Well, it's been over two years since I last made a post in my mod's news forum. Two years is far too long.
In two years, the community has undergone many changes - old mods have withered away, new mods have appeared; old network sites have fallen off the radar, new upstarts have rose to take their place; C&C itself has seen the Tiberium saga concluded, and the Red Alert series take a (debatable) new turn.
Personally, I've gone from being CNC3.net's division leader to running the whole Guild; my real-life workload has increased exponentially, and this mod was left to drift into quiet obscurity.
In the modding arena, RockPatch was superseded (not without protest) by NPatch as the tool to use for extending modding possibilities. However, now Ares is in the process of getting that title back from NPatch. With the new options opened up by Ares, how could I not have a go at the mod again?
As you can see, I've completely remade the website. Gone are the years-old pages detailing silly additions that had no real basis in a YR extension mod. Instead, I've redesigned the mod itself. Some things have remained from the previous versions, but there are some new additions entirely.
TVTropes has a definition entitled "Darker and Edgier", and that's what I've been aiming towards here. There's less campy sci-fi stuff thrown in for no reason, with things taking a more realistic turn, and I've made an effort to have a story explanation for every addition. You can see the progress made in each section of mod additions at the top of the respective page. Yes, there's little to look at for now, mostly because I am not an artist, and doing anything in that field beyond cameos is incredibly difficult for me, but things should begin to happen.
Anyway, that's enough rambling. Keep your eyes open here every now and then, I should have some things to post up from time to time. If you're interested in getting involved, I wouldn't mind assistance from anyone with SHP and/or voxelling capabilities, and I'm always open to hiring beta testers.
Time to get to work.
~Nighthawk.
From the darkness...
Looking for beta testers
With the start of the new version cycle, I'm hiring private beta testers again. If you're interested in beta testing for this mod, then take a look at this topic. If you feel you can meet those requirements, send me a PM.
I've not left yet!
As the title said, I've not abandoned the mod. Yes, I did take a bit of an extended break over Christmas, but I've already started private beta testing with the next version cycle. And to prove I've done some work on the mod over the Christmas and New Year period, here's some screenshots of the changes to the mod:
The Soviet Battle Jeep. This replaces the Scout Tank for the Soviet countries.
A squad of Mextli Gunners. These minigun-armed units replace the Elite Corps for the Antarctic Legion.
Shift Tanks. These Neutron Cannon-armed units replace the Italian Rocket Tank.
The new background on the Battlefield Select screen. It's a bit of an edit on a file photo of Abrams Tanks in Iraq.
The mod's not dead yet.
Nighthawk.
Working on final bugfix version.
If no bug reports are submitted by next Sunday, public beta testing will end and I will start work on Beta 3.0. I will also need some people to help me on this one, as there's going to be a bit more work to it than the last two. More news will be revealed on that whenever work starts on Beta 3.0.
But before that happens, keep trying to find any bugs I haven't fixed in Beta 2.1, and report them so they can be fixed. I will release the last bugfix version next Sunday, as I've finally found a way to fix a long-known bug with the Future Forces weapons. Any bugs in reports submitted before Sunday will also be looked at and may be fixed in the last patch.
Nighthawk.
New website, and Update 2.0c
As you can see, if you're reading this on the site, I've changed the design, again.
This time, it's using an actual design template, rather than something I cooked up in FrontPage with some tables and layers.
As well as the new site, I've uploaded the next bugfix patch to the server. There are two different versions you can download, an incremental one, and a cumulative one. If you installed the last update, then go for the incremental one, but if you haven't installed the update, go for the cumulative one - it contains 2.0b as well.
Remember, post any bugs in the topic entitled 'The Bug Thread' in the forums.
Please download and enjoy.
Nighthawk.
Later Update: There is a missing file from both the incremental and cumulative updates. Please download the file 'expandmd40.zip' from post #7 of this thread for the mod to work correctly.
Battlefield Report
From: Agent 'Nighthawk', Allied Intelligence
To: Allied Commander, Eastern Seaboard
Commander, the Future Forces seem to almost have their Ion Cannon fully ready. Its weapon seems to have been improved beyond what we originally saw. If you see any Uplinks on the field, Commander, take them out, or better yet, capture them, and we can turn their satellite against them.
Captured video of their upgraded cannon in action.
Or go here if your browser won't work with the first link.
--REPORT ENDS--
The Third War Beta 2b
This version fixes several bugs and balance issues in The Third War. It does not include the entire mod, so please download the original files from the other post before downloading this. Just overwrite the files in the YR directory with these files. You should probably also run the exe file contained within this archive.
A list of what this version fixes is included in the archive, but I may as well post it here too:
Gameplay Changes:
Graphical Changes:
- Future Forces Laser Cannon sight increased by 1 (from 8 to 9)
- Names of structures altered ('Future' prefix changed to 'F.F.')
- Future Forces Stealth Miner maximum ore load decreased (from 20 to 15)
- Future Forces Stealth Miner speed increased (from 4 to 6)
- Future Forces Stealth Miner cost decreased (from 1600 to 1550)
- Future Forces SuperComet Laser Upgrade damage decreased (from 150 to 100)
- Future Forces War Factory animations fixed
- Future Forces now have a more YR-standard loadscreen
- Future Forces have their own interface graphics now.
Download Link
Please download the mod, play it, and report any more bugs that you find, but more importantly, have fun.
Apologies for the lack of updates.
As the title says, apologies for the recent lack of updates, but my week has become busy again, with GCSEs closing. Beta testing is still continuing behind the scenes, and most of the bugs have now been worked out. I'm not going to give a possible release date as my free time is rather erratic at the minute. This should reduce in 3 weeks when I'll be off for my holidays
And just to prove I have been working away, here's a little something:
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Click to see it at its normal size.
Mod Progress as of 16/10/06
Progress with the mod so far has unfortunately been slow, due to the need for RP 1.08 SE to implement the majority of the stolen tech units, and me getting swamped with coursework, leaving me with little time to work on it. All of the Future Forces infantry, units and buildings are finished, as are all the upgrades, though stolen tech is not due to my lack of time. I have however uploaded the colour version of the picture of the Future Forces base, and replaced the black and white pictures in the database with the colour versions. The second photo and anything from it are still in greyscale however. Though, on the plus side, in the short spaces of time I've had to work on the mod I have been adding small bits and pieces to it, mostly to Yuri, which is now composed of four Legions instead of two. More information on this will be released at another time. Until then, you can see the colour images on the Future Forces page of the site here.
Urgent Report
Commander, a Soviet Spy Plane recently took a blurry photo of a Future Forces base guarding the temporal vortex. The anti-air defenses pictured here shot down the Spy Plane shortly after it took this photo. Alliance analysts are trying to enhance and colourise the photo so we can get a better look at what technology is at work here. We have started a database on their forces, but at the minute, everything is speculative and we have no idea if these structures and units are what we think they are.
See the photo and information at this link