Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Last week, news circulated that Electronic Arts had filed new trademarks for the Ultima series. A YouTube channel called Inside Games reached out to Ultima creator Richard Garriott to see if he knew what was going on. He didn't, but he did mention something he's been theorizing about for quite a while!

In short, he hopes to regain certain copyrights to Ultima next year based on Section 203 of the Copyright Act. This is a provision which allows authors to regain control of their works' copyrights from publishers after 35 years in certain circumstances. This has since been widely reported as fact in the days since and while it would be pretty exciting, you should view this a little more trepidation than the mainstream media is offering.

Sadly, it's very unlikely that this plan will actually work. Electronic Arts has plenty of laywers that can easily argue that this is not the intent of the law (meant to

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The white whale! Every bit of Wing Commander II SNES that we discover is another piece of an extremely sad puzzle... but it's certainly thrilling to come across a new one! Today's example is from issue 038 of Spanish magazine Nintendo Acción where an eagle eyed reader spotted... a box for Wing Commander II SNES in one of those great 1990s 'grid of games' store ads. Check it out:

The last major Wing Commander II SNES discovery was, in fact, the box art. The painting that was comissioned for use was discovered in an auction. Interestingly, that's not what's being used here... the Spanish ad box uses the original Concordia rendering from the PC version!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Kestrel has received the green light for full distribution, having previously been available via limited release only.
Shipments of Core Dynamics's latest design have begun to arrive at markets. An accompanying press stated the Kestrel has been developed as a highly capable, dedicated combat ship.
CEO Owen McKenna remarked:
"The Kestrel has quickly become the small fighter of choice for combat pilots. We're extremely proud of our engineering and design team."
The Kestrel is now available for purchase at shipyards throughout the core systems.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We've posted the story of Privateer 2 author Diane Duane embarrassing a fool who didn't believe a woman could know (much less create!) a video game before. It's a classic! She recently posted photos of the Privateer 2 team jacket she was wearing at the time and it's pretty neat… just the sort of history we like to archive here!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The Wing Commander movie club has successfully carried the One Ring to Mordor… or… half way there, at least. But we're not leaving 1978! This week, we will be watching The Song of Roland (1978), a French film about medieval knights which stars Klaus Kinski! It seems to be celebrated in France but almost completely unknown in the English speaking world. Color me intrigued! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

The Song of Roland is an 11th century French epic poem about the deeds of Roland, the leader of King Charlemagne's knights. You can read an English translation of the poem at Project Gutenberg. The poem is mentioned in the original Claw Marks, referenced by Paladin as one of the epic stories of knight-errantry that inspired him to join the fight against the Kilrathi. The unspoken implication is that it's also the source of his callsign, as Roland was the leader of Charlemagne's

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here at the Wing Commander Combat Information Center we love old magazine articles about our favorite series... and our beloved type, by far, is ones that come from 'professional' periodicals. Case in point, here's a great article from the June 1999 issue of Computer Graphics World that details the SFX work that Digital Anvil put into the Wing Commander movie. It's the sort of detail you wouldn't get in a PC Gamer! There's something underappreciated about Chris Roberts decision to 'do it himself' with the 3D work for the movie. And I'd argue that the results ultimately hold up better than The Phantom Menace (which got the cover story for this magazine).

FLYING HIGH

PC game creator takes his space battles to the big screen

BY KAREN MOLTENBREY

About a decade ago, when most people his age were obtaining a college education, an ambitious Chris Roberts was teaching the gaming community a lesson or two when