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Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Earlier in the summer, we reported on a WC1 retrospective review that was especially comprehensive. At the time, we noted that it was well researched, covered a vast range of topics and was surprisingly entertaining for a lengthy two hour episode. My favorite thing was how earnest the author was about helping new audiences discover Wing Commander. And many people agreed! It's since gone out to rack up 115,000 views. It's been so successful that others have taken notice. In this new clip, vidIQ dissects what made it so popular, which is an interesting meta analysis. I think both creators underestimate how many Wing Commander fans are out there eager for more content! I've relinked the original vid below as well if you missed it in June.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Wreckage from a past conflict between the Guardian and Thargoid races has been found in the Wregoe BU-Y b2-0 system.
The crashed remains of Thargoid vessels, alongside structures of Guardian origin, are located on Wregoe BU-Y b2-0 1 c. Conflict between the two species occurred millions of years ago, but physical evidence of this is extremely rare. The only comparable site, in the Trapezium Sector YU-X c1-2 system, was initially found two centuries ago by the Azimuth Biochemicals ship Proteus and rediscovered in 3307.
Wregoe BU-Y b2-0 was one of several systems under investigation following a report by Commander Renia Rakowski, who encountered a Thargoid interceptor in nearby Wregoe GA-X B3-0.
The Holloway Bioscience Institute has sent teams into the area to explore the possibility of xenoarchaeological research. Dr Jeong-Hui Shin gave a statement to The Sovereign

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We highlight a variety of Wing Commander streaming playthroughs from time to time, but I get really excited when fans are showcasing one of the less common entries in the franchise. Mufasa recently kicked off a new series that is going through Privateer 2. And he doesn't just play the games - he's reading portions of the game's unique documentation with each show as well. The first two episodes are linked below, and the next is scheduled for Wednesday evening, 8/17 at 7 PM Pacific time. Give them a watch!

I haven't played Privateer 2 in decades, so I started playing through it again on Twitch on Wednesday evenings. I start each stream reading some of the manual because it's so unique, different and includes some really interesting backstory and design choices.

Also, I forgot the days when there was zero in game tutorial. It just starts, and you have to know everything right out of the gate.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Newsfeeds and ICE-casts have reacted to Aegis's theory that the Thargoids have purposefully captured tens of millions of living humans.
Eyewitness testimonies provided by independent pilots have given credence to this theory. Citizens' Chronicle featured the following account from Imperial auxiliary Commander Luca Redondo:
"It was a sickening sight, watching Scythes hunt down survivors. A part of me wanted to start blasting the escape pods rather than let those poor people be eaten, or experimented on, or whatever the hell the Thargoids want them for. There was nothing my squadron could do to save them, not without risking the refugees we were carrying. I don't think I'll be sleeping well for a long time."
Many reporters have interviewed people still waiting to hear from those who once lived in Thargoid-occupied systems. Vox Galactica has published several such stories:
"My ex-husband took our

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Some wonderful soul uploaded an entire beautifully preserved Computer Shopper to the Internet Archive! Shall we take a moment to... shop for Origin games like it's 1994?! Let's see what we can find...

Hi-Tech USA has a Wing Commander / Ultima VI CD-ROM for just $18! This would've be an OEM copy published by Software Toolworks, which worked out a deal with pre-EA Origin to offset development costs on three CD-ROM games in exchange for rights to release OEM versions.

Hardware bundler Media Vision has a bespoke multmedia kit that comes with Ultima Underworld and Wing Commander II. EA developed this release and licensed it to a LOT of early PC and addon manufacturers. It doesn't include the Wing Commander II expansions!

Treasure Chest Peripherals is taking first generation OEM CD-ROMs and bundling them together for big bucks! $89 will get you the Software Toolworks Wing Commander Deluxe CD-ROM and a couple

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

An independent explorer has reported an unusual incident involving a Thargoid vessel, hundreds of light years away from the ongoing invasion.
Commander Renia Rakowski told her story to Vox Galactica:
"I'd been gathering exploration data for weeks without seeing another soul. Boring, I know, but I like a quiet life. As I jumped out of the Wregoe GA-X B3-0 system, my ship rocked violently and I panicked, thinking the hyperdrive had failed. I barely saw it at first, black against the black of space, until its outline glowed. A Thargoid interceptor. Just like on the newsfeeds, but right outside my canopy."
"I've never been in combat before, and my ship carries no weapons anyway, so I thought this was the end of me. My heart was drumming as I stared at the alien, and it stared back like some giant lidless eye. A writhing light lashed out, this rasping howl came over the comms, and then… it left.

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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.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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!

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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

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

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

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*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

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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!

You can also find all the other unused art from

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

This prompted me to dig up the original Tarsus model...

But what's that written on the rear!?! Zoom in and enhance... HIDDEN LORE!

Is this visible in the game itself? Not even a little.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

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."