Freespace series

[Spertallica]

Wing Commander fans were happy to debate this. We cited missions, mythological concepts and talked about the evolution of space sims -- it was Freespace idiots who started raging about the dynamics of the debate instead of making any kind of counter-point.

You have to earn respect -- if it's something we hand out as to any idiot with a gmail address in the interests of being polite, it's not worth a dime in the first place. A heck of a lot of people have earned my respect for arguing wth me -- people like Quarto... they sure as hell didn't get it by whining about how I conduct myself or demanding that I accept their ideas immediately. They made points.

Loaf- Read my above points. You don't have to accept my ideas or line of reasoning if you choose not to. If this is an honest forum for intellectual debate about space sims, then attacks on one's character in place of arguments based on logic (also known as ad hominem attacks) have no place. I reiterate my position that it should be common courtesy to not greet people who don't agree with your view with insults- that is a civil level of respect, one that people shouldn't be required to earn.

Quarto- I agree that Freespace fiction does need better fleshing out, but, IMO, WCP (and any subsequent sequel) really need to step up the gameplay, in addition to having great fiction. There is a good argument that you shouldn't have fleet battle missions, reinforcements, etc. every single mission, and I agree. However, my biggest gripe with WCP in that regard is that these options aren't even available without extensive use of cutscenes and/or heavy scripting! FS2 is still capable of small scale scenarios w/o capship battles, special weapons, or reload shuttles. WCP is not capable of these extra features. However, this misses the point of one of my posts from a bit earlier in the thread... I'm not saying FS2 is the answer to the space sim dilemma, I think that gameplay-wise, FS2 is a step in the right direction, but not ultimately what is necessary to succeed in today's market. Honestly, gameplay-wise, what I would like to see is almost a space-sim incarnation of something like a strike force in C&C Generals or any other RTS game worth its salt- specialized units that work in tandem with each other and don't require heavy scripting to function- at most setting the overall goal for the various units in each mission, but then funnelling most of the development costs into making really good AI that can function with some discretion within that light scripting. Combine that with some good fiction (which admittedly is difficult with the possibilities raised by light scripting), and frankly, I wouldn't care if the graphics looked like they came straight out of the original X-Wing.

(To be fair, I don't think there has been very much original in game play for video games in general since the mid-90's- game developers have focused far more on eye candy, movie tie ins, and reiterations of successful franchises then on new content (console games are really, really guilty of this, but so are PC games)

Last, if I had to hazard a guess as to why space sims are currently not in vogue, I would argue that it's the extreme reluctance of any space sim to get away from the whole "WW2 in space" deal. It invokes the same issues I raised earlier- I think that technological barriers prevented anything really more then that when WC1, 2, and perhaps even 3 came out, but that is no longer the case, and there are only so many iterations of one theme the gaming public can take before getting tired of a genre in general for a while if no real innovation is introduced. (For example, I suspect that this is going to happen to WW2-based FPS games within the next year or so)

I think there are options available to revitalize space sims (e.g. tactically-driven battles, dramatically increasing fighter speeds/manueverability, heavily developed AI, adding strategic elements ala Armada, combo maneuvers with wingmen (for instance, having wingman AI or commands that would allow for a wingman to lead an enemy into your gunsight), making the bulk of your ammunition expendable, but more deadly, (making resource management more important) etc.)- it's just a matter of someone willing to go out, take a risk, and try their luck.

Last, I just want to reiterate that WC (including WCP) is one of my favorite franchises, and I would like nothing better to see it take off again!

 

[Paddybhoy]

I said 'hell wing commander doesn't even have a good story' because I wasn't even bothering about story when comparing each tiltle, Wing commander games are better than freespsace because of the story but that doesn't automatically make prophecies gameplay better than freespace.

And where did I say that freespace was original? I didn't say that, I said that it was memorable, theres a difference. So I don't really know what your whining about. Freespace isn't original it nicks a lot of stuff straight outta TIE fighter and other titles... but as Quarto said, a spacesim is a pretty bare barn in terms of how much you can innovate, but as you said Prophecy didn't do anything original either.

Prophecy had Blair, Hawk, Maniac and the Kilrathi, I love all those things (especially Hawk.... he's so rugged), I love Wing Commander for its story and gameplay but that doesn't mean I rate the gameplay of prophecy over freespace. In freespace you had a bit of scale, some good invoice comms (especially the later missions) and missions which you could distinguish from each.

I mean compare prophecies last mission to Freespace1's last mission, In prophecy you jump in the sweet vampire and proceed to blast lot of bugs... and then after a funny cutscene between maniac and blair you shoot some conning towers and some bugs.... thats it thats all you do really, well apart from watching Blair die (sniff), fun but not exaclty the breath taking finale we're used to from WCIII and VI

In Freespace you and a composite wing of fighters and bombers (all in all about twelve I think) race to try to stop the Lucifer (the big evil capship that pretty much symbolises the shivans) from reaching earth and attacking it. As you jump in it jumps out, you then have to run a gauntlet (a long gaunlet) of fighters and some cap ships to reach the jump point in time making sure that you keep your bombers safe (you don't have time to dogfight much if at all). You then jump into some kind of subspace tunnel (which affects the way your ship handles i think) and then you have to destroy it within a set time limit... and then you get a shity cutscene,,,, original no, compelling yes

There are faults with Freespace apart from the obvious story and narrative weakness, the ships are slightly generic, the missle system should've been done more like WC (I would rather have 6 imrecs than 50 of those shity little homing missles), the variety of weapon systems was pointless. But every game has flaws and when I balance Freespace's flaws against Prophecies I just don't see much between them.

And Privateer 2's math mission was GENIUS!!! And take a chill pill LOAF theres no need for you to fly off the handle, and I mean that I'm not being sarcastic.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Loaf- Read my above points. You don't have to accept my ideas or line of reasoning if you choose not to. If this is an honest forum for intellectual debate about space sims, then attacks on one's character in place of arguments based on logic (also known as ad hominem attacks) have no place. I reiterate my position that it should be common courtesy to not greet people who don't agree with your view with insults- that is a civil level of respect, one that people shouldn't be required to earn.

As should have already been made clear above, we're not the generic internet. Whatever politically correct rules you learned at SlashDot don't apply here -- whoever taught you that the ultimate sin in debate was calling the other guy a name in between points didn't know what he was talking about.

We're all coarse jerks here, but we're also reasonable -- we'll listen to your arguments..

Quarto- I agree that Freespace fiction does need better fleshing out, but, IMO, WCP (and any subsequent sequel) really need to step up the gameplay, in addition to having great fiction. There is a good argument that you shouldn't have fleet battle missions, reinforcements, etc. every single mission, and I agree. However, my biggest gripe with WCP in that regard is that these options aren't even available without extensive use of cutscenes and/or heavy scripting! FS2 is still capable of small scale scenarios w/o capship battles, special weapons, or reload shuttles. WCP is not capable of these extra features. However, this misses the point of one of my posts from a bit earlier in the thread... I'm not saying FS2 is the answer to the space sim dilemma, I think that gameplay-wise, FS2 is a step in the right direction, but not ultimately what is necessary to succeed in today's market. Honestly, gameplay-wise, what I would like to see is almost a space-sim incarnation of something like a strike force in C&C Generals or any other RTS game worth its salt- specialized units that work in tandem with each other and don't require heavy scripting to function- at most setting the overall goal for the various units in each mission, but then funnelling most of the development costs into making really good AI that can function with some discretion within that light scripting. Combine that with some good fiction (which admittedly is difficult with the possibilities raised by light scripting), and frankly, I wouldn't care if the graphics looked like they came straight out of the original X-Wing.

Well, lets be clear about capability -- Quarto is going to tell you far better than I can, but Wing Commander Prophecy has an amazing scripting engine. If you haven't tried Standoff, you should -- without any kind of source code to work from they've reverse engineered Secret Ops to do amazing things.

Now, that said, the argument above in this thread doesn't even involve the whole of the Vision Engine... Paddyboy is very consciously leaving out Secret Ops because he knows it has even more of the strange things he's demanding (capital ship battles, convoy escorts, etc).

(To be fair, I don't think there has been very much original in game play for video games in general since the mid-90's- game developers have focused far more on eye candy, movie tie ins, and reiterations of successful franchises then on new content (console games are really, really guilty of this, but so are PC games)

As much as I want to agree with you (I want to go back to my 486 very much), I can't. Gaming is still evolving -- it's just beyond the old men now. Things like Ultima Online and Pokemon are exceptionally innovative, if very confusing in their popularity to us. The game industry in 1992 was more than happy to churn out cheap movie tie-ins. They weren't great then and they aren't great now.

And lets face it -- our desire is ultimately to get *more of the same* to be popular again... it's just a different more of the same. The Infocom fans who we made fun of in 1990 are laughing at us now -- *they* were the ones with the truly unique gaming industry that no longer exists today. Wing Commander and it's flashy sales pitch and giant budget lead directly to the kind of games that are popular today -- we can't spit on them for the trend we started.

Last, if I had to hazard a guess as to why space sims are currently not in vogue, I would argue that it's the extreme reluctance of any space sim to get away from the whole "WW2 in space" deal. It invokes the same issues I raised earlier- I think that technological barriers prevented anything really more then that when WC1, 2, and perhaps even 3 came out, but that is no longer the case, and there are only so many iterations of one theme the gaming public can take before getting tired of a genre in general for a while if no real innovation is introduced. (For example, I suspect that this is going to happen to WW2-based FPS games within the next year or so)

The big reason is joysticks.

In 1993 when the average person ordered their PC in a box it came with one of those brilliantly cheap $5 joysticks. The off-white ones with the big red button on the top. The amazing success of Wing Commander was a big part of the reason for this -- it was the game that made it cool to play games on your computer, and it was best played with a joystick. Before this, 'sticks were for flight sim hobbyists -- the perfectly level flying guys.

But between 1991 and 1997 or so, everyone had a joystick. Games were a big aspect of PCs before the internet became serious business... and one of those cheapo joysticks and a pack-in copy of Strike Commander was everyones way of letting the world know their computer was fun. Developers, in turn, could put out a space game (or a flight game) and generally assume that a huge portion of the market would be able to play them.

That changed for lots of reasons at the end of the century. I don't think I can even list them all -- computers needed to be cheaper, different kinds of games became popular, the focus for entertainment on the PC (and the goal of the PC in general) shifted to the internet... all kinds of things. The entire market changed, and the result is basically that companies don't sell the average PC with a joystick anymore.

And that means that developers can't afford to make a space game anymore. If you can sell your game to 80% of the market, fantastic. You may fail horribly - if your game didn't start with 'Wing' or 'Star' you probably will - but you'll have the chance. Now that it's something like 5% of people who have joysticks, you have no hope of ever getting the funding for your project in the first place.

This is why Freelancer made such a huge deal about being a 'mouse game'. Did it need to be? Hell no - they created the fuss artificially to try and make damn sure that everyone knew that this was going to be a game that *everyone* can play, not just people with elaborate hobby gear.

I think there are options available to revitalize space sims (e.g. tactically-driven battles, dramatically increasing fighter speeds/manueverability, heavily developed AI, adding strategic elements ala Armada, combo maneuvers with wingmen (for instance, having wingman AI or commands that would allow for a wingman to lead an enemy into your gunsight), making the bulk of your ammunition expendable, but more deadly, (making resource management more important) etc.)- it's just a matter of someone willing to go out, take a risk, and try their luck.

Honestly, most of this stuff is cake.

It's the stuff you play with once your game works, not the bulleted list you use to sell your game in the first place. Wing Commander was very consciously moving away from things like this -- I remember talking to Neil Young just after Prophecy came out, he was very clear that he believed that the 'armchair game developed' complexities (like you've listed above) were what the team needed to avoid... that the goal of Prophecy was to make space sims as simple as possible. Is that marketing trying to reach a broader user base, or is it because a game needs to be simple to be fun? I'll say half and half.

I can give you half a dozen interesting concepts for new Wing Commander -- most of them things EA has considered very seriously recently... but there's all kinds of market factors that are preventing any development. EA has some very specific requirements for Wing Commander, as well as the reservations about things like joysticks -- they don't believe the series can sell without Chris Roberts' name on the box, they don't believe the serious can sell without live actors... things like that. I see two good chances for a Wing Commander game in the near future:

* Nostalgia. The children of the 1980s grew up and suddenly Pac Man, Galaga et. al. were on every cell phone in the universe. Those of us who were teenagers when the original Wing Commanders game out are going to inheret that throne soon, and we're going to want to romanticize *our* childhoods.

* A Succesful Space War Franchise. Two days after 'Enterprise' premiered I got a phone call from the guys in charge of selling a Wing Commander show. War was popular (this was late September, 2001) and 'Enterprise' had just had a huge premiere. A Wing Commander TV show was a very real possibility for several months -- war became less interesting and Enterprises ratings tumbled... and we lost that battle. A similar situation in the future could make space sims popular again.

 

[ChrisReid]

And Privateer 2's math mission was GENIUS!!! And take a chill pill LOAF theres no need for you to fly off the handle

How the hell do you figure that? LOAF isn't even beginning to break a sweat in this thread. I really wish the internet didn't adopt "I'm so calm and you're so unnerved!" as a random insult.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I said 'hell wing commander doesn't even have a good story' because I wasn't even bothering about story when comparing each tiltle, Wing commander games are better than freespsace because of the story but that doesn't automatically make prophecies gameplay better than freespace.

So... your argument is that... what? I don't mean this as generic internet rhetoric - I honestly do not understand where you're going here. Are you saying Wing Commander doesn't have a good story? If so, I'll let someone else rip you apart. Are you saying gameplay and story aren't related at all? I just don't get it.

And where did I say that freespace was original? I didn't say that, I said that it was memorable, theres a difference. So I don't really know what your whining about. Freespace isn't original it nicks a lot of stuff straight outta TIE fighter and other titles... but as Quarto said, a spacesim is a pretty bare barn in terms of how much you can innovate, but as you said Prophecy didn't do anything original either.

Actually, I think I've provided at least two lists of original things I think Prophecy did... in this thread.

As for the originality of Freespace -- that is the topic of this thread.

Prophecy had Blair, Hawk, Maniac and the Kilrathi, I love all those things (especially Hawk, especially Hawk.... he's so rugged), I love Wing Commander for its story and gameplay but that doesn't mean I rate the gameplay of prophecy over freespace. In freespace you had a bit of scale, some good invoice comms (especially the later missions) and missions which you could distinguish from each.

I don't think that's a good thing. Prophecy sticks in your brain as being seamless... and then when you think about it, it had a zillion different missions. That's the mark of a great game -- not one that treats every single event as some kind of special occurance that sticks out jagged from everything else.

I think Prophecy did *exactly* what it set out to do -- everything, the interface, the set design, the character replacement... was all designed for that seamless effect.

I mean compare prophecies last mission to Freespace1's last mission, In prophecy you jump in the sweet vampire and proceed to blast lot of bugs... and then after a funny cutscene between maniac and blair you shoot some conning towers and some bugs.... thats it thats all you do really, well apart from watching Blair die (sniff), fun but not exaclty the breath taking finale we used to from WCIII and VI

In Freespace you and a composite wing of fighters and bombers (all in all about twelve I think) race to try to stop the Lucifer (the big evil capship that pretty much symbolises the shivans) from reaching earth and attacking it. As you jump in it jumps out, you then have to run a gauntlet (a long gaunlet) of fighters and some cap ships to reach the jump point in time making sure that you keep your bombers safe (you don't have time to dogfight much if at all). You then jump into some kind of subspace tunnel (which affects the way your ship handles i think) and then you have to destroy it within a set time limit... and then you get a shity cutscene,,,, original no, compelling yes

You just described the same mission twice, though. This is rhetoric, not comparison. Observe:

In Wing Commander Prophecy you and a composite wing of fighters and bombers (in all about seven I think) race to stop the Wormhole Gate (the big evil capship that pretty much symbolises the Nephilim) from allowing an enemy fleet to jump through, reach Earth and attack it. As you autopilot in, it turns out to be unkillable, you then have to run a gauntlet (a long gauntlet) of fighters and some shield killers to reach the point in the mission where you can continue making sure that you keep your Marine LCs safe. You then jump through an inter-mission cutscene and then you have to destroy the last tower within a set time limit... and then you get an amazing series of cutscenes.

There are faults with Freespace apart from the obvious story and narrative weakness, the ships are slightly generic, the missle system should've been done more like WC (I would rather have 6 imrecs than 50 of those shity little homing missles), the variety of weapon systems was pointless. But every game has flaws and when I balance Freespace's flaws against Prophecies I just don't see much between them.

I don't see many flaws with Prophecy, either.

 

[t.c.cgi]

Damnit hurley, you made everyone post big paragraphs. I'll never be able to read all this.

 

[hurleybird]

Sorry

 

[hurleybird]

LOAF: Looks like I can't really respond to a lot of your arguments now or bad things will happen to me. We can continue some aspects of our debate in PM's though.

Quarto: I have been reading the previous posts, and while I can see some things which I could have approached better, for the most part I stand by what I said, and see no 'idiocy' in my posts. In any case, I will discuss this with you over PM tommorow. Yeah I know, I just replied to your post, sorry

And your Prophecy jab was idiotic. That's what we're debating here -- that kind of off sides crap is horrible and is *exactly* why we hate you people.

LOAF, notice the IMNSHO -- In my not so humble opinion.

 

[Bombadier]

I've played both Freespace and Prophecy plus Secret Ops within the last year and just have a couple of opinions to toss out.
1. I personally think that some of the escort missions are done better in Freespace compared to Prophecy. When it comes to Secret Ops though I think they are about even. Such as escorting refugees in Freespace to escorting a luxury liner in Secret Ops, both missions are complete busts if you don't formulate some strategy and implement it since you are defending ships with minimal shields, armour, weapons, speed and manuverability.
2. The attacks on the capital ships in Freespace and Prophecy/Secret Ops are pretty much the same. Dodge or destroy escorting fighters, take out shield generators, missile turrets and whatever else, then target vital areas and destory. Repeat and move on.

Again though I think Prophecy and Secret Ops are better games because they add to a pre-existing universe with well known and, at least by fans, cared for characters. Maybe if the bottom had'nt fallen out of the space sim market and Freespace (or Freespace 2) had brought something truly original or a very different take on a standard idea then possibly there might have been a Freespace universe that would be approaching the size of the Wing Commander universe by now.

 

[AD]

Besides, if you want to argue that people not buying something in a franchise = a franchise being garbage, it would imply that Wing Commander is garbage seeing as the last WC product released to the general public was WCM, and that resulted in a multi-million dollar loss.

However much of a "failure" the movie was at the box office, the facts don't add up to that assertion. While criticaly panned, (and arguably flawed as a film... altough I enjoy it from time to time) losses were perhaps minimal. I don' t remember the exact figures but you can search the forums for them. US/north american gross only was 12 million. Thats just the US Gross. While the international theatrical release may not have been as extensive as we would have liked that 12 million does not include any money from those international showings.

The next chapter in this story starts some time in July 1999 and is all about the US rental and DVD/VHS sales. After the first couple months of release the Film grosses over 30 million in sales/rentals revenue. Once again this is US only and only up to some time in mid-to-late 1999.

While maybe it doesnt completely cover the money spent filming (as it was over budget) that 40+ million comes close without even considering the international release of the movie. Since that time, The DVD was released in various languages and regions. IIRC an anamorphic PAL version was released barely a year ago (although it might be closer to two years ). The movie has shown many times on TV (including in HDTV) and the original region 1 DVD (discounted) can still be found in some supermarkets. I'd hazard to guess that over all, losses (if any) were minimal.

 

[cff]

* Multiplayer. The space sim industry never had a 'killer ap' in terms of multiplayer. There's no unique or simple or easy fun gameplay that allowed the concept to take off like it did with shooters - in the best of cases, multiplayer space sims just re-use game mods from FPS concepts and leave it at that. Freespace could have innovated here.

There might not have been a killer app, but IMHO there are at least 2 very noteworthy multiplayer capable space sims. Allegiance and Tachyon the Fringe. Both added some parts of an RTS concept to provide more then the usual FFA or maybe capture the flags.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

LOAF: Looks like I can't really respond to a lot of your arguments now or bad things will happen to me. We can continue some aspects of our debate in PM's though.

Nope.

 

[Kalfireth]

So... we should control who is and is not allowed to talk about
Every HLP asshole who's ever decided to troll the CIC is terrible -- if there are good ones out there, I haven't met them.

Well I can certainly feel the love here

Now granted I'm wading in after three pages of heated discussion, but frankly I don't care.

Some time ago we reached an agreement that if we couldn't all get along as fans of the space-game genre then we could at least be civil. I see no evidence of that here today.

Anyway, it's all harmless yelling right now... and I think everyone is mature enough not to let it turn into some kind of interweb slap fight. If it looks that way, I'll zap the thread.

Those are your exact words back from Feb, 2004. And yet here I am today, reading cheap and unwarrented attacks at HLP?

Honestly, do give it a rest.

I'm not denying that there are idiots on HLP. There are. But then there are idiots all over the internet.. even here. Most people know enough to realise that they shouldn't judge an entire community based on a minority.

In all fairness - what is the point of all this? Well all know you despise FreeSpace and that's really up to you - I'm not about to start arguing the same tired old points with you because its been done to death and really - neither of us will change our point of view at the end of it.

But I will say that all this makes me sad. It makes me sad that the only times I ever really find myself here are when you're involved in more petty debates about the origin and history of space combat games. I'm not here to tell you you're wrong - you can blame what happened to the space genre on FreeSpace untill you're blue in the face.

I am here to try and keep the peace. To persuade the idiots on HLP that it's not worth coming over here and argueing with you. To try and knock some sense into you untill you realise how the argueing is getting nobody anywhere. The two communities exist and neither is dying. There's an excellent WC conversion for FS in the works that should look really quite impressive once it's complete. Clearly then there are people out there who can manage to be fans of both games without getting into a fight over it.

I truly hope you can understand some of this. If not.. well at least I tried.

Kalfireth,
HLP Administration

 

[Quarto]

Quarto- I agree that Freespace fiction does need better fleshing out, but, IMO, WCP (and any subsequent sequel) really need to step up the gameplay, in addition to having great fiction. [...] Honestly, gameplay-wise, what I would like to see is almost a space-sim incarnation of something like a strike force in C&C Generals or any other RTS game worth its salt- specialized units that work in tandem with each other and don't require heavy scripting to function- at most setting the overall goal for the various units in each mission, but then funnelling most of the development costs into making really good AI that can function with some discretion within that light scripting.

Well, I'll argue with anyone any day that tactically-complex gameplay is a dead end. It's something that can be done as a spin-off - but try making a franchise-leading game based on tactically-complex gameplay... and you'll be making FS2.

(and I would dearly love to see Milo, who has actually set out to make such a game, drop into this debate and post his thought)

There is a number of reasons for my point of view. Most of them are based on personal experience. I don't want to sound arrogant, but this has to be said - of everyone involved in this discussion, I'm the only one who's actually tried to make a space-sim (not from scratch, of course - I'm referring to UE and Standoff). This puts me in the unique position of being able to base my arguments on things we experienced, the problems we encountered, the choices we made. And everything I've seen so far indicates that you simply cannot have a great storyline if you're going for tactical complexity.

There are the following problems with tactical complexity:

1. It demands demands strategic complexity. If I participate in a battle involving three friendly destroyers, two enemy destroyers and an enemy cruiser, tactical complexity means allowing different outcomes. I might destroy the enemy fleet, but lose the friendlies. I might order the friendlies to stay back, and destroy the fleet all by my lonesome. I might sacrifice a wing of bombers to save a friendly destroyer that foolishly went up against the cruiser. Or I might pull out entirely, avoiding friendly losses but without inflicting damage.

And that's great - but it only matters if the game accepts the results. It only matters if, after the mission, the game tells you "Well, buddy, you lost two destroyers, things are gonna be a little tougher from now on... but hey, at least you took out that fleet that was coming right for us" - or - "Oh, good, you kept the three destroyers alive. Now brace yourself, because that enemy fleet is right here." Or another of the two dozen possible outcomes. But this kind of complexity is incredibly demanding. Either you give up control of the storyline altogether, leaving everything up to the player, or you try to take into account everything that can happen.

(incidentally, Freespace never did this - that's why any talk about tactical complexity in Freespace is a sham. If you had a complex battle in Freespace, there could only be one outcome. You can do anything you like... but if you don't keep those three destroyers alive, you have to restart the mission. Or, you can do anything you like... but it doesn't matter, because those destroyers will never be seen again, and their loss affects nothing)

2. The more complexity you have, the weaker and fuzzier the storyline will get - because the more alternative outcomes you prepare in a storyline, the less depth the storyline will have. It's a matter of time and effort. The alternative, as I mentioned above, is to turn this over to the player. Just get rid of the storyline, make the game a tactical/strategy title that simulates a military campaign rather than tells a story. But this is kind of like saving the Siberian tigers by crossbreeding them with Bengal tigers - rather than saving the species, you finish it off by killing off its distinguishing traits. I mean, if saving the space-sim means turning it into the RTS... then I'd rather go back and replay old titles than ever see a new "space-sim".

3. Tactical complexity doesn't actually sell - storyline does. You can kind of see this with Standoff. We did something very innovative in Standoff - we imposed limits on the number of ships the player has. If his wing has 12 fighters, and he loses six of them, he will be flying with only six ships. This obviously affects the game in a huge way. We also did something less innovative - we added a storyline choice, where depending on the player's action at one point, the story will unfold differently... but differently not in a big way, but in a number of small ways. That first innovation, which most definitely fits into the box of tactical complexity, undeniably affects the game more than that second thing.

...Guess which one people cared about. It wasn't the fighter-counting.



All in all, I think perhaps the most amazing, revolutionary thing about Wing Commander Prophecy is that it didn't want to be revolutionary. Rather than looking for innovative new things to do, the designers looked into the past, analysing what had worked in previous WC titles and what hadn't worked. That's where I see the future of the space-sim. Not in tactical complexity, not in questionable innovations (if increasing the fighter speed counts as innovation, then how amazingly innovative Armada must have been!), but in analysing what had worked in the past. The future of the space-sim is to refine and perfect formulas that had worked in the past. Inventing new formulas may very well work, it may produce positive results - but these new formulas will finish off the space-sim rather than save it.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

But I will say that all this makes me sad. It makes me sad that the only times I ever really find myself here are when you're involved in more petty debates about the origin and history of space combat games. I'm not here to tell you you're wrong - you can blame what happened to the space genre on FreeSpace untill you're blue in the face.

This, gentlemen, is a troll. Someone from another message board here to stir our generic little winding-down internal argument into a flame war.

Let me be perfectly clear, sir, since you seem to desire such a statement: you have a terrible community for a terrible game.

There's a reason you jerks keep sending your drones here: you have no core to your fandom save the ability to organize the antagonism of your betters. If you actually cared about our opinions, you'd clean up your own house -- coming here and telling us we're wrong for defending ourselves is disgusting.

 

[Maj.Striker]

On a side note...I liked Star Crusader.

 

[wolfboy]

alright folks, having read through most of this pages BS and now sitting on the tail end of the arguement i have to say this:

i have played WC since WC4 and wished i could get my hands on everything i have lost of it or never had, i currently have FS 1&2, and i have to say while i enjoy FS's game play and engine, i really prefer WC for its storyline. The people here are right in that FS is a rippoff of WC and i hate to say it but its not even a good rip off, they ripped off from about WC4 on in my mind because in FS1 you are winning the war when the new enemy comes along. As for those who come here trolling, stop. Your degrading yourself and a game that since i cant get my hands on a copy of any WC stuff i enjoy as a decent substitute

 

[Spertallica]

Hmmm, thankx for the link to Starshatter- I look forward to giving it a try!

I have indeed tried Standoff, and I really think it's a good mod (IMO, a far better game then the original Prophecy, WCP SO, or even WC3), and I appreciate the innovations that the Standoff team has employed in the creation of their mod. The addition of wing losses carrying over missions was really cool, and, at least for me, added to the immersion of actually "being" a wing commander by holding the player responsible for losses under his command. Standoff actually *feels* more like a Wing Commander game then WC3, 4, or Prophecy, precisely because it tries to be consistent in both plot and artistic presentation with prior WC games (unlike, in my opinion, the above mentioned WC games, but that's a topic for a different thread).

(and, on another note, the observation below isn't to imply that Standoff isn't exciting, or that I don't enjoy current WC games at all)

For me, plot is a central aspect of any single player video game. A crappy plot and subaverage multiplayer won't make for a memorable gameplay experience (which is the general argument raised in this forum against FS or FS2). However, that being said, a good plot doesn't create a "pass" for exciting game play. One of the things that attracted me to the WC franchise all of 13 or so odd years ago was the fact that it was more complex then other spaceship games of the time... various systems of your ship could be damaged, challenging enemy ships didn't die in one hit, and you had friendly AI ships backing you... this to me was revolutionary when I remember the closest thing to WC that I had played at that time was Gradius or River Raid. I liked the fact that the I could be immersed in the complexity of the game... and I think the key to successfully selling such a game doesn't require keeping them ultra simple, but making sure that they have an easy and intuitive learning curve for their features, like the original WC. Plot is important... but plot wasn't WC's original draw for me. Sure, plot certainly adds to the experience, but if the only reason I'm ploughing through missions in a game is to see the plot, then what I'm playing is not a very good game (a good example of a game series facing this problem are the later games in the Final Fantasy series- for instance, despite having an intriguing plot, I couldn't get myself to finish Final Fantasy X2- Why? Because I thought the gameplay part of the game was terrible- oh, and BTW, I actually like RPG's!).

In sum, I dread the day that WC games are treated the same way as a pick up and blast'em spaceship shooter (like Gradius or Starfox). EA may choose to make things as streamlined and traditional as possible... but that doesn't mean that it's going to be a good game, no matter how well the plot is written. A game is a game, not a novel, and compelling gameplay is an important part of the equation for a successful game.

Oh, and BTW, for everyone out there claiming that everyone copies WC... that's not really true. 3D space combat existed years before WC- see Star Raiders (which was made years before WC for the Atari 800) (http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/star-raiders/), and for all we know, WC is a Star Raiders knock off, and who knows, Star Raiders might be copying someone else. In any case, it's not a correct assertion that everyone is copying WC just because WC was ultimately the most commercially successful franchise. An analogy could be drawn to thrash metal, as that's like claiming every 80's thrash metal band copied Metallica because Metallica was arguably the most commercially successful thrash metal band of the late '80s (back when they still were thrash)... even though thrash metal existed before Metallica, and not every thrash metal band was a "Metallica Clone."

[Post edited by Q to fix the link]

 

[Spertallica]

Sorry about the double post, but apparently my link above didn't work- just google "Star Raiders" and "atari"- you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

[Paddybhoy]

* Dual defense/strike missions, with big panoramic battlefields. Balancing a Midway defense and striking a destroyer group was an impressive show.

Your right, I was excited when I started this mission, but the cap ships didn't even go near the midway, all you had to do was waste the fighters nearest the midway and then do some SEAD on the capships

* Booster packs -- you can zip out to an inbound strike force... but you can only do it once, and if you plan it poorly you're far away from the next group of attackers. Same deal with swarmers -- instant kill... but pick your targets carefully

.

I loved flying the wasp but I ask you if you 'didn't' use the booster pack would it change the complexion on the mission? I can play that mission on nightmare and still do alright without using it.

* Corvette torpedo strikes during defense missions.

Your right, when I saw a Barracuda lanch a torp I was amazed, I never saw it again after that, if the programmers had done it right it would've been amazing, but the corvettes hardly ever fire their torps even when you want them to, instead they usaually amble about trying to target fighters.

* Red Mantas. Gosh darn, the Red Manta was brilliant. We're all spoiled by the internet today, but in 1997 the Red Manta was a very well planned surprise. The game very consciously introduces the Manta as the space superiority fighter... and then sneaks in a variant that strips shields down in a defense mission. It's one of those cool, subtle tricks that Wing Commander can manage because everything is integrated so well -- you don't even notice it's happened, and it's so *reasonable* looking back.

Your right it was a neat trick (i had the misfortune of reading about this trick before I played Prophecy) but couln't they have thrown in another type of bomber just to keep things interesting?

I'm not sure what you're saying here -- you were looking for an example of a mission with an escape pod.

Your right you did give a mission with an escape pod in it... and the freespace mission totally eclipses it (hey if your allowed to make blanket statements then so am i!)

I'm also not sure what you think the bar is in terms of missions about escape pods -- they have to have seven escape pods instead of one? How does that make sense? This mission was great because it was part of the story, complete with FMV sequences that related directly to it... if it was some kind of generic space crap roundup, it wouldn't have the kind of connection we'd want

In terms of story it was very important to casey.... but it was still a soso mission much like many of prophecies missions, except this one had FMV

I gotto go, when I get back online on sunday I'll try to read this entire thread (that will be a heck of a read thank you very much) and try to build a more structered and pertinent argument, I just don't have the time the now...... later

P.S. to everybody arguing for Freespace, keep a civil tongue (or fingers?) theres no need for childishness here...that being said keep on fighting the man brothers!!!!