@antrad Nice idea!

In my case, not being English my native language, and having many difficulties compared with my peers, I had a hard time understanding what I was supposed to do, or how to play properly. The box was translated, but not the game. This meant that I only played skirmish missions, especially the ones were mining, researching or building are not reqired.

I moved several times, and the game stopped working on newer operative systems; since I was not tech-savvy to know that that could be solved, I discarded it, with sorrow, partly because I was never able to really enjoy it.

Several years later, after becoming the best student of my English class, I was able to navigate the Internet without my long-lasting language barrier. I could learn faster about things that are unavailable in Spanish even today. Hence, out of curiosity, I looked for it, and found the old forum. I downloaded the demo, and finished it, but was unable to make the full game work. Time passed by, and the forum died and resurged from the ashes. This time, however, things turned out differently... not only I managed to download it and make it work with the help of this forum, I finished it.

It was a delightful, yet challenging experience. Nostalgia was replaced by fulfillment. But now, longing seems to strike back. Will MACHINES 2 come to life? I think that it can occur sometime in the future, but first, we have to learn a certain set of skills.

I believe that this game was not only a pioneering product, too advanced for its time, but also an excellent example of how good design can convey a backstory beyond the explicit one. There are some clues throughout the game that could explain why the machines' designs or architecture look like that, how were they programmed, and why there is not a single trace of humanity.

Also, the game presents some elements that, to me, are references to previous science fiction works, making the game more interesting.

@lew
WOW!!! We were originally the bad guys! The Red Race was truly malfunctional after all:

"Years passed and one race of machines on the planet Eden 4 suffered severe damage due to electrical storms. Most of the controller’s memory was damaged but the controller continued to function. The damaged machines continued to build until they exhausted all of the resources on Eden 4. The planet surface is now littered with steel and the controller decides that to further colonize, it must seed another planet. The planet they reach already is home to another race of machines, and a fierce battle for the planet’s resources begins."

Initial set of sketches (I couldn't scan them because the sketchbook is too big, sorry).
Any opinions are welcome!

That's an interesting concept! It has been used in many movies, but I haven't seen it in videogames. I haven't seen it in the old forum either.

Examples:

Movie: Battle LA: 2011 (drones can engage and disengage with each other).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNKcC83BNwM

Movie: Transformers 2 (Constructicons "assemble together to create" Devastator).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2FVerfe3r4

Movie: Terminator Salvation (moto-terminators are deployed by the harvester; the hunter-killer and the hervester are deployed from the transport as well (not in the video)).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq8BlVT4KtY

Real military concept developed by BAE systems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re29lqCEtpc

etc.

I'll see if I can do some sketches!

@Mordakai95
Press the "S" ;)
http://www.machinesthegame.co.uk/

Don't worry, we'll rebuild Eden 4:

THIS SECTION IS CURRENTLY UNDER DEVELOPMENT

Official websites of the game:
http://www.machinesthegame.co.uk/
http://web.archive.org/web/20021013193250/www.acclaim.com/games/machines/

Interview with the game producer:
1/2
http://web.archive.org/web/20010809054032/http://www.acclaim.com/games/features/machines/Interview032099.html
2/2
http://web.archive.org/web/20010620211100/http://www.acclaim.com/games/features/machines/Interview032099-part2.html

Website of an animator of the game; it contains animated gifs and videos (scroll down a bit to see them):
https://web.archive.org/web/20040807141946/http://hogton.com/animation/index.htm

Blog of one of the artists that made concept art for the game:
http://scribblejosh.blogspot.com/2011/02/get-back-grandma-this-technology-will.html

Official review with a different backstory (interestingly, the timeline changed only for human history, but not for the events directly related with the Machine War; however it is relevant for the period of time in which the machines awaited mankind's arrival, since in the final version it was 400 years):
http://web.archive.org/web/20021001165452/http://www.acclaim.com/games/features/machines/itsAllAboutMachines041099.html

Screenshots found on the box and more:
https://www.ign.com/images/games/machines-pc-9948

The storyline changed throughout development prior to the final release of the game: humanity's fate seems to be unknown in the final version of the storyline, whereas in the game's box it is stated that mankind is extinct by the year 2545. However, a booklet that came with the game states that in the year 2109 humanity began the manufacture of the machines, and that contact with Earth was severed, after which four races of machines were developed. Yet, an official review from the publisher differs. This other version sets the beginning of humanity's colonisation programme in the year 2545, with the launch of "probes" (later described as seeding ships carrying seeding pods in the final version); later, in the year 3297, the last World War destroys man, which leaves machines without regular direction and, hence, makes them switch to default software instructions (to continue their work and self-replicate), eventually causing the Machine War due to the Darwinian principles of their algorithm after encountering each other following the expansion of their domains (since the colonisation aimed at many worlds).

Yet again, however, an interview with the game's producer (who replaced another one) reveals another version, which sets the launch of "machine probes" in the year 2171 and our demise in 2173 because of a World War. Also, it is mentioned that machines become self-aware after years of autonomous evolution.

Another version released with the game's earliest demos tells an even more divergent story. The document states that there were different races since the beginning, that the Eden 4 controller "suffered severe damage due to electrical storms", that most of its memory was damaged and that it continued to function until depleting its world's resources, which led to an expansionary quest and its encounter with another race's colony, commencing "a fierce battle for the planet’s resources".

In the end, the instruction manual and the game's official website state that by the year 3297 the Machine War started almost five hundred years ago, and that the machines were instructed to await mankind's arrival "for a further one hundred years" after the "the projected first landing". Prior to all of this, the colonisation programme started in the year 2136, but not the launch of the ships (though that occurred "soon" after that). Also, the uninterrupted spread of the Eden 4 controller's empire lasted for five hundred and sixty years after the first successful landing on its homeworld.

It must be noted that the final version wrote the verb "colonize" with a Z, while the booklet included in the box presents the word "colonise", with an S. This might suggest that the different versions were written by different people, but that is mere speculation.

@martin

https://github.com/markol/machines

"@everyone Hi, looks like things spread quite quickly on the internet. To all those who asked for the source code - I just want to let you know that all formalities with the current game owner have been completed and they agreed to publish it under GPLv3. This applies to code only. Check out NDS fork if you wish:

https://github.com/NightDive-Studio/machines.

Let me know if you need developer access, Pull Request review or something."

(From our Discord server: https://discord.gg/J6e9MsY)

@antrad

Btw, I don't want to rush anything, I was just curios, because these few posts are all public info I know about and it came out of nowhere. I don't use discord, because I don't like the closed nature of it, I am more old-school and hang around public forums like this.

I believe that it would be cool to release stuff publicly, but since @martin was the one who proposed the use of Discord, then some of us moved over there, not replacing this forum, but accompanying him since he showed us promising results. I like to think of Discord as a development site, and this forum as a publication platform. For instance, I am developing lore stuff there, and as soon as I finish, that could be published with the game in the same package, and shared with all the information about the game, and its community.

We tried to do that with Trello a few years ago with @bilal.

So far, we are looking for bugs, doing the lore, and also, someone (I don't remember the username right now) published original images of the old demos.

EDIT

I published here in the forum the lore development done so far.

@Aquarillis said:

Yes I still have it; I can dig it up next time I'm in town. It's part of a pamphlet that has other games advertised in it.

Thank you! It would be nice to recover a piece of this game's history. We could even make a Wiki!

@m-flak Impressive! Thank you for your contribution. It really adds value to the game mechanics!

@drielnox

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/10/classic-3d-rts-machines-wired-for-war-goes-open-source-under-the-gpl

https://lordovervolt.com/machines

https://lordovervolt.com/machines/2

Thank you!

(These links are the ones from that wiki's section.)

@martin

https://github.com/markol/machines

"@everyone Hi, looks like things spread quite quickly on the internet. To all those who asked for the source code - I just want to let you know that all formalities with the current game owner have been completed and they agreed to publish it under GPLv3. This applies to code only. Check out NDS fork if you wish:

https://github.com/NightDive-Studio/machines.

Let me know if you need developer access, Pull Request review or something."

(From our Discord server: https://discord.gg/J6e9MsY)

@Dream-Devourer Hi! You can check our Discord server (we are more active there): https://discord.gg/J6e9MsY

@martin is the one who has the code (same username there) :)

@Takeel Hi! Try asking on the Discord server as well (https://discord.com/invite/J6e9MsY). I don't know how to fix it, but there are others there that could give you a hand!

@Hepativore Hi! I only know about Judas' modding guide in here. But as far as I know, there are no new maps. You can join us on Discord too! There is more activity there.

@WICKED-WAITER Glad to have you around! We have a discord server as well: http://wiredforwar.org/topic/169/wfw-discord

I used to leave some enemy structures so that I could build a pretty base and prepare squads in interseting formations to make cool screenshots. Skirmish, to me, is like a sandbox to play around once you wipe out the enemy, or to witness cool battles without having to build an army.

@wildh0rse Did you make it? :)

@antrad Now I see. I thought it was for something like a hill only.