Dear Webmaster,

I am writing to inform you of the release of a new Tiberian Sun Top100 sites listing, one of a series of lists controlled by the Gamelists network. These Top100's track how many hits your site receives, rather than how many votes your visitors give you. We feel this is a better system of accurately portraying the popularity of websites. Our lists also keep a record of incoming/outgoing hits for each site, itemised by both month of the year and day of the week.

Every visitor that your site receives not only helps to move it upwards on the Top100, but also moves Tiberian Sun upwards on our main page listing. This main listing (located at http://www.gamelists.net) lists all the games we support - currently eleven, with more being added all the time - in order of how many hits they have received. For instance, if you run a Tiberian Sun website, every hit you get will add 1 to the Tiberian Sun counter on our main site.

We would like to invite you to join the Tiberian Sun Top100 if you have not done so already, located at http://www.gamelists.net/TSun/ , and indeed any of the other Top100's should they be relevant to your site content.

We would also like to request that you post this e-mail in your news section, should you have one.

Yours truly,

Liam Watson
Head of Operations
Gamelists Network - http://www.gamelists.net/

Ok we here at Games Weekly like to try to do as much for the gaming community as possible, so we have posted a message on the forums board giving the TS community 2 days to post questions concerning the upcoming TS title. After 2 days we will collect the best questions and have them sent to WestWood developers for answering. If all goes as planned and time permits we will try to post the answers sometime late next week.

Kane41: Will blue tiberium be like the gems in Red Alert (where they were worth more but didn't grow back)? Or will it be like green tiberium but be explosive and worth more?
Adam: Blue tiberium grows very slowly. It is worth more and highly volatile (on the ground and in a harvester or refinery). If a harvester is full of it, it can damage / destroy units near it if it explodes.

Kane41: Will the tick tank, when deployed as a turret, be able to be repaired using the repair tool (like a structure)? Or do you have to bring it back to a repair bay?
Adam: Nod doesn't have a repair bay. You can use the mobile repair bot to fix any nod units -- deployed or not.

The map-generator will work like, for example, the one of Age of Empires. You choose some variables like land, water, terrain or other things, and the generator makes a small, cute map or a huge battlefield for you, whatever you want to have. Because of that every game of TS is different. But you also have the choice to load maps that come with the game or you can also save maps that the generator made to the disk and then play them whenever you want.

Extract: Could you say whether or not I observed the GameStar video correctly in that the seperate map generator didn't generate a map from its own cards, only coincidentally from those selected?
Alex: I imagined the response would be quite interesting, so here it is for the public:
As far as I know, the map generator produces its own cards. It is however possible that one can use or input "coincidence cards" as an alternative to the map genearator, the one of the provided cards is selected.

KingZeus: Will TS:Special Edition be shipped to customers at the same time the regular edition hits store shelves or will it be some time before they receive it?
Aaron: People who order the special edition will get it about the same time the game hits the shelves, maybe a little soon, maybe a day or two later, depending on shipping, packaging, etc. The special edition will not be available in stores.

El_DuDe: How dose the Fire Storm sys. work?, can your units on the inside shoot out at the incomming units or will there shots hit and damage the FSDS?
Rade: Yes, your units can shoot through the firestorm defense.

Tiberium.de: Will there be a DVD version of the game?!
Aaron: There are not plans for a DVD version at this time.

Tiberium.de: We all know you're making a special german version, is there any cutscene in the US version which won't be included in the german version or will there only be changes to the game itself?
Aaron: Don't know that yet. We're going to try and keep the versions as close as possible.

ColonelCPX: Are you still limited to the standard 8 colors, or are you allowed to choose your custom side color on a high/true color palette?
Aaron: Still working with the color palette. You'll have a good selection. But you won't be able to "custom color" your army.

ColonelCPX: Will there be other game scenarios besides normal "Smash The Opponent Into Rubble" and "Capture The Flag"?
Aaron: It's a war game, so the object is always to defeat your opponent. What scenarios would you suggest?

ColonelCPX: Is AI so caniving as to ally with other AI if there are other human players? Or can humans ally with AI if there are other human players? (unlike the past two games)
Aaron: Humans can't ally with AI, but AI's can opperate as a team.

Gen. Sheppard: What exactly is the "Vein Monster" and what do the mutated animals do to you? What kinds are there? What of our ole buddy the Visceroid?
Aaron: Mutated animals don't like you very much. They are dangerous. The Vein Monster is also not nice. He spews poison gas and is difficult to kill. The Visceroid? Let's just say you don't want to meet one!

RSN: Do you have to force fire on the mountain side or will there be a target-like sign when you mouse goes over it?
Aaron: You get the read attack cursor.

RSN: will all weapons be able to set off the mountains, and will some be more effective than others?
Aaron: Pretty much all weapons can collapse the cliffs that are deformable.

Lionel: Will there be a way to build walls *quickly* in Tiberian Sun? It was nearly impossible to build walls in C&C and Red Alert because you had to put down each piece individually. It would be nice to click and drag to build a length of wall all at once so you don't spend all your time micromanaging wall building. Aaron: Unfortunately nope. You're going to have to build walls the old fashioned way.

Lionel: When allied with another player, will you be able to move each others units and/or build/use their structures.
Aaron: No. You are still commanding your army, and only your army.

Lionel: How do you control the Nod units that go underground once there underground?
Aaron: You can band select them, or group select them, while they are under. Best thing to do is assign them to a group (CTRL+1 thru 5). Then, if you want to change their orders, just select them. (press 1 for group 1). Make sense?

Gen. Sheppard: We all know the Mammoth Mark 2 is huge, but exactly how big? For instance, if TS's engine were still tile-based, how many tiles would it fill?
Aaron: Hmmmmmmm. It would be about five stories high in real life. In the CG, it is incredibly large. In the game, the proportions aren't exact, but it takes up four or five tiles.

Gen. Sheppard: How is the integration of WW Chat being handled in TS? Is it going to be more like Blizzard's Battle.net?
Aaron: It will be fully integrated into the game, like Battle.net.

Gen. Sheppard: Feel free to give any other tasty bits of info! =)
Aaron: The most important thing I can say is that it will be out late this summer.
Aaron: Other than that, I can say that it's an incredible game. I've been able to play the alpha of the release version now for a couple months and it is awesome. I can't wait for the guys in development to finish up.
Aaron: A few fav things...linking waypoints, blowing up bridges, stealth generators, cracking ice, wild mutated animals, tunneling units, armed civilians, veterancy.
Aaron: So much that's new, and yet it's still the C&C I know and love. Brings a tear to my eye.

Missile Silo
Obviously, this is the building used to control the launch of Nod's missile weapons. The first type is the Multi-Missile Warhead, a terrifying armament that splits into several smaller rockets over its intended taget and rains fiery death on everything below. The other missile type is the dreaded Chemical Missile, made from mulch refined by the Tiberium Waste Facility. On impact, the warhead starts a new growth of the super tough Tiberium in veins spreading out from the impact point. Nothing can ever be built on these land areas again. As if that wasn't bad enough, if the spread isn't checked, there's a chance that something called a Vein Monster will be created. These monsters attack everything within their area and are really hard to get rid of. No wonder GDI Commanders flinch every time they even hear this weapon mentioned...

Laser Fence
This is a really nasty force wall that cannot be broken down by conventional means. The only way to drop one of these babies is to either cut off its power source or by destroying one of its fence posts. It does have one limitation in that it can only be build facing one of the four cardinal directions. Big deal. Your opponent still can't get in...

Heliport Pad
Just like the Orca Pad for the GDI, the Heliport pad allows air attack units to land and refuel. Other than that, it's just a big ol' piece of flat land.

Tiberium Waste Facility
This is a specialized Tiberium Refinery (available only to Nod) that collects the mulch produced by the Nod Weed Eaters (see the Brotherhood Units list for more info). It takes this highly volatile mulch and uses it to produce Chemical Missiles, a really nasty weapon.

Alex: On the past screen shots, the Mammoth Mark II was red. Does it belong to NOD?
Chris: The MM II was not ever shown, what you saw was the NOD version of the original giant.

Alex: On the new screenshot, one can see buildings from C&C 1. Is it possible to build it? And why did Westwood build it into TS?
Chris: Unfortunately they are functionally useless. The buildings are to be there to bring a flair of the past into the play.

Alex: On the same screenshots there are a few small vehicles. They seem to be transporting something from the buildings. Is that correct?
Chris: Yes, they transport some extremely important artifacts.

Alex: On another new screenshot, pyramids are seen. Does this scene play in Egypt? Before it was said that Tiberium couldn't spread in the desert.
Chris: NOD likes pyramids and fights with the GDI in each angle of the earth. Tiberium grows everywhere. In life-hostile environments like the desert, it simply grows more slowly.

He furthermore said that he is unhappy about all sites that ripped of the video and wants that these sites delete the video and do NOT offer it for download. Because of lack of time he said I shall send out this message to you guys before their lawyers will start working. So please delete the gamestar video from your servers is you do not have the official permission by GameStar, Germany (no site had permission when I phoned them).

• Gamestar did not have an agreement with WW to be the only people videoing at E3.
• They offered the video 'free', as they describe the cover CD as free.
• 99 percent of the people downloading the video wouldn't have bought Gamestar if they couldn't get the movie elsewhere.
• The costs of actually taking action would be counterproductive plus bad publicity.
• And for the above reasons, they almost certainly couldn't persuade our servers to take us offline.