Mideast Crisis 2, Release 1 PostmortemMideast Crisis 2 (MEC2) is a total conversion for 'Command and Conquer 3 - Tiberium Wars' set in a near future conflict in the Middle East, letting you play as all 3 involved factions: the Israel Defense Forces, Guardians of Islam or the UN Peacekeepers. MEC2 has been in development for over two years and in order to release sooner, we split the mod up into two parts. This allows players download ‘Release 1’ (featuring only the IDF and GOI) a couple months ago while we work on adding the UN for ‘Release 2’.
Our first release exceeded our expectations and we’ve been lucky to get some great feedback and suggestions from the community which we’re implementing into ‘Release 2’. This postmortem review will go over some of what we’ve learned from the first release and give an idea where things are headed.
What Went RightGoing to the FutureMidEast Crisis 1 was one of the most popular and successful mods for C&C Generals and was universally praised for its polished production values. A lot of people liked the mod.
I didn’t.
The emphasis was on a small scale war between Israel and Syria. The contemporary setting restricted what units were available to us and thus limited what could be done with the gameplay. However, Isotx gave us near-total creative freedom for MEC2. This let us push the mod to the point where MEC2 has much more in common with C&C Generals than it does with its predecessor.
As with Generals, by going into the near future it becomes possible to take more liberties with the units and setting. We were able to have the coolest military hardware of today combined with units in development and even pure fantasy. The futuristic time frame also let us expand the setting and imagine a Middle East transformed by the events of MEC1.
The second MidEast Crisis features a new democratic union of Arab states pitted against a paranoid and nuclear armed Israel. The UN arrives as the third faction to round off our gameplay and give us an excuse to include a lot of classic units that are not present in Middle Eastern armies. The heavy Western presence also plays up the undertone of a religious war in the holy land. Imagine such a thing! With such loaded subject matter we were keen, as EA did with Generals, to push things heavily towards the satirical and humorous to soften what could easily have become very dark and serious.
Making Maps a PriorityWe wanted our maps to immerse and feel alive, more like. To help make the player feel part of a living environment we added many interactive elements and scripts to the maps. Players have to use their environment, spreading out to capture fuel and gain income while using cars and town halls. Scripted events further help to bring character and life to the maps, so that each one plays differently and creates unique tasks and challenges in each environment. This attention to detail meant a lot of work went into each map and we only have a small number, but each one is very polished and the unique gameplay feature gives a twist to the battles that happen there.
These map minigames are easily my favourite part of MEC2 and are something we’re looking to further expand on in our future projects.
IterationWe’ve iterated on MEC2 a great deal, cutting and redesigning some major features of the mod when they just weren’t working quite right. Here are some of the most striking examples;
Stealth – This is one of the key characteristics of the Guardians of Islam faction in Release 1. However, we feel there are deep issues with the system. It is hard working out which units are stealthed, which are detected and which units are doing the detection. In our latest dev build we've removed stealth from the GOI completely.
Augmented Reality – This is something that slipped into the mod pretty late on, but we found that having digital text and signs are both practical and help to reinforce the vibe of a near-future augmented-reality world. We plan on adding even more tags and right now are testing a system to help differentiate units better in mirror matches.
All of this iteration has made MEC2 the mod it is today, however the downside to it is that it takes a lot of time. Early last fall we had the mod ready to release and yet proceeded to iterate and polish it for another 6 months.
What Went WrongMultiplayer FocusMEC2 was designed as a hardcore, competitive RTS with a strong emphasis on map control. This means that the mod is at its best when you have skilled, highly aggressive players fighting each other online. However by the time of release C&C3's multiplayer community had significantly shrunk and most importantly our emphasis on stressful RTS matches isn’t something most RTS players want.
The typical RTS player wants more relaxed, turtle-based gameplay where they build up their base and army for 30 minutes and once a large enough force is massed, send it out for one massive, decisive battle. Many C&C fans don't even play online, and yet MEC2 has no campaign and a very confused AI. It certainly didn't help that we are releasing the UN last, when they would at least help players to fight in a more conservative and relaxed way.
MarketabilityMEC2’s focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict is not exactly a setting that makes most people go “oh sweet, there is a game about that!” It is a messy, often controversial conflict that leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. We did our best to detach it from reality and take a more light-hearted approach, but the fact remains that our two original factions are virtually unmarketable.
On top of this problem, despite creating a lot of gameplay innovations and refinements in MEC2, we lack having one single game-defining mechanic. Having no “oh you can zoom all the way out on the map!” (Supreme Commander) design hook and a promotion-destroying premise stacks the odds against us in terms of being able to turn heads and grab attention.
Heavily Centralized LeadershipIn many ways this could be slipped into the “what went right” category. Development went smoothly, work assigned and then completed, rarely any arguments…things just got done. However trying to juggle managing the team and doing the bulk of the texture work left me overburdened and frequently burnt out. When the leader doesn't issue new orders to a centralized team then progress simply halts.
Up until MEC2 I looked down on the idea of having producers on teams. I figured that on professional teams they were just there to dish up red tape and bureaucracy. They would be totally useless on a Mod! I was very wrong...
Near the end of Release 1 I caved and brought a producer on board, whose main contribution was to find and handle the voice recording. Not only did he do a much better job than I would have, but I was free to focus on the areas I was best suited for. About a month after Release 1 we brought another producer on board to work on news and our upcoming community projects.
Lack of VideoMEC2 looks good in screenshots but thanks to our excellent animator it looks even better in motion. However for a long time we didn’t have any video posted. Video is the best way to promote a mod and we virtually ignored it. This was purely a production issue, video looks great but needs a lot of time to make. Getting someone to make videos is something we aim to fix.
In ClosingWe are lucky that 2 of the biggest negatives from Release 1 are inherently corrected by the addition of the United Nations faction. The UN is turtle-based with easily recognizable units (such as the Abrams and F-35) and has none of the stigma that people may feel from playing as the IDF or GOI. We have plans to work on the other issues, with only the singleplayer campaign being out of the question. The team has been excellent and have pushed the level of quality in the mod to extraordinary levels, and things will get even better for Release 2.
MidEast Crisis 2
