Who Would You Be? (February 7, 2016)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator



We've got a new poll up that takes a slightly different turn than usual. Rather than asking what your favorite thing is, we're posing a question that asks if you could be a pilot besides Christopher Blair in the regular Wing Commander series, who would that be? To narrow down the options, we've selected a slate of eight pilots well known for their aggressiveness in the cockpit. However, each one falls somewhere different on the personality spectrum. Who would you identify with most?



Our annual New Years poll once again surveyed fans' outlook for the year ahead. Overall about half of Wingnuts are pretty optimistic with the other half unsure or unexcited about what's in store. If you have any doubt, be sure to check out our 2015 Review. While we don't know exactly what's coming our way, history has shown that there are always plenty of fun surprises. And don't forget that 2016 is a leap year, which means 366 days of Wing Commander news!

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Original update published on February 7, 2016
 
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This poll is sooo biased! I mean there's literally a picture saying "Pick Maniac"!

Silly joke aside Vagabond all the way here :)
 
Hard choice between Vagabond and Maniac. Though Vagabond ends up being my wingman on most play throughs of WC3 but being the Maniac would be more fun cuz I get to break orders whenever lol. Ahhhhh!!!
 
I think I would have a happier ending for the poor man but I would be Vagabond all the way.

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Glad that Poor vote trend is going the way of Kilrah.:cool:
 
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Whistler said:
Glad that Poor vote trend is going the way of Kilrah.:cool:
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Low expectations. Objectively, Wing Commander has had such a lousy decade, that our point of reference is basically rock bottom. If a year with no new WC products is normal, then what reason could there be to vote for "poor"?

That having been said, while I actually don't remember how (or if) I voted this year, I'm quite sure I voted "poor" last year, when the negative impact of Star Citizen on our community became clear. This year, I suppose, it's hard to see things getting worse.
 
Quarto said:
the negative impact of Star Citizen on our community became clear. This year, I suppose, it's hard to see things getting worse.
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Initially SC had a minor impact on actual posting here at the CIC (which has already picked up quite a bit). But overall, the front page visits haven't really suffered that much. Initially a lot of fans put their enthusiasm into the forums on the RSI site but people are starting to come back here for real discussion about Wing Commander. There's also a renewed energy in various fan projects from relative newcomers (ones who previously weren't part of the WCNews crew) something I haven't seen in years.

From an official release point of view, I kind of agree. I don't see any WC releases in the immediate future. That doesn't stop me from wishful thinking. Also, I'm at a point where I feel like, as a community, if we want a new WC product we should put our collective brains together and come up with a pitch that could be both embraced by the community but also be restrained enough budget-wise to not scare off the big wigs. Who knows... In the words of John Lennon, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
 
Quarto said:
the negative impact of Star Citizen on our community became clear. This year, I suppose, it's hard to see things getting worse.
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Wow, "glass half full" guy, eh Quarto? Maybe I just hang out in the wrong places, but I thought Star Citizen brought more good attention to Wing Commander.
 
Star Citizen is certainly an odd situation. It has raised awareness overall about Wing Commander, but it hasn't helped our specific forums.

Similarly, it closed one avenue to Wing Commander coming back... but it opened others (oh, Transverse.)

And the same for me personally... it has taken away a lot of the time I would rather devote to Wing Commander... while giving me access to material I'd never have come close to if I weren't working on SC.

Mixed blessing all around!
 
(In answer to the original question, Maniac is probably the best option... everyone else in the picture will be dead in four years!)
 
AD said:
From an official release point of view, I kind of agree. I don't see any WC releases in the immediate future. That doesn't stop me from wishful thinking. Also, I'm at a point where I feel like, as a community, if we want a new WC product we should put our collective brains together and come up with a pitch that could be both embraced by the community but also be restrained enough budget-wise to not scare off the big wigs. Who knows... In the words of John Lennon, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
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Yeah, I guess I kinda got over there being no new Wing Commander games about a decade ago, and I figure most people did as well (Except for the "poor" voters). There's been one completely new WC game in 18 years, so yeah, of course your rating of whether or not the year will be good or bad should not be pegged off whether there's a new game. If it is, I'm surprised you're still here. There's fan communities out there for all kinds of movies, book series and one-offs that are far less likely to every see new material. That doesn't get them down, they're simply fans of what exists. We have a huge advantage over those groups because of what everyone here does every day.

Maybe "lowered expectations" could be the sentiment for 2000-2010, but every Wingnut should have adjusted to the "new normal" many years ago. Traffic may not be as busy and bustling as it is when new games are being made, but we're on a shockingly high plateau. The fan project activity is as good as it ever was, and the odd project like Academy on DVD, George Oldziey's Kickstarter, WC4 DVD being mass released via GOG, finding holy grails like Pilgrim Truth, Prophecy DVD, the SciPubTech Poster, etc and all of the stuff is truly amazing. I don't know what the next thing like this will be, but there'll be more fun side releases and cool fan projects for sure. It should be a pretty good year!
 
ChrisReid said:
Yeah, I guess I kinda got over there being no new Wing Commander games about a decade ago, and I figure most people did as well (Except for the "poor" voters). There's been one completely new WC game in 18 years, so yeah, of course your rating of whether or not the year will be good or bad should not be pegged off whether there's a new game. If it is, I'm surprised you're still here. There's fan communities out there for all kinds of movies, book series and one-offs that are far less likely to every see new material. That doesn't get them down, they're simply fans of what exists. We have a huge advantage over those groups because of what everyone here does every day.

Maybe "lowered expectations" could be the sentiment for 2000-2010, but every Wingnut should have adjusted to the "new normal" many years ago. Traffic may not be as busy and bustling as it is when new games are being made, but we're on a shockingly high plateau. The fan project activity is as good as it ever was, and the odd project like Academy on DVD, George Oldziey's Kickstarter, WC4 DVD being mass released via GOG, finding holy grails like Pilgrim Truth, Prophecy DVD, the SciPubTech Poster, etc and all of the stuff is truly amazing. I don't know what the next thing like this will be, but there'll be more fun side releases and cool fan projects for sure. It should be a pretty good year!
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Words of wisdom. The storm of ACTIVE fan projects these many years after Arena is humbling. Look at the nominees for the project/site of the year. Each one is unlocking or adding to the universe in our own ways.

Good or bad, Star Citizen is what got me to come back here and finally drop the lurker cap. Being back to my roots is feeling rather homely. Being 35 and a father of teens has taught me LOTS of patience and temperament. Like AD, I'm not the only one who believes it's still possible for a new game.

As to Transverse, our dear franchise deserves far better to craft the next Wing Commander game. Its failure gives me hope for more skilled minds to compile a new WC experience. That is one title I won't miss. Space games ARE making a comeback these days.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Star Citizen is certainly an odd situation. It has raised awareness overall about Wing Commander, but it hasn't helped our specific forums.

Similarly, it closed one avenue to Wing Commander coming back... but it opened others (oh, Transverse.)

And the same for me personally... it has taken away a lot of the time I would rather devote to Wing Commander... while giving me access to material I'd never have come close to if I weren't working on SC.

Mixed blessing all around!
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I'm just glad even though you do so much work for Star Citizen you still hang out in the forums here Ben. I am taking a break from all SC news and build testing until SW42 is released. I burned myself out with all the development stuff over these last 3 years and now I just wanna wait til the game is finished. I wanna still be surprised and excited when it comes out. Backing a game is a really weird experience.
 
ChrisReid said:
Maybe "lowered expectations" could be the sentiment for 2000-2010, but every Wingnut should have adjusted to the "new normal" many years ago. Traffic may not be as busy and bustling as it is when new games are being made, but we're on a shockingly high plateau. The fan project activity is as good as it ever was, and the odd project like Academy on DVD, George Oldziey's Kickstarter, WC4 DVD being mass released via GOG, finding holy grails like Pilgrim Truth, Prophecy DVD, the SciPubTech Poster, etc and all of the stuff is truly amazing. I don't know what the next thing like this will be, but there'll be more fun side releases and cool fan projects for sure. It should be a pretty good year!
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Most of the really exciting 'holy grails" we've slowly gotten our hands on, though there's still a few out there. Heck, until a week or two ago those Ron Cobb drawings were on that list for me. A few of us have seen some of the WC movie deleted scenes , but their quality (in terms of picture and audio... not production) range from awful to barely passable. But it's something I'd love for the WC community at large to get to experience finally... to have a glimpse at the type of WC movie Chris was actually trying to make (compared to what we got.... but that's a different discussion). At the very least, the prospect of a special edition edit with fixed Kilrathi is getting more tangible every day.

Some things I'd be interested in seeing as far as fan projects go... if we can get our hands on it, I'd love to get a look at whatever engine the Origin guys had working for P3 before the video shoot was cancelled. I'd love to see some new campaigns created for WC1 and 2 (much more possible now thanks to recent fan efforts). I'd love to see WC1 and 2 updates just to increase the fluidity of the sprites turning and raise the resolution of the game slightly without really changing the style and feel of things.

Another one I'd love to see is to get a proper 3d accelerated version of WC3 and 4 out the door. A while back there was a proof of concept of this. It works. Imagine a special edition of WC4 where you can swap between the original graphics and a version where the gameplay matches the FMV with the gameplay completely untouched (or maybe some minor bits fixed hehe). The problem is, that to make it worth our while, someone needs to rework all existing assets to use the new render and lighting techniques since the game doesn't have lighting info in it... not really. Also, much of it needs reworked to not look like crap on higher resolutions. The ship meshes are very low poly and the textures low resolution. Most problematic are the 2D menu and ship gameflow scenes. But it's definitely possible to just do a straight up version where all original assets are used but it's rendered with your card's 3D acceleration. Heck theoretically you could take the working of the armada multiplayer and work it into the WC3 and 3 games themselves as well.

Speaking of armada, it would be great if someone built a lobby system into it that used modern internet to simplify match finding.

There's lots of little projects I can think of that could be tackled but they all take time and effort that is in short supply. But the fact that they are possible has me optimistic that we'll continue to see great stuff out of WC fans for years to come.
 
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