random thoughts after beating Saga

Jdawg

Commodore
I still plan on writing a full review but I am on break at work so I figured I would post some random thoughts that have been running thru my head today.

I have read many peoples thoughts on the game and while I definitely agree with some of the criticism I dont agree with others, and some is just personal choice of what you like in a game.

The biggest complaint I read about is the fact that there is no branching missions in the game. this didnt bother me bc we know the outcome of the story no matter what. It goes Confed is losing the war so they create the Behemoth, the Behemoth is destroyed, so blair uses the bomb to destroy Kilrah and win the war. I understand why not having branching missions bothers so many wing commander fans bc it is a big part of the game, but in this game it doesnt bother me since this is telling a story thats already been told before as blair in wc3.

Another complaint I see in that same vein is the fact that sandman is never seen in the same light as blair aka an ace and a fighter pilot god, once again that doesnt bother me bc Saga is directly set in the same timeline as WC3 and blair is the savior of humanity and has many more yrs of service than sandman. Like I said Wing commander 1 up to Wing commander 4 are blair's story and triumph, Saga is just telling that same story from a different pilot and perspective.

Also in the same thought, another thing that bothers a lot of players is the fact that sandman is still called rookie throughout the game. I dont know if I took the dialogue differently or what but it never came across that harsh to me as it did others. In fact by the longbow and Excalibur missions it had all but vanished. In fact the last time it was brought up was in the 2nd to last mission when kettle says something like, "I remember when sandman was in diapers and training wheels" and venom adds "that he still is" and they both laugh. I took this as a light hearted jab and not some serious insult. In fact Comm officer Sweeny constantly praises you and your squad as the heroes of the war and protectors of the Hermes. As do other cap ships, like in the mission where you first meet MD the com officer on the Armageddon says the hermes has the best fighter pilots in the fleet (which does include you). To finish off this thought I will use a football analogy there have been many great rookie players who have helped their team win a lot and guess what they still were called rooks their entire rookie season bc it is a hazing period.

lastly I have read that a lot of gamers did not like any of the characters bc they were either bullies or just straight assholes. Once again that never came across to me. I liked a lot of the characters flor instance Officer sweeney was always nice and friendly and complimentary towards everyone except avatarr for obvious reasons. Ninja and Assassin were just like two brothers arguing and teasing each other, they never came across as assholes to me. Honeybear was also a fav wingman of mine in the longbow missions and she was nice and sweet. The captain of the Hermes was great I loved his debriefings after every 5 or 6 missions in fact I wish there were more of those in the game, I loved his voice actor. So I liked a lot of the characters in the game. there are some I didnt enjoy but I will go more into that in my full review
 
Jdawg,

Good to go bro, thank you for enjoying the game. Hopefully I can give perhaps some insight.

Strategically, there wasn't much that could be done as far as branching missions. We were bound by the limits of the FS engine, so there wasn't much wiggle room on that. Ditto with actual walk around the ship cutscenes and stuff. If course if there was a totally new engine that allowed it, it definitely could/would/should have been considered, in my opinion.

The "bully/asshole" thing I find amusing. I made it very careful so the more jerk-orientated, "frat boy", and "jock" characters were the younger guys (2nd/1st Lieutenants and Captains) who have still a bit more time to grow and mature of age and experience. The Majors and above don't get involved in the sophomoric antics, as they shouldn't. And if you notice, once Sandman becomes a veteran he eventually becomes accepted as one of the group, and while he's still being teased a bit, it's more of the "if I'm messing with you I like you, if I ignore you then you've got a serious problem." The perception is further implicated by the fact that the plot had to have been advanced during the mission (no character cutscenes remember?). A thing I find interesting, who do you think gets accepted into these OCS flight training billets, or top Ivy League business and graduate schools in real life? Quite a few of those frat and sorority folk, and jocks. Why? Not just cause of extra resume fluff, but because they can work in a team environment and have excellent communication skills and proven leadership abilities and aptitude.

A truth is that the naval aviation culture is definitely part of the "work hard, play harder" environment and thick skin is a necessity in that ego-driven, testosterone-laden competitive environment. Sadly, in real life some take it too far and cross the line, and there are some unfortunate public embarrassments. Now that we're back in peacetime, every firing is going to be made very public. One very recent example, the former CO of the Blue Angels (he was the CO twice) being relieved of command for fostering a hostile work culture that includes sexism, inappropriate group texting sessions involving females, pilots carrying porno in the cockpits, and one member drawing a Phallic picture on a roof so large that it could be seen on Google Earth. But within the context of Wing Commander series, where a Captain can bang a full Colonel (Blair and Angel), a full Colonel can bang a 2nd Lieutenant or an enlisted Chief (Flint,Rachel), squadron mates shack up with each other (Maniac and Rose), the Saga characters may push the line with their snarky comments and frat-boy antics, but they don't cross it. Well, Avatarr would.

About the rookie thing. If you think about it, Saga is during WC3, which is during the final months of the War. Even I would have issues if one can start up from 2nd Lieutenant to Major/Lt Colonel/Colonel in a few months. So this was used as a reality check, to have Sandman cap out at Captain, but of course the ending implies that he continues climbing the ladder as he progresses in experience and rank.

As for looking back, would I change some things or done things differently? Yeah. Looking back, I think I should have made Honeybear an Excalibur pilot VS pure Longbow bomber jock (alluding to the Excalibur's secondary role in ground attack), but by the time I thought that the script was already finalized. Damn! On another, I think I was overruled and that House guy as inserted in place of someone else I had in mind. I would have wanted the engine to accept in-character cutscenes and such.

And I share your opinion with Sweeney. Her voice actor did some anime voice over for ADV, and I went out of my way to bring her into the voice team. She's an amazing lady and talent. She was able to channel a bit of LCDR Hitchcock from Seaquest DSV, and Alex Reid's Captain Walsh character (from the British show Ultimate Force) in a way that the role was her own.

Captain Moran (a name taken from the WC3 novel)'s demeanor and temperament was based on a real life person who was also at the time a US Navy Captain Moran. I love coincidences. Tee hee.

Take care man, and looking forward to the full write up.
 
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Captain Moran (a name taken from the WC3 novel)'s demeanor and temperament was based on a real life person who was also at the time a US Navy Captain Moran. I love coincidences. Tee hee.
The TCS Hermes and her recon mission in Loki, as seen in Saga, are also mentioned in the WC3 novel.

You know, sometimes when I read about Saga's issues, I wonder how I could've missed them during the beta test.
 
Jdawg,

Good to go bro, thank you for enjoying the game. Hopefully I can give perhaps some insight.

Strategically, there wasn't much that could be done as far as branching missions. We were bound by the limits of the FS engine, so there wasn't much wiggle room on that. Ditto with actual walk around the ship cutscenes and stuff. If course if there was a totally new engine that allowed it, it definitely could/would/should have been considered, in my opinion.

The "bully/asshole" thing I find amusing. I made it very careful so the more jerk-orientated, "frat boy", and "jock" characters were the younger guys (2nd/1st Lieutenants and Captains) who have still a bit more time to grow and mature of age and experience. The Majors and above don't get involved in the sophomoric antics, as they shouldn't. And if you notice, once Sandman becomes a veteran he eventually becomes accepted as one of the group, and while he's still being teased a bit, it's more of the "if I'm messing with you I like you, if I ignore you then you've got a serious problem." The perception is further implicated by the fact that the plot had to have been advanced during the mission (no character cutscenes remember?). A thing I find interesting, who do you think gets accepted into these OCS flight training billets, or top Ivy League business and graduate schools in real life? Quite a few of those frat and sorority folk, and jocks. Why? Not just cause of extra resume fluff, but because they can work in a team environment and have excellent communication skills and proven leadership abilities and aptitude.

A truth is that the naval aviation culture is definitely part of the "work hard, play harder" environment and thick skin is a necessity in that ego-driven, testosterone-laden competitive environment. Sadly, in real life some take it too far and cross the line, and there are some unfortunate public embarrassments. Now that we're back in peacetime, every firing is going to be made very public. One very recent example, the former CO of the Blue Angels (he was the CO twice) being relieved of command for fostering a hostile work culture that includes sexism, inappropriate group texting sessions involving females, pilots carrying porno in the cockpits, and one member drawing a Phallic picture on a roof so large that it could be seen on Google Earth. But within the context of Wing Commander series, where a Captain can bang a full Colonel (Blair and Angel), a full Colonel can bang a 2nd Lieutenant or an enlisted Chief (Flint,Rachel), squadron mates shack up with each other (Maniac and Rose), the Saga characters may push the line with their snarky comments and frat-boy antics, but they don't cross it. Well, Avatarr would.

About the rookie thing. If you think about it, Saga is during WC3, which is during the final months of the War. Even I would have issues if one can start up from 2nd Lieutenant to Major/Lt Colonel/Colonel in a few months. So this was used as a reality check, to have Sandman cap out at Captain, but of course the ending implies that he continues climbing the ladder as he progresses in experience and rank.

As for looking back, would I change some things or done things differently? Yeah. Looking back, I think I should have made Honeybear an Excalibur pilot VS pure Longbow bomber jock (alluding to the Excalibur's secondary role in ground attack), but by the time I thought that the script was already finalized. Damn! On another, I think I was overruled and that House guy as inserted in place of someone else I had in mind. I would have wanted the engine to accept in-character cutscenes and such.

And I share your opinion with Sweeney. Her voice actor did some anime voice over for ADV, and I went out of my way to bring her into the voice team. She's an amazing lady and talent. She was able to channel a bit of LCDR Hitchcock from Seaquest DSV, and Alex Reid's Captain Walsh character (from the British show Ultimate Force) in a way that the role was her own.

Captain Moran (a name taken from the WC3 novel)'s demeanor and temperament was based on a real life person who was also at the time a US Navy Captain Moran. I love coincidences. Tee hee.

Take care man, and looking forward to the full write up.


well that makes sense for why there was no branching missions, even though I still say you didnt need it anyways in this game bc of the time period it is set in. we know what happens, blair blows up Kilrah, so basically there is no losing path. one thing that could have been done I think without major work, is getting the option to abort a mission here are there at certain pts where it would not affect the story at all. one such mission is the fight with stalker, after the first encounter avatarr gets tractor beamed in bc he is damaged, there could have been an option if your too damaged to also stop and get repaired. it would not have changed the mission or story for that matter. lets say you decide to get repaired, that would mean stalker gets away and continues to terrorize the system for a while, and maybe that means you get a harsher de briefing and no medal or ribbon, like you do for fighting him solo for the second time. Just a thought.

as far as voice actors go, I found the women of saga to be the strongest performers of the game by far with Sweeny being the best. you should have used honeybear more bc she was also really really good.glad you mention MD he is prob my least fav character bc his character makes no sense to me, but what I find funny is I like his voice actor a lot, yall should have used him for psychopath, bc he seemed far more crazy than the guy playing psychopath did. im not trying to be a dick but the VA for psychopath was pretty bad and cheesy. Another voice actor and character I liked a lot was The female Col. of the Valkyries, yall should have included one or two more missions with them. that would have made the death of the squad way more impactful.

and like I said the rookie thing is way over blown by some, by mission 30 it goes down a whole lot, and guess what sandman is a rookie, he is not Col. Christopher Blair.
 
I concur on Honeybear's VA, Kira. She won the Anime Expo AX Idol competition in 2007, and she's incredible. I really enjoyed writing Honeybear, who is a really pure person in a den full of pirates. Col Wagner's VA (Karen) is also awesome, she also voiced Admiral Petranova (the Admiral of the Armageddon); she just finished a theatrical show in LA and just landed some VA game contracts in the recent E3 Expo.

I and several of the other team members had alot of challenges on devising what kind of strategy to voice Psychopath, who is supposed to be an example of a younger guy who's been traumatized by what he's seen and how he copes with it. A true psychopath to say, someone who shows no emotion and no empathy. He was originally based on Snafu from The Pacific, a younger but kinda unsettling and disturbing individual who is undeniably creepy. But somehow that strategy just couldn't work and in the end, the selected voice actor tried a more dry, yet unsettling approach that just oozes underlying rage. It seemed fine to me and the others, but then again, during this time I was going through physical therapy (the short summary is that I almost got killed) so I had more pressing priorities to focus on. An interesting note is that while many people think the final voice is based on Clint Eastwood or a cowboy, it's not. It's actually based on Yazan Gable from the Zeta Gundam series. So no worries if you don't like him, I know alot of people do like his unsettling and sometimes cynical tone.

If you would ask me which voice I initially didn't think fit, I would put my vote towards Venom. Because for someone whose supposed to be a Black Lancer (or Commander Shepard making all the renegade options in Mass Effect), I thought he would want to sound a bit different. But his VA did pretty well in the end.
 
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@Jdawg
Personally i agree to your points in the main post here. :) You understood it very well.

I begun 2012 a few weeks before WCS release as bloody WCS rookie and with the old prologoue (5 missions). I saw by random a interview with Anton Romanyuk (WCS founder) and Let's Play from a german game portal, so i was really interested and started with testing the prologoue. In the first mission i thought "a fan made Wing Commander... can this be good?". In the second mission i thought "Oh my god, it can!". The feeling for me was "this feels like Wing Commander... this IS Wing Commander!". Then i played the old prologoue dozens times until WCS was released. :D Yes, WCS have no bombastic cinematics. Personally i don't miss this really. The more interesting thing in WCS i really miss is character interaction between missions, but yes, the engine is not suited for that.

Whatever, i had a really good time with WCS. That was the cause why i started after release in the german forum (WingCenter) with helping other WCS players which had technical problems or other questions. Then i wrote one of my first WCS tools. And i begun with study the technical things behind the scenes - i never have done game modding before - and i had more and more contact with Arrow, german moderator at WingCenter. He has started the translation of WCS long time before WCS was released, but he was alone and has not the needed technical knowhow to build in his texts in a WCS mod. So that was (is) my part and our team constantly grown since 2013 and now our WCS German Mod team has 13 members: translators, technicians, programer, testers. After a few months we worked on the translation project the WCS source was published and i begun with study the source, because we are missed some features for our german translation, especially the possibility to translate really all texts in the game. At this point i had knowhow in several programing languages after 30 years programming, but not for the language it is used for the WCS engine, so i learned also the basics for that. Then i started the WCS+ project as the platform for our german mod project. Now we constantly work on our WCS German Mod and we have also a improved engine (WCS+) with some extra features. I plan to make a "WCS Plus Pack" for the original english WCS game, it will contain the improved engine and all additions and changes we have done in our german mod.

Short, i love WCS too. And this is needed for the work we are doing, because it's really a big job. ^^

@Psych

Nice to meet you. :)

P.S.: sorry for my bad english skills.
 
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I concur on Honeybear's VA, Kira. She won the Anime Expo AX Idol competition in 2007, and she's incredible. I really enjoyed writing Honeybear, who is a really pure person in a den full of pirates. Col Wagner's VA (Karen) is also awesome, she also voiced Admiral Petranova (the Admiral of the Armageddon); she just finished a theatrical show in LA and just landed some VA game contracts in the recent E3 Expo.

I and several of the other team members had alot of challenges on devising what kind of strategy to voice Psychopath, who is supposed to be an example of a younger guy who's been traumatized by what he's seen and how he copes with it. A true psychopath to say, someone who shows no emotion and no empathy. He was originally based on Snafu from The Pacific, a younger but kinda unsettling and disturbing individual who is undeniably creepy. But somehow that strategy just couldn't work and in the end, the selected voice actor tried a more dry, yet unsettling approach that just oozes underlying rage. It seemed fine to me and the others, but then again, during this time I was going through physical therapy (the short summary is that I almost got killed) so I had more pressing priorities to focus on. An interesting note is that while many people think the final voice is based on Clint Eastwood or a cowboy, it's not. It's actually based on Yazan Gable from the Zeta Gundam series. So no worries if you don't like him, I know alot of people do like his unsettling and sometimes cynical tone.

If you would ask me which voice I initially didn't think fit, I would put my vote towards Venom. Because for someone whose supposed to be a Black Lancer (or Commander Shepard making all the renegade options in Mass Effect), I thought he would want to sound a bit different. But his VA did pretty well in the end.


Like I said Psychopaths VA just seemed to not fit the character it seemed like he was trying to act crazy instead of actually being crazy does that make sense. Meanwhile MD just seemed like and un hinged pill popping actual Physcopath lol.

some of the criticism that I do agree with is there are too many false endings in some missions. at first I thought well maybe the devs didnt realize how many times they did this, but near the end of the game, when the hermes is under attack yet again, I believe either avatarr or assasian break the 4th wall in a way and says oh thats a shocker hermes is under attack again. I remember in one mission I think it was the panther and hawk mission where I came home with 8/9 missiles left bc I expected there to be more surprises and wav pts after that, and there were not.

back to voice acting well quick, I liked Sandmans VA for the most part but some of the dialogue and random outburst made no sense. A shining example of this is the opening of the Stalker mission when avatarr says we got a "mystery wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside some kind of pork product" and sandman literally yells "NO SHIT SHERLOCK" it was strange and out of character and I feel like it was only there so a couple of missions later yall could do the same joke but in reverse

finally the enemy aces for the most part were a let down, I really liked Fireclaw and loved Stalker but the rest were either too easy like the enemy bomber ace, and deathstroke, or just anti climatic. aka deathfang yall built this up for three encounters and by the 4th and final fight all we get is a cutscene, it was so anti climatic that even the characters break the 4th wall again to mention it lol.
 
I understand why not having branching missions bothers so many wing commander fans bc it is a big part of the game, but in this game it doesnt bother me since this is telling a story thats already been told before as blair in wc3

You know how the war ends, but having "branching" could have been used to make the untold story of Sandman, his personal experiences and life better or worse, he could be present at the kilrathi surrender on winning path, getting KIA in a suicide mission during the confed assault on Kilrah on the losing path...
 
You know how the war ends, but having "branching" could have been used to make the untold story of Sandman, his personal experiences and life better or worse, he could be present at the kilrathi surrender on winning path, getting KIA in a suicide mission during the confed assault on Kilrah on the losing path...
true you could I just dont think it was necessary at all. its a personal choice I completely understand why some players wanted branching decisions in the game it just didnt bother me at all or detract from the experience.
 
in fact Im getting tired of the choose ya own adventure genre as a whole, just like im a little tired of the whole everything has to be open world now. I know im oldschool but sometimes I prefer a game with a start, middle, and end with a well told single story along the way. I dont need every game I play just let me wonder off on my own and just get lost in an open world. Maybe its bc I did grow up on adventure games like monkey island, full throttle, and my fav The DIG. Those games to me had well told stories that kept me engaged the entire time. Dont get me wrong I love the fact that wing commander games lets you choose the blair you want to be, but I found that wing commander was the exception and not the rule when it comes to that.

for instance I do love Mass Effect as a whole, but your decisions really dont matter and the end is always the same anyways, just like telltales the walking dead games no matter the decisions you make the game ends the same.

the last great modern choose ya adventure game I played was the witcher 2, bc depending on choices you make at the end of chapter 1 will completely change how chapter 2 plays out and the quest you get.
 
for instance I do love Mass Effect as a whole, but your decisions really dont matter and the end is always the same anyways, just like telltales the walking dead games no matter the decisions you make the game ends the same.

For some of us, the problem with Saga is that many decisions we make in flight are not meaningful either. Confed ships explode, not because of bad flying, but because the script says they will. Kilrathi ships often only explode when the script lets them, too. Invincible Terran ships trade fire with invincible Kilrathi ships. My own autopilot won't work until some conversation I've already heard winds to its conclusion, and then it takes me where the script dictates.

The Saga capital ship component damage model seems quite sophisticated, yet not once in Saga's vast list of missions does it send a Terran fleet into battle with a Kilrathi fleet, then let the outcome result from their simulated interactions and the player's attempts to tip the balance.

You've commented on the many missions where Kilrathi torpedoes materialize in space, and on how you sometimes return to the Hermes with heavy damage, yet are blithely ordered away to a new nav point. That's exactly the sort of linearity that Q's Anger Management Thread objects to. While playing the early missions, you asked if Confed can ever fire torpedoes between nav points. On a single late-game mission you are able to request a single such torpedo bombardment, except it's a mission that's scripted to fail. I flew this mission at least 3 times trying to work out where I was going wrong and to make better tactical choices, before realising that there are no choices to make.

You can check some of the scripting by viewing the event log in flight. If it says a ship was destroyed by some other ship, it was part of the simulation. If it doesn't attribute the destruction to anyone, it was scripted.
 
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For some of us, the problem with Saga is that many decisions we make in flight are not meaningful either. Confed ships explode, not because of bad flying, but because the script says they will. Kilrathi ships often only explode when the script lets them, too. Invincible Terran ships trade fire with invincible Kilrathi ships. My own autopilot won't work until some conversation I've already heard winds to its conclusion, and then it takes me where the script dictates.

The Saga capital ship component damage model seems quite sophisticated, yet not once in Saga's vast list of missions does it send a Terran fleet into battle with a Kilrathi fleet, then let the outcome result from their simulated interactions and the player's attempts to tip the balance.

You've commented on the many missions where Kilrathi torpedoes materialize in space, and on how you sometimes return to the Hermes with heavy damage, yet are blithely ordered away to a new nav point. That's exactly the sort of linearity that Q's Anger Management Thread objects to. While playing the early missions, you asked if Confed can ever fire torpedoes between nav points. On a single late-game mission you are able to request a single such torpedo bombardment, except it's a mission that's scripted to fail. I flew this mission at least 3 times trying to work out where I was going wrong and to make better tactical choices, before realising that there are no choices to make.

You can check some of the scripting by viewing the event log in flight. If it says a ship was destroyed by some other ship, it was part of the simulation. If it doesn't attribute the destruction to anyone, it was scripted.

in my full review I will mention scripting, as a whole It was done well to me but yes you are correct there were some times it was painfully obvious and did break some of the immersion.
 
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as far as having invincible wingmen I like that I hate having to babysit. and its not like wingmen in WC4 could die either unless it was scripted. there is nothing worse than having to try and babysit AI npcs. I remember playing dead rising and one of the achievements was called frank the pimp, its where you had to escort 4 or 5 women npcs back to the safe zone, they were so dumb that they would routinely just run right into a horde of zombies
 
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