Wing Commander in general question

[Razorback]

Yeah I completely agree. I really hope they make a sequel to Secret Operations. They had the possibilities going for a really good storyline. I want him to have some more choices on his own though, as an individual, not a pilot, as you said before. Anyone have any ideas about how to get Origin to pay attention to us?

 

[Vondoom]

Shane: Origin did indeed plan to take Prophecy back to WC's root. The problem is that WC1 would have been a horrible game by today's standards. Look at the complexity of missions in the X-wing series and the Freespace series. Look at the intricate wingman commands for FS. Independance War riased it by adding amazing realism and complex missions. Prophecy was virtually the exact same go to Nav Point, Kill, repeat that WC1 was. WC2 raised the bar by adding rescue missions (where you did the rescuing) and a much deeper story. WC3 raised the bar by switching to a true 3D engine and a deep storyline involving FMV and adding planetary missions. WC4 raised the bar by adding an even deeper story and more complex missions. Prophecy raised the bar by ignoring every advancement that had came out then except for Graphics. It greatly dumbed down the AI. Its not that Prophecy is a bad game, it simply didn't advance the series any. For the first time, WC wasn't leading the pack (or at least tying with the X-wing series). For the first time, you could get games with better gameplay. That's why Starlancer did not do so well. There was no good AI or great mission variety in it either. It's actually a problem plauging Space-sims in general. Tachyon: The Fringe is a step in the right direction as is X: Beyond the Frontier, but none have had that undefinable something "special". Hopefully, Freelancer will be that, but I am def. taking a wait and see attitude.

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There is no God but myself. No destiny but what I deem for me. I walk my path and no others, for I am free.

 

[Shane]

I did wish that I could snatch up ejected pilots, or that probe (?) Stilleto and Casey went looking for. It did add another way to have an escort mission, though. [sarcasm] Yipee! [/sarcasm]

I unfortunately don't have a lot of time to play other games, so I don't know most of the ones you mentioned from a personal point of view. I may pick up Starlancer one of these days, and I am looking forward to Freelancer, since Priv is probably my favorite in the WC series.

I think, though, we are on the same wavelength. I don't know if you saw the link on the CIC to the article about the death of certain types of games from a week or so back, but it was very good. And it pointed out some of the problems we've mentioned. Part of the problem is to get to a wider audience they have to dumb the games down, but that annoys the fans of the game because then it beomces little more than an arcade-type game where you face wave after wave of fighter. I was making the point that Prophecy clearly was a WC game. Not a step forward though, except in graphics.

I do wish as well that Origin/EA would at least finish up the bug war storyline. I'd love to see something akin to Stephen King's new novel distribution method, though I doubt it would work as well. In case you have heard of it, he is releasing the first two chapters of a book on-line. You can download it for free or pay $1.00 for it. You can also download it for free, see if it is worth $1 and then pay for it, if I recall correctly. If 75% of the folks who download it pay the $1 per chapter, he keeps writing more chapters, if they don't he stops. NPR had a story about it last night and about 78% of the people are paying the $1 per chapter.

I wish EA/Origin would put out more SO missions and supporting story, allow fans to download them at the cost of a few bucks per mission (no option for free download, since WC fans may tend to be younger and unfortunately don't have the credit card access King's fans do) I'm wondering, though, if that is what they were doing with the SO game. It was a test and either the numbers didn't pan out, or they saw how much trouble they had controlling who released the free game, that they figured they couldn't make any money on a pay for download because of piracy problems. I know I owuld gladly pay a few bucks a week or every couple weeks to get some new "sanctioned" missions, and to see the story brought to its conclusion. I have been playing SO and I do miss the cutscenes, so there is a downside. Origin would have the extra cost of bandwidth to meet demand and some extra costs to cover collecting the money, but would save money on packaging, stocking and raw material like CDs and paper for Flight Manuals.

[This message has been edited by Shane (edited August 30, 2000).]

 

[Razorback]

See, I want the FMV back with more of a storyline, but more complexity in the missions. I dunno about the rest of you. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Shane]

I'd like a conclusion to the story, I hate being left hanging. I'd like the FMV and more choices outside the cockpit, I'm not sure that is going to happen though, but one can hope. Just out of curiosity, what kind of more complex missions are you guys looking for? In the end most of the missions come down to defend your carrier, escort another ship (variation of defend carrier), scout (go out and shoot fighters, scan cap ships), bombing runs (which invovle either shooting new fighters and destroying cap ships found during scout, or shooting new fighters and destroying turrets on cap ship), go out and sweep nav points (variation of scout but without cap ships, or with capships if you have a ship that can do that as well) I think part of the problem is the direct Confed went with fighters. Instead of having all-around fighters, like the Sabre that can fight well, take out cap ships and rescue people all in the same mission, instead, you have ships that are designed for certian types of missions, therefore an individual mission is limited in the variety within that mission. And there are only so many kinds of missions out there, and they fall into the borad categories of either offensive, defensive or scouting (which is really a variation of offensive, at least the way it is usually done.)

 

[Razorback]

Well, I would prefer just about all of that. I like doing the patrols and everything occasionally, but I also like capital ship strikes, defending the carrier from attacks, escort missions, rescues...all kinds of stuff. They did a consistent job of making the storyline of where you were and all and what was going on pretty consistent and realistic, but all the missions were the same thing. They should have tried to coordinate the situation with the mission types and made some variation. I really hope they make another one, though. If they don't, I'm never buying Origin products again. A lot of my friends won't either.

 

[Earthworm]

Dead is right. I read someone's opinion on Prophecy (who loved the other WC's mind you) that without Chris Roberts, Prophecy is just 'another' space sim.

Oh come on. If people didn't know that CR left Origin they wouldn't know it after playing Prophecy. Chris Roberts wasn't the only guy working on the WC games, so his lack won't mess up any future ones.

Look at the complexity of missions in the X-wing series and the Freespace series. Look at the intricate wingman commands for FS.

True, the mission designe was very good in X-wing and Freespace, but not much better than Prophecy. And FS did come out a year after Prophecy. About the wingman controls, they would be very usefull... if your wingman could fly.

Independance War riased it by adding amazing realism and complex missions.

And that realism is what killed the game for many players.

Prophecy was virtually the exact same go to Nav Point, Kill, repeat that WC1 was. WC2 raised the bar by adding rescue missions (where you did the rescuing) and a much deeper story. WC3 raised the bar by switching to a true 3D engine and a deep storyline involving FMV and adding planetary missions. WC4 raised the bar by adding an even deeper story and more complex missions. Prophecy raised the bar by ignoring every advancement that had came out then except for Graphics.

I'll have to completly disagree. Other than graphics it also had an extremly smooth engine that allowed for much more ships in one area, and much larger capital ships. It also has a larger quantity of missions that the previous WC games.

It greatly dumbed down the AI.

The AI in Freespace, Starlancer or Tachyon isn't all that good either, especially in Tachyon.

For the first time, WC wasn't leading the pack (or at least tying with the X-wing series). For the first time, you could get games with better gameplay.

But even though games with better gameplay were available, you still couldn't find a game with better story, even after EA butchered it. And Prophecy was definetly leading the pack. What other game that came out in late 97, or early 98 had better graphics, smoother engine, and better story?

[This message has been edited by Earthworm (edited August 30, 2000).]

 

[Vondoom]

Earthworm: Prophecy lost alot due to the lack of CR's influence, mainly in the area of the story. Mission complexity was FAR greater in X-wing Alliance, but what I should have said was that there was greater mission variety in those two. As for weak AI in X-Wing and Freespace series, they still beat the deadbeat AI of everyone in Prophecy (Though I have yet to see a game as tough as AI as in WC4). Actually the story in the Freespace series and IW easily surpassed Prophecy. The difference is that it was less personal (enspecially in the case of Freespace). But while Prophecy had this "supposedly" dangerous new threat, they were incredibly easy to destroy. In FS, the Shivans (the bad guys in the game for those unfamilier with it) had far superior techonology and it was a struggle to take out even one of thier fighters. The gameplay actually made you feel like you were facing a superior force. In Prophecy I would go through a mission with 20-30 kills and then watch FMV saying how hopeless the situation is. The story in Prophecy was fairly weak IMHO. The FMV story and the gameplay never synched (because the gameplay was made before the story if I remember right).

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There is no God but myself. No destiny but what I deem for me. I walk my path and no others, for I am free.

 

[Earthworm]

Prophecy lost alot due to the lack of CR's influence, mainly in the area of the story.

Me thinks the thin story in Prophecy was due to EA cutting the budget, therefore reducing the script from over 400 pages to a 100.

As for weak AI in X-Wing and Freespace series, they still beat the deadbeat AI of everyone in Prophecy

The FS AI sure as hell doesn't. But at least in Prophecy you don't need to rely on them as much as you do in Freespace.

Actually the story in the Freespace series and IW easily surpassed Prophecy. The difference is that it was less personal (enspecially in the case of Freespace).

I guess it's a matter of taste, but FS has practicly no story IMO, and it's not just being less personal. Besides that personal aspect is very important for some people. When in FS my wingman died, or even when your first carrier was destroyer, I didn't care about it. I didn't care because I didn't know any of the people that died. Plus, the FS story, at least the beging of it is an exact copy of the Prophecy story (which wasn't all that original anyway).

But while Prophecy had this "supposedly" dangerous new threat, they were incredibly easy to destroy.

You have to look at this from another angle. While we were fighting the aliens in Prophecy, another alien fleet was establishing an alien wormhole in Proxima, only two jumps away from Sol. While you were busy trying to destroy the first wormhole the Nephilim had already set up a new one, much closer to Earth, without anyone knowing about it.

In FS, the Shivans (the bad guys in the game for those unfamilier with it) had far superior techonology and it was a struggle to take out even one of thier fighters.

Not after you got the shielding technology and new weapons.

The gameplay actually made you feel like you were facing a superior force.

For the first few missions after meeting them... Then, when you got the new tech it was rather easy. The only Shivan fighter that ever gave me any trouble was the Dragon, while others, especially bombers were far too easy.



[This message has been edited by Earthworm (edited August 30, 2000).]

 

[Chernikov]

FS2 took care of most of the problems that the original had IMO. Has anyone tried taking the detail level down to minimum on either of those games? I know it seems like shooting bricks (harken back to Elite, which I never got the hang of anyway... after playing once with no manual!) but the targets are much much harder to destroy. I was wondering if anyone else had thoughts on this, maybe more memory available for the AI... Anyway, you dont have as much of an edge against the Shivans as you did in the first one - sure the ships you fly are much better (one has 8 gunslots... OUCH!) but the Shivans have improved also and you dont have a true Uber-Cannon like the first one's Prometheus, which ate through shields and armor like butter, and you could fire it all day if you wanted unless you killed the gun recharge), and the capships are much more impressive. On the first nebula mission, off of the "normal" carrier, I was awed by the sheer size of the thing (this after playing Prophecy. Sure the Midway was big but it wasnt conveyed that well. The only vessel that seemed truly big was the Dreadnought, and that was when you realized you just flew through 2 minutes of dogfight without leaving the thing's arms. It was still way to easy to take down, as was anything in that game.) In addition, not only are they massive, but they are also very very dangerous. No more flying headon into a flak storm like the WC series... especially if the Shivans have nothing better to point those heavy beam cannons at. Those are true deepspace weapons, anyone will agree with me on this. What Im trying to get across is that there arent any CAPITAL ships in Prophecy, just somewhat underpowered crustaceans. Belivability is thrown out the window when you can personally take out the largest ship in the game inside of a minute, and that was what really disappointed me. Truly a throwback to WC1

However, the story was probably better than anything since then, and much before. If they had done the same with Stele in the Tie Fighter game... [fume]im too tired to be coherent.[/fume]

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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night. Light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

 

[Shane]

It takes more than a minute to take out the big cap ships. Not much more than that, though

We were talking about this elsewhere, and I think the threat of the bugs was due in part to their numbers, their rapid appearence and the way they managed to very efficiently (and almost silently) get a nice foothold their in Kilrah. That plasma supergun on the dreadnaught, especially combined with the elment of surprise is very effective.

Yeah the AI could have used some tweaking, though I thought they did a decent job on some of the escort or defend the carrier missions of trying to tie you up with light fighters while the heavier fighters and bombers went after what you were protecting.

The fear the bugs generate is the fact that they seem to have vast numbers, and even if it is easy to kill them, eventually they will swarm over you. It sort of plays into the fear a lot of people have of bugs.

 

[Vondoom]

100 ants aren't a threat to any prepared. THe same goes with the bugs. YOU never encountered swarms of them, so how terrifying could they be? You never felt a threat from them. For another example, in FS2, you have to struggle to take out the main defenses of a Juggernaut Shiven ship. If you do well, the Colussious (a SSD type ship, super huge, very heavy weaponry) will take it out but not easily. Then later you watch as nine more jump into the Nebula. There is only one Colossus and it took decades to build. It took everything to destroy just one and now you feel tense because you have 9 to deal with. The deadliest Bug ships were a breeze to take out. I never felt they were a threat at all. That is what is missing from Prophecy. There is no sense of dread or challege from the bugs. Yet you get back to base and everyone is terrified. I cannot be terrified while I am regularly taking out two to four dozen ships on every mission with hardly a scratch.

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There is no God but myself. No destiny but what I deem for me. I walk my path and no others, for I am free.

 

[Shane]

It does seem people got over the fear in Prophecy, you can hear it in some of the comm chatter. I think people were worried because of what had been done already, but even the ICIS pointed out Confed could have done most of the same stuff. It was the fear of the unknown, and the fact that there seemed to be a whole lot of bugs and no idea (until later in the game) where they came from. In addition the bugs weren't leaving surviors behind and people who ejected were often picked up by the bugs. That creeped people out as much as anything.

As for the 100 Ants, they may or may not pose a threat, depending on the species, and what you mean by prepared. To switch species a swarm of Africanized Bees, could easily be a threat to an adult even if they aren't allergic to bee stings. And to look at your comparison, the Bugs came out of nowhere (seemingly) and Confed was not adequately prepared. A swarm of killer bees for those who are unprepared could be quite frightening. In SO, Confed hoped with the closing of the gate, the threat was over, but clearly the bugs can open more of them and behind the old Kilrathi Confed Lines. Even if the are inferior in a straight up fight, if they can come from multiple points Confed may not be able to contain them, since the regular limitiations of jumpoints do not contain them like they did the Kilrathi, at least as to where they initailly emerge into Confed space. In a way you might think of them as termites. Yes, they can be exterminated, but if you don't detect them in time, the house may be severly damaged before you get to that point.

Yes, in straight combat they aren't that fearsome, but it is the unknown that does scare some folks. I just finished WCP so it is fresh in my head. It does seem once that mystery was stripped away, the fear decreased. Yeah, the capships could have been tougher, but I did have to rely a couple of those missions because someone got a lucky shot (or ten

) in. It does sound like FS2 had some formidable cap ships. Did you end up taking out all nine of those Juggernaughts?

 

[No Regret]

Shane: No, all 80 of them ended up blowing up a star though

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The time is near.
There are still quite a few days remaining.

Hail to the king, baby.
-Ash, housewares

I don't care for fame, power or money...
I just want to FIGHT!
-Sanosuke Sagara

 

[Shane]

And that destroyed them? Or is that being saved for FS3?

 

[No Regret]

*SPOILER*
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.
.
Jsut when Everything's falling apart (The Colossus is destroyed, there's no way to stop over 80 Sathanas dreadnoughts) you're evacuating a bunch of civvies and the 80 dreadnoughts just blow up a star. That's it. If you're fast enough you make it to the jump and live and see the "living ending: portal back to earth, no-one knew why the Shivans blew up the star. If not, than you get the "dead" ending. It's just the same as the "living" one only that you're hailed as a hero who died trying to buy just that little extra time for the transports. Either way we still know jack shit about why they did it. And there's also no explenation about what happened to admiral Bosh and what happened to him after he defected to the Shivans. The damn thing just screams for a sequel, just like Crusader: no remorse.

------------------
The time is near.
There are still quite a few days remaining.

Hail to the king, baby.
-Ash, housewares

I don't care for fame, power or money...
I just want to FIGHT!
-Sanosuke Sagara

 

[Quarto]

Er... you mean, like Crusader: No Regret

. No Remorse already got a sequel, and a darned good one

.

Come to think of it, the Crusader series was pretty much the only series of action games (apart from 3D first-person ones) that I genuinely liked.

 

[Anagram]

In Prophecy I would go through a mission with 20-30 kills and then watch FMV saying how hopeless the situation is. The story in Prophecy was fairly weak IMHO. The FMV story and the gameplay never synched (because the gameplay was made before the story if I remember right).

I think that the main reason we were so "hopeless" was because the bugs could AFFORD to throw 20-30 ships into a strike which would cause overhaul times. Sure, in the game there's no problem getting a new ship, but it's a very realistic strategy. They simply HAVE MORE SHIPS THAN US!!! And IRL, there would be WEEKS of overhauls for the little dents you get in a melee.

And anyways, all they were in Prophecy was a diversionary effort. Same in SO.....

There is no sense of dread or challege from the bugs. Yet you get back to base and everyone is terrified. I cannot be terrified while I am regularly taking out two to four dozen ships on every mission with hardly a scratch.

Uhh, Vondoom... It's not YOU fighting the Bugs, it's Casey. He's probably scared sh¡tless.

And anyways, if they sequel SO, we're going to have to either fly THROUGH the Proxima gate, or take down another wormhole, so we're pretty much stuck to Bugs for a bit...

Maybe the Cats'll lend us a claw in Ship Design and Missile creation though... ~hopeful look~



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Maestro: "Lighten up Spyder! We're not gonna die! We're gonna WIN!!"

Zero: "Hey, Maestro... Uhh... If you DIE, can we pick through your stuff before we head back to Sol?"

Maestro: "You can burn in Hell."

 

[No Regret]

Quarto: Uhm, no

I am right. I phrased it wrong. When you blow up the Vigilance platform in no remorse you escape in an escape pod. There you receive a message from chairman Draygan telling you it's far from over and that he'll get your sorry ass. The main bad guy was still alive. (as is the case in FS2) You get to kill him in no regret. Actually there was supposed to be a third crusader game, but it was canceled in favor of crusader: online, wich also got axed afetr being about 25% finished, I believe

Does anyone know if the official crusader guides have more background, like the WC ones do? Might just buy them then.

------------------
The time is near.
There are still quite a few days remaining.

Hail to the king, baby.
-Ash, housewares

I don't care for fame, power or money...
I just want to FIGHT!
-Sanosuke Sagara

 

[Wedge009]

Good idea, Anagram. Until I learned that WC is put on hold (hopefully not axed) I wished for the sequel to be something like shutdown or capture some of the (suspected) wormholes mentioned in the SO fiction, and then go thru one of the wormholes to do a little recon, "lob a few nukes at them" or whatever. May be difficult to get a decent plot from that point on, but I think it would be fun for Confed to go on the offensive for a change.