Command & Conquer 3: Tibernium Wars

[Sairon]

Okay, so the demo is out as I bet most of you already know. I'm suprised that I can't seem to find any discussion about this game. The demo seems very very promising imo. They've went back to the roots and it feels more like a ramped up version of their earlier games, which I think were better than their most recent ones, even if Red Alert 2 was a decent game in its own right.

The engine seems very nice. Performance is great and it looks nice. There's some bloom but it's not over used. The production values are great. I don't know if it's the complete GDI faction you get to play. I hope not, but it would still be pretty good in its current state.

My largest gripe would probably be that I think the easy computer is way to easy, and the medium computer is a bit to challenging. I can beat him but I like to just toy around and fiddle with things and take it easy and still be presented with a decent challenge.

[Yegolev]

My teeth are still loose after that Supreme Commander demo.

[bhodi]

It's very pretty.

I never really liked the C&C games all that much from a gameplay standpoint. This seems more of the same. The segregation of endless build menus are lame, crazy sub-tabs that you have for additional buildings of the same type make my teeth ache. I find it pretty clunky and not at all streamlined. It takes me a lot of extra time to build things, and in a game where clicks-per-second wins, this is a big disappointment.

Also, the acting is terrible in the cutscenes, but they did get the hottie Grace Park. I wonder what they paid for her.

[Sairon]

It's very pretty.

I never really liked the C&C games all that much from a gameplay standpoint. This seems more of the same. The segregation of endless build menus are lame, crazy sub-tabs that you have for additional buildings of the same type make my teeth ache. I find it pretty clunky and not at all streamlined. It takes me a lot of extra time to build things, and in a game where clicks-per-second wins, this is a big disappointment.

Also, the acting is terrible in the cutscenes, but they did get the hottie Grace Park. I wonder what they paid for her.

Clicks per second might be relevant for supah pros, but for me it's not a big of deal. I don't intend to play this game competively online, I'm only intrested in playing some skirmish action and playing some LAN games with my pals who are pretty sucky at RTS. What I'd like is some more RPGish progression like how you in RA2 & CoH can choose between diffrent skills in diffrent trees when you kill stuff. Also, more unit types please 

[bhodi]

I agree, gameplay experience differs for different people. It's not that I play competitively, but I do hate clunky interfaces. It's one of the reasons I can't bear playing FPS on consoles (with notable exceptions, gears of war is fun)

[Wolf]

This demo annoys me. Do you know why it does? Because I can't fucking install it. I _DO NOT_ have 2GB free on my windows partition. Not by a long shot. I have plenty of space on other partitions, but the annoying selfextracting exe wants to extract on my windows partition and it doesn't matter where I put it. I don't know about the game but their installer is definitely old school.

[Lanei]

selfextracting exe

I don't know what sexelftracting is, but occasionally dyslexia makes amusingly weird words.

[Tairnyn]

I expected EA to screw this up with some "revolutionary" gameplay changes. Having played Generals & Zero Hour multiplayer to death I'm very pleased to see they've held fast to the basic tenants of the C&C design while still making some improvements for easier gameplay with less explicit micromanaging. It will still take some time to get used to the major changes, like the way building structures is handled and the reintroduction of resources that have a spatial presence, but I find them initially to be positive changes that will net better gameplay in the end.

I was not pleased with the pace of Supreme Commander at all, feeling like it was better suited for a computer to play as a simulation rather than a fun game for humans. My concerns that C&C3 would follow the same path were assuaged by the demo and prompted my pre-order. My primary concern is the automated behavior attached to certain units, (such as troops that auto-attack, or air vehicles that return to base when out of ammo) but it's nothing that I feel can't be controlled by a little experience with the new interface.

It's possible they totally screwed the balance between factions, (The 'aliens' sound like they may be a handful) but the polish I saw in the demo leads me to believe they did a good job engineering this game beforehand. The only dealbreaker in sight would be if they didn't overhaul the netcode. Generals/ZH had horrific multiplayer problems with more than 3 or 4 players and turned many nights that should have been gaming nirvana into frustrating exercises in figuring out who's connection was screwing us all over. If they don't fix the mismatches..   

Overall, I'm looking forward to it.

[Wolf]

I just finished playing through the demo. I kind of like it. It runs smooth and looks very, very, very pretty. From what I can tell from the two missions in the Demo the gameplay is solid, plays a bit like the old C&Cs. The action is fast and furios. Oh, and there's that thing about Sharon from BSG and that chick from House fighting for my attention. That's awesome :D

[Driakos]

My biggest complaint at the moment, is that if my units are under attack from something out of their range, they do nothing.  Other than that I am having fun.

[eldaec]

OK demo, but seriously, we've played this game before.

From what I can tell from the two missions in the Demo the gameplay is solid, plays a bit like the old C&Cs

Nononononono. It plays *exactly* like the old C&Cs. Espeicially like C&C2.

At least Red Alert2 and Generals tried to mix things up a bit.


This is a remake, not a sequel.

[Sairon]

going strictly by the demo, yes. However, hopefully there's some more shit in the full version.

[MrHat]

So, any word on this? I'm bored to tears in WoW and want a new game for change of pace.  I miss the old days of the engineer rush, so I was thinking about picking this up. 

[bhodi]

I finished the GDI campaign and halfway through NOD. It's pretty standard RTS fare, the story is good even if the acting isn't -- I think it was a worthy purchase. I have no interest in playing multiplayer, though.

[Sairon]

Sadly there weren't more units than there was in the demo for GDI. There's pretty much not a single feature who wasn't in the earlier C&C games, which I find really weak. 3 races in total which I would have to say play pretty similar at the end of the day. Sure there's diffrent units between the factions, but it's not even close to the diversity seen in a blizzard RTS. This should almost be tagged as a remake. The engine is still super though, runs really great on pretty much any semi decent setup.

I found the campaign to be decent as well. At first I thought they would use mission branching, since there's some in the very start of the game, however they totally drop it later on which is a real shame.

In total I'm pretty disappointed with the full game in fact.

[Wolf]

oh, there's a new feature. The most annoying feature to ever see the light of day in any RTS ever. So, each race has like a "super" land unit - The Avatard for NOD, the Artilery-thingy for GDI (not the Mammoth! We'll get to this in a bit) and the Tripod-Annihlator for the Scrin. When one of these units dies, it leaves a wreck behind. Which you can salvage with an engineer and, voila, you get the unit at half health. I won't even get to how ridicolously stupid that is, as you only attack when you're 100000% sure you will win, because if you don't (and base defences are quite powerful) you're pretty much dead. Unless you're GDI. Whose main land unit - the Mammoth - does not leave a wreck.

Multiplayer is seriously irritating, either I'm a big noob (which I'm not... I think) or there's something wrong with this game that I can't put my finger on.

[Ironwood]

It sounds crap.

Why is no-one able to make a decent RTS anymore?

[Trippy]

It sounds crap.

Why is no-one able to make a decent RTS anymore?

Relic can.

[Ironwood]

I missed their new release.  Got a link ?  Or are you simply harking back to Homeworld ?

[Trippy]

Dawn of War

Company of Heroes

[Ironwood]

 

[schild]

C&C3 is a fantastic game. Just superb.

Wolf is a noob.

Sup Wolf!

[Wolf]

The Single Player is ok, but I couldn't care less about singleplayer in any RTS. If you think C&C3 is a fantastic competitive multiplayer RTS, worthy of being featured at WCG, you should really give Dawn of War a spin ;)

[schild]

I abhor the multiplayer in Dawn of War. I've stated this multiple times since it came out. I was at BHG when Dawn of War came out, and even at that time, I preferred the multiplayer in Rise of Legends, which wasn't more than 50% complete.

[Ironwood]

I was at BFG at the time and, man, that guy can blow dreams out a trumpet at sleeping kids.

[Wolf]

I abhor the multiplayer in Dawn of War.

Oh, I get it. You like bad multiplayer.   

No, Really? What's to hate about a really good, upgraded version of the starcraft/warcraft line of multiplayer in RTS? Resource gathering is made into a tactical struggle, where it really matters if you control the map or not. There are 7 races, that are not only completly different unit wise, but also play very differently - some are micro intensive, some are macro intensive, some are good up close, some need range, etc... You have base defences that are not ALL POWERFUL, but still hit hard enough so that they're not trivial. You have counters for every tactic. You have rushes/counter-rushes/defensive strategies/agressive strategies, etc. You have heroes that matter, but without being powerful enough to wipe out an entire army. Oh, and you don't have superweapons that wipe out your entire fucking base, without you being able to counter them. Yeah, I see how you "abhor" it.

And btw, DoW has come a looooooong, looong way since vanilla.

[Ironwood]

I'm sensing you're a fan.

[Megrim]

I abhor the multiplayer in Dawn of War.

Oh, I get it. You like bad multiplayer.   

No, Really? What's to hate about a really good, upgraded version of the starcraft/warcraft line of multiplayer in RTS? Resource gathering is made into a tactical struggle, where it really matters if you control the map or not. There are 7 races, that are not only completly different unit wise, but also play very differently - some are micro intensive, some are macro intensive, some are good up close, some need range, etc... You have base defences that are not ALL POWERFUL, but still hit hard enough so that they're not trivial. You have counters for every tactic. You have rushes/counter-rushes/defensive strategies/agressive strategies, etc. You have heroes that matter, but without being powerful enough to wipe out an entire army. Oh, and you don't have superweapons that wipe out your entire fucking base, without you being able to counter them. Yeah, I see how you "abhor" it.

And btw, DoW has come a looooooong, looong way since vanilla.

Wait. What? Can you explain the part where you say DoW is anything even remotely like Starcraft? I think the beer and chicken nuggets are playing with my mind.

[Ironwood]

They both have marines.  And Zerg.  Except for DoW.

[Wolf]

Wait. What? Can you explain the part where you say DoW is anything even remotely like Starcraft? I think the beer and chicken nuggets are playing with my mind.

While I'm probably the biggest Starcraft fanboi on these boards, I'm also not WUA and playing a game for ten years gets boring. And DoW is the next best thing, it has the gameplay style of Starcraft (as in lots of micro, map control and thinking on your feet) and happens to have decent balance. So yeah, "a really good, upgraded version of the starcraft/warcraft line of multiplayer in RTS" sums that up nicely.

Can you give me another alternative?

[Megrim]

I don't think you can boil it down so simply; in that DoW having micro is relative to Starcraft because both require micro. That's not really a valid point of similar comparison, at least in my mind. DoW revolves around nothing but micro, while Star had an equally important component in macro. Something DoW lacks. Balance... well, if we are talking about the DoW: pro mod, then yes, i would agree with you. But this is a third party addon. Furthermore, War3 and Star have almost nothing in common eitherl, so grouping the two into the "Blizzard" rts niche isn't exactly right (once more, in my mind at least).

Honestly, i don't think there really has been an rts to compare even remotely with SC for the past seven years - otherwise i'd be playing it =p Armies of Exigo came close, but all of about three people bought it, so...

[Wolf]

It's not only the micro, there's also map control. And you can't say there's no macro, there are macro decisions that affect your game in DoW (like when to jump into next tier, should you go vehicle heavy, when to upgrade, etc). And there are some really, really nice maps that play to the strenghts of the game. I don't think a map has ever come as close to Lost Temple as Quest's Triumph.

I don't think you understand me. I'm not directly comparing Starcraft, Warcraft and DoW. I'm just saying that they're in the same "line" of gameplay as far as RTS games go. It's like Civilization, Masters of Orion and GalCiv are similar, although very different - and Heroes of Might and Magic is also an TBS but in a different "line".

English are hard.

ps: AoX? Come one. That game was a pile of shit.

[Strazos]

Bleh, I refused to play SC MP because it was all about 3-minute rushes.

I apologize if I'm one of the rare guys that likes to actually spend a lot of time in the game, building up.


EDIT: I'm also not a huge fan of micro...at all. That's probably why I am such a big Kohan fan.

[Megrim]

It's not only the micro, there's also map control. And you can't say there's no macro, there are macro decisions that affect your game in DoW (like when to jump into next tier, should you go vehicle heavy, when to upgrade, etc). And there are some really, really nice maps that play to the strenghts of the game. I don't think a map has ever come as close to Lost Temple as Quest's Triumph.

I don't think you understand me. I'm not directly comparing Starcraft, Warcraft and DoW. I'm just saying that they're in the same "line" of gameplay as far as RTS games go. It's like Civilization, Masters of Orion and GalCiv are similar, although very different - and Heroes of Might and Magic is also an TBS but in a different "line".

English are hard.

ps: AoX? Come one. That game was a pile of shit.

As i said in irc, i get your meaning. I just think War3 was crap ><, and DoW doesn't compare with SC in depth. But, for those of you looking for a good rts to play should probably check out DotA.

Straz, look here: le wall-in

[AngryGumball]

So yeah I bought this game,

It looked like it installed perfectly just fine, I played the first two single player missions just fine.

I have no C&C3 skills yet at all. But I want to check out online play

Because all I heard about this game was how they wanted it to be played by professional competitions, how they were implementing this way you could watch a game online and have like

Well I get to the login online section, I have my EA account and password, I have my game User-ID made  I've played a couple of the single player sessions. I try to log into the multiplayer lobby to check things out. The game crashes, simply freezes on screen, sound stops no ctrl alt delete no alt f to close out the software. This happens several times over several days, With router plugged in and without router plugged in going straight from Cable modem to computer.

I've never had to open ports on my router for any RTS game, Rise of Nations, Empire Earth 2, warcraft 3, Supreme Commander, all 3 Dawn of War iterations(game plus 2 expansion) all of them let me directly go online, I remember for a fact I patched Supreme Commander and Dawn of war(s) without opening any ports on my router.



I know nothing about Ports safe or not safe to have open. I've always seen just a small range of ports needed to be opened.

DO you realize that Command and Conquer 3 wants you have to 20,000 UDP ports opened. and 3 TCP ports opened. Again I know nothing about UDP or TCP, but i have never seen a game requesting that you have opened 20,000 ports on your computer UDP ports 8088 - 28088......

So being shocked that many, as I've never seen any game needing that many opened. I can't name the ports for the other RTS I listed above because I never had any problems just installing game and going online.

I called EA Tech Support, we stonewalled when EA Tech support guy asked me "Are you sure your ISP isn't blocking any of those ports" I was just shocked  I've never ever had to do that for any other game before.

Oh yeah first post for me so hello, I come here more for the MMO information, :) But I'm a PC gamer as well.