Command & Conquer: Generals 2 becomes part of free-to-play C&C platform
Though the announcement of Command & Conquer: Generals 2 was welcomed by many, EA really needed something a little more drastic to revive the flagging strategy series. Drastic it has indeed delivered, announcing at Gamescom that Generals 2 will be free-to-play as part of an online F2P service, with more free C&C games to come.
Though the announcement of Command & Conquer: Generals 2 was welcomed by many, EA really needed something a little more drastic to revive the flagging strategy series. Drastic it has indeed delivered, announcing at Gamescom that Generals 2 will be free-to-play as part of an online F2P platform, with more free C&C to come.
The game/platform/service/thing named simply 'Command & Conquer' will bring a variety of free-to-play C&C "offerings" built upon the Frostbite 2 engine, starting with Generals then moving onto Red Alert and the classic Tiberium universe.
"Heralding feedback driven design, Command & Conquer will evolve and develop with an expanding array of new content based on community response," EA said in the announcement.
"We are thrilled about this opportunity to transform Command & Conquer into a premier online experience," EA VP and GM Jon Van Caneghem added. "For nearly two decades, this franchise has existed as something you buy; now we are creating a destination where our fans will be able to access the entire Command & Conquer universe, starting with Generals and continuing with Red Alert, Tiberium and beyond. With Frostbite 2, we are able to keep an emphasis on the AAA quality our consumers expect while staying true to the RTS gameplay they know and love--all available online for free."
Command & Conquer will launch on PC in 2013. Closed beta signups should be available on the official site later today, though the page isn't active yet.
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replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, Command & Conquer: Generals 2 becomes part of free-to-play C&C platform.
Though the announcement of Command & Conquer: Generals 2 was welcomed by many, EA really needed something a little more drastic to revive the flagging strategy series. Drastic it has indeed delivered, announcing at Gamescom that Generals 2 will be free-to-play as part of an online F2P service, with more free C&C games to come.-
Christmas in February, excellent.
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Can I please PAY to get Red Alert 2 somewhere? Goddamnit, EA.
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I heard that the MP was fantastic, anyone confirm?
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I always liked the sound of it. It would probably do well as a F2P.
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Let's talk about the "devaluation" of IP for a moment since EA recently spoke on such a topic, and about how this relates to the Command and Conquer franchise.
No IP has been devalued more than the Command and Conquer IP because of the terrible design decisions, support missteps, and overall stupidity that EA has sought to revel in after the decommission of Westwood Studios. CnC games in the modern era are merely additional chances for fans of the series (whether they were core CnC fans, RA universe fans, or even Renegade or Generals fans, or an amalgamation of the above) to be utterly disappointed by the product that Electronic Arts puts out. Tiberium Wars (lol that name is still bad) was the last, in my opinion, stellar CnC game (with RA3 showing promise but really only delivering on the great FMVs) and that largely followed cues from the now-defunct Westwood and their plans for Tiberium Twilight. It is my fervent hope that this game ALSO fails and EA either sells off the IP or stops making CnC games altogether AND leaves fan projects, like Renegade-X, alone in the event that their legal team starts feeling frisky.
I miss the good old days when the worst part about CNC was the terrible video quality in Renegade and the underwhelming engine behind Tiberian Sun. -
I almost feel like they're trying to ruin every franchise Westwood built up...First C&C, then the Red Alert series, now C&C Generals...Dune next? How about that space mmorpg...what was it called, Earthbound or something? It's been too long...RIP :(
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Either they'll let you pick your 1st country and charge you if you for the others. Or you're only going to have USA to begin with and have to unlock/buy/earn the others.
Really just think of the absolute worst way EA could handle it, then put your money on that that's what they are going to do -
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bioware strikes again
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Bioware is owned by natas
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Nope.avi
Well... I was excited about this, but now? Eh.... EA F2P Stigma. -
After trying Age of Empires Online which wasn't an RTS but a miserable MMO loot grind disguised as an RTS, I have almost zero confidence in any F2P game appealing to me as a traditional game player let alone a the huge RTS fan inside me.
My confidence in EA is now next to nothing with this mad dash off the cliff into F2P and mobile only they seem to be headed.
100s of millions of traditional gamers weren't suddenly extinguished by the Death Star with only F2P Zynga zombies left to occupy the universe. EAs insane policy to marginalize and abandon us will be their undoing.
My only glimmer of hope is will EA let me bypass the grind that will inevitably be the major focus of this game by purchasing "booster" packs that will at least let me play a fully unlocked skirmish mode.
If they won't let me bypass the totally unappealing grind that we all know this will be, then EA and C&C will be 100% dead to me.-
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anyone who is against F2P should give any of these games a try. WoT and Spiral Knights are excellent games and of course TF2 is a no brainer. the others you mentioned i have heard great things about too.
there is such a stigma against F2P, and I believe it is well deserved, but it also needs to be evolved from "F2P = SHIT" to "F2P = PROBABLY SHIT, BUT NOT NECESSARILY".
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My opinion is based on the fact this is an RTS game. A major traditional RTS franchise being moved to a F2P model. When I judge that model against this genre I look at the only example I know of and have played and that's Age of Empires Online. I was a huge, huge fan of that series.
MS turned AoE Online into a miserable, repetitive, and LONG, LONG loot grind. I've read they've improved upon this some though. I may go back and try it again. But my first experience with it was not fun at all. I don't really think repetitive grinding in a game is fun but if its your thing then more power to you.
My biggest complaint with AoE Online is the one thing that made RTS games fun to me, and the vast majority of other RTS wonks, was Skirmish mode. In a traditional RTS, all the units, tech, and Civs are "unlocked" so they are available in the Skirmish mode. It makes for a wonder open sandbox gaming experience even against the cpu, let alone other people. You have to unlock units and tech inside the gaming session of course but you aren't externally locked out of anything.
In AoE Online, you have to buy the Skirmish pack... understandable since its F2P and they want you to buy the game piecemeal. That pack though only unlocks all the units for the Civs you unlocked or bought and all the Ages. The tech tree is available is only what you've unlocked in game via the grind. It isn't even something you can buy with microtransactions.
Thats my biggest gripe with the F2P model used for AoE Online. You are still forced to grind in order to have a full Skirmish mode experience where in the RTS genre the "grinding" has been traditionally left to the single player experience. AoE Online from what I've read has been trying to make it less a grind and more enjoyable and fun to level up your Civs to unlock tech. I hated the game last year and haven't gone back to see if they have changed that or not though.
This move to F2P does ZERO to excite me about C&C Generals 2 where before I was very, very excited for the game.
We'll see if they screw this up into a miserable mmo type loot grind or make it something more enjoyable somehow.
At least with MS they didn't turn AoE Online into microtransaction hell. You get things with "booster packs" you can buy instead that give you a lot of content.
Who knows the road EA will take with this. But they have a long, long way to get me excited for it where before it was a Day ONE $60 purchase for me. -
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Unless they changed how energy works, Spiral Knights is horrible as it heavily restricts the amount you can play unless you charge.
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So, how long until "KANE is BACK!!!"?
I'm on the sidelines on this, having never played C&C, but it looks super-depressing, considering EA's motives, as well as their track record on the franchise. C&C4 was originally supposed to be online-only, but then went retail with always-on persistent-connecting DRM, and a campaign. It tanked in reviews when it released in 2010. Maybe EA wasn't ready to go online-only back then, but are being pushed into it by current trends.
One other question: how long does Victory hold onto the Bioware prefix? The devaluation of the Bioware brand this year is staggering.-
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No; two genres that really intimidate me are RPGs and RTSes. For RTSes, it's the fear of getting hopelessly painted into a corner by the AI or an online opponent. For RPGs, it's the way that the "wall of stats" thing burns me out (especially now that I deal with numbers all day in large scale systems administration), and of really hating the mechanics of loot systems and constantly-increasing ramping difficulty making weapons weaker and weaker.
I did pick up Torchlight in late 2009, and played it a bit, but slowly and gradually burned out on it. I just don't have any passion for having to throw out 99.9% of pickups as trash, and I don't find fun in the gambling of enchanting. I can understand that those things are what other gamers are really drawn to.
in the late 90's, I was never able to get my parents to let me buy PC games very much, aside from Quake 2 and Half-Life, prior to when I started working at a CompUSA and could buy almost anything I wanted. My cousin showed me Doom in 1993, and back then, I decided that after the NES games that my sister and I had, Doom was the kind of game I wanted to play. First-person real-time mechanics.-
One other thing I fear about RPGs: time commitment per session. I'm okay with carving out a 1, 2, or 3 hour contiguous block for gaming, to go through a chapter with a decent amount of closure, or at least some sort of way to re-collect a stream of consciousness from the past session. FPS levels are usually 30 minutes to an hour at most, so that fits very nicely.
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Thanks for ruining a great game
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Frak off EA. I'm sick and tired of the lies about appealing to customer feedback. No customers I know want a free C&C with micro-transaction online-only crap.
C&C Generals 2 must be a standalone PC-DVD/Steam/GoG title that carries full 30 hour singleplayer experience complete with cutscenes and multiple sides to play. The multiplayer must have full LAN and off-line mode support, as well as skirmish capability and cooperative against the AI. And above all else, it must not be a Browser game.-
^^ This
I was excited about a new generals game but now... im not really sure what to think since EA tends to ruin all that has free to play attached to it (it always ends pay to win for example).
And beeing an strategy game... i fear that they will make you "gain access" to all the units CnC 4 style and make you pay to get the units faster (and knowing EA, you would only be able to purchase them for access for X number of days). And appart from that beeing stupid it destroys the units balance.
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It fits in with our current strategic focus point of monetization of all known electronic medium and entertainment parameters. A demand was detected by our shareholder interrogative interview and marketing research datums department that "those Commander Conquer games have lots of little portraits of things that cost in game currency, why dont we take that to the next level and monetize it for real world cash? maybe we can be as successful as that other series, whats it called? World Craft? you know, the one with the green men and wizards, and later evolved into Space Craft or whatever. We know that games with little portraits of things and with in-game currency costs are the perfect vector for monetization. this is a sure thing, lets green light it."
We think its going to be a huge success. Command & Conquer has a proud history that we have not at all completely shit on, at all, even a bit, regardless of what the critics say. The last 20 or so C&C games were such monumental successes that this literally cannot fail. Its not only implausible, its inevitable that we will be able to monetize the in game monetization mechanic and provide the gamer with more options and strategic depth than any other game of this genre has ever been able to achieve.
-EA
*I have not read the article, but this is what goes through my mind when i think of a F2P C&C. -
Thanks for ruining my day. >:(
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That's this game gone down the shitter then.
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excitement--
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Jesus
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haha yeah
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Oh well. So much for this one. :/
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well, I registered (site seems to be working) figured....might as well....
Going to realize my worst fears though. -
Fail. JVC, I am disappoint. I mean, I really liked you man. This announcement should have come w/ your immediate resignation due to such a bonehead move.
EA, you HAD my money. Had being the operative word here. -
the only way i can see this working is if they do it like games such as LoL or SMNC, each side or race costs a certain amount to unlock permanently, but are also on a free weekly rotation, obviously for this to happen it would need more than the 3 sides from generals,which could be possible due to the subtitle drop from the name of the game!
however if it is done so you need to unlock/rent certain unit types etc then it will be utter shit -
i try to stay optimistic - after tiberian twilight, even a f2p cnc could be better.
i could start a rant now about how EA fucked the whole franchise up to this day, but we all know that already.
however i still don't understand why they don't sell the GOOD cnc games anymore (those who aren't free that is) - like generals for example.
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Biggest fail ever. Providence Equity Partners here we come for you EA, you're done for.
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Not sure though what providence will do with EA, if they have any intention of changing it's managment or completely restructuring the company, getting rid of the brand and giving studios independence. We'll see.
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