Privateer beatable with Galaxy?

Originally posted by WildWeasel


Wing Commander, Wing Commander II, and Wing Commander III were bundled and sold as The Kilrathi Saga. Does this mean that they're not individual games? Prophecy and Secret Ops were bundled because they're the two games in Wing Commander's Prophecy series. This does not mean that Secret Ops is not a sequel. It's independent, it tells a new story, it was released separately, it's a separate game.
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How convenient. You latch onto one small part of the argument, and ignore EVERYTHING else.
Each game I listed tells a different story from the original. Each add-on in the WC games tells a different story from the original. SO happens within mere days of Prophecy. Yes, its about a different Nephilim expansion, but its just as much WC6 as Crusader: No Regret was Crusader 2.
In short, it isn't.
A 'Gold' package in the industry isn't a game and its sequel. A 'Gold' package is a game and some additional stuff that the design team has created for the game. AvP Gold wasn't AvP and AvP 2. It was AvP and some additional maps. Tomb Raider Gold wasn't Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider 2. It was Tomb Raider and a few extra levels. Ditto with Thief Gold.
Following the long established pattern, Prophecy Gold is WCP with some extra missions.
The fact that these missions don't require an installation of Prophecy in order to play them is just icing on the cake.
 
Secret Ops continues the Prophecy story in the same way that Secret Missions continues the WC1 story.
As Ghost stated, it´s a matter of opinion, and opinions are like butts, everyone has its own different one, and they are usually not pretty.
 
Prior to editing your post, you mentioned that Secret Ops occurred within mere days of Prophecy. I'd just like to point out that the length of time between a game and its sequel is irrelevant.

Originally posted by Starkey
Secret Ops continues the Prophecy story in the same way that Secret Missions continues the WC1 story.
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That's a very nice alteration of my earlier point. It's flawed, however. The Secret Missions requires the original Wing Commander to function. Secret Ops does not require Prophecy.
 
Originally posted by WildWeasel
Prior to editing your post, you mentioned that Secret Ops occurred within mere days of Prophecy. I'd just like to point out that the length of time between a game and its sequel is irrelevant.
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Eh?

I didn't edit my post, and it still says SO happens within mere days of Prophecy.
And you still continue to quibble about minor issues while ignoring the larger points.
 
Originally posted by WildWeasel
My mistake. I refreshed and saw Starkey's post and thought that it was an edited version of yours. My point stands, though.
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Heh.
NP.

And Starkey - he feels that if a game is stand alone, its a sequel.
 
Originally posted by Ghost
To me, SO isn´t an add-on because you don´t need to *add* it to Prophecy to play it.
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I did not say it´s an add-on*. I said it is a "continuation" to Prophecy´s story

*Immediately after I posted that I changed it (check it, please) but Weasel quoted it in the meantime, which was a matter of seconds.
 
Originally posted by Starkey
So your point is that "system requirements" determine which "story" is a sequel or not.
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Why did you put those words in quotes? Asterisks are what you're looking for!

Anyway, that's not really my point. I accidentally merged the software and story arguments. I still raised the comparison between Wing Commander II and Secret Ops, however. Wing Commander II is also a continuation of a story. What's the difference between the way The Vengeance of the Kilrathi and Secret Ops continue their respective stories?
 
Just because it has some relevance to the thread, here's my general outlook on this.

In the industry, you have two fairly obvious types of follow-ups.

The first is the sequel. A sequel is a new game which is similar to the original, usually in both storyline and style of game - although sometimes one or the other are abandoned. Often a new game engine is used, but this is NOT always true. And example of a sequel is Warcraft III.

The second is the expansion. And expansion requires the original game to run. It is usually a collection of extra "things" that enhances the game, but does not contain the game engine that is needed to run the game. An example of an expansion is Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge, which adds to Red Alert 2, and will not run unless you have installed Red Alert 2 on your computer.

Another type of follow-up, and one that is more nebulous, is generally referred to as a "stand-alone follow-up", or something similarly nebulous. This game is similar to an expansion in that it contains a collection of extra "things" that enhance the game, but it is different from an expansion in that it does not require a copy of the original game to run, as the engine is built into it. An example of this would be Kohan: Ahriman's Gift, which uses the same engine as Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, and features improvements to gameplay in the form of units, enhancements, etc...
 
Originally posted by WildWeasel
That's one way of classifying games...
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Its also generally the way that game companies classify their own games, so its the one I stick with.
Otherwise, you end up arguing whether Starfleet Command 3 (which is still in the development stage) is really Starfleet Command 3 or 4.
Makes life much easier.

And there are other classifications out there (such as the "update"), but they had nothing to do with the discussion, so I left them out.
 
This has nothing to do with WC itself, but Jedi Knight had an "add-on" similar to SO. Well, it wasn't free, but it had a slightly improved version of the JK engine, extra content (missions, weapons, etc) and all the files it needed to run... just like Secret Ops.

However, this stand-alone add-on's setup program checked to see if the original Jedi Knight was installed, and refused to proceed with the installation otherwise... for no apparent reason other than making sure it was at least the second time you were buying something from Lucasarts ;)

My point is (took a while, eh? ;)) - nobody I know considered this a sequel, but on the other hand a lot of people are ready to argue that SO is an add-on. I don't really get it.

--Eder
 
Originally posted by Eder
This has nothing to do with WC itself, but Jedi Knight had an "add-on" similar to SO. Well, it wasn't free, but it had a slightly improved version of the JK engine, extra content (missions, weapons, etc) and all the files it needed to run... just like Secret Ops.

However, this stand-alone add-on's setup program checked to see if the original Jedi Knight was installed, and refused to proceed with the installation otherwise... for no apparent reason other than making sure it was at least the second time you were buying something from Lucasarts ;)

My point is (took a while, eh? ;)) - nobody I know considered this a sequel, but on the other hand a lot of people are ready to argue that SO is an add-on. I don't really get it.
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If it requires the original game, its an expansion. And while I've got both JK and MotS, my minds a little hazy on the details. Are you certain that there was a functional engine with both?
At any rate, SO never requires you to have Prophecy installed, and thus the argument.

RF Burns - What do you do if there is no box or label?
*grin*
(silly, I know, but ironically, the subject of our debate doesn't have one of its own...)
 
You've consulted various companies and asked them how they classify their products? Even if you had, it's still another one of those subjective issues. There's nothing definitive about it.

Originally posted by RFBurns
How about just going by what is printed on the games box and labels?
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If we do that, then Secret Ops is "an unprecedented episodic game release available exclusively over the Internet" and a "stand-alone space combat action game." (This is according to the description at www.secretops.com.)

It's a stand-alone game. It's not an expansion.
 
Originally posted by junior
And while I've got both JK and MotS, my minds a little hazy on the details. Are you certain that there was a functional engine with both?
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There is a perfectly functional engine with both. It just checks to see if Jedi Knight is there to be anal.

Another example of that is StarCraft, Brood Wars. On installation, it checks that StarCraft is there, but once you install it you can throw away the StarCraft CD, BroodWars runs on its own.

I know I'm not going to change anyone's mind, but here's how it looks to me: Secret Ops appears to me to be an add on. (no, of course not in the sense that it requires the original). Other WC games had them, this seems like Prophecy's add-on. Yes, it runs on it's own, but that is kind of the point of a free program. It wouldn't be completely free if they checked that Prophecy was installad ala Brood Wars, cause it would mean you had to pay for Prophecy.

So, in short, MHO is that it is an add on, made stand alone to fit with the goal of having it be free.
 
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