UPDATE: Link is working again.

Command & Conquer 4 will not only require a constant online connection, it’ll end support for LAN as well as dedicated servers, an Electronic Arts designer tells Destructoid. The reason is because the game’s global player progression system will all live remotely on an EA server. While it allows players to log in to their account from any machine, it’s incompatible with dedicated server support.

EA promises, however, that it’s overhauled the game’s networking to deliver a more stable experience, with quicker entry into games.

No LAN or Dedicated Server Support for Command & Conquer 4 [Destructoid]

The free games include Command & Conquer, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun with Firestorm and Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, promising “the epic conclusion to the Tiberium Saga,” is due out March 16.

Command & Conquer: Classics [EA site]

These images appeared on the Command & Conquer 4 website as a bonus to newsletter subscribers, teasing a new medium for the beloved real-time strategy franchise. Joystiq seems to think the images could be indicative of a comic book, and EA has been loving on the video game comic book business lately, but I agree with Joy that it could be too obvious. Perhaps an animated cartoon of some sort, with these images serving as storyboards? A really difficult colouring book? Decorator napkins?

See, this is where you guys should take over the speculation. It’s not my strong suit.

Newsletter Subscribers Exclusive Sneak Peek [Command & Conquer via Blue's News]

During Kotaku’s interview this week with EA CEO John Riccitiello we turned to recent news that hallowed PC real-time-strategy series Command & Conquer would be moving toward a digital model rather than a disc-based one after its next release. The series would be overseen by Might and Magic creator John Van Caneghem, who recently joined EA.

News of the transition was sending fears of a Facebook-ised, watered-down C&C among some series fans. But while not detailing exactly what the digital edition of the franchise would be like, Riccitiello was happy to explain to Kotaku the reason for the seemingly dramatic shift.

“[Van Ceneghem] and I have a shared vision that the RTS category is due for fundamental innovation and not just cooler graphics,” Riccitiello said. “We’ve gotten to the point where you can see the particles around individual grenade explosions inside rooms where windows fall apart. That was never what made RTS good. That was just sort of eye candy on top of a very traditional game mechanic. From when Red Alert and Starcraft sort of defined the genre, it hasn’t moved.”

Riccitiello said he didn’t want to be seen as designing the game in front of Kotaku — he’s not a game designer he acknowledged — but he did offer some hints, saying. “I’m a believer that the RTS sector is more open to fundamental innovation at a metagame level than almost any genre.”

Referencing EA’s newly-acquired Facebook games developer Playfish, he added: “I actually think that some of what Playfish does, in terms of iterating games on a weekly basis, Some of what Facebook does, in terms of letting you collectively experience things, have not been stitched together by the game industry in terms of lessons learned there. You start applying that thinking to a C&C franchise you get something pretty special.”

Riccitiello is not the first — and won’t be the last — Kotaku interviewee who brings up the old saw that graphics aren’t everything. But you can sometimes judge the depth of such a comment by the context in which it’s provided. In the midst of talking about C&C, here’s what Riccitiello said about graphical improvements and their relevance to game development and the notion of what constitutes “fundamental innovation”:

“I grew up in the industry at a time when eye candy was the fundamental innovation. 1999 saw the first mass-sale of 3D games. Suddenly, you can do 3D when everything else was splines and isometric and all that stuff. We had three or four years where, ok, it was about eye candy. If all you had [before then] was 2d and scrollers, it lit us all up. And then we learned how to make 3D environments that were fun and interesting and different.

“I think now we’re all at a place where we have high-definition TVs. We have PCs with staggering monitors. Everyone’s mastered 3D. By and large we’re choosing between 30 and 60 frames a second depending on how good we want the environment to be vs. how fluid we want. Clearly in the next set of processors we’re going to get to both.

“But I could ask the question, who cares? To be honest with you, yes I do like watching sports in high def but it’s not really more fun. I just like it because I spent six grand on my TV and I want a return on my investment. But it doesn’t make the experience any better. And so you have to innovate in different ways.”

So graphics as “fundamental innovation” in the RTS genre? In Command & Conquer? Not anymore, according to Riccitiello.

Time for something different. Something, he admitted, build on a path blazed by massively-multiplayer online games, connecting more players and doing it outside a fantasy universe.

Sounds like Command & Conquer has its marching orders.

See, Van Caneghem is a big supporter of things like “games as service”, and online delivery. Which makes him a good fit for EA, since that’s exactly what EA are moving towards, with games like Battlefield Heroes and their acquisition of online gaming company Playfish.

So what does this mean for the future of Command & Conquer? Well, we knew he was going to “transform” the series, but maybe not this drastically. Chew over these quotes from an interview with Van Caneghem over on Gamasutra. The first regarding strategy games taking a leaf out of Battlefield Heroes’ book.

“Look what online has done for RPGs over the last 10 years. All the other categories are following suit… we’re looking forward to building something to be a leader in that space.”

On where he sees C&C fitting in with this shift, he says “”It allows you to do everything you would have expected from a boxed game, but it adds a lot more to it… being connected and connected with players, and persistence, the social elements of playing against each other with other friends.”

And, perhaps most distressingly, this:

“What you’re seeing with all the social gamers on Facebook… they are actually already playing strategy games whether they know it or not. Taking a franchise like Command and Conquer and expanding it to a wider audience is part of the strategy.”

Tiberiumville, coming to Facebook, 2010.

Interview: Van Caneghem Talks EALA’s Vision, Command & Conquer [Gamasutra]

To that effect, a survey has been doing the rounds, listing several planned features for the title, and even going so far as to directly reference the name “Command & Conquer 4″.

Some of the highlights include:

Command & Conquer 4 allows C&C fans to finally experience the epic conclusion to the 15-year Tiberium saga with innovative RPG-like player progression, persistent in both single player and multiplayer modes, co-op play, and new stylized, live-action cinematics.

And…

Which of the following features would you like to see in a future version of Command & Conquer?

* Play in the first RTS game with MMORPG like player progression in which you are rewarded every time you play. Every unit you kill in single player, multiplayer, or skirmish gives you experience points that allows you to level up your abilities and unlock new units, powers, and upgrades to your arsenal.
* Play with all new, bigger and badder, units from GDI and Nod, including the Crawler, the first ever mobile base in RTS games
* Play the campaign on your own or tackle it with a friend, as co-operative campaigns return
* Play in epic 5 vs 5 online multiplayer with all new objective-based game modes
* Introducing the first mobile base in RTS games: The Crawler. Focus on the action as the Crawler becomes your all-in-one base, which can be deployed and redeployed anywhere on the battlefield for even more strategic options
* Dive into an all-new story written by a new scriptwriting team and told through trademark C&C cinematics taken to the next level with grittier, stylized FMVs in the vein of Minority Report.
* Play in the first ever class-based C&C game – a new challenge for C&C and RTS players to master.

In other words, “did you like what Relic did with Dawn of War II? Because that’s what we’re looking at here”. I’m a little sceptical about some of that other stuff, too, especially the “first ever mobile base in RTS games” bit (it’s not) and the ” trademark C&C cinematics taken to the next level with grittier, stylized FMVs” bit (no thanks, we like our cornball).

But hey, it’s just a survey. Not a press release, not a product announcement. So don’t panic just yet.

Survey Suggests Command & Conquer 4 Details [Shacknews]

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Uprising is now available. and EA has released this helpful video detailing the Yuriko campaign, which turns the real-time strategy title into a dungeon crawler.

By far the most interesting addition is the Yuriko campaign, which follows the story of the little psychic Japanese girl who was kidnapped as a child and experimented on by Japanese scientists. The player controls Yuriko as she attempts to escape from her captors. As Red Alert 3 story and cinematics producer Mical Pedriana explains, it’s more like a dungeon crawler than a traditional real-time strategy game, pitting a lone unit against multiple enemies. It’s nice to see a developer doing something so different in an expansion, rather than just tossing more of what we’ve already played through.

Word on the street has it that the upcoming PS3 version of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is a doozy. Which is probably why EA are going to be releasing a demo.

It’s scheduled to arrive in “a couple of weeks”, and should give PS3 owners the chance to check out the fancy, upgraded visuals EA LA were able to squeeze out of Sony’s machine. In the meantime, bored C&C fans are urged to check out the special Command & Conquer PlayStation Store Destination (like the Capcom one, only for C&C), where there’s a bunch of Red Alert 3 stuff to get you in the mood for Bear Wrestling.

Red Alert 3 PS3 – Demo, DLC, and Details [PlayStation]

When Command & Conquer Generals was released six years ago, it was released minus one of the game’s original levels. This level was deemed too “controversial”, and has only just now been released.

Called “Black Sheep”, the mission tasks you with driving one of the Global Liberation Army (ie the terrorist faction) chemical weapons vehicles around a “town that had been corrupted beyond salvation by the USA’s propaganda”.

Coming at the height of the WAR ON TERROR, EA decided back in 2003 that such a mission may have been a little much, and cut it from the game when it shipped. With the world slowly moving on by 2009, however, EA reckon it’s totally cool to release it now, and anyone with a copy of Generals can grab it from the game’s website.

Black Sheep [EA]