Wing Commander Universe Squared

The Sol Sector seemed like the right place to begin. Also, I'd like to present what I'm doing more as a beta offering so you guys and gals can scrutinize my style and choices. After all, the attempt is to reconstruct it as faithfully as possible for the wiki, so feel free to spot obvious errors, offer corrective ideas, and chime in on what you think.

I've decided to hold off on the nebulae coloring, as I don't want there to be oddities between shades and thickness that are noticeable by quadrant squares. I'll do that job when the map is all pieced together. The same goes for jump lanes that cross sector borders, I'd like them to line up without a shift due to placement and the map's own weird warping.

Out of all the fonts I have and researched, I could not find the exact matches for the lettering on the map, so I've compromised on what looks close enough and what reads clearly. I'm using Microsoft YaHei Bold at about 108 (for this map size) for the sector name and the system names, while switching over to Trebuchet Bold 40 for the quadrant names. With the quadrant names, it does seem very obvious whoever put it together is using some of the same techniques I'm using to reconstruct it, as I gotta compress the names horizontally to get them to fit just about the size they are on the original. I've also decided that only the sector name will have a slant, about 5 degrees, as the rest of the text seems slanted only by virtue of the Akwende Projection perspective.

XBox Live Price Increasing

Microsoft announced last week that the price of XBox Live will increase from $50 to $60 in the US as of November 1, 2010. A similar price increases will take place in Mexico, and single month subscriptions are going up in Canada and the UK (although annual subscriptions remain unchanged). Since opening in 2002, the service has expanded significantly to include movie and television rentals, Netflix streaming, social media services and video chat.

The good news for fans is that Microsoft is offering the option of locking in their next year at $40, so players that act before the end of October can actually get a discount. That's not the only good option though. Amazon.com frequently discounts annual subscription cards to $10-20 below the going rate. Their best deal at the moment is a year of XBox Live, a headset, the controller-keyboard and a copy of Project Gotham 4 for just $55. Another interesting option is the XBox Live Family Pack that allows up to four Live Gold accounts on one XBox for one year for $100. Plan ahead and get your Arena-playing paid off for cheap!