C&C3 News covering 14/04/2007.
Anyway, I haven't missed so much news yet, have I? Since we can't mod C&C3 properly, there was no news from any good mod releases so far. However, there were some interesting things that I'll list below:
EA News:
-> The C&C Online Community Manager, Aaron "eaapoc" Kaufman, has made a big post updating us on every C&C issue. Here's what he posted:
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"What's up everyone,
Put the jokes about the vacation aside because I AM BACK, re-energized, and burning with fire to take this community to the next level. The memorial for Predator has come and gone, but long will he never be forgotten, as they say, the show and...the game must go on.
So henceforth, I hope you had a chance to listen to the Rescue Operation, it's quite the intense transmission, really unlike anything you've heard or experienced before. Certainly, I had no clue what was going on, was knocked out during the Operation when Predator blasted my cell door open, so its quite surreal to listen back to it from the other perspective.
That all said, its time to get down to business, maybe turn this community upside down and back-side up, we've got a lot going on. Here is the update:
-the official C&C podcast returns on Monday hosted by me, APOC,
) its going to be lots of fun. I've got an interview with Grace Park, a sit down with Mike Verdu/Amer Ajami/Greg Kasavin to discuss all the latest post launch matters, a sit down with development director Chris Corry (aka EA Smudge) regarding multiplayer and disconnects, and a huge eye opening balance interview with balance designer Greg Black who will be explaining the changes to come for the factions and why tank spam may not be so effective in the future, hehe, its going to be a HUGE podcast early next week, so stay tuned.
-Stats are getting progressively better by the day and you should be noticing this as your stats start to catch up and report quicker and quicker. We've been doing a lot of optimization on the back-end with Gamespy and our servers and are getting really close to having this completely fixed so stats are reporting as normal. Please do not worry, this is completely under control, your stats are there, its just a matter of getting them live quicker. WE WILL GET THERE ASAP.
-Patch 1.04 is out and has clearly solved a lot of issues for people. We know there are still issues out there, our goal right now is to section those down to the top issues. I'd ask that you please focus on the tech forum to report significant issues, there is a lot of good help there from Violet and customer support. Certainly, post here as well if you wish, but definitely visit the tech forum before posting a problem.
-Disconnectors...we are fully aware and are working on a back-end rule to eliminate this problem. Everyone should know that disconnecting is a TOS violation (terms of service) and can lead to a ban as extreme as your serial key. That's right, you could potentially loose the ability to go online, period.
-Worldbuilder IS COMING. Our resources for finaling worldbuilder were not where we thought early this month, but we are on track for CQC and legal approval early next week and should see release very soon after. No promises, but Worldbuilder has a high potential for release next week. I will keep you posted. It is definitely coming out this month, yea haha, but seriously, we're just about there. Appreciate the patience, it will be well worth it. We're anxious to see maps!
-MOD SDK...I am all over this, it is going to be a primary focus of mine over the next month until it gets done. You can expect updates from me and so forth. This is a very high priority, so not to worry.
In general, I will be smothering the boards as usual, and for any LOTR fans out there, i'll see you over on the other end (we have an ROTWK patch to put out asap for anyone interested in somethign EALA RTS-off-topic from C&C)...
It's great to be back, we are working as hard as ever to smooth everything out from stats to the battlecast system to the topic tech issues.
-APOC
Your Official Command & Conquer Community Manager, good to be home"
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In my real honest opinion, and I trully hope that my opinion is wrong, these guys will release the world builder in the next days (maybe more than one week), but the mod SDK...well.. that one... will take many months. And, anyway, we'll continue to nitpick him to bug the dev guys to finish it one day...afterall, if this mod SDK becomes another 'Generals Ladder Kit' (that was never released), the C&C3 expansion won't sell well, so don't worry... they are fully aware of its importance.
Community Tools:
-> Bin Opener received some updates from jonwil and booto that made it display more information from the files inside these .manifest/.bin/.relo/.imp/.cdata packages that infests the game. This program is able to extract the files inside these packages, although they are hardly useful, except for textures.
-> W3dm2Ase now interprets the bones of the models as well. This program converts the w3d models extracted with the Bin Opener into .ase files (a kind of ASCII .3ds file format) that can be opened with many 3d modelling programs.
-> C&C3 Auto Replay was recently released. This tool saves your replay automatic while you are playing the game. You no longer need to save replays manually in the end of your battles.
-> Tiberium Wars Replay Tool was also released recently and it displays information from your replays (factions, map, length, etc) without loading the game.
-> RepInfo is a replay manager tool for many games, including C&C3. The latest version 2.1.2 fixes several issues with C&C3 replays, show faction icons, and also displays the final faction from those who choose random factions, among many other changes.
And there is more.... but honestly, I can't be bothered with more game reviews, some tournaments, Planet CnC video from Kane featured on Kane Edition, etc...
