Twenty six years ago our team launched the Wing Commander Combat Information Center and somehow after all those years… we're still here! Whether you've been with us all that time or you're just discovering the Wing Commander universe, welcome to the party!
I've been a part of a lot of communities–I even built a pretty notable Wing Commander-adjacent one!--but there's nowhere I'm ever happier to come back than our group. Will we ever get a new Wing Commander game or book or cartoon or movie? I don't know… but I do know that I'm happier talking about anything with my Wing Commander friends on Discord and the forums. It's so exciting to see new people come along and discover the series and it's equally thrilling to see people find out that beyond an old space sim we're a pretty chill group of folks to spend time with. I'd like to thank everyone who makes that possible every day; whether you're making new fan games or geeking out about Origin history or posting to the forums to chat about the briefest references in the novel… you're part of something pretty neat and I'm happy to know you. I also need to thank Chris Reid, Aaron Dunbar and Kris Vanhecke specifically for their stewardship of the CIC itself. You wouldn't see updates without the work Chris and AD do… and the site just plain wouldn't work without Kris.
This year, we're taking a slightly different approach to the birthday offerings… by taking a page from the original Wing Commander and giving you something new to play! Read on to learn all about how we've uncovered an alpha build of Privateer, a beta copy of Privateer II and even some never-before-played Wing Commander Academy missions straight from Origin Systems! We'll never stop dreaming about a new game… but we're hoping some folks will have some fun with a couple of slightly different ones for now!
Here's to a great year that for me was full of thinking about Wing Commander in as many new ways as I possibly could… and here's to many more to come with more worlds to create and history to explore.
As our birthday present to the community, we took a risk on something pretty exciting and a little different from usual: below you will find a never before seen alpha copy of Wing Commander Privateer that you can load in DOSBox and play today! This is Alpha 1.15, compiled on August 9, 1993 (about six weeks before the final build. We've done some preliminary studying and it already looks pretty interesting: many of the game's resource files are larger, structured and structured differently. Just starting the game you'll get a sense that things are a little different (and of course it's even more crash prone than the released version which was not too stable). We've also discovered at least one extra cutscene in the files, labeled 'Discovery' it seems like it will play when you first find the Steltek derelict. A silver florin to the first Privateer who gets that far (saves from the final game do not seem to work correctly)! You'll also get a pretty funny surprise when you quit a memory dump and "THANK YOU FOR FLYING TRADE COMMANDER". Trade Commander was Privateer's original name. Note that if you own the disk version of the speech accessory pack you can use it with this version; due to their nature, Origin's speech packs went gold much earlier than the games they serviced. At one point, this resulted in Pacific Strike speech packs showing up in stores months before the game was actually released!
Where did this early copy of Privateer come from? eBay! Several weeks ago, I noticed an unusually expensive auction listing for a set of Privateer disks. My eyes almost skipped right over it but something seemed wrong in the thumbnail. A closer look revealed that these weren't replacement disks… they were hand-written disks on Origin labels! What's more, there weren't SIX Prvateer disks like the final version… there were seven! It seemed like SOMETHING must be going on, but was it worth $500? Would the disks even read today? We decided to take the chance. Luckily, no one else bid and after mainlining anxiety for a few days the disks arrived in the mail… still perfectly usable 31 years later! But at the end of the day, I have no brain for technical things so it seems like the best thing to do is to provide this alpha to the world and let smarter folks help uncover its secrets. And who wouldn't enjoy a little return to the Gemini Sector!?
You can download the archive here here (.ZIP, 9,679kb) or the seven disk images here (.ZIP, 9,765kb).
As a companion piece to Privateer Alpha we are also excited to make available a beta version of Privateer 2: The Darkening! This is version 4.2 which was compiled on October 14, 1996; roughly a month before the final version that shipped in Europe (November 12, 1996). As with the Privateer release, we've confirmed that it does indeed run and there are some early signs that there are a few differences… for instance, this version is intended for four CDs instead of three, seemingly planned with a 'post game' CD that you would use to play non-plot missions. It does NOT include any of the cutscenes although we believe they could mostly be added back in using the files from the release version (see the history below for details about why this is).
The story behind these files is a little bit sketchier. In the mid-1990s, it was not at all uncommon for copies of new games to appear on pirate BBSes (and later the Usenet) before the games were even released! Sometimes these were finished copies that leaked out a few days early… but sometimes they were beta versions provided to the press weeks or months early so that reviews would be ready to publish at launch. This was a persistent issue with Origin's Ultima games in particular and it was something that developers were hoping would be eliminated as games began to fill entire CD-ROMs, effectively too large to be downloaded with a modem. But software pirates ALWAYS find a way! They quickly developed methods to remove multimedia content from new games and then ways to distribute them in as small of a format as possible… often, as here, divided into many small 1.4 mb zip files that can be split across many 3.5" diskettes.
When a version of Privateer 2 leaked about a month before launch, we in the Wing Commander community took a very negative view and refused to even touch it. As a result, we've spent years trying to locate that original pirated version… which we finally did on a Russian Warez CD released in late 1996! Software piracy is bad, stealing Privateer 2 instead of buying it in 1996 would've hurt people we cared about… but it's also impossible not to acknowledge that pirate releases like this managed–even if not on purpose–to preserve otherwise inaccessible versions of software. As noted above, this version does not include any of Privateer 2's videos, replacing them with the 'INTL_S.TGV' intro using a script that copies/renames it to match whatever video file is desired. But we're confident that an intrepid software explorer could simply port back the original TGV files from their published version (with a few filename changes).
You can download the original 'warez' archive here (.ZIP, 65,094kb) or an extracted version here (.ZIP, 65,943kb).
We have one more interesting thing that you can 'play' today: a set of five custom Wing Commander Academy missions… created by the Wing Commander Academy team as a demo for how users can create and share missions. The missions are titled Rescuemission, Mission 2, Protectbase, Ferretmission, Badguymission and they do present a bit of a challenge! It's not as exciting as an entirely new game but there's something thrilling about getting five new missions that were designed by the people that made the game. The missions were created immediately after the game was finished on August 30 and 31, 1992 (that's right, someone was working on Sunday).
Where did these come from? They're a recently rediscovered echo of Origin Systems' BBS! Origin established their BBS in 1988 to support Omega, a tank-fighting game that included 'play by mail' components. Users could call an Austin, Texas number to access message boards and file downloads. In an era before the internet had been widely adopted, Origin would post patches, demos and other material to their BBS which users would download and then disseminate to other systems. In 1995, Electronic Arts' FTP site began to replace the BBS for this purpose although it did not mirror most earlier content. By 1997, Origin no longer advertised the BBS number and it, like most BBSes, faded from history. Sadly, there no archives of the BBS have ever been discovered, only individual files saved by users. The mission pack, WCAMISSN.ZIP, has actually been preserved for years in multiple BBS archives… but because of a typo no one came across it! The file description identifies the set as being from "WING ACADAMY" which of course doesn't show up if you're searching for Wing Commander or Academy.
You can download the missions here (.ZIP, 3,834 bytes); you can access them by adding the files to Wing Commander Academy's 'MISSIONS' folder (they will replace your first five saved missions; be sure to back them up first if wanted!).
Time for our annual birthday poll! How long have you been with us? The CIC might be 26 years old now, but some of us have been part of the online Wing Commander community for almost 30 years! That's hard to believe!
The old poll asked about all the awesome weaponry from the Wing Commander card game. Tachyon Cannons were the clear favorite, followed by the IR missile.
FekLeyrTarg has a very cool birthday treat for everyone! The last few years have been incredible for video enhancement, including integration of these high quality videos into the games themselves. In the case of Wing Commander Prophecy, one clip has been missing since it was omitted from the DVD edition of the game. That has now been corrected with these gorgeous HD version of the original logo intro. Copy one of the two included files into the appropriate folder (depending on whether you're using the DVD edition or high quality upgrade) and it will play along with the rest of the upscaled cutscenes. Download it here (29 meg zip).
As this scene is missing from the DVD version, I decided to rebuild it in Photoshop, Blender and After Effects. In fact I started working on it back in 2017 when upscaling techniques were far from the capabilities they have now. And finally, with the experience I've gained over the years, I was able to finish it.
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It comes in two versions, one as VOB (DVD) and the other as MP4 (HD).
- In your Explorer, go to the movie folder within the WCP root directory.
- If you use the DVD Movie Packs, simply copy the file 0002.VOB into the movie folder.
- IF you use the HD Video Pack, backup the file 0002.MP4 in the movie folder and replace it with the HD Rebuild.
Here we have a fun special effects test also courtesy of FekLeyrTarg. He's been playing with Switchlight Studio and built this nifty clip featuring Perry Naval Base to wish us a happy birthday!
A new VFX test demonstrating the capabilities of the upcoming Switchlight Studio, which is capable of extracting PBR-Material Maps from images and videos featuring people. These can be used to place any subject in any virtual environment (360° HDRI or even a 3D set) with the lighting properly interacting.
In this case, after greenscreen chroma key I placed myself in Admiral Terrell's office from "Wing Commander: Privateer" in Blender.
The original model was released with the Privateer 3D Archive. After rendering using Cycles, I went back to Switchlight Studio to further improve the render with better subsurface scattering etc. Final compositing, cut and audio mix was done in Premiere Pro.
Last, but not least, birthday cake! Thanks to LeHah for helping us celebrate in style!
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