Waterloos Back In Fashion

Meanwhile Marc is working on creating a model of an internal hangar and is slightly nearer completion. Bob may now integrate Marc's work in to his own model. These shots show the outer hangars, elevators and catapults that open up to the short runways on the Waterloo's flight deck.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everybody! We hope you all have a great time tonight. Try not to get too scared, particularly if you happen to meet Chris wearing his Kilrathi masks in a dark alley.

Gemini Gold's New Galaxy Shaping Up

We would appreciate some feedback and suggestions to improve the final look for the upcoming Privateer Gemini Gold 1.01 patch.

Striker Draws The #Wingnut Crew

Here's a little doodle of the WC fan crew at Dragoncon... I had used reference pictures from 2004 so you'll excuse some of the people who are missing. It was fun to do. Anyways, there's our all star cast!

Get Your Claw Marks Here

Pick Your Upgrade Path

Our new poll asks what sort of system you expect to need for the next Wing Commander game. Wing Commander fans have a long history of making major upgrades for each primary chapter in the series. The first option is a minimum spec that some current games already require. And it's only a matter of time before those same games' recommended specifications will become the future's minimums. The third option pushes the technological envelope another step further, and you have the choice to select a theoretical higher bar if you wish. If you think the next Wing Commander game will only be released for consoles or handhelds (like Prophecy Advance), then the last two choices are for you.

We don't run very many repeat polls, but this one was originally conducted back in the fall of 1999. Less attention was paid to RAM and video card requirements, so we simply gave fans the option of a Pentium 200, Pentium II 350, Pentium III 450 and Pentium III 600. The P2/350 won with almost half the vote. The 200 MHz system received almost a third. It seems that the 6% who expected to need a system faster than a P3/600 turned out to be right (or very wrong, since the GBA has just a 17 MHz processor).

Our old poll tried to gauge what non-Wing Commander titles by Origin were the most popular. Strike Commander took the lead, with Crusader in second place. The Ultima and System Shock franchises jockeyed back and forth throughout the poll. Cybermage was apparently one of our worst voting options ever.

Wing Commander Mods for Space Empires IV Available

Wing Commander Confederation by Shapeshifter
The Confederation was made by the so called Human race. They have a pronounced history of killing each other that stretches back to the beginning of their race. As a result, they have become extremely proficient in the art of war. Humans are a peacefully aggressive species interested in expansion and exploration of the unknown.

Get Close To Mars

Flight Commander 1.3 To Implement Advanced Scripting

Flight Commander 1.3 will definitely feature advanced scripting capabilities. Advanced users of Flight Commander 1.3 will be able to write missions with the same complexity and sophistication of most Prophecy missions. I've already implemented the scripting features needed for missions, and have integrated this support into the Flight Commander engine. Now, I'll be writing a short series of interesting mission scripts to exercise and demonstrate how to use the new mission scripting features.

For example, this feature will allow missions with time constraints, as well as cargo inspection runs, and multiple waves of ships launching from carriers. Mission designers can spawn any number of new ships in the middle of a mission. Also, a more detailed debriefing screen has been implemented, which is fully controllable from scripts.

Wing Commander Doomed To Be Mentioned

"Wing Commander" was next in the lineup. This time, executives actually managed to persuade known actors to star in the film. Freddie Prinze Jr. and buddy Matthew Lillard joined up for some space fighter action.

But the movie sequences in the game were better than the disjointed garbage put together for the film. Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) starred as the main character in two of the games and did a much better job than any of the film version's actors.

+2 Helm of Fighterpiloting

Since I ordered one of the flight suits, I was wondering how much of an interest there was for a Wing Commander Confed-style helmet for people?

Examples of the style I'm talking about can be seen here:

I've contacted a local vendor here in Atlanta who is willing to create the necessary mold (currently, we're pricing this around $500 for the inital mold, which would be good for the production of around 50 helmets), and then create individual custom fiberglass helmets. They would be wearable (using the base interior materials from a generic motorcycle helmet), though certainly would not be certified for use as anything other than strictly a novelty item.

My thought was to leave the basic helmet painted the white primer, and then either someone could stick a decal logo on it, or have it custom painted themselves. We could go ahead and have the two basic red stripes painted on them, though. There's also the idea of having Diamondback, Black Widow, and Wolfpack emblems printed as decals, but that's still up in the air until we can gauge some sort of demand for these.

With the base materials, labor, shipping, and whatever else will go into producing one of these, the current estimate price for one would be between $125-175 per helmet (subject to change, based on material costs), and would likely be finished in time for Dragon*Con 2006. Let me hear your feedback about this.

This Really Puts Us On The Map!

Frosty, Halman and I were bored on a sleepy Tuesday afternoon, so we decided to plot Wing Commander characters' home towns on a Google "Frappr!" map. You can find our little map here. All the cool kids are, no doubt, using this tool to plot their MySpace box socials... but like all technology, it is most pure when adapted for uses Wing Commander in nature. It seems to be half tool and half Wikipedia... so if you come across any other characters from Earth, be sure and add them.

The map currently consists mostly of Wing Commander I and Wing Commander Prophecy wingmen... since they're the ones who have bios that list their home cities. It actually has two birthplaces for Knight, as the editors responsible for the SNES port decided that Angola was a more appropriate home than South Africa. It's kind of fun to see characters laid out like this... for instance, Captain Johnny's Prophecy counterpart, Majestic, is from the heart of Africa. Who knew?

Bringing Up The Big Guns

Origin of Plunkett
For the origin of Plunkett Class, I was hired on to do WC Online which I thought would be the coolest thing ever until it was cancelled. While I was waiting for WC Online to start up I was put on Secret Ops and asked to a do a cruiser. It was my first WC ship and I was really intimidated. The ship designs for WC are fantastic.

So I concepted a ship based on WWII Destroyers and after a couple of revisions with Mark Vearrier came up with this final design. I have always been a big Battle of the Planets fan and so I though a Space Cruiser needed big triple gun turrets with lots of little "AA" Turrets, to give it the WWII Yamato feel (I think the Plunkett has more turrets than any other ship in the game).

Anyway I went way way over budget on the polygons putting those turrets on. Originally the Plunkett had more Point Defense Turrets on it, but I had to trim them off to get it down to only way over budget. But when the Designers saw the ship they wouldn't let me take any more turrets off, so it shipped considerably over budget.

The designers loved it so much that they named it the Plunkett, and then put two or three of them in almost every mission that they could, which at the time was really pushing the hardware.

-------------------------------
The story behind the renders is sadder

When Origin/EA cancelled the Wing Commander series there was a period of about two months where I had no work, so I worked on my Demo Reel and made the screenshots and AVI's that you found on my website. When the layoffs came I was the only person left out of the entire team and was sitting in my office in a dark hallway working on the screenshots that you see. Later that week I was moved upstairs to work on A-10 with Andy Hollis which was another failed title that offered a lot of promise.

I may or may not have the source art for the ship since it was done in a period of transition from Unix on SGI's to Windows on PC's. But I think they are all in Power Animator and so are essentially lost.

I Sanger, That Is To Say I Songed Her

Music4Games: What was the project which caused you to "break through" into a career in game music?

George Sanger: 1983: Thin Ice for Intellivision, then Wing Commander, and then The 7th Guest. Each was a breakthrough to a new level.

... Usually the composer just falls back on copying the style of somebody whose music the client likes. If that's exciting to the musician (as it was to Team Fat when we were the first to imitate John Williams for the game Wing Commander) then that's kind of cool. But that's not enough, you have to do something noble, something elevating, something beautiful, within that context.

Classic Murphy Art For Your Wall

From Roger Wilco To Zach Colson

Lost Vale Partially Uncovered

A great eBay auction has concluded, surely to rank among the great eBay auctions of all time. A prototype box for the The Lost Vale has been sold for the whopping sum of $1,923. You can view the auction details here.

Origin developed The Lost Vale as an add-in for Ultima VIII: Pagan. In the tradition of The Forge of Virtue (Ultima VII) and Silver Seed (Ultima VII Part 2), Lost Vale would have added a new adventure complete with extra monsters, artwork, land area and story to the game. Citing low sales for Ultima VIII, Origin opted to cancel the project near the end of its development cycle. Many believe that a functional version of the game still exists - it is considered perhaps the Holy Grail of Ultima fans.

There is a very similar story for Wing Commander fans: in 1995, Origin developed Wing Commander 2 for the SNES. The port featured a different style of more action oriented gameplay and a series of fascinating changes (including Ferrets with two VDUs and full color comm images). Unfortunately, business sense prevailed - in 1995, the SNES was on its way out, and the especially large game would have used a particularly expensive to produce type of cartridge. Wing Commander 2 was completed, shipped to Pony Canyon in Japan and never seen again.

Congratulations to the new owner of an empty box! Here's to hoping we all find our missing games someday.

Beyond Chromart

DooM to Death

This weekend marks an event that gaming veterans of the 1990s all assumed would never happen: the release of the DooM movie. CIC DooM Spinoff correspondent Asher Frosty Lawson says the movie is a must see... and pretty much every movie reviewer in the world says it is not. We've all heard that before, though! More importantly, however, DooM brings 1999's Wing Commander movie to the minds of many reporters assigned to cover it. Here's three recent DooM articles that discuss our film:

Tacoma News Tribune - Big-screen 'Doom'

Wing Commander (1999) Two words: Matthew Lillard. That should be enough to keep you away from this bomb about a team of space flying aces. No? Then how about Freddie Prinze Jr.? I always thought female lead Saffron Burrows would have made a good Lara Croft, though, given the same upper-body digital enhancement Angelina Jolie received.

Any attempt at giving Maniac from "Wing Commander" a fully fleshed-out personality in a movie seems almost as silly as sticking a car chase in "The Hours." But leaving the characters without any personality or depth makes for a bland, nonstop-action pic — and that's no good, either.

But whereas the dire movie versions of Super Mario Brothers, Wing Commander and Resident Evil all represented some attempt to force the game universe to conform to cinema's rules, filmmakers are increasingly willing to let the dynamics and imagery of gaming dominate.

What a Difference a Day Makes

New 'Murphy' Class Destroyers

Yesterday's update about the high resolution Plunkett-class Heavy Artillery Cruiser model was only half the story! Her celebrated sister class, the Murphy Destroyer, also has a FMV-quality model.

Veteran Wing Commander artist Sean Murphy developed the model on his own... and it happened to fit right in with the plan for Secret Ops, which was originally going to re-use the Coventry-type Destroyer seen in Wing Commander III and IV. His online portfolio includes these impressive shots of the full scale model:

Even In Deathmatch There Can Be Victory!

I've been tinkering with the Hammer world editor for source as a diversion between bouts of video editing. So far my efforts have resulted in this really lame deathmatch map. Obviously it needs a lot of work and will include flight control rooms and stuff. They're there already... I just need to make doors. The scale is screwed up as I was guestimating but I now have a better sense of the scale the editor creates. The textures need help and the geometry need to be made more interesting. Also the space needs populating with scale fighter models and ordinance.

Fabulous Art By Plunkett Revealed

Wing Commander Spotted In The Daily Poll

Meet The Man Beyond The Mask

Games Do Make Good Movies

Plot: Freddie Prinze Jr. battles giant cats in a space dogfight.

Budget: $30 million.

U.S. gross: $11.5 million.

---

In fact, every movie that has been made from a video game has been an exercise in cultural lobotomization.

The problem rests in its very premise. It's trying to assign a story line to something that has none. It's choosing something popular that has a built-in audience - a coveted demographic, teenage boys - and giving it a narrative form.

Holding The Line Chapter 206

Hey all, Raptor here

HTL continues with the third part of Check And Mate, a four parter jointly written by myself and Joe "Wraith" Guida. As you saw in the past two chapters, Battlegroups Valkyrie and Rapier had begun co-operating to stop a pair of enemy carriers that had broken through the defensive line. A strike launched by the Yorktown had just made contact with the enemy. This story picks up from there. Please send any and all comments to me or to Joe at captpowell1@earthlink.net

The story is at: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~theraj/archives/ch206.htm

The Holding The Line Dot Net Site is coming along well. Redoing the site in two resolutions has put us behind schedule at little, but we're taking the opportunity to add new features like a search facility and site map. We're also adding over a hundred non HTL stories to the Aces Lounge section.

Best, Raptor

Put A Victory On Your Desktop

Saga Turns The Flashlight On

Thanks for your continued interest in WC Saga. We are building this mod to make it as enjoyable as possible for the fans. I have been a part of the play-testing team, and in my opinion you will think that the wait has been well worth it. We haven't forgotten you, our encouraging fans. Keep the faith, good things are coming soon!

Freddie Sitcom Premieres On ABC

Four women to every man are great odds when you're a single guy out on the town, but not ideal when it comes to your living situation. Freddie is a young, successful chef with his own restaurant and a stylish bachelor pad. The world should be his oyster at this stage in life, but bachelorhood isn't working out exactly as he envisioned.

Here are a bunch of screengrabs from the premiere for all you Freddie fans: 01 - 02 - 03 - 04 - 05 - 06 - 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17.

Armada Online Patch Updated

I've been getting more interested on the pre-Vision WC games lately, so I'll be revisiting a few ideas on my ever-growing "to do" list involving one of these games. This means that I will probably be halting Armada-related modding in the near future. I'll keep you up-to-date regarding any developments.

Help Texture A Classic

A while ago BradMick created a wonderful galaxy mesh but it still does not have an appropriate texture. Look at this beauty, she needs your help!

Examine The Evolution Of Space Sims

Check Out More CICs

Wing Commander Fan Project Heads To The Nintendo DS

Steven Spielberg Teams Up With EA

"It's incredibly exciting to be collaborating with Steven Spielberg," noted Neil Young, VP and Studio Head at EALA. "He shares our vision for the potential of the medium and has the passion and creativity to help us finally deliver on the promise that a game can not only engage and compel you with its interactivity, but can also move you emotionally."

Gemini Gold Upgrade Hits Beta

Privateer Gemini Gold 1.01 is ready for a beta test. Due to the rebalancing we've done, extensive testing is needed. The Oxford and Palan missions need the most checking. They should still be hard, but it is possible to complete them.

If you want to test Gemini Gold 1.01, please write an email to priv@solsector.net and we will consider your application.
Note: The Beta will only be available for Windows users who need to download and install a ~16MB patch. We will launch the Beta in a couple of days.

These screenshots show you the new Tarsus textured by Mamiyaotaru and the illuminated New Constantinople created by Klauss.

Flight Commander Gets Smarter

I've got a first cut going of path following. A path is just a series of points in 3d, and right now ships can follow that path. Eventually paths will be generated for enemies to do loops and other dogfighting maneuvers. Anyway, below is a shot of a ship successfully following the path (lines drawn in white). The little sphere is the predicted ship position in the future. The green line shows the target position the ship is aiming for.

It's Fun To Remember Academy

Hector Paz was paralyzed after successfully placing a satchel charge on one such tank. Although the paralysis was recurring, he was able to hide the disability and join the space forces to become a pilot.

A new alien creature was also added to the universe on this day in 1996, googly eyed sea monsters with a taste for humans and Kilrathi. If you encounter one of these in person, keep your laser rifle handy and head for high rocky ground.

Origin History Examined In Detail

Founded in 1983, Origin was a creature of the dawn. Garriott had already gotten rich in high school, from a game he coded in BASIC in his bedroom and sold in a ziplock bag. Founding Origin with $70,000 in family money, he and his brother Robert created a culture that prized creative vision and expansive, thoroughly developed game settings. The company later took the slogan "We create worlds."

Origin project director Stephen Beeman recalls, "Origin's cardinal virtue was its commitment to do whatever it took to ship the director's vision. We had a motto for it: 'A game's only late until it ships, but it sucks forever.' If the game's creative vision demanded a megabyte of graphics, and the only way to load that into memory was to write our own operating system - " (the dubious "voodoo memory" scheme Origin created in 1992 for Ultima VII: The Black Gate) " - well, that's what we did, and damn the risk to the schedule or the consequences to the budget, not to mention the programmers' lives."

WC Tactics Adds Original Designs

Arrows From Start To Finish

Score A Victory

Striker Mad For Some Razin'

Standoff Episode 3 Under Way

Episodes 2-4 can end in just two ways - either you win the episode and go to the winning path of the next episode or you lose and go to the losing path of the next episode. But inside each episode, there can be a bit of branching depending on the player's performance. This branching doesn't, strictly speaking, affect the ending - it does, however, affect how hard it is to win.

In other words - lose episode 2, you go into episode 3 on the losing path. Lose a few missions on the losing path of episode 3, and you go on the losing path of the losing path of episode 3. From there, you still have a chance to win the episode... but the chance is pretty darn miniscule.

On the other hand, if you win all the missions on the losing path of episode 3, you'll be able to get back onto the winning path for episode 4, though it's still not gonna be easy.

It'll be slightly different in episode 5, though. There, you have three different endings - there's a losing ending, a winning ending, and a middle ending (the middle ending is the book ending - so as you can imagine, we'll be working very hard to make sure that most people never see the winning ending).

Use Ships2 For WC1/2

Celebrate Seven Years Of Secret Ops

2681.105: Krieger was a difficult run. I've never taken down that many carriers in a single system before. How many of these things are there? I want Maestro to shut up with that freaking line of his. How many times must someone say something before they know they shouldn't say it anymore? Anyway, the alien presence in Proxima should be a little weaker for the losses and that should make our job easier. I hope.

That's it. Last log for now. Hopefully, it's not the last forever. Well, given my writing that might not be such a bad thing.

I never think about how embarrassing it'll be when these are looked over when I die.

Just in case: To whom it may concern,

If you're reading this, I've died. I failed on my mission and pray to God that you were able to succeed in my place.

If you're looking at this for any strategic reasons you have wasted a bit of scan time, and I apologize for not being thorough. My logs from Midway should have provided all the tactical information I was capable of giving before just needing a way to get some thoughts out of my head.

Do me a favor, if it isn't too much to ask… Tell my Mother I love her. Also tell Jean Talvert that I'm sorry I couldn't buy her that round of drinks at the beach like I promised.

Man, that's dismal… I better go get in my ship and occupy myself with something I'm good at.

Help Proof Gemini Gold's Instructions

Who Wants A Piece Of The Maniac?

Most people look at me and say “Hey, you look like that dude in Back In The Future! What was his name… Butt?” And I say “Biff,” and they say “Right! Biff!” and I say “I am the guy,” and they say “No, you’re not.”

Aaron Allston Appearing Again

WC Saga Unveils New Website And Trailer

EA Settles Overtime Lawsuit

Under the terms of the settlement, the claims of the alleged class will be dismissed, and EA will make a total payment of $15.6 million to cover all claims by the class members, plaintiffs' attorney fees, any incentive payments to the named plaintiffs and all administrative costs of the settlement. Any portion of the settlement fund that is unclaimed by class members will go to the Jackie Robinson Foundation, a national nonprofit organization that awards college scholarships to minority students, with a preference toward students interested in studying interactive entertainment.

Paladin Loses Hair, Eye

Alexco did a great job converting the original E-Doc into a PDF for everyone. You can download them below.

• Super Wing Commander (Mac) Claw Marks (600 kB)
• Super Wing Commander (Mac) Playguide (600 kB)

A Shaving Off the Old Block
No matter what profession, everyone’s involved in the war ... doctors heal the injured, hydroponic farmers feed the masses, laborers construct new ships and people everywhere lend a hand. Still, the sobering facts remain. Families are wrenched apart as they cross the line from life to death. Wingmen are lost during battle. Friends never come home.

This war isn’t easy on anyone, especially for those who lose loved ones. Still, we’re all finding ways to remember what we’re fighting for.

For example, you may notice a change in some of your comrades’ hairstyles as the war progresses. In memory of family members who have died for our cause, many Confederation pilots are carving ‘memorial shaves’ into their temples. Vowing to keep the bald streaks bare until the war ends, they’re choosing to remember their loved ones by continuing the fight against the Empire.

So next time you see a newly shaven comrade, offer your condolences. And, be sure to count your blessings.

Check Out The Game Controls Section

Come For The Wingleader, Stay For The Intense Ad

After reading the nostalgically inspiring LOAF’s words about WC’s 15th anniversary and the posts that followed, I decided to search in my old stuff. Can you guess what I’ve found? Part of the article that introduced me to this wonderful game called Wing Commander and an advertisement from that time.

Zohrath Scores Again

Zohrath Finishes Model Vaktoth

Happy Birthday Ser Arris

Dragon*Con Gallery Part 7 Online

Time To Order Flight Suits

Flex Tries A Caernaven

CIC News Search Makes Inroads

A search plug-in allows you to access a search engine right from your browser, without having to go to the engine's page first. On Mozilla 1.x, you can access plugins via the Sidebar or the Location Bar. On Mozilla Firefox (formerly known as Firebird), you use the search box on the toolbar.

To install the plugin, click the WC CIC hyperlink at mozdev.org.

Pick Your Favorite Sibling

Our new poll takes one step back from the Wing Commander series and asks which other Origin franchise was your favorite. Bioforge, Crusader, Cybermage, Strike Commander, System Shock, Ultima and Wings of Glory are your prime choices. If you're a fan of Bad Blood, Pacific Strike, Jane's F-15 or any other of Origin's games, hit "Discuss" below and tell everyone why.

Our last poll tried to find out what you thought were the worst disasters in Wing Commander. Before Blair's Love Life started to take the lead, the Inner World Strontium Bursts were in first place. Many people indicated that they voted for this option as a representative for the entire false armistice tragedy and Hakaga invasion fleet. Don't know what all this business is about? You've got some Wing Commandering to do!