WI: Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun relased in 1998

What if Westwood Studios, a studio that usually is taking credit for creating (or at least estabilishig) an Real Time Strategy Genre, was able to relase a long-developed Command & Conquer sequel a one year earlier? Let's say that Westwood decidied that C&C Engine is outdated already and skipped work on C&C Red Alert: Aftermath and Dune 2000 entirely, so they would have enough time to end thair flahsip product sooner. Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun is relased in August 1998, five months after his main competitor: Starcraft, and almost a year after Total Annhiliation and Dark Reign: The Future of War. How much battle for the title of "King of the RTS genre" would be different, if Tiberian sun would be relased soon enough?
 
What if Westwood Studios, a studio that usually is taking credit for creating (or at least estabilishig) an Real Time Strategy Genre, was able to relase a long-developed Command & Conquer sequel a one year earlier? Let's say that Westwood decidied that C&C Engine is outdated already and skipped work on C&C Red Alert: Aftermath and Dune 2000 entirely, so they would have enough time to end thair flahsip product sooner. Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun is relased in August 1998, five months after his main competitor: Starcraft, and almost a year after Total Annhiliation and Dark Reign: The Future of War. How much battle for the title of "King of the RTS genre" would be different, if Tiberian sun would be relased soon enough?

As somebody who work extensively on modding the Tiberian Sun engine, having it come out earlier is probably not going to be good for the game. Lots of features that were intended to be in the game were removed due to early release and the engine is built on A LOT of workarounds (it's actually insane) for release. The game is going to be a lot less functional with an earlier release.
 
I'm guessing what OP is at is that the development process of the new engine starts earlier enough that its at least as competent (such as it was) if not more as OTL, as it wouldn't be pressured in the same way to rush a release.
 
As somebody who work extensively on modding the Tiberian Sun engine, having it come out earlier is probably not going to be good for the game. Lots of features that were intended to be in the game were removed due to early release and the engine is built on A LOT of workarounds (it's actually insane) for release. The game is going to be a lot less functional with an earlier release.
True, but how much time Westwood had lost during development of Red Alert, two expansion packs for it and Dune 2000? Don't get me wrong, Dune2000 is a great game, but by time it was relased, nobody cares about it. Pretty much new generation of RTS games already hited the marked. TS had the same problem, in 1999, with RTS Games designed to wirk with Hardware acceleration, mostly Earth 2150 coming, Dark Reign 2 and Warcraft III annouced Tiberian Sun engine dosen't seemed as impresive as it would have been in 1998. This is a main problem with Westwood is in this time period, they didn't fit the time frame.
 

Thande

Donor
I could see them dropping Dune 2000, but I can't see them dropping the Red Alert expansion packs, that was printing money given the vanilla game's success. (As was obvious with Counterstrike which I am still bitter about being so overpriced...Aftermath on the other hand was worth it).

The other thing about Aftermath was that it trialled a lot of the concepts later used in Red Alert 2, such as a chrono attack unit that can teleport, mobile Tesla soldiers that can't be run over by tanks, missile subs, Demo Trucks, etc. So if you get rid of that then if Red Alert 2 is made it will be totally different even ignoring the question of EA involvement.
 
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