What is, and why is uRA?

In a nutshell, as a mod RA Unplugged reaps the feature benefits of its parent project development, OpenRA, with the opportunity of promoting features and reach towards goals primarily for its own benefit, as opposed to being a modder friendly developer platform.

Farewell, my sweet

Branching out from the RA mod of OpenRA, RA Unplugged continues on a path that's allowed OpenRA and its default mods to be enjoyed by thousands of players and sprawled a much dedicated and vibrant online community. In over 10 years of development the flagship mod of OpenRA has experienced a slow, but steady progress year by year that eventually allowed for a more complex structure to be explored in-game while simultaneously developed user friendly features that served to sustain and grow more activity and contributions beyond the core game development.

As a mod developer platform the later part of OpenRA's development on content, related to gameplay and features, started experiencing difficulty filling the gap between its developer and player communities. A growing demand of incorporating competitive player activity and discussion with the project highlighted a lack of structure available to deal with this type of growth, resulting in open hostility to where contributors were unable to accommodate or approach certain demands.

As an open source project OpenRA's development hinges 100% on voluntary action, meaning the only tangible benefit of contributing involves affirmation, approval and satisfaction of knowing people enjoy your contribution. Positive contribution turns into the only currency in which the direction the project takes and so when there develops a chasm of opinions and personal preferences, the open source project experiences difficulties unparalleled with that of a business or corporation.

A new hope

RA: Unplugged, adopting its name merely for description sake (at least for starters), points to the detachment from its parent project and the freedom to move forward on its own accord. Simply stated it means building on the formula that benefits itself regardless of compatibility with other mods or future mod development.

The drawback, at least initially, is the loss of resources and support derived from the OpenRA community built over many years. However, by offering a predictable, and most importantly, proven methodology of developing quality within its gameplay the mod content ought to forward more than enough momentum to succeed, provided the mod is delivered through easy accessibility, variety of gameplay features both off- and online and finally exposed through online media.

The motivation behind such a project is to unleash the true potential of the Red Alert mod's gameplay which according to this author can be done only with a consistent, systematic and uninhibited approach. Dedicated players and contributors should be able to enjoy a sense of progress and predictability, having continuous access to the inner workings of the project that has the mod's gameplay within its center of attention.