Wing Commander characters you wished you got to see more of...

[Jdawg]

Oh, that's one example. Very clichéd indeed.

As for the rest - ok, whatever . If you're going to insist on using your own special definition of "McGuffin", there's no point in discussing the details of one character or another.

Total recall is another too, its so common it has a TV tropes page and wing commander 3 is actually listed lol under a sub page. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ManchurianAgent

Im just using the definition of what it is. vagabond is used as a plot device in 2 very basic roles to elicit response and to move the story, do not forget if you fail that mission the game ends so it is essential to the plot,

The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and thereafter declines in importance. It may re-appear at the climax of the story, but sometimes is actually forgotten by the end of the story. Multiple MacGuffins are sometimes derisively identified as plot coupons. vagabond is central to the plot in act 1 as you have pointed out, to the pt where you lose the game if you fail his mission but than he is hardly ever brought up again. his plot device was to get the COMM traffic and nothing more except to die

but you are right back to the original topic

 

[Jdawg]

to get away from the whole mcguffin angle for a second, my personal opinion is they needed a fall guy and just chose vagabond. what I mean is the writers wanted the player to feel ok about betraying confed after 3 games and needed a plot device to move the player to hate confed and not to feel bad about defecting, so they chose vagabond to die, which is fine by the way. the problem at least for me is they didnt earn his death in my eyes. his death felt cheap to me, bc like I said the whole point of his character being in 4 was to die, and to elicit a response from the player. so they loosely tied a story plot point around the whole thing and never really bring it up again. So I actually agree with Quarto there, his death scene didnt really work, especially where they put it in the game. The scene should have been later in the game; with vagabond having a mini arc of his own. maybe he should have had the romantic sub plot with sosa, which would have added some weight to his death bc she was there with him at the end and also bc the woman that played her was a great actress. Also vagabond losing a hand of poker to maniac should have been taking out of the game or put way earlier in the game, it was just too much on the nose for me.

 

[Mindcrime]

.......I still vote Pliers....

 

[Jdawg]

.......I still vote Pliers....

what more would you like with pliers, he has a lot of unique dialogue especially if you talk to him right before missions doing loadouts. im intrigued what would you want to happen or where should the character go

 

[quaker2k8]

I would have really liked to get to see more of Rachel.

 

[Mindcrime]

This was originally a thread about who we would like to see more of. So my answer was Pliers lol. He was my favorite new addition to the cast on WC4. I can't really explain why but his character was just perfect for WC4. I would have liked to see him in more WC games or a character similar to him in Sq42 someday. Rachel was awesome too but not as convincing as Pliers was for the role. Also they kinda really screwed her up in Prophecy. They gave her just enough lines in Prophecy to remember she was there. So I would also like more of her but then again in Prophecy I wish there was more cutscenes in general. Sorry I was just trying to get this thread back on course from all the McGuffin arguments. It's a cool thread. Also, in WC3 and WC4 I really wish Paladin was a bigger part of the game.

 

[Jdawg]

This was originally a thread about who we would like to see more of. So my answer was Pliers lol. He was my favorite new addition to the cast on WC4. I can't really explain why but his character was just perfect for WC4. I would have liked to see him in more WC games or a character similar to him in Sq42 someday. Rachel was awesome too but not as convincing as Pliers was for the role. Also they kinda really screwed her up in Prophecy. They gave her just enough lines in Prophecy to remember she was there. So I would also like more of her but then again in Prophecy I wish there was more cutscenes in general. Sorry I was just trying to get this thread back on course from all the McGuffin arguments. It's a cool thread. Also, in WC3 and WC4 I really wish Paladin was a bigger part of the game.

Pliers was a cool character I agree, he and blair played well off each other. I love Paladin he is one of my faves, and he also has a dark and shady past to some extent, lets not forget at the end of 4 he knew of the genetic enhancement programs but he thought they were shut down yrs ago. As a character I felt we got a really good story progression from wing commander 1 to wing commander special operations with him. he also had a huge role to end the war in wc3 (also he is featured heavily in some novels), and of course at the end being a back ground character in 4 as a senator/ I thought that was a fitting end to his arc.

As far as prophecy goes, great gameplay engine but the story to me was awufl and a lot of the actors were either miscast or just bad, and the returning characters seemed to mostly be there for just a paycheck. Ginger lynn was the exception to the rule as rachel. she did not have much to do, but she tried to do as much as possible with her role.

 

[Quarto]

This was originally a thread about who we would like to see more of. So my answer was Pliers lol. He was my favorite new addition to the cast on WC4. I can't really explain why but his character was just perfect for WC4. I would have liked to see him in more WC games or a character similar to him in Sq42 someday. Rachel was awesome too but not as convincing as Pliers was for the role. Also they kinda really screwed her up in Prophecy. They gave her just enough lines in Prophecy to remember she was there. So I would also like more of her but then again in Prophecy I wish there was more cutscenes in general. Sorry I was just trying to get this thread back on course from all the McGuffin arguments. It's a cool thread. Also, in WC3 and WC4 I really wish Paladin was a bigger part of the game.

I think the problem with Rachel in Prophecy was the disturbing undertone of her presence. By this point in time, Rachel would be pushing forty or fifty, and yet when she shows up in the bar, it's hard to determine which role the writers wanted to put her in - that of a mother figure, or that of a potential love interest. Then again, it may be that timing had some impact on this - WCP came out only a couple of years after WC3, so Rachel was in a sense fresh on our mind as Blair's love interest. Perhaps looking at the game today would reveal that such undertones weren't really there. I don't know. Incidentally, one of the small mysteries of WCP is that Rachel only uses three generic different scenes for the post-flight debriefing, but at least double this amount actually exist in the game. So, while you wouldn't have seen more of her per se, you would have seen more variety in her scenes. Presumably, the reason this didn't happen is because they didn't have the space to keep all these scenes on each CD, and didn't want to have an even bigger footprint on the hard drive.

I do think Pliers would have been more appropriate for WCP in the context of what the role involved in WC4 - he is perpetually improvising, so everything that we see Rachel do in WCP makes sense for Pliers (more so than for her, because we'd never seen her improvising in WC3). However, apart from this, it would have been really odd to have yet another should-have-been-retired Border Worlder in there along with Wilford. It would make the whole thing seem like a geriatric ward a bit . Also, I don't know if I'd be able to take Pliers seriously in one of those "pissed off mechanic" post-flight scenes.

 

[Jdawg]

I think the problem with Rachel in Prophecy was the disturbing undertone of her presence. By this point in time, Rachel would be pushing forty or fifty, and yet when she shows up in the bar, it's hard to determine which role the writers wanted to put her in - that of a mother figure, or that of a potential love interest. Then again, it may be that timing had some impact on this - WCP came out only a couple of years after WC3, so Rachel was in a sense fresh on our mind as Blair's love interest. Perhaps looking at the game today would reveal that such undertones weren't really there. I don't know. Incidentally, one of the small mysteries of WCP is that Rachel only uses three generic different scenes for the post-flight debriefing, but at least double this amount actually exist in the game. So, while you wouldn't have seen more of her per se, you would have seen more variety in her scenes. Presumably, the reason this didn't happen is because they didn't have the space to keep all these scenes on each CD, and didn't want to have an even bigger footprint on the hard drive.

I do think Pliers would have been more appropriate for WCP in the context of what the role involved in WC4 - he is perpetually improvising, so everything that we see Rachel do in WCP makes sense for Pliers (more so than for her, because we'd never seen her improvising in WC3). However, apart from this, it would have been really odd to have yet another should-have-been-retired Border Worlder in there along with Wilford. It would make the whole thing seem like a geriatric ward a bit . Also, I don't know if I'd be able to take Pliers seriously in one of those "pissed off mechanic" post-flight scenes.

agreed dont see Pliers making logistical sense to be a mechanic in prophecy, on a state of the art carrier when even you have the option as the player to say he should have been put out to pasture back in number 4. I also thought it was strange to see rachel in prophecy but ratonalied it in my mind by saying blair still had feelings for her and pulled some strings, I mean who is going to say no to the heart of the tiger.

On a completely different note after the star trek and Independence day trailers, Im shocked to say Im actually looking forward to ID2, will it be cheesy of course but I do like the whole reverse engineering plot device they are using , but on the other end of the spectrum I have little hope for star trek beyond. I know it is just a trailer but it looks like a guardians of the galaxy rip off, which is not at all what star trek is

 

[Mindcrime]

Totally agree about the Star Trek trailer. Not really interested. Now, imagine how fun it would be if Pliers and Rachel both worked together in Prophecy? Them fighting over how to improve this or fight over caseys loudouts lol.