guidline of what we are going for. Keep posting guys, we really need to know how many are interested!

(Got-JuicE) #10

CTF I think would be the funnest mod, I would realy enjoy playing that, it’s been soo long since I did ctf since tribe days

(TheKaiser) #11

Well, considering splash damage is a mod team turned dev, they have a great interest in mod support for their games. This has been said many many many times by both SD and id guys.

(Loffy) #12

Only problem I see is the name (copyrights and all that) but I guess you have thought about that and have counter-argument/plans for that. You seem hell bent for the whole project.
I think it is sounds like a feasable and fun project. Go for it.
(Who doesnt like C&C and Starcraft?)

//Loffy

(kamikazee) #13

One thing: choosing the commander needs a hell lot of thought… What if he isn’t an RTS player?

(Mavrik347) #14

He can run around like a normal person, those of you familiar with BF2, it will be like their commander but with some changes. Also if those who don’t like RTS wont really want to be commander, as a failsafe, if you get a terrible commander who is spending all your credits on a pointless couse you can mutiny vote him, like a kick vote but just kicks him out of commander mode and into normal soldier status.

(DG) #15

[…] Will you support the modding community? I mean really,[…]

have a look at the video presentations/interviews, particularily the ones from QuakeCon -
http://www.planetquake4.net/download.php?op=fileid&lid=2333
http://www.planetquake4.net/download.php?op=fileid&lid=2334

(carnage) #16

i agree with the surgestion that having a player solely in command of a battle is realy quite a bad idea. in ETQW it has been mentioned that they were actuly playing with the idea of having a comander for each team but in reality with the basicaly infinite tatics and method to reach the goal in a map the comanders method and actuly player method on the ground are going to vary a lot and then i would expect that realy a majority of players would simply ignore commanders instructions if he were able to issue commands like attack/defend etc. from my experience in bf2 pub play the actuly chain of command is very rarely folowed

kicking a commader out is a bit of a poor substitute if he has already wated all your hard eared credits while the other team as built up a massive base and is bombarding you with choppers and tanks before your bearly of the ground. and often a lot of players just dont even look/care out the votes and even when the players wanting to play the tean rather than themselves can get rid of the commander because of the other players ignorance

imo a more stable and balanced system would be to get everyone involved in construction process by spliting the responsability and changing the building process for the importance of the structure and there number etc. for example

at the map start rather the comader chose a location for a base there could be an overlay map and have say 10-15 locations for a base (or fewer depending on map sizes) and players chose a location. the location with the most votes is the base starting location. if two lcations have the same number of votes then a re vote with only thoes two locations are avaidable for the other players to them make a decing vote (and other thing to to break ties etc etc)

when the primary base structure is in place the strutures can be split into two catagories team structures and player structures. like in C&C the structures are based on a tree spaning from the primary base structure where building this structure allows the construction of this structure.

from the primary struture there could be two paths of base structure where players could say chose to build a baracks or war factory (hyperthitical). the players in the team then vote on what path is taken since sertain paths with be more benefical to sertain maps ala C&C. the computer can be in chanrge of placing the strureture near the priamry base structure and could even be pre determained from the level designer to ensure that the maps remain focused from a FPS point of view and bases dont simple become too spead out

player then have there private build options for placing smaler structures like turrets/bunkers posibly power stations, radar stations to scan for enemies, AA turets etc some that would requre a sertain base structure to be built first to allow for the progresive base advancment in C&C

to limit the base building a money aspect like the C&C system could be implemted on a per place basis where a player is rewarded for sertain things like kills, team asists and damaging enemy units or defending there own, generaly being a good player thus linking the FPS aspects with rewards for the RTS aspets that in turn aid in better FPS situations for the player (having extra weapons/vehicales etc). places can them spend there money on there private structures, to fund the base structures players can be taxed persentage of there private funds to go the the team fund that pays for the base structures. so better teams will advance there bases more quickly

this idea i have basicaly tries to add a more advanced RTS elemts to a mod that would still stay true rather then split the game into two seperate parts and esentaily be playing two games at once that may not neseserily colabore together as well as planed and result in more random events and less fun/focused gameplay for ither the commander or player POV. i can see the idea of a commander becoming just a little bit more advanced commander then bf2 but i belive this implemtaton is more of an original idea or implemtation

would like some opinions and feedback as i expect you have flaw and pitfalls and doubt that i would like to discus since i think it would be useful to anyone considering a mod in a similar style

(Mavrik347) #17

Alot of your ideas carnage are already on the list to try to implement. But as you can see, this is why we would need alot of support, we have no experience coding for this engine, but as we are experienced with the BF2 engine I’m sure we will catch on pretty quick. I have seen all the QuakeCon movies that were shown and I was, I must say very impressed and all of that resulted in this choice to seriosly consider the move.

(Hakuryu) #18

Tribes had an energy ‘pool’ (team energy) that basically acted as currency when you used an inventory station, but I think I only saw it actually used on a server 1 time out of like 4 years of play.

If you decide to use a money based system, I think you should have an option like Tribes did and allow infinite money. Competition could still use finite money, but on a pub I think it’s a bad idea when someone could squander ‘team’ money, or more likely simply spend it on something stupid. Could you imagine the flame wars about ‘that noob that bought the tank factory on the air map’ or similar circumstances.

The only game that used money well imo was CS, but it was per person, so you dont run into problems where one persons spending affects the entire team.

(Mavrik347) #19

The commander cant spend you personal credits you earned from kills etc.

(iwound) #20

I hope you would still have a harvester, defending on two fronts, a quick check on the radar to see if he’s ok, if not WARNING harvester under attack,go and help or not.
The decision making for the buildings could be done with a real commander, or an auto commander, or a similar way to baserace. A block or building credit appears in your base and whoever is handy or waiting can take the block to a designated or random area for deploying.
As for defences including walls turretts tesla’s (Oh yeah!) etc could be deployed by individuals as in quake wars, maybe useing a pooled credit but with a personal limit or with thier own credit. If some nutter builds walls in silly places, individuals can remove them at will as easy as defusing a mine. pretty much what carnage said.
I think ctf should be left to individual map makers as this would be designed into the maps.
And what about game end is it the complete destruction of the enemy bases or all troops aswell after barracks destroyed of course. I could just imagine all bases killed and 1 guy left being hunted down. One quote comes to mind from monty python and the holy grail.
“Run Away…”