WhiteDragon25

...These two are slights against me, aren't they? Classy, real classy.

Siegfried's voice definitely needs to have its volume increased, like others have said. I can barely hear him as it is.

Volkov needs a few more lines too, the current set gets grating after a while.

The Battle Fortress should probably get a new voice as well, since the Scottish voice coming out of a Pacific Front unit is... odd.

For the Nazis thing, I quote myself from another thread:

*snip*

Man, can we just get past page one without any fanfic ideas involving sex in some way or another? Especially if it involves teenage girls. Because really, we have standards.

I blame Lovalmidas for this crap with Yunru; that pic of her and that dog started some really screwed up shit.

Act 2 Spoiler: Yuri builds the Mental Omega Device.

No shit Sherlock. What do you think the mod is named after, Yuri's glowing blue balls?

Updated the final parts of my explanation.
 

Also, having some solid numbers around helps with pinpoint where the heroes need some buffing or nurffing (such as poor Chitzkoi and Yunru, the lowest-scoring of the bunch).

Yeah, I have no qualms about the rest of your analysis. It's just that I am using ordinal scales for each category, not an actual scoring. Summing the numbers is a poor style and will give nothing useful.

Did you know that Yunru can disable three of the strongest heroes with her EMP?

Well, if we really want to give China an anti-infantry artillery, Yunru can take a tranquilizer sniper rifle that will debuff enemy infantry in a small radius. She can't snipe from the Centurion. Let's see if Speeder even likes it.

Or we can make Yunru a speaker tower of motivation! +Speed +Attack. Only effective when outside of a transport.

Well, Yunru really needs something to increase her survivability and general utility; her DDOS attack working against Volkov, Chitzkoi, and Siegfried doesn't help much when it's the cannon fodder behind them that'll kill her.

Taking that tranquilizer sniper rifle idea of yours, why not give her a Stalker-like Immobilizer beam? That way she can "EMP" infantry just as she can disable tanks. Hell, you can even justify it by saying that Yunru reverse-engineered a salvaged Stalker powersuit. That way she can disable enemy infantry temporarily until she can either escape or wait for backup to arrive.

Also, rate-of-fire for her Earth Breaker needs to be sped up just a bit; the gap in between each discharge makes her a sitting duck, so she needs it to get her demolition work done faster - and the faster she gets it done, the faster she can get the hell out of Dodge.

As for a "speaker tower of motivation"... I don't think a deadpan snarker of a forcefully-conscripted little girl genius would be much of a morale booster (more likely she'll cause morale to plunge, thanks to her sarcasm and apathetic discontent).

 

 

The guy was friends with Stalin. His metric for "good intentions" are much different than mine or yours.

 

Obviously, his vision of "a future that was peaceful, happy, and free" is as follows: peaceful, because all now obey him alone; happy, because all of life's needs are met and all wants now simply revolve around him; and free, because they are now free from such silly concepts like 'self-determination', and can now serve him without question.

 

You might have a point there. Anyways, if Yuri turned out to be the "good guy" at the end, it would ruin the story as much as Kane's redemption ruined C&C 4.

But it wouldn't hurt if MO gave Yuri's intentions some reasoning other than "Imma mindkontrol da world cus I kan do it herpa derp".

Every grandiose tinpot dictator has claims that they are serving "the greater good" or the "will of the people" or some bullshit like that; in the end, though, the real reason is usually just their own lust for power. Whether or not Yuri actually has some sort of ideologically-centered goal in mind is irrelevant when one considers that the means he uses to achieve said goal pretty much violate every single moral, ethical, and philosophical principle ever concieved.

"Utopia" rarely - if ever - justifies the means to get there. Same goes for both the Allies and the Soviets as well.

...Did we just get into a discussion about the motivations of a video game villain and whether or not they are well-intentioned?

Anyways, back to the actual discussion about Act II Predictions:

1) Things look bleak for the Allies right now: America has been conquered by the Russians and Confederation, the American populace is now willingly defecting to the Soviet cause out of feelings of betrayal by the EA/PF salvage attempt, the Pacific Front's ill-concieved alliance with China fell through and are now at war with them, and Europe's been steamrolled by the Red Army with only Great Britain left standing. The worst part, though, is the destruction of the SteinsTech Lab in Black Forest, along with their one ace-in-the-hole, the Chronosphere.

Priority one for the Allies is to restore morale by rebuilding the Chronosphere, their only hope against the Soviet Union. If we go by the original RA2, the best place to use the Chronosphere would be in the Florida Keys... which is a problem, as it is now under Soviet control, and is in range of Confederation-aligned Cuba.

2) On the Soviet end, they've pretty much won: the United States has been wiped off the map, Europe minus the UK is under their control, and the upstart Chinese have been put into their place. One problem, though - the traitor Yuri. The Soviets now realise that Yuri's been manipulating and sabotaging them since the beginning, and with the recent tech thefts (such as the Stalin's Fist fiasco, and the Lasher Tank heist), along with the Baikonur-Leninsk Cosmodrome complex having been ransacked, the Soviets are now going to be in deep trouble if they don't do something to find out what the hell the maniac's up to. If they do that though, they risk losing their momentum against the remaining Allies, which could lead to them making a comeback, forcing a war on two fronts (well, technically, more than that...).

Priority one for the Soviets is to crush the remaining Allied resistance as fast as possible, then once that's done is to track down Yuri and find out what he's hiding. They also need to keep a better eye on China to make sure they don't pull another stunt like the Kanagawa Industries mess. Oh, they also need to do another round of purges, Yuri's mind-control tricks probably left dozens of sleeper agents up-and-down the chain of command.

3) Yuri's plans, in the meantime, have unfolded pretty well: the Allies have mostly been swept out of the way, the Soviets and the Chinese are now at each other's throats, and he now has enough tech and recruits to begin his next phase. Of course, things have hit a few snags along the way - the Allies managed to do better than expected at curtailing the Psychic Beacon network in the US, and the Soviets have figured out his betrayal and will now be hunting him down like the dog he is. Yuri still hasn't built up his newfound army enough to counter either of them militarily, so he is screwed unless he does something about it.

Priority one for Yuri and his new Epsilon Empire is to delay his enemies as much as possible until they are ready to compete out in the open. This means three things: prevent the Allies from figuring out any more of his Psychic Technology; extend the war between the remaining Allies and the Soviets as long as possible to occupy each other's attention; and widen the rift between the Russians and the Chinese even further. In the meantime, Yuri's other projects - such as the work being done on Alcatraz Island - need to proceed faster; his Psychic Dominator network is his ace-in-the-hole, and if it's revealed too pre-maturely, his whole plan would be wrecked in an instant.

After all, the Soviets know about the PsiCorps project being carried out on Alcatraz Island, and so would be the first target for them to investigate...

I only see this working when:

 

1) you have 50k starting money to start spamming so many Shadow Tanks right near the start of the game.

2) your enemy is stupid enough to not get stealth detectors when player vs HQ or SC. And is not even thinking about using their money.

That too.

 

I'd say I can play as well as mevitar does.

 

But seriously why you are talking about players' skills? I'm trying to enjoy this fukken game but this "OH LOOK YOU PLAY LIKE A MONSTER ARARARAR" crap is a fukken nonsense.

 

Instead of wasting your precious time with this you can play games lol

 

I've made it a personal goal to successfully beat each MO Staff member at least once. : P

 

Unlike WhiteDragon, I don't give up after losing and decide I'll never vs that player again, I'll just keep vsing that player until I learn from my mistakes and defeat them.

 

Hey! I resent that implication! I never said I would give up after losing! I still go after the MO Staff when I get a chance to... I just stated I'm flat fucking terrified of facing the ones who've already bloodily curbstomped me.

Actually Zenothist is not a very bad player, i have seen him play before in older streams, he's a decent player.
Speeder is a great player, at master level, pulling out effective tactics (example, stalin fist > kiro etc) micromanaging ore miners to their fullest efficiency and general awesome play.
Petya and Lovalmidas as you say are very master players hard to beat.
Cesare is also a great player that can challenge the higher level players as loval, petya, speeder etc....
Imp_Rulz is a decent - to good player losing to winning battles
Omegabolt also a great player seemingly at levels with petya and loval... (he's awesome with LC)

What I meant about Zenothist is that, of the MO Staff, he and Doomhammer are the worst ones, in comparison to Petya, Lovalmidas, Cesare, and Speeder. Against non-MM players, he's mostly pretty decent, barring derps of sheer incompetence every once in a while.

Apparently, though, thanks to today's stream, ImP_RuLz joins Zeno and Doomy in terms of badness.

Russia's my favorite. Specifically, "Russia" as in "the Soviet Union". I just like playing the bad guy, since they get so many cool and intimidating toys (such as the Apocalypse Tank, the very reason why I play as the Soviets in the first place). Also, I love the irony in an American playing as its most hated enemy in the last half-century.

Ever since I first played Red Alert 2 (back in 2007-2009 or so, since I got The First Decade version), I mostly played as Russia; the other Soviet factions - Iraq, Libya, and Cuba - simply did not hold my interest, as I preferred playing as the acknowledged superpower. When I first played Mental Omega (2.0c or 2.0psi version, I can't recall), the option of China opened up, but I still preferred Russia overall.

Now, with MO 3.0, I continue my tradition of playing Russia the most. The Allies I don't play all that much, despite the cool toys they have, since I don't like their aesthetics all that much in comparison. I don't know why I don't play Yuri/Epsilon very often though, despite liking their aesthetics - perhaps out my sympathies for the Soviets to crush the Allies, and to destroy the traitor Yuri.

 

I suddenly thought of switching Yunru's and Libra's voices around. Would be fun having a crazy 17 y/o girl running with a oversized machine and screaming about the laval-like floor and shutting people up...

Such a stressful and often traumatizing environment can not be beneficial for Yunru's psyche, as her superiors report that Yunru will occasionally display abrupt mood swings or erratic, even self-harming, behavior. What unnerves most though, is the increasing frequency of these occurrences and it's not showing any stopping. Who knows how long it will take until Yunru cracks under the pressure.

@lovalmidas It's not far from happening..............

 

 It's not far from happening..............

 

I know, I once proposed a lore on that.  

Yunru is already a veteran Deadpan Snarker whose sarcasm is strong enough to give Epsilon Elites aneurysms, I wonder what would happen if she went all the way to full-blown Well-Intentioned Extremist Mad Scientist... I don't know, create a giant Tesla-based Seismic Osciliator to rival Yuri's Mental Omega Device, strong enough to literally crack the Earth in two?

So, I was looking through the MO Scrapbook Thread, and looking at the old Nazi crap there, I was struck by an idea! No, not any sort of Nazi faction crap, silly! More like a funny little easter egg sort of thing:

We all know what happened to Hitler in the Red Alert universe (paradoxed out of existence by a time-traveling Einstein in 1924), but whatever happened to the Nazi Party itself? Well, after Hitler dissappeared under mysterious circumstances after leaving prison, the Nazi Party was left rudderless, and the brief popularity they had thanks to Mein Kampf evaporated soon after due to no followup by Hitler. Shrinking rapidly, all they had left was a few dozen members centered in Munich.

With Germany democratized and its economy stabilized, the remaining Nazis were left to stew in their own patheticness, meeting every week at the Bürgerbräukeller Beer Hall, the site of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, to bitch and moan and complain and generally be the racist redneck hicks that we know of Neo-Nazis today.

Why do I bring this up? Simple: have a campaign mission or skirmish map take place in Munich, and as an easter egg, have the Beer Hall somewhere on the map, with a few old, fat Nazi civilians walking around outside it, along with a tattered old Nazi banner! Then we can have the pleasure of running them over with Soviet Tanks and blowing up the Beer Hall with Einstein's Prism Tanks!

It would be a hilarious little easter egg, and doesn't break the Red Alert canon in any way.

 

The Computer has always been a Cheating Bastard, it's been that way since day one of Mental Omega. Hell, the Computer being a Cheating Bastard has been a staple of game design since the 90's.

 

 

This is mostly because of the fact that the Computer's also a complete idiot - Artifical Stupidity has been a problem in game design for years - since it relies on preprogrammed algorithms and such, and does not actually have any sort of sentience in and of itself. It thus must compensate by cheating like high hell.

 

Though I must agree, toning down the level of cheating the computer engages in would be nice.

 

Well I can ask a good programmer to create a SHODAN like AI just for you. Then you can't say that AI is stupid

 

I was refering to the general tendency of computer games to have incredibly moronic AIs, not Mental Omega itself (which still does, by the way, just not as bad as other games... mostly).

And I'd prefer not to face a SHODAN-like AI... or a GLaDOS one... or a CABAL one... or hell, any type of crazy evil AI that wants to take over the world and kill all human life.

Having just gave up on Epsilon Mission 3: Scrapyard, I just want to say that whoever designed that mission is a rat bastard. Trying to capture those Oil Derricks early on with only 3 Epsilon Adepts is excruciatingly painful to accomplish, and the loss of one Adept significantly hampers progress. All those damn Allied infantry crawling around the oil field are hard to dislodge, and mind-controlling those Engineers needed for capturing the Derricks is agonizing, as there's only so many engineers there, and they can't be replaced if one dies.

Once I've managed to collect $10,000 and finished the first objective, the rest of the mission should've been easier - Rashidi's outpost is now mine, and I can use the stolen Stalin's Fist to produce Mantis Tanks. However, one little thing ended my playthrough of that mission soon after: Rashidi's Stinger was apparently a critical unit, and it got killed when the Americans attacked the outpost, resulting in a "Mission Failed". Now, there was a warning given that said that Rashidi and the Stinger were important somehow, but such a small thing slipped by my attention. I tried putting Rashidi in the Stinger to see if that gave me a repair unit, but no dice, so I didn't bother with it further. Until it died, that is.

And this is on Easy.

A few things I think would improve this mission a little here:

1: At least give one sniper to you along with the Adepts and Borillo at the start of the mission, so that you can deal with the Allied infantry at the Derricks a bit easier. Also, give the Adepts a Heroic ranking or something, to increase their survivability a little more. If you want to retain the current difficulty level, then make it so that this version is Easy mode, with current set-up being Mental mode; Normal mode would be inbetween - no sniper, and Adepts are Veteran instead of Heroic.

2: Make it a mission objective that Rashidi and his Stinger are mission-critical units that cannot be killed. At least this way one has some sort of concrete forewarning so you won't lose them thanks to a not-so-clear warning that can be easily missed.

Everything else is fine as far as I know, since I didn't even complete the mission yet.