An Observation about the WC Community

Mjr. Whoopass said:
In defense of Starlancer though the gameplay and graphics seemed to be alot better. It seemed to flow more smoothly. It was hard to dust off the old WC games and play them again except for the engaging storyline and actors. Of course Starlancer was made later as video game technology improved. It makes you wonder how awesome a Wing Commander series might be now- the screen might look alot more like an actual movie. Although the WC games had better game play in terms of the enemy AI. The
Starlancer enemies were nothing but cannon fodder- MUCH moreso than WC. If you fly away from the conflict and watch your wingmen and the enemies battle, it's pathetic! I saw one of my wingmen out in the middle of nowhere flying in circles by himself while another wingman was flying near an enemy, and they acted like neither of them was there! Some of the enemies made pointless pathetic strafing runs on the transports without doing any damage... ah.. the good ole days of WC.... (although Starlancer was still alot of fun... best $10 I ever spent!)
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Absolutely. It takes a lot to make me not like a game, and Starlancer is no exception. I rather enjoyed Starlancer due to its gameplay and graphics. I was just saying that there was practically no fleshing out of any of the characters, and Freelancer had done that to a limited degree.
 
That's true Nomad Terror. Some of the characters from Starlancer had real potential for development, although unfortunately most were complete jerks: esp. Moose- look how quick he turns on you when you accidentally shoot your own guy! Even if you have 200+ enemy kills- one slip and he'll literally turn you over to the firing squad! Most of his comments are just annoying- makes you wish StarLancer had the WC's ability to tell someone to "maintain radio silence". Also Enriquez seems to have constant PMS and a completely condescending personality. It was cool that they had a Manfred Von Richtofen (aka. The Red Baron) type character with the German ace Klaus Steiner- they could have done alot with him if they had interactive scenes. But the game shows how powerful cut movie scenes by extremely talented actors can be for increasing fan connection. It shows that 100% digitized characters just don't cut it.
 
Mjr. Whoopass said:
But the game shows how powerful cut movie scenes by extremely talented actors can be for increasing fan connection. It shows that 100% digitized characters just don't cut it.
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No, it just shows that it's much harder to do. You can find hundreds of people here who'll tell you they bonded with WC1's talking heads much more closely than Starlancer's characters. And the depth of personality in WC2's animated characters was tremendous.
 
People discuss if there is something left to imagination - such as an open storyline, or character backgrounds, or half-explained reasons. Other than many games that try to explain everything and anything, WC has that multi-facetted approach. It's like a good book that lives on in your mind, even after you've turned the last page.

I know there are a lot of games that achieve/d something similar (anybody remembering Gabriel Knight?), and it always seems to spawn some kind of dedicated following. But there's a backside to the medal, too: As a newbie, it's hard to get in.

I've started with buying Privateer and WC2 from a bargain bin, but WC2 didn't run right away on my then-new machine - so it took me quite a while to figure the whole universe backstory - and by that time WCP came out. Now, I'm still re-reading material to get the full picture, and I'm still realizing a lot of misunderstandings I had while playing the games. Even with all the help from the community, the great collections and tools compiled on wcnews, I can only imagine that it must be very hard to get "in" for someone completely new to the whole story.

But is it? I'm still amazed sometimes at the patience and dedication of the people around here to answer questions fot the zillionest time, and to point acolytes into the right direction... :D Even with all the dedication present, I would have thought to see the community evolve into a thermos-state: Warm and cozy on the inside, impermeable from the outside. I have no real explanation why it is different - but I definitely like it that way.
 
the WC games always had dialog like a movie.

"I'm needed on the bridge." or "I have comm room duty."

They talked as if they were friends (or enemies), not just wartime acquaintances. It let you know that there was more going on in the world outside of what you actually saw in the game.

In WC2, Maverick at first couldn't stand Hobbes. He felt that all Kilrathi should die (citing an occurance from a previous game). However, they slowly learn to trust each other, and by WC3 there is a deep friendship between the two that you as the player is a part of. When Hobbes bugs out in WC3, he hasn't just betrayed Maverick, he has betrayed you as the player, and you actually feel the sting that Maverick must have felt.
 
yoyoyojo said:
How is it the most popular game currently in release has less people talking about it than does WC?

Go figure.
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I think its good that we are few.We are few but we all love Wc series,Wc games,Wc universe, Wc Fantasy.Other forums are just filled with lammers and #R#@!%@#!$ !

Look at all these Fan Projects !These guys revive Wc everyday.

I love Wc community ,maybe I dont have the time anymore to reply and post everyday like some years ago,but Ill never stop visiting wcnews .


P.S. I hope these forums ,this webpage and all you people never stop interesting about WC.Please. :)

A looooooong way back Fan from Greece
 
Nomad Terror said:
Absolutely. It takes a lot to make me not like a game, and Starlancer is no exception. I rather enjoyed Starlancer due to its gameplay and graphics. I was just saying that there was practically no fleshing out of any of the characters, and Freelancer had done that to a limited degree.
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It was an allright game. Took a lot of my time and some of the stuff in the missions got very intense for me. but it would've been nice if we could've "esc" past those darned in-game cutscenes; epecially if we were replaying the same mission dozen+ times!
 
Nomad Terror said:
Digital Anvil made a decent effort to try to flesh out the characters in Freelancer, and although they didn't do as well as Origin had for Wing Commander, they certainly did a lot better than they had for Starlancer.

I thought the story in Freelancer had a lot of momentum, and then it just stops suddenly like a train wreck. The game always felt empty for me after the missions were over. I would have to take a break for a while before I got interested in playing multiplayer again.
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Tat has always been the problem after winning such a game; I mean, story's over, everyone's saved. Now what?! And afterwards, it's like the entire universe is in limbo: you get no more news updates. Nothing.
And the missions, I tought were boring after a while. Got to point A, blow crap up; go to waypoint B, repeat.
Saw what you want about Independance War 2; at least their missions offered a lot of variety. :p
 
No, it just shows that it's much harder to do. You can find hundreds of people here who'll tell you they bonded with WC1's talking heads much more closely than Starlancer's characters. And the depth of personality in WC2's animated characters was tremendous.
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Ok, I can believe that.. I've never played 1 or 2
 
Im from the group that jumped on the bandwagon thanks to WC3. Yeah, I did have WC2 - but when you're younger and stupidier than you are now, you too would pick live actors to talking heads.

This being said, I only recently went back to play WC1 and found it every bit as engrossing and involving as anything else from WC3 and on. That should speak volumes of the quality of work done.
 
*singing*, "WC always forever..."
"In the CIC, we are together..."
"Yesterday, I was a-playin'"
"Now in the forums, I'm just a-saying..." :)
 
After i beat privateer 2 and had been running random missions for a while (with my SOS scanner on), I got a call for one of those typical rescue missions.

Well I rescued the person, and when I took them to the planet they wanted to go to, I was treated to a FMV scene with some hot chica whom it is implied Lev nails. There was one where you rescue this one chick and it turns out the whole incident was staged by some young girl who was stalking Lev.

I got a couple more of these seemlingly randomly, until I finally lost interest in the game.

Freelancer would've done well to involve some of this.
 
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