R3D mod for C&C: Red Alert 3

6 comments by Dibelius on Apr 26th, 2010

With these popular words I'll lead in to what will probably be the last news to R3D. To make it short: I reached a point where I have no motivation to further develop this project due to a couple of reasons.

One of them is the overall horrific mod support situation for recent C&C games. I know it sounds like the usual EA bashing that "they can't do anything right and I wish I could chrono-shift back to Westwood times where everything was much better, blahblah". This at least would be a lie but still, you just have to look at other game companies and their communities where mod support is considered a serious topic which gets incredible attention on community AND developer side. In the current C&C situation I do only see a split community, a tiny rest of the former much bigger modding community and finally half-baked stuff to please the early demand and complaints for modding capabilities. Actually, without persons from the C&C modding community like jonwil, Bibber and a few others spending their spare time in custom-made modding tools and open-source mods, C&C3 and RA3 modding would still be in Stone Age. But enough of this or I get a severe headache...

When I began with that project even before the map editor or the SDK were out I had great plans and was excited to have them become real some day. During the development, however, I encountered so many (mostly unexpected) issues like stuff that worked in previous C&C games with ease but was a pain to recreate for RA3 so that it turned out to be anything but fun trying to be creative with that engine.

I think, it's clear that the cancellation is in no way an irrational act or something, in fact, I was about to let this project die before any release as I felt unhappy with the situation not only since yesterday. The beta release was sort of a compromise, containing by far not everything of the original plan I had for the Soviet faction but at least there's something playable. Jumping Triple Threats, giant mobile Flak Drones (yeah, the new Flak tower is actually a Walker), a V4 Storm Superweapon (the Soviet toy render), re-invented Nuke and Prism technology as well as whole maps set in the sky with a giant Soviet Gyro Fortress asset and finally more game modes besides TD are just a few examples of planned things. Maybe you can imagine how it would have turned out.

Let's be honest: this mod won't ever re-invent the wheel whether I added the missing factions or not. Sure, some things I had in mind would have been nice to see in action but, you know, there are so many maps, mods and standalone games featuring this game experience that it won't make a difference if there's just another TD called R3D or not.

Well, the most important reason for me is related to my RL and new prospects. I stepped into the C&C modding scene back in Generals times, and while I'm happy to get to know many interesting people sharing the same passion I feel it's now time to put an end on it, once and for all.

This said, time will tell if we'll meet again somewhere else in the future.

I hope you see my point and can enjoy the beta release at least.
Thank you all for your great support.

Goodbye Comrades
-Dibelius