With four releases under my belt since I reopened development, I figure this is a good time to take stock of where this project stands and my plans going forward.
The Past
When I first returned to C&C 3: The Forgotten, my mind was on fixing a few bugs that had been reported over the years. They were things that I wanted to do but didn't have the time and focus for with things shifting over to our next project at CnC Labs. (Alas, none of our "next projects" ever came to fruition.) I was also a bit bothered with the community consensus that the Forgotten was underpowered. Though perhaps making sense from a story perspective, I wanted players to have a fair shot when playing as our new faction, or alternatively, getting a decent challenge playing against them.
However, I had grown restless modding various C&C games over the years and wanted the challenge of modding a different engine (or heaven forbid, making an actual standalone game!) Ultimately it took the folks working on Tiberium Secrets to drag me back into the C&C modding community. They made good use out of me for a few years, pushing for a public release.
As we neared our first release of that mod, I saw the opportunity to return to this mod and truly finish it. I was a bit hesitant, worrying that only a few people would care. But I wanted to give The Forgotten concept a proper sendoff.
I was taken aback by the response I received when I made my plans public. Perhaps I had forgotten the splash we made back when we first released. People seemed excited about a new release. And people were not just asking for the normal bug fixes and balance tweaks that make a patch; I saw a lot of requests for a KW port.
Feeling the wind at my back, I set out to deliver at least what I had originally planned while being open to the possibility of a KW port or even new content. But one has to remember that this is a volunteer project being worked on in one dude's spare time; real life obligations can and did slow me down. Most of the spare time and sanity I had was poured into patching Tiberium Secrets.
Work on Tiberium Secrets is now winding down, and real life looks set to give me more free time than usual. I intend to spend some of it working on The Forgotten. The pace of development should be picking up soon.
The Future
With the latest release (v1.2.3), I'm starting to like how things are shaping up. The worst bugs and most blatant oversights left over from v1.1 have largely been addressed. The Forgotten seems stronger now, especially when using units that were formerly underwhelming. There's still work to be done on this front, but it's nothing that another release or two can't fix.
That brings us to the next area: the campaign. Yes, I've seen the complaints over the years about certain irritating aspects of the campaign missions. I agree with a lot of it, and I intend to make rebalancing the campaign my next project. I want to make the lower difficulties easier while preserving the challenge of Hard difficulty, as well as making various smaller improvements that should make the campaign feel more polished.
After that? I'd be prepared to call it good--for vanilla C&C 3 at least. This is where a work on a KW port would become feasible, as I'd no longer have to keep two separate versions of the mod synchronized. I'd make a simple KW port where you could pit a vanilla C&C 3-balanced Forgotten against the Black Hand (or whichever KW subfaction you want).
This is where things get hazy. I've seen many people clamor for more than just a port of The Forgotten to KW. They want the Forgotten to get the full KW treatment, with new content and even Forgotten subfactions. And I'd be happy to code all of that, but I can't just whip up the new graphic and audio assets required to make new units and subfactions. I've certainly got ideas about what kinds of features to add to the KW version, and I've been taking notes from others as well.
Going that far would require that I seek help from others. While I'd like to think that such help would be forthcoming, there's no guarantee that I'll be able to put together a team to help me with new Forgotten content. I'd currently like to get that far, but I make no promises that I'll be able to.
For those of you following, I hope this makes my intentions going forward clearer.
Thanks for the news, hope the community can offer good input about your progress and achievements.
Glad to have you back on board! Exciting news to me :) Just make sure your art is coming from the heart comrade
I recently discoverd this mod and loving it. A KW port would be great, whether you manage to develop subfactions for it or not. I wish I could add The Forgotten Faction into the "One Vision" Mod, which expands KW's Subfactions further. That'd be godlike. Thanks for the work, m8. Cheers.
Hello!
Long time fan of this mod.
A KW port interests me a lot(as I previously said as well), and one thing that might make sense is a semi-KW treatment at first so you can see where the faction needs extra in a KW enviroment.
You could start by making the Power Station's Modulator upgrade accessible with relay station like the other factions power plant upgrade.
And maybe move the techs around to resemble KW more like this:
Splidarity moved from training grounds to Relay Station
Sidewinder Gas Dusters from Garden of Life to Airpad
Advanced fortifications from Garden of Life to Relay Station.
This way you have the ability to compare them to the other KW factions and you can see where you need to adjust, and can get a general feeling of what kind of extra techs (and maybe units) they might need in the future do bring them up to snuff.
BTW I think that subfactions would not really be necessary for the forgotten, but a super unit would be nice so they can get equal with the other factions, but that could very well be a far future thing.