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What was involved in programming Secret Ops? How much of a jump from WCP is it?Secret Ops is sort of an evolutionary step from Prophecy. One of the first things we did was modify the existing Prophecy code base to allow for the episodic mission system. We learned a lot doing that, and we are already working on some new ideas to make the episodic system even better for future releases. The rest of the programming consisted of resolving issues that remained from Prophecy, adding and improving game functionality, and optimization.
Do you see a multiplayer WC game in the future?
Multiplayer WC is something that we would certainly like to see. We're spending a great deal of time working out exactly what would make a great multiplayer space combat game. It's a little tricky building something that will be fun because space is a very empty place. Combat usually regresses to just 'jousting' with the other players, so we're reassessing the game mechanic and the environments in which you fly in order to make sure that the multiplayer Wing Commander experience is a great one.
What does a designer do? What did you do for Secret Operations?The designer works closely with the art and programming staff to generate the 'look' and 'feel' of the gameplay. Once the overall goals for the game are decided, the design team focuses on the creation of the game story, the fictional dialogue and the mission content. During the greatest portion of development, designers work through an editor called "MED" using a proprietary scripting language (that operates a lot like C++). With this editor and the powerful language associated with it, designers are able to create all of the game conditions that make for an exciting mission. On "Secret Ops" I was the Lead Designer. My responsibilities were to create the story, dialogue and mission objectives as "broad brush strokes" for the rest of the design team to flesh out later.
What kind of qualifications does one need to become a designer?
In order to become a successful designer, one will need to understand the mechanics of a good game. In this business it is easy to be confused (often intoxicated) by the memes and conventions of television and movies as an alternative to understanding the subtly complicated modes of gameplay/story interaction. Although understanding of mass media disciplines are crucial to building a believable script, they come in at a distant second to the understanding of CORE FUN. [Cinco] The most qualified game designers continually ask themselves and ask of their designs: What is the FUN THING that I do all of the time in this game? What is my production team doing to bring this FUN THING to fruition? The qualified designer is capable of eliminating the unnecessary in effort to focus on the elements of production that support the central FUN idea of the game.
The Wing Commander series has spawned a huge number of looky-likeys over the years and formed its own genre. The combination of compelling story line, cinematic cut scenes and space battles has been emulated - no, downright copied - in LucasArts' X-wing and TIE fighter, MircoProse's X-COM Interceptor and interplay's Conflict Freespace.
But Origin were there first, developing a continuing story throughout the various episodes and employing a number of well-known actors, including Mark Hamill, Malcom McDowell and John Ryhs-Davies.
The very latest episode, Wing Commander Secret Ops, breaks taboos and traditions by being freely downloadable from the Internet (http://www.secretops.com/main.html).
"Wing Commander Secret Ops is an entire Wing Commander game that is available as episodes over the Internet," explains Producer Rod Nakamoto. "Origin is giving away the game free of charge (except for standard Internet service fees) as a way of saying thanks to all our Wing Commander fans who've supported us since the series began in 1990.
"Wing Commander Prophecy Gold is a compilation of Secret Ops and the original Prophecy so it covers a much broader range of exciting missions than Prophecy did on its own - approximately twice as many missions in fact."
The events in Secret Ops take place directly after those in Prophecy, setting the scene in readiness for the next instalment, Wing Commander Strike Team. The Wing Commander Prophecy missions include all the stars and live video sequences that were in the original release of Prophecy, but because Secret Ops is also available on the Internet, it uses real-time films rendered by the game engine rather than live action video. However you still play the part of Casey, and many of Prophecy's characters return.
And what of all that competition?
"Wing Commander is the product that defined the space simulator market and has inspired many, many clones over the years," says Rod Nakamoto. "Wing Commander has always provided the most exciting missions weaved into the most compelling stories set in the richest sci-fi universe imaginable. Combine that with lightning-fast graphics performance and audio-visual effects and you have the best space combat experience on the PC.
"Ultimately, we let the fans speak for themselves and they have made it clear that Wing Commander Prophecy is their favourite of the recent crop of space sims."
What type of art do you do?design, concept drawings, 3d modeling & texturing (both cinematic & game art), lighting, animation, pretty much everything. in the world of computer games, an artist has to be a kind of jack of trades. however, each of us has our specialties. mine are two: one is modeling, the other is more on the technical side, working closely with the programmers to ensure that the art is well and properly integrated into the game engine.
What exactly is involved in creating a new spacecraft?
at first, making many sketches to come up with a look that works. then, perhaps a 3d mockup. then a final drawing. then, generally, a cinematic model is built: a high-detail 3d spline model with high-detail textures. then the game art is built. this involves building some polygonal versions somewhat simpler than the heavily detailed cinematic version, using the cinematic model as a template. rendered images of the cinematic model are used for textures. there are usually several details levels which must be built. (these save processor time by swapping out as the camera moves closer to, or farther from the ship). then, damaged art must be made for when the ship or its component parts blow up. then, collision extents must be built. (these are simpler polygonal approximations of the ship, used for collision detection.)
Is there any particular inspiration for your WC art?
it varies. anything. everything. plants, animals, microscopic critters, all of nature, cars, buildings, and even other spacecraft. imagine that.
Have you ever designed things that don't quite make it into the final game?
oh yes. ouch. not even funny. but, thankfully, this happens far less often with experience.
What exactly is involved in creating a new spacecraft?First step is to determine what the craft is needed for in the game - a bomber will be different from a spacecraft carrier or a fighter or a freighter. Then we begin sketches to try to come up with some initial approaches - very general ideas that will be the foundation of the design. From there we modify and tweak the look through several progressive sketches, eventually settling on something we all hopefully agree on. We then begin building the ship, a process which usually sees some final modifications and polishes to the design. And voila!
Is there any particular inspiration for your WC art?
I particularly try to create a real-world look to the art I create, to make it look like something that would logically evolve from the way things are designed and built today. I look at construction equipment, modern military craft (not just airplanes, but tanks, helicopters, even things like hovercraft), and the like. If I had to pick one movie that most closely approximated the WC feel it would be Aliens.
Have you ever designed things that don't quite make it into the final game?
All the time.
Anyway, I've been working on the official WC page ALOT (when not doing homework), and hopefully you should see *something* up at wcmovie.com this week. :)As for news and stuff on the movie, there isn't much, although I heard there may be some interesting news about the movie score surfacing soon..
| 1. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 2. Civ 2 3. Quake II 4. TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM 5. StarCraft 6. System Shock 7. Heroes of Might and Magic II 8. X-COM: UFO Defense 9. Warcraft II 10. Sam & Max Hit the Road 11. Links LS '98 12. Longbow 2 13. Unreal 14. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 15. Panzer General II 16. Battlezone 17. NHL 98 18. Ultima Underworld I,II 19. Myth 20. Red Baron 21. Lemmings 22. Alone in the Dark 23. Chuck Yeager's Air Combat 24. Beavis and Butthead in Virtual Stupidity 25. Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon | 26. Interstate '76 27. Gabriel Knight: The Best Within 28. Quake 29. Duke Nukem 3D 30. Worms 2 31. EF 2000 2.0 32. Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven 33. The Curse of Monkey Island 34. Doom 35. SimCity 2000 36. Starflight 37. Ultima VII 38. D/Generation 39. Triple Play 97 40. Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe 41. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 42. Diablo 43. Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far 44. Betrayal at Krondor 45. Master of Orion 46. FPS: Football Pro 47. Tomb Raider 48. You Don't Know Jack Huge 49. Pro Pinball: Timeshock 50. The Operational Art of War |
Killer Bees Squad Meeting on Tuesday, September 15 at 9 pm EST on the irc server irc.mircx.com, port 7000, in the channel #Killer-Bees.
| Episode | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red and Blue | 10211k | 7525k | 9279k |
| The Last One Left | 9250k | 8370k | 8082k |
| The Most Delicate Instrument | 9150k | 9926k | 7354k |
| Word of Honor | 11115k | 7678k | 10008k |
| Lords of the Sky | 13505k | 7410k | 11721k |
| Chain of Command | 10642k | 8604k | 12009k |
| Expendable | 12179k | 12414k | 10937k |
| Walking Wounded | 11057k | 8614k | 13896k |
| Recreation | 10893k | 10186k | 10937k |
| On Both Your Houses | 10337k | 11743k | 10763k |
| Invisible Enemy | 14001k | 11206k | 9078k |
| Price of Victory | 14063k | 12063k | 7555k |
| Glory of Sivar | 9670k | 8407k | 11552k |
Even if using two copies of Secret Ops works, this can be quite taxing in terms of disk space consumption. Anyway, for those who are interested, I've written a simple little program to switch between several different pilots for Secret Ops. It's a small 20 KB download at http://home.pacific.net.sg/~kelvinlim/sopilots.zip and brief instructions are included.
"S1 is the back cover, s2 is the front cover. Both are saved at 2X the normal jewel case size so people can shrink them down if they prefer or make a cd writing programme squidge it down to size. S2 is sized on the basis of a cover peice being 12.2 cm W x 12 cm H in size S1 is sized on the basis of a back piece being 15.1cm W x 11.8cm H in size. Both of these files are doubled up from this size basis. Even the side peices for the jewel case are there for people to see what they got if it's on a rack."So check 'em out below, even if you can't burn a copy of SO they still look damned impressive...
I promised Chris Reid a few weeks ago that as soon as I got the go-ahead from our publisher I'd give fans the lowdown on the Wing Commander Combat Archives, the "fact book" based on the Wing Commander movie, that IMGS is doing for Harper Prism.
First, for those who might need them, introductions. Incan Monkey God Studios is the company formed by the writers and editors that used to be ORIGIN's publications department. Our people have been doing the documentation and official guides to Wing Commander games from WC2 through Prophecy, so when Harper came to us and said, "We have a great idea for a book ... it should be a collection of documents from various sources that describes the world of the film," we said, "You know, it's funny you should mention that..."
The movie book has the working title Wing Commander Combat Archives. It's a 128-page, large trade paperback (Harper Prism's Aliens Technical Manual is another book in the same line, although our book is going to have a somewhat different look and feel). I don't know the exact price or order numbers yet, and of course the release schedule depends on the movie. It's being written by myself and Melissa Tyler, designed by Sharon Freilich and Jennifer Spohrer, and edited by David Ladyman.
The book will include articles about
- History of the Kilrathi war and other significant events.
- Pilot and senior officer performance evaluations.
- Kilrathi psychology and tactics.
- Protocols for carrier flight decks and marine boarding parties.
- The physics behind the jump drive.
- The first encounter between humanity and the Kilrathi
- The secrets of Blair's past.
And of course full performance stats on the fighters and cap ships of the Wing Commander Universe. Plus lots more cool, behind-the-scenes stuff about the 27 century world of Wing Commander.This isn't a "making of" the movie book, it's a reference guide to the world of the Wing Commander movie. We've been working closely with Peter Telep, the author of the movie's novelization and subsequent Wing Commander fiction, so expect to see concepts from the Archives reflected in the novels, and vice versa.
There are lots of things I can't give away, of course, but if anybody has any questions about the book, drop me a line at cmccubbin@incanmonkey.com
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