The Art of Wing Commander Arena - Part Eight (October 10, 2007)

Bandit LOAF

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
One early concept for Wing Commander Arena called for the game to use ships from Wing Commander III and IV! Basic sketches of three 'redesigned' classic ships exist... and today we're showing you the Excalibur:


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This is part of a series of beautiful Wing Commander Arena concept images graciously provided by Gaia Industries. You can find the original article here. You can thank the guys at Gaia by picking up Street Trace NYC on Xbox Live Arcade!



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Original update published on October 10, 2007
 
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No bubble canopy??? No stabilizers on the wingtips???

Blasphemy...

It kinda looks like an Excalibur and a Thunderbolt mixed together.
 
It reminds me of the Porshe Valkyrie from Escape Velocity Nova.

I like the art deco style, though. Kind of a pity they weren't able to find a use for it in the final game.
 
Bob McDob said:
It reminds me of the Porshe Valkyrie from Escape Velocity Nova.

I like the art deco style, though. Kind of a pity they weren't able to find a use for it in the final game.
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Yeah, I kind of like it. It reminds me a bit of the art style of the WC movie broadsword
 
Bandit LOAF said:
You awful jerks sure can complain about anything.
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Sorry but I'm not a fan of that Excalibur either. It is interesting to see the direction Arena would have taken it but I would hope that would not have been the final product.

It removes to many of the signature features of the Excalibur. The nose now looks more like a Gratha than an Excalibur. It reminds me of looking at early model P-51s before the later models put in the bubble canopy. The tail section looks like an altered version of a Waterloo or Confederation class.

Again an interesting "concept" art, but I would hope they would have continued to improve it if it was going to have gone into the final product.
 
The design itself is pretty nice. Although I think they could have gotten away with giving it a new name in the tradition of new ships in new games. From a distance it looks similar to a Rapeir II or Hellcat, so I could certainly see it in the Confed arsenal. Of course I wouldn't have any qualms if they called it the Excalibur II, either.
 
Sorry but I'm not a fan of that Excalibur either. It is interesting to see the direction Arena would have taken it but I would hope that would not have been the final product.
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It's not a matter of liking or disliking this image, it's a matter of simple respect. The whole 'how dare EA ruining everything' schtick that our former comrade engaged in isn't worth a wooden credit, and if you don't recognize that you shouldn't be posting here.

Here's EA (and Gaia) going out of their way to let us see some behind-the-screens unused concepts that they played around with with absolutely no benefit to them. They thought we'd have fun seeing the things they considered... and what do we get? Absolutely no thanks from anyone... and now this guy acting like they ran over his dog. Where the hell did common decency go?
 
Yeah, he was a bit over the top. Instead of trying to argue his point he just went off on a crazy rant that really had no base other than "They fucked with my uber Excalibur!"

As I've already said I'm not fond of that design, but am I glad that Gaia/EA let there's documents become public record? Of course, but that doesn't mean we can't be free to comment on what we see. People obviously aren't going to like everything, some have images in their heads of what they think things should look like. There's nothing wrong with them holding those views, as long as they can express them better than "OMG WTF An EXCAL without X and Y and Z?!?!?! ZOMG!"
 
I actually really like it.

To me it actually looks more like an Excaliber-Sabre Mix -
The long and wide engine pods with the large intakes on the front,
The twin tail fins mounted high on vertical "bases",
the bulbous pod on in the center of the stern - very similar to the Sabre's aft turret housing's design,
and the overall shape clearly reminds both fighter's designs.

All in all - two thumbs up!
 
Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

I don't think my post was like "OMG WTF" Dundradal, thats way OTT, but it was merely an opinion which perhaps could have been worded a lot better. My second post was simply retaliatory for being called nasty names which swiftly seen me thrown in the cooler. After what was quite a good, non-heated, discussion with the LOAF man, I'm now ice cold and back in the action.

This is concept art which has been displayed here, with the other art, that the WCNews team have worked hard (begging and pleading on hands and knees :P ) to get from EA/Gaia and thanks to them has been released to us so we can enjoy seeing the hard work EA and Gaia have put in to designing and making this game. I now have a greater appreciation for this and thank all parties for their efforts. I still have a raised eyebrow over what could have been in regards to the design of the Excalibur, thats not going to change, but its great to see none the less. Bring on the next installment!

Edit:

Damn, I lost my mop and bucket!
 
This stuff is awesome. I don't know if people realize the sheer volume of concept art game productions go through. Nearly all of it does not get used, and not all of it is even considered "usable" to begin with! I find it personally interesting to see all the stuff they have made available - everything from the real simple afterburner tests the CIC had a while back, to the color and marking tests they showed on the Arrows. This is an interesting take on the Excalibur, and we can clearly see that they thought as many of us seem to - that it wasn't quite in fitting with the WC style, and further refined the style and ship selection.
Loving it and waiting for more!
 
Sorry guys, I wasn't entirely serious with my post. Honestly, I didn't really like the Excalibur concept, but I was joking around with the whole "NO WINGLETS??? FUCK EA!!!"-style post. I hoped that blasphemy would be a strong enough word to make people know I was kidding around.

I agree that it is an amazing thing that we were given access to these sorts of behind-the-scenes things, I just hope I wasn't too much of an ass.
 
...I have the distinct sense that what I am reading now is not everything that was posted.

That being said, I kinda like the design, but it does not look precisely like an Excalibur -- but it has been a long, long time since I looked at an Excalibur for a long period. Front looks right, wings look a little off.

I admit I would've preferred if we saw more of the WCIV / WCP era of ships, and less of the WC2 era -- so less Rapiers and Broadswords and more Excaliburs, Thunderbolts, or Panthers... but that's just me.
 
HammerHead said:
I actually really like it.

To me it actually looks more like an Excaliber-Sabre Mix -
The long and wide engine pods with the large intakes on the front,
The twin tail fins mounted high on vertical "bases",
the bulbous pod on in the center of the stern - very similar to the Sabre's aft turret housing's design,
and the overall shape clearly reminds both fighter's designs.

All in all - two thumbs up!
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These are pretty much my thoughts exactly. As a huge fan of the original Excalibur, I think this is a real neat take on it.
 
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