StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I've mentioned before I really, really enjoy Red Alert 3. I don't think I've ever mentioned being into game mods, but now I have so that's irrelevant. However, I'd just like to throw this out here for some decent critical analysis.

I'm team leader and head designer for a Red Alert 3 mod called Paradox, which basically aims to make the game roughly four times larger than it already is by following a unique story set in the aftermath of the first game. In addition to the Allied, Soviet and Empire factions (which are getting lots of new units) we're adding 3 new ones; the Confederate Revolutionaries (American patriots who arise after the Allies apoint their own replacement for President Ackerman.) the Atomic Kingdom of China (retrotech Middle Kingdom that plays every Silver Age atomic trope and B-Movie sci-fi element for maximum value) and the Electrical Protectorate, who we are keeping sorta secret. In addition, we're making some changes, many of which were based on the impressions thread from this very forum; stuff like encouraging maneuver warfare and fights outside of the bases (the new Gem mechanic adds an element of supply lines, tech buildings can be rebuilt by engineers to make them more valuable, and the superweapon node system (which we haven't announced yet) means you have to fight the enemy in the field if you want to use your offensive superweapon.)

We've got a pretty small team at the moment, but we're making good progress (we've got roughly six times the number of models completed than we've released, it's just that normal mapping takes a pretty long time...) and we've got several units ready for the game as soon as the SDK comes out. Thoughts, criticism and suggestions are encouraged.

Thanks!

How do you plan on dealing with the problems brought up in this thread?

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4&t=128017

How will you streamline micro?
Do you intend to make the counters softer?
How much of the old programming will be overwritten?
How many years do you expect this to take?

1. We're placing a great emphasis on "toggle" functions you set before battles, and giving most of the instant effect and targeted functions to larger units with more survivability, artillery units behind the lines, specialist units, and early game units.
2. All units will have a slight degree more survivability against their weaknesses, but the counters will remain similar in importance (it's a gameplay function that the team, myself included, actually prefer, though it may have been taken too far). However, the larger number of units available combined with a greater emphasis on field combat means that you should find it easier to have the tools you need, and make almost anything useful in a given situation. You'll have to construct balanced forces just to keep them on-hand to defend your field assets now, as the defenses vs attacking force thing is less important, and large maps with lots of important features means you'll always have fewer units than you need to watch everything.
3. As little as possible. We want to both make sure that we're not doing anything the engine won't like, and we enjoy Red Alert 3 as is anyway; we want to make it bigger and better, not a different game.
4. No idea. It's hard to tell with mods; there are so many factors.

8 factions? Are you sure that you can balance all that out?

We hope so. We plan to test the absolute fuck out of every aspect of each faction and put them ingame in paired groups, so each can be tested relative to a faction that functions in similar fashion (for example, placing the Allies and Confederates opposite, both of whom are more underhanded factions) or completely opposite fashion (the Japanese and Chinese, one of whom are highly aggressive and flexible, the other highly specialized and defensive) This way we hope to at least have paired groups of balanced factions that can then be scaled together to balance with other factions.

This reminds me of an idea I had for Red Alert 3, provisionally titled "Red Alert 6". The idea was that with everyone and their dog going back in time to grab every little bit of advantage for themselves, by after repeated trips, the last ending in 1947, everyone had managed to fuck up the timeline so hard that the Nazis were back and somehow a hole had gotten torn in the space-time continuum in central Africa, and legions of horrible demonic entities or something like that were ravaging the continent.

There were to be five major factions; excluding the Beast, as just described, they are Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan; as one character described the situation, "From east to west, there's the guys who butcher civilians, the guys who butcher their own people, the guys who butcher their own civilians, and I won't say anything about the last except that they're allied with the guys before." (Although that's not fair to Britain, though they did have a tentative, creaky peace with Germany so that both of their armies in North Africa could focus on fighting the Beast.)

There were also three minor powers: an anemic USA, which begins with hopelessly obsolete units (P-40s and M3 tanks, for example) but upgrades quickly, an infantry-heavy China still fighting the Japanese invasion, and the African Defence Force, a coalition primarily of the southern colonies formed to fight the Beast as well; they have the option to take aid from a major power of their choosing, which would have a great deal to do in shaping their technology in a particular game.

Units overall were going to be largely historical with an appropriate amount of crazy fantastic wanktech thrown in on top, with British anti-aircraft death rays and Soviet icebreakers that doubled as high-speed rams for sinking Japanese battleships, along with all the napkinwaffen you'd need to wipe a Hardee's burger off your face, while the Japanese have figured out the simple principle of "use laser beams to win". It would be a terrific mess.

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Reading your ModDB page, you intend to shoot new live-action cutscenes? You, sir, are nuts, and I salute you for it.

EDIT: looks like I wasn't the only one who had the icebreaker idea. This is looking to be insanely awesome - pretty much everything I ever wanted in Red Alert.

Not just intend, we've already started some early photography, costume tests, and script readings. We have all sorts of crazy stuff in the works, like a world map that begins every campaign mission to show the worldwide progress of the war through the various timelines, and each campaign briefing is being filmed in a unique style. For example, the Confederate briefing are all filming freehand, from a first person perspective, complete with your commander's gloved hand visible in some shots, and all data being expressed by actual videos on screens, or photographs physically handed to you. On the other hand, the Allied ones are more along the lines of the ones from regular RA3, and the Talon ones are more along the lines of a movie, from a 3rd person perspective; your commander is occasionally visible, but never speaks or removes his or her robe.

I hear huge expectations and plans always end up being the most successful mods.

What???

Aim high and at least you might come down onto somebody's head!

Stark wrote:I hear huge expectations and plans always end up being the most successful mods.

What???

Which brings up a bigger question- how many people are on this modding team? Is it one man and a crazy dream or the population of Iceland?

Right now, about a dozen, of which a few are professional game developers and most, myself included, have previous experience modding. This is not including our actors, voice actors, costume maker, director, cameraman and other cinematic or part-time roles. We're trying to get the team in clumps of people that know each other in real life, so it's easier to communicate everything and get work done. Thus far, it's worked very well, considering how much we have done (significantly more than we've posted!)

On top of that, the team is expanding constantly, as we tend to pick up people that drop off of other mods. We have about 8 people who have promised to lend a hand as soon as their own modding projects are complete, so that's good.

Here's a criticism for you: do you intend to fix that dumbshit logo of yours?

What's wrong with it, exactly? I can't fix it if I don't know.

Using Cyrillic in place of Latin is bad enough, but but this is the first time I've seen anybody reach the low of using a backwards character.

This mod is a bit bizarre - what possible reason is there to add all those factions? This isn't 1995, more factions does not = better game. It seems to me that you decided you simply needed to add "X" factions before even deciding what they might be. Why not start by adding just one faction, ensure that it is well thought out, implemented fully, is interesting to play and is unique from the existing factions before you go scattering your ideas to the wind across eight bloody factions.

If you really do have a motivated and skilled group of people assembled to work on it then you owe it to them to choose a project which it is at least vaguely plausible you might one day be able to finish. Your current plan of "Let's add more content to the game than its professional creators managed in over 3 years of full time development!" doesn't fall into that category.

Also, about logos, your individual faction logos could really do with a re-work. Currently they are like a guided tour of bad photoshop practice - plastic "3D" light effects? check. Image pieces obviously copied from other sources? check. Abuse of lens flare effects? check.

Regarding the number of factions, the idea is to add as many different styles of play as possible, and make each side cater to a specific way of playing RTS games. The Chinese, for example, are built from the ground-up to turtle and turret crawl, the Confederates are specifically modeled after the GLA's and NOD's underhanded playstyles, the Talon are meant to invoke the small numbers and high resilience of Dawn of War space marines, and the Protectorate is basically an absurdly exaggerated Zerg Rush faction. The idea, ambition though it might be, is to create a Command and Conquer game that encompasses pretty much every style of play imaginable for an RTS of it's style. However, in order to ensure we produce a project, we're doing as you say and taking it one step at a time, hence, adding in the Confederates and Allied expansion first, releasing that to the public, then moving on.

As for the logos, they're really just promotional and won't actually show up anywhere ingame in that form, so I didn't spend to much time on them. Game content comes first.