Red alert 3 announced!

[TaC_uP]

http://www.pcgamer.com/images/PCG_Cover_0408%20large.jpg

Any old school RTS player will certainly be excited.

[TriniXaeno]

Nice....my heart still burning for SC2 but good news all the same.

[Reaper2051]

GLORY TO THE SOVIET UNION!!!

[Reaper2051]

-Every unit has secondary functions. The allied tank for instance is able to concentrate radar beams to be used as a scouting unit
-Altough not visible on the screens, there’s going to be massive damaging in RA3, with weapons carving colossal craters into the ground
-Most structures are placeable on water for extra cost
-Ships can only “land”/leave shore on sand, so its crucial to defend these areas
-The article writer claims that the impressive graphics don’t shine through the screens. In his opinion, graphics are much better compared to CnC3, he’s especially flabbergasted by the animations
-The Russians have a submarine called “Akula” which isn’t simply deadly against ships, but is able to train divers as well
-The Bullfrog transport ship doesn’t have to set shore, its able to “shoot” out the units it’s carrying
-The Japanese Seawing bomber is able to transform into a submarine simply by falling into the water
-Sea battles will be crucial in this game
-The Japanese enroll a water-affin tank called “Tsunami” which is both heavily armoured and powerful, and slower on land than in water
-The campaign can be co-operatively played with a friend from start to finish. If theres no one to play it with, you can choose between an array of AI allies to fight the war
-SC2s lead designer worked on RA3 before he went to Blizzard
-Gameplay will be much slower, an aspect, along with the beta, that the team concluded from TW. The writer confirms this slowdown.
-Enemy soldiers freeze upon Allied dogs’ barking
-The Mobile V4 is able to swim as well, but its main draw points is the precise and area-effective attack.
- The Russians’ submarine, the Stingray Nasad, sports tesla-launchers, and is a rather small, but fast unit
-The writer praises the smooth animations, explosion effects and water in general again and again, its crazy!
--Live-action FMVs are back mixed with CGI and outdoor scenes
-The writer holds that RA3 wont be as good as SC2, but damn close, and even better than RA2
-No Yuri
-Atmosphere is top notch
-Expansion pack is already planned
* The Soviets and Allies have airfields.
* There will be Tanya. What is Red Alert without Tanya, the Soviets, the Allies, Tesla everything, and Kirovs... and dogs.
* Red Alert 3 right now is running off of SAGE and the visuals you see are at a minimum on par with C&C 3. We're doing a lot of enhancements to effects, water, lighting, etc that you can't see fully in these screenshots just yet.
* Red Alert 3 has been in development for a while, our focus first and foremost was on building all of our units to a 1.0 stage so we can test multiplayer VERY early, which we can now. We're already balancing.
* Sub-factions, while cool, are not planned right now and not something you should expect for Red Alert 3.
-Grid based building
-Each campaign has 8-10 missions (3)
-Stringrays secondary mode: Electric blast
-Hell March will be updated
-the Allied Cryo copter flash-freezes enemies and is able to shrink them in secondary mode
-The allied Mirage tank disguises itself as enemy vehicle and an energy bubble hides all friendly units within
-The apocalypse tank is able to "suck in" troops with magnets to grind them.

Story

After the Allied drove the Soviets back to Moscow, and their defeat is nigh, they decide to send back several hitmen in time to kill Einstein, the single person they see responsible for the Allied superiority. Although the act is successful, and Europe seems is in peace (With the second war never happening) in this altered timeline, a third party comes into play with the Empire of the rising sun (Japan), which gives birth to plans of world domination they, given their technological advancements, are set to realize and achieve, throwing you into this ménage á trois.


Campaign

-Can be played co-operatively either with a friend via Multiplayer, or with the aid of an AI ally. The main goal of the AI players is to capture and defend the most significant points of a given map, and you can use their structures for producing units. You cannot control the units of your team-mate however, for the developers deemed it very chaotic after a test run.
Needless to say that you see the map-revealing progress of your ally. Both points count for AI-driven or human Co-op.

-For each side (Allied, Soviets, Empire of the rising sun) there are three commanders to choose from before every mission, each with at least three special abilities. The one they showed the magazine was an allied commander from whom you could ask for an air strike in pre-set periods of time. This commander is played by Peter Weller (aka RoboCop)

-While Yuri doesn’t play a role in the main game, the game’s writer mentioned the possibility of his return in an already planned expansion pack

Maps

-Altough not visible on the screens, there’s going to be massive damaging in RA3, with weapons carving colossal craters into the ground

-Amphibious ships/tanks can only “land”/leave shore on sandy beaches, so its crucial to capture and defend these areas

-Since the maps have to provide enough room for at least three participants, they’re naturally much bigger than they were in Tiberium Wars

Gameplay

-Slower pace to prevent rushing and base crawling
-Most buildings can be placed on water for extra cost (Confirmed: Power plant, construction yard, airfield, war factory)
-Most units have a secondary function
-Economy remains unchanged (Two resources: Ore and power)
-Naval combat is crucial in the game, with most units being amphibious
-All units have their place in the combat chain. For example, air units are preferable against well defended positions


Demo level

The mission involved a cloaking allied tank with which aid you had to get into the city centre unseen, where all of a sudden the city’s stadium opened and launched a nuclear missile, while the Soviet dictator appeared in the edge of the screen and raved on about his plans of world domination with a broad smile on his face. Later on it was revealed that not one, but three such rockets were launched, and the objectives were to destroy the silos and stop the missiles. For the already launched one, the writer used Robocop’s special ability to call an airstrike, which destroyed one of the stadiums as well. The other two posed an increased difficulty, given the well-defended bases of the Soviets. He chose to capture an enemy conyard to set up a base in the water and escape the massive defence, and after setting up a defensive perimeter at the shore, he produced aircraft, infantry and bullfrogs, and finished off one stadium with bombers launched from the airfield placed in water. He couldn’t apply this strategy to the other stadium however, given the numerous air defences. Therefore, he cut off the second base’s power, captured a war factory near some Tesla towers and purged the Soviets from the face of the earth with a tank force, completing the mission.



Units

Allied:

-Tanya
-Apollo: A lighting-fast jet best used against bombers
-Century: Carpet bombing aircraft, quite ineffective in air-to-air combat
-Cyrocopter: A propelled scouting/spying unit. Its ability to spot cloaked enemies is currently under discussion
-Mirage tank: Now with a wider array of holographs, making it more useful outside forests
-Unnamed light tank as seen in screenshots: Is able to concentrate its radar-beams to be used as a scouting unit
-Unnamed heavy cruiser: Amphibious
-Trained dogs, which stun enemies with their barking
-Shotgunner. Slow, but with a shielding ability

Soviet:

-Commando (Supposedly armed with a tesla-gun)
- The Akula, a submarine which isn’t merely deadly against ships, but is able to train divers as well
-The Bullfrog transport ship doesn’t have to set shore, its able to “shoot” out the units it’s carrying
- Mobile V4, with the new ability to swim, but its main draw point is the precise and area-effective attack. Very slow unit.
-Stingray Nasad, a small and fast tesla-launching boat
-Kirov
-Tesla walker
-Armored bear (Made out to be a polar bear in the article, which is doubtful in my opinion)
-Apocalypse tank
-Machinegunner, fast and lightly armoured.

Empire of the rising sun:

-Commando
-The Seawing bomber is able to transform into a submarine simply by falling into the water
- Tsunami, a water-affin tank which is both heavily armoured and powerful, although slower on land than in water

FMVs

-Seen scenes: Marching allied soldiers, a Russian general shouting, a cold, calculating Japanese general giving orders
-Stylised and humorous
-Allegedly not as overacted as in Tiberium Wars

Graphics

-Nearly 60% of the Sage engine’s code was rewritten for Red Alert 3, and the screenshots don’t represent the visual quality well, as they are from an alpha-build of the game and still worked on. Most attention went to the water (Now with splash animation! ), demolition, animations, respectively to keep RA3 true to RA2s light-hearted style. This goes for the Japanese faction too.

Misc

-Game menu is cartoonish and quite moody, with a great soundtrack to boot
-Neil Young, head of the studio, mentioned that an SC2 designer worked on RA3 before he left for Blizzard. Now who’s right, Mr. Young or Apoc, who denied this bit?
-2 super weapons per faction are planned

* Send Message
* Report



Since when is Red Alert 3 under development?
Ex-Producer Mark Skaggs announced Red Alert 3 prematurely in December 04, but development was halted after he left shortly thereafter. Later it was rumoured that production was stopped to work on a new game in the Tiberium-universe, which then actually saw the light of day in March 07, known as Tiberium Wars. There is no definite on the current Red Alert 3, but producer Chris Corry spoke about “several years” of development. After asking Zipster-PG, a programmer at Petroglyph who worked on Tiberium, we now know that development started after Tiberium, meaning some point after 2005. We do not know whether Skaggs’ RA3 has anything to do with Corry’s one, however.

Who is working on Red Alert 3?
It’s a separate team within EALA, including developers from Tiberium Wars, such as Chris Corry, Greg Kasavin and Amer Ajami.

Won’t three parallely developed games considerably lower the quality of the respective products?
Theoretically, no. There are three separate teams working individually on Kane’s Wrath, Tiberium and RA3.

Is it true that Dustin Browder, lead designer of Starcraft II, has worked on RA3?
According to Neil Young, ex-head of EALA, yes. Apoc denied this at Gamereplays.com and CnCden.

How close is the team to completion?
According to Hungarian PC magazine “PC Guru”, 50 percent of the game is finished. Apoc stated that the game itself is roughly done, and that they’re currently balancing and fine-tuning the game in every possible aspect.

Will there be a Beta?
EALA kept the promise and everyone who purchases either Kane’s Wrath or the Limited Edition pack with the participation sticker will get a place in the beta.

Is there any way to get into the beta except purchasing games from the Tiberium universe?
Officially it’s not planned, but Apoc conceded that perhaps there will be some keys given away in contests.

When’s the release date?
There’s no release date set, but with the beta in late September, several sources are counting on Q4/end of 08.

What can we expect from the game? Will it be rather following the first or second Red Alert’s footsteps?
Definitely the second one, meaning a comical and light-hearted approach, with varicoloured, stylised graphics, wacky units and humorous FMVs.

What will make this game different from others? Why should I give EA my money? …Again?
For one, it’s going to focus on naval combat, with water bases and various amphibious units, what hasn’t been done very often, and many “big” names didn’t even try to do. Second, there will be a fully co-operative campaign that you can play with a friend or an aiding AI from start to finish. And if that wouldn’t be enough, EA is throwing in a third side, the Empire of the rising sun.

How will that fit into the canon? And why “third” side? Where’s Yuri?!
After the Soviets were drawn back to Moscow and almost defeated by the Allies, they sent back some hitmen in time to eliminate Einstein and weaken the Allied. After the successful attempt, Europe remained in peace, giving room to another side teching up and planning on world domination: The Japanese. Yuri won’t be featured in the main game, but could return in an already planned expansion.

Any info about the Japanese? And which trademark units are going to return?
Aside from two amphibious units, not much, only that their heavily influenced by actual Japanese pop culture and Sci-Fi. On the Allied side, Tanya, the trained dog, the dolphin and the mirage tank return. On the Soviet side, it’s the Kirov, Tesla tank, the Apocalypse tank and the Mobile V4 which are confirmed.

Will there be Full Motion Videos?
Yes.

Do we know about the cast?
Except Greg "Beowulf" Ellis playing British commander Giles, no. Peter Welles is not in the game as previous sources suggested, the actor playing that commander simply looked very similar.

Will Romanov return?
We don’t know whether Romanov returns, but it’s doubtful considering that Nicholas Worth, the actor who portrayed General Romanov, sadly passed away in 07. It seems Tanya will be the only "old" character returning.

What about Frank? Does he compose the soundtrack?
Doesn’t look like it. Although he’d love to do it, his current employer Petroglyph might not let him due to several reasons. Also, it seems as if the soundtrack would be already complete, given how the writer of the PC Guru article chanted about it. An updated version of Hell March will be in, though.

Has RA3 at last be given a new engine?
No, its still the SAG engine (Yes, SAG engine- Strategy action game engine, hence the abbreviation SAGE), but 60% of the code has been rewritten exclusively for RA3.
Don’t let the released (and old) screenshots fool you, the creators are intent to make it as graphically pleasing as possible, especially in the water and animation department. This time around, there will be even terrain deformation. According to PC Gamer, alas, it's a new engine called RAN.

Will the maps be bigger than in Tiberium Wars?
Yes, to give enough space for the co-operative campaign. The maps will be automatically bigger since you’re able to erect structures in water for extra cost.

What if I don’t have anyone to play? Is it possible to play alone?
Then you’re able to choose from an array of AI allies. It is possible to fly solo, yes.

Won’t it be too easy to fight against an AI opponent as a team?
The AI is going to fight twice as effective when it detects multiple teams striking against it.

Can we expect snow maps?
Apoc says: yes!

Will there be really parashooting cyberbears, lightsword-wielding samurais and similar units in RA3?
These units are rumours that were mentioned in early translations of the PC Guru article, but these info actually wasn’t in there. So I’d wait for official confirmation.

Will there be sub-factions as in Kane’s Wrath?
No, but instead, you’re able to choose between three Generals per side before each mission, each with up to three special abilities.

Can we expect new units?
Plenty. See the PC Guru article translation for details.

Are ore and power still the resource-, respectively the upkeep system in RA3?
Yes, but allegedly, there’s going to be some change to render the game more strategic and slower.

Slower? But its Red Alert we’re talking about here!
Yes, to prevent rushing and base creeping. Also, the developers think the average match should be longer than 5 minutes, now ranging from 20 to 30 min.

Does Chrono, Tesla and Prism tech return?
First two: Yes. Prism tech unfortunately not.

Any connection to the Tiberian universe?
...won't be made. It's a separate universe now.

And the MCV system?
Is back, with MCVs being amphibious!

Won't the focus on amphibious units be too high?
Not necessarily, because amphibious units are versatile, but not as powerful as ground/air/water-"exclusive" units, so ground troops are still significant, and foremost aircraft, given that it's useful both against ground- and water-based units.

I hate Personal Computers, so I’d advise EA to have a console port as well!
Technically, this isn’t a question. However, I can inform you that RA3 will be ported to the X360 and the PS3.

New RA3 Info from PC Zone UK plus Scans:

PC Zone hit shelves in the UK today, and Big Bottom from Gamereplays.org kindly provided the site with a summary and scans.

Here's the info:

* The Japan campaign is currently aimed at being unlockable after you finish the Allied or Soviet ones.
* Japan are probably the strongest race in the water at present.
* Many of the Japanese units transform into other ones.
* The fact that your base can be built out at sea is designed to encourage players to use aircraft more.
* There will be significant resources out at sea so naval presence can't be ignored.
* A monitor in the corner of the screen shows you the state of the AI and allows you to give four orders: attack or defend a unit or location, stop or help me. Without orders the AI will do it's own thing.
* In MP you can put units in friendly transports, use allied airfields and repair bays and you can give units to another player. You cannot, however, simply give your ally cash, which is designed to make giving units to another player a risk since the units might be ambushed en route to your ally.
* There will be less units with multiple capabilities than in C&C3, so no massing of uber-tanks-that-kill- everything.
* Every unit has a primary and secondary ability (not sure how this meshes with the above point, I'm just copying what it says )
* Online matches will average at 20-30 minutes.
* One of the allied AI commanders is Major Giles, a stiff upper lip British commander specialising in special weapons and aircraft, played by Beowulf actor Greg Ellis.
* There is a weapon called a Time Bomb, which can be chronosphered into your opponents base. In MP this can result in a situation where both players chrono the bomb into each others base like a hot potato until it explodes.
* Mission locations include San Diego, Cape Cod, Amsterdam, Heidelberg, Easter Island, Mount Fuji and Santa Monica.
* Executive producer Chris Corry - "Peter Weller is not in RA3."
* ETA Winter 2008

Thanks BB!

Edit: And what I personally might add after reading the article:

-The Tiberium universe and RA won’t be connected
-Amphibious units are flexible, but limited in firepower
-Switching these very units between land and sea is automatic
-CnC-TV is going to get a soviet-themed makeover
-Balance isn’t focusing on rock-paper-scissors only
-The allied are based on sleek, traditional design, the Soviets bulbous (Also inspired by statues), and the Japanese on popular culture straight from Japan, with the Sci-Fi slider being the highest here
-MCV system confirmed

[Reaper2051]

Part II

First, let's have the new info, partly gathered from the magazine itself:

-The campaign is linear, thus features such as a strategic map or mission selection are not planned
-Resource collection will be revamped, and apparently it will do without ore fields- and bring it to the sea
-You don't have to be online at any point to play the campaign
-The multiplayer code of the SAGE engine will be completely rewritten
-By no means are all units amphibious
-There won't be any unit with more than 2 abilities, to emphasize unit mixing, micro and prevent rushing/light-speed pace
-Units shot out of the Bullfrog transport ship are suspect to anti-air fire
-The AI commanders aiding you in one campaign will be enemies in another
-The Tesla trooper is still able to "overload" tesla coils and has a new name: Megavolt
-New Russian hero unit: Natasha
-Shadows will be improved
-FMVs won't be that talkative, and were pre-filmed with developers for demonstrative purposes
-Concept arts show a Japanese infantry unit with a strange helmet that illuminates the grounds vertically with a blue light
-Artists were influenced by Soviet, China and Cuba propaganda for Soviet design
-The Japanese equivalent to Natasha and Tanya is a violet-haired girl named Alexis
-There are two types of bombers for the Allied- The precision bomber (No name yet), which does exactly what the preliminary name is suggesting, and the Century bomber, which carpet-bombs larger areas.

* One of the superweapons is the "Gravity Cannon" (translated from the Polish) which "pulls satellites out of orbit and hurls them down at the enemy", which sounds just a wee bit derivative (okay, identical) to Act of War's Falling Star Uplink.
* Product Manager David Silverman (he's been on the Battlecast as well) is quoted as saying that the Japanese Empire develops in a different manner than the Allies and Soviets, and that it has its own, full, campaign.
* Tanya gets a portable time machine that allows her to move back in time a few seconds, resetting her position and health.
* There will be no campaign map, just as in Red Alert 2, because the campaign is linear.
* Not every unit will be amphibious.
* The multiplayer code from the SAGE engine is being completely rewritten.
* The Tesla Trooper is now called the Megavolt, but can still overcharge Tesla Coils.

* the Soviet campaign will obviously revolve around them trying to destroy both the Allies and Empire of the Rising Sun

* the Allied campaign will revolve around the maniacal US president who desperately wants the Soviets dead

* the Empire of the Rising Sun campaign will revolve around the strained releation between the Emperor of Japan and his son.

[Reaper2051]

Part III

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Interview


We get early details on one of the biggest RTS games of 2008.


by Jason Ocampo

March 14, 2008 - For long-suffering fans of the Red Alert series, the revelation last month that work on Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is now underway at EALA was welcome news indeed. Red Alert is one of the seminal real-time strategy games, of course, and the original is still one of the most beloved games of all time. Of course, EA didn't reveal much in its press release announcement, so we went straight to executive producer Chris Corry himself to talk about the game, which is due for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 this holiday season.

IGN: Red Alert 3 was recently revealed. It's been a while since the last one, hasn't it?

Chris Corry: There actually hasn't been a Red Alert game for a little while now; it's been seven years. It's kind of interesting reintroducing the world to Red Alert. For those who are already familiar with Red Alert games and their place in the C&C universe, certainly Red Alert 3 is going to be everything that the hardcore fans have been looking for. It's going to have that trademark, light, humorous, fun, Saturday matinee popcorn feel to it, with live-action cinematics and all these great actors chewing up the stage.

IGN: Is that what you consider to be the distinction that makes Red Alert different?

Chris Corry: We think of there being two universes that reside under the Command & Conquer brand. When we think about Command & Conquer, we think about sort of a style of play. So it's fast, fun, fluid RTS gameplay. But then underneath that we have the Tiberium universe, which C&C 3 lived in and that's the dark, gritty, brooding sci-fi world of Kane and Nod and GDI. It touches on some pretty serious themes; environmentalism, religion versus science, and other themes. And it really chronicles the journey of Kane.

And then very distinct and separate from that we have the Red Alert universe. We really think of Red Alert being not so much about World War II or the Cold War, but it really is about time travel and the unintended consequences that can occur from meddling in areas that no man has a right to. The way that manifests itself in the game is this series of alternate histories. In Red Alert 2--and we're carrying it through to Red Alert 3--it's also kind of a fundamental shift in tone where we're trying to not take ourselves nearly as seriously as the Tiberium universe does. There's a little bit of tongue-in-cheek there, and it really is about that humorous, bright saturated experience, as opposed to that dark, gritty, sci-fi experience.

IGN: Tell us about the setting and the story, and is it directly related or connected to the events of the last game, or is it a completely different timeline?

Chris Corry: I touched on that time travel theme. The events that kick off Red Alert 3 really come back to that. Our story opens with the Allies and the Soviets going at it again, but this time the Allies have beaten the Soviets back and have the upper hand. The Soviet leadership is cowering behind the walls of the Kremlin; their defeat is imminent and all but certain. At that point, sort of crazed with desperation, the leadership descends into the bowels of the Kremlin into their secret labs where they have this skunk works project going on. They fire up this prototype of this device which is a time machine that's never been used before. And their intention is to go back in time and erase Albert Einstein from the timeline. Of course, Albert Einstein in the previous games has been instrumental in the technological advances that made the Allies so successful...

IGN: And he shot Hitler!

Chris Corry: And you see that kind of parallel there from Red Alert 1, which has kind of a similar dynamic with Einstein going back to erase Hitler.

So the Soviet leadership goes back [in time] and they do it. They take our good man Albert out. They come back to the present day and it looks like the operation has been a resounding success. Moscow and the Kremlin have been resorted to their former glory. It looks like the operation has gone off magnificently. Of course, that lasts for a healthy two minutes, and then all of a sudden alarms and klaxons start going off, and all the monitors come to life, and the aids come rushing in and they realize that they're under attack. But they're not under attack this time from the Allies. They're under attack from this huge, intimidating superpower that they have inadvertently spawned on the world stage: the technology cult of the Empire of the Rising Sun. And they realize with this sinking feeling in their gut that by meddling with time, they haven't erased the Allies. The Allies are still there; the Allies are still a threat. But they've actually spawned a second mortal enemy, and that kicks off the third Red Alert war, where we now have this triumvirate of the Soviet, the Allies, and the Empire of the Rising Sun.

IGN: You say that and everyone is going to think Japan.

Chris Corry: It is Japan. I really like to call them the Empire of the Rising Sun because it makes them more ominous and it makes them different. And they are different. The great thing about using Japan is that it works for us in a lot of great ways. We wanted to make sure that we were brining something new and fresh and exciting to the Red Alert experience, and Japan was a really great choice for us because it has this really great wealth of historical and cultural touchstones that we can riff on. Everyone knows about ninjas and samurais and anime mecha. At the same time we've got full license to make them a little bit mysterious and maybe confound expectations a bit as well.

IGN: Ninja mecha. Ninja mecha.

Chris Corry: I'm not saying that there are ninjas. I'm not saying there are mecha. But I'm saying that if I were making a game with the Empire of the Rising Sun in it, you'd kind of want to put ninja and mecha in it, wouldn't you?

IGN: That's the new faction. Are all the factions completely rebuilt from scratch?

Chris Corry: They're pretty different. In the previous two Red Alert games, the Allies and the Soviet factions have been pretty different. Certainly, the Empire of the Rising Sun is going to be very different as well. In practical terms, all three factions have a very different build mechanic. For the Empire of the Rising Sun, we're keeping information about that faction a little close to the vest, but there are some themes that you see there. They're certainly the most technologically advanced. They're a dominant naval power. Unit transformation plays a significant role in that faction. There's certainly a lot in that faction that you don't see in the Soviets and Allies.

IGN: It wouldn't be Red Alert without the live-action cutscenes. What do you have in mind?

Chris Corry: We really do think the live-action cinematics are a staple of the Red Alert series. We're going pretty full bore with the cinematics this time. We're going to have more than an hour of cinematics; it's almost a minimovie that we're shooting for this. We're not quite ready to talk about the cast. We've got almost the entire cast locked down, but until we actually do the cinematics shoot, which we're currently scheduled to do in mid April, we won't be talking about that. Until I've got the movie stars in their seats and doing their stuff, it doesn't feel real.

IGN: Where does the filming take place at? Los Angeles? Vancouver?

Chris Corry: It's LA. We do SAG shoots here in LA and it's actually amazing to me. Before C&C 3, I'd never been on a movie set, and that really is what these are. These are full-on movie productions. We use movie production houses, we use a real movie DP [director of photography], and of course we're using real movie talent. We put a great deal of energy and time and attention into building elaborate sets and shooting a lot of green and doing a pretty aggressive post-production schedule where we do a lot of the sort of things that you would see in a Hollywood feature.

IGN: I want to get back to something that Mike Verdu, general manager of EALA, said in the announcement of Red Alert 3. He mentioned that Red Alert appealed more to the casual player. Are you aiming this at both the hardcore and someone who's never played a C&C game before? It sounds like this new cooperative mode will play a role in that?

Chris Corry: When you look at the products that we do here at EALA in the RTS group, they're first and foremost PC RTS games. We know who butters our bread and we have to make sure that we are scratching the itch of our core constituency, which really is a pretty hardcore bunch of guys who are really into an experience that is--from a user-interface standpoint--quite intricate. There are these fundamental gameplay themes that you have in a PC RTS that you really don't want to buck, because that's what makes RTS on the PC such a compelling and interesting proposition. First and foremost, we want to make sure that we're being true to the spirit of the previous games and that we're building a great PC RTS. And that really is job one.

Now with that said, I certainly agree with Mike's comments in the press release that Red Alert is uniquely, or perhaps better, poised to attract a wider audience because it's a little less threatening. It is about having fun and not taking things so seriously, and the gameplay experience can reflect that. It's not about all about going online and playing a competitive match and getting the smack down from a 12-year old kid that's going to swear at you a lot. The tone and tenor of the Red Alert franchise helps us there.

This idea of co-op is really intriguing. We've always thought of our RTS games as always resting on two pillars. The multiplayer experience, which is certainly a more hardcore experience, is a more competitive experience. It attracts a very particular type of player. And then we thought of the single-player experience, which is actually what the vast majority of people who purchase our games play and play exclusively. And we've always thought of that single-player experience as being our opportunity for great narrative, for telling a good story, and for having the hand-crafted custom campaigns with all of these tightly-scripted big moments to delight the player. This time around, I think what's so exciting about Red Alert 3 is that we're now giving you the opportunity to take what we thought of a single-player experience before and broaden it a bit by bringing in someone else and experiencing the entire game in that co-op context.

Of course, co-op is a huge, emerging theme in the industry right now. I think what's a little unique about the story that we're telling here really hasn't been done successfully in RTS before. I don't think anyone's done that hand-crafted, tightly-scripted campaign experience in a way that two people can simultaneously take part in it. Certainly my fond hope is that more casual players will play the game, and maybe they'll only be comfortable starting out in a single-player context. But if they encounter problems or as they make their first tentative explorations of what it means to do RTS online, they can go online and pull in a friend and help them through a difficult spot. Or if it's just a friend that's going through the same sort of RTS education that they are, then going online is going to be a lot less threatening.

IGN: Is the co-op deeper than simply having two guys having two bases running together in tandem, or are you going to integrate it so they're both on the same team but they're doing different things? So one might be managing the economy while the other is controlling the armies?

Chris Corry: Where we're going falls in the middle of those two extremes. We're building the entire campaign with the assumption that there are two commanders there. Going into the design of every mission in the campaign, our designers know, "Alright, I need to design this so that there are two guys gunning for the AI here." When you start to dissect what that means, there's actually a lot of different ways to approach that. There's an integrated co-op experience where literally the two players have to work in tandem to pursue some goal. On a stealth mission, for example, you may have one guy who's moving a big, bulky shield generator unit and the other guy has to take his assault force and has to keep it underneath the cover of that shield generator unit. That's a very intimate co-op experience because they're talking into their voice-over-IP headsets and they have to coordinate their movements that way.

And then there is the other extreme, which is we're in this mission, maybe we've done some of that tandem co-op and now we get to a break where things widen up a bit and now we both have an opportunity to establish a base, build units, and initiate assaults. We're setting up our missions so that even in that case, you're going to be most successful if you're coordinating your assaults. So if one person says, "I'm going to initiate an airstrike over here which will take out these Tesla coils so you can move in with your tanks," that's going to be a lot more successful than if the two guys aren't talking to each other and they decide to throw arbitrary units at the enemy.

IGN: In single-player then, will the AI be smart enough to take over one of those roles in those intricate situations?

Chris Corry: Exactly. The problem with putting co-op at the center of this is what if I don't have any friends online? Because we're designing these missions with the assumption that there are always two of you, if you don't have a co-op person to play with there needs to be a surrogate there. We have a whole palette of AI commanders that we present to you and that you progressively unlock over the course of a campaign. If you are playing by yourself, you can select a commander to come play with you. These commanders have unique personalities, to the point that they'll pop-up with full-motion video and give you feedback about how things are going or to bitch-and-moan about how things are going. And these AI commanders are tuned so that they play quite differently. One commander might favor tank-rushing tactics or be sort of a heavy ground force assault general, whereas another might be your air force guy. As you move through the campaign, and as you become comfortable with how these AI guys work, it's our hope that you'll form preferences for one or the other and that you'll make some choices about who you prefer to play with. And that even opens up replay possibilities, because the hope is that these AIs are going to play differently enough so that going back and replaying the campaign with different AI commanders is likely going to feel very different.

IGN: Is there anything that you'd like to add about Red Alert 3?

Chris Corry: There is one that I'd really want to call out, and that really is naval gameplay. It's not a complete first for the series. Both Red Alert 1 and Red Alert 2 had navy, but generally navy gameplay in most games is either nonexistent or you play the game and you feel like the designers have kept it at arm's length. It feels like an adjunct experience; something that's kind of bolted on to the side. No one really leverages the potential of naval gameplay quite as much as we'd like to with Red Alert 3.

We had to spend a lot of time thinking about why have people kept this at arm's length? Why is this something that really hasn't gotten as much traction before? We're doing a bunch of things to address that and to bring naval gameplay into the heart of the RTS experience.

In the story-driven campaign, most maps will have naval gameplay there. Every single multiplayer map that we ship will have significant bodies of water and will be designed with naval gameplay in mind. We've really taken that and pulled that into the units and structures game. We have this concept of "blurring the shoreline" where each faction has a bunch of units that are amphibious. They can fight on land and they can fight as sea. It's all done in a seamless contextual faction. If I move a unit through a beach and off of land and into the ocean it will transform into its naval equivalent. Amphibious units will have different capabilities, different stats based on whether if they're in the land form or ocean form. The dedicated units--units that can only work on land or can only work at sea-- might be a little more effective but they're not nearly as flexible. This idea of blurring the shorelines is one way that we lower the barrier to wanting to take your forces and moving them out to sea.

The most profound thing that we're doing is that we're actually giving the player a choice--and there's some real incentive to do this--to take their base and actually build the base at sea. You can take your mobile construction vehicle, you can drive it into the ocean, and you can actually build your base in the ocean. This is an extraordinary thing. This opens up a whole new dimension of strategy here. As you contemplate what your opponent is doing, now you have to ask yourself are they going to stay on land or are they going to push out and make a naval base? And woe be the player who miscalculates and makes an uniformed early tank rush and gets to the other side of the map and realizes that, "Oops, my opponent is actually out at sea and I've committed all my resources to building stuff that is now largely useless."

That base building at sea mechanic, we think, is a real game changer. One consequence of this is that it will, ironically, encourage people to play more air power as well. Because air power can reach both places, but it has its own challenges.

IGN: So is this the death of the tank rush, perhaps?

Chris Corry: We want to get to the death of the early-game tank rush anyway. When you look at C&C 3, it was a game where we sort of took the mantra of fast, fun, fluid gameplay very seriously. As released, C&C 3 was a very fast game. For a bunch of reason, a lot of them were related to how we tuned the economy and the mechanics of harvesting tiberium, there was some economic inflation there that really allowed good players to create large numbers of units early in the game and push off and rush early in the game, and those tended to be very effective tactics.

In Red Alert 3, we definitely want to get away from that. That's not a lot of fun for new players, or even for experienced players. That doesn't have the strategic subtlety or finesse that we're trying to get. We're not trying to slow down the game, but we are trying to make the decisions that you make in Red Alert 3 be a little bit more deliberate and certainly more strategic. I think you'll see us doing a bunch of things, mainly gating the economy, to get away from early rushes. In the mid game and the late game there will be probably be viable rushing tactics.

Our emphasis is about making the gameplay experience a bit more cerebral. We're not making Civilization here--it is still going to be that fast RTS action--but to be really successful you are going to have to focus a lot on force composition; getting a different mix of units to take on a variety of different targets. And especially for the more advanced players, some of this micromanagement where all of our units have a primary and a secondary power--and being able to toggle back and forth between these powers--is going to be a pretty important dynamic.

IGN: Thank you, Chris.

Source: IGN.com

[rb]

alternatively you could have done what most people do and just post a link ala this

http://pc.ign.com/articles/859/859781p1.html

[Reaper2051]

webpage to apply the beta key is up http://www.ea.com/redalert3beta/

[Reaper2051]

After Apoc started the Q&A feature on March 28th, he answered the first handful of questions today. Enjoy!



Will there be any maps without water in RA3?

The story-driven campaign will have some maps with little or no water on them. However, every single multiplayer map will have significant bodies of water on them.


Will squads be in RA3?

All units are individually controlled. There are no squads in RA3.


What was behind the decision to slow gameplay?

With Red Alert 3 we’re designing the gameplay to be a lot more deliberate and measured. We’ re shooting for average matches of 20-30 minutes and want to make sure that a lot of the unit spamming tactics, particularly the early game rushes of C&C3, are less viable. Games between experienced RA3 players will tend to go to the player who makes good use of force composition and unit micro, not the guy who can build the biggest scrum of tanks. The trick with this, and so far I think we’re doing a pretty good job of it, is to accomplish these goals without slowing the game down too much. Don’t worry – you’ ll find that Red Alert 3 games are plenty fast, and they’re certainly fun.


Will naval play be the emphasis in RA3 or have land, sea and air all been balanced so all are of equal importance?

Navy is going to be a core gameplay element with Red Alert 3, the ability to build on land and sea will be instrumental in your gameplay strategies. Certainly with respect to gameplay balance, we are treating land, sea, and air with equal importance. We definitely don’t want one area of the game having a significant advantage over the other, we need equal balance comrades!


Will the sidebar be making a return?

YES!

Source: http://commandandconquer.filefront.com/

[rassmatic]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/34142.html

The Trailer

[Trinitus]

I like hoe they put red october 2008 at the end, that was original, so to speak.

[Reaper2051]

Both the German community manager and product manager visited Moscow from April 28 to the 1st of May, along with others, for an exclusive RA3 event and saw RA3 in action in a real WWII bunker!
Today, they posted a small batch of new RA3 infos, but there are still more to come.

Here it goes:


-MCVs are unpacked at the beginning of a match, after placing it you’re free to choose the direction it should face (Grid-based building)
-The engineer has an inflatable boat to be faster at his destination
-There’s a neutral building which upon capturing reveals the whole map
-The music shown was still from RA2, but unit voices were largely new and, according to the writer of the article, very funny
-The bomb seen in the trailer is a vacuum bomb, aka the aerosol-bomb, a concept of the 60s
-If a conyard is placed on water near land, you are able to build on shore as well
-Many weapons are based on cold war concepts

Be sure to check back tomorrow for more, and comment, comrades!

PS: If you wondered, yes, the economy is different as in TW. You have ore mines to which you'll send one collector at a time, and from that location it goes to the refinery and back. It's best if you place your refinery vis-avis with it to minimize the harvey's way.

Edit: There's some new info on Gamespot too:

-Terrain heights give tactical advantage
New Japan unit: king Oni mech

Source:http://commandandconquer.filefront.com

[Reaper2051]

http://pc.ign.com/articles/876/876905p1.html

14 MINUTES OF GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE!!!!