Aaron Kaufman über C&C

[Junker]

Jemand von www.cncnz.com hat den Community Manager von EALA per Mail zum zum nächsten Command & Conquer befragt. Schon eine Spur ehrlicher als das, was man sonst so von EA gewohnt ist. Im Fokus steht momentan Battle for Middle Earth 2 (war auch nicht anders zu erwarten) und er oder jemand anderer darf nichts über ein mögliches nächstes C&C sagen. Auch recht interessant seine Aussage am Schluss über Petroglyph.

Hey King,

Sorry it took me a while to reply. So, I fully understand the cries and pleas 100% but everyone in the community is going to have to be patient still. I cannot directly comment on the C&C franchise, but I can say that we are 100% dedicated to the franchise. I nor anyone at EALA is in a position to talk about what lies ahead for the C&C franchise, but the word franchise has strong meaning around the studio. Now, you guys can all read between the lines and I know you have all been patient.

I wonder how Warcraft fans are feeling, or what about Age of Empires before AOE3 was even announced. The last C&C game was Zero Hour, 2003. Age of Empires 2 came out in 2000! Warcraft 3 came out in 2002. Those studios are taking quite some time between their sequels. It’s been less than 2 years since ZH was officially released. It is not abnormal for major franchises to go in to hibernation for more than a couple of years. BFME and BFME 2 should not be looked at as blows to the C&C community. C&C and BFME do live under the same umbrella of passion and franchise dedication from EA, so anyone who doesn’t think that, I suggest turning that frown upside down. EA is very dedicated to both franchises.

My point is, the C&C community in general is restless and demands high expectations. Hey, cool, we understand, but at the same time, I have a level of confidentiality that I need to abide by with the studio and EA and I simply cannot talk about C&C any further than what I said above.

What I can keep doing is strong community support. I do have plans for the upcoming months, plans that I can’t talk about in depth just yet. I know I know, it’s all confidential right now, but you have my word, patience is a virtue in this industry.

The C&C community, LOTR fans or not, will more than likely be very pleased with BFME 2 as it is gunning for the hardcore taste. I’m looking forward to the reactions.

Chin up man, Petro has that old Westwood spotlight shining on them, but they still need to deliver a good game, so we’ll see how it ends up.

[Zet]

Chin up man, Petro has that old Westwood spotlight shining on them, but they still need to deliver a good game, so we’ll see how it ends up.

...

Meiner Meinung nach wäre diese Aussage überflüssig gewesen...

Außer natürlich...

Aber nein, das kann nicht sein, ich vergesse das lieber mal schnell wieder!

[Amosh]

Wie ist der an die Mailadresse von denen gekommen?

Abre sonst mal gut, etwas mehr oder weniger positives zu hören.

@Zet

[RedBasti]

but they still need to deliver a good game

Das trifft aber auch auf EA zu.

Naja, eine ziemliche Durchhalteparole. Außerdem hinkt der Vergleich ein wenig. Für AoE Fans gab es ja zwischendurch das durchaus nicht schlechte AoM samt Addon. Die Leute mussten also nie sehr lange warten, da Ensemble nur Age-Teile programmiert. Außerdem finde ich diese "Rechtfertigung" ziemlich dümmlich, wenn man vorher die C&C Games praktisch Schlag auf Schlag released hat.

[Extinction]

gibts vllt ne übersetzung oder sowaS?
kann nämlich nicht gut/bis kein englisch und mich würde es dennoch interessieren! ^^

tjx

[Zet]

Er sagt, er könne nicht alles aktuelle über C&C sagen, man soll alledings zwischen den Zeilen lesen.
Er argumentiert damit, dass die AoE Series und die Warcraft Series sich auch viel Zeit gelassen hätten, bis der Fortsetzer in die Läden kam, warum sollte das nächste C&C so "kurz" nach Zero Hour (imo ein schelchtes Beispiel für ein C&C...) bereits nachrücken? Man soll SuM sollte von der Community genau so behandelt werden, wie C&C, da die Series genau so viel Leidenschaft in sich bietet [-> sehr frei bis falsch zusammengefasst, korrigiert mich bitte]
Das danach ist unwichtig...
Allerdings ist da zuletzt noch ein Satz, in dem er sagt, Petroglyph besäße den Westwoodgeist hätte allerdings noch kein Spiel herausgebracht, das beweißt, wie gut sie sind...


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MOHOHOHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOMENT MAL!!! KÖNNEN WIR BITTE MAL DIE MAIL DES ABSENDERS SEHEN??? Vielleicht war das eine Antwort auf die Frage, ob Petro das nächste C&C unter EA entwickeln wird und er meinte, sie müssen Petro quasi erst qualifizieren!?!?!?!? Wenn das so wäre, dann... Hoffnung...

omfg, ich fantasiere wieder...

[Extinction]

@zet

danke für die kurze info und ich frage dich um erlaubnis ob ich mit dir mit fantasieren darf

[Junker]

Das wurde Aaron zugesendet und darauf hat Aaron geantwortet:

The Next C&C - The Real Red Alert

Despite our grandest hope and our fondest visions, EA did not release the news e were all waiting for. There has been no announcement about the next Command and Conquer, and we are left wondering once more, where we are going to be going with the future of C&C. At the moment, it would seem a celebration may as well have been a funeral. We, the community, have found ourselves sending the last of our efforts, and the last of our hopes, behind the one thing we thought would unite us with you and that would boost us for the final furlong between C&C 10 and Red Alert 3, Command and Conquers tenth anniversary. Now we find ourselves lacking the will power to keep going, and are scrapping together our memories of a great gaming series, and becoming the largest community gaming exodus in recent memory.

We, the community, will lose sight of the promising franchise that we loved in command and conquer, and we shall travel heads sunken down to what looks to be our saviour in the form of Petroglyph. What we have left of Command and Conquer now seems to be more like an obituary than the bustling cradle of life we saw just before the anniversary. It was you, Mr Kaufman, that said you were overwhelmed by the support we had shown to the celebration, now be prepared to be overwhelmed with how much face you lose with us. Between the invitation to the webmasters, and the Battle for Middle Earth summit, you have committed something that many have caused zealous. You have not given the people what they wanted, and you have made them turn their back on the only thing they associate with EA. The people are calling Generals and Zero hour the heretic of Command and conquer. There has been an influx of Red Alert 2 modders, and a great decline in the momentum of the Generals modders.

Some people ask why this is, but we know really it is because they have nothing left to set their bench mark by. The Red Alert 2 people see Generals and Zero Hour as the closest thing to Red Alert 2 perfection in modding. What do the Generals and Zero hour modders have to aspire to now Mr Kaufman? Nothing at all, nothing but a fantasy game that will never see a turret or a Tesla Coil. So, at this crossroads of Command and Conquer, we see many paths before us. We see loyalty to a brand that we love and treasure, and hope that the second time round, EA get it right. We then see the developers, the loving people who created that brand and we see something much more akin to home than we see with EA. Your community, Mr Kaufman, is going to become a Petroglyph based community and Sega and Lucas arts will be laughing all the way to the bank when they realise what huge backing this little Las Vegas company has.

So, we now reach the point of no return, what is the next Red Alert. The next Red Alert is not a Command and Conquer game, or an expansion pack. The next Red Alert will occur when you look to see the concrete support for the C&C brand has become nothing more than a few scattered people trying to relive the glory days of Red Alert and Tiberian Sun. you ask the people, the community site webmasters what has happened, why they’ve appeared to have deserted you, and they will simply say that the Community got impatient, the community lost hope, the community had nothing left in their tank and that there was nothing but upset minds and devastation. The community is running out of gas, we need something to keep us going and an early reference to an unknown C&C title had done nothing for us but build us all up for a much bigger fall. Falls where even a new Command and Conquer won’t make us recover. Is this the type of good ideas that have caused EA to become global? It would seem unlikely, but when gaming franchise after gaming franchise come to EA, they become global, and why is it that a small company acquired as a stepping stone to greatness has become nothing more than a trampled peasant in the favour of the bigger picture.

We all know about the rather rabid fan base for the Lord of the rings games, many of the C&C community are amongst them and enjoyed battle for middle Earth. It again provided us with petrol in the tank on the way to Red Alert 3, but when we see the same fuel station, we think that we are going round in circles and that our moving to RA3 has become nothing more than a vicious circle that’s been dominated by a fan base that had dwindled as fast as the people who like the Lord of the Rings. The fan base is dwindling already and Battle for Middle Earth 2 has done nothing for the people loyal to Westwood Studios, or those who have doubted the company in the past. A film such as Lord of the Rings may be the film of decade, but Command and conquer has now officially been going longer than a decade and look how strong we are.

We stand defiant of those who have called us stupid for staying with C&C following the takeover of Westwood Studios. Some called stupid for actually playing Generals, causing some rifts in the Community between the Westwood Loyalists and the people who just love Command and Conquer. In reality, we all C&C for some reason or another, and without it, we’re just become another community for some generic game being brought out to spin some extra cash. We though, we are the C&C community, some of the oldest and most stalwart community people, rivalling the might titans of gaming like Counter Strike, or Everquest. We have done nothing but throw our support behind the franchise and we have even given Battle for Middle Earth a chance. Here we stand following a fantastic celebration of our franchise and we now feel tainted and insulted. We have nothing left in our tank, and we fear that on foot, there is nothing but Petroglyph on the horizon. There’s only one real way of stopping this, and the Red Alert within the community.

It’s quite simple really. We want a new command and conquer. Prove to us that you have it and we’ll finally regain some momentum, C&C won’t die, and the funeral pyre will be extinguished and the flowers of trust for Ea will grow once more. We shall not become bystanders in a gaming world where we see the next generation blooming and we are left in the past. It was once said that the future would be ours to command and conquer, without that, will be wondering about how the soviets and allies, we’ll be wondering why the game went the way of the real USSR. Dead and buried. We could however, go the allied way, and prosper and bring a united happy peace to the C&C world. Really, the only possible way this will happen is with some sort of announcement regarding something fresh to the C&C universe. Please don’t disappoint us, the community veterans.

[Zet]

Och nö, wie schade *schnief*
Ich hatte gehofft, King hätte etwas gefragt von wegen ob sie nicht einfach Petroglyph die Drecksarbeit machen lassen würden - aber leider (speziell @CINESTAR wegen deinen nicht so guten Englischkenntnissen ) hat er lediglich gesagt, dass Petroglyph die letzte Hoffnung, besser gesagt, der letzte Lichtblick unter der Fülle von RTS sei, in die C&C mit ZH nun auch eingetreten ist.

Ich würde dir ja gerne erlauben zu träumen, aber leider haben wir hier wohl das Ende unseres (sehr kurzen) Traumes gefunden ;_;

[Extinction]

Zitat von Zet

Och nö, wie schade *schnief*
, der letzte Lichtblick unter der Fülle von RTS sei, in die C&C mit ZH nun auch eingetreten ist.

Ich würde dir ja gerne erlauben zu träumen, aber leider haben wir hier wohl das Ende unseres (sehr kurzen) Traumes gefunden ;_;

was meinst du mit cnc und zh?!?!

naja ich werd trotzdem an meinen träumen fest halten!

ich geb so lange ncith auf bis mir einer ne quelle sagt wo drin steht das es kein einzigen cnc teil mehr gibt!

[Zet]

Sry, ich meinte nicht mit ZH sondern mit Generals^^"
Dass ein neuer C&C Teil kommt IST ja auch quasi bestätigt, aber er wird definitiv nicht von Petroglyph sein, das wollte ich damit sagen.