The Questions Thread, Q & A with the Developers! Options

[UltimateAero]

Will there be an update for Christmas.

[MARS]

We generally don't announce updates. Horrible things happened the last time we tried.

[UltimateAero]

What is new since the last update.

[MARS]

Well, if you look at that link, you'll see that the 'update' we posted back then was little more than an announcement FOR an actual update which has failed to materialise until this very day. For all intents and purposes, this was a major organisational blunder and a PR-disaster on our part which may have cost us some credibility in the long run. And since we do not want this kind of thing to happen again, the next thing we post, regardless of when we post it, will most likely BE an actual update, not an announcement or teaser.

[Shatterfury]

Well, if you look at that link, you'll see that the 'update' we posted back then was little more than an announcement FOR an actual update which has failed to materialise until this very day. For all intents and purposes, this was a major organisational blunder and a PR-disaster on our part which may have cost us some credibility in the long run. And since we do not want this kind of thing to happen again, the next thing we post, regardless of when we post it, will most likely BE an actual update, not an announcement or teaser.

I hope you guys get your spark soon,two years gave passed since the release of 1.5.

Maybe you guys have a morbid pleasure in seeing the fanbase going crazy.

Maybe you can open a bank account,that way the fanbase can stimulate the team.

[MARS]

Nah, charging money for this kind of thing would be excessive and taking donations only leads to people feeling entitled, like "hey, I gave you ten bucks, will you add unit XYZ for me?". We've always operated on a non-profit basis and that's not gonna change. There's possibly also a legal dimension to it, considering that we're making a mod for someone else's intellectual property and doing this whole thing for free is part of what keeps it safely in Fair Use territory. Also, no, I can assure you that none of us is getting any morbid sexual pleasures from the suffering of our fanbase... Or at least I certainly don't.

[Shatterfury]

You have a point there with people feeling entitled.Still there are a lot of people that would like to get their ''paws'' on RotR 2.0 ,with ECA and GLA at least if not the generals.

Are you allowed to tell us what will the next release have,the main ECA and GLA factions or the generals?

Best of luck and thanks for the reply.

This post has been edited by Shatterfury: 7 Dec 2011, 13:15

[MARS]

We're currently working to get the main factions done, particularly the GLA. After that, we'll probably concentrate on doing the same with the ECA and once that's
done, breaking the factions down into generals will be more of a coding job than anything else since most of the modelling and texturing will be complete by then.

[UltimateAero]

So then there isn't much done for E.C.A.? Is there going to to be a release before the final release. How do ya'll decide on the beta # ex. 1.0,1.2,1.5, do ya'll just come up with numbers that seem to make sense or what?

[MARS]

It's not like there isn't much done for the ECA, we do have quite a few units and buildings modelled and textured but none of these have been coded into an actual dev-version yet. Our ECA will be quite different from the original 'Rise Of Europe' ECA, much like our Russia has little left in common with the one from pre-SWR RotR. Unlike the US, GLA and China, these two factions are basically done from scratch. As for the numbers, we had full releases 1.0 and 1.5 and patches 1.1 and 1.2, if that's enough to see a pattern.

[UltimateAero]

Thank you very much.
- someone wanted this to be asked on the forum.



Erydale Dec 6 2011, 12:39am says:

@Anyone who can - could you please ask on the SWR forums for me?

1. How many "inspiration surges" have they had in the last year? I am betting... one. I remember he once bragged around a little that they were dishing out a lot of content for the GLA... has there been anymore?

2. How much further are they from an update currently than they were last year?

Thanks in advance. Remember to tell 'em all hates from these questions are to be directed at me. And oh, that I still do and always will have great respect from them.

[MARS]

1. First of all, no, it's been more than one. Of the top of my head, I can think of at least three separate periods of development activity and we did get quite some content done during that time, mostly for the ECA and GLA. Also, I wasn't 'bragging', I was stating a fact which I thought would be interesting to people and I also reject any implicit between-the-lines insinuations of dishonesty or deceitfulness, thank you very much. Heck, answering all these questions isn't even my official job. I'm doing it entirely for you people's sake and I'm answering whatever I can divulge without spoiling anything too critical. I know that you guys have been waiting for a looong time but making public statements on behalf of the entire team is not within my responsibility.

2. Another thing that is not within my responsibility is our update schedule and PR department; that's Overdose's business and I'm not going to infringe on it. What I can tell you though is that actual internal 'modding progress' and visible public 'update progress' are two entirely different things. Which content we use for an update and when is primarily up to OD and just because we haven't been posting any updates does not mean that there hasn't been any actual progress behind the scenes. In fact, it's been documented in earlier pages of this thread that attempts to come up with an update have been made but failed for reasons seemingly inexplicable, but that isn't to say that we've literally been sitting on our hands for >1 year, doing absolutely fuck-all.

Thanks for the respect, though. Despite what could be perceived as a certain degree of harshness in my tone above, it is still appreciated. It's just that this whole 'is it dead?'-thing is getting increasingly tiresome for me as it probably is for you as well.

[UltimateAero]

Is there any concern with the team about the new command and conquer game.

[MARS]

What new Command & Conquer game? The elusive "C&C Alliances" which, according to rumours, has been registered for several domains? I think it's too early to make any judgements at this point. We don't know what the title is about, where it fits in with the other C&C franchises, heck, we don't even know if it's going to be an RTS. We'll certainly keep an eye on it and see if it's worth a look into from a modding standpoint when the time comes, but EA hasn't been particularly welcoming in that regard lately. Tiberium Wars marked the beginning of their new marketing model which led to the release of one rushed C&C title every year with increasingly reluctant mod support which ultimately killed the entire franchise with the atrocity that was C&C4. Since then, EA was followed up with Origin to make their games even more restrictive and I wouldn't be surprised if this new, hypothetical C&C game were to be infested with that malware bullshit as well, so even IF, and that's pretty much the biggest 'if' you can imagine, there was a new C&C game coming out in the foreseeable future, the chances of us doing any sort of mod project for it are pretty damn slim right now; as in, extraterrestrial life slim, me scoring a date slim, faster than light travel slim.

[Shiro]

[...] the chances of us doing any sort of mod project for it are pretty damn slim right now; as in, extraterrestrial life slim, me scoring a date slim, faster than light travel slim.

So, the chances are 1, probable but unlikely and 0 recpectively? Ahem.

Anyway, since we know the Kashtan and Component Tower as the Russian defenses, will there be other ones? According to the files there might be a bunker and an artillery add-on and the Tesla add-on is Aleksander only AFAIK. Any specialised anti-air only defenses planned?

[MARS]

Strictly speaking, I should have specified it as finding empirical evidence of extraterrestrial life and/or documented physical contact with extraterrestrial life since the pure mathematical likelihood of it existing somewhere out there is indeed much higher than the others, but yeah, overall the chances are still slim. We haven't started any mod projects for either of the post-ZH C&C games and considering how ShW and RotR have been going on for what feels like more than half a decade by now, we're probably not going to burden ourselves with another huge project that will inevitably eat away from our ever-shrinking free time once we're done here.

As for your question, once we break the factions down into generals, each Russian general will actually get a unique upgrade for the Component Tower in addition to the RPG and air-raid components which will be available to all. Since Tesla weapons will then become a speciality of Gen. Aleksandr, the Tesla component will become exclusive to him whereas Orlov and Zhukov will indeed receive bunker- and artillery-themed components. That plus the Kashtan and we're pretty much done when it comes to static defences which are not supposed to be a strong point of our Russian faction.

[UltimateAero]

What I meant was will the new C&C game interfere with progress with this mod. Will the new game lower the teams willingness to complete the mod, since more people will probably move onto a new game with better graphics and with what appears to be destructible environments if it is any good.

[MARS]

Well, let me put it this way...Neither TW+KW, nor RA3+Uprising, nor C&C4 have lessened our determination to such a degree that there was any noticeable interference with our mods.
We've been doing this for far too long and we're not gonna be like "lol sorry guys, new C&C game looks so rad, we're gonna give you a half-baked 'final' version of RotR end the project kthxbai".

Don't worry.

[UltimateAero]

That's good news to me. At least if Gen 2 doesn't live up to my expectations or anyone's else we'll have something to fall back on.I just hope the USA is the third faction maybe not since it takes place 10 years after ZH. Coincidentally RotR is 20 years after ZH I guess that's what happens after Gen 2. I guess the GLA screwed up the US in this fictional universe.


-All I can say is keep up the excellent work guys.(maybe this comment will lead to some motivation to work on the mod maybe?)

[Massey]

See that one of the factions will be EU in gen2... it got me thinking.

Given the ECA has Limited winged air craft.... The question i ask in the question thread, Does the "EU" heli gunship have any look simila to what u have plan for the ECA?
I dount this next one but ill ask. Does the EU tank look simial to what u had plan for the ECA?

Massey

This post has been edited by Massey: 13 Dec 2011, 8:50

[MARS]

No, the vehicles shown in that trailer look nothing like the ECA choppers and tanks and I should probably clarify that these are the original RoE models which we're most likely going to replace with something more unique/up to standard. But still, our new version of the ECA tank will not have exposed tracks and our new version of the ECA chopper will not have these side-mounted dual rotors.

[WhiteMetalSesa]

Just as a question!

Have you looked at the Tank from the Video from C&C Generals 2? Its the Crusader Model ! Just with a machine gun but i think its pretty cool to see what modders can do!

[MARS]

Hmm yeah, now that you say that, it does bear a slight resemblance. Our version does have segmented, unexposed tracks and a more prominent looking gun, though.

[The_Hunter]

It could very well be that they were based from the same concept art EA/Westwood had made back then

[Alias]

It's still very early days anyway - I'd be quite surprised if many of the current graphical assets actually end up in the final game.

Remember back to how different the Generals Alpha was to how the final game ended up - Generals 2 is still in pre-Alpha.