News from Bot

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Heritage Auctions has posted a preview of a November video game art auction and their slate includes a stunning, almost-never-seen-before piece of Wing Commander art:

Here's how they describe it:

Steve Lang

Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger Unpublished Video Game Original Box Art (Electronic Arts 1994).

Although the publisher ultimately selected a different image for the cover of Wing Commander III, this breathtaking painting offers a rare glimpse into an alternate vision for the game's box art. It depicts a colorful, action-packed outer space battle scene, showcasing the grandeur of the Wing Commander universe. Rendered in acrylics on Crescent all-media board measuring 20" x 17," it is signed and dated by the artist along the bottom border. Debuting on home computers in 1994 and ported to the 3DO in 1995 and the PlayStation in 1996, Wing Commander III is a landmark title, notable for its

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Sending good thoughts to folks in Central Florida. The region has a little history with Wing Commander: novelist Peter Telep is a professor at UCF. First he highlighted Florida in the movie novelization... though the actual scene being described is maybe not so detailed!

In the followup novel, Pilgrim Stars, he turned his university into a Pilgrim concentration camp. In that vein I tried to honor Mr. Telep by establishing in Star Soldier that the crazy liberal professor from Fleet Action also taught there (and he’s an awful conservative now, as happens to old men.)

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Earlier this week I neglected to mention that there was a huge accompanying article for the WC3 livestream. Maru Malandra has penned a thorough overview of the game in anticipation of its upcoming 30th anniversary. The article sets the stage for the rapidly evolving state of technology in the mid '90s, introduces the epic shift to interactive movies and talks about the game's stunning 3D engine. It's also another chapter in a whole series of Wing Commander retrospectives that were initially posted back in 2019. Check them all out for the full rundown!

The leap from Wing Commander II to III feels enormous, even with the ‘missing link’ that is Strike Commander. It almost feels ludicrous that we went from mute talking heads and short pre-mission cutscenes to full-motion video and a complex storyline where choices outside the cockpit can affect both story events and relationships with other

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

That Armada ad earlier sent me down a rabbit hole. I noticed two screens were likely bullshots. In the first, look at the more complex fighter icons, the DEPLOY button, the labeling in the map, the border around enemy space and how everything is named NGC-2877-R (a real lenticular galaxy!).

In the second, which only appears on the sales sheet so we only have in lower resolution, the base graphics are missing, the ship order is changed and most interestingly the planet and the system no longer share the same name (hard to read but it looks like 'Planet 75' or similar)!

Looking for high resolution scans led me to a surprise reveal: the 3.5" and CD-ROM boxes have two screenshots that switch despite shipping together! It looks like for the CD they replaced two early shots, including the map, with ones from ones much closer to the release build.

Next I compared those two some other releases and was surprised

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We've got a fun video to share today! LOAF participated in a special stream to celebrating the upcoming 30th anniversary of Wing Commander 3. He joined MaruMalandra's Twitch channel to play through The Heart of the Tiger. LOAF was broadcasting live on the camera, but I also really like the idea of Maru's "joystick cam" as well. There's plenty of fun gameplay to watch, but what you really want to follow along for the expert commentary. It runs for almost four hours, so there's lots packed in here! Jump to 10 minute mark to bypass the initial setup.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

AD spotted this new Instagram Reel posted by Microsoft. It features a Sidewinder joystick and a trackball mouse under the caption, "Taking a trip to the '90s." The interviewee explains, "Back in the '90s, everyone wanted to be playing space games like Wing Commander..." and goes on about how popular joysticks were to that end. We know an increasing number of our visitors were born in the 2000s, so it's nice to be able to share an example of people talking about how the WC series was a major force in gaming in this very transformative decade!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Microsoft (@microsoft)

Display More

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

In February 1999, FOX put out a set of Wing Commander postcards to promote the upcoming film. Each features one of the movie's main characters with some pretty flashy graphics and a strange focus on retina scans. These were distributed at conventions, theater lobbies and elsewhere alongside a sweatshirt featuring the nose art and the movie logo down the arm. Origin even had a digital version at the now-defunct wingcommander.com which you could send as an ecard! So be sure and send someone you love a big honking Wing Commander picture today. We've scanned three of the original cards in high resolution and have made them available below. You can also access a 1200 dpi version of the scans here.

The flavor text for Blair and Maniac is taken right from the Confederation Handbook... but it's not at all clear what Angel's facts and figures refer to!

- FLIGHT RECORD -

SQUADRONS LED - / 175 [113]
SHIPS DOWN - /

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

About a decade ago, there was a push to modernize Strike Commander and implement a fan remake that could be playable on the then-emerging field of VR/AR headsets. The thought was that it would be similar to the WC4 Remake and be an up-cycling that built on the game's original assets. Eventually the development led by Fabien Sanglard cooled, but with his code publicly available, Remi Leonard has since resumed development over the last couple years. He's put together the beefy video below to show off the latest progress. It's great to see there's still plenty of people out there that appreciate the other Origin franchises!

Progress on the strike commander remake based on fabien sanglard's work (some gameplay footage, conversation, flight simulation, transition, source code available at GitHub - remileonard/libRealSpace: Tools to parse and render Origin Systems RealSpace engine assets..

Thanks to

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There's an incredible new update to Origin composer George Oldziey's project to make a new live orchestra Wing Commander album! Mr. Oldziey is traveling to Salt Lake next week to record the choral elements of his new album. He would then transition into the mixing and editing phase. On that front, he's managed to partner with a world renowned audio engineer, Bruce Botnick, who has worked on the audio of numerous Star Trek films and other sci-fi classics. They won't be able to formally begin their work together until early next year, but it still feels to me like the project is on an excellent track. It's still been less than five months since the crowdfunding campaign ended!

Greetings all. I just wanted to post an update about what's happening with this amazing project. I am about to head out to Salt Lake City next week to record the choir parts for the music. I will then have everything

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The famous megamarket Jameson Memorial is once again fully operational.
A recent Thargoid incursion into Shinrarta Dezhra caught AX forces by surprise, overwhelming the system and knocking most ports offline. Only Jameson Memorial resisted as large numbers of independent pilots flocked to the defensive campaign.
Florian Baljak, now officially installed as the starport commander for Jameson Memorial, offered this statement:
"I am overwhelmed by the response to the recovery initiative for offline ports. The flow of resources and commodities to this great system reflects the importance that Jameson Memorial holds in the eyes of our pilots."
The Pilots' Federation has confirmed the loss of over 1,600 licensed Commanders and Rescue Rangers during the attack. The initial resistance to the Thargoid fleet was upheld by these pilots until reinforcements arrived. Shinrarta Dezhra is the home of the

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

After having so much fun looking for missiles in the Wing Commander movie, I decided to spend an evening unraveling another blind spot in my understanding: the decoys, drones, buoys and probes of Wing Commander Prophecy! One (or two… or more?) parts of the game's plot have never been particularly clear for me. The game opens with a scene in which a planetological research ship is cracking asteroids with a flight of drones collecting samples for study. As the Devereaux is destroyed, we follow a beacon which rockets off into the distance. Later in the game, Casey must hunt down a Nephilim buoy which is sending a jamming signall. Soon after, Finley is studying a "Confed signal buoy" that she claims he recovered. How do these all go together, if at all? We have extensive documentation of the making of the game so I thought it would be fun to try and sort out all these questions… and in the process,

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

I recently stopped to think about how I had never really seen anyone criticize what has always been one of my least favorite parts of the Wing Commander movie: the 'broadside' scene where Paladin commands the Tiger Claw to defeat a Fralthi by firing a wave of missiles at them at close range as the ships pass each other. It has always seemed weirdly convenient to me as well as seeming to break the internal logic of the world to me; specifically, WHY does the Tiger's Claw have so many torpedo tubes that face to the side, especially if firing them is some sort of unusual trick that maverick Paladin has strategized for the first time. What are they usually for?!

Lately I've found that if I stop to think around things I don't like I often discover new things to consider. So I decided to start thinking about that scene with a simple task to start unraveling the thread: how many missiles does the Tiger Claw

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a couple of impressive videos that show off Howard Day's latest graphical wonders in Wing Leader. The first clip is a neat trick where the dashboard text translates from Kilrathi into English as you swap into the cockpit view. There are also some additional sparks and fire effects that accompany damage and destroyed objects. Pretty stuff!

Wing Leader update! Thanks to some goofy-ass string coding and the use of the "Circle Number" Unicode character set (⓪ ① ② ③), I've got auto-translate working in Kilrathi cockpits! Every time the camera angle switches, the text changes to English. It's pretty nifty.
Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/wueZ8H49vT

— Howie Day (@howieeday) September 20, 2024

Wing Leader update! Thanks to some goofy-ass string coding and the use of the "Circle Number" Unicode character set (⓪ ① ② ③), I've got auto-translate working in Kilrathi cockpits! Every time the camera angle

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

I posted the casualty report from the Confederation Handbook a few weeks ago and got this excellent observation! There are actually FOUR contradictory versions of the story and while Bossman dies on Angel's wing in the original, none of those details were mentioned in the movie.

Joshua Fair: Wait, I thought Bossman was flying with Angel when he bought it.

As you remember from Secret Missions 2, the original story is that you return to the Tiger's Claw and learn during the debriefing that Bossman was killed earlier that day in an ambush. In the bar afterwards, his wingman Angel is inconsolable.

After you fly another mission, she breaks down and explains that she has tried so hard to keep from making emotional connections but that deep down she cares too much about the other pilots.

Incidentally, if Angel has died dynamically at some point in your campaign Paladin instead just tells you Bossman is dead with

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

This ad is fascinating; the show didn’t have a title logo yet so they used the one from the (narratively unrelated) 1993 Wing Commander Academy game complete with a ship screenshot!

Universal Cartoon Studios Shows: The Savage Dragon, Earthworm Jim, and Wing Commander Academy Advertisement as seen from Gamefan Volume 4 Issue 04 April 1996

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Happy Birthday WC! Today is the series' 34th birthday, and it doesn't look a day over 33. That also means next year is a big round number, which is very exciting! We couldn't spend it with a better group of fans!

Origin Systems, Inc. made history when they shipped the original Wing Commander. On September 26, 1990, after ten months of development, the world's first interactive movie shipped to software stores and changed the world. At 5:00 PM CST on that day, during the release party outside Origin's old Wild Basin office, Richard Garriott announced that the game's creator, Chris Roberts, had been hired as Director of New Technologies.

The importance of the original Wing Commander can not ever be understated. For the industry it was a new way to make computer games, one that continues fully unabated today. For the fans - us fans - it was the most exciting adventure we ever experienced. Never before

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Are you an ejection seat fellow or a space pod person? Per our recent conversation on the CIC Discord, here's a quick walk through Wing Commander ejection seats starting with Wing Commander I's guy in a leather jacket and jeans with a 2001 spacesuit backpack:

Wing Commander II keeps the outfit but has a modern ejection seat... and a cool silver version for the Kilrathi!

Privateer's take on the same idea; looks a bit like NASA's MMU. You can't actually eject in Privateer but certain enemies will... and when you tractor them in they become slaves that you can sell.

Wing Commander III has polygonal ejection pods for both humans and Kilrathi. And they're... pretty thicc!

And if you've ever shot a Kilrathi pod you've probably seen it fly off screen in a crazy direction. It actually explodes into three gorey pieces in the process but they flash by too quickly to readily notice:

There's a gross human destroyed

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Zyxophoj continues to pull back the curtain and reveal more of what's going on in the Privateer Alpha! He's put together a new video to explain how to work through the last several systems of the game. As this build was mainly intended as a preview for reviewers and testing, it starts to burst at the seams the further along players get. All of these little quirks make for absolutely fascinating digital archeology, however. In fact, he's discovered the game doesn't fully know what to do when you destroy the Steltek Drone. Additional Drones appear to just keep spawning! Give the video a watch below:

If at first you don't succeed, cheat. If that doesn't work, cheat harder. It is possible to get through the whole game, and kill the Steltek drones. Note the plural form of the word.

The game is really fighting back now, as the final mission just seems.. unfinished.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The recent Hellcat sketch commission seemed to have kicked off a wonderful snowball effect. Countvonschnaps now has three more Wing Commander designs on deck. His Arrow is wonderfully detailed and I really like that red canopy glass. The Rapier is also really rugged and seems to have some anime influence in there somewhere. The Excalibur has the most liberties taken, but it looks a bit more like a spaceship now and less like a 20th Century fighter. Very cool designs all around!

Arrow mk V: A light fighter seen in Wing Commander III and IV.What can I say that I am having a blast with these designs and I can only say thanks to the people who voted and commissioned me. I was not planning to do Wing Commander designs but it seems it came my way anyway.

Showcasing the Rapier II medium fighter in the colors frequently seen in Wing Commander 1 and 2 (Green).

This one was also commissioned by Shoguneagle.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Thargoid invasion fleet that ambushed the Shinrarta Dezhra system last week has been successfully repelled.
Providing an update on behalf of the system was Florian Baljak, acting starport commander of Jameson Memorial:
"The Thargoids swept through Shinrarta Dezhra hard and fast, taking our defences offline before we were able to regroup. It's a miracle Jameson Memorial lasted until reinforcements could arrive."
"We lost a lot of good people driving the aliens back. But thanks to the efforts of thousands of Commanders, along with auxiliary support from Sirius Corporation and Azimuth Corporation, we can say victory in this particular battle."
Work has commenced on bringing all system ports back online as quickly as possible. Requests for assistance in delivering commodities to the system have been submitted.
Head of Aegis, Alba Tesreau, offered her gratitude to those involved in the fighting