Question regarding keys and the Ultimate Collection

[Idsertian]

As a long-time fan of C&C, I have acquired a decently sized--though incomplete--collection of the games. Through one method or another, I have acquired copies of most of the games in the UC and am wondering if EA are willing to award the UC to people who can prove ownership of said games (either through proof of codes, or pictures of the boxes), or at least apply a heavy discount to it. Does anyone know if that's the case? Should I contact EA support? Or would I just have to suck it up and fork over the full asking price (sales notwithstanding)?

I'm not just talking one or two of the games, either, I have most of the collection one way or another.

Games I own:

C&C95 (Retail)
Covert Ops (Retail)
Red Alert (Technically retail, came free on a magazine cover disk)
Tiberian Sun (Retail)
Firestorm (Retail)
Red Alert 2 (Origin)
Yuri's Revenge (Origin)
Generals (Retail)
Zero Hour (Retail)
C&C3: Tiberium Wars (Origin)/Kane Edition (Retail)
Red Alert 3 (Steam, Origin)
Uprising (Steam)

Games I don't own:

Red Alert: Counterstrike

Red Alert: The Aftermath
C&C: Renegade
Kane's Wrath
C&C4: Tiberian Twilight

I own a good two-thirds of the collection, hence why I'm wondering if it's worth contacting EA about it, since over half of what I don't own isn't sold separately anymore, anyway. Thanks in advance for any answers.

[Nyerguds · Accepted solution]

@Idsertian

Command & Conquer 1, Red Alert 1 and Tiberian Sun are all freeware, though, so I doubt these will matter in any way. And Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge on Origin was a free giveaway, so it's honestly rather irrelevant in this scope.

All games starting from RA3 can be redeemed on Origin with their product keys. I doubt they'll just give you their newer games for free, though.

Though as for the missing RA expansions...

Well, back when they made C&C1 and RA1 freeware, the expansions were never included. However, the Tiberian Sun expansion was added. This made a bunch of people in the community realize that they most likely either just forgot about the earlier ones, or just thought they were insignificant because they were 'just mission packs'. Either way, it didn't take long for them to be included in fan repacks of the freeware games, and as far as I've seen, no one at EA ever minded this. The official C&C website even promoted my C&C95 patch despite my explicit mention that the Covert Ops was included in the patch.

So yeah, just Renegade left, I guess... I dunno, if you don't want to buy TUC, maybe you can find it on ebay?

Anyway, for Command & Conquer 1, Red Alert 1 and Tiberian Sun, I just advise getting the freeware downloads. All three of these games have also been upgraded with community-created unofficial patches that fix a lot of their bugs and compatibility problems, and the C&C1 and RA1 patches actually add higher resolution support. You can find them here:

Command & Conquer 1:

• Complete No-CD game installation pack (v1.06c r3, no videos, all music included) (also contains bonus missions originally exclusive to the Playstation and Nintendo 64 versions of the game)
• English videos pack (French and German video packs are also available on the website)

Red Alert 1:

• Web installer/patcher + some extras like the expansion pack videos from the Playstation version

Tiberian Sun:

• Full game (scroll down to "single player, patches, linux and mac" and select "Single Player Campaign (Windows)" in the dropdown)

[Nyerguds · Accepted solution]

@Idsertian

Command & Conquer 1, Red Alert 1 and Tiberian Sun are all freeware, though, so I doubt these will matter in any way. And Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge on Origin was a free giveaway, so it's honestly rather irrelevant in this scope.

All games starting from RA3 can be redeemed on Origin with their product keys. I doubt they'll just give you their newer games for free, though.

Though as for the missing RA expansions...

Well, back when they made C&C1 and RA1 freeware, the expansions were never included. However, the Tiberian Sun expansion was added. This made a bunch of people in the community realize that they most likely either just forgot about the earlier ones, or just thought they were insignificant because they were 'just mission packs'. Either way, it didn't take long for them to be included in fan repacks of the freeware games, and as far as I've seen, no one at EA ever minded this. The official C&C website even promoted my C&C95 patch despite my explicit mention that the Covert Ops was included in the patch.

So yeah, just Renegade left, I guess... I dunno, if you don't want to buy TUC, maybe you can find it on ebay?

Anyway, for Command & Conquer 1, Red Alert 1 and Tiberian Sun, I just advise getting the freeware downloads. All three of these games have also been upgraded with community-created unofficial patches that fix a lot of their bugs and compatibility problems, and the C&C1 and RA1 patches actually add higher resolution support. You can find them here:

Command & Conquer 1:

• Complete No-CD game installation pack (v1.06c r3, no videos, all music included) (also contains bonus missions originally exclusive to the Playstation and Nintendo 64 versions of the game)
• English videos pack (French and German video packs are also available on the website)

Red Alert 1:

• Web installer/patcher + some extras like the expansion pack videos from the Playstation version

Tiberian Sun:

• Full game (scroll down to "single player, patches, linux and mac" and select "Single Player Campaign (Windows)" in the dropdown)

[Idsertian]

@Nyerguds

Yeah, I actually asked them about it last night via their customer support and they, rather unsurprisingly, said "nah fam". It's not that I don't want to buy it, I just thought I'd chance my arm, since I own most of the collection anyway and can prove it. It's all good. I'll just wait until they throw it on sale, can't imagine they won't around December time.

I actually know about your C&C95 patch and have been using it recently in conjunction with my original disks, though I stick to a resolution of 800x600 out of preference. Nearly finished the game as a result (though I'm being a naughty boy by using CheatEngine because I suck * at C&C, even though I love it to death). I regularly use PCGamingWiki, though hadn't actually looked up Red Alert yet, so didn't know about the expansions for that. Thanks for that info.

Actually, I have a question regarding C&C95: I remember many years ago, when I was kid, the release of C&C I had back then had a completely different set of build icons for the menu. Rather than the ones included in the current version of your patch, they were much closer to the ingame look of the structures and units (may even have been screenshots, though I'm not sure). Have you ever seen/heard of these? Or am I going crazy and mis-remembering things? Or were these icons from a previous version of the game that were later replaced?

I don't know if I still have those original disks, and if I do, they may not work at all due to being scratched to hell and back (they got a lot of love), but if I can find them and get them working, and the icons are different, would you be interested in them to provide as alternatives on your site? Assuming the build icons are packaged in a way that would allow that. It would take me a few days to find the disks, though.

[Idsertian]

@Nyerguds

Yeah, I actually asked them about it last night via their customer support and they, rather unsurprisingly, said "nah fam". It's not that I don't want to buy it, I just thought I'd chance my arm, since I own most of the collection anyway and can prove it. It's all good. I'll just wait until they throw it on sale, can't imagine they won't around December time.

I actually know about your C&C95 patch and have been using it recently in conjunction with my original disks, though I stick to a resolution of 800x600 out of preference. Nearly finished the game as a result (though I'm being a naughty boy by using CheatEngine because I suck * at C&C, even though I love it to death). I regularly use PCGamingWiki, though hadn't actually looked up Red Alert yet, so didn't know about the expansions for that. Thanks for that info.

Actually, I have a question regarding C&C95: I remember many years ago, when I was kid, the release of C&C I had back then had a completely different set of build icons for the menu. Rather than the ones included in the current version of your patch, they were much closer to the ingame look of the structures and units (may even have been screenshots, though I'm not sure). Have you ever seen/heard of these? Or am I going crazy and mis-remembering things?

I don't know if I still have those original disks, and if I do, they may not work at all due to being scratched to hell and back (they got a lot of love), but if I can find them and get them working, and the icons are different, would you be interested in them to provide as alternatives on your site? Assuming the build icons are packaged in a way that would allow that. It would take me a few days to find the disks, though.

[Nyerguds]

---

@Idsertian wrote:

Actually, I have a question regarding C&C95: I remember many years ago, when I was kid, the release of C&C I had back then had a completely different set of build icons for the menu. Rather than the ones included in the current version of your patch, they were much closer to the ingame look of the structures and units (may even have been screenshots, though I'm not sure). Have you ever seen/heard of these? Or am I going crazy and mis-remembering things?

---

That would be the original 320x200 DOS release of the game. The website of my patch has a nice comparison shot of the resolutions which shows the DOS icons:

Someone actually made a mini-mod that gives the game the complete DOS UI, but it has some limitations... the DOS version adapts the structure and vehicle icons to the player colour, but on those little scene renders used in the Win95 version this is obviously useless, so that system doesn't exist in the Windows version. This means that with the mod, the icons will always stay yellow, even when playing with Nod.

Another small issue is the colour of the "options", "sidebar" and credits text. Fonts in the game are 16-colour images, and the game code determines which colours are fed into them. And, in the Win95 version, that font only gets green colours, and never the white that the DOS version used. So that text will still be green.

Anyway... check the "mods" section on the patch site. It's the "Command & Conquer winDOwS mod"

[Idsertian]

@Nyerguds

Oh wow, that HUD brings back some memories. I was sure I used to play that version through Windows, though. Ah well, either I'm not remembering right, or the game launched via DOS through Win95. Thanks for the info, though.

Also: I dunno if this is common knowledge or not, but I just discovered that any nVidia users attempting to install Tib Sun from disc need to turn off the ShadowPlay overlay. The setup.exe absolutely hates it with a passion and will wig out until it eventually BSOD's the entire PC.

[Nyerguds]

@Idsertian

Well, the Windows version is a completely different release, so if the one you had was the DOS version, then it would've looked the same in Windows, yes.

Thanks for the hint on Tiberian Sun! It may help other people here. Though, most people just use the freeware installer I linked, since unpatched TS will have issues on modern systems because Microsoft decommissioned SafeDisc/SecuROM; the DRM system used by the game.

[Idsertian]

@Nyerguds

Yeah, I thought it might have been the lack of SecDrv that was causing the issue, but enabling it in Win7 did absolutely nothing, so I tried running the CD installer under Safe Mode, which worked, but there was no sound. Then I had a brainwave and decided to try turning off ShadowPlay. Boom. No more issues.

I did end up installing the pre-patched version, however, as the game was having problems loading the movie files, though I don't know if that was an inherent problem or just because I'm playing off a backup disc I made because my GDI disc has a massive crack in the plastic. My original intention was to see how the movie files had been integrated into the release and then copy that structure with a disc install, but then I was hit by a wave of laziness and just said "screw it, it works". XD

[Nyerguds]

@Idsertian

The CD installers themselves generally don't perform the DRM checks. it's only the game exe which does that.

[Idsertian]

@Nyerguds

Aye, so it would seem. Anyway, thanks for the info and the chat, man. You have yourself a good day. o/