This game actually holds a ton of significance for the RTS genre as a whole. A very typical view of the RTS genre is that you have peasants who harvest resources that you gave to protect, and the Dune RTS was a real progenitor in this.
But it was only like that because of the book. Were it not like that, maybe RTS as a genre would have gone down a different path. Maybe it's inevitable that it would have eventually gone down the path that it took eventually, but there's a good chance that it would have been unrecognisable. Maybe you'd have gotten resources by just harvesting your base's resources instead so opponents would have harassed you by harassing your buildings instead. Maybe there would have been different bonuses for map control other than better access to resources.
Very nice post! I did something related to this a decade back, except it was for Tiberian Sun and to patch its networking code. Jumping into other people's code like this is like having a shared connection in a sense. I noticed to my horror that there was a completely separate stack for modem play; it wasn't like they just sent TCP/IP over the modem or something. Some poor soul must have spent months of their life writing all this custom code for framing and syncing and error handling (what happens if the connection goes down and you have to re-dial, etc.?). Which was irrelevant almost already when the game originally came out.
> Westwood Online (WOL) doesn't work anymore, so you can't play multiplayer except through LAN
I loved Command & Conquer in my younger years and I know a small bit about Westwood Online from the client side.
If I recall XWIS.net did a lot of support after WOL went offline! It might be worth the author reaching out to the niche developer community there, although I think it's truly dying out. If I recall, the work that XWIS guys did ended up getting recognition from EA and they did a lot of help to continue WOL support for C&C Renegade.
There's also FreeRA project that is the direct ancestor of several of the recent re-releases of C&C on eg Steam. They might also be able to help get WOL working.
I say this because WOL was pushed as its own library, and so a replacement of the library will probably be fairly easy compared to (re-)reverse-engineering the WOL stack.
Edit:
Oh, as I continue reading the post, it goes on to discuss how the WOL component is also fixed. Extra nice!
Great article, wish I could go out for a night on the town with the author, I feel like they're pretty darn fun and intelligent.
The cute expandable explanations are just the bee's knees, and also useful. I felt like I was playing some sort of choose your own adventure RPG just reading TFA, which was a new kind of experience.
--
p.s. re: > CS:GO, which was only retired in 2023
I thought CS:GO was rebranded to CS2. Am I mistaken? (very probably, yes, pretty please enlighten me!)
The idea that modern add-HD riddled and pay to win shovelware gets defeated by old classics is deeply entertaining to me. Just one hacker helping.. and the audience would drive the crapware out of town on a rail. Almost like good things of the past in an eternal medium will always outcompete mediocre things of the present.
cmcaleer ·186 days ago
But it was only like that because of the book. Were it not like that, maybe RTS as a genre would have gone down a different path. Maybe it's inevitable that it would have eventually gone down the path that it took eventually, but there's a good chance that it would have been unrecognisable. Maybe you'd have gotten resources by just harvesting your base's resources instead so opponents would have harassed you by harassing your buildings instead. Maybe there would have been different bonuses for map control other than better access to resources.
Show replies
Sesse__ ·186 days ago
Show replies
inetknght ·186 days ago
> Westwood Online (WOL) doesn't work anymore, so you can't play multiplayer except through LAN
I loved Command & Conquer in my younger years and I know a small bit about Westwood Online from the client side.
If I recall XWIS.net did a lot of support after WOL went offline! It might be worth the author reaching out to the niche developer community there, although I think it's truly dying out. If I recall, the work that XWIS guys did ended up getting recognition from EA and they did a lot of help to continue WOL support for C&C Renegade.
There's also FreeRA project that is the direct ancestor of several of the recent re-releases of C&C on eg Steam. They might also be able to help get WOL working.
I say this because WOL was pushed as its own library, and so a replacement of the library will probably be fairly easy compared to (re-)reverse-engineering the WOL stack.
Edit:
Oh, as I continue reading the post, it goes on to discuss how the WOL component is also fixed. Extra nice!
metadat ·186 days ago
The cute expandable explanations are just the bee's knees, and also useful. I felt like I was playing some sort of choose your own adventure RPG just reading TFA, which was a new kind of experience.
--
p.s. re: > CS:GO, which was only retired in 2023
I thought CS:GO was rebranded to CS2. Am I mistaken? (very probably, yes, pretty please enlighten me!)
Show replies
Log_out_ ·186 days ago