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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!

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We're now two weeks in to the five-week adventure to crowdsource a new Wing Commander album performed by a live orchestra. With minimum funding now secured, Origin composer George Oldziey is starting to take the next steps to formally book time with the musicians and get other prerequisites taken care of. It's common for unforeseen obstacles to occasionally pop up and slow things down, but if things continue to proceed at a steady clip, recording could start as early as late summer.

Now that the hard push towards $16,000 has been accomplished, pledges have slowed down a bit. This is very common in the middle of a campaign, although I expect a decent bump towards the end. In order to avoid distractions that might keep you away at the last minute, it's still a good idea to contribute now if you haven't yet but are planning to. Note that no actual funds are due until the Kickstarter's conclusion on

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Today we've got a new model to share from Adm_Maverick. The Piranha might not have the cultural gravitas of the Hornet, Ferret or Arrow, but it's a very fun little ship that gets the job done. Its integrated Stormfire cannon is a sweet bonus, and I really like that it has been modeled here on the side of the fuselage. That's a nice touch!

I just spent the last (counts)... 14 hours building a model of the F-106 Piranha in Tinkercad. I went some artist interpretation for some details, like the side mounted storm fire and the sensor array on the left side. Over all, I think it turned out well enough.

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Here at the CIC we're all about spreading the latest Wing Commander news and archiving all WC knowledge, but telling in-jokes is a very close second calling. As such, in light of the current pandemic, the CIC has announced the following measures:

• All CIC Complete content will be made available for free so that you can have full unblocked access to sections like the Ships Database, Fan Directory and Listicals in this time of need.
• All outstanding payments due to CIC Finance are suspended for 60 days. This way you can keep plenty of liquid KilrathiKoin handy.
• All prior episodes ALL WINGS CONSIDERED are now streaming free - over a hundred hours of prime Wingnut video content ready for your eyeballs on demand!
• Storage and bandwidth caps on fans' Ralph McCloud Drives have all been removed.
• CIC crowd funding engine WingStarter will be matching donations today to help shore up the backbone of America's

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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.

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CountvonSchnaps has another tough looking design to share. His latest creation is the Thunderbolt VII from Wing Commander 3. It's got lots of detail with vents and ports throughout. The forward area with engine intakes, guns and a translucent cockpit are particularly nice. Sharp-eyed fans will note the "301" on the tail, which is a deep cut. It follows the naming convention from the Heart of the Tiger novelization where Blair is assigned Thunderbolt 300. Check out the rest of his gorgeous art here.

I tried to stay close to the previous Longbow design esthetics wise and I think it turned out all right.

Always liked this fighter, albeit not so nimble it had a powerful punch and a rear turret against those Kilrathi that outmaneuvered me. This and the Arrow were for me the favorite craft you could fly in Wing Commander 3.

Seeing that someone was, again, so kind to provide me with a core membership I

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For a few years I've been sharing random Wing Commander deep dives on Twitter. There's nothing I love more than taking some specific question or subject that maybe no one cares about and then looking at it as thoroughly as I can… and Twitter has always fit like a glove for that because it lets me kind of project out what I'm thinking about to the world and the inevitably forget about it when I lose steam. I'm a very long winded cross-every-dot writer and just doing stream of consciousness posts that forced me to think about what I was saying was a lot of fun.

So I thought that maybe in addition to that I should start doing longer form versions right here where people actually care about the tiniest bits of Wing Commander errata… and where I'd have some more space for explanatory notes. And I can answer questions and people who actually understand what they're talking about can contribute! Plus, the

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Here's a double shot of retro for your 'spective! These come from the Rowan J Coleman channel on YouTube, which has more than 120,000 subscribers, so we're happy to see such a wide audience get a peek at the highlights of the WC series. The author notes that he was born after these games was released, so it can be hard to fully appreciate everything from that frame of reference. Nevertheless, he's become quite a fan. Although we're quite familiar with everything shown here, watching these always makes me want to jump back in. There is a little bit of salty language peppered throughout, so steer clear Wedge!

Here's a look at one of the few FMV games which wasn't sh*t, Wing Commander III Heart of the Tiger.

Returning to the Wing Commander series now. While I appreciated Wing Commander III Heart of the Tiger a lot, I had heard Wing Commander IV The Price of Freedom was even better. Spoiler alert: it

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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

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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

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Bandcamp has announced that they are once again holding a fundraiser to support a charity associated with the Juneteenth holiday. This year's recipient will be The Soulsville Foundation, "which perpetuates the soul of Stax Records by preserving its rich cultural legacy, educating youth to be prepared for life success, and inspiring future artists to achieve their dreams." If you've been thinking about picking up Team FAT's Wing Commander I Complete Soundtrack, MT-32 Archive Edition, now is a great time. It's a fantastic deal at just $10! And while we definitely think you should buy a copy of your own, it's also available for streaming on YouTube as well as Spotify. Give it a listen below!

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Kevin Caccamo has been hosting a series of Secret Ops livestreams each Saturday, and we think you might want to take a look! If LOAF's recent chapter splash screens weren't enough to make you nostalgic for the game, then maybe Kevin's videos clips will. What's more is that he's running DefianceIndustries' Model Upgrade Pack, which makes the game absolutely beautiful. Each scene graphically pops even more than you remember (unless you played the MUP that is!). You can find all of Kevin's videos here and give the Model Upgrade Pack a try here!

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General: Resolved an issue blocking new products in the Playstation Store from being purchased.

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Everyone's got Wedge's website bookmarked for quick access to scripts from the various Wing Commander games... and while that's served us well for decades, we're ready to unveil your first look at something better! LOAF has spent the last year painstakingly extracting the exact text scripts from a wide variety of Wing Commander games. And we don't just mean titles like "WC1" and "WC2." As it turns out, there's differences between disk versus CD editions, console port versus original and so on. There's also more to the game than cutscenes. LOAF's also pulling in comm chatter and other peripheral text. There's still a lot to add, but the magnitude of what's already been gathered is incredible. You can find the live working file here! Enjoy, and let us know what you think!

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Marco Alfaroli recently shared his gorgeous sketch of the CF-117b Rapier. The artist saw the lack of Rapier I artwork out there as gap in the internet that he needed to fill. He describes the design as "ugly but essential," but I think the drawing is beautiful! You can find more of his work here.

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The pirates attacking De Caminha have been eliminated, and supplies have been provided to prevent further attacks.
Jerome Archer offered his thanks in an announcement this morning:
"Time and time again, I am impressed by the skill and compassion of the galaxy's pilots. Security for Federation citizens is my number one priority, and it pains me that a station in our space could be the target of opportunistic low lives, but through your efforts this station is once again secure and ready if those pirates return. Rewards are now available to those who helped in the defence efforts."
"But I am compelled to raise the question on everyone's mind: will this situation be better when Felicia Winters finally assumes office? A President-elect who, I remind you, seems uninterested in the security of her citizens. Who wants to shut down resources like the PDB, which has saved many, many lives already."
"Is

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It’s the one day a year you can post this! Happy day, fathers!

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Music_Guru

has found an absolutely exciting easter egg in the Secret Missions for Super Nintendo! The method to unlock it easy to input, but the way he discovered it is complex and arcane. Long story short, there's a bonus shipboard series after the game with some amazing conversions, and you've almost certainly never seen this before! Check it out below!

Hello fellow Wing Commander fans and happy 21st birthday to the Wing Commander CIC! Thank you everyone for continuing to make this a fun and thriving community to be apart of!

I'm continually amazed at the new creations made by fans or even finding new things in the original Wing Commander games. However, it isn't too often that a new easter egg presents itself, even after 25+ years. Today, in celebration of the CIC's birthday, I share an exciting new finding, a previously undiscovered easter egg in Wing Commander: The Secret Missions for SNES!

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Did you miss the Cryptic Extra Life 2019 Stream? Check out some behind the scenes pictures or you can watch the VOD for each game available on the links below! Day 1 Events .mySlides {display:none;} Star Trek Online Star Trek Ascendancy Dungeons and Decorators (D&D) Magic Commander Day 2 Events Neverwinter The Carcass: Ceti Alpha V Board Games Krampus (D&D) Extra Life 2019 ❮❯ var slideIndex = 1; showDivs(slideIndex); function plusDivs(n) { showDivs(slideIndex += n); } function showDivs(n) { var i; var x = document.getElementsByClassName("mySlides"); if (n > x.length) {slideIndex = 1} if (n < 1) {slideIndex = x.length} for (i = 0; i < x.length; i++) { x[i].style.display = "none"; } x[slideIndex-1].style.display = "block"; } Note: Codes for in-game rewards from donations have

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Captains, welcome to Awakening. This update is particularly special for me – since my tenure on Star Trek Online began, we’ve been working on bringing you the Age of Discovery expansion, to make sure we had a complete and polished experience for Captains in the 2256 Discovery-era of Star Trek. Now, we’re returning to 2410, bringing your Captains back to the story STO has been telling for almost ten years. It’s exciting to advance and blend the narrative established in Age of Discovery into our timeline. And what a playground it’s going to be. Awakening brings with it a brand new story, starring Anthony Rapp as Commander Paul Stamets, brought to life as a hologram and thrust into the future of 2410. With Stamets at your side, you’ll journey into the Mycelial Network, stopping the threat posed by J’ula and her House Mo’kai raiders. But that’s not all – this update also brings