Same thing for me here.
I'm a a pretty big nut of C&C games, but the DRM on C&C3 (fantastic game) gave me a ton of greif. I actually had to go and download no-cd images and use damen tools + YASU (yet another secure-rom utility) just to RUN my own game.
My dvd drive struggled to read and pass the dvd check at boot because their dvd was non-standard.
Nothing like having to crack your own game, just so you could play it, then worry that your online account will be banned as a result.
Lets not forget how badly EA made C&C3's online lobby system. For a game that aimed to please the mutliplayer base, their online interface was terrible.
You were cramped into rooms labled lobby1, lobby2, etc, so joining a room that matched your timezone/region was impossible.
The networking code for making and establishing connections was the worst i've ever seen. Requiring the following ports be opened:
TCP Ports
80,6667,28910,29900,29920
UDP Ports
432,127,900
What a headake to setup your router with, and have fun if you have 2 machines behind the router you wanted to be able to play online with.
Then came the expantion, which was fantastic in terms of gameplay and story, but online got destroyed. There was a sync bug which caused a lot of players to desync. And any game that desynced would be aborted. 2v2 and 1 player desyncs, game aborts for everyone.
EA told us that a patch would be coming in 2 weeks to fix it. But it took them 4 months to release a patch. 4 months where the mutliplayer desync rate was 30%+ screwed up. (In addition to the lobby being as bad as ever)
I lost all respect in EA as a company over that.
Then they decided with their next release of RA3, they would increase the DRM even more. That you'd only be able to install RA3 5 times. After that you'd be screwed.
It was the first C&C game i never purchased, and i can honestly say i'm thankful for that after watching it at a friends place.
The gameplay was annoying. Every unit had to have a special ability, if only for the sake of it. That C&C feel i'd loved since tha days of starcraft were lost.
You could no longer amass tanks... TANKS (solid bricks that you throw at your opponent), but now units which had to be microed on each unit to work. Building on land or water didn't matter, navies could pack up and become an airforce... Nothing made sence, nothing flowed, and everything was micromanagement intensive. (The plot was also very forgetable and childish)
And this is the company that wants to make an MMORPG?
Failed at understanding how to foster a good mutliplayer experance? Check
Failed at timely patching when critrical game bugs are encountered? Check (just wait for when exploits are found)
Failed at developing a fun gameplay experance? Check.
Failed at development of solid networking code? Check.
I will add this since noone else has mentioned it.
C&C might be lacking a lot of lore to start a MMORPG game, but keep in mind they have a FPS shooter tiberium coming out soonish. If they make it like mass effect they would be able to add a ton of lore into the game and give the most basic foundations to starting an MMO with.
But at the same time, if its a popular game, theres a good chance they could get a new following that would be interested in futher exploiting the world of C&C.
If its another renegade where although its a good game, its not popular. Then i'd say the best they could hope for is is to futher milk the C&C franchise.