Interview The History of Wing Commander: Part One

[RK47]

Yeah noticed that Roberts wants to do a comeback, but does EA really want him back? Guess we will see how that turns out would be ironic if the result would be another Arena POS.
On the more interesting side related to WC I found few pics about alternate start intro of Privateer featuring a Galaxy and Demons.

and a nice 3D Gothri

Wow. Where the fuck is that from? I recognize the Galaxy and Demons but is it even a playable mod? I really long for another Privateer...but don't enjoy Eve Online one bit.

 

[GreyViper]

Wow. Where the fuck is that from? I recognize the Galaxy and Demons but is it even a playable mod? I really long for another Privateer...but don't enjoy Eve Online one bit.

Not a mod, but guys at WC CIC somehow got access to some of the Origin never release design docs and pictures. Not sure how accurate it is but original Privateer intro was supposed to different then the one that made in final cut, some parts of it were used in RF intro. As for 3d I think they were just experimenting with the technology that was basis for Armada. And reason it wasn't used was it took to much disk space. If you recall Privateer wasn't a small game, add expansion it took over 100MB that time was quite a lot.

Edit. Few godie pics from Priv 2

 

[Drakron]

Righteous Fire added more story missions but not much beyond that, the large size is because as Privateer lacked voice acting (at first), Righteous Fire come with it (I think, I own the CD version).

Privateer 2 was shit, Spoony got a lot of what was wrong with the game.

 

[RK47]

And despite the unintelligible english they used in the FMV and lack of subtitles...I still finished the game somehow. As I shot my brother and stepped on his...whatever pod that thing is...

Privateer 2. Why??????

 

[Drakron]

Privateer 2 does have a AMAZING cast ... Clive Owen,John Hurt, Brian Blessed, Christopher Walker ... Its for most part BRITISH, not surprising considering it was filmed in England.

The plot is ... weird, only a sequel by name.

And unfortunately that is it, the game is BARELY playable, the enemy AI is a joke (if there is a AI), Trading is utter useless (Hire Cargo ships? FUCK NO), we get a lot of different ships and equipment but there is point in upgrading AT ALL ... hell anyone that actually played this (and I also did to its conclusion) should remember how bad it was.

 

[Sceptic]

Privateer lacked voice acting (at first), Righteous Fire come with it (I think, I own the CD version).

IIRC Righteous Fire had no VA either, there was a separate speech pack (like there was for WC2) and then the CD version combined the original Privateer, Righteous Fire, the speech pack AND added some more speech on top of it.

And unfortunately that is it, the game is BARELY playable, the enemy AI is a joke (if there is a AI), Trading is utter useless (Hire Cargo ships? FUCK NO), we get a lot of different ships and equipment but there is point in upgrading AT ALL ... hell anyone that actually played this (and I also did to its conclusion) should remember how bad it was.

I only remember the cast, never really played it much. Shame that it was such a bad game. For the story, I think it was originally not meant to be Privateer 2 at all? then EA wanted to put the Privateer/WC name on it, which would explain why the story is completely unrelated to WC universe. Though I think that was also retconned later on as taking place in the very very distant future (like hundreds of years after WC3/4).

 

[Zomg]

The WC1 branching mission style would have been great if they had some really fierce Steel Battalion type iron man shit going on where you always get a chance to eject or fail all mission objectives without a game over, but if you try to gut it out and get killed that's it, you lose. But since you die or get a game over like 75% of the time you fail a mission and you have to save/load constantly the narrative turns into the normal shit you get in save/load games where failures didn't "really happen" in the story. But with a failure-tolerant iron man everyone's first "win" would be a bittersweet minor loss or minor win, the best hero ever raise the dead messiah story would be when you were really good at the game.

But then traditional space sim gameplay is pretty terrible generally so maybe just going with the Wing Commander II style linear narrative to grind it out is better. There's limited scope to improving your skills against dogfight AI, so they typically just make the enemy ships stupidly numerous or stupidly powerful. I always get mad and quit when you get to an expansion and they make the enemies so maneuverable and shielded it takes ten years to slowly grind them down.

 

[Drakron]

Wing Commander come out in 1990, Steel Battalion come out in 2002.

Wing Commander did had breaching campaigns were the outcome would be decided by victory points so if you were in Venice then you were in the Victory End as if you were in Hell's Kitchen then you were in the Defeat End..

You are making a very odd argument as the game only put you in the Defeat End if you continue to just LOSE, it seems your LAST CHANCE if you just LOSE AND LOSE is on Hubble's Star were if you win you progress to Rostov were you have to win again to go to Venice.

Meaning you can go Enyo->Gateway->Cheng Du->Port Hedland->Hubble's Star->Rostov->Venice.

That means losing 4 out of 7 and still achieve Victory.

Unfortunately they dropped A LOT of that, even if there were loosing branches in II-IV they were not as complex as in the first, also promotions and medals were dropped.

Also you cannot really get much better that WC III loosing route were if you fuck up ... well ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA-A3EV2mNE
(You can skip to 6.03)

Make your peace, Mr. Rollins --

 

[Zomg]

I love WC1 and I consider the rest of the series to be much weaker; I'm just wondering how they could make it feel more reasonable to roll with failure in the game instead of leaving a lot of mechanics in it that encourage playing it like a normal save/load system where significant failure means that you should reload. They shitcanned the fundamentally good but effectively flawed branching system, because most players just ignored all the failure content by save/reloading until they won every series, in favor of a fundamentally bad linear system in WCII so that players would get all the content they made for the game.

 

[Sceptic]

I don't understand the claims that the branching got canned after WC1. It was there in the Secret Missions, and in WC2, and in WC3. Granted it was a little more complex in WC1, as in WC2 you couldn't really stay on the losing track for long before gettting a game over, but it means you were essentially missing about a third of the content on a single run. Hardly what I'd call "getting all the content". Oh and save/reload until you win the series was also pretty common in WC2.

 

[Phelot]

I recall a few missions in WC1 were you don't necessarily know that you lost like when you have to face off one of the Kilrathi aces. The briefing for that mission basically says that you're on patrol, the Kilrathi ace might be in the area and to not engage them if they're too powerful. Evem if the ace runs away it seems to count as a loss, but is never stated as such. The commander simply states that it's a shame he got away.

TBH, I don't know if there are others. I think I recall that one because I raged when I realized I had actually lost, but I don't know if there were other missions like that.

All in all, I think the game did a fairly good job at hiding the idea that you lost and there's a consequence for it. At least with most of the minor missions, there was never any "YOU LOST! BACK TO RELOAD WITH YOU!" Granted, some of the escort missions were pretty obvious.

 

[betamin]

Are the fan's remakes any good?

 

[Zomg]

I don't understand the claims that the branching got canned after WC1. It was there in the Secret Missions, and in WC2, and in WC3. Granted it was a little more complex in WC1, as in WC2 you couldn't really stay on the losing track for long before gettting a game over, but it means you were essentially missing about a third of the content on a single run. Hardly what I'd call "getting all the content". Oh and save/reload until you win the series was also pretty common in WC2.

The difference between the usual 1-mission "beads on a string" failure missions in WC2 is usually pretty small IIRC (I don't know WC2 nearly as well as WC1). Like 1-2 different lines in cutscenes and an extra wing of enemies in a mission, stuff like that. The degree of failure vs. success content in WC1 is not comparable, like "I never got to fly a Raptor or a Rapier, 50% of the ships in the game."

 

[Sceptic]

Like 1-2 different lines in cutscenes and an extra wing of enemies in a mission, stuff like that.

Err... no? The branching into losing sends you on completely different missions. I don't remember how much the cutscenes get affected, and I didn't really care, as flying another mission with a distinctly darker tone (especially the last mission on the losing branch) was what it was all about. I don't remember whether it prevented you from flying some of the ships (I think all ships appear in the "main branch" missions) but still 1/3rd of the missions? That's not bad at all.

 

[Drakron]

... because most players just ignored all the failure content by save/reloading until they won every series.

People are perfectionists and attempt to succeed rather that fail.

You know that in WC III there is a Kilrathi base you can only see IF you are in the Delius Branch that only happens if you lost in the Ariel Branch?

I can say WC IV completely throws the Victory/Defeat branch system but in return you do get to make decisions on how things progress ... if you stick with Confed then you stay in the Lexington instead of being on the Interpid but you miss at least a mission and a lot plays differently (also you do get plenty of reason to re-think your decision), likewise you are given the option of going to Spearadon or Circe that are for most part very different missions (Circe is very much ground missions as Spearadon is capturing missions).