Assassin and the TSR developing team is letting the well known C&C community member Cypher write the campaign for Tiberian Sun Rising. That's perfect since Cypher knows everything about Command & Conquer that's worth knowing. As you can see in this interview with him he knows a lot about the lore and can come up with possible explanations for every contradiction in canon of the later C&C games (the C&Cs developed by EA that is).
"...even with all the change's we've made to TS Rising, we've done nothing that
contradicts Tiberium War's or seems out of place in the timeline. We have an opportunity to bridge the gap between Tiberian Sun and Tiberium War's."
- Assassin
"Well, I'm mostly focused on Tiberian Sun Rising. Thinking and rethinking and restructuring and retooling and re... doing the original Tiberian Sun campaign to be fully canon (both Nod and GDI) and make sense. It's doable - it's done, actually - but I need good map makers, or mission makers, to actually do the maps."
- Cypher
What worries me is Cyphers approach to this project. As you can see in the quotes above he intends to fit Tiberian Sun Risings story with the mess that is the storyline of Tiberium Wars and Tiberium Twillight.
I think it's great that Cypher is working on this project but instead of trying to fit TSRs story with TW & TT he should develop the story of TS to stand on it's own and let the players experience the full potential of TS.
Trying to fit the TS campaign with TW is just contra productive for the story.
If he instead would base TSRs campaign on Tiberian Dawn and Tiberian Sun and them alone it would be possible to add much more dept. And it would also be able to build upon it in the future. The community could create its own version of C&C3 and create it as it should have been. There have been many attempts but all of them have failed. We all remember Tiberian Eclipse as the latest.
Is it a coincidence that the most popular mods for Tiberium Wars add things from TS that the developers ignored? Tiberium Essence, Tiberian Apocalypse, Tiberium Icestorm The Forgotten and many others. I'm talking about real tiberium, mechs and all other obvious things EA missed. There's so many stupid canon misses in TW that it actually gets me upset thinking about them. Why have the technology developed backwards? Why did they let the tiberian flora and fauna die off when the game would have been so much greater having them in? I know it's possible to fit TSRs story with TW and that's what Cypher is trying to do but I just don't see the point of it. Why limit yourself when you can show the community and EA the full potential of the Tiberian storyline!
In his article Post-Mortem Tiberium Wars RyanTheHeretic looks back at Tiberium Wars and examines what went wrong, in the hope that EALA might deliver an even better game next time (which they sadly enough didn't, TT was worse, way worse).
He calls TW a brilliant game but a terrible sequel to which I agree 100%. As a game C&C3 was really good but when you think of it as a sequel to the brilliant Tiberian Sun TW actually stinks. In the article you can read about all of TWs flaws and canon misses and what could be improved (which is a great many things). When you read the article you realize that EA made a lot of mistakes when they wrote the story for TW.
This is where the community comes in, we can correct EAs mistakes. We don't have to limit ourselves. So, when the TSR campaign is done, the community can build upon it and create a true sequel to Tiberian Sun. That's what we should be doing! Not limiting TSRs potential in our attempt to get it to fit it with TW. There's nothing wrong with TS, TW is the rotten egg, TW is the game we should be fixing!
In this thread on Petroglyphs forums you can read about all the wonderfull things that was supposed to be in the real sequel to Tiberian Sun. We should have them in mind when we redesign the Tiberian Sun campaing for TSR.
Personally I don't see what Cypher thinks the TSR campaign would gain from trying to adapt it to TW. Actually I believe it will only damage TSR having to fit itself in with the pretty much flawed game Tiberium Wars.
We all know that the narrative of Tiberium Wars had been a hell of a lot better if EA had listen to the C&C community. The same goes for TSR to some extent. We, the fans, must speak our minds when it comes to some weird design choices. So that the team can correct them and improve the game.
TSR is gonna be fantastic for all of us who love Tiberian Sun and for all of us who wants a great game! But sometimes the design team is wrong and then we have to speak up and tell them so, to improve the game and make it even better!
ApornasPlanet
First of all, that Petroglyph FAQ thread is really NOT that informative.
Take for example Question 11, where in the FAQ Adam Isgreen is quoted as saying "yes, we were going to explain RA2 in C&C3". Except, that not true.
Because, when Adam was first asked the question - and he was asked that question A LOT in the Petro forums - he gave a quick idea he had on how to do this. Stating, additionally, that they never went anywhere with that, cause the project never actually lifted off.
So, by Adam's own words, it was just an idea. Not even a consensus that they were going to incorporate RA2 at all. Just an idea he was thinking about.
So do take all that thread with a grain of salt.
Additionally, if you actually think about, most of those stuff doesn't make Tiberian Wars look so bad at all. The main changes are the Flora and Fauna and the Forgotten. Most of the other things are pretty much on par with any number of different concepts Westwood had talked about in pre-production for their C&C3 (Incursion).
That said, I don't know where you got the idea that I was shoehorning TSR into the gap between TS and TW. If you actually read the entire interview, including the quote you posted, you'll note that I'm for rebooting the whole series post Firestorm - keeping the major plot points of KW and TW, but returning the various other elements, such as the Tiberium eco and biosphere, Forgotten and CABAL.
The major restructuring for TSR has actually very little to do with TW at all. The only thing that comes to mind is that I want TSR campaign to feel less as a total war and more as a Task Force, the Tip of the Spear, as it were, of the Second Tib War. By that I mean that I want the forces the player to control to be more specialized, more Commando like forces, while simulating an all out war all around the main fighting forces of McNeil and Slavik. That means, McNeil and Slavik having all the cool non TW units, but having other, NPC units fighting it out on the outskirts of our fights, to show a larger war in play around them - with more... standardized units, from TD and maybe devolved TW tanks.
The major restructuring I'm talking about there, in the quote, has nothing to do with TW.
It has to do with the campaign of TS. Making more like Firestorm - where both campaigns are relevant, as Adam says in one of those answers in the Petroglyph forum thread you linked.
Making both campaigns canon. Instead of just GDI. Making it more like Firestorm, where the missions on both sides play off each other. Complement each other.
That's the major undertaking. Not any connection to KW or TW.
Ok, thanks for great answers! It seems like I have missunderstood your intetions comletley. I apologies for that.
Having it explained like this I think you have some great points about have to make the campaigns work. Very interesting answers actually, I have an whole new perspective on what you are trying to achieve.
Thanks for anwsering!
I want the way to be clear for a new interpretation of C&C3 that is in line with C&C1 and TS(including Ra1).
As a side note, having seen the faction logo's for WW:s Incursion for GDI and Nod, which are the same as used by EA in TW, I must say I don't fancy them much, the TS one's are better.
So Pepzi...
You replied before reading my comments?
Also, I did ask you several times if you want to help out....
I deleted some comments made by Pepzi on his request.
I only got one thing to say: I completley ignore anything called "Tiberium Wars". For me, the true and most real C&C3 we will ever have is Tiberium Essence.
Fanboy -.-'
Two years later. How does that mean that someone is a fanboy, just because he happens to like the original and fixed work over EA's pile of rubbish?
the comments here along with my wall have been karma trolled twice by some real idiotic individuals
C&C 3 made sense to me and did fit the storyline of the game; NOD crushed, politics takes back over, military funding cuts resulting in lower cost units and less new weapon tech (although this makes it boring it does make it feasible), and increased research into combating tiberium spread. C&C4 i never have and never will play after seeing enough of its disfigured self on youtube ( i will also hence forth refer to it as blargh as it is not befitting a C&C title). What i think needs to be done is a rework that sees GDI learn from its mistakes to underestimate NOD and rework funding back into the military projects, also reopening some of the abandoned MkII facilities(possible defend and reclaim mission). theres alot to work with if you ignore "blargh" and work with the C&C3/C&C2 loop holes and cliff hangers.
Just food for thought
Ps. Blargh should be remade and the original blargh be made out to be a side expansion for; if war became more boxy and childish.
I disagree. Tiberium Essence worked well in my eyes because it worked well with C&C3's existing infastructure, being a successor to TibSun while still feeling like C&C3. TS:R therefore in my eyes would still benifit from the "gap-bridging" as it claims to have. This is why TibEss succeeded in my eyes, and this is where TS:R could succeed