SUMMIT REPORT

Introduction
First of all, I would like to again thank EALA for inviting me to the community summit. It was an amazing experience I will never forget! I met a lot of cool people and it was a lot of fun.

This had actually been the first time I had flown before so I was sort of nervous. I had to study on the plane because I had final exams starting the day I got back from the summit. I arrived and took a taxi to the Ritz Carlton. DAMN! What a nice hotel. I met down in the waiting room with all the other community members and got a kick out of Hexetic. It was nice to meet everyone. Everyone was really nice and it was a very cool experience to talk to them and get to know them. We went out to a Mexican restaurant and got to know each other, as well as debated a lot of different CNC topics. It was very cool to finally sit down with a lot of other CNC fanatics and get some debates going. After we left we went to sleep although it was extremely difficult. We woke up pretty early the next morning and went to EA. Very nice studio! We went to EAts and the food was good.

We were previously asked if we were GDI or Nod, and I picked GDI. We got shirts depending on which side we picked, but not much was known about how GDI and Nod summit members would be put against each other! We left breakfast and this is when the real fun began!

THE GOOD STUFF FROM DAY 1 BEGINS
We entered a room with a very huge screen up with a few computers and were introduced to dev team members including Jason Bender, Greg Black, and Mike Verdu. Mike Verdu actually said a few things that got everyone laughing, he's a good guy. All of the dev team I met throughout the summit were very cool people that were pretty funny. They took anything we said about the game seriously and took notes. They definitely wanted to know anything we had to say about the game!

The dev team then showed off a single player GDI mission where they encounter the aliens in a city in Germany I believe. It was a night mission and I have to say this mission looked unbelievable. I could not wait to play the game and was going crazy at this point. The rain effects were so good, and all the lighting at night was amazing. You as the GDI commander explored the city with a small group of units. The video showed off the new objective system. Anywhere you go on the map, there are small arrows on your screen you can click that bring you to a spot on your map you need to go to complete a mission objective. It made it very easy to find where you need to go. They said the missions will all vary in length, with the alien missions being slightly more difficult. The game will feature a lot of variety as far as objectives go, so I doubt we will see a lot of boring missions where you just destroy the enemy and that is it. The aliens attacked the GDI player and it was a sight to see. The aliens are freaking creepy and EA captured the weird feeling of having aliens on Earth very well. They all make really cool weird noises and all their movement and weapon effects look very much like something out of this world. He fought off the aliens and went further to the alien base after completing smaller objectives. If you complete various optional objectives, you can get reinforcements and other things to help you along the way. When getting to the alien base, annihilator tripods were at the door and they were tough to fight off. The GDI player used an engineer and captured the tripod, mixing it with his forces. It is definitely worth noting that when you give a move command, it shows you on the screen different formation you can send the group in. You can have them all move in formation at the same speed which is awesome. He attacked the alien base full force. The alien structures look very organic, most of the move in the environment. They also look fragile. When you are destroying them they look like their own life form dying and not just a building collapsing. I just feel that things like this are really nice to see in an alien faction, I think they put a lot of work into them and its definitely noticeable.

We were then shown a presentation trailer which showed off some awesome FMV sequences, including the death of the Philadelphia. Mike Verdu then told us the history behind the mysterious alien faction in CNC3. Two lucky members were then picked from the audience to go head to head, the first people to play CNC3!!

They were having fun exploring the game, but unfortunately, they were playing in front of community leaders that had no mercy for them! We picked apart a lot of what we were doing which was pretty funny actually. It was nice to see them play slowly though so you could really see how units moved and how the little things worked. It looked very smooth and I was instantly impressed.

They then took us on a tour through EA's studio. We got to meet a lot of people that aren't as well known but put together CNC3 and make the game as good as it is. They had a lot of stuff up that showed their effort. An example is a chart of all the units given values for certain things in an attempt to balance them. The chart was huge and always a work in progress. I also caught a glimpse of units and structures planned for the game, and all the steps needed to implement them, some of which will not make it in the game! There were various posters around the building that were huge and I really want them. They had a big Tiberian Sun poster out, so all you saying they don't care at all about that game may have just been proven wrong!

The next part of the day was AMAZING. Dragon from Renegade Effects group paid us a visit. He makes all the props for the game and it was an amazing experience to meet him and see some of his props. He showed us various things from batman, the mask used for the alien in the movie "Predator" and other various props. He also showed us a lot of CNC3 props such as a chain gun, and a futuristic laser weapon. Holding that thing was awesome. It was so real, I really felt like I was holding a futuristic weapon. They are just beautiful props that are extremely authentic looking. Thank you so much EA and Dragon for setting that experience up. It was just awesome to see him and the props. He also showed us a video tour of where he works. Big rooms with a lot of props from various movies, how can that be bad? It wasn't, it kicked ass.

PLAYTIME FOR CNC3
We entered a room full of computers that were extremely powerful. The computers were in rows of two and you played the person next to you through LAN. We got to pick from two different maps, although me and my opponent stuck with one. I played Jason Ferguson from Strategy Informer (who's summit report can be found here!). He was a very nice kid and I'm glad I got a chance to play him. We were both kind of scared going in that the kids at the summit would just dominate us. Not saying we are not good, but you never know when playing the community leaders. I picked GDI and Jason picked Nod, and the battle began.

The map was a 1v1 map, where I was on the top middle and he was bottom middle. We each had a green tiberium field close by. There was a huge building in the middle surrounded by smaller buildings, with blue tiberium in the mix. This took up the center of the map. On the left and right side of that area were entrances to the outside of the map which had a Tiberium Spike to get extra credits.

I explored the map early as I built up my base and captured one of these spikes, and constructed a few defenses by it incase he had the same plan in mind. I also garrisoned a few of the central structures. Our first game was not too intense and we were just toying around for the first 10 minutes, but then we decided to kick it into full gear. I built up my base (usually that is a good idea in CNC3) and made a mix of Predator tanks, Mammoth tanks, 3 APCS with rocket infantry on-board (infantry can shoot out of APCs, but only 1 squad per APC), and juggernauts. During this time we waged a few small battles in the middle.

I noticed a lot of nice little touches in the game. For example, when you get near a tiberium field they alert you of increased radiation levels and it blimps on your mini map. There were a lot of nice touches like this which to me showed some extra dedication on the dev teams part.

If you hold shift, you can draw any shape you want in order to select units, kind of like the lasso tool in Photoshop. Say you have units that are kind of scattered and you cant get them with the box, you hold shift and draw a line around the units and let go. This sounds familiar to a poll I had at CNC vision that showed that some people were interested in other ways of unit selection.

Also, the minimap is active even without a radar. You can use it to click around the map, but you cant see anything on the minimap without a radar.

I made a commando and instantly noticed a jump jet ability. I could have been nice and told my opponent how cool it was, but that wouldn't be fun! I flew the commando behind his base and took out key structures which pretty much sealed the game for me. He fought back surprising hard though.

A sniper ability I noticed that I did not get to use was absolutely amazing. A commando can target an area, and juggernauts can shoot to that spot from anywhere on the map. Talk about amazing artillery support! I did not get to use this ability though before the game ended.

I built an ion cannon because I really wanted to see how the effect was looking so far, although they said the super weapon effects were not done. My juggernauts took out most of his remaining base while being protected by my other forces. The game took a little over a half hour. We only had an hour overall to play so we had to pack one more game in. I also was pretty upset that the game ended when my ion cannon only had 1 second left to charge.

I will discuss the rest of my summit experience before looking at various part of the gameplay itself! I need to point out and emphasize a lot that THIS GAME PLAYS LIKE A CNC GAME! The interface was extremely easy and very satisfying, the game was very smooth, and GDI and Nod played as you'd expect. I never felt lost or confused. If you've played CNC before you'll be able to jump right in. EA did not change the CNC formula, they seem to have only enhanced it.

We started up a second game but did not get far before the game desynched which wasn't good for anybody. We started a third game where we both picked Nod because I wanted to explore their play style. Nod played radically differently than GDI. There defense structures are very different. You place a central hub and three defense turrets nearby. If you destroy the central hub, they do not function anymore.

Nod units were as you'd expect, weaker and faster. You need to think different when playing Nod. GDI strategies will not work at all. You need to use hit and run attacks as well as other sneaky Nod tactics as you'd imagine. EA really got the classic GDI and Nod play styles down in CNC3.

I quickly built up to the temple of Nod so I could finally see it and DAMN it looked good. My nuke counter started and I was a happy man. I sent a mini mcv to the right side of the map and started a base, but unfortunately Jason found it and sent some avatars and beam artillery to take it out. I then made a huge frontal assault thinking he'd be caught off guard but his avatars dominated me. I sent 8 stealth vertigo bombers to 1 avatar and it only took away half its health. I thought the same as most of you would, WTF IS THIS!? Fortunately a lot of people pointed out the avatars near unlimited armor after the game session. Jason pushed into my base and absolutely dominated me. Luckily I got a nuke off so I could get a good laugh at him. The nuke effect looked amazing and the effects for it weren't even done yet. I heard from kids around me that the nuke instantly caused a desynch but it did not do it for me! Jason won the game, he simply kicked my ass and there wasn't anything I could do. Good job Jason =)

We then went to a conference room to give feedback. They took notes and responded to our comments. The general vibe was that everyone was extremely impressed with the game. A few annoyances were noted like some units armor not making sense (avatar), as well as it being hard to identify your infantry in a huge battle. The said they knew and were working on these. They also noted that they knew the mini mcv was way too overpowered and they still needed to work on it. They also said that they haven't touched much on balancing, so in my opinion its not fair to judge the games balance yet or how useful certain units were. We drilled the dev team though with a lot of comments so don't think we went easy on them =). They took notes though and cared deeply about what we said, which was very reassuring.

We then went to laser tag and tried to play GDI vs Nod. It was fun playing with Jason Bender. My team tried studying the map to find the best spots to hit to get the most points, but our team never did to well. It was overall extremely fun though. We all talked some more in between games and then went back to the hotel for some more talking and another attempt at sleep!

DAY 2
We went back to EALA and at breakfast, and then the presentation for RTS As A Sport Began. Unfortunately, I had to leave part way through this presentation to go back home as I had finals the next morning! My flights took all day basically. I saw a majority of the presentation though and it was very impressive.

When the game released, people can download a spectator client for free to watch games which is fantastic. Spectator mode allows you to explore the map freely, have your camera move as one of the players moves it, or follow the commentators camera view. You can click a player to see what they see on the map, what money and power they have, what they are making, etc. The commentator can obviously talk about what's going on, as well as mark the screen up to emphasize certain points. Replays can be saved with the commentary. You can also make your own commentary later and save it over other commentary which is awesome. This allows for possibilities such as EA having games of the month on their site with commentary from the dev team for example. The file size increases with commentary, but they will only be a few megabytes which I think is pretty impressive.

The official CNC3 site will be changed dramatically. You can log into your EA name and explore the site. You will be able to easily track when your favorite players are playing. You can also schedule appointments to play people, and click a button on the site when game time comes to launch your game and play. Unlimited people can watch any game. User created maps will be stored on EA's server also. They said that as long as people are playing, they will be supporting this feature, so do not worry!

This is very important for the game. If CNC3 is successful in competitive play, we can expect frequent patching. Tournaments can also be held by leading players for everyone to watch around the globe. Commentators can show through with their spirit and eventually make a name for themselves. It is set up perfectly for CNC3 to be a successful game competitively. This should not scare anyone away either, as you can still log in and play online through the game and just have fun if you want. If you don't own the game, you can download the free spectator client and watch people play and decide whether or not to buy it. If you want to watch a game and are at a friends, you can download the free client and watch from there. There are a lot of awesome possibilities if you sit and think about it, its going to be a blast!

There will probably be some sort of replay of the week and such. You'll most likely have thousands of replays to learn from. You'll be able to spot new strategies and how the pros kick butt.

Some people were concerned that you could have two computers, one playing the game and one spectating, acting as a map hack. EA has implemented things to prevent this sort of cheating. This includes things such as delaying the replay by a minute. I think that was a very cool thing for them to have done. Expect to hear more about this awesome game feature, I can't wait to schedule appointments with friends and people on the boards and battle with them!

After the presentation I went right to the airport and went home. That was the only bad part of the summit basically.



__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________