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The UK-based Centre for Computing History recently tweeted about this really cool collectible phone card made as a promotion for Wing Commander 2. I realized I actually have a couple of these laying around, but somehow we've never shared them in the news before! You can find their profile page on this item here. I really like their website and mission!

Just added to the collection: A promotional Wing Commander II Mercury telephone kiosk card!

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Card for use in a Mercury telephone kiosk, with Wing Commander II design.

Mercury Communications was a national UK telephone company formed in the early 1980s, and was an early competitor of BT. Mercury's payphone kiosks were in use in the UK from 1986-1995.

The card states on the back that Mercurycards are available in £2, £4, and £10 values, however the card itself is a £1 value, so was likely given away as a promotion.

A

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

I just noticed the Wing Commander IV PlayStation disc change screens all have different ship reflections. Cool as hell!

The first disc image with the Hellcats is also used as a splash screen for the DVD version of WC4.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It may not have been the smartest course of action, but we've all been there (there being the Alcor System after the destruction of the Behemoth).

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

General: Memorial Plaque Text Updated: Added Aron Eisenberg - Thank you for everything, Aron. Added Jack Donner Content: Resolved an issue during the Mycelial Realm Task Force Operation, which was causing the Elachi computers to not display the proper color variants when the computer is unlocked and usable by the player. UI: Resolved an issue in the new Patrols window, where the rewards were moving across the screen and also overlapping the scroll bar. Systems: Warbird Updates: Resolved an issue that was allowing TOS-era and DSC-era Federation Captains to access Warbird starships of inappropriate era availability before they had traveled to the correct timeline during their starting experiences. Warbirds will now only be accessible to non-Romulan Captains after they have chosen a primary allegiance (2409 Starfleet or

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

We’re pleased to announce the return of the Research and Development Weekend! This event will run from Thursday, December 5th at 8AM PT to Monday, December 9th at 10AM PST, and features several bonuses throughout STO that will give Captains of all levels a leg up advancing their rank in the Research and Development school(s) of their choice. For those Captains looking specifically for extra help with their projects, all R&D packs throughout the game will give out an extra 25% of the items they currently disperse for the duration of this event. Queue R&D Material Reward Packages (Normal, Advanced and Elite) will reward 25% more R&D Materials and have a chance to reward a Catalyst. Alternatively, Captains wanting to advance through Research and Development schools as fast as possible should seek out Harvest Nodes, located in mission maps throughout STO, which will not only disperse 2 extra R&D

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

This is also the time of year when we refresh our

Background

and

Development Archive

sections. These pages try to encapsulate all the useful or remarkable artifacts and bits of knowledge that we report on in our daily news updates, but can be difficult to keep track of over time. We hope these sections can be a good starting-off point for anyone just now wanting to learn about a classic Wing Commander game they found on GOG, or a more seasoned player wanting to research a certain topic in-depth. With the Wing Commander 3 anniversary coming up, this year's efforts focus on that title. Below you can find a birds eye overview of the new additions.

• Background: Essential (fan-created) tools and patches, noteworthy articles, manuals, Saturn and Jaguar port information.
• Game Design: Storyboards, the production book, the ESRB tape.
• Artwork: Various props you'll recognize, many sketches, mysterious ships

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

A recent behavioural change in the Thargoids has prompted urgent discussion among Aegis researchers and strategists.
Since the fall of the fourth Titan, Hadad, there are increasing reports that the Thargoid expansion efforts have been growing weaker. While Thargoids are continuing to expand outwards from the Titans, they are no longer reinforcing their spire sites. Further, independent squadrons dedicated to defeating the Thargoid threat like SNPX, AXI, and MUDD, have noted increasing ease in thwarting attempts to probe and invade systems.
Dr. Ivano Colombera, Imperial Science Academy's director of xenological studies and Empire liaison to Aegis, gave their view:
"I have heard the strategy reports touting words like 'weakening Thargoid presence', and I must urge caution. I hypothesise that this change signals a strategic defensive response, not an enemy on their last legs."
"I believe that

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We've got another exciting update to share regarding the Originator universal extraction tool. AllTinker has been hard at work this month building out features and better support to get the most out of Privateer 2 assets. This is a huge boost to people like LOAF who are spending lots of time researching The Darkening lately. Today's update allows modders and curious fans greater ability to pull both images, audio text out of the code. Grab the update here!

I'm chipping away at some longer-term features (and Confederation), but here's a new version (0.3.04) which is mostly focussed on Privateer 2.

I've added support for "BASE" images, which allowed me to complete the remaining palette hook-up logic. The major text formats used by the game are also now supported. I've added support for the IFF-nested sample sets, which gives access to the majority of the remaining (non-movie) audio. IFF shapes are

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Master O dropped by to spread the word about a new alternative to DOSBox. DOSBox has been a tried and true workhorse of the retro gaming community for nearly twenty years, but updates have been very sparse since about 2010 or so. Although the program works fairly well to get games like Wing Commander running on modern systems, technology has continued to evolve and there's an enormous opportunity to add modern quality-of-life improvements. That's where DOSBox Staging comes in. A new team of developers have picked up where the old program left off. There is much improved support for modern video and sound setups, better controller and joystick integration, plus compatibility with a host of modern operating system features. The latest 0.81 test versions even add support for Voodoo 1 emulation for 3DFX graphics. You can try it out here. Be sure to share your experience at the CIC Forums!

If you

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

LOAF, AD and the team have been doing big and exciting things lately with Privateer 2. To further their research and project prep, we're holding a group watch-along of the "director's cut" footage posted by P2 director Steve Hilliker for the game's 25th anniversary. To join in, visit Discord #Wingnut on Monday evening at 9 PM Eastern Time. This YouTube link is all you need!

LOAF: Set your nav computers for fun: join us on Monday at 9 PM Eastern at the CIC Discord for a group watch of the Privateer 2: The Darkening 25th Anniversary movie cut!

If you want to enhance the experience even further, there is also AD & ODVS' special remastered version of the material that improves the quality and resolution even more. You can download it here (2.7 gig mkv) and watch with something like VLC. Here's a comparison of the two versions:

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we have several new pages from EmuMusicFan's slick retelling of the Hobbes interrogation scene in Freedom Flight. Now that Prince Thrakhath has ended the imminent threat, Lord Ralgha nar Hhallas turns his attention to dealing with Jahkai!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It may still not be fall yet anywhere, but GOG.com's long-running Autumn Sale is winding down. This is the final weekend. Rather than across-the-board flat savings for every title, there is some variation this time. Most Wing Commander games are still 75% off. Prophecy and Privateer 2 get a 70% discount from the usual $5.99 price, and Academy plus Armada are each reduced by 55%. We talk to fans every day who have gaps in their collection, and this is a perfect opportunity to plug those holes. But if you miss out, I'm sure the Winter Sale won't be far off!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We've got another very cool ultra widescreen art piece today by AllTinker. It depicts the harrowing scene at the McAuliffe VI Research Colony where the scientists either turn the tide against the Kilrathi - or are massacred. He's added a ton of detail to the sides. This will eventually make its way to the Confederation project. At first glance, you might think this is "just" a door and some walls, but it takes some superior artistic talent to pull something like this off! And to show exactly what that entails, Tinker also made a time lapse video. It's amazing to see the expanded scene come to life like this!

First pass down. Like a few of the others, I have to make them wider than 21:9 so that they can still scroll/parallax.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There's some unfortunate news concerning the Xbox 360 and Wing Commander Arena. Microsoft has announced that the console's digital storefront will be closing in July 2024. This means some 220 games, including Arena, will no longer be available for sale in any form. Wing Commander's debut on the Xbox was part of a new digital-standalone push dubbed Xbox Live Arcade. The results were quite impressive given a variety of constraints such as a 50 megabyte download cap and $10 asking price. Arena was the platform's first 16-player game and made heavy use of features like matchmaking and online leaderboards. Although Arena never received a proper physical release, the "demo" of the game was included on the cover disc of the November 2007 issue of the Official Xbox Magazine. These demos could be "unlocked" into the full game, but that function will presumably be removed as well.

Since the game was

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

A you may know, we recently purchased a collection of Wing Commander IV continuity photographs which we've been researching for front page updates. In honor of the birthday we thought we'd jump ahead and share the full collection of photos. Stay tuned for more articles covering the unsung histories of these actors and characters! You can find the current slate of feature articles here.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Wing Commander II has some excellent tuckerizations! This is from Special Operations 1. Denis Loubet is the famous Origin artist, and the Miller is Craig Miller, who designed the Wing Commander II box.

General Snell of Niven Colony was Wing Commander II's executive producer Dallas Snell (who is likely well known to many Origin Systems fans)!

Lady Blue, CO of the Concordia's Ferret wing, is writer/assistant diretor Ellen Guon (who you probably know first as the co-author of Freedom Flight).

Ghorah Khar Sabre pilot "Ladyman" is the man behind the manuals, David Ladyman.

Blair's gunner Lieutenant Haley is programmer Richard Haley.

Ghorah Khar rookie pilot "Cafrelli" is programmer Charles Cafrelli (who also voiced a Kilrathi admiral!).

Do you know any others?

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Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Privateer 2 developer Paul Hughes managed to do a little digging and come up with three cool concept posters for the game. These are pretty early works and predate The Darkening becoming a Privateer title, which sometimes means material from this era can be harder to come by. Check out those taglines: "The City of Lights" is kind of odd, but "In the Darkness Lies the Truth" is a really good one. We also get an excellent look at that prototype Heretic that pops up from time to time!

Digging around on some backup drives, I found some old unused concept art for Privateer 2 from Paul Chapman...

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

DefianceIndustries is ready to share his latest project! We saw earlier this year that he was putting together some beautiful animated ships, and now they all come together in an exciting new teaser. I don't have a lot more to say - you just need to watch this thing in action!

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

The Khitomer Alliance has begun a brand new initiative in the wake of new technological advances across the galaxy. They’ve noticed no surplus of young, ready Captains looking to explore the final frontier, but there is a surplus of older model ships, perfectly capable, but waiting for the right Captain to take them up. With that in mind, we’re making a change to all Tier 1 through Tier 4 ships in the Ship Requisition Store. These ships will no longer require Zen to requisition. Instead, they will all be requisitioned through a modest donation of Dilithium. Here’s how this will break down: TIER New Price for Ships that previously cost Dilithium New Price for Ships that previously cost Zen 1 1,000 15,000 2 2,500 37,500 3 5,000 75,000 4 10,000 150,000 This is a huge price discount – following

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The votes are in, and another round of project winners has been decided! The Prophecy & Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack has come out on top as the 2019 Fan Project of the Year! Congratulations! Fans were clearly compelled by the steady stream of status updates that culminated in another impressive beta release. This also marks the first time that a project has placed somewhere in the winner or runner up categories for five consecutive years. It's been a really good run!

Once again we've got two strong runners up that both ranked very closely in the tally. Both projects are relatively young in their development life cycle, but they each represent some tremendous potential. Our first runner up is the WC4 Fan Remake! The project has released a variety of promising teasers that Wingnuts are eager to try out!

The second runner up is Wing Leader! Howard's updated take on the original Wing Commander