Blogs - Sgt.McHale

Command & Conquer: Generals may’ve had its roots in Command & Conquer: Incursion, the original, canceled third entry in the Tiberian series of the Command & Conquer franchise.

And there's huge, overwhelming and staggering amount of evidence to back this up.

Before we get into it, we need a history lesson. Incursion was the working title for the Westwood's third " Tiberian" game. Development on the game began after Tiberian Sun/Firestorm in 1999/2000 and lasted for at least three years before it was canceled. Prior to its cancellation, Westwood halted its development to focus on Command & Conquer: Continuum, a MMORPG game which was also cancelled. Both Incursion & Continuum were to use the SAGE engine (then known as Westwood 3D)

Westwood Studios was closed in early 2003. EA Pacific, developers of Generals, along with Westwood Studios' assets, was merged with EA Los Angeles. Now, researching time.

The only released prototype of Generals contains an interesting folder named GDFDatabase, all files inside use the "gdf" extension. No such extension is used in the final game version of Generals.

It seems that the game was originally reliant on these GDF files to store its object data, unlike the final game which uses INI files. This could explain why some of the prototype maps, when opened in the Worldbuilder, ask you to replace missing objects despite said objects being in the game, because these maps were created early in development when the game used GDF files and those objects in map call their data entries from the now non-existent GDF files. There are four gdf files, but the one named Generals(Assets) is the most interesting of them.

This file contains references to GDI and NOD units leftovers. More than likely meant for Incursion.

Among the units referenced in the file is a "NOD Commando" whose model path points to the file "Cmdo-Skin.w3d" which can be found in the LegacyArt folder of the Generals prototype, its mesh refers to it as "NOD TROOPER". This exact model file, renamed to NIFOOTMAN.w3d, was later used for the cut Chinese Footman Infantry units that appear in some of the early screenshots of Generals.
According to the model and textures folder paths of the Mammoth Tank in this file, it was contained in a folder named "GDI". The model referenced there is used for the USA Mammoth Tank seen in early Generals screenshots, which was later cut from the game, probably to make Generals stand from the rest of C&C games by not using similar units.
The model name for the Nod Nuke Stealth Jet mentioned in the file is "NXSTEALTHJET" which is also the exact model used by the Chinese Iron Dragon Jet seen in some early Generals screenshots.
The file also makes mention of nondescript GDI Soldiers, a "Nod Red Soldier", a "Nod Green Soldier", a "Nod Parachute Guy", various buildings for an unknown faction, Prism Tanks, a "Nod Obleisk" (sic!), a "GDI Barracks", a "GDI Missle Silo" (sic!), a "GDI War Factory", a "Nod City" and a model of Tanya likely for testing purposes.

The car models we see in this screenshot of Incursion as well as the sand bags models would find their way into Generals. Notice the way shadows are cast, which is exactly the same in Generals. The soldiers seen here, the geometry of their main mesh bears an almost identical resemblance to those seen in Generals, the only difference here is these soldiers are left-handed. The muzzleflash texture, first created for Renegade, a Westwood Studios game, also appears in Incursion and by extension, Generals too.

Westwood Studios had a tendency to reuse assets and even game engines when they developed their games. The first Red Alert was built on the original Command & Conquer game and Red Alert 2 was built atop Tiberian Sun. All Red Alert games contains left overs of the aforementioned games. Because of these GDI and NOD leftovers in the prototype, it's not farfetched to think that Generals was built upon Incursion. Either what's left of Incursion was salvaged into making Generals, or both games were developed concurrently, thus the shared assets and engine. Some Westwood Studios employees were also part of EA Pacific, creators of Generals. This might explain the reusing of assets originally made for Incursion and the NOD and GDI leftovers in the prototype of Generals.

This is a half-arsed, mockup screenshot created in the final game version of Generals, using the Worldbuilder, the game’s official map editor. Looks too similar to that Incursion screenshot up there. It should come as no surprise. Speaking of the Worldbuilder, sometimes when you push the editor to its limits, you get an interesting error which we see in this image below (Credit to Stanislav.Saw)

The error we see here points to the game’s source files, written in C++. Of course, these files don’t exist anymore but what’s interesting is the folders’ names. WWVegas, what could it stand for? Westwood Vegas? Yes! Keep in mind that Westwood Studios, who were developing Incursion, were based in Las Vegas while EA Pacific, developers of Generals, were located in California. Now, it can’t be a coincidence whoever was in charge of organizing the source files directory of Generals randomly smashed their keyboard and came with that name – WWVegas. The second folder’s name is WW3D2. This could be a working, placeholder name for the second, extended version of the Westwood 3D engine, now known as SAGE, which is the engine Generals uses. What does all of this mean? Simple, the technology created for Incursion, the Worldbuilder and the SAGE/ WW3D2 engine, the sandbags and car models, all of this was salvaged and reutilized for Generals after Incursion was cancelled! Incursion is Generals, and Generals is Incursion! *maniacal laughter*

Obviously, it goes without saying that all of this should be taken with a grain of salt. I could be wrong, I’m probably wrong, but the evidence we see here, all of it makes me see a correlation between these two games. Regardless, one thing for certain is that these games are tied together.

The game then picks a random headpiece (except for the red Beret, squad leader only).

Then a random skin for the head. There's a total of 15 headpieces plus 15 head skins. Multiplied, that equals to 225. Multiplied again by 2 (number of model files) we end with 450. Too lazy to show the black heads anyways.

Yeah I hate the mod, don't get me wrong I'm not shitting on the developers' hard work, they're probably putting their heart and soul into it.

It's just that I can't stand mods that try to up Half-life from being a 1998 game to something out of 2005 with fancy ass new features like glow effects, bright maps, exaggerated mapping geometry, high resolution textures or over the top, detailed animations. Why can't you enjoy Half-Life for being what it is? Why do modders have to butcher it like this? I get it people can mod games in whatever way they see fit but the problem is that mods like Extended or Echoes are setting a new standard for mods, that if your mod doesn't offer any of aforementioned shit, people will look down on it.

Fuck the current modding community and their sacrilege of Half Life, give me They Hunger or Life's End all day long.

Also things you may not know. Discovered them in my playthroughs, will be updated from time to time

• Rufio's assassination was arranged by Claudius Arcadia, who can be found in the Imperial Prison. The latter was jailed for contracting the Dark Brotherhood. Based on what can be pieced from Rufio himself and the journal of Claudius Arcadia, it seems that Rufio killed an unknown woman likely related to Arcadia in an encounter in which she struggled, despite Rufio urging her to stay still. This is the only Dark Brotherhood contract whose client is known.
• There's an Orc gang involved in a Skooma-smuggling operation in Cheydinhal. The gang sends one of their members to the Imperial City to find Skooma. Once Skooma is found, she goes to the Camonna Tong thugs stationed at Walker Camp to exchange gold and Skooma. The Gold is sent to Dulfish, the gang leader, and the Skooma is taken by the thugs to the hollow rock near Kingscrest Cavern.
• During the quest Following a Lead, you may come across the severed head of Mathieu Bellamont's mother. If you take the head and drop it near Mathieu, he will offer a bit of interesting dialogue that almost gives away his position as the traitor of the Dark Brotherhood.
• At the bottom of Dive Rock, lore-wise the highest point in the game's setting, can be found the body of Andre Labouche. This inexperienced mountain climber attempted to traverse a most difficult path that led to his death. Found on his person a note from his daughter Fiona in which she urges her father not to take the trip to Cyrodiil, citing her father's clumsiness and the Horror of Dive Rock as her concerns.

I took it upon myself to write an article detailing the prerelease material of Warcraft 3 on The Cutting Room Floor. Progress is slow, but steady nonetheless. Collage is interfering heavily with my schedule.
For those interested, here it is