Display MoreAs the calendar crosses over into another new year, we took a look back and were once again amazed at all of the happenings in the world of Wing Commander. You guys were busy! And so were we - here's a look back at some of the highlights of 2018.
WC Toolbox
One of the more surprising things to me was how much happened with WC1/2. UnnamedCharacter's
opened the door to some pretty fun stuff. In conjunction with Goliath and Howard Day, they're working on amazing
model upgrade tests. Sheppard developed
Wing Hardto adjust game difficulty. Rehsin is
adding charactersand creating
campaigns. Some of this is bleeding into WC2 and Privateer 2, and it was pretty neat to see a WC2
arcade cabinetat Britizencon. We continue to learn a lot about these games even after 28+ years, including the recent discovery of multiple
easter eggsburied in WC1. And it's neat to still see WC easter eggs pop up elsewhere in
modern gamestoday.
End Run
On the new products front, it was wonderful to finally get
in digital ebook format. We're proud to have been able to help push this to become a reality. George Oldziey was finally able to record his
live WC jazz album, which produced some fabulous tunes. WC also appeared
in concertagain in Europe. And Mike Winterbauer's
art portfolioproject netted a bunch of fans some very cool artwork. Raph Koster also published his book,
Postmortems, which discussed the interesting development of the (canceled) Privateer Online game.
time slice
This was a great year for prerelease, prototype and behind the scenes material. All of the alternate WC Movie
sequences were really
cool- not to mention the interesting take on
Kilrathi POV. Sleuthy Wingnuts managed to track down more sightings of the film's
Rapiers. We got to see a
prototype WC1, a prototype
WC4 box, concept
Fralthi art, early
SWC cockpits, a mockup
New Constantinople hangarand original
P2 booth computer screens. The
CD32also contributed some new artwork via its WC bundle box.
Homeworld Remastered Mod
A handful of fan projects featured prominently throughout the year. The
significantly boosted the prominence of fighters, smartened up the AI, implemented advanced fuel & ammunition monitoring and added new ships like the
Wasp. Adm_Maverick's
papercraft adventuresranged big and small with his work on a cruiser scale ship as well as small
fighters. The fighters then took center stage in his new
miniature game. The WCP/SO
Model Upgrade Packhad a huge year with several major releases. On top of many
new models, the project added various
engine enhancementsas well. DefianceIndustries contributed numerous
gorgeous modelsfor both the upgrade pack and other projects, and Dark Sentinel created everything from the tiny Nephilim
capship missileto
massive warships.
Flat Universehad a similarly successful year with
new shipsand a big
tournamentfor players to look participate in. Even
Last Line of Defensesaw half a dozen or so updates with some cool previews of the ship models and animation in work for the project.
shooter project
It wasn't just the large scale projects in the limelight either. Lots of smaller undertakings made important progress as well. CentaurianMudpig got his
off the ground, the SNES speed run record was
broken twice, Wing Blender got
much faster, a WC4 remake/model upgrade was
teased, Shaggy got us flying in
Simple Planes, the
Sins of a Solar Empire Modgot an important compatibility update and WCDX for Kilrathi Saga was
further refined.
3D printed
The rise of
models is not new, but fans definitely took this art to new heights.
Hendrik's Hornetwas killer. In some cases with some inspiration from the
source, there were beautiful ships recreated from
Privateerand
beyond. A large Arrow kit
became available, and someone finally made an authentic
set of WC medalseven!
Lights, Camera, Game Over
The gaming industry at large continued to take notice of the WC community. The creation process behind the WC Movie was profiled in
. The CIC was mentioned in the video on
GOG's anniversary, Rock Paper Shotgun talked about the
fandom, Digital Antiquarian
weighed inand TechRaptor did a piece of
Originites' influence on the industry.
Space Game Junkieand
Upper Memory Blockalso began their trips down memory lane with extensive playthroughs. WC also hit it big with some of the prominent sci-fi YouTube channels, including the popular Spacedock which had videos on
warship roles, the
Intrepid,
space combatand
carriers. The Templin Institute similarly profiled the
Terran Confederation. And it was super fun to see fans dressed up in WC cosplay at
multiple conventions.
Lastly, the CIC celebrated its 20th year at wcnews.com! We launched out nifty Prop ID line of backstory articles, tested out the in-browser Game Cabinet, re-mirrored some of our old layouts, hosted more original art, and kicked off our infamous meme series. Sadly, we said goodbye to some very talented people such as Christopher Stasheff, Micael Priest and Stephen Hawking. But we organized our memorials so that it was easy to find our various tributes. Fortunately, on a positive note, we're still here and more excited than ever to kick off the new year. We can't wait to see what 2019 brings, and we're working on some of our own surprises to unveil soon!
