A number of major Wing Commander fan projects have seemed a little quiet for the last couple weeks, but work is still steadily progressing across the community. Here's a little status update for several popular projects.
HCl's Prophecy Multiplayer Upgrade should see the light of day soon. Testing and final interface updates remain, but the hardest parts of coding the first release are hopefully in the past.
There was a small delay introduced on my development schedule for MP. Nothing to worry about, though. With most bugs out of the way, the most important tasks left are to optimize and increase the stability of the net code, as well as integrating a small launcher which will link all players with minimal hassle (right now you have to edit a text file with the IP address of the server and with team information).
As an added bonus, HCl and Justice have both been working on enhancing the programs that allow you to play Wing Commander Armada online.
Work continues on WC Pioneer as well. Howard Day provided some insight.
We keep getting closer and closer to having the editor done and ready. Bugs still keep popping up delaying a release. So on the code side - we're getting there. We've got 80% of the assets I've made art-wise in the engine and all the materials built. We've got the engine running with HDR, Antialiasing, Motion-blur, and advanced GLSL shaders. We still have the various Sector, System, Planetary, and Base editors to create, but most of these will be fairly simple (I hope).
I'm currently working on the Hydra cockpit, as well as the Krant fighter. I've got the Krant blocked out - but not textured - and the Hydra cockpit is almost to the point where I'll be posting it on Crius.net. It's still in rough draft form, but I'm looking at doing the same iterative process that I've done with the last couple of cockpits.
So we are making progress... but nothing is probably going to be shown besides that cockpit before we release a demo to everyone. I wish we could do more, but it's very difficult to show programming progress in a meaningful way. I can say - "This is working!" - but that statement is not really solid till you've experienced it.
In addition to Pete's Contest, Standoff Episode 4 is coming along. Stay tuned to their website for specific details on their latest game update soon. Many people have asked about how HCl's multiplayer patch will affect the game. The answer is that it won't right away.
We certainly hope to add multiplayer functionality eventually (...after it's actually ready to be used), but we have no immediate plans as to when this will happen. My personal estimate would be that it won't happen in episode 4, and it may even end up being done in a patch after episode 5 is done. Time and again, we've learned that adding a new feature when you're half-way through an episode leads to very big delays, and at this point, we're not big fans of delays - with an episodic storyline, it's just not fair to leave people hanging for longer than necessary between episodes. This is especially important when you consider that we'll want our multiplayer to be done as well as possible - which means it won't be something we can do overnight.
Gemini Gold's next version is currently awaiting engine upgrades. In the mean time, the team has improved how cutscenes will work, optimized speech and written a new damage system for the game.
Team members from WC Saga have mentioned the updated size estimate for their upcoming package. The current target is between 200 and 250 megabytes.
And last, but not least, a new version of Flight Commander is at least a few months off.
Work on real flight missions takes priority over Flight Commander. Work has been really busy lately, maybe things will cool down in the summer.
Even if you don't see something new each day, many fans around the world are working hard to develop new and interesting ways to appreciate Wing Commander. I'm excited to see what happens next.
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