Good to see you posting here again, Tolwyn - hope this isn't a one-off
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Generally, I really like what I see. Glad that you guys are doing character briefings - and I hope there's plenty of other cutscenes with characters in there, as well. Also, the whole experience looked much more Wing Commanderish than the original Prologue release - you've made great progress tuning the engine (too bad the cockpit view is still limited to WC4-style). Autopilot seemed pretty natural. I have to say, the thing that always stands out the most for me in Saga is the damage particles system. I know this is mainly an advantage built into the FS2 engine, so it's not technically your achievement but hey - it looks great, so why shouldn't I praise you for it?
All those flames trailing from the Darkets really put WCP to shame! (...in that aspect)
It's too bad that you can really tell how little experience the guy playing has with space sims. To me, the wonderful thing about space sims, whether it's WC or Freespace, is that a skilled pilot could use afterburners to get right close to the enemy's tail, and it was really satisfying to see them explode when they were close enough to fill the screen. This guy doesn't do that, he resorts to blasting them from a distance most of the time.
(on a sidenote I've had the exact same problem with the WWII shooter my company is currently working on - when I went on a press tour, I would start off talking about how we felt that shooting at tiny dots on the screen is boring and how we designed the game in such a way as to maximise opportunities for close combat... and then when the journalists sit down to play, what do they do? They fly slow, don't use the speed boost, and wind up shooting at little dots
)
. You would never fly using a mouse, right?