14
Aug
A mobile game called Ultimate Golf is having an event called ‘Swing Commander’. And so I played 18 holes of internet golf to see if there was anything more to it than the name. And there was not. And I’m terrible at internet golf.
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Register a new accountAug
A mobile game called Ultimate Golf is having an event called ‘Swing Commander’. And so I played 18 holes of internet golf to see if there was anything more to it than the name. And there was not. And I’m terrible at internet golf.
Aug
Today CMDBob has a stellar model of a Wing Commander 3 Southampton class destroyer. We've seen lots of gorgeous examples over the years, but this one goes in a new direction with a wonderful animated style. Even the weapon effect looks spot on. We love it!
I took an old, low polyish model of the Southampton destroyer I'd made a while back, and gussied it up. Ended up with a nice enough animated-ish render style using 3DS Max's ink and paint materials, along with some other material stuff.
Aug
LeHah is back with yet another fantastic Wing Commander collectible! Already the proud owner of such artifacts as a signed movie soundtrack and double-signed movie poster, he's set a new standard for impressive Wing Commander autographs. Here is his Wing Commander 3 poster with (clockwise from top right) Tom Wilson, François Chau, Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys-Davies and Mark Hamill all-in-one. Rhys-Davies was his latest addition, and the actor even added "Paladin" to it unprompted. LeHah has been hitting up various conventions and sending away merchandise for years, but it's getting increasingly nerve-wracking to make progress with this one. While the various autographs have cost some $600 in direct money to obtain, the associated time and effort makes it increasingly priceless. I don't know if I'd be able to put this one in the mail and hope for it to return with a sixth signature!
Aug
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Happy Birthday to us! Today officially marks twenty-five years at wcnews.com! It's been a long road, getting from there to here. It's been a long time, but we're glad you're still here! It's been our privilege to be a part of the Wing Commander community for more than a quarter century, and we're looking forward to many more years here with you.
While today is the formal anniversary of when we first unveiled the Wing Commander CIC, we'll be holding the big birthday party in a bit over a week on Saturday, August 19. The fun kicks off at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT) in Discord #Wingnut.
To commemorate today's milestone, LOAF will be hosting part four of four of his exhilarating Wing Commander Confederation Handbook series this evening. You can watch live and see exactly what goes into deep diving WC lore (also targeted to begin at the same 7 pm Eastern/4 pm Pacific). Stop back here for
Aug
A few months back, LOAF took a look at the development timeframes for the Wing Commander games. It's really interesting comparison! Someone asked how these durations correlated with the size of the development teams, which is also a very neat set of data, so LOAF compiled a new table!
This question fascinated me so I decided to put together some rough numbers with the previous chart. I divided credits by modern disciplines... you can see the size of the development teams basically quadruiples in eight years! (Does not include film shoot crews.)With regards to the expansion packs, they were all very tight 3-4 month productions. A small team of rising juniors would usually develop them while the rest of the group moved to the next big game. They kept it up as long as the concept was profitable!
Aug
…An analysis of survivors from recent Thargoid conflicts and invasions has raised the possibility of human abductions on a colossal scale.
Professor Alba Tesreau, head of Aegis, delivered a personal statement to the media:
"A few months ago I was contacted by Zuri Afolayan , a senior analyst for Safeguard Interstellar. Her job involves collating civil and military data to determine where emergency aid is most needed. She had identified consistent discrepancies between the registered populations of Thargoid-occupied systems and all confirmed deaths, refugees and stranded survivors."
"Aegis performed detailed comparisons of Ms Afolayan's findings with other sources. This led to one inescapable conclusion: tens of millions of people have vanished since the start of the war."
"No doubt many deaths have gone unrecorded, and many others have fled into deep space. But the recent appearance of the
Aug
It's probably only really interesting to me, but here's two minutes of the Dorkir VDU footage from the various insert shots done for the Wing Commander movie. I rotated, cropped, and did some minor stabilization on this clip to make it slightly more viewable. The best looking section is about a minute in, but the low quality and partially cut-off shots are due to how it was shot or the source tapes it came from. You can see that it's a bit more WC1 Dorkir-looking than we thought before, because you can't really get a good or clear shot of it from the Blu-ray edition.
LOAF added this image for context:
For comparison, here's the Wing Commander I Dorkir design. The movie version looks like they just elongated the 'cab'. But it's pretty neat to watch a movie so many times and still be able to see a new spaceship.
Aug
…*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
A new type of Thargoid vessel is hyperdicting human ships and capturing living passengers.
Aegis has designated the hunter-class alien ship as a 'Scythe'. Aden Tanner released an assessment of its capabilities:
"This Thargoid vessel has been designed not just for combat, but to hyperdict ships and extract human beings from them. Our observations of its tactics suggesting that abduction is its primary purpose."
"A Scythe's initial attack mirrors that of its Glaive cousin, by attempting to disable frame shift drives and deplete shields. It then launches a unique strike to makes passenger cabins and cargo holds uninhabitable. The resulting escape pods are rapidly drawn onboard onto the Scythe intact."
Further observations were made by Vice Admiral Skylar Anderson, the Empire's military liaison to Aegis:
"Due to their modus operandi, it now seems likely that the
Aug
…Remember the story in the Privateer manual? It’s very well written but it’s a little odd since it opens the booklet with eight pages of uninterrupted text. And none of the backstory is ever referenced in the game!
It turns out Origin had originally commissioned a comic artist to illustrate the story. The work was developed and the contract was doubled after the first delivery… but it was all dropped from the design very late in development!
It’s all this super cool 2000 AD style stuff. Thirty pieces to cover the story! It actually adapts a longer draft which has another act setting up a rivalry between Burrows and another privateer.
So my contribution today is that I have organized it all and matched it to the descriptions from the art list! It’s like a Privateer comic book. It’s in the wiki along with copies of outlines and earlier drafts of the story!
Aug
…Is there anything more thrilling than the Wing Commander I box art? Despite the claim that “what you see is what you play,” it’s not a screenshot but a digital piece carefully composed by the incomparable Denis Loubet.
Back in the '80s, games would commission stunning traditional artwork for their boxes. The biggest purpose was to attract eyes in stores but they also served as a kind of ‘primer’ in an era of simple graphics. That green-and-black smudge you battle is actually a cool dragon!
Of course consumers are fickle and tastes change. By the end of the '80s games were more complex and their art had a much more distinctive style. Origin needed a new way to stand out. And their first answer was… male models.
Luckily, that experiment ended before Wing Commander! It looked so impressive that they felt showing the game itself was the way to go. So Mr. Loubet had to use the graphics that were ready to get
Aug
We've moved into August, and now it's just two weeks until the CIC's 25th Birthday Party! You can join in and celebrate with everyone on Saturday, August 19. We'll be hosting a huge bash in Discord #Wingnut. Discord has rolled out quite a few new features over the last year, and we'll be trying some of them out with the large group. The main event gets going at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT). Hope to see you there!
Aug
If you missed the big news earlier this week, be sure to check out the new WC4 Fan Remake demo! There are numerous fixes and updates, better joystick support and new in-flight comms. You can download it here (886 meg exe) and get right to playing! The WC Respace team has posted a full article with instructions and FAQs if you have any questions or issues. If you're not quite ready to jump in yourself, here's a video of The Eradicator checking the demo out. It's actually the original release, so the latest version is even better!
It looks like a team of modders are trying to remaster Wing Commander IV. In this video, we will check their work out.
Aug
Aug
…President Zachary Hudson has accused the Order of the Far God of being directly responsible for the fate of the Dedicant megaship.
"Our assessment of these Thargoid-worshipping extremists has been proved correct," he told The Federal Times. "Hijacking the Dedicant to deliver it to their alien gods is an act of treason and mass murder."
"I have ordered the Proactive Detection Bureau to root out every deluded individual with sympathies for this twisted cult. Automatic life sentences will ensure that these traitors never again put innocent people at risk."
The declaration brought political pressure on all three presidential candidates to state their intentions for the Far God cult should they be elected.
Vice President Jerome Archer: "I will be pleased to continue President Hudson's policy on dealing with these religious fanatics: stricter controls, increased surveillance and tougher sentences."
Aug
…*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
The lost megaship Dedicant has been located in HIP 19600, with signs of Thargoid attack and all inhabitants missing.
The Dedicant was being prepared by Federal authorities to deport imprisoned members of the Order of the Far God when it unexpectedly jumped into hyperspace. Pilots who helped decipher its fragmented distress call were informed of the recent discovery by the Imperial Navy.
Executive Agent Jalen Locke of the Federal Intelligence Agency issued a statement:
"We can confirm that the Dedicant has been discovered adrift in the HIP 19600 system. There is evidence that the Thargoids penetrated the hull in multiple locations, and thousands of escape pods were launched. Unusually, there are no bodies onboard and we have not been able to locate any of the escape pods. The whereabouts of all three FIA security teams and over 8,000 Far God cultists cannot be
Aug
…Development of the WC4 Fan Remake is picking up again, and the team has a new update today on comm videos. If you were thinking the clips that play in the communications VDU were simply upscaled, that's just the tip of the iceberg! It was quite a process for AllTinker to extract the colorful Playstation versions and then sync them with the PC version which are higher resolution. They aren't even cropped to the same frame. Then all of that was given to ODVS for an advanced enhancement based on color channels. It was quite a process, and you'll need to read the full article at WC Respace for the details. There's also a video that walks through the comparison.
Oh, and last - but not least - there's a whole new playable demo! Grab it here (886 meg exe). It showcases these new comms, and also a whole bunch more:
- Prioritize GPU based on maker if multiple are found
- Support for 128 button joysticks
Aug
It's been a while since we've shared Matthew Cushman's awesome SciPubTech cutaway poster, and it's fabulous, so we take every opportunity we can get to put it front and center. The project was officially commissioned to support the Wing Commander Movie, but like the Wing Commander Ride or action figure vehicles, it was never officially released. On the bright side, the gorgeous art is available right here for all to enjoy. Mr. Cushman recently reposted it on Behance with a little blurb. There's no new info, but it's nice to see his 'official' statement on the piece!
Wing Commander’s Tiger Claw Cutaway ArtThis diorama was created with the help of the film’s creator. Reference for this piece was supplied by the movie studio to create an accurate depiction of this vessel, but eventually this was not sold as a poster.
Aug
If you're like me and intensely follow the ups and downs of Wing Commander pricing across the internet, we have some very exciting news today! GOG.com has been regularly discounting Wing Commander games for many years, and for the vast majority of that time it's been very by the numbers: all eight packages discounted 75%. Just a couple weeks ago though, we noted that they were running a "Make Classics Last Forever" sale with Armada and Academy omitted. Now they're kicking off a week-long "Shooter Sale . Fortunately, all the DOS/Windows Wing Commander games are back this time, but Prophecy and Privateer 2 are just 70% off rather than 75%. That means they're $1.79 each instead of $1.49. Bizarre! Still, a wonderful chance to fill out your digital WC collection!
Aug
…Having a grand time tonight flipping through Wing Commander I & II: The Ultimate Strategy Guide. This book is so cool. It’s written as an in-universe memoir with the main character (here named Carl LaFong) at age 73 looking back on his training and military career. There’s a neat meta layer too, he’s writing this memoir because he has just served as the technical advisor for 28th Century ‘holovid’ versions of Wing Commander I and II made by “Tristan Roberts”.
This kind of guide written as a novel wasn’t uncommon at the time. X-Wing and TIE Fighter had great ones, as did a bunch of the Sierra adventure game series.
Whoever owns the rights to these in 2023 should serve them up as ebooks; I bet there’s a mint to be made from retro gamers and general nostalgia fans. Despite being written by an Origin marketing executive the prose is wonderful. It captures the more limitless 1991 version of the IP
Jul
A few days ago, we shared Michael Pretli's slick take on the Midway class heavy carrier. It turns out that he's also built a Murphy destroyer! It's also quite a looker.
My second gem from 2010 I want to preserve here, also done in Truespace 5.xMy rebuild of the Murphy-Class Destroyer featured in the Wing Commander Prophecy games, though I added quite some additional greebles to it since the original model in the limit game engine from that time was rather undetailed. To give it a more offensive looking capability I added addtional torpedo tubes and a fixed bow weapon to it. The ship also features a small landing bay for shuttles and a few fighters.