Ben - reading through the forums there are a lot of questions about the battlecruisers - Attached are some of the inspirations for the cap ships.The battlecruisers are modeled after the destroyer, but were modified a bit to accommodate game play.
We tried to take characteristics from other popular ships and work them into the designs since we couldn't model all of them.
We discussed frankensteining ships together, two halves of different ships, maybe with bombers "Welded" to the hull as additional engines and navigational thrusters - this was intended as a reflection of the way technology has been knocked back out on the frontier, but in the end went with an "inspired vision" that was more traditionally Wing Commander.
Q. Have you had previous experience with Wing Commander, either as a developer or as a gamer?
A. My previous experiences with Wing Commander were as a player and fan. Being part of the Star Wars generation (aren't we all, really?) I couldn't get enough sci-fi and the WC franchise was a long time companion. I played them and went through more than a few joysticks.Q. How will Arena appeal to existing Wing Commander fans?
A. This was a question we asked ourselves a lot during development as we wanted to ensure we did the IP justice. We balanced that with a desire to introduce the WC universe to new players. We were careful in our selection of ships and queried the WC community on our choices. The ships we used are favorites from across the series, and they are true to the IP in more than just form - function and balance were important considerations. Our goal was to offer a fast-paced fun arcade space combat game to WC fans that would also have broad appeal. And being able to fly Kilrathi ships has me excited as a fan too. It's an Arcade title - so think of Wing Commander Arena as a slice of the Wing Commander experience.Q. Will the game include any familiar Wing Commander elements -- ships, history or the like?
A. Oh yes of course - we've advanced the history in a minor way, and the ships are drawn from across the WC universe, and will be familiar to WC fans. We've updated some to fit in with the frontier-like atmosphere of Arena. For Example:
The A-17 Broadsword Executioner: The Broadsword was first constructed for planetary bombing raids during the Pilgrim War, and was soon adapted to carry torpedoes. Lightly armored but sporting heavy weapons and good missiles as well as a deployable turret and a tractor beam, this bomber is perfect for taking on small, quick fighters.
And
The Dralthi IX Rhino: By far the heaviest Dralthi ever constructed, the Rhino is the equal of the Vaktoth or the Hhriss. Heavily armored and armed, with moderate speed and maneuverability, the Rhino hits hard and keeps on hitting.Q. When and where in the Wing Commander universe is the game set?
A. The Epsilon Sector, 2701. The Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi Assembly of Clans have beaten back the Nephilim hordes, but at a terrible cost. As the shattered governments focus on rebuilding the core worlds, the frontier has descended into lawlessness. Regional governors hold power through force of arms, as humans and Kilrathi alike fight amongst themselves using the weapons of the last war. Privateers, outlaws and worse take advantage of the situation, eager to make a quick credit in the galaxy's most volatile arena...Q. Can we expect to see any promotional tie-ins with Arena... web presence, Gamer Pics, XBox themes, etc.?
A. All good ideas
Xbox Live Arcade, it's a great platform, it is very innovative, and we wanted to do a space shooter and we wanted to get on to Arcade. Everyone loves Wing Commander, I certainly do, and we were excited about the thought of putting Wing Commander IP with a 16-player action space shooter. So we've got a single player experience and a multiplayer experience. In the single player experience you can unlock ships by playing through a variety of modes. We have training modes, melees, a couple special modes where you're just blowing up asteroids, others that are just total mayhem, and those go on to leaderboards that go online, but I think where the real meat of it is is the, the online play. We've got sixteen player gameplay, which includes 8 on 8 team play or sixteen player free for all play. We also have one on one duels. And we have a specialized arena called the Bearpit where you can have two people go into the pit while the other fourteen wait outside and they can do all sorts of things like shoot at each other or play minigames or shoot inside the Bearpit. We've got capital ship versus capital ship, and there's going to be a lot of strategy there. We've got a capture the flag mode called satellite and then in the free for alls it's, you know, pick your favorite ship and take on the world and we've got specialized environments for them all.So what we've got in the capital ship versus capital ship is you, you choose a side. You choose to be either Kilrathi or you choose to be human, and that's something you couldn't actually ever do in any of the previous Wing Commander titles. You couldn't play the Kilrathi, and we have nine Kilrathi ships that you can choose from and nine Terran ships that you can choose from. So you choose a side, and each side has their own capital ship, and each capital ship has three levels. On each level there are a series of turrets and missile launches which will be firing at you as you try to destroy them. If you destroy all of the devices and weapons on one level of the capital ship the capital ship actually drops down a level allowing you to then destroy all of the devices and all of the weapons and laser turrets that are on the second level of the ship. If you accomplish that the ship drops down to the final level which is the bridge. Once you destroy the bridge, the ship will break into three pieces and blow up, and you have won the game. So, so your goal in the game is to either attack the capital ship or defend your own capital ship.
So there's eighteen ships total. Each race has three base ships: a light fighter, a heavy fighter and a bomber. Each of the base types has three variations. So, one of the things that the original Wing Commander did was it allowed you to upgrade your ship, and when you upgraded your ships armor, for example, you would get better armor. You wouldn't get more of it, it would be a different alloy. It would be supersteel or duralloy or plasteel or these types of things, but in an arcade game, it's hard to communicate that visually, because arcade games are very visual games, it's not a first person shooter. So what we wanted to do was change the silhouette of the ship, so when you get an armor upgrade for your Arrow it takes on a different silhouette. It gets more armor. So there's three variations of the Arrow, three variations of the Rapier and there's three variations of the bomber, the Broadsword, and on the Kilrathi side it's the same thing. We've got the light fighter, the Darket, the heavy fighter, the Dralthi, and the heavy bomber, the Paktahn, and there's three variations on each one. It's a bit rock paper scissors. You can destroy a heavy bomber with your light Arrow, but you're going to have to play pretty carefully.
Three different types of pickups. There's regenerative pickups which will heal you or it will refill your missiles. Pickups that will enhance you, things like Hammer Shot or Cheap Shot which means it increases the damage you do or it increases your speed or it allows you to fire more often and then a third type of pickup we have is special pickup. These are quite rare, but these are things like energy absorption or supershields or wingmen, which gives you a clone of yourself. One to two would fly beside you and mirror all your actions. So if you fire weapons, they'll fire weapons so you can essentially triple your firepower with these guys.
It's an arcade game, so you want people to be able to just pick it up and play it, but it is a Wing Commander title, it is a space combat game, so you want to add some depth to it. So it's pick up and play, but there's layers of depth. It's the old adage that it takes a moment to learn but a lifetime to master, and I don't know if it would take you a lifetime, but there's a whole series of advance maneuvers, there's extra devices, so with the right stick you can do barrel rolls, you can do flips, you can do immelman turns, you can do 180s and different ships have different special maneuvers that they can do. So Wing Commander Arena should be out early summer.
If you want to know how Arena plays, be sure to also read the previews at IGN, ShackNews, Team Xbox and GameSpot. The word is good!The controls for each ship offer a fair amount of functionality. You can strafe, barrel roll and 180 degree turn, allowing you a bunch of options to shake enemy fire. Of course, what type of ship you arm yourself with before you jump into the fight has a lot to do with how effective the movements will be. Each ship is set to offer different amounts of firepower and maneuverability. The math would be as follows: fast ships + light weapons = fast to turn. You get the idea, so we're moving on.
It's hard to know how this game will catch on, as it's the strangest entry yet into the Wing Commander universe. And although this is no space combat simulator, it could be enough to jump-start the franchise once more. It feels like EA is testing the waters again, not only with today's announcement, but with the recent appearance of Wing Commander on PSP in EA Replay. As it stands, Wing Commander Arena is a decent Xbox Live Arcade experience that looks to be best played with friends.
Multiplayer.ro - First Screenshots of Wing Commander Arena MyGamerCard - Wing Commander Arena GamerSquad - EA Official Announce Wing Commander Arena for XBLA Pro-G - EA ConfirmedWing Commander for XBLA GameGuru.In - Wing Commander Arena for XboxLive Arcade Announced Next Generation - New Wing Commander Heading to XBLA GameWorldNetwork - Wing Commander Arena Coming to XBLA Digg - Wing Commander: Arena and Battlestar Galactica WillDukeIt Out You Newb - Wing Commander Arena- Not Just a Rumor Anymore... Phuze - Wing Commander Arena on XBLA This Summer Phuza - Wing Commander Arena to XBLA QJ.net - Wing Commander Arena confirmed for XBLA Uncle Gamer - Wing Commander Arena Coming to XBLA Xboxyde - EA Give You Wing Commander Arena The Firing Squad - Wing Commander Arena Screenshots Xbox 360 Fanboy - Video & Screens of Wing Commander Arena Digg - First Screenshots of Wing Commander Arena Game Info Wire - Wing Commander Arena Bit-Tech - Wing Commander Confirmed for Xbox 360 Games Radar - Resurrection of the Veteran Space Combat Series
How do you create a new game for a franchise that has a hardcore following that pleases the fans and casual gamers alike? That is the question that EA is attempting to answer with Wing Commander, an online 16 player Xbox Live Arcade space shooter due out this summer. The result is an arcade-style game with simple goals that has a surprising amount of depth for a downloadable title.They've also posted five new preview videos! Among other highlights, you'll get your first look at the ship selection screen, which is one of the coolest looking parts of the game...
#1 - "Bring It" - An Arrow in an asteroid field. (19.5mb WMV, 19.2mb MOV)
#2 - "Multiplayer Combat" - Includes ship selection! (38.5mb WMV, 36.9mb MOV)
#3 - "Target Acquired" - CapShip Combat. (23.2mb WMV, 22.9mb MOV)
#4 - "Attack!" - Rapiers in an asteroid field. (44.7mb WMV, 44.3mb MOV)
#5 - "Dusty Rings" - Asteroids Mode. (19.7mb WMV, 19.5mb MOV)
You can find other preview videos at our Wing Commander Arena page. Here's what the new set looks like:
- TG Daily - Wing Commander Makes a Comback on XBLA
- Planet Xbox 360 - Wing Commander to Invade XBLA
- CHUD - Gaming NewsRoundup
- Gametactics - EA Announces Wing Commander Arena for XBLA
- Team Xbox - Wing Commander Arena Screenshots
- UGO - Wing Commander Makes a Comeback
- PALGN - Wing Commander Returns
- iWire - Old Favourites Coming to Next-Gen Console Near You
On the human side, the light fighters are variants on the F-27 Arrow, heavy fighters are models of the F-44A Rapier II, and bombers are based on the A-17 Broadsword. Kilrathi light fighters are modelled off of the Darket, heavy fighters off of the Dralthi, and bombers off of the Paktahn. Weapons too will be familiar, and as in past Wing Commander games the weaponry of the two races largely overlaps. Ships are armed with guns such as the laser cannon, meson blaster, tachyon gun, neutron gun, ionic pulse cannon, plasma gun, and mass driver cannon; heavier weapons include the dart DF (dumbfire, i.e. unguided), javelin HS (heat-seeking), vampire HS, porcupine mines, and lance torpedo.There is no single-player narrative in Wing Commander Arena, though there is a text prologue as well as various bits of flavor text scattered throughout the game to provide context and color for the setting. Despite the lack of a campaign component, there are four single-player gameplay modes.
In the course of a couple of hours, we were able to try out a number of the single-player and multiplayer modes. Most of the action was smooth, despite many of the battles comprised of a dozen people in a confined area, all firing missiles at each other. Frame-rate glitches and camera foibles occurred, but EA Canada’s Penney explained that there’s still time in the development cycle for these to be cleaned up before the game becomes publicly available. While EA hasn’t offered a firm release date, a person close to the project told TeamXbox that it’s being groomed for posting to Marketplace around May. Similarly, no pricing was indicated other than the standard statement that it’ll be in line with other XBLA offerings.
"People talk about Nintendo being innovative with the Wii controller. They ask, 'What's Microsoft's innovation?' Well, I think that their innovation is Xbox Live." The EA designer said that Wing Commander Arena has been in development for eight months. At the beginning, he said, EA was shopping the license around to a number of smaller third party shops. "You know EA, though," he added, "they're very cautious."As for development process, Penney was extremely complimentary of the Xbox Live system, saying that coding has gone smoothly, and that he feels EA's deep pockets will afford the company time to polish its offerings in a way that is not common on the service today.
Penney concluded by suggesting that EA intends to differentiate itself on the service through the quality of its titles and the patience demonstrated in its development cycles - something it is also striving for in the recently announced, Bizarre Creations-developed Boom Boom Rocket, shown alongside Wing Commander Arena.
Wing Commander Arena blends classic arcade gameplay with modern multi-player mayhem.The beloved Wing Commander franchise is back with an all-new game for Xbox Live Arcade. Form a squad, propel your ship through space, fire torpedoes, unleash deadly gravity bombs, and destroy enemy armadas as you try to climb the leaderboard. Online players compete for Frag count, high score and dueling stats. Offline the game offers four modes with online leaderboards where it's pure arcade style competition.
EA launches onto Xbox Live Arcade with Wing Commander Arena delivering 10 minutes or 10 hours of space combat entertainment. With four styles of gameplay players can play in single player mode or play with up to 16 players for an all out online space combat melee.
Wing Commander Arena offers everything a space combat rookie or a veteran Wing Commander pilot would expect from the game: Team Duels, Free for all play, single player modes, 18 different ships within nine environments.
Key Features
# With up to 16 players, Wing Commander Arena offers the largest multi-player melee experience to date on Xbox Live Arcade.
# The classic brand has now been rebuilt to maximize the Xbox Live Arcade feature set while providing the largest modern multi-player arcade experience available.
# 4 types of gameplay: single player, multi-team, multi-player free for all and both one on one and multi-player duel
# 8 maps, including team maps, free for all maps and dueling maps
# 18 ships in nine environments
# 2 Races with 18 ships for light fighters, medium fighter, bombers. Cloaking devices, energy sucking torpedoes, mines, homing missiles, energy weapons and a myriad of other guns, weapons and devices.
Publisher: Electronic Arts Inc.
Developer: Gaia Industries
Ship Date: Late Spring 2007
And just to be complete, here's a collection of articles about the ESRB 'rumor' from the day before:
- Playfuls.com - Wing Commander Arena Confirmed for Xbox Live
- The Game Feed - Wing Commander Flies on Xbox 360
- GameFreaks365 - EA Launches Wing Commander Arena onto XBLA
- GamePro - Wing Commander Franchise Resurrected for XBLA
- Total Video Games - Wing Commander Returns
- TeamXbox - XBLA: EA Announces Wing Commander Arena
- Kotaku - EA: Wing Commander Coming to Live Arcade
- Eurogamer - Wing Commander for XBLA
- CVG Online - EA Brings Wing Commander to XBLA
- Pro-G - EA Confirms Wing Commander for XBLA
- Boomtown - EA Confirms Wing Commander Arena
- TechShout! - Wing Commander Arena Brought to XBLA by EA
- Totally360 - EA Announces Another Upcoming Title for Arcade
- GamesAreFun - Wing Commander Returns, Flies to XBLA
- Xboxic - Wing Commander Arena Announced
- 1Up - Wing Commander Confirmed for XBLA
- Gaming Target - Wing Commander Returns on XBLA
- GameDAILY - EA Rolls Out Wing Commander
- Next Generation - New Wing Commander Heading to XBLA
- DailyGame - Wing Commander Coming to XBLA
- GamingNexus - Wing Commander Coming to XBLA
- GameSpot - Wing Commander Flies to XBLA
- Gamasutra - EA Brings Wing Commander to Live Arcade
- Game Informer - Wing Commander to Return to Consoles
- Ve3d - Wing Commander Arena Announced
- Gameworld Network - Wing Commander Arena Coming to XBLA
- Spong - EA Confirms Wing Commander for XBLA
- Comic Book Bin - Arena Football Arrives At Stores (Really)
- Pro-G - Wing Commander Franchise Rebortn on Xbox 360?
- CVG Online - Wing Commander Jetting to XBLA?
- Boomtown - Wing Commander Coming to X360?
- Play.tm - Wing Commander Returning
- Eurogamer - Wing Commander On 360
- Guardian Unlimited - Wing Commander Returning on XBox 360?
- TeamXbox - ESRB Reveals New Xbox Live Arcade Games
- Fagland - Wing Commander Preparing a Comeback?
- Video Game Blogger - Wing Commander Arena rated for Xbox 360
- Xbox 360 Fanboy - Wing Commander Coming to 360?
- QJ.net - All-new Wing Commander Coming to XBox360
- Siliconera - Wing Commander... Revived on the 360?
- Joystiq - EA Resurrecting Wing Commander on Xbox 360?
- XBLArcade - Wing Commander on the Arcade?
- Blongo - Wing Commander Arena Naar Xbox 360?
Controls in Arena are simple enough to pick up though not without their subtleties. You move your ship with the two analog sticks; the left stick controls your thruster, and the right stick, your steering. Your ship seems basically stuck on a single plane in the game, so you won't be able to approach an enemy from above or below. That said, there are some special maneuvers you can pull off with the right stick when the going gets tough, including barrel rolls, loops, and 180 degree turns, the latter of which is perhaps the most useful. All weapons are fired with the two triggers and the two bumpers on the Xbox 360 controller and while blasters are more or less unlimited (governed only by your ship's energy level), you have a finite amount of rockets. Even so, don't expect to live long in Arena battles--our typical tactic was to face down an opponent and then unload with every weapon we had until we died. You can choose a new type of ship in between spawns if your current ship isn't working out.Lower resolution versions of the movie are available for free, but the 1280x720 is for paying GameSpot subscribers only. Here's what the game looks like in all its glory:
EA Launches Wing Commander Arena onto Xbox LIVE Arcade
Thursday February 22, 1:00 pm ET
Legendary Game Franchise Delivers 16-Player Online Space CombatREDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS - News) today announced the return of its beloved Wing Commander(TM) franchise with Wing Commander Arena in development for the Xbox LIVE® Arcade(1). With up to 16 players, Wing Commander Arena offers the largest multi-player melee experience to date on Xbox LIVE Arcade. The game is scheduled to go live worldwide on the Arcade service in Summer 2007.
Wing Commander Arena is a fast-paced space combat game where players can team up to attack other teams of ships. The game introduces the classic franchise to an arcade-style experience that allows up to 16 players online in battle at once. Players can propel their customized ship through space, fire torpedoes and unleash deadly gravity bombs as they try to climb the leader board. Online players will compete for Frag count, high score and dueling stats.
"We're really excited to deliver unparalleled multi-player arcade action," said Chip Lange, EA Vice President. "The design for Wing Commander will appeal to both long-time fans of the franchise and immediately engage anyone who wants the melee style action of an arcade shooter."
Wing Commander Arena will feature four styles of play: single player, multi-team, multi-player free for all and multi-player duel. Within the game there are eight game maps that include team maps, free for all maps and dueling maps, so Wing Commander Arena offers a gameplay experience for every Arcade gamer, whether they want a quick ten minutes of action or a longer more immersive game.
Wing Commander Arena is produced and published by Electronic Arts and cooperatively developed with Gaia Industries. This is the second EA title for Xbox LIVE Arcade with EA's first title Boom Boom Rocket set to launch this Spring.
(1) Players must have an Xbox LIVE marketplace account to play Wing Commander Arena.
To everyone tuning in following Electronic Arts' announcement of Wing Commander Arena: Welcome to the CIC! We have been a center for the Wing Commander online community since 1995 -- we run daily updates and provide a wealth of archived information on the series and its universe.
To help those unfamiliar with Wing Commander, we have put together a Background Guide.. hopefully it will help explain why Wing Commander is such an important franchise and also offer information on classic releases for those who are curious.
It goes without saying that we will be reporting on the release of Arena to the best of our abilities -- we hope you'll join the community!
1. Go to your profile.
2. Scroll down to "Additional Information".
3. Enter your GamerTag.
4. Save changes.
Your 'tag will appear under your name whenever you post to the Arena message board -- here's to a future when 'Wing Commander' is the most recently played game!
This opens up more than a few questions. First, will the game be a retail release or an Xbox Live Arcade port of an older title? The fact that it's already rated means it must be complete, and we find it hard to believe that a new retail title would have remained under wraps this long. Besides, the ESRB has provided us with plenty of good XBLA leads lately.Note that the ESRB recently rated the unannounced EA Replay 2. We'll have more information on this exciting rumor as it becomes available. Thanks to lxi for spotting this first.
The models in general are made starting from meshes and extracted textures from the original games or mods and add ons for other games. The meshes in different formats are converted to cob format and, if necessary, edited in the software Metasequoia and unfolded in editor Pepakura Designer. Customizations sometime occur with cockpit, landing gear and canopies.
Well, it has been nearly a year but I'm ready to put this project to rest. The movie is finished completely. The changes this time aren't quite as dramatic as between the first two versions.Changes In Final Version - (Length shortened to 1 hour 58 minutes)
There's a few other subtle changes but thats all. It's basically just a fixed up version of the second film, but it does flow better.
- Video converted to standard 16:9 widescreen (without distorting the picture). This to allow better compatibility and so the movie isn't too letterboxed.
- A lot of audio re-dubbed for clearer sound and better transistion between scenes (Annoying pops and clicks etc removed)
- Missions re-edited and some removed, most missions shorter to keep the pace. New background music in important missions and subtitles size decreased.
- Unimportant scenes cut out and a few new ones added
According to producer Aaron Cohen, these updates will represent "the largest investment EA has made in UO since the game launched." Cohen also noted that Kingdom Reborn will launch "this spring," while the Stygian Abyss expansion will launch "this summer."
I was originally planning to work on turrets next, but I think I'll make a basic AI, since I need the computer controlled ships be able to shoot guns and fire missiles for some of the communication (like the taunting "Yeah, you're nailed pal!" when you're hit by enemy fire).
While working on communication, I changed the procedure for landing on planets and bases. Originally, you just had to fly into the planet or base and you'd land. Now you can fly across a planet or base (and fire guns and missiles across it), so that it in a sense it is in the background. When you get close enough, you get the "Entering automatic landing zone" message and can then send a "Requesting automatic landing" message to them. Just like when jumping, your ship will be immobile and beyond your control for a short moment before it lands on the planet/base.
The ESRB database also includes ratings for a few retro collections. EA Replay 2 on the PlayStation Portable--which hasn't been confirmed by the publisher but was spotted at online retailers earlier this year--received a T for Teen, with content descriptors for blood and violence.If the game has already been rated, there's a good chance it will be out very soon -- the original rumors listed a February 19th release date. There's no evidence that Replay 2 will include any Wing Commander games, but ... there's always hope!
The Community Contribution Award is presented to a developer who embodies the spirit of community and encourages improvement among peers. George "The Fatman" Sanger, music and sound designer for more than 250 games, including LOOM, Wing Commander, The 7th Guest, NASCAR Racing, Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo and ATF, will receive this year's award for his development of programs that enrich and encourage advancements within the interactive audio community and industry in general.You can read the entire press release here.Sanger has been creating music and other audio for games since Thin Ice for Intellivision in 1983. In 1991, at the first Spotlight Awards, the Audio award went to Sanger's Wing Commander, and one of the only other two nominees was Sanger's LOOM. At various developer conferences, Sanger has hosted "Demo Marathons" to allow game producers to be exposed to the music of many musicians from all over the world in a single sitting. His writings in his Music and Computers Magazine column, "Ride the Wired Surf," were meant to promote ideals and attitudes that would lead to better music on computers. On the edge of the Canyon of the Eagles over the Colorado River, Sanger hosts both the annual Texas Interactive Music Conference and BBQ (Project Bar-B-Q), the computer/music industry's most prestigious and influential conference. Based on 11 successful years of influencing and galvanizing the audio and technical community at BBQ, in 2006 Sanger hosted the first Project Horseshoe, an intense think-tank aimed at solving game design's toughest problems. Sanger's book, "The Fat Man on Game Audio: Tasty Morsels of Sonic Goodness," is less a technical work than a treatise on the benefits of living creatively and treating people well.
Take for instance the cinematization of Wing Commander a series of games whose major strongpoint was the gripping storyline that played itself out in a series cut-scenes as you progressed through the games. You grew to care about the characters, brought to life in later installments by such wonderful actors as John Rhys- Davies and Mark Hamill, as they battled alongside you tooth and nail( or mass driver cannon, and heat-seeking, missile as the case may be) against the relentless Kilrathi, while each dealing with the harsh realities of war in their own ways. The story driven action is what made the Wing Commander games a hit, yet when Wing Commander the movie arrived in theaters the storyline followed in the games was completely discarded and replaced by a helter-skelter plot about a long lost tribe of discriminated space navigators and a one dimensional, evil alien, crew obsessed with getting their paws on a human navigational computer. None of the games’ actors were even present and those that reprised their roles came off as second rate at best.None were present and those that reprised their roles? Regardless of your feelings about Wing Commander in particular, we have... seen... this... before. Vote accordingly!
HTL continues with the second part of Check And Mate II, written by myself and Joe Guida. As you saw in the last chapter, the Confed pilots were recovering back aboard the Yorktown after their initial strike against the Nephilim carrier, and preparing for the follow up missions. This chapter follows the group who were detached back to the Valeria to help co-ordinate the joint operation. Please send any and all comments to myself or to Joe at captpowell1 at yahoo.com.http://www.holdingtheline.net/800/8ch215.htm
Best, Raptor
To avoid some questions: the colors of Hudson's fighter comes from book II of the "Erwachen" - series. Hudson did his first duty inside the "Red Stars" wing, which is one of the best battle groups from Hades.Here is the earlier ML01 Duress for comparison.
Love Is... the point defense variant of an Arrow V-class light fighter. This year, be sure to take a moment and reflect on all the great stories of true love presented in Wing Commander: Bear and Svetlana, Blair and Angel, Brownhair and Miggs...
Bob: I should emphasize, once again, that the color scheme in this - and in every other version - is purely speculative; we don't actually know what the colors are, and I based the ones here on the flags at the end of Wing Commander IV.
Eternal Vigilance is my adaptation of what I think should have happened a month before and 5 years after Wing Commander IV, this is in no way ‘Canon’ as most Fan Ficts aren’t... So, a few of the things we know in the Wing Commander Series may change. View this, as an alternate reality if you will... I'm just trying to see how this idea would play out, so. Everyone who reads I appreciate any feedback!You can read the short prequel story and the first chapter here. Let him know what you think!Keep in mind since some things have changed, I'm going to write as if Prophecy never happened 'Hence the reason why I number this as Wing Commander V'. The reason being, I have different ideas for what happens before and after TPOF. Firstly Col. Blair was exiled from Con-Fed for being a Traitor, and it was never found out that Con-Fed was starting to become corrupt... So, in fact Con-Fed is now becoming its own worst enemy.
Synopsis: Blair, a fighter pilot, joins an interstellar war to fight against the evil Kilrathi who are trying to destroy the Universe.
Concordia: We’ve detected a pair of Dorkathi troop transports in the system. We don’t know why they have strayed from their destroyer escort, but you and Stingray will intercept them and stop them from rejoining their convoy.Stingray: Roger that, and lemme at ’em, Concordia!
Concordia: Glad to hear your enthusiasm, Stingray. Just keep it under control. We’ve beamed you an updated patrol pattern, putting you on an intercept with the transports.
Maverick: Roger, Concordia. Each of those transports can carry over a thousand enemy troops...
Concordia: Correct, Maverick. Each transport you take out is a thousand troops our Marines don’t have to worry about. We expect that they’ll have a fighter escort, so be careful. The transports are your main targets, so don’t let them escape.
I was attempting to design my own WC themed shirts, and I thought, why be stingy? Feel free to use these to create your own aparrel. Personally, I love my official Confederation panties!
January has seen a lot of progress, and February's started out rather well, too. In terms of missions, we're now almost halfway through Episode 4's winning path, and Quarto claims he's going to get ALL the remaining winning path missions done in February. In the meantime, cutscenes are also doing very well - in fact, they've been notched up to green status on the progress page. Mind you, "cutscenes" on the progress page refers to game engine cutscenes - FMV status is shown under "additional videos", and remains more or less unchanged (...but I'm working on it). In addition, the splash screens you'll see at the end of Episode 4 are also done now.And that's not all - we've also been making a lot of progress in the voiceover department. At long, long bloody last, all the lines to be recorded have been sent out to the actors. One or two people haven't gotten back to us yet, so we may end up having to look for a few additional folks for minor roles (capship comm officers and the like), but most of the others have been promising to deliver their lines in a few weeks at the most. And we're not talking only about Episode 4 in this regard - Episode 5 is being done, too. Hopefully, this will reduce the waiting time between Episode 4's release and the final episode considerably.
The first six are action shots from one of our simulator missions in which the player is desperately trying to save the carrier Ticonderoga from an intense Kat assault. In the next three screenshots (run through an ATI post process filter), some of our nebulae provide a backdrop for a conflict between Confed and Kilrathi capital ships. Confed comes out on top… this time.The Confederate starships are rather dark, but the Kilrathi fighters look very impressive -- it's always great to see a Gothri!
Note that Sarty is still working on testing Privateer 2, but the game already functioned properly during our initial beta trials. We still expect there to be occasional hiccups and issues with specific hardware configurations, but we're quite happy that the new operating system won't hold back Wing Commander fans trying to play their favorite games in the future.
No explanation for the color inversion. Even running in compatibility mode doesn’t seem to fix it, so I’m assuming it is something to do with my hardware.
- WC1 (KS) - Runs fine without compatibility mode activated. Colors invert and stay inverted whenever I alt-tab out.
- WC2 (KS) - Runs fine without compatibility mode activated. No obvious problems.
- WC3 (KS) - Runs okay without compatibility mode activated. Colors invert and stay inverted whenever I alt-tab out. Problems with random colorization, running on Win95 compatibility seems to fix the problem.
- WC4 - Both CD and DVD versions run fine without compatibility mode activated. No obvious problems.
- WCP - Runs fine without compatibility mode activated. Even the typical video-skip bug that I always had was not a problem.
- WCSO - Requires compatibility mode to be activated, Win98 worked fine. No other problems during run through of the game.
- DOSbox works just as well as it did on XP with Privateer, Academy, and Armada.
It is not done yet, but it will show people my progress. I welcome positive feedback about it. I have MUCH to do yet, but I've taken suggestions from many people that want to see what I've done so far... Things to do still:
- I have to make all new models low poly so they can be ported to milkshape from 3DS and exported into a .NIF.
- I need to balance the ships more. Ships seem too powerful after testing them for a bit. I need to rehard-point some weapons arcs and stuff.
- I need to script a point defense system so the ships act like real Wing Commander ships.
- I have to make missions with whole sectors planets, stations, etc.
- I need to finish the icons (main ship menu in quick battle).
A few bugs that have slipped into the SCP version 3.6.9 have been causing some annoying issues for the Linux version, and we are delaying the Linux release until those can be resolved and we can run a quick round of testing to make sure they have truly been worked out. In addition, since the OSX version together with the Linux version are based on a newer code than the Windows version, we will be releasing an updated OSX version once the bugs have been resolved.
"Sir, our flight deck is already crammed to the gills," Jason said."Then it'll be even more crowded," Banbridge replied.
Ek'rah skabak erg Thrak'Kilrah maks Rag'nith!
"We are pleased with the performance of our products on next-generation consoles," said Larry Probst, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "In the year ahead, we plan to build on our leadership position on both the Xbox 360 and the PLAYSTATION 3, and to significantly increase our support for the Nintendo platforms."
CTA is a completely contained Real-Time Strategy Game playable on any computer with an internet connection and a browser (Must support at least a 1024x768 resolution). It takes place in the Epsilon sector in the Wing Commander universe and gives players a chance to explore two different ship trees and over 40 unique systems.
-Over forty eight unique Wing Commander systems to explore!
-Eight differant ships to drive into combat!
-Experiment with the differant upgradeable ship trees!
-More than thirty missions to undertake in exchange for ship upgrades!
-Engage in battle with anything from a corvette to an enemy fleet - all in real-time!
-Manage the supplies fighters and crew aboard your ship in an effort to overcome the odds!
-Free-form campaign style - play the missions or do your own thing!
-More then 20 differant Kilrathi ships to engage and destroy!
-Oversee that damage control parties on your ship during combat to increase your chances of survival!It's being programmed in PHP with an SQL database. Website to be online shortly.
Das ursprünglich als Wingleader angekündigte Spiel erblickte 1989 das Licht der Welt und erschien sowohl für Amiga als auch für PC und bot dem Spieler eine noch nie gesehene Detailverliebtheit. Während das später erschienene X-Wing auf Vektor-Grafik setzte und so zwar klare, aber vor allem kahle Objekte durch das All fliegen liess, nutzte Wing Commander zweidimensionale Bitmaps, die zwar aus nächster Nähe nur noch Pixelbrei boten, aber sonst sehr detailliert wirkten.
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