MSN On Joystick Significance (March 3, 2008)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator

One (of many) reasons why there were no new Wing Commander games in the early part of the current decade has to do with the decline of the joystick as a PC peripheral. UK MSN's Teh & Gadgets column recently addressed the issue in an article by Patrick Gross. Games like Freelancer were sold on their ability to play without the input device. That's a big change from a dozen years earlier when Wing Commander's on-screen joystick hand was a hyped up feature. Some of the coolest, most elaborate and most advanced sticks are still around today, but they are nowhere near as ubiquitous and available as they once were. The article does a decent job of summarizing the present situation and making a guess at what's to come. Also check out JoystickRequired for a good news hub dedicated to flight and space sims.


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Original update published on March 3, 2008
 
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Good find, Chris. I agree that the downfall of the device certainly hurt Wing Commander. Personally, I usually just played on the keyboard but I know I was a minority (way back in the day, at least).

Hopefully things can rebound though, who knows. :)
 
I think Kris found it initally. I also played mostly with the keyboard. I think the early part of this decade was a tough transition period in a lot of ways. You had the absence of peripherals like joysticks, but consoles were still evolving into their current form and competing heavily with PCs. I can definitely understand how EA would consider 2000-2004 to be a tough time to market a space sim. With previously PC-only genres like RTS and TBS games seeing great success on consoles, and the PC market in fairly different place today, the environment is potentially a lot better for sims of all kind in the years ahead from the point of view of a company believing the genre has a market.
 
What is the official word on the PC market? Do we think the future is brighter now than say, 2003?

It certainly is still quite different from how it appeared in the early to mid 1990's...
 
My understanding is that present predictions call for the PC/console gap to continue until 2011, at which point man-hunting robots will replace both platforms to a significant degree.
 
The Nintendo versions will be shorter and will not come with man-hunting abilities, but they'll quickly sell the other offerings under the table and be the surprise of the Xmas retail season for 2011.
 
ChrisReid said:
I think Kris found it initally. I also played mostly with the keyboard. I think the early part of this decade was a tough transition period in a lot of ways. You had the absence of peripherals like joysticks, but consoles were still evolving into their current form and competing heavily with PCs. I can definitely understand how EA would consider 2000-2004 to be a tough time to market a space sim. With previously PC-only genres like RTS and TBS games seeing great success on consoles, and the PC market in fairly different place today, the environment is potentially a lot better for sims of all kind in the years ahead from the point of view of a company believing the genre has a market.
Click to expand...

Have any of you guys heard anything about them making an MMORPG based off of Wing Commander? I know it's not exactly what many of us would want, but with the current "MMO Boom" they seem to be making them left and right.

I know EA's current big MMO in the making is Warhammer Online (made by EA Mythic, formerly just Mythic, who made DAOC), but with the success of something like Eve Online you think something similar but with a WC twist would look tempting.

One huge advantage for such a game would simply be the huge amount of content that already exists in the universe. It could potentially save months, if not years, on conceptual development alone.

Though the vast majority of MMORPGs are sub-par (IMHO), it seems every game developer wants to jump on this band wagon with the potential for extended revenue generation beyond the initial sale.
 
Tell us more about life in your time, unfrozen 2004 man... :)

Seriously, MMORPGs are in a huge decline - everyone invested huge amounts of money in them several years ago... and World of Warcraft ended up taking the entire market share. Losses on subscription based massively multiplayer games have been significant and you won't see another big generation of them.

I do have it on good authority that Mythic is *not* doing the new Wing Commander, too. Which is a shame, because they're just up the road...
 
Hmm, somewhat rambling thoughts here, but I wonder which it is? Lack of joystick variety causing the lack of space/flight sims or delcine of space anf flight sims causing joystick manufacturers to back off?

Yes there are some flight sims still out there, the MS one is a good example of one that makes good use of complex sticks, and the IL2 games are relatively recent and quite good.
but it seems like there used to be a larger variety of flight sim type games, from the MS type to combat games like Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and Battle of Britain from Lucasarts, to space based ones like WC and the X-wing games
 
Jumpstart said:
Have any of you guys heard anything about them making an MMORPG based off of Wing Commander? I know it's not exactly what many of us would want, but with the current "MMO Boom" they seem to be making them left and right.
Click to expand...

If you haven't seen it before, there's lots of material in our news and document archives about multiple different massively multiplayer Wing Commander games that were in various stages of production after Prophecy and Secret Ops.

https://www.wcnews.com/news/2163
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/6580
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/6583
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/7049
 
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Bandit LOAF said:
Tell us more about life in your time, unfrozen 2004 man... :)

Seriously, MMORPGs are in a huge decline - everyone invested huge amounts of money in them several years ago... and World of Warcraft ended up taking the entire market share. Losses on subscription based massively multiplayer games have been significant and you won't see another big generation of them.

I do have it on good authority that Mythic is *not* doing the new Wing Commander, too. Which is a shame, because they're just up the road...
Click to expand...

I admit I have not seen any recent metrics on the profatibility of the market as whole. I was mainly referencing the fact of how many have been released in the last year and many more are to come.

Regardless of profits (besides wow), they are continuing to be produced in fairly large numbers. Obviously WoW holds most of the market, but there are still millions and millions who play other MMOs (especially in the non American markets).

Moreover, I think WoW has played a large part to reshape what the experience of an MMO is - one which is becoming more casual by the day. No more do you have the insane endless grind that was Everquest in 2000~.

I think as the market makes this shift, it will open itself up to new players - mainly, people who have a life but would still like to fool around from time to time. We'll see though. /shrug
 
ChrisReid said:
If you haven't seen it before, there's lots of material in our news and document archives about multiple different massively multiplayer Wing Commander games that were in various stages of production after Prophecy and Secret Ops.

https://www.wcnews.com/news/2163
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/6580
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/6583
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/7049
Click to expand...

I am/was familiar with some of those. Are they all pretty much dead now or do any continue?
 
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Bandit LOAF said:
I do have it on good authority that Mythic is *not* doing the new Wing Commander, too. Which is a shame, because they're just up the road...
Click to expand...

I would say that's probably the only factor that makes it a shame. Mythic is a good company, but science-fiction/arcade shooters aren't their specialty.
 
Gamepads

I've never really used Joysticks since the C64 so it has never been an influence on my Wing Commander experience. I've always used gamepads, the gravis pad with wc1/2/privateer/3 then it broke from over use.

Then I used a mouse for prophecy and so forth

Now however I bought this $10 thing from walmart that lets me use my ps2/gamecube and XBOX controllers with the PC so I have been revisiting the early 90's like crazy once again

Long live the gamepad!
 
Poor joysticks

I have a Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar, it is the coolest thing I have ever owned. I am currently building some rudder pedals to go with it as the joystick is a bit useless without them :) it's a pity that joysticks have basically declined aside from console thumbsticks. I just hope that developers are nice enough to keep including support in games for them. I think that the markets for flight/space games are continuing to evolve and will do so for a long time. I think with the simulation market we will see a shift towards more community based projects think open source engines and user made expansions etc. Commercially I don't think traditional flight simulators are remaining profitable enough. Space games I think we're going to see a revival of at some point although what input method they will use remains to be seen, there are a growing number of gamers who are frustrated by the lack of choice of new titles outside the rts/fps/rpg genres and I think that will cause other genres to have commercial success. Of course those 3 genres will continue to be wildly popular/successful.
 
Darkmage said:
I have a Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar, it is the coolest thing I have ever owned. I am currently building some rudder pedals to go with it as the joystick is a bit useless without them :)
Click to expand...

It is? Dunno. While I have connected some I use them rather seldom.
But on the good news - as long as the programmers support any kind of control the Cougar will be able to emulate it. They cannot take it away <g>.
Shame it doesn't have force feedback, or it would be perfect.
 
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