1. The source code for Red Alert 2 is rumored to be lost a very long time ago[0], so the fact that the Chrono Divide team was able to achieve this is quite amazing.
2. The Mental Omega mod project[1] is going strong, so RA2 is still worth playing today. Hopefully it will work in this browser-based version.
Mental Omega is rumoured to have the source code (and all tooling for the game) which is why their mod is so all encompassing beyond any reasonable limits of what the TS/RA2 engine is capable of
Video Game asset and source control retention was _terrible_. Hell, it's still terrible.
Prior to ~2010 we were simply deleting source code and assets for finished projects; either because they weren't owned by the developer due to a publishing deal, or because the developers didn't want to reuse their garbage code. Same follows for assets, often they were owned by the publisher and not the developer, but if the developer did happen to own them they'd rarely see reuse in future projects. And publishers didn't catch on to the value of data retention until remakes started to make serious money.
The more you look around the more commonly you'll start seeing things like this. The RS3 OSRS split itself happened because Jagex recovered their lost source code and was suddenly able to do it.
> How the hell could they LOSE the source code to that game? All copies of it.
I wrote a streaming video platform in the very early 2000s. It worked great, if you were on ISDN, or at my house with a whopping 256kbps cable modem! All lovingly hand-crafted in PHP3 with a Postgres backend. Lots of I want to say ffmpeg but it might have been shelling out to mencoder back then.
Gone.
Along with probably a couple of hundred hours of footage both unedited and raw camera captures, of various training videos for the oil industry, Scottish Women's Football League matches - they were very forward-thinking and because no TV channel would show their games they wanted to post the match highlights on their website, so RealPlayer to the rescue I guess. All gone.
I didn't own the servers, the company I worked for did. When the company went tits, they wanted to make sure that none of "their IP" was leaving the organisation, so I wiped stuff off my personal machines and handed over all the camera and master tapes.
The servers got wiped for sale and the tapes went in a skip. They'd paid a fucking fortune for all of that, but ultimately when they decided they'd had enough of that venture the hardware went for scrap prices and the soft assets were wiped, not really worth anything.
Who would want to post on a website where you could upload and share videos, upvote or downvote them, comment on them, and tell all your friends?
Nobody said every copy was lost, they said the copies in whatever repository Westwood handed over to EA were lost. There might still be a copy on one of the individuals involved in development's machines/backups/etc.
Back in the days there were not a lot of copies to start with. No laptops, no BYOD, no cloud servers. A developer making a copy would involve buying an expensive large drive (for the time) and sneaking it at work to steal it, not worth the risk. The few hard drives containing the code were archived in a room after release and forgotten.
Part of it I imagine is because Westwood made the game and then got bought up and shutdown under EA. Asset tracking would be a mess.
Other part of it is most studios didn't imagine a use for old games in the future. So they weren't archived properly. World of Warcraft original source code was mostly lost and that game sold incredibly well and the company stayed in business. More modern studios are thinking more about remasters, remakes and archiving their work now so it's mostly a problem with older titles.
The industry's treatment of its works was pretty horrible back in the day. Not even 25 years earlier, developers had to fight to be credited in games. Lessons take a while to learn, apparently.
Source code to some masterpieces of 1990s software (such as Impression for RISC OS) were left to rot on the hard disk of a machine in the basement of the country mansion where they were created.
I loved Red Alert 2 so much at release. Always was the pinnacle of (single player) RTS for me. The over-the-top characters, the cheesy story, the terrain interactions...
Everything afterwards felt lame and was geared too much towards multiplayer balance, which does not interest me the least.
Starcraft becoming uber popular in Korea I think really hurt the RTS genre. I did play RTS games online when I was younger. But I think you're right, Everything went from lets make a fun game with a cool campaign, to lets make an Esport. Company of Heroes 1 to 3, Dawn of War 1 to 2, Age of Empires 1,2,3 vs 4. You can really see this.
I think the campaigns of StarCraft II are amazing (never played Broodwar unfortunately). However I kinda agree that StarCraft's success hurt the RTS genre, because it's just so freaking good. 15 years since release and there are still tournaments played, it's fun to watch and projects like Stormgate have a really hard time, because SC2 is the bar and it's super difficult to reach. In terms of unit legibility, responsiveness, balance, etc. The bad thing is, it's not an approachable game at all, it mainly is interesting in the competitive/eSport scene.
If I watch YT videos a la "New RTS games 2025/2026" there are very interesting projects which give me hope that SC2 is not the end of RTS games.
Genres also come and go. Arena shooters are also out for a long time, compared to 95-2005. Or point and click adventure games. I think there are a huge amount of players who are genre agnostic, or, not even "gamers", and just jump from one type of fun to the next.
We still play Company of Heroes 1 as a LAN party game, after almost two decades. It's interesting to see the graphics and gameplay hold up pretty well.
It was sad to see the slow and steady enshittification with 2 and 3. The online community is pretty toxic too.
I love that they don't take themselves too seriously in this series. RA3 had some hilarious cutscenes with characters barely holding it together (the Soviet Premier was an underrated Tim Curry role IMO).
It's a shame the campaign of RA3 was boring. They got the theme and cutscenes right, but the campaign missions were rather slow, generic and forgettable.
It's the opposite of C&C3, which had a good campaign but the theme was a step back from the scifi of Tiberian Sun. Especially the GDI/NOD units were way less futuristic, and the alien ones were a bit too similar to each other in style. The cutscenes were also mostly boring compared to earlier games.
If I recall correctly, the expansion pack for C&C3 was much more interesting in these aspects, but the gameplay suffered.
There's a lot of things going against the RTS genre.
They're technically challenging to make and creatively hard to balance.
The public doesn't want to pay $60 upfront for a campaign when fun freemium games exist.
The UX does not work well on controller so a huge amount of console players will be out of reach.
Games tend to be quite long and because it's not team play matchmaking matters a lot. This push multiplayer into being highly competitive and not pushes out the casual players.
Seems like Clash Royale likes are the best we've come up with to modernize the genre but of course its very different.
It was so fun even just as a sandbox. Like Age of Empires 2, they somehow just got the feel of everything so perfect. Deploying G.I.'s in sandbags and getting them promoted to veteran, so fun! Chaining prism towers, how delightful!
I got really into C&C with Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 was a big change but I fell in love with it for the same reasons you mentioned. It's been the most disappointing part of seeing them open source all the old games. That this amazing game AND Tiberian Sun won't be part of it because they lost the code.
The "we made units this way because it's fun" philosophy is sorely missed. Every game feels like it goes through a tuning phase just for esports. Even if the game isn't out yet.
rules.ini and rulesmd.ini are the 2 text files, in my life, I've spent the most time with.
I'd probably lose another week if I had easy access to RA2 modding. Or let's say "experimenting and watching the AI burn" not to disrespect the real modders.
It's largely about pattern detection in our brains. If the pixels always look the same, it's easier to spot them. For many people graphics in a video game are a secondary addition but the decision making is uncontested priority; modern 3D graphics get in the way by making everything less readable.
I completely agree. To me, it's the same with adventure, and platformer games and 2D. I think the key is symbolism. In 2D, graphics are more about communicating intent, 3D is more for realism - or maybe this is just the trap they fall into, because there are highly stylized 3D games as well, as well as technically-3D-but-actually-2D games.
but on a tangent, just wanted to add how impressed in was at super Mario 3D world on the Nintendo switch. Perfect balance between good looking and pragmatic 3D graphics adding up to real platformer feel.
Couldn't agree more. To me 3D environment in games is frustrating to control / move around while 2D is straightforward. And I truly don't care about camera movement. Games are meant to be fun, not a chore with adjusting camera all the time.
It seems many people here seem to misunderstand you need the original files yourself; you don't. If you read carefuly: "import an archive containing *.mix files from a web URL." They provide you this (archive.org) URL! Simply click the Download button and start playing. Also on Firefox.
And, unfortunately, Chronodivide does not work with Yuri's Revenge expansion; apparently that game is build differently.
The bottleneck is webgl. I'm not sure why exactly but firefox is pretty well known to have significantly worse webgl performance than can be achieved with chrome.
Man, what a waste of resources. It'd be funny if the client side just did a hash of the "uploaded" files, told the server the hash, and then the server can compare the hash and use the server copy of the assets, to save bandwidth. But as "What colour are your bits" (1) say, that'd still probably not be legal.
Oops, it's a browser based game, you still need the assets on the client side, i.e. in your local memory... never mind
Since you broached the topic, I've got an open curiosity about projects like that: if I manufactured entirely new assets, completely independently from the source game (possibly not even matching the source; like a different "skin" or "theme"), and then used those assets in a "clone" (in all but assets) of the source game, would that run afoul of IP law? I'm aware that anything can be litigated, but is there some quirk of IP protection for that kind of thing, or would I be able to use the cloned source with completely new assets without really infringing on anything? Does the cloned (re-coded? recomposed? clean-roomed?) source cause issues or create some kind of legal link from the original assets to the unrelated ones?
Again, just idle curiosity. No actual intentions here, so just wondering if anyone has some deeper knowledge on the subject.
Game mechanics are not considered copyrightable[1]. If you had a clean room implementation with your own significantly different assets, it would be allowed.
However, the exact definitions of "significantly different" and "assets" is where things start to get fuzzy. While you could definitely make a very similar RTS game, exactly how similar can you get? EA doesn't own "military-themed RTS", but they probably do own "Soviets vs Allies with about 5 different unit types, air transports, and tesla coils." Getting even more fuzzy, are unit abilities considered assets, or game mechanics? It'd have to be worked out in court.
My gut feeling is these clone engines would probably lose in court. I think the specific expression of the general game mechanics being cloned here probably would constitute infringement. But there isn't much upside to the IP owners to pursue enthusiastic hobbyists cloning a 20+ year old game in a non-commercial way, so they let it slide.
[1] "Although Amusement World admitted that they appropriated Atari's idea, the court determined that this was not prohibited, because copyright only protects the specific expression of an idea, not the idea itself." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari,_Inc._v._Amusement_World...
IIRC if you make entirely new assets you're good to go. OpenTTD (Open source version of Transport Tycoon Deluxe) has its own custom made assets, but can also be used with the original if you own them.
Not sure it's ever been proven definitively in court, though. And if you "made" custom assets that were exactly like the original ones only with a 1px color difference or something I'm sure you'd fall foul of it. What counts as different "enough" is always debatable.
https://freedoom.github.io/ does that for the still proprietary DOOM assets. Though the DOOM engine itself is open source, so a slight different situation than Command and Conquer.
This game was a big part of my childhood. I ran a somewhat popular modding site for it, "RA2 Factory" (as well as "Tiberian Sun Factory"). I spent more time honing my dev skills building these sites as well as modding editor tools than I did actually playing with any mods though.
I even visited their studios in LA during a cross-country Amtrak trip. They were very kind, especially the community manager (whose name escapes me). I was given a tour and allowed to play Yuri's Revenge before its release. They gave me a Dune 2 box and C&C poster which I still have somewhere.
I love the whole Command & Conquer series. As others have pointed out, even though the graphics were 2D and pixelated, the soundtracks would really draw you into the atmosphere. I cannot describe how good it felt to play these games during school breaks, sometimes until dawn. These games were the sole reason we upgraded the RAM on our PC whenever a new one came out. I bought the bundle from EA a couple of years back and still play it occasionally. This will be my son’s first PC game too.
Interesting that the main menu buttons, UI, etc. are actual HTML elements (divs) but the full game itself is a full canvas (expected). Why are there performance issues on Firefox?
1. The source code for Red Alert 2 is rumored to be lost a very long time ago[0], so the fact that the Chrono Divide team was able to achieve this is quite amazing.
2. The Mental Omega mod project[1] is going strong, so RA2 is still worth playing today. Hopefully it will work in this browser-based version.
[0] https://forums.revora.net/topic/107344-red-alert-2-engine-so...
[1] https://mentalomega.com/
Shame because EA released the source code for most of the other C&C games: https://github.com/electronicarts/
So if they had it they'd would have almost certainly included RA2 in that as well.
I’ve heard that the Tiberian Sun and Firestorm source code were also lost.
To this day I haven’t found a game that replicates the magic of 1999 era of RTS..
Mental Omega is rumoured to have the source code (and all tooling for the game) which is why their mod is so all encompassing beyond any reasonable limits of what the TS/RA2 engine is capable of
How the hell could they LOSE the source code to that game? All copies of it.
Not arguing with you, just saying if that's true, it's insane.
Video Game asset and source control retention was _terrible_. Hell, it's still terrible.
Prior to ~2010 we were simply deleting source code and assets for finished projects; either because they weren't owned by the developer due to a publishing deal, or because the developers didn't want to reuse their garbage code. Same follows for assets, often they were owned by the publisher and not the developer, but if the developer did happen to own them they'd rarely see reuse in future projects. And publishers didn't catch on to the value of data retention until remakes started to make serious money.
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Happens. Even the moon landing footage was lost. (That’s why the famous video is so crap quality - it’s not the primary feed)
The more you look around the more commonly you'll start seeing things like this. The RS3 OSRS split itself happened because Jagex recovered their lost source code and was suddenly able to do it.
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> How the hell could they LOSE the source code to that game? All copies of it.
I wrote a streaming video platform in the very early 2000s. It worked great, if you were on ISDN, or at my house with a whopping 256kbps cable modem! All lovingly hand-crafted in PHP3 with a Postgres backend. Lots of I want to say ffmpeg but it might have been shelling out to mencoder back then.
Gone.
Along with probably a couple of hundred hours of footage both unedited and raw camera captures, of various training videos for the oil industry, Scottish Women's Football League matches - they were very forward-thinking and because no TV channel would show their games they wanted to post the match highlights on their website, so RealPlayer to the rescue I guess. All gone.
I didn't own the servers, the company I worked for did. When the company went tits, they wanted to make sure that none of "their IP" was leaving the organisation, so I wiped stuff off my personal machines and handed over all the camera and master tapes.
The servers got wiped for sale and the tapes went in a skip. They'd paid a fucking fortune for all of that, but ultimately when they decided they'd had enough of that venture the hardware went for scrap prices and the soft assets were wiped, not really worth anything.
Who would want to post on a website where you could upload and share videos, upvote or downvote them, comment on them, and tell all your friends?
It's all gone now. I wish I'd just stolen it.
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Nobody said every copy was lost, they said the copies in whatever repository Westwood handed over to EA were lost. There might still be a copy on one of the individuals involved in development's machines/backups/etc.
Back in the days there were not a lot of copies to start with. No laptops, no BYOD, no cloud servers. A developer making a copy would involve buying an expensive large drive (for the time) and sneaking it at work to steal it, not worth the risk. The few hard drives containing the code were archived in a room after release and forgotten.
Panzer Dragoon Saga is also lost. Probably a lot of games like that.
It was an era where Team Foundation Server was just oops corrupting entire codebases
Part of it I imagine is because Westwood made the game and then got bought up and shutdown under EA. Asset tracking would be a mess.
Other part of it is most studios didn't imagine a use for old games in the future. So they weren't archived properly. World of Warcraft original source code was mostly lost and that game sold incredibly well and the company stayed in business. More modern studios are thinking more about remasters, remakes and archiving their work now so it's mostly a problem with older titles.
The same happened with Silent Hill 2 and 3.[1]
The industry's treatment of its works was pretty horrible back in the day. Not even 25 years earlier, developers had to fight to be credited in games. Lessons take a while to learn, apparently.
[1] https://gamingbolt.com/konami-lost-the-source-code-for-silen...
Blizzard oldest source code for WoW is from 1.12 (the last patch before BC). They don't have 1.0-1.11
Source code to some masterpieces of 1990s software (such as Impression for RISC OS) were left to rot on the hard disk of a machine in the basement of the country mansion where they were created.
Hope someone somewhere still has the source for MicroProse’s Shandalar.
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companies shut down and lose stuff I guess. Icewind Dale 2 another example
I loved Red Alert 2 so much at release. Always was the pinnacle of (single player) RTS for me. The over-the-top characters, the cheesy story, the terrain interactions...
Everything afterwards felt lame and was geared too much towards multiplayer balance, which does not interest me the least.
Starcraft becoming uber popular in Korea I think really hurt the RTS genre. I did play RTS games online when I was younger. But I think you're right, Everything went from lets make a fun game with a cool campaign, to lets make an Esport. Company of Heroes 1 to 3, Dawn of War 1 to 2, Age of Empires 1,2,3 vs 4. You can really see this.
I think the campaigns of StarCraft II are amazing (never played Broodwar unfortunately). However I kinda agree that StarCraft's success hurt the RTS genre, because it's just so freaking good. 15 years since release and there are still tournaments played, it's fun to watch and projects like Stormgate have a really hard time, because SC2 is the bar and it's super difficult to reach. In terms of unit legibility, responsiveness, balance, etc. The bad thing is, it's not an approachable game at all, it mainly is interesting in the competitive/eSport scene.
If I watch YT videos a la "New RTS games 2025/2026" there are very interesting projects which give me hope that SC2 is not the end of RTS games.
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Genres also come and go. Arena shooters are also out for a long time, compared to 95-2005. Or point and click adventure games. I think there are a huge amount of players who are genre agnostic, or, not even "gamers", and just jump from one type of fun to the next.
DoW 2 is great, DoW 3 on the other hand…
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We still play Company of Heroes 1 as a LAN party game, after almost two decades. It's interesting to see the graphics and gameplay hold up pretty well.
It was sad to see the slow and steady enshittification with 2 and 3. The online community is pretty toxic too.
> The over-the-top characters, the cheesy story
I love that they don't take themselves too seriously in this series. RA3 had some hilarious cutscenes with characters barely holding it together (the Soviet Premier was an underrated Tim Curry role IMO).
It's a shame the campaign of RA3 was boring. They got the theme and cutscenes right, but the campaign missions were rather slow, generic and forgettable.
It's the opposite of C&C3, which had a good campaign but the theme was a step back from the scifi of Tiberian Sun. Especially the GDI/NOD units were way less futuristic, and the alien ones were a bit too similar to each other in style. The cutscenes were also mostly boring compared to earlier games.
If I recall correctly, the expansion pack for C&C3 was much more interesting in these aspects, but the gameplay suffered.
"I'm escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism,
barely holds laughter back and takes a break
SPACE!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Sq1Nr58hM
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Absolutely! I don't have time to play a RTS campaign, but I watched the RA3 story cutscenes and they are the top of the genre.
"I'm escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism... SPAAACE!"
A more innocent time tbh
There's a lot of things going against the RTS genre.
They're technically challenging to make and creatively hard to balance.
The public doesn't want to pay $60 upfront for a campaign when fun freemium games exist.
The UX does not work well on controller so a huge amount of console players will be out of reach.
Games tend to be quite long and because it's not team play matchmaking matters a lot. This push multiplayer into being highly competitive and not pushes out the casual players.
Seems like Clash Royale likes are the best we've come up with to modernize the genre but of course its very different.
It was so fun even just as a sandbox. Like Age of Empires 2, they somehow just got the feel of everything so perfect. Deploying G.I.'s in sandbags and getting them promoted to veteran, so fun! Chaining prism towers, how delightful!
RA2 was loads of fun played with a friend over LAN against many computer opponents.
We’d start the game up in one computer, then pop the CD out and start it up in the next one, and so on.
Doesn't RA2 check serials over network?
I do remember having to install IPX to play over LAN.
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I got really into C&C with Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 was a big change but I fell in love with it for the same reasons you mentioned. It's been the most disappointing part of seeing them open source all the old games. That this amazing game AND Tiberian Sun won't be part of it because they lost the code.
The "we made units this way because it's fun" philosophy is sorely missed. Every game feels like it goes through a tuning phase just for esports. Even if the game isn't out yet.
rules.ini and rulesmd.ini are the 2 text files, in my life, I've spent the most time with.
I'd probably lose another week if I had easy access to RA2 modding. Or let's say "experimenting and watching the AI burn" not to disrespect the real modders.
Anyone else feel like real-time strategy games with full 3D just never look as good as old 2D ones?
I think its something about the perspective warping of the 3D camera that makes 3D RTS games look weird to me
It's largely about pattern detection in our brains. If the pixels always look the same, it's easier to spot them. For many people graphics in a video game are a secondary addition but the decision making is uncontested priority; modern 3D graphics get in the way by making everything less readable.
With 3D, you get unlimited amount of angles to view with less detail compared to 2D, a detailed well designed angle (or 2, or 3).
I completely agree. To me, it's the same with adventure, and platformer games and 2D. I think the key is symbolism. In 2D, graphics are more about communicating intent, 3D is more for realism - or maybe this is just the trap they fall into, because there are highly stylized 3D games as well, as well as technically-3D-but-actually-2D games.
I agree in general.
but on a tangent, just wanted to add how impressed in was at super Mario 3D world on the Nintendo switch. Perfect balance between good looking and pragmatic 3D graphics adding up to real platformer feel.
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Couldn't agree more. To me 3D environment in games is frustrating to control / move around while 2D is straightforward. And I truly don't care about camera movement. Games are meant to be fun, not a chore with adjusting camera all the time.
I alsi feel this way about point n' click adventure games. Something about pre-rendered graphics that makes me feel great.
absolutely, and I don't think it's due to our nostalgic-tinted glasses. Not everything has to be 3D.
I was so mad when they made Warcraft into 3D. It looked childish and killed the vibe entirely for me
Yeah, I think new games in style of the old Warcraft games would be a huge success.
*sad Homeworld noises*
It seems many people here seem to misunderstand you need the original files yourself; you don't. If you read carefuly: "import an archive containing *.mix files from a web URL." They provide you this (archive.org) URL! Simply click the Download button and start playing. Also on Firefox.
And, unfortunately, Chronodivide does not work with Yuri's Revenge expansion; apparently that game is build differently.
> They provide you this (archive.org) URL!
That wasn't the case when I checked the site a few hours ago, the autopopulated link is new.
> That wasn't the case when I checked the site a few hours ago, the autopopulated link is new.
Sorry, didn't know. That's very strange, I've never had that in all my times playing Chronodivide. Just in case the URL field is empty for someone: https://archive.org/download/red-alert-2-multiplayer/Red-Ale...
It'd be cool if there was a similar site but using OpenRA to avoid the need for local assets.
OpenRA has been promising Tiberian Sun/Red Alert 2 support since 2011
Instead of working on finishing it though they just add more tedious features to RA1 (an in-game encyclopaedia, really?)
Does every engine need to support every game in a series?
I think it's fine for OpenRA to focus on what they enjoy most, and others to cover other games.
It was kind of a blast but a couple of newly introduced bugs this year or late last year totally killed it for me.
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> for good performance, Firefox should be avoided
Oh well.
Then again, the demo is only usable for those with existing assets.
> for good performance, Firefox should be avoided
Can't, for privacy reasons.
Can, use Waterfox instead.
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FWIW, I just tried it on Firefox and it seems work just fine.
I wonder what’s wrong with Firefox? What is the bottleneck? The JavaScript engine? I’m guessing the thing is compiled to wasm anyway.
The bottleneck is webgl. I'm not sure why exactly but firefox is pretty well known to have significantly worse webgl performance than can be achieved with chrome.
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Can't start the game in the browser without a local executable of the game?
Copyright, you have to provide all the copyrighted material yourself so that they can't be sued for distributing it.
Man, what a waste of resources. It'd be funny if the client side just did a hash of the "uploaded" files, told the server the hash, and then the server can compare the hash and use the server copy of the assets, to save bandwidth. But as "What colour are your bits" (1) say, that'd still probably not be legal.
Oops, it's a browser based game, you still need the assets on the client side, i.e. in your local memory... never mind
(1) https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
yeah, bit of a buzzkill. What's the point of being able to launch from a web browser if you've gotta go dig up the game anyways?
Now you can run it on more platforms.
The point is they don’t get sued for distributing game assets they don’t own.
If they could distribute them, they would.
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Point taken, but there is an answer to your questions. Cross platform compatibility
It's a copyright thing
They really should've added the demo files.
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[dead]
Yes, because they don't own the assets.
How does OpenRA[0] do it? Is it just a X has expired thing?
Edit: Oh maybe you do have to have the assets now? I swear last time I used it, it was all online :/
[0] https://www.openra.net
OpenRA does not distribute game assets, but they can be downloaded from OpenRA launcher.
Since you broached the topic, I've got an open curiosity about projects like that: if I manufactured entirely new assets, completely independently from the source game (possibly not even matching the source; like a different "skin" or "theme"), and then used those assets in a "clone" (in all but assets) of the source game, would that run afoul of IP law? I'm aware that anything can be litigated, but is there some quirk of IP protection for that kind of thing, or would I be able to use the cloned source with completely new assets without really infringing on anything? Does the cloned (re-coded? recomposed? clean-roomed?) source cause issues or create some kind of legal link from the original assets to the unrelated ones?
Again, just idle curiosity. No actual intentions here, so just wondering if anyone has some deeper knowledge on the subject.
Game mechanics are not considered copyrightable[1]. If you had a clean room implementation with your own significantly different assets, it would be allowed.
However, the exact definitions of "significantly different" and "assets" is where things start to get fuzzy. While you could definitely make a very similar RTS game, exactly how similar can you get? EA doesn't own "military-themed RTS", but they probably do own "Soviets vs Allies with about 5 different unit types, air transports, and tesla coils." Getting even more fuzzy, are unit abilities considered assets, or game mechanics? It'd have to be worked out in court.
My gut feeling is these clone engines would probably lose in court. I think the specific expression of the general game mechanics being cloned here probably would constitute infringement. But there isn't much upside to the IP owners to pursue enthusiastic hobbyists cloning a 20+ year old game in a non-commercial way, so they let it slide.
[1] "Although Amusement World admitted that they appropriated Atari's idea, the court determined that this was not prohibited, because copyright only protects the specific expression of an idea, not the idea itself." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari,_Inc._v._Amusement_World...
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IIRC if you make entirely new assets you're good to go. OpenTTD (Open source version of Transport Tycoon Deluxe) has its own custom made assets, but can also be used with the original if you own them.
https://www.openttd.org
Not sure it's ever been proven definitively in court, though. And if you "made" custom assets that were exactly like the original ones only with a 1px color difference or something I'm sure you'd fall foul of it. What counts as different "enough" is always debatable.
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https://freedoom.github.io/ does that for the still proprietary DOOM assets. Though the DOOM engine itself is open source, so a slight different situation than Command and Conquer.
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I will throw out that if anyone does want to play RA2/YR multiplayer you can for free here: https://cncnet.org/red-alert-2
This game was a big part of my childhood. I ran a somewhat popular modding site for it, "RA2 Factory" (as well as "Tiberian Sun Factory"). I spent more time honing my dev skills building these sites as well as modding editor tools than I did actually playing with any mods though.
I even visited their studios in LA during a cross-country Amtrak trip. They were very kind, especially the community manager (whose name escapes me). I was given a tour and allowed to play Yuri's Revenge before its release. They gave me a Dune 2 box and C&C poster which I still have somewhere.
I love the whole Command & Conquer series. As others have pointed out, even though the graphics were 2D and pixelated, the soundtracks would really draw you into the atmosphere. I cannot describe how good it felt to play these games during school breaks, sometimes until dawn. These games were the sole reason we upgraded the RAM on our PC whenever a new one came out. I bought the bundle from EA a couple of years back and still play it occasionally. This will be my son’s first PC game too.
Web based gaming has a bright future. Why pay a distributor if you can just host your game on the web? Pretty good cross platform compatibility…
Excellent opinion HN chad. Bring back the java applets.
Neat project.
If looking for gameplay like this, OpenRA does play a few games without original game assets. I don't think RA2 though.
Interesting that the main menu buttons, UI, etc. are actual HTML elements (divs) but the full game itself is a full canvas (expected). Why are there performance issues on Firefox?
I wonder if this is a complete rewrite.
When you have a large ship, like the Aircraft Carrier or Dreadnaught, you'll notice that its rotation is much smoother than in the original game.
Damn this is much better than playing on actual Windows desktop. It is positively awesome!
Yuri's Revenge when?
Also, if that's a non-profit fan project, why is the source code not available?
Where can I find / buy a local executable of the game?
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2229850/Command__Conquer_...
The whole bundle for £6 or £1.60 for RA2/YR.
Once they add support for Yuri's Revenge, i'll be guaranteed to never ever again accomplish anything else
Thank you so much guys, you've made my day! Life isn't so bad after all.
I still play this with my friends. Yearly, we do it in person atleast once.
Yes! This'll be fun to show some friends who are fans.
This but C&C Generals would be a dream come true
Can I have some shoes?
AK-47’s for EVERYONE!
Incoming HN hug.
Love it, can’t wait to poke at it from home later.
Kirov reporting
very based works extremely well nice job team
How does it work?
"It just works."
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Click on web site, see unreadable light-grey-on-white text, say, fuck that and leave.