Happy Birthday from J. Allen Brack (August 13, 2007)

Bandit LOAF

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
Wing Commander Prophecy veteran J. Allen Brack was kind enough to follow Sean Murphy and George Oldziey in sharing some memories of WCP's development and wishing the fans a happy birthday! Read on:
Greetings to the Wing Commander community!

It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since Wing Commander Prophecy
launched. Like most games, Prophecy took lots and lots of time and effort to
get out the door, and we worked really hard to make it the best Wing it
could be.

Prophecy was conceived as the next WC trilogy, following Casey from raw
recruit in game one, to a hero of the Confederation with game 3. We had a
great cliffhanger with Blair at the end of Prophecy resulting in his
transport to Nephilim space, and interesting plans for what could happen next.
Sadly, the remaining 2 parts of that story will likely never be told.

Memories of the game in no particular order:
  • Captain Johnny and the Friday Doughnut Horn.
  • Crunching late into Halloween night to post the demo for the game.
  • Staying up 3 days straight as we got close to ship.
  • Spending time on the one page addendum, realizing that I was too
    tired and not making sense, and calling in a friend to assist.
Certainly for me the most difficult part of the experience was cutting
multiplayer. It was something we were all excited about, but just couldn't
make work in time for the holidays.

I'm also grateful for the opportunity to work on Secret Ops. The episodic
content idea didn't have a lot of AAA support at the time, and we worked
hard to prove that the concept could work. At almost one million downloads,
it was a huge success for the time.

A lot of the WC veterans have transitioned to online in recent years. Lots
of folks worked on Star Wars Galaxies, and have transitioned onto other
products recently. Be sure to check out their great work, past, present,
and future.

When the web first came out, I thought success for me would be the day I
worked on a project that had people create their own fan page. Thanks for
making one of my dreams come true and keep up the great work! You guys have
kept the Wing Commander spirit alive since the Usenet days. You are true
heroes of the Confederation.

J. Allen Brack
Lead Producer
World of Warcraft
Click to expand...
Now I'm awfully curious about what Captain Johnny's doughnut horn was...

--
Original update published on August 13, 2007
 
Last edited by a moderator:
He could say that Blair was actually an evil admiral who had several Confed carriers hidden in an asteroid base - but that doesn't matter because since its not in a book or a game or a cartoon, its not "offical".
 
LeHah said:
He could say that Blair was actually an evil admiral who had several Confed carriers hidden in an asteroid base - but that doesn't matter because since its not in a book or a game or a cartoon, its not "offical".
Click to expand...

Yeah, but if he's saying that his fate, behind the scenes, was up in the air...

I dunno. It's neat to hear from him, in any event!
 
Dooooouuuuughnuuuuuuuuuts!

Capt. Johnny brought in doughnuts on Friday - I can't remember if it was every Friday or every other, but it was definitely Fridays. And he had a tendency to wander in a bit late (most likely because he'd been there 'til the wee wee hours the night before) so the staff was mostly all there. He had this big horn - looked like a bull's horn or something - and when he'd arrived and the doughnuts were laid out he'd blow it out in the hall to let everyone know feeding time had started. You never saw so many burned out, exhausted game-makers suddenly fly to their feet and go dashing down the halls. All for the call of some deep-fried dough and sugar...
 
hehe, thats absolutely great!

I may have to suggest a donut horn at our next company meet and greet ;)
 
It's really nice hearing Wing Commander pre-release stories from the developers side. We've heard tales of Wingnuts' sleepless nights waiting for their new game to arrive in the post or for release night to come or whatever, but this is something else entirely.
 
Taser8 is pretty much spot on in describing the Donut Horn.

But I don't think I came in *that* late. :rolleyes:

Donut_Horn_1.jpg


It could be used to summon 2 - 3 dozen Dunkin Donuts once every 7 days.

The sound of the Donut Horn was somewhere between a high note on a trombone and the calls of a randy moose.

Sadly, the horn seems to have had a limited number of charges, as Donuts no longer magically appear when I sound its mighty call.
 
Wow thanks guys, I didn't realise so many of you people were kicking around (I've been gone too long). It's really neat to have more personal insights into the development.

I should probably know this but how big was the actual in house development team on WCP? What kind of hours did you end up pulling? Game Coding complete gave some very fun insights into Origin crunch time (do I remember rightly that you had hammocks in the kitchen?).
 
Capn Johnny said:
Sadly, the horn seems to have had a limited number of charges, as Donuts no longer magically appear when I sound its mighty call.
Click to expand...

Perhaps one day it will again summon the power of the mighty glazed chocolate donut!

(This story is amongst the very, very best I've read in a long time. Thanks for sharing it, Taser and Capn!)
 
We had a great cliffhanger with Blair at the end of Prophecy resulting in his
transport to Nephilim space
Click to expand...

Finally an answer about what happened to Blair. I had my suspicion that the Nephilim kidnapped him and took him to their side of space...but now its somewhat official (unless they make another game that says he was killed during the wormhole collapse).

I'm going to take this as canon until EA says otherwise....go on EA...I dare you make another game...I !@#$ing dare you!
 
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