News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2023.129 (May 9, 2023)

Impressive Lego Fleet Assembled

Here's a grand revisit to some of John Nelson's recent Lego creations. The first couple images show the combined fleet of human fighters. His faithful interpretations of the Broadsword, Ferret, Lance/Dragon, Rapier, Thunderbolt, Hornet, Arrow, Longbow, Avenger and Scimitar are all there. He's also in the process of reimagining a couple of his Kilrathi designs.

2022.129 (May 9, 2022)

Script Exploration Reveals Early Longbow Name

I made two fun discoveries mucking about in Wing Commander III documentation! The first is that the Longbow bomber was originally named the IMPERATOR! This scan is actually from the published shooting script... which is fine, since the name never appears in any dialogue!

2021.129 (May 9, 2021)

Chinese Search Terms to Help Your Collecting Adventures

Here's a great sampling of Asian Wing Commander games that AD dug up while searching various online marketplaces. The majority are Taiwanese, although the Armada there is Japanese. We've posted most of these in various forms over the years, but it's fun to see them all in one place. One that's new to me is the Academy ad with faux cockpit struts added.

2020.130 (May 9, 2020)

BREAKING NEWS: Wing Commander Academy Streaming on Peacock!

NBC will be rolling out a new streaming service this year, Peacock, and early reviews have revealed a surprising addition to their content library! Although the system fully goes live July 15, Comcast Xfinity X1 and Flex customers have access to a free preview. Videos that highlight what sorts of shows will be included have revealed that Wing Commander Academy made the list! It's right there between Will & Grace and World of Dance!

2019.129 (May 9, 2019)

All Wings Considered - Episode 12 - LIVE!

The latest episode of ALL WINGS CONSIDERED is live now! All Wings Considered is the CIC's first ever streaming variety show which features news, conversation and gameplay relating to our favorite series. This week's Nav Points include: The start of our epic play through of PRIVATEER! Concept art from big name artists Privateer 2 ship of the week: the Kalrechi Never before seen Privateer and WCM materialMissed the stream?

2018.129 (May 9, 2018)

Dragon Con '96 Ad Highlights Farmer Blair

Death^_ tipped us off about a really cool advertisement for Dragon Con 1996 posted by Wade Haddock. The sheet shows off the various celebrities that would be in attendance, including Mark Hamill! Note that this is not "Star Wars' Mark Hamill." In fact, Star Wars isn't mentioned at all, which is funny since this appeared in a Star Wars comic.

Wing Commander Meme of the Day: Doge

2017.129 (May 9, 2017)

EGM: Previews & Cheats

Several weeks ago, we posted a collection of Wing Commander reviews from the heydey of Electronic Games Monthly. Today, we're following that with another two selections of Wing Commander articles. The first is an assortment of previews, which cover Wing Commander and The Secret Missions for the SNES and then Wing Commander 3 for the 3DO and Playstation. Issues included are: October & November 1992 (Wing Commander SNES), September 1993 (The Secret Missions SNES), May 1995 (Wing Commander 3 3DO) and April 1996 (Wing Commander 3 PSX.

2016.130 (May 9, 2016)

WC RPG Refines Missions & Mocks Up Board Layouts

We haven't mentioned his project in a few months, but capi has been relentlessly adding to his WC RPG the entire time. He's spent a lot of effort beefing up encounter scenarios as well as tweaking Kilrathi language sections to match the theme of his "Elegy of Sivar" expansion. There's also been a lot of work drafting the overarching storyline narrative of Bloodeye N'Ryllis. New in this module is a set of nifty Kilrathi battle boards.

2015.129 (May 9, 2015)

Last Days of Denis Loubet's Patreon Vote

Now's your last chance to have a say in former Origin artist Denis Loubet's May Patreon vote. Dedicated fans who pledge toward his art projects have the opportunity to pick three choices for his next major creation. Most of the choices are Ultima-based subjects, but Wing Commander portraits, a Wing Commander / Ultima crossover (Kilrathi in Britannia illustration) and an Ultima / Wing Commander cardboard hero project (miniatures of WC characters and ships) are also on the ballot. Lots of Ultima fans have contributed, but there's definitely a chance that the crossover options could win if a bunch of Wingnuts weigh in by Monday morning.

Comm Relay of the Future: The CIC on Social Media

The CIC's modern social media accounts turned five years old this week. If you're not currently a follower, our Facebook Page periodically posts things like little-known Wing Commander facts and interesting stories that you might've missed. It's also a great way to catch breaking news when it hits. For a more complete picture of the day-to-day happenings at the CIC, visitors can also follow our Twitter or RSS feed to be notified each time we post an update.

2014.129 (May 9, 2014)

Klavs Models Come To Life

At the CIC, we keep close tabs on the Wing Commander(-inspired) modelling work of our community members. Last Wednesday we posted a trailer for the Flat Universe fan game, and the developers hinted that a CIC regular was helping them out with their ship designs. It turns out that none other than Klavs has been working with team Maslas. He's had to tone down the polycount to make the models suitable for realtime animation, but they still look really sharp.

2013.129 (May 9, 2013)

Broadsword Bomber Swoops In

Here's a peek at one of Klavs' next models, the mighty Broadsword! We can't wait to see it side-by-side with the Ferret. The bomber looks massive and powerful from every angle, and the upcoming 3D print should make a great addition to any desk's strike force. There's new accompanying fiction that goes along with this one too, and it's not from Maniac this time!

2012.130 (May 9, 2012)

Super Rapier Models Ready To Go

Klavs has completed design and prototyping of another physical model. His Super Wing Commander Rapier is now available for fellow Wingnuts in 1/600 scale from Shapeways. The image below reveals that, although tiny, the ship packs some incredible detail - very distinctive hull markings and guns! Klavs has also hinted at what ship might be next...

2011.129 (May 9, 2011)

Are You Mutant Enough?

Joe recently found some cool print advertisements from WarTourist. There's a handful of Origin ads from the late '80s to mid '90s. The WC4 promo highlights some of the gushing critical acclaim that the game received. There are also scans of Origin's other science fiction franchise, Space Rogue, as well as Chris Roberts' first Origin game, Bad Blood.

2010.129 (May 9, 2010)

Evaluate the Evolution of WC Saga Textures

The WC Saga team has posted an update on the evolution of Confederate ship textures. The game has gone from a worn down look to a more polished style with a layer of shine on top. Despite the lack of updates this year, the team is still pushing ahead and hopes to reach a testing phase soon. Check out the feature here.

MechWarrior 4 Released for Free

A few months shy of the tenth anniversary of its release, MechWarrior 4: Vengeance has been released for free at MekTek. The game featured hot graphics for 2000, a cool story mode and some really fun multiplayer. Customizing your big robots was also always an engrossing part of the MechWarrior games too. How is this news to us?

2009.129 (May 9, 2009)

Prophecy Enhancement Pack Reminder

HCl's Prophecy Enhancement Pack is an awesome thing. It runs WCP in high resolution, adds online multiplayer, allows DVD quality videos to be patched in and fixes bugs that were part of the original game. If you experience crashes while running install.exe in the Enhancement Pack in Windows Vista, unzip install_gui.

Making the Game: Script VDUs

Another script -- this time the 'story'-related VDU segments. It's interesting that these are separate; presumably they're filmed in the same way by the same group of people as the regular script.These updates are thanks to John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel, who provided several CD image archives of material used by the Wing Commander Prophecy development team!

2008.130 (May 9, 2008)

Expanded Ascii Sector Released

Chris Knudsen has brightened our day with a surprise release of Privateer Ascii Sector version 0.3.1. A big new addition is the introduction of character combat.

Making the Game - Part 4

Today we have an important starting point for Wing Commander V/Prophecy: the original set of requirements for the "Wing Commander Editor", which became something called MED. The team realized that if they spent time to create an easy-to-use mission layout tool at the start of the project, then later development would go much more smoothly. Unfortunately, MED was never released to the public - so we can't say whether or not the goals set forth here were accomplished. One interesting thing to note is the inclusion of Playstation functionality - the same tool would have been used for both the PC and (aborted) Playstation version of the game.

2007.129 (May 9, 2007)

BREAKING NEWS: Four New Arena Movies

Hot on the heels of their Sean Penney interview, the guys at Game Informer have posted four new Wing Commander Arena videos! The files, available here, are the first we've seen of the game 'in action' in quite a while - and it's looking very polished! The second video even shows the new 'first person' camera angle in action! Check them out:Video #1 - "Melee" (17.

They Saved Kane's Brain

GameSpot has posted an article on Electronic Arts'quarterly financial data. The best news relates to Command and Conquer III - the article quotes EA's CFO as saying that it has been a succesful relaunch of the classic series:Though he didn't give sales figures, EA CFO Warren Jenson did say during an analyst conference call that Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was a 'successful relaunch' of the series. According to NPD data, the game has sold more than 128,000 copies on the PC in the US; an Xbox 360 version was released today.This is especially important for us because the C&C relaunch seems to be the pathfinder for EA's recent renewed interest in Wing Commander.

Ode on a Confederati-urn

Recent poster frostytheplebe (not to be confused with Frosty) has a neat art project to show off: a painted clay model of the third TCS Concordia (Confederation-class, CVS-65).

2006.129 (May 9, 2006)

DragonCon Ticket Prices Increase Next Week

Each year time seems to move faster, and somehow we're less than four months away from our annual trip to DragonCon. People who are considering attending have until May 15 to get their event passes for $60. The price jumps to $70 after that. Tickets into the convention are one of the cheaper costs to consider after travel and hotel bills are worked in.

GameTap Bringing Back Old Series With New Episodic Release

It's only Tuesday, and there have already been tons of amazing announcements out of this week's annual Electronic Entertainment Expo. It's hard to sift through the deluge of information being presented, but there are a few hidden gems that might be relevant to our cause. There hasn't been a lot of news on Wing Commander Privateer's addition to the GameTap service since it was revealed a few months ago, although the site's actual website front page now features a screenshot of Privateer in action. On the bright side, the company has just announced that they will be co-publishing a new game in the Sam & Max series.

2005.129 (May 9, 2005)

Check Out Howie's Incredible Salthi

Howard Day has recreated another fabulous ship from Wing Commander 1. The Salthi now joins his Hornet and Dralthi in the high quality realm. He is still tightening it up, but we expect the completed model to be released soon.You can grab a three megabyte clip of the ship in motion here.

IGN Has Cool Sim Reviewers

Back in the day, Wing Commander fans used to find comparisons to their favorite series in virtually all space and flight simulator reviews. Although it's not quite as common these days, it's still nice to see references to "Maverick and Bossman" tossed around in brand new sim reviews. LeHah caught this mention at IGN's Ace Combat 5 review.Kindly, Ace 5 makes up for Captain Snow and Captain Chopper's idiocy by at least recognizing the accomplishments of the player and his or her squadron.

2004.130 (May 9, 2004)

Last Vearrier Auction Reminder

Just a heads up to everyone interested in Mark Vearrier's latest set of Wing Commander auctions that bidding ends later today! The lot includes a number of shirts, patches and best of all the head of the Kilrathi Emperor from Wing Commander III! You can find details on all of the items here or a complete eBay listing here.Good luck -- and can we see some love for the keyboard frame?

Holding The Line, Chapter 182

Raptor has the latest chapter of Holding the Line for us:Hey all, Raptor here.HTL continues with part eleven of the Into The Inferno series, written by yours truly. (And if you're getting a little tired of stories written by me, this is the last one for a few months, I promise. *G*) At the end of the last chapter, all the loose ends were being tied up before the big battle.

2003.129 (May 9, 2003)

Wing Commander Car Decals Creation & Final Product

Castle over at Crius has gone through the process of designing, creating and applying neato Wing Commander decals to his car. We have a few pictures of his designs in progress and then some final shots of them in action. This is dedication! Don't mind the snow on his '96 Dodge Stratus (shhh..

Crazy Top 100 Lists

Wow, I'm amazed. IGN's Top 100 counted down its final day today. While I'm not surprised the majority of the top ten were first party Nintendo titles, where's the Wing Commander? Even their earlier WC2 writeup mentions WC3 as the peak of Wing Commanderdom.

WCPolaroids: Stiletto (1/8)

OMG hi2u!!

2001.129 (May 9, 2001)

SWC Ship of the Day: Bengal

First the Tiger's Claw, and now this! Wait, this is the Tiger's Claw... it's just eerily familiar in a different way. Anyway, thanks to popular demand, here's the SWC Bengal...

The Kilr-ipoff Invasion

Apparently sporting a heavy feline coat is all the rage this season -- the Kzin-rathi look is in-vogue! TC reports that both Wizardry 8 and the Shadows of Luclin addon for EverQuest will be featuring... well, Kilrathi...First up, Wizardry 8 -- with this blurb from PC Gamer...

Huge Tiny Fleet

DRAsvitt has been very, very hard at work on physical models of Wing Commander ships -- he's made 44 of them in Micro-Machines style, using using Sculpey III clay. Check it out... this is incredible!

Life Immitates Art

Here's a pair quotes from a story at CNN that just hits a bit close to home...The Space Commission report issued in December warned that the increasing reliance on space satellites is leaving the United States vulnerable to a "Pearl Harbor in space."There are nations out there that are hostile to us and they are in space. They have such weapons as lasers, anti-satellite weapons and electromagnetic pulse weapons and we have to be ready to recognize that threat," Smith warned.

300 And Counting!

Our music petition has more than three hundred signatures! If you're interesting in buying a Wing Commander 1 & 2 soundtrack CD, add your name today!

BLHQ Provides Krak

TrashCan, of the Black Lance HQ RPG club, has rendered a movie of their Vesuvius class carrier (the Krakatoa) jumping in... you can download it here, for just under a meg.

RPG.De

Admiral Jumpstar asks that we mention his online Wing Commander RPG: it's located at www.wc-rollenspiel.de, and has been providing Germans with the Wing Commander roleplaying experience for four years! Check 'em out...

Bex Beer and Cats

Cats, the famous musical, is turning twenty, with a special photo call featuring the original cast... but what does this have to do with Wing Commander? Apparently Brian Blessed, Privateer 2's beer-guzzling religious figure, was part of said cast! Read all about it in this article at iWon.

2000.130 (May 9, 2000)

The New Questions Are Here

Week 75 trivia questions are in.Q149: What was something notable about the Omega ship?Q150: What was something notable about the Vatari craft?B75: What was something notable about the Gladius?

It's About Time We Got One of These

Beth of ATFW has written up a good review of Starlancer. Good in the sense that it doesn't overly and needlessly compare it to Wing Commander, credits Warthog, and voices some good points of critique. An excerpt from the article:There seems to be a definite lack of build-up in Starlancer, which is not a big surprise considering the small number of missions in the campaign. Although the plot works in a general sense, you cannot help but wonder how much better and more intense the game could have been with more thought put into the story and with the inclusion of a greater number of missions.

Scorching Weather Results in Drought

Tony Knox comments. While the inhabitants of Hermes have been rejoicing for the past few weeks at the huge amount of sunshine they have been receiving, it has caused several problems. Most importantly, water reserves have been hit hard by the increased use of swimming pools, irrigation and external hydroponics, and supplies are getting low. Local water authorities are offering excellent prices to any trader willing to import new stocks.

1999.129 (May 9, 1999)

Trivia Milestone

The new alt.games.wing-commander/CIC Trivia turned twenty-five weeks old today. Five people have played each week (Philip Langdale, Midnight, Raptor, Peekaboo and Dexter) and dozens more play regularly.