My thoughts on Standoff

Standoff 2?

Guys...no wait, I mean, Modding Gods, will you perhaps make a Standoff 2 or even a Novel (=0) this century?
 
Nope, no Standoff 2. Most of the team agrees that there's no good way to continue the storyline, and that the best thing for our sanity is to not take on another Vision engine project. :p

Personally, I also think that gameplay-wise, there is no way we could do much better than Standoff in a similar project (ie: mostly linear story-driven WC space shooter). A sequel, even if it had a new story, better graphics, and etc. would essentially play like more of the same, IMHO, and that is an impression that we've tried our best not to give people with each of Standoff's episodic releases.
 
What about a novel of some sort? It doesn't have to be a sequel, maybe a prequel or just a novel of the orginal Standoff storyline. I'd buy it.
 
Standoff’s story is based on the novel Fleet Action. If you haven’t read that you can get it for $0.01 on amazon.com right now.
 
Quarto said:
...although it was actually one of the first things I did while working at City, is one of the things I'm proudest of, and actually got one or two good reviews....
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That's really awesome. I don't think I actually found out what developer you ended up working for. Even if the job was unglamorous, it's still nice to know what was churned out.
 
Blaster said:
Standoff’s story is based on the novel Fleet Action. If you haven’t read that you can get it for $0.01 on amazon.com right now.
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Why do you even BOTHER selling it at that point? DONATE the damn book and maybe get like a .05 tax write off. :p
 
frostytheplebe said:
Why do you even BOTHER selling it at that point? DONATE the damn book and maybe get like a .05 tax write off. :p
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Maybe that's the point - selling a book for $0.01 is donating it, except that it's donating it to someone who actually wants it, and is actively looking for it. On the other hand, if you just donate it to a local library, there's a pretty good chance that no one will ever read it.


In answer to the question - no, we definitely won't be doing any novels. Even setting aside all the obvious arguments (like the fact that none of us are any good at writing books, et cetera), Standoff simply should not have a prequel or sequel of any kind. A sequel isn't warranted - Standoff is a self-enclosed story. A prequel, that's even worse - if you play Standoff first, and the prequel second, you'll interpret everything based on your knowledge of the future ("No, Sparrow, I don't like you!" "But you only just met me!" "Yeah, but I know you're going to sell out to the pirates in the future!"). On the other hand, if you play the prequel first, Standoff itself second, your knowledge of what objectively happened between Bradshaw and Sparrow will affect how you look at their relationship in Standoff. Standoff is designed with the idea that you don't know what happened between them. We drop various hints along the way, and so on. So, if you did know what happened, the whole effect would be ruined - like watching the Star Wars prequels before the original trilogy.
 
No, no, and no. Standoff is already a Wing Commander spinoff. We have no plans to continue Standoff by any means, once it's done, it's done.

We're just too damned tired. Counting the time spent on UE before Standoff, I've been working on WC mods for almost exactly nine years now. My whole damned adult life up until this point, most of my spare time has gone into Wing Commander. That's really gotta stop...

I mean, there is some marginal chance that we'll wind up working on another WC project - a marginal chance. I still have half a dozen ideas I'd love to work on. But at the moment, even finding the energy to finish Standoff is a challenge. Most likely, our future mods are gonna be something like that mythical creature named UE2 - in other words, they'll be something we'll talk about every once in a while, but we'll never actually seriously start working on them.
 
Quarto said:
No, no, and no. Standoff is already a Wing Commander spinoff. We have no plans to continue Standoff by any means, once it's done, it's done.

We're just too damned tired. Counting the time spent on UE before Standoff, I've been working on WC mods for almost exactly nine years now. My whole damned adult life up until this point, most of my spare time has gone into Wing Commander. That's really gotta stop...

I mean, there is some marginal chance that we'll wind up working on another WC project - a marginal chance. I still have half a dozen ideas I'd love to work on. But at the moment, even finding the energy to finish Standoff is a challenge. Most likely, our future mods are gonna be something like that mythical creature named UE2 - in other words, they'll be something we'll talk about every once in a while, but we'll never actually seriously start working on them.
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I personally think you should let standoff be the end all. You'd be hard pressed to outdo yourselves on that one, no offense.

But seriously, 9 years IS a long time. There comes a time when one needs to say, thats it, no more, I'm done. Quarto I think you're a step away from doing that, and you should. You've more then earned it. Yours and the standoff team's contributions to WC will not be soon forgotten.

Plus people come on! You'll always have standoff, and with WCsaga and Pioneer on the horizon, you'll have more then enough to occupy your time! Let legends rest and thier legacy grow.
 
Quarto said:
No, no, and no... We're just too damned tired.
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I definitely hear you. Frankly, I'm surprised so many of the UE team was willing to join the ranks of the Standoff team once that project was finally finished off all those years ago. Whether Standoff is ultimately finished or not, I want everyone to be proud of the work you have all put in and not feel guilty at saying "no" to any future projects/ideas.
 
Except maybe an update to UE (more engine then content obviously....eg internal fiction viewer, better graphics).

Would be cool to see an update (though it shouldn't be too difficult for anybody to do that now (with the source code being released), main issues would be integrating the progamming aspects).
 
The only thing I would like to do with UE is fix a few mission-related bugs. I find it hard to look at UE, because I know we can do so much better now - but at the same time, I'm quite happy to let UE remain as a snapshot of our abilities back in 2001.

Besides, what would be the point? Unless we were to overhaul UE completely, right down to making heavy alterations in the storyline, it'll still be noticeably below our current standards.
 
As much as I think Standoff ranks as Extreme Excellence for a WC game, I don't blame you guys for hanging up the hats either. I also think that not making a Standoff 2 is rather logical, both from the standpoints of the parallels from Fleet Action and, "chronologically", WC Saga would appear to take up where Standoff/Fleet Action leaves off, what with the reference to the Battle of Earth in Saga.

Everyone on the Standoff team deserves a warm round of applause (at the VERY least) for making such a great, fun, challenging, exciting and enticing game.
 
What would be really needed for UE are some of the patches now in WCP/SO/Standoff. Like the sound skipping one IMHO.
 
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