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C&C Inside Interview with Nyerguds
This interview was done for the German C&C fansite C&C Inside. Unfortunately, the interview on their site is only posted as a German translation... so to make it easier for the people that don't know German, here's the original interview:
- Hi Nyerguds, thank you for taking your time for that interview. First I would like you to present yourself to our visitors and to give us a few details about your projects.
- Did you ever work on other mod projects than these three?
- Why do you develop mods for the old C&Cs and not for instance for Generals, where you would get more "customers"?
- Your mods only change the graphics and aren't total conversions? Why do you do that? A total conversion would surely give you much more freedom.
- Have you ever thought of changing the missions? For example, replacing the FMV's with scenes of the movies?
- You are developing C&C Meets Star Wars and Red Alert: Star Wars edition. Why do you develop the same scenario for two games?
- What do you think about Star Wars mod-projects for other C&C-Games (A New Hope for Renegade, Imperial Assault for Zero Hour)?
- What do you think about Empire at War, which is developed partly by the old Westwood-employees?
- In a thread of the PlanetCnC board we could read about the new mod project C&C meets Doom. Can you tell us something about it?
- Is there something you want to say to the community?
Hi. I'm Nyerguds. I'm 21 years old, live in Belgium, and I'm mainly a C&C1 mod maker. I've always been a really big fan of Tiberian Dawn. Currently I'm not really doing much... I'm in serious need of new ideas for the C&C Meets Star Wars project, the Red Alert: Star Wars edition project is currently missing a project leader and a coder, and I'm not sure if C&C Meets Doom will ever really go anywhere unless we get someone to sort out the pile of ideas we have for it.
Oh yes. I've made a load of small TD mods, and I've worked on the graphics and sounds in several Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 mod projects. Some of the projects I've been involved in are Return of the Dawn (for TS), Tiberian Sun: Total War, and the Robot Storm mod for Yuri's Revenge. And then of course I've worked on quite some Red Alert 1 projects at the RA TechCenter², like the Project Revolution, Chemical Dawn and Tiberium Wars: Armageddon mods.
I'm also actively involved in the Zero Hour to C&C1 total conversion called The First Tiberian War, for which I've tested the entire weapons balance in C&C1. They often ask me for advice since I know a lot about C&C1, and I've also made some in-game icons for the buildings and units in the mod.
I learned how to mod C&C1 out of boredom really, back when I've been stuck with an old 486 for more than five years. C&C was the only game that actually ran fluently on it. RA1 ran on it too, but really slowly.
I'm just very familiar with the way graphics are made for C&C1 and RA1. Of course, as I said, I don't only mod C&C1. The method of creating building graphics and animations in TS and RA2 is still exactly the same as the modding I learned for C&C1. I'm getting more involved in TS and RA2 projects lately, but my love for the classics always seems to either lead me back to C&C and RA1, or remakes of these games on the newer C&C's, like Return of the Dawn, The First Tiberian War and an upcoming RA1 total conversion for Yuri's Revenge.
Also, I'm totally unfamiliar with any kind of modelling, so the step to actually starting a mod project for Generals would probably be way too big. Not to mention my current PC barely manages to run the game.
Well, that's not entirely true... C&C Meets Star Wars only replaces graphics and sounds, yes... but my final goal is still to make it a total conversion, by replacing every unit and every building.
As for why I don't edit the unit statistics... well, call it laziness. I know all too well how to edit unit statistics in C&C1, but I'm not really familiar with coding units, and I don't think I can match Westwood's ability to balance two sides. So I just left them as they were. It's also easier since you can still play the normal C&C campaign and multiplayer mode in the C&C Meets Star Wars mod.
However, Red Alert: Star Wars edition does have a totally new side balancing with custom weapon and unit statistics.
About the missions... yes, I had originally planned to make an entire Star Wars campaign. In fact, I may still get there, some day. I'll have to make a load more graphics for specific locations and people in the movies though. But I'm already working on an Obi-Wan infantry sprite, and I have graphics for places like Luke's house and such. I really need to sort it all out and get working on real mission ideas though.
The movies idea is one I haven't given much thought, since no one knows how to encode the C&C type movies. There are quite some tools to view Westwood's VQA video format, but no one ever made any tools to actually make these movies.
Well, actually, RA: Star Wars edition started as a straightforward Red Alert remake of C&C Meets Star Wars. I had met some people online that were really interested in the mod, but didn't have Tiberian Dawn, so they asked me if I could help them make a Red Alert version of it.
In the end, RA2SW became so much more than my TD mod. The Red Alert engine finally allowed real walking units in the mod by replacing the giant ants, and we had a modeller that created amazingly cool rendered graphics for all units and most of the buildings.
In fact, my job in RA2SW was mainly to convert the rendered frames to usable Red Alert graphics. Which isn't as simple as it sounds.
It's a pity Suricata and PuMa² no longer have time to work on it... I really do hope the project gets finished some day.
I've seen them, and I'm really glad people are continuing the tradition of Star Wars mods for C&C games. I haven't really followed the projects closely, but if they have any public releases yet, I'm definitely going to try them out.
Also, I really have to thank the people of Imperial Assault for the graphics of the Death Star superweapon in my mod. It is based on a screenshot of the Super Laser in their mod ;)
I think I really, REALLY need to go and buy myself a new PC so I can play that game. I mean, a Star Wars game made by the people who made C&C? That's just amazing.
I've made some concept graphics for it, based on the Doom graphics, but I'm not really sure where the project is going. We're not even sure if we'll make this C&C style war or actually more of a Sole Survivor-like game, where you control the Doom guy (or multiple guys) and go around shooting monsters. I have a set of graphics for an Imp, but it's the size of a dinosaur in C&C, so if we'd continue with that, the mod would get totally out of C&C's proportions. I need more specific ideas before I'll create more graphics for this.
The main problem with the Doom mod is that it isn't my idea, and unfortunately, I never played Doom. I've been into real-time strategy games ever since I got my hands on Dune II. I'm willing to make graphics for this mod, but I can't see myself as its project leader.
Yes... with the upcoming Red Alert 3, it seems Electronic Arts is totally screwing up and/or neglecting what was left of the C&C storyline. It's not too surprising that the mod making communities for older games like TS and even RA1 are getting bigger, and more and more mods of even the newer games are remakes of the original older Command & Conquer games.
In my opinion, the main change with the EA takeover of Westwood is that the old games were at least made by people who worked on them 'to make a fun game', rather than just 'to make money'.
I'm not saying Generals isn't fun... I'm just saying it doesn't deserve to be called "Command & Conquer". Then again, I'm a C&C1 mod maker, so you have the right to call me hopelessly nostalgic ;)
Oh, and of course... may the force be with you!
(Sat, Apr 09, 2005)