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Display MoreThe
Maslas Brothersposted this reminder and tantalizing teaser for tomorrow's tournament. There's already lots of awesome ships to fly in
Flat Universe, but there might just be one more tomorrow! Hop on at
16:00 UTCto find out!
Saturday, 6th of October, 16:00 UTCTwo days are only left from the FlatUniverse: Tournament.And ONLY the lucky ones who will JOIN US will fly this BABY...
Jun
Here's a couple of striking Wing Commander Movie concept images from around LOAF's previous Cloud Imperium office. They feature the Broadsword and one of its primary foes, the Fralthi. Look closely and there's some interesting notes about how the reinforced bow could be used for ramming. We don't often see this tactic employed by Wing Commander capships - short of a rare last ditch self destructing maneuver - but it would be an interesting dynamic to add in to capship battles. Star Trek Discovery had a pretty impressive
combat ramlast year, and it'd be neat to see more of that.
Good old Broadswords; not fast, but they got you home safe.
May
Here's a couple of unboxing videos for Wing Commander Movie action figures by Nerd4Life. These are Blair in his flight suit and the Kilrathi General. YouTube has a pretty good real time auto translate option now, so if you blow up the videos and turn that on, it's possible to get the message behind what he's saying. I have to say that I almost jumped out of my chair when he ripped the plastic shell off. Not everyone is as terrified about tearing the cardboard it seems, and perhaps the glue has lost some of its stick after twenty years. I'm not sure I ever had the heart to open any of my own figures. At one point I did separately purchase opened ones on eBay to avoid violating my originals!
Feb
…When Wing Commander Armada was released in September 1994 it was well ahead of the curve: the game featured multiple multiplayer modes that allowed players with modems or local area networks to go head-to-head or to fly together through the Gauntlet. The release of a free addon, Wing Commander Proving Grounds, expanded these significantly by adding six-player IPX play with more game modes and features like asteroids and pickups not available anywhere in single player. Unfortunately, this was a case of too much, too soon: without an internet for matchmaking, Armada's multiplayer never really took off.
There's some good news at the end of the tunnel, though: Armada and Proving Grounds are still just as much fun to play with human opponents today… and thanks to GOG they're easier than ever to get working! Gone are the days of dialing modems, configuring network drivers and praying. If you've never had
Oct
End your week with a nice blast from the past: a German PC Games magazine with an EXTENSIVE preview of Wing Commander IV! The cover features an awesome clear shot of the Kilrathi guard seen in the background of Wing Commander III and the exhaustive preview is full of rarely reproduced Wing Commander IV set photos and concept art.
Aug
RehsinDisplay Moreis back with an expanded mod to Wing Commander 1 faces. His first
testa few months back explored changing the faces/hairstyles of the female WC1 characters. He's built on that further to now give most of the pilots a subtle but interesting new look. There's even a way to swap Bossman out for Hobbes! You can grab the update
hereand find instructions on how to install the mod with the
WC Toolbox here.
Hello everybody. I am a back.I finished new faces to Wing Commander 1.
Jul
…Today we'd like to officially announce our annual Birthday Party for the CIC's 20th Anniversary! This year we'll be observing the event on Saturday, August 18, 2018 at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT). We'll be celebrating two decades of Wing Commander community at wcnews.com, and we hope you join us! As usual, the day will be chock full of site updates, news stories, trivia and fun times! There'll also be one significant change this year. For the first time, we'll be transitioning the online party from IRC to Discord. A large group of Wingnuts has been testing out the program for over a year, and we'd like to invite you to join us there. Although the shift away from our trusty IRC server is bittersweet, there are some very cool advantages with Discord. The program makes it very easy to join on both PCs and via mobile devices, there's enhanced support for attachments and even
Apr
Mac's Lore has posted a new video, and this is a fun one! It's an overview of the TCS Tiger's Claw, which is an awesome story. He cover's the ship's origin, extensive service history and untimely end. Mac beautifully weaves together several sometimes-confusing threads from the game, movie, television show and Star*Soldier for a single compelling narrative. There's also a rundown of the carrier's stellar crew, with extensive backstory provided there as well. Give it a watch below!
The first carrier of the Wing Commander games, she would set the standard for all other ships in the Confederation going forward.
Jun
…As a precursor to the impending launch of
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, the original Rebel Galaxy is now available for
free from the Epic Games Store. This is one we overlooked when it first came out in 2015, but there's a lot to like here. The focus is on capship combat with a good mix of Privateer-style elements throughout. One of its two main developers, Travis Baldree, has been a
longtime Wingnut, so there's some positive influence there that results in a very solid space sim. The upcoming
Outlawprequel improves on a number of aspects, including traditional action-packed 3D fighter combat, but this is a great opportunity to get a taste of what to expect! The IGN review below gives a nice recap:
Rebel Galaxy is a game of action-packed combat, exploration, discovery, trade, and “negotiation” with the outlandish denizens at the edge of the known universe.You’ll battle pirates, explore anomalies,
Dec
…We've got several new updates to share on the Secret Ops
Model Upgrade Packtoday.
DefianceIndustriesis working hard to prep the next big update to the playable test package. In addition to a variety of incremental improvements and graphical refinements, it will also feature a cool lighting upgrade made in conjunction with Dark Sentinel. The Confed Superbase is also almost ready to go - check it out with both a Midway docked below! Stay tuned for more announcements as we approach the next MUP release.
So this thread has been quiet for a bit, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy. We're hard at work getting a new package ready as a holiday gift for loyal MUPpets. This new package addresses a number of defects identified in alpha 4.0 as well as adding some improvements to improve stability and a bunch of new graphical options that we intend to implement over the next few releases. One of the
Nov
Centaurianmudpighas released some new samples from his WC-inspired space combat game,
Project Aries. The first of the two animated gifs below show off the classic interior cockpit options that you can select during flight. Then there is a demonstration of WC1/2 style flak cannons in action. Finally, there's a clip of a Salthi and Dralthi lookalike escorting a transport. It's nice to see there's still progress being made!
It's been (almost) two years, while development has been on and off (mostly off), work continues.
Jun
…DisplayE3 2018 is unfolding over the next week, and Electronic Arts held its
press eventtoday to highlight its new games coming in the year ahead.
Battlefield Vand
Anthemhave stirred some of the most interest and look fairly neat. No new Wing Commander games seem to be on the horizon for 2018, but EA did announce another mobile Command & Conquer game,
Rivals, in the "Clash Royale" style. It's streamlined significantly compared to classic RTS games, but the fast-paced style will probably prove to be pretty popular. It looks fairly sharp graphically, and there seems to be a bit of depth in the form of different commanders and a complementary suite of tactics necessary to win. We shared the news about
Red Alert Onlineearlier this spring and spent a lot of time talking about how this franchise seems to keep bouncing back. It doesn't surprise me anymore, C&C has more lives than a Kilrathi!
Jan
…AD has been on a twenty-three year mission to learn more about all things relating to the Wing Commander Movie, and his latest research is about the "open matte" broadcast of the film. At least Australia was airing this version in 2008, and there may have been other times and places that got it as well. As you can see by the example below, by adjusting where the edge of the frame is, viewers can see detail like the universe map's border and Paladin's journal in the intro. It'd be pretty amazing to see what other visual data might exist out there! If you have a copy or any more detail, please let AD know!
The DVD and Bluray are in 2.35:1 as intended. This screenshot is the only proof that it aired that way I've seen. Anyone else out there happen to catch the film on TV in this format?The extra map borders - not normally visible in the movie - in that shot match the high quality digitizing of
Sep
…The WC Toolbox is branching out to even further reaches of the Wing Commander universe. UnnamedCharacter's latest update adds the first features to help crack open console ports. WC3 is first up: on the 3DO, prospective hackers can extract .bun(dles) and .str(eam) data files. For WC3 on the Playstion, it's now possible to extract .lib(rary) and .tai (voice) files. Regular PC WC3 also gets .pak and .iff support as well. I wouldn't know the first thing to do with these exports, but the WC modding community is very excited to be able to get their hands on even more in-game assets from The Heart of the Tiger! You can grab the latest tool kit here or learn about how the new functionality work at the CIC Forums.
I was not planning on making a release just yet, but I have noticed some interest in the container formats for console versions of WC games. Since I have working code to handle some of these
Sep
…It's common knowledge that Wing Commander IV doesn't have cockpits, famously dumping them in favor of displaying the UI on the previously optional 'invisible cockpit' (an option popular among players at the time.) But it turns out the game isn't completely without cockpits! The production built multiple physical cockpits for the full motion video sequences (including one extremely detailed Confederation shuttle set) which give us a look at what the 'real' world of Wing Commander IV is intended to look like. We've collected reference screenshots of these cockpits and the various control surfaces seen in brief cuts. Together they make up a few seconds of screen time… but seeing them together really gives you a better appreciation for what went into Wing Commander IV.
Several angles of the Terran Confederation Hellcat V's cockpit are seen during the game's introduction, including views of the flight
Sep
…Sorry for the sudden notice, but we need to announce a delay in tomorrow's Wing Commander CIC Birthday Party. Due to an emergent medical issue, the event will be moved out at least a week. We'll be sure to confirm details when we can firm up the new date. Thanks to everyone for being so flexible on this! On the bright side, we've reached out to a few of the Wingnuts who have been diligently prepping material for the event, and it sounds like the extra time will help them put some extra polish on a few things.
With that being said, tomorrow is still the actual 30th birthday of the Wing Commander series! Since we're always celebrating the franchise in #Wingnut on Discord every single day, you're more than welcome to drop in and commemorate the date with us! We just won't have a formal agenda or fancy front page slate tomorrow.
It's also great to see other places are starting to get in the mood as
Jun
…DefianceIndustries has continued down an exciting path with his digital fleet. He's built on the phenomenal renders from Wing Commander Academy with another majestic capship. The magic of these ships is twofold: they're incredibly creative designs that are both heavily based on the craft from the original game yet imbued with a dash of flair. Defiance described both this new Fralthi model as well as his recent Tiger's Claw as having a nautical spirit about them. The there is also the toon shaded texture which makes them look hand drawn despite being fully manipulable 3D objects. The gorgeous results are below!
The more I play around with it, the more I realize that Academy is kind of an unappreciated field of endeavor. Today's entry into the catalog of "Defiance really needs a life outside of conference calls and Blender" is the WCA Fralthi. It only shows up in one episode and gets mis-categorized
Nov
…
The year is racing by and it's already late November, so Wingnuts once again have a chance to pick their top fan projects and/or websites of the year. Before the voting gets going in the near future, everyone has a chance to nominate some of the undertakings that they think should be recognized. Send your recommendations to news@wcnews.com and let us know! Here's a rundown of the past winners to give you an idea of how much awesome stuff our fan community creates!
Aug
Jason Dugshas posted a neat mini documentary/commercial for the Amiga CD32. It's narrated in German, but the vintage visuals speak for themselves. The
Amiga portof Wing Commander is lesser known than its PC counterpart, but the
Amiga CD32console port is even more obscure. It adds back in 256 colors similar to the DOS edition. It's a pretty cool reference for the archive!
This special shows games for Amiga CD32 and Commodore CDTV and explains something about the origin and why both systems have failed. There is also a commercial for the games Banshee, Wing Commander and Defender of the Crown II.
Apr
…
We've got some sad news to report today. Noted astronaut Owen Garriott passed away on Monday at age 88. Mr. Garriott was one of the early pioneers of long-duration space travel with a 60-day stint aboard Skylab in 1973. He also flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1983. Early on in his career, he served in the US Navy before going on to teach physics at Stanford and hold a variety of positions at NASA.
The elder Garriott also served as one half of the first American father-son astronaut duo when Richard Garriott went to the International Space Station in 2008. And while we often refer to Richard as "Origin founder" in our news stories, Origin Systems was actually co-founded by Richard and Robert along with their father, Owen, and programmer Chuck Bueche. In various interviews, Richard credits being sent to a programming camp that Owen picked out as a major influence that set him on the path
