Kickstarter campaign has launched!
Welcome to Game Three, Week Forty Trivia. We play each week. Every Monday two main questions and one bonus question are posted to alt.games.wing-commander and listed at the CIC. Please email answers to CReid1701@aol.com or ChrisReid@wcnews.com. Be sure to include a name you would like to be known under for the Scoreboard. Have your answers in before this coming Sunday (August 5, 2001) to ensure your answers are recorded. Answers submitted early may be returned and you may be able to fix incorrect answers, time permitting. Main questions answered correctly are good for 5 points, bonuses good for 3.-------
Answers to Questions for Week 39 (starting July 23, 2001):Question 77: Describe three separate situations in which Christopher Blair engaged in a dogfight with a current/former/future wingman.
Answers Included: Various fights with Maniac, various fights with Jazz and the showdown with Hobbes.Question 78: Describe three separate situations in which Christopher Blair engaged in a dogfight with Kilrathi Prince Thrakhath.
Answers Included: Fighting at K'Tithrak Mang and separate fights in 2669 very near the end of the Kilrathi War.Bonus 39: Describe three separate situations in which Christopher Blair engaged a major capital ship, space station or planet without a wingman.
Answers Included: Temblor runs on planets like Kilrah, base assaults such as the attack on K'Tithrak Mang HQ and the incident where Blair lured a Snakier into Scylla.------
New Questions for Week 40 (starting July 30, 2001):Question 79: Describe a situation where a Confederation warship orbitally bombarded a planet.
Question 80: Describe a situation where a Kilrathi warship orbitally bombarded a planet.
Bonus 40: Who created a siege and threatened an orbital bombardment of all Pilgrim worlds and why?
Submissions are due by August 5, 2001.
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Please email answers to ChrisReid@wcnews.com and do not post directly to the Newsgroup. Thanks.
What does anyone out there think would be the interest in an online comic book based in the WC Universe? I was thinking about getting a project together to do something along those lines, but I'd need a 2D artist (handling characters) and a couple of 3D artists (handling klayouts and backgrounds + flight sequences).
Quotes from Mcdowell on WC3 and 4:"That was very interesting. People were always talking about these CD-roms and I honestly don't understand it. When I was offered the part, with Mark Hamill and John Rhys-Davies, I thought, 'I'll do it. Let's go try it and see what it's all about.' I'm very glad I did. It's really where film is going to be in the future. In other words, by computer they'll put in incredible backdrops. Want a starfield? Boom, there's a starfield. The technology changes every week. The only thing they couldn't do then, which they can now, is that we couldn't move or talk. You had to sort of be in one spot and they couldn't move the camera very much. Now, of course, they can do that, too." - Starlog 4/95
Also:
On 2/9/98 www.asylum.com had a live chat with Mark Hamill. Some guy was there since he worked with Malcolm in WC III + IV + WCA and wanted to ask him about it. He answered my question on Malcolm. Here is what he said.
Someone else asked:
Were you asked to play the main role in Wing Commander Prophecy?
Mark Hamill: No, I sort of inherited the old geezer role from Malcolm McDowell.
Host: You mentioned Malcolm McDowell before, here's one, "What's Malcolm McDowell like to work with?"
Mark Hamill: Hysterically funny. He's hell bent on making you laugh and it's very difficult to look him in the eye. And if he can't make you laugh he'll reach down your pants and teach you.
Host: Eh, front or back?
Mark Hamill: Anywhere. He'll do something to make you go aaaaagggghh before you're supposed to so you'll have to do it like before. But, he is wonderful. I mean if you are doing over shoulder, on mike close ups he's off camera going (mouths 'I love you' and makes kisses, much laughter) to you. You know, I really enjoyed working with the guy because I like to have a lot of fun at work. Even if you get mad and say 'you've got to take that seriously' you know you can use it and that's real swell.
Here's another for you rare item fans to check out... the movie crew shirt! These were given to everybody who worked on the Wing Commander Movie... The interesting thing? The patch is actually stitched -- odd, since they used cheap iron-on patches in the movie itself.
I thought I should bring to the attention of anyone who's going to be using the Jacinta midgame engine of what I plan on doing wiht charactors and objects.Basically Silhouettes are background objects for other objects. They're added to the full background in a mode yet to be determined - probably ADD or SUBTRACT (who knows, might be XOR, I'll have to do some testing before I decide). But what it basically allows is for you to have semitransparent backgrounds, such as shadows, on a charactor. So that you don't have to have a 50% pixellated area or something to do transitional shades... so you just add the silhouette first... then add the charactor or object on top. Main reason for doing this was that charactors were gonna look crap if there were just a sharp edge where they blend with the background... so I wanted some way of shading them and providing shadows for them.
Anyway, yeh, that's about that. I'll let peoples know as soon as I know which merge mode they're going to use... I may even make it a selection.
Dev will be slightly slow for the next few days at least until I get my replacement HDD.
For the love of god, please help me.
-Capisce-
Welcome to Game Three, Week Thirty-Nine Trivia. We play each week. Every Monday two main questions and one bonus question are posted to alt.games.wing-commander and listed at the CIC. Please email answers to CReid1701@aol.com or ChrisReid@wcnews.com. Be sure to include a name you would like to be known under for the Scoreboard. Have your answers in before this coming Sunday (July 29, 2001) to ensure your answers are recorded. Answers submitted early may be returned and you may be able to fix incorrect answers, time permitting. Main questions answered correctly are good for 5 points, bonuses good for 3.Note that not all week 38 answers have been scored yet. This should be done by the end of the week.
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Answers to Questions for Week 38 (starting July 16, 2001):Question 75: What is the contemporary name of a world or system once controlled by the Pilgrims?
Answers Included: Faith & PeronQuestion 76: What is the contemporary name of a world or system controlled by the Steltek at some point in time?
Answers Included: Mars & Delta PrimeBonus 38: What is the contemporary name of a world or system controlled by the Firekkans besides Firekka? Hint: It was also in the Antares Quadrant.
Answers Included: T'kirsa------
New Questions for Week 39 (starting July 23, 2001):Question 77: Describe three separate situations in which Christopher Blair engaged in a dogfight with a current/former/future wingman.
Question 78: Describe three separate situations in which Christopher Blair engaged in a dogfight with Kilrathi Prince Thrakhath.
Bonus 39: Describe three separate situations in which Christopher Blair engaged a major capital ship, space station or planet without a wingman.
Submissions are due by July 29, 2001.
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Please email answers to ChrisReid@wcnews.com and do not post directly to the Newsgroup. Thanks.
Ciao Baby.....
CONTEST RULESPlayers have one week to list as many Wing Commander characters as possible -- they can work together if, for some reason, they want to share the prize.
Unique names (Vance Richards) and 'personal' callsigns (Maverick) count -- references to people without names (Maestro's father) and mission specific callsigns (Drake Two) do *not* count. Double names count if you can prove that they are different people. Fictional WC universe people (Luna Jones) do *not* count, but aliases do (Geof Kane) when no other names exist. Fan fiction doesn't count. Real people mentioned in WC (Benedict Arnold) do *not* count, but WC people with the same names as real people *do* count (Chris Roberts).
If any names are disputed (by anyone), the person submitting them must be able to prove where they come from.
Everyone must submit their list of names to Cpl Hades (hades@wcnews.com) on next friday -- he'll determine the winner and post their list here.
The winner (if there is one) gets an exciting gift pack including a *sealed* SNES WC1, one of those things you hook a palm pilot to (a hotsynch cradle), a half-used box of thumb-tacks, A Talent For War: The Book and whatever the hell other crap I find when I'm cleaning out my desk.
Start your engines!
Welcome to Sol, this latest release contains the entire Sol system, home system to the Terran Confederation! there will be some revisions and additions, but until then this is it.
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Features:
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- REAL Asteroid belts, which will soon have AI.
- Planets with correct orbits and realistic textures.
- A huge sun with detailed textures in cluding hotspots.
- WC style physics with afterburn slides.
- Programmable AI for complex functions like Shelton sliding, rolls, loops, and kickstops.
Various net problems prevented Wing Commander Academy from being posted on Sunday... but your loss is our loss is your gain, as we're now providing two episodes at once! Thanks to Tye and BlackLance.org.
And you thought big improvements weren't possible with all the changes that have come recently with Vegastrike. Thanks to another full time programmer, my brother Patrick, Vegastrike is as healthy and sparkling as ever. He completely revamped the star system code to support space stations, multiple independent suns, and asteroids. Soon to come are jumppoints! Additionally there are tons of small but wonderful changes including some editors from Thomas, one of the greatest benefactors of the WC fan universe... Another of my changes was making the field of play just 1,000 times bigger (instead of having ships disappearing only 100 meters away) increases playability a lot!!! Here's a summary from my website:
- AI is almost complete. Currently I have a scripting ability that lets you:
- Execute any command for x seconds
- Turn towards something (an object or a location in space)
- Match speeds with something
- Move to a location
- Orbit a location
- Combine movement and turning.
- This enables us to do afterburner slide for instance! Face 90 degrees off enemy path while engaging afterburners to that direction; then turn to target for x seconds.
- Additionally the space of the arena was increased one thousand-fold from the lame 100 meters. Now ships can be truly far off until they shrink into specs of dust.
- Orbiting of planets was fixed so they turn the correct way with respect to textures
- Star systems may now have asteroids, multiple suns, and space stations! Thanks to Patrick!
- Collision was fixed to be fast for large objects greater than 200 meters on a side (eg planets) (it used to be slow if ships were too big)
- Units can now orbit planets (asteroids, space stations, etc)
- code has been started to split the world into factions.
- Thomas Bruckner has aided us with a wonderful ship converter from .pof format. He's thinking of making the prophecy ship editor work with vegastrike! What a treat that would be!
- Unfortunately I'm going to be away for a week and a half starting 7-19-01
Former project leader Scheherazade converted the Vesuvius and Victory into the game on his own time. He was willing to let me post them for download, as long as I considered them to be an unofficial release. The download is seperate from the primary mod, and requires the previous 9/14/00 release for the other ships.Also available for download is a gfx pack contributed by NapoleonGH. He tweaked stat files so the ships would fired appropriately colored weapons when the changes were combined with a prexisting weapon gfx pack by CnlPepper for a B5 Homeworld mod. Napoleon also included a B5 hyperspace gfx pack by Crook. Napoleon's pack requires both the 9/14/00 official release and the new unofficial release.
Newcommander is working on several more ships, such as the Krant featured in a few screenshots at our site.
It's been a while, but WCZ is warming up again :) Penspinner is working on a special map for a future turf flagging event. Also, I've changed the attaching rules. From now on it is possible to attach to any ship. Carriers will allow 10 turrets each. Bombers 2 and the rest 1.
Welcome to Game Three, Week Thirty-Eight Trivia. We play each week. Every Monday two main questions and one bonus question are posted to alt.games.wing-commander and listed at the CIC. Please email answers to CReid1701@aol.com or ChrisReid@wcnews.com. Be sure to include a name you would like to be known under for the Scoreboard that will be up soon. Have your answers in before this coming Sunday (July 22, 2001) to ensure your answers are recorded. Answers submitted early may be returned and you may be able to fix incorrect answers, time permitting. Main questions answered correctly are good for 5 points, bonuses good for 3.-------
Answers to Questions for Week 37 (starting July 9, 2001):Question 73: Name the person that said, "You should take longer breaks, kid." Hint: It was said on the Concordia.
Answer: Zach "Jazz" ColsonQuestion 74: Name the person that said, "Where are your priorities, son? Consider yourself lucky to get four days... we've got a war going on here." Hint: It was said on the Victory.
Answer: William EisenBonus 37: Name the person that said, "Looks like you're on your own now, Colonel. For what it's worth. I'm proud I flew with you..." Hint: It was said in an Excalibur.
Answer: Todd "Maniac" Marshall------
New Questions for Week 38 (starting July 16, 2001):Question 75: What is the contemporary name of a world or system once controlled by the Pilgrims?
Question 76: What is the contemporary name of a world or system controlled by the Steltek at some point in time?
Bonus 38: What is the contemporary name of a world or system controlled by the Firekkans besides Firekka? Hint: It was also in the Antares Quadrant.
Submissions are due by July 22, 2001.
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Please email answers to ChrisReid@wcnews.com and do not post directly to the Newsgroup. Thanks.
Prophecy is the fifth installment in the famous Wing Commander series, and the most visually impressive. As rookie Confederation pilot Lance Casey, you're engaged in a massive deep-space war against a new alien threat. You'll take out massive cruisers and transports, and you'll encounter immense battleships armed with devastating weapons. The game introduces new characters and has some old favorites, such as Mark Hamill as Christopher Blair and Tom Wilson as Maniac.
Finally I have enabled weapons so that spacebar now fires!This release also shows the glowing engines... they'll soon dim as you lower the throttle, but right now they're just decorations :-)
I have made some major improvements to AI and am proud to announce that some of the critical low level AI functions are complete! This means that in a matter of weeks we might have an active enemy that will fight against us!
Vegastrike is coming to fruition! Check out the latest release, and if you want to change the information about lasers (such as speed, range and radius) you might wish to edit the weapon_list.xml Add your own weapons and put them on the hornet.xunit :-) both open in notepad!
Good luck all!
Here's some more... ah... aquatic HotT art. Call me crazy, but I absolutely love the Cerberus one.
I like playing music when I'm playing games like WC and StarLancer. Classical music, some piano, Disney soundtracks. One night, I was playing the "Fantasia 2000" soundtrack while playing WC4. That's when I came up with this image. I hope you like it as well.
Today I recieved Game Informer issue number one-hundred in the mail, and while studying their "10 Years of Game Informer" article, saw a Wing Commander mention that brought a tear to my eye and fulfilled my soul.1990-"Wing Commander is released for the PC, and becomes one of the most influential space combat simulators to ever hit the PC gaming community."
Oh rapture! Finally, WC gets the caliber of recognition it has always deserved. Why, just the other day I said to myself, "I wish a world-renowned media monster like Game Informer would take the time to spit out a limited one-line speck of information about WC in a spotty videogame history timeline!" What's more, this blurb is on the same page as "In the blink of an eye, Tengen releases Pac-Man, Gauntlet, and RBI Baseball with uniquely styled black cartridges." To think such a well-respected publication ranks WC up there with the introduction of black NES game carts as one of the "100 defining moments in video game history" is truly breathtaking.
Naturally they fail to mention WCs which are arguably more important, such as WC3 and SO.
The blurb is on page 52 of the August 2001 issue of Game Informer magazine, in the "100 Defining Moments in Video Games" sub-article.Everyone should add it to thier WC collection!
-Frosty
Welcome to Game Three, Week Thirty-Seven Trivia. We play each week. Every Monday two main questions and one bonus question are posted to alt.games.wing-commander and listed at the CIC. Please email answers to CReid1701@aol.com or ChrisReid@wcnews.com. Be sure to include a name you would like to be known under for the Scoreboard that will be up soon. Have your answers in before this coming Sunday (July 15, 2001) to insure your answers are recorded. Answers submitted early may be returned and you may be able to fix incorrect answers, time permitting. Main questions answered correctly are good for 5 points, bonuses good for 3.-------
Answer to Questions for Week 36 (starting July 2, 2001):Question 71: What is a piece of technology refined in the 2630's that changed the balance of power, and how did it do this?
Most Common Answer: Shield Penetrating Torpedoes shift power from Battleships to Carriers.Question 72: What is a piece of technology refined in the 2650's that changed the balance of power, and how did it do this?
Answers Included: Cloaking Technology causes the loss of the Tiger's Claw and prevents a critical strike on K'Tithrak Mang from being executed for ten years, among many other effects.Bonus 36: What is a piece of technology refined in the 2660's that changed the balance of power, and how did it do this?
Most Common Answer: The Temblor Bomb destroys Kilrah and eliminated the primary Kilrathi threat.------
New Questions for Week 37 (starting July 9, 2001):Question 73: Name the person that said, "You should take longer breaks, kid." Hint: It was said on the Concordia.
Question 74: Name the person that said, "Where are your priorities, son? Consider yourself lucky to get four days... we've got a war going on here." Hint: It was said on the Victory.
Bonus 37: Name the person that said, "Looks like you're on your own now, Colonel. For what it's worth. I'm proud I flew with you..." Hint: It was said in an Excalibur.
Submissions are due by July 15, 2001.
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Please email answers to ChrisReid@wcnews.com and do not post directly to the Newsgroup. Thanks.
Here's part ten...
Here's part nine...
Ladiesman and I have been finishing up the Addon story to Invasion. It is a 24 mission campaign/ 6 missions per race( so there 4 races). We be keeping the story and races secret till the Invasion project is finishes. If anyone is interested Ladiesman and I are taking down people who would be interested in being part of our team. So far the web page is in the works and some new ideas for ships and bases. Just leaving a message on the forum or icq me or Ladiesman if your interested.
- Somehow last time the README didn't get included. You can grab it here: README.
- If you would like to get up-to-the-minute information about vegastrike progress, you can look at the comments I put to the right of the source code. If you click the link you'll see the most recent news about fixes I put on every file. And you can click on the file itself to see a history of all changes I or any developers have made!
- Feel free to comment on the source code or enjoy reading the comments that are there.
- Currently I'm working on a lighting/halo system so the sun will emit light and have a magnificent glow around it, as will your engines, and any other parts on a starship that a designer wishes to place halos on.
- I also implemented a fast drawing system to draw many lights quickly!
- I've begun work testing weapon fire and the like! Soon you will be able to fire at targets with the spacebar! :-)
Here's part eight...
Here's part seven...
Welcome to Game Three, Week Thirty-Six Trivia. We play each week. Every Monday two main questions and one bonus question are posted to alt.games.wing-commander and listed at the CIC. Please email answers to CReid1701@aol.com or ChrisReid@wcnews.com. Be sure to include a name you would like to be known under for the Scoreboard that will be up soon. Have your answers in before this coming Sunday (July 1, 2001) to ensure your answers are recorded. Answers submitted early may be returned and you may be able to fix incorrect answers, time permitting. Main questions answered correctly are good for 5 points, bonuses good for 3.-------
New Questions for Week 35 (starting June 25, 2001):Question 69: What is the primary role of the Pelican Class craft?
Answer: TransportQuestion 70: What is the primary role of the Zartoth Class craft?
Answer: Electronic WarfareBonus 35: What is the primary role of either the Odysseus Class craft or the Copernicus Class craft?
Answer: Science/Research/Exploration------
New Questions for Week 36 (starting July 2, 2001):Question 71: What is a piece of technology refined in the 2630's that changed the balance of power, and how did it do this?
Question 72: What is a piece of technology refined in the 2650's that changed the balance of power, and how did it do this?
Bonus 36: What is a piece of technology refined in the 2660's that changed the balance of power, and how did it do this?
Submissions are due by July 8, 2001.
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Please email answers to ChrisReid@wcnews.com and do not post directly to the Newsgroup. Thanks.
Here's part six...
Street Fighter turned out to be another lame Van Damme bruiser despite Kylie's efforts; and Mortal Kombat and Wing Commander, although faithful to the atmosphere of their virtual counterparts, didn't have the depth to appeal to casual viewers.
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