David confirmed the truth to the story, that their planned next project in the Wing Commander/Privateer universe, which was so early in development it had not yet been announced, has now been canceled, a move meant to focus their resources on other projects. While David said Origin still considers Wing Commander/Privateer an important franchise, right now it is just not one of their priorities. When asked if there would be another Wing Commander or Privateer game in the future, David wouldn't rule it out, but specifically said he does not want that to raise expectations, saying there are no plans in the immediate future, and the best way to characterize it is: "never say never."
There is a lot of comm chatter in the missions which helps the immersion factor. It reminds me a lot of Wing Commander, actually. When you kill an enemy fighter they tend to taunt you as they blow up. Your wingmen talk back and forth while in combat and even more so when the action cools down.Secret Ops also used extensive comm chatter to deliver the story and immerse the player. You can find the article here.
As I reflect on my first year at OSI I take great pride in what we have accomplished and where this organization is headed. We learn form the past and we leverage our strenghts. This next year presents challenges throughout all of EAWorld. Every studio and publishing entity has been challenged to focus and reduce spending. This is a transition year in the games business. This happens every 5 years with the introduction of new hardware by the market leader. This is particularly challenging because we are wanting to invest and being the transition to online as well. So what does this for OSI?As we ponder how to get maximum benefit for our planned spending, it is clear to me, that we simply cannot fall into the trap of trying to do too much with too few resources. EA is prepared to invest 16mm behind Origin and the Ultima businesses. This investment is one of the top 2 franchise investments EA is making worldwide. With that said it is not prudent for us to deploy precious resources behind the web based games and Privateer. These projects are well conceived with talented people behind them. However we do not have the resources to meet what the teams require to realize their vissions. Moreover, with respect to Privateer we find ourselves with 2 products in EAWorld in development positioned right at each other.
As an organization a greater focus is required. That focus will involve tightening our belts and concentrating on our core business...the worlds of Ultima. Here are the major changes:
Richard Garriott will be leaving OSI. Richard's contribution to OSI has been great and his legacy as the creator of Ultima is a tremendous responsibility for us to inherit. There are few promoters, if any, that parallel Richard's ability in that area. As Richard and I discussed his vision of what he wanted to do -create new large properties, OSI simply could not pursue those endeavors. Wishing Richard only the best and all life has to offer as he embarks on his new challenges.
In addition our workforce will be reduced by 20. The goal has been to minimize the reduction in development personnel and reduce administrative spending in a prudent fashion. We will work as passionately and dilligently to find those individuals affected by this reduction, opportunities within EAWorld or within their specific area of expertise in Austin. Every individual will have a senior manager as a sponsor to help them identify and evaluate opportunities.
Our product priorities are as follows:
1. Grow UOLive to 200k+ subscribers. Jason Bell will be returning to direct UOLive as well as directing the plan for UO2 Live. Jason has been a pillar of strength and his management skills are extraordinary.
2.Ensure that UO2 is a triple A title by using the proper time, resource and management focus on this key endeavor. Jeff Anderson will be devoting 100% of his time to ensuring that this strategic sku is a mjor success. As part of that endeavor the product licensing that Jeff iniated around UO2's marketplace expansion will be managed by Jeff. I am confident that leveraging Jeff's considerable talent behind UO2 will mean even greater success for this awesome product. Debbysue Wolfcale will continue to focus on retention marketing and managing the web group. Debbysue, David Swofford and Galen Svanes who are taking marketing to a new level at OSI will continue to report to me.
3.Rick Hall will become the producer of an exciting new sku, which will be the most powerful new UO release to date. Rick is signed up to deliver this product this fiscal year. Rick has quickly demonstrated his ability to manage and direct against tasks at hand. We will talk more about this product in our next company meeting.
4. UNext (UO3) will be kicked off with a small team led by Rich Vogel, Raph Koster, Chris Mayer, Bill Randolph and Jake Rodgers. This team is charged with redefining and expanding the Ultima franchise to appeal to a much larger market than the hardcore PSW followers today. This incredibly talented group is uniquely suited to lead this charge. Rick and Rich's teams will report into Gordon Walton, who continues to impress all of us.
I know that the last few weeks have been taxing and these are difficult changes to absorb right away. We have the talent, passion and a laser beam focus to execute the most strategic component of EA's online plan. As we move forward we will prove to the world what we already know--we are the best in the PSW business, bar none.
For those of you that do not know who [Chris and Erin Roberts] are, they created the whole Wing Commander series, and the genre that has spun off from it.Lots being 20 minutes. The article comes with a few very familiar looking screenshots too. I just know this game is called Privateer : the Darkening 2 in some parallel universe. Thanks to ATFW.
If you have ever played Wing Commander, StarLancer will feel like coming home. The key layout is very familiar (in fact, most space-sims seems to use the same layout.
Unlike the Wing Commander series, there is no Full Motion Video. Instead, the FMV has been replaced with lots of Computer Generated sequences that allow for a smoother flow.
Apparently a recent PC Gamer had a "Greatest Games of All Time" ranking. Wing Commander 3 received 30th place.Justin Sabelko lets us know that it was actually the Readers' Choice Top 50 Games of All-Time. The last editors' top list didn't have Wing Commander in it at all.
Many gamers that are familiar with the space simulation genre, and the likes of Freespace, Wing Commander, and Independence War will recall that all of these games had one main focus, battle. While this may not have been a bad thing for most gamers, some may be part of a group that crave a game with less fighting.As if. :)
- Question 139: Who saved Christopher Blair when he was forced to eject near Scylla in 2654?
- Question 140: Who saved Dirk Wright when he was forced to eject in Novaya Kiev in 2666?
- Bonus 70: Who saved Ian St. John when he was forced to eject near Hell Hole in 2668?
The creators of Wing Commander and Privateer have been slaving away on a space sim that might just have what it takes to stand up to the mighty Freespace 2.What can I say that hasn't already been said? :)
It's definitely the first of its kind, but it seems to be aiming to create Warbirds style multiplayer arenas rather than an expansive and dynamic gaming world (unlike Freelancer and Origin's Privateer Online), which is a bit disappointing.
Graphically, this is a good looking game, but not spectacular. It should, though, run on a lot more systems than some of the later Wing Commander beasts, at least.That last comment makes me wonder if the author has actually played any of the Wing Commander games. Because even the most recent ones (Prophecy and Secret Ops) run smoothly on a P100 with a Voodoo 1 board. You can find the article here. Thanks to ATFW.
You’ll be able to fly in huge areas (space is, by virtue, vast) covered with huge space stations, giant warships (by giant warships, I mean more than a mile long, with your tiny ship relative in size)And, as we all know, that was something Wing Commander Prophecy featured back in 1997.
Details can be found in the trivia section.
- Question 135: How much did a Centurion Mercenary Heavy Fighter cost in 2669 on the civilian market unequipped?
- Question 136: How much did a Danrik Heavy Fighter cost around 2790 on the civilian market unequipped?
- Bonus 68: How much did it cost to build and launch one fleet carrier around 2668 without fighters?
While Starlancer is a truly entertaining experience, it does suffer from a "been there, done that" malaise. Despite changes in the storytelling style and enemy, the game at this point really feels like another chapter from the Wing Commander book. There's not a lot of innovation immediately apparent, which is somewhat disappointing when you consider the brilliant minds at Digital Anvil and how long they've had to work on the game. At this point, Starlancer is a lot like a Twinkie. You have a damn good time when you're consuming it, but when you're done, you're no more satiated than you were when you opened the package.For some reason I really like this Twinkie comparison. I should compare more stuff to baked goods.
The bandwidth could be used for future Massively Multiplayer Games, like Ultima Online 2 and Privateer Online.Metromedia Fiber and its subsidiary, Abovenet Communications, today announced that Electronic Arts has selected the two companies to provide the optical Internet infrastructure for EA's streaming interactive entertainment. Under the agreement, EA is co-locating servers hosting interactive game content, and obtaining Internet connectivity at Abovenet's Vienna, Va. and San Jose, Calif. Internet service exchange facilities. In addition, EA will lease unmetered fiber from Metromedia to enhance connectivity with their east coast customers.
EA will leverage Abovenet's Global One-Hop to provide increased reliability and performance to all its end-users worldwide, the companies said in a press statement. Metromedia’s plan of an all-optical IP architecture over a dedicated fiber optic web that reaches throughout the local loop in 67 cities in North America and Europe will connect all Abovenet facilities, including its European operations, with its east and west coast hubs in Vienna and San Jose. The capacity and reach of the 29,000 route-mile net with up to multi-terabit per second capacity will provide "an ideal IP infrastructure for the high capacity streaming applications to be offered through Electronic Arts," the companies said.
Wing Commander included hundreds of wonderful little touches that made the hours slip away like minutes, and college freshman term papers seem like frivolous little distractions in my quest to free humanity from enslavement by the Kilrathi. Other than Wing Commander, few games of this genre have evoked in me such a sense of "Wow, what a game!"You can find the article here. Thanks to - you guessed it - ATFW.
This product has been discontinued and is no longer available. We apologize for the inconvenience.One of the reasons that the games won't be reprinted could be the fact that the current EA Tech Support personnel are no longer familiar with the older games.
Your web site, "Wing Commander Combat Information Center" http://www.wcnews.com, has been chosen to be the web site of the day on March 15, 2000 of Daily Web Site (http://www.dailywebsite.com). We update our site based on 0500 GMT. Daily Web Site is the leading award web site that guides surfers to the best web site on daily basis.
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There are a lot of elements from Wing Commander, but what we tried to do with Starlancer is add a new story and universe and a new way of telling the story. We have a new mission system that is more interesting; we tell the story through the missions now, instead of relying on the cinematics. There's no waiting for just the next flick to tell the story.We already saw that "new" mission system in Wing Commander Secret Ops. You can find the article here. Thanks to ATFW.
All I can conclude is that the game fulfilled all my expectations. There was a great void in this genre since the legendary Elite. Some games like Privateer 1 & 2 tried to fill the gap (and failed according to my opinion). Wing Commanders were great, Freespace 1 & 2 were good copies of their predecessors, I loved the X-Wings, but all I ever wanted was to play an enhanced version of Elite. The sequels to the original game always turned out to be crap, and the aforementioned Privateer just did not have enough of gameplay, literally; it was too short.You can read the full article here. Again, thanks to ATFW.
Gamespot's PC Graveyard article on Jane's A-10 Warthog (a cancelled project) contains several neat Wing Commander/Privateer Online mentions. This is without a doubt one of the biggest confirmations we've seen so far.
From page 5:
It was obvious that we had the best team in the building, and we should be doing online stuff! When we approached Lucas for the Star Wars license, that was the first step. That fell through, so [we] started to design Wing Commander Online. This was after the entire Wing Commander Prophecy team left for Bootprint. We asked for a decision to be made about A-10's future - with expectations that it would be supported, marketed, and sold well, or dropped right then - so we could work on the more important, more strategic, and much cooler Wing Commander Online.From page 8:
According to Swofford, "Many of the people on the A-10 team were transitioned into online projects which were underway at the time." Apparently, not many stayed. A source on the A-10 team states that out of a team that numbered around 20 individuals when it was cancelled, "Right now, there are only seven of those people still at Origin. They are all on Privateer Online."The full article can be found here. Previous POL/WCOL confirmations have been archived in the Privateer Online section. Thanks to Joseph Yu-wen Huang and everyone else who submitted the news.
It plays very similarly to the Wing Commander series - in fact far too similarly. The sticking point that stung us as we observed Starlancer in motion was the seeming lack of actual gameplay innovation.That preview can be found here.
Question 133: What was Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall's father's first name?E-mail your answers to ChrisReid@wcnews.com. If you've never played trivia before, it's not too late to start. For more information, visit the Trivia section.
Question 134: What was Lieutenant Lance Casey's father's first name?
Bonus 67: What was Sir Lev Arris' father's real first name?
Yes, the movie is indeed for rental in Holland and I think Belgium. I have finaly seen the movie!Rik Wuyts from Belgium:
I went to Videoland today and was pleased to find that the Wing Commander was available for rent. Also every other video rental store in my town had it. Just thought I'd let you know.
You're about to walk into the biggest den of villains in the galaxy.You're short, you're podgy, and you've just snogged Mr. Big's mother. Are you scared? Hell, no... you've just bought a Krisk Arms Ultimate Cannon! The Ultimate Cannon is the last word in personal defence - own one, and you've got more firepower in your pocket than most primitive armies!
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The Ultimate Cannon... 2,000 creds, from Krisk Arms!
A movie based on a videogame... you're probably not sure what to expect, and neither were we. But rest assure, Wing Commander is a pretty good movie for its genre. Fans of the game series will notice that it doesn't always follow the game to the letter. The movie had a fairly low budget, which you can tell from the not so wonderful aliens and the somewhat simplistic scenery. But these shortcomings are more than compensated for by good acting achievements by Matthew Lillard, Saffron Burrows and Freddie Prinze Jr. Wing Commander is a no-nonsense, classic space-adventure full of action. Fans of that kind of movie won't be disappointed.
| Date | Time | Channel | Title | |
| Mon, Mar 6 | 6:15 pm | MAX East | WING COMMANDER | |
| Fri, Mar 10 | 9:20 am | MAX East | WING COMMANDER | |
| Thu, Mar 16 | 2:30 pm | MAX East | WING COMMANDER | |
| Sat, Mar 25 | 11:30 am | MAX East | WING COMMANDER | |
Jurgen Prochnow (Commander Gerald)Note that Justin also reports that he's never received a reply from Lillard.
c/o ICM
8942 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
USA
David Warner (Admiral Tolwyn)
46 Albemarle Street
London WlX 4PP
England
Freddie Prinze, Jr. (Christopher "Maverick" Blair)
c/o BWR
9100 Wilshire Boulevard
6th Floor
West Tower
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Tcheky Karyo (James "Paladin" Taggart)
c/o Artmedia
10 Avenue George-V
75008 Paris
France
Hugh Quarshie (Mr. Obutu)
c/o James Sharkey Associates Ltd.
21 Golden Square, London W1R 3PA
England
Matthew Lillard (Todd "Maniac" Marshall)
c/o Randi Michel
William Morris Agency
151 El Camino Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
USA
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