PCPLAY Reviews Wing Commander Prophecy (July 6, 2017)

[Bandit LOAF]

TheOneZytel was kind enough to share a Wing Commander article from his country! This issue of the Croatian magazine PCPLAY reviews Wing Commander Prophecy positively (giving it a 90%.) And of course, the cover also has Lara Croft! TheOneZytel was also kind enough to translate the article, which is available below. We love seeing Wing Commander articles from around the world, so please feel free to share if you have any!

Wing Commander: Prophecy

RETURN TO THE ROOTS

If we think of the first Wing Commander we will recall low resolution and a small number of colors, but if we think of it's previous sequel, The Price of Freedom, we will recall a SVGA resolution engine and a ton of video sequences. Wing Commander is a game that during its years on the scene didn't only follow the technological achievements, but it also stood out.

It set standards that other games followed. The fifth Wing Commander has thrown away the numerical behind its name, so now it is called Wing Commander: Prophecy. Besides the numerical mark missing, the man who designed this game and is probably the most credible for its success, Chris Roberts, has also left Origin. Only time will tell how this is going affect the new version of Wing Commander and its future.

After the war with the Kilrathi an even nastier race of alien has appeared. Ugly, slimy, with hideous plans and bad breath, but also with much more powerful ships the aliens should give you a lot of trouble. In any way, you must put a stop to them.

This time you won't be a veteran pilot Blair (played by Mark Hamill in previous two Wing Commanders) instead you will start as a complete newbie who still needs to work his way toward success. Even though your character won't be played by Mark Hamill he will still make an appearance in the video sequences, as will Tom Wilson (also known as Maniac) and the lovely Ginger Lynn (your mechanic). Unlike the previous two Wing Commanders this one will not have a great emphasis on the video scenes (they will be shorter, but still made spectacularly) therefore a greater emphasis is on the game itself. Graphics engine will work in 16-bit color with various light effects. There will no longer be any unnecessary strolls around the ship, but everything will be accessible with a click of a mouse. Prophecy will bring more branching in between missions so that the game loses its linearity and there is a larger number of variants of mission objectives as well.

The biggest novelty is capability playing multiplayer in cooperative and death match style. A support for playing over the internet is also in the works.

In any case, Wing Commander: Prophecy brought lots of new things, even if that was not what you were expecting. The future of wether we will play Wing Commander games in the future will depend on it.

Pros: Greater emphasis on the game itself, network play
Cons: As always, This Wing Commander requires a strong hardware too

Upper image: One of the crafts you will control
Right image: These effects will appear in the rendered clips and in the game
Left image: The man who worked at the design of aliens and their craft has also worked on several well known movies. As you can see they look very original. Besides the crazy design they also have an ability to merge several smaller ships into one large so they increase the fire power. If you see a similar example run to the nearest black hole.

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Original update published on July 6, 2017

 

[Mace]

Is this not a preview? If WCP actually had the co-op they advertised here, I would have been playing this:https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Original_PC_Trailer , with all the community enhancements, with my best buddy rightnow, and not Modified Starlancer or Freespace Open. Sorry if I might appear negative on this, but just had to get it off of my chest.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Is this not a preview? If WCP actually had the co-op they advertised here, I would have been playing this:https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Original_PC_Trailer , with all the community enhancements, with my best buddy rightnow, and not Modified Starlancer or Freespace Open. Sorry if I might appear negative on this, but just had to get it off of my chest.

It's classified as a review since it has a score and a judgement of the game... but obviously it's based on either a much earlier build (such as one shown at E3) or is purely from a spec sheet rather than a game at all. Unfortunately, that is still common today in gaming media (But it was a little more innocent back then... in the days before high speed internet, it might be impossible to get the gold version of the game to test in time to make it to print in a way that would actually help your readers.)

 

[Mace]

It's classified as a review since it has a score and a judgement of the game... but obviously it's based on either a much earlier build (such as one shown at E3) or is purely from a spec sheet rather than a game at all. Unfortunately, that is still common today in gaming media (But it was a little more innocent back then... in the days before high speed internet, it might be impossible to get the gold version of the game to test in time to make it to print in a way that would actually help your readers.)

I know this, thanks for the response .. but the co-op scenerio, in my opinion would have been a gamebreaker for me, as one of those who want more then just a deathmatch or battle royal.. Starlancer(who's mission editor was never released), and numerous other games, to this day, leave out co-op multiplayer in favor of deathmatch. The most current combat flight simulator game to my knowledge that actually features a co-op campaign was Blazing Angels 2(2007), and it's been a real pain getting that to work on modern operating systems.. On steam you find things like "yeah we'll do it sometime in the future".. Since you work in the sector, is there really such little demand for multiplayer co-op? Does everyone has a 30 second attentions span and just wants deathmatches or battle royal?

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Doesn't StarLancer have four-player online/LAN co-op, with a unique campaign variant? IIRC, they spent a buttload of money making that work and found that less than half a percent of players ever even started it.

That's why co-op isn't too popular among developers... it means either you have to limited your initial campaign to 'allow' co-op or it means you have to build something separate for a bunch of money. No one wants to do the first (which is seen as limiting the potential of the core game) and no one can afford to do the latter anymore (especially when it's not believed to be a selling point.)

That said, I think the industry is wrong... we need a better concept of 'prestige' features. As sad as it sounds, the truth is that a large number of people who buy games don't actually play them... and those sales rely on what a game *can* do in their minds. (Take the racing in Star Citizen; in the scheme of things it's a minor element and most of the audience focuses on the combat and the trading... but the fact that it's there available makes people proud of 'their' game.)

 

[Mace]

Doesn't StarLancer have four-player online/LAN co-op, with a unique campaign variant? IIRC, they spent a buttload of money making that work and found that less than half a percent of players ever even started it.

It does(8 actually, and 16 in vs mode) and I spent some time fixing it and optimizing it on windows 10, and it looks(and sounds) better then Freespace open does today, I posted a video on it with restored and "upgraded" graphics in the topic "starlancer", the difference between playing solo is 3 missions being slightly different(you don't get sucked through the wormhole, an ace AI pilot does). however, it's only 25 missions, and once you are done with them, you are done. Since there never was a mission/campaign editor released, and the modding community died off in favor of freelancer, those 25 missions are all that there will ever be. That just leaves freespace2 with it's massive modding community.

That's why co-op isn't too popular among developers... it means either you have to limited your initial campaign to 'allow' co-op or it means you have to build something separate for a bunch of money. No one wants to do the first (which is seen as limiting the potential of the core game) and no one can afford to do the latter anymore (especially when it's not believed to be a selling point.)

With storylines not focussed at the "player being the -only- hero" experience, but at the mission objectives and what flight group "X" consisting of one or more person it should not, IMHO, be that hard.. most 3D shooters after doom that had net code also had multiplayer co-op, where they just beefed up or increased the number of enemies depending on the number of human players.. then again, unreal tournament does nothing more then deathmatch and is still popular. Same with World of Tanks and Warplanes, it's quick action and you can get in, score some kills and be done before the oven is done with your pizza. It's not the way I want my multiplayer, as it gets boring fast.

That said, I think the industry is wrong... we need a better concept of 'prestige' features. As sad as it sounds, the truth is that a large number of people who buy games don't actually play them... and those sales rely on what a game *can* do in their minds. (Take the racing in Star Citizen; in the scheme of things it's a minor element and most of the audience focuses on the combat and the trading... but the fact that it's there available makes people proud of 'their' game.)

Yes, I know those guys with xbox profiles with hundreds of games, and an achievement for starting them up.. ofcourse this is where money is made, and not the angry video game nerds who play each game for weeks and months on end until they complete them.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Have you tried reaching out to Paul Hughes about the Starlancer mission editor? I seem to recall that he was trying to put out a consumer version for fans back in 2000... he's a heck of a guy, and has been massively helpful with such things for Privateer 2!

 

[Mace]

I looked into this and it was mentioned multiple times digging through the lancer's reactor, in posts from 2001, there also was another project by a community user but both project were last mentioned in 2004, and no version ever was released.
Paul Hughes's version would have been based off the inhouse editor, and he had to remove of copyrighted stuff, and it likely was abandoned at some point overtime. But I'll try to get a hold of him if anything ever was in an alpha state.

But the game would first have to receive an update that would allow you to select custom missions or alternate campaigns, and this patch was never released. Still with the comunity mission editor(that also never came out), there are a lot of factors that trigger dialogue or ingame cutscenes, you would have to work around this, and still have the original briefings...

besides while the game still looks good, it's ancient, and while still "popular" as a dreamcast multiplayer game, there would be little to no interest. The remaster project mentioned here lately, or the X-wing remaster project in unity offers a lot more potential.

 

[Quarto]

Doesn't StarLancer have four-player online/LAN co-op, with a unique campaign variant? IIRC, they spent a buttload of money making that work and found that less than half a percent of players ever even started it.

That's why co-op isn't too popular among developers... it means either you have to limited your initial campaign to 'allow' co-op or it means you have to build something separate for a bunch of money. No one wants to do the first (which is seen as limiting the potential of the core game) and no one can afford to do the latter anymore (especially when it's not believed to be a selling point.)

That said, I think the industry is wrong... we need a better concept of 'prestige' features. As sad as it sounds, the truth is that a large number of people who buy games don't actually play them... and those sales rely on what a game *can* do in their minds. (Take the racing in Star Citizen; in the scheme of things it's a minor element and most of the audience focuses on the combat and the trading... but the fact that it's there available makes people proud of 'their' game.)

Agreed on all counts. I've been there, I've seen what happens when you've got an underfunded co-op feature in the game - it's implemented in a half-assed manner, and the team treats it like an annoying hot potato. Even the testers don't much appreciate having to test it. And yes, at the same time, you need these kinds of prestige features that distinguish the game.

More to the point, though, I think these kinds of features have the potential to drive demand. And one of the oddities of gamedev is how companies often base their decisions on past experiences, which were grounded in the technology of the day, and are no longer applicable in any way. Starlancer's co-op is something that any space/air combat developer will point to as an example of the folly of developing a co-op campaign (and if not Starlancer - which is almost two decades old, after all, they'll point to the many games that came out afterwards with no co-op as proof of the folly of co-op). But Starlancer came out at the tail end of the dial-up era. The connectivity just wasn't there, and neither were there all the other features that today we take for granted with multiplayer experiences. Looking more broadly than one game, this is exactly why the Dreamcast's built-in modem didn't turn out to be a big hit, and died miserably - but this didn't prevent the next generation of consoles from taking advantage of broadband internet to provide far superior multiplayer capabilities. The same should have happened with co-op in games... but didn't.

And you know, at the end of the day, I'd be happy if people bothered to at least provide me with a simple, Armada-style co-op experience. I have many fond memories of playing the gauntlet co-operatively in Armada, and that was literally identical with the non-co-op variant. But the whole draw of co-op in Armada was because the gauntlet was designed to be really, really hard, and having a wingman actually made it almost winnable .

 

[DefianceIndustries]

I miss coop especially in flight sims. for me X-wing v Tie Fighter was sort of the pinnacle for the genre. While it didn't have a story driven campaign mode, it did still have a campaign feature albeit a play through of the listed battles.

I think there's still a coop market, titanfall was fairly successful with the drop in coop mode, then you have games like Friday the 13th and other multiplayer murder simulators of that ilk which also have a robust coop mode.

 

[Mace]

Co-op was one of the things I wanted as kid, twentysomething years ago, and while the technology was "just about" ready(Dialing into MS Gaming network worked, but it was expensive), we do have that technology today, and a high-speed bandwith that works globally.

"Attempting" to view this from a designers perspective, WC might be in trouble since all is based around the unnamed hero, but a game like Tie Fighter does not give a rat's ass who did what during the mission, as long the objectives were met. I can get to Quarto's perspective since in Blazing Angels Co-op, eacht pilot had to accomplish the mission objectives, and that can get bothersome, and I would call that half-assed. So IMHO you would have to calculate in somewhere the multiplayer possibiliies and how these would affect the game. So it would be easier to develop MP in the game from the start.