Announcing Wing Commander Pioneer (August 11, 2005)

I remember talking to LOAF about the weapons on the ships, and reading. The Hurricane has twin mass drivers, and then the Wildcat, twin lasers and twin mass drivers.

I don't like the idea of confed selling off military craft to the civilians myself. I don't see the US Military selling off its surplus F-14's, or other older craft to the Civvies. (I know citing the real world for Sci-Fi stuff is usually a no-no, but in this case I feel it works) I don't remember any WWII craft being sold to civilians either, with the exception of the trainers. Military stuff is generally dismantled, and that's that. Sure, it'd be fun...but, not going to happen.

The Wildcat, and new Hurricane (which hasn't been shown yet) designs I have to say are at this point final. A redesign of them is on our list o' suggestions. However, at this point, and remembering that one round of redesign has already taken place, we can't sit down and put our energies into another round of redesign for them now. We need to focus our energies on the last remaining ships, and then move onto the rest of our content, bases and the remaining cockpits being next on the list. Once we've knocked out the next block of content, we'll see about revisiting the Wildcat/Hurricane issue. To be honest, while i really, really love the original designs of the Wildcat and Hurricane, ultimately, they really did stick out like sore thumbs. Now, i did argue that since we don't really know what the confed design ethos of the McAuliffe era is, that its okay for them to do so. But ultimately, the art director does have final say, and consistency does have to win the day. There have to be those elements of design evident in the designs i create in order for everything to fit well with one another. That is where the Wildcat and Hurricane came from. I started with my original designs, and then did a little tweaking to arrive at what we've got now. Honestly, i do really like them both. If i do anything design wise on these two ships, i would more than likely return to the original designs (at a later date) and just block them out a bit more so as to make them fit with the WC1 look, whil preserving the 'character' as bob calls of, of my original wildcat and hurricane designs. But as i said, this is for a later date. We gotta continue moving forward, and not get bogged down in things we've already revisited.
 
yes, they sell, modern grade fighters only to other nations (e.g. iran has f14) but ww2 fighter ARE being sold to pretty much anyone who can afford them. where do you think did all the flightshows get their mustangs, corsairs, messerschmidts and what not?
 
to other nations, yes. (so i forgot that bit) not to civvies.

and if i'm not mistaken, i believe a lot of the airshow planes are restorations. Not so much bought from the government.
 
wow!

Wow this looks great, from what I can tell from the pictures its got that same feeling for the interface/cockpit as the previous games which I love so much!

Do you guys have a mailing list I can subscribe to keep upto date with developments on it?

Keep up the great works guys! :) :) :)

Kosch
 
well, the raptor would sure be worth a restauration.
on the other hand, there is no such thing as privateers around, and mercs usually don't have anything more powerful than helis) though i think i heard of a private militia with a cobra gunship
 
Ok, Bob. I'm having a hard time understanding where you're coming from on this. There are definate design similarities between ALL the WC1 fighters. Perhaps not in overall shape, but in what shapes they're constructed out of. Maybe it takes an artist's eye to see it, but they're definately there. Color, shape, and form are very similar between the fighters.
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Alright, I'll certainly give you the color point (since it would be silly to dispute it; every faction's ships have been consistantly colored period-wise, with the exception of the Ferret which is of course not a military but ISS ship), and the overall form as well. What I dispute is the shape point. Here's why:

While all the ships in Wing Commander (1) have a generally triangular hull and wings, only one of them (the Hornet) has completely flat ones, like on a modern-day fighter. The Scimitar has her famous triplane-tapered rearsection (for lack of a better description); the Raptor her complex semi-circle- (-> shape. The Rapier comes close, but even she has short, blunt wings tapered down at the ends that giver her a completely distinctive silhouette. And neither of the other two ships (Raptor, Scimitar) have vertical stabalizers, while *every* original Confed ship in Piooner has them.

Giving the Scimitar wingtips on the edge of the Wildcat a bit of a dihedral (or maybe a >, like the Republic fighters in Episode III) would go a long way towards breaking up the general shape; but as it stands, you've got three indistputably beautifully rendered and designed ships (Hornet, Corsair, Wildcat) that all have the same elements of: trianglar hull, broad, flat wings, tailfins. Personally, seeing the same basic form factor repeated on the Hornet and Sabre in two games was enough for me; seeing it three times in one game borders on the unbearable.

As an aside - if my last comment came off a bit strong, it's just a habit I have of being blunt bordering on sharpness when I feel strongly (if that makes sense). My point wasn't to be snarky, it was to point out what I see as being snorken - of imitative origin, in this case overly so.
 
It seems to me that if you're doing 'Privateer in WCI', you should have an Errant-class merchantman.
 
Yeah, that's an Errant. I know Standoff has already made pretty impressive use of it, but it seems like it belongs even more in a 2650s Privateer game.
 
Heh, heh. Not quite.
The WC movie style is not even close to WC1. It's not even being considered in this game. The fact is that the WCM style is so far different and so inconsistent with WC1 that it doesn't benefit ANY canon based-on-the-original-Wing-Commander-games Game/Mod to make use of any of the models from that movie.

And before you come back stating that you've managed to fit all the little pieces together (or maybe not ALL of them) I ask you this:

How many different carriers named the Tiger's Claw were there? Because if you count all things as being canon then you have to deal with 4 completely different designs claiming to be the one true Tiger's claw. This, my friend, does not work.
As I've stated before, we're using the original Wing Commander as the design/style template - therefore the WCM, SWC,and WCA are out visually speaking... we can still use the timeline and lore, or course, but the look and feel of these movie/shows/game can play no part in this game.

An here's where we begin to edge into the fanboyish realm. The desire to shove everything in there, regardless of whether it fits the design timeline or not is a major sign that your game is going to be utterly inconsistent, and thus unprofessional. Bad.

Now here's the upside! If we can make a new design that plays by all the established art rules (see above), then we can most certainly put an Errant class in there. We can even make it look similar to the movie Errant! In fact, I think it might help to have something filling that hole. But it's just not going to look exactly like the flying pastry that you see in the movie. :p
Brad? Got any design ideas here?
 
I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that argument.
I wanted to clarify here - I'm not trying to dispute the timeline or the existance of any events, just that the visual designs of these different aspects of the WC universe do not mesh in any meaningful way - and therefore should not be used side-by-side.
 
Ultimately, the design decisions come down to me and howard (more howard as he's the art director, but i've got a voice as well). as the guy behind the designs, and having already gone through one round of revision which took up time which could have been better spent on finishing up the last few ships, i'm honestly not much interested in going over them again. these ships are going to be a very touchy subject, everyone has in their mind what they look like as they read through action stations. the visions put forth by me and howard of the Hurricane and Wildcat, therefore, are utimately the ones which will be put into the game. I know this will cause controversy, but if everyone decided they didn't like the direction that all the original (though only in design and not name) ships and we tried to change them all to meet folks's ideals, we'd never get done, and the project would fail. with that in mind, we've decided that we're going to keep the designs as they are now. We won't come back to them at a later date, and i hope its not somehting that will disuade folks from getting into the game when it's finally released.
 
Yeah. Even as the Art Director, the guy that trying to make this pretty for everyone, and make it as hot looking as possible - I gotta admit that there cames a time where you gotta put your foot down. Brad and I have come up with a dynamite design for this game.
(Brad did all the game design, and I focused more on the art direction - but pretty much every new ship was designed by Brad, with minor input on my behalf)

The fact is that we're trying to make a fun game here. Now if some of the designs seem a bit to similar of some people to stomach, tough bannanas. I like 'em. They're quite honestly HOT! That Wildcat and Hurricane are head and shoulders above ANY other fan-designed fighters I've seen in any other fan project. Hands-freaking-down. They are "teh sexy", and I think we should be proud of what we've done so far. What we should not do, however, is let our desire to please everyone get in the way of actually getting artwork done. We've established design rules, and by God we're stickin' to them!
This doesn't mean that we're gonna ignore you guys - all we're saying is that the major changes - total re-designs of finished ships - are not going to happen. Minor tweaks on how things could be made better will definately be paid heed.
 
Personally, I am extrememly impressed, and itching to see more. I have been a WC fan since the early 90's, and grew up on all the games and novels. The concept for the game is very inventive: it will be cool to see the Landreich. I think all the ship designs are consistent with Wing Commander, and especially like the Wildcat design and the Fighter. To all the complainers: please stop whining and show some appreciation. This game looks like it will be a blessing from God to Wing Commander fans.
 
The WC movie style is not even close to WC1. It's not even being considered in this game. The fact is that the WCM style is so far different and so inconsistent with WC1 that it doesn't benefit ANY canon based-on-the-original-Wing-Commander-games Game/Mod to make use of any of the models from that movie.
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Well, sure, I'm pretty sure claiming that the movie was *supposed* to look like Wing Commander I would be doing it a disservice -- that clearly wasn't the intent.

That said, I'd also argue that - as Standoff has already picked up on - a properly lit Errant looks nothing like anything else in the movie. They were clearly going for a Millenium Falcon/Privateer style instead of the WW2 aircraft/battleship look of all the other ships. It's a cool design, but it doesn't really mesh with the others in the movie.

How many different carriers named the Tiger's Claw were there? Because if you count all things as being canon then you have to deal with 4 completely different designs claiming to be the one true Tiger's claw. This, my friend, does not work.
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In terms of continuity there's just the one thus far. In terms of different ways it's been designed, there's lots and lots. Hell, there's three different designs in Wing Commander I alone (the Claw Marks drawing, the 'cut scene' art and the in-game model all have pretty significant and contradictory differences.)

We can probably come up with a million to add to those three: there's the Super Wing Commander one, the academy one, the movie one... an there's various innate differences in each of those (and of course other bits of stylized art that've appeared over the years).


Now here's the upside! If we can make a new design that plays by all the established art rules (see above), then we can most certainly put an Errant class in there. We can even make it look similar to the movie Errant! In fact, I think it might help to have something filling that hole. But it's just not going to look exactly like the flying pastry that you see in the movie. :p
Brad? Got any design ideas here?
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I guess the Errant kind of appeals to me because both it and the fiction about it in the Confed Handbook are pretty much grown for a Privateer style game -- it's got turret emplacements and clear engines that can be upgraded and all that good stuff.

This is the kind of thing I was arguing about with the WC3 novel.
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I must have missed that one. What was your argument?

To all the complainers: please stop whining and show some appreciation. This game looks like it will be a blessing from God to Wing Commander fans.
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Oh, good, an anonymous moderator. Thank you for setting us all on the straight and narrow, good sir.

Seriously, people here are as free to critisize what they see in the news -- and the people working on the project are free to ignore them. It's a two way street and we're not interested in closing any of it at this point in time.

(That said, Bob's arguments are well thought out - they may not apply to this project, that's for y'all to decide... but I'm certainly not willing to label him a complainer or say he shouldn't speak just because he has a different opinion about ship designs.)
 
gotta agree, while we appreciate the support, asking someone to shut up is a bad way of doing business. we want and appreciate feedback, seriously, we do. certain things we'll explain our positions on, and we'll leave it at that. but, all opinions are welcome. seriously, they will all be reviewed, and if we like them, possibly added if it fits within the scope of the project.

please keep em comin!
 
Having the Wildcat, Corsair, and Hurricane all having similar basic forms does make sense from a continuity standpoint. According to Action Stations, the primary use for bombers was anti-ground, not anti-capship, and fighters were required to escort or intercept bombers. Thus, nearly all bombers and fighters from the pre-McAuliffe era would be designed for atmospheric missions, leading to the airplane-like shapes.
 
you know, it would be cool to make a "real" wc game with this engine. not a privateer one, but a wc game with missions and all that. after all, this is the most advanced engine at our disposal, maybe counting out an X3 mod.
but that would be a thing of the furture

you know, one thing i was wondering about...will you game also have a storyline?
 
I agree with Bob on the original ship designs. They seem to borrow from too few sources, and it ends up looking bland. They're great models of uninteresting ships.

You could try to make a WC game with pre-50's looking ships, or at least a WC game with ships that look like the ones onboard the Tiger's Claw (which are not just the four we see in WC1)... that'd let you have some variety while still being coherent. But instead you chose to make a WC game with ships that are all based around the *four* designs you fly in WC1 (which, between themselves, have only very basic similarities), so it ends up looking like it lacks creativity, as if all your ships had been but together from Hornet/Scimitar/Raptor/Rapier spare parts.

The four flyable WC1 ships or the four flyable Privateer ships are two sets that, IMHO, have much more character than Pioneer's ships so far. They're ships which don't look all similar to one another - and that's not something which automatically means that whoever put them in the same game is a crazy idiot who doesn't know a thing about art direction. It means they knew how to make interesting ships, above all... you guys seem to be giving top priority to a "Hey, this is WC1, and we'll hammer it into your skull until you realize that!" philosophy (when that is already *too* obvious, IMHO) and not worrying enough about making interesting ships. Just my 2 cents, but don't mind me. :p
 
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