Nod's Revenge OPEN BETA! news

=== V.0.85 ===

WHAT TO EXPECT:

Nod's Revenge is intended to unite the story and style of Tiberian Dawn (the original Command & Conquer - 1995) to the face and pace of Red Alert 2/Yuri's Revenge. As such, a player can expect to see a mixed bag of new and old units and themes, along with those classic and dangerous green tiberium crystals. All changes and additions support a fresh atmosphere within the proposed POST-YURI story path. The features below are not comprehensive, but give a good summary of the bigger changes implemented in this release of Nod's Revenge.

OLD, NEW & SLIGHTLY ALTERED UNITS:

Old units - many classic RA2/YR units have been left in their proper places for a realistic post-RA2 technology (such as the Allied IFV and the Soviet Kirov Airship - units like these often have only received minor graphics updates or code balancing), but some units have also been retired for the sake of streamlining the teams and reinforcing the story (such as the Soviet Conscript being replaced with the "Nod Rebel", which has a different voice).

In many cases, we have kept these retired RA2 units in the game in one way or another - again, for familiarity and nostalgia's sake (such as the Allied GI's being a "crew" unit that comes out of destroyed UNGDI vehicles, or the old Grizzly Tanks or Rhino Tanks deploying as starting multiplayer units with your MCV but not being buildable as a player's normal battle tank. Some other units may not be buildable (like the soviet V3 rocket launcher or the Allied Battle Fortress), but still appear in skirmish mode out of random CRATES.

New units from Tiberian Dawn/Renegade and Tiberian Sun are slowly being added to each side where they make sense and can be well balanced and useful to the players. These are all a work-in-progress, but those new units included in this released have been tested thoroughly and we believe to be good compromises between what players of those older games would expect and players of YR can appreciate and use.

SPECIALIZED ENGINEERS:

Additionally, some units have received minor name changes/icon(cameo) updates, and/or in-game graphics updated to support the new themes (such as Allied-GDI Engineers using a new icon and being called "HAZMAT ENGINEERS" - these engineers are now immune to radiation and poison, but are same as before in that they can take over structures and diffuse Ivan Dynamite). Crazy Ivans now run quickly like the old Cuban Terrorists, and are not to be underestimated.

Others have received complete replacements, such as the soviet engineer, which is now the "Hotwire Engineer".

These Nod specialists still act like engineers in that they can capture structures, but they can also hijack enemy vehicles. However, they are different than the GDI engineer in that they cannot diffuse Ivan Dynamite and are vulnerable to radiation.

The Black Hand (new "Yuri" team), will eventually use an engineer with specialized abilities.

HAZARDOUS RESOURCES & WEAPONLESS MINERS:

One of the biggest changes in NR besides the stylistic changes are in the resources. Specifically, the ORE MINERS have been DE-WEAPONIZED in Nod's Revenge. This means that the Soviet War Miners and Slave Miners do not have machine guns, and that chrono miners are now ... basically illegal! Instead, the miners (now called "Harvesters") have been given new graphics and coded with more passive advantages such as the ability to hover over water, cloak themselves and/or the ability to heal themselves. Gone are the frustrating "Ore Miner Under Attack" messages from armies of War Miners and Slave Miners endlessly machine-gunning each other. *whew*

Of course, the ORE itself is now inundated with poisonous tiberium crystals, and will slowly damage most units that walk through or stand in them.

ALTERED COUNTRY NAMES:

There are no "NEW SIDES" in Nod's Revenge, to keep the overall feel of the mod as close as possible to the feel of vanilla Yuri's Revenge. For the BETA, this means that we didn't add new "countries" called "GDI" or "NOD" to the list of normal countries to choose from. Instead the original countries (such as Germany or Cuba) have been renamed but not replaced.

The new names simply reflect the international nature of the parent organizations behind the sides (UNGDI for Allies and Brotherhood of Nod for Soviets).

"CORPS" is used to represent the regional nature of Soviet countries ("Latin Corps", for example, is the new name for "Cuba" since it includes other South American countries. "Nile Corps" is Libya, and so on.).

"FORCES" is used to represent the regional nature of Allied countries ("Eurasian Forces", for example, is the new name for "Germany" since its boundaries include parts of Russia and other Eurasian countries.

As of this BETA, each country will have similar or exactly the same "special units" as what the original YR had (Snipers for the "Great Britain" country, Demo trucks for the "Libyan" country, etc.). This feature will likely expand and evolve as the project comes to completion.

"OPEN BETA" - It means some things aren't done yet!:

Not all structures, superweapons, or units have been changed to reflect the story yet ... but many are a work-in-progress and still undergoing private testing for the best balance possible. Big updates like the GDI Titan walker, Ion Cannon, Nod Obelisk of Light, Nod air units, and most of Naval unit changes have yet to be implemented in this beta. We wanted to make sure that what we released was as playable as possible, even if it wasn't as complete as we would like.

There is NO NEW CAMPAIGN in this version of the mod. Although we would love to see this come to pass, it is much more important for us to nail down a solid, fresh multiplayer experience based on the larger C&C story. If enough gamers show support for what we've done at that point, we would be happy to look into writing and coding an awesome campaign.

A final note for the C&C modders: We decided a long time ago to keep the mod as simple as possible for as long as possible. This means that we're not going to use ARES to inject all kinds of super-fancy changes to the gameplay, at least for a good long while. The more options you have, the more difficult it can be to find a resting place. Too many options is why, we believe, so many RA2/YR mods will not be finished or released. Frankly, we are intrigued by the challenge of "how much can we do with ONLY the standard code from Yuri's Revenge?".