GOG Sale Discounts Wing Commander 70-75% Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

If you're like me and intensely follow the ups and downs of Wing Commander pricing across the internet, we have some very exciting news today! GOG.com has been regularly discounting Wing Commander games for many years, and for the vast majority of that time it's been very by the numbers: all eight packages discounted 75%. Just a couple weeks ago though, we noted that they were running a "Make Classics Last Forever" sale with Armada and Academy omitted. Now they're kicking off a week-long "Shooter Sale . Fortunately, all the DOS/Windows Wing Commander games are back this time, but Prophecy and Privateer 2 are just 70% off rather than 75%. That means they're $1.79 each instead of $1.49. Bizarre! Still, a wonderful chance to fill out your digital WC collection!

WC I&II Ultimate Strategy Guide Appreciation Post Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Having a grand time tonight flipping through Wing Commander I & II: The Ultimate Strategy Guide. This book is so cool. It’s written as an in-universe memoir with the main character (here named Carl LaFong) at age 73 looking back on his training and military career. There’s a neat meta layer too, he’s writing this memoir because he has just served as the technical advisor for 28th Century ‘holovid’ versions of Wing Commander I and II made by “Tristan Roberts”. This kind of guide written as a novel wasn’t uncommon at the time. X-Wing and TIE Fighter had great ones, as did a bunch of the Sierra adventure game series. Whoever owns the rights to these in 2023 should serve them up as ebooks; I bet there’s a mint to be made from retro gamers and general nostalgia fans. Despite being written by an Origin marketing executive the prose is wonderful. It captures the more limitless 1991 version of the IP perfectly. It’s funny and earnest and clever in parts. Effervescent!

I love this stage of the series where there’s so much more Robotech and Battlestar Galactica in the blood stream. Where you could happily get away with “Galactic War” as the name of the conflict. And look at the interior artwork! You can smell the Macintosh SE from a mile away.

It also has an incredibly thorough section about the making of the games. It’s not quite warts-and-all but there are way, way more warts left in than you’d find today! I’ve got copies in English, German and Italian. I’d love to know if there are more translations! This book is also super, super formative for later stories even if we snicker at Carl LaFong. The Blair/Maniac rivalry comes from this book… and that’s the basis for the movie, the TV show, Tom Wilson’s take on the character…. It’s referenced throughout the TCG, too! Carl LaFong was because there was no set name for the hero at the time, you picked your own. It’s a reference to a WC Fields movie called It’s a Gift that has a joke about Mr. LaFong never appearing. It’s hard to explain. Carl the pilot watches the movie in the study, too.

Origin actually had started using Blair internally at that time… “Arturo Blair” for Our Hero Bluehair. He doesn’t show up in print for another year, though, with the briefest cameo in Freedom Flight. He became Chris for WC3 which needed a name for cutscenes. Maverick was Chris Roberts’ call sign and they started using it behind the scenes on WC3. Most projects use it only sparingly (it’s not in the movie, WC3 or WC4!) but Wing Commander Academy really embraced it.

Also check out this bit from the series bible that named him Falcon and then Phoenix. Never used in a game but it did get a call out in End Run! (That you wouldn’t know was a reference to anything without this context.)

...but you don't have to take my word for it!
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Looking Back at a Classy Destroyer Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

A few days ago, we shared Michael Pretli's slick take on the Midway class heavy carrier. It turns out that he's also built a Murphy destroyer! It's also quite a looker.
My second gem from 2010 I want to preserve here, also done in Truespace 5.x

My rebuild of the Murphy-Class Destroyer featured in the Wing Commander Prophecy games, though I added quite some additional greebles to it since the original model in the limit game engine from that time was rather undetailed. To give it a more offensive looking capability I added addtional torpedo tubes and a fixed bow weapon to it. The ship also features a small landing bay for shuttles and a few fighters.

HG101 Podcast Ranks Wing Commander Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

A few weeks ago we talked about the many Wing Commander articles that Hardcore Gaming 101 has written. It turns out they also did a whole podcast episode about the series. They joke about hating on games for being old, but their appreciation for what it does keeps coming up. It's also just kind of fun to listen to a room full of nerds gush about the series. Give it a listen here (jump to about 2:15 for the real content to get going).

RJC Fondly Remembers FMV WC Games Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's a double shot of retro for your 'spective! These come from the Rowan J Coleman channel on YouTube, which has more than 120,000 subscribers, so we're happy to see such a wide audience get a peek at the highlights of the WC series. The author notes that he was born after these games was released, so it can be hard to fully appreciate everything from that frame of reference. Nevertheless, he's become quite a fan. Although we're quite familiar with everything shown here, watching these always makes me want to jump back in. There is a little bit of salty language peppered throughout, so steer clear Wedge!
Here's a look at one of the few FMV games which wasn't sh*t, Wing Commander III Heart of the Tiger.
Returning to the Wing Commander series now. While I appreciated Wing Commander III Heart of the Tiger a lot, I had heard Wing Commander IV The Price of Freedom was even better. Spoiler alert: it is.
Thanks to Heart of the Tiger for the tip!

Rapier Ready to Roast Ralaris Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Marco Alfaroli recently shared his gorgeous sketch of the CF-117b Rapier. The artist saw the lack of Rapier I artwork out there as gap in the internet that he needed to fill. He describes the design as "ugly but essential," but I think the drawing is beautiful! You can find more of his work here.

Streaming Live: A Confed Handbook Threepeat Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The fun just keeps on going with the latest installment of LOAF's close read of the Wing Commander Confederation Handbook. Watch the latest installment to learn all about the details behind each page. You can also engage interactively in Discord #Wingnut!
Mark your calendars, part three of the Confederation Handbook stream is tomorrow at 7 PM Eastern on my YouTube channel! I even Freeformed up a clickbait graphic for it.

Looking Back at a Classy Megacarrier Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Michael Pretli has posted some of his old models online, and that includes this really gorgeous TCS Midway. It's not textured, but it does a good job of conveying the ship's massive scale. A few things, such as the turret emplacements, have even been upgraded over the original. You can find his site and a few more up-close shots at his webpage here!
This is one of my earlier models (from the year 2010). Since I always and only modeled for games and mods, low poly modeling is all I ever did, always having performance and engine limitations in mind when creating something, it's automatically guiding my hand. I made this model in my old "truespace 5" software, which was very limited by today's standard, in 2017 I switched over to Blender. But 2010 I was very proud of it, and I think it would be a shame of just getting forgotten in the depths of my modeldumps, so I hereby add it to my portfolio. It's a close to ingame and movies as I could get it, with minor details additions like the better turrets.

Learn All About ‘The Destroyer of Worlds' Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It looks like a certain movie has people talking about a certain war-ending bomb. It just so happens that I took a wonderful senior seminar on the bomb decision and would be happy to walk everyone through the details of what really happened.

Step back in time with me to the '50s. Faced with a seemingly endless standoff, both sides began investing heavily in scientific 'wonder weapons' intended to rapidly upset the status quo of the war. Black budgets would increasingly fund a rogues' gallery of amoral projects: Project Behemoth, the 'planet-killer' Hopper Drive, the biological warfare laboratory on Greenhouse, the Genetic Enhancement program and others. In 2659, the task of developing a classified large-scale demolitions laboratory was assigned to Col. James Taggart, a rising star in Special Operations fresh off coordinating the Kilrathi-led rebellion on Ghorah Khar. The effort will cost billions of credits, all black budget. Taggart, a former fighter pilot who served in both wars under the callsign Paladin, is a dour one-eyed Scotsman and a no-nonsense warrior who operates his Special Operations team under the unofficial motto "Any Path to Victory". To head the project, Taggart chose one of the top research men in the Confederation: the charismatic Dr. Philip Severin, called "Sevvy" by his friends. Their task? Turn theory into a practical seismic resonance weapon capable of turning a planet's own geology against itself. The theory: a traditional explosive detonated at the correct junction of a target world's tectonic fault lines could cause earthquakes that would act as a lopsided force multiplier capable of even shaking the entire planet apart. Taggart and Severin established their laboratory on Pax 7, a backwater planet far from the front lines where testing begins in earnest. The research soon comes at a truly horrific cost: a massive demolition accident results in the deaths of millions of Paxons. Prioritizing the war effort, the government opts to hide the details of the disaster. Lieutenant Winston Chang, attached to the project, would later confide that he was sure Severin knew what would happen and had intentionally chosen not to warn the civilian population. The project continued and by 2667 had resulted in the Y22A-1 Temblor Bomb, a tectonic-frequency weapon with a 267.5 megaton yield. Fired correctly, the complex weapon would achieve the proper resonance frequency and trigger a destructive tectonic resonance reaction. A complex plan of action begins to take shape: a covert team will dispatch the bomb hardware to a hidden cache in the Kilrah system. Then, a next-generation stealth fighter will infiltrate the system quietly and rearm with the bomb close to the target. Then in 2668, a massive setback: Dr. Severin was captured in a Kilrathi raid. There is no indication that Severin in particular was targeted; while his interrogation discovered that he was a scientist it did not ever reveal any specifics about his demolition work. Intelligence soon learns that Dr. Severin is imprisoned on the Kilrathi prison planet Alcor V. While the bombs had already been physically constructed, the remaining members of the project were unable to complete the final bomb programming without Dr. Severin's knowledge. Meanwhile, the war situation becomes ever more dire: the Kilrathi launch a merciless strike on Earth itself and Thrakhath now seems poised to deliver the killing blow in the coming year. High Command now chooses to prioritize Behemoth as the best chance of ending the war. Part of the reasoning for this choice is a desire to demonstrate the weapon on a military target rather than use it in anger. Unlike the Temblor Bomb, the Behemoth has the capacity to fire on a less populated, backwater world in the hopes the Kilrathi will sue for peace over the weapon. The "T-bomb", however, will impact only a handful of tectonically unstable planets and will only be politically effective used directly against Kilrah itself. The Navy reassigns multiple carrier groups to search for a suitable target for Behemoth. Tolwyn would later confide that he had been unsure of Behemoth from the beginning, going on to claim that if he had known about Taggart's top secret project he would've backed it instead. Undeterred by High Command's decision, Taggart decides to continue preparations for the T-bomb attack. His involvement in uncovering the Hakaga fleet has led to a promotion to General and an assignment heading all of Covert Operations.

Enter Lexington. In early 2669, General Sturdivan of the Terran Intelligence Agency deploys a 'vengeance mission', a specially modified carrier with orders to scout a jump point and then conduct berserker-style attacks on targets of opportunity as long as resources allow.

Taggart uses his connections to make sure that Lexington also carries a special payload: a captured Kilrathi freighter loaded with construction equipment, two T-bomb casings and a 62-person Special Operations team. The team is led by Col. Jeanette Devereaux, known as Angel by her men, a decorated ace whose illustrious twenty year career included commanding the Black Lions in the heyday of the Vega Campaign, the Austin's fighter squadron and then serving as Wing Commander of Concordia. Angel's team makes it to the Kilrah System where they successfully establish three Theta II weapons caches capable of reloading Confederation fighters. The third, dubbed TCS Apache, is established on Kilrah's tiny outer moon and stocked with the two T-bombs. Escape, however, proves impossible. The freighter and his crew are captured intact in Kilrah orbit. Believing they have located an infiltration team attempting to land on Kilrah, Thrakhath orders the survivors executed without interrogation. Angel is dead, but the bombs are safe. September 4: Behemoth destroys Loki VI but the Kilrathi do not sue for peace. Their intelligence has been fully aware of the effort thanks to a deep cover agent embedded with Admiral Tolwyn's staff. Thrakhath's strike fleet easily destroys the weapons platform before it can reach Kilrah. Reacting rapidly, High Command redirects the forces supporting Behemoth to support an attempted Temblor bombing. The plan is to rapidly liberate Dr. Severin from the Alcor V prison planet to allow him to complete the final programming necessary for an attack on Kilrah. Victory is dispatched to Alcor to support a marine operation to rescue Dr. Severin while Hermes and Invincible are sent to capture the strategic Freya System where they will hold off the main body of the Empire's fleet as long as possible. Colonel Blair's advisor, Colonel Hart, notes that he has reservations about rescuing Dr. Severin in light of the Pax disaster. "Don't let that get to you. If he can bring the war to an end, then I say let's get him out and get him out in one piece."

On September 19, Special Operations delivers the first working prototype Temblor Bomb to a security bunker aboard TCS Victory at Freya with orders to test the weapon on Hyperion, a tectonically unstable world located by Intel.

Colonel Blair flies a modified F-103A Excalibur fighter-bomber to fire the prototype. The mission is a success: the bomb detonates on Hyperion's seismographic fault and the world shakes itself apart. Despite claims that Hyperion was uninhabited, Blair encounters Kilrathi resistance including ground-based atmospheric planes during the sortie. The war situation becomes more desperate, with indications that Thrakhath is now only days away from a final invasion. Unwilling to wait for approval, General Taggart convinces Captain Chalfonte to take the TCS Eagle behind enemy lines to deploy her Excalibur squadron while Prince Thrakhath is focused on the Behemoth. The plan fails: Eagle runs into stiff resistance and retreats, heavily damaged. On September 24th, President Quinson and the Scientific Warfare panel approve the use of the Temblor Bomb in up to six instances including the destruction of Kilrah. Taggart offloads the Eagle's surviving Excaliburs to the Victory which pushes forward to Freya. Colonel Blair leads three pilots from FW 36's Gold Squadron in a three-leg mission through Hyperion to Kilrah. The survivors reload at the TCS Chinook and then load one of the Temblor bombs from Altair. As Taggart had feared, Thrakhath's invasion fleet was making final preparations in Kilrah orbit. After a desperate battle, Blair manages to enter the atmosphere and deliver the T-bomb to V'rakath fault. The blast spreads along the planet's three major faults. The resulting quakes immediately kill millions including the Emperor himself as the palace collapses. Billions more will die within hours as the planet collapses and the biosphere fails. The fleet gathering in orbit is crippled. Blair and two of his three wingmen survive. Melek, acting as de facto leader of the Kiranka dynasty, offers his unconditional surrender which will ultimately result in the final Treaty of Torgo and end the war. In a flash, the socio-political realities of the galaxy are upended. The ramifications of the bomb decision are immediate, and lasting. Humanity is at peace for the first time in 35 years, but at a terrible cost. Trillions have died, hundreds of worlds have been devastated and the path forward to reconstruction will be a harsh one. Kilrathi culture is nearly wiped out in the process: the homeworld, central to their system, is destroyed and along with it countless religious and cultural shrines, most major clan leaders and the unifying Kiranka leadership itself. By the year's end, over half the surviving Kilrathi population will commit Zu'kara. Survivors will face a generation of rejection from human society and a choice between life on a reservation planet or a violent, five-way civil war burning endlessly in the cradle of the former empire.

The Sivar-Eshrad cult was also permanently altered. Reactionaries, including Chancellor Melek, adopted the belief that Blair himself was a prophet of Sivar and that his destruction of Kilrah was punishment for having allowed human ideas to infiltrate Kilrathi culture. In a matter of years, this doctrine itself will be severely tested as a race purporting to be the Sivarist 'Star Gods' of legend begin to eliminate surviving Kilrathi.

The years after the war saw the government both operating from a position of guilt, allowing Kilrathi to function unimpeded but also wielding the threat of the bomb as a kludge; if remnants overreached, it was reasoned that the threat of further bombings would pacify them.

Weapons development continued, aiming to create the 'super', a more advanced T-bomb offshoot capable of destroying any planet. By the mid-2670s, it was generally understood that such weapons had been developed and could be rapidly deployed.

The most massive ramification of the bomb decision was that it led directly to another generational war twelve years later. Alerted by the destruction of Kilrah, the Aligned Peoples dispatched the Nephilim to challenge what they saw as a violent humanity for potential membership. The personal cost was also high. Blair suffered from nightmares over his role. His restless thoughts brought him to the bottle after the war, ultimately ending his marriage. Though he would achieve sobriety, he wore the mental scars of the attack for the rest of his life. He is ultimately captured and interrogated by the Nephilim specifically because of their fascination with his ability to take so many lives, something he himself had never managed to understand. General Taggart would ride his role into politics, rapidly becoming head of the Great Assembly and the leader of the conservative Federationist majority of the 2670s. What happened to "Sevvy"? After the successful destruction of Hyperion, he was named an honorary captain in the TCN and awarded a research bonus of 1.2 million credits. He continued to be recognized as one of the Confederation's top scientists until his death.

Which came several years later. Dr. Severin was captured by a bounty hunter on the orders of General Drakas, a warlord desperate to rebuild the Kiranka regime. Drakas forced Severin to develop a piece of Steltek technology and ultimately executed him when the effort failed.

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French Series Highlights Early Wing Commander Games Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

How would you like some French retrospectives on the early Wing Commander games? Well, we're all gearing up to watch the surprise drop of tonight's Strange New Worlds episode (join us on Discord to talk about it!), so this is what today's news post will be. These are actually really good overviews though. They talk about the games at length, of course, but they also hop around and share what some of the magazines were saying, what the documentation was like and give you a more complete time capsule look. It looks like YouTube will do auto-translated captions as well, so anyone can enjoy. Thanks to Greg14 for sharing. Have fun!

Own a Piece of the Kilrathi Imperial Palace Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The guy organizing the Origin Museum sale has some great original artwork listed on eBay right now! The auction is for two wonderful Wing Commander II demo paintings! Too rich for my blood but these were among the coolest items in Joe’s collection. It would be great to see them go to a good home. You can find the listing here. The WC2 demo is essentially a non-playable prototype of the WC2 intro. You can see that it differs a bit from the throne room depicted in the final game in the video below:
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GOG Sale Discounts Main WC Games Plus Privateers Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

GOG is holding a new "Make Classics Last Forever" sale, and Wing Commander is included. This one is slightly unusual. All of the main games plus both Privateer 1 and 2 are marked down as you might expect. Armada and Academy are oddly absent, however. Still, it's a wonderful chance to add the majority of the series to your collection, and it's a good bet that the missing pair of spinoffs will make their way into a different sale soon! Each discounted title is $1.49 for 75% off. Thanks to LividLiquid for the tip!

Sega Leak Reveals Planned Saturn Port of WC4 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Kotaku recently reported on a massive leak of Sega documents from the 1990s. One interesting bit for me: Sega's release calendar lists a Saturn port of Wing Commander IV for October '96. I don't believe that was ever announced (or otherwise leaked). A Saturn port of Wing Commander III, not mentioned here, WAS announced and was supposedly shown in some capacity at the first E3 in 1995. Little else is known! The leaked documents also have Sega's internal estimated release dates for the Playstation ports of WC3 and 4. They're just a month off for 3 (February vs. March '96) but way off for 4 (September '96 vs May '97). It's unlikely that a Saturn port could've shipped in October '96! You can download the document leak directly from Sega Retro here (61 meg PDF).
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More Confederation Handbook Conversation Streaming Live Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

If you were hooked by LOAF's deep analysis of the Confederation Handbook over the weekend and can't wait for more, the time is now! Part two of the stream is live! Check it out below:
In 1999, HarperEntertainment published the Wing Commander Confederation Handbook. Was it the greatest book ever written in the history of the world? Yes. Let's talk about it! AGAIN.

Time to Review WC Spinoffs Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Today we've got a triple-pack of hardcore reviews from Hardcore Gaming 101. We reported on their WC1, WC2 and Strike Commander retrospectives back in the day, but we missed how these three prime spinoffs to the Wing Commander series also go their own proper articles. First up is Academy. Taken in a modern context, some players may not understand how a mission builder could be its own fully boxed (and nearly full priced) standalone game, but that fails to capture the situation at the time. Fans were clamoring for the ability to do this. Fan mods were years away from being a thing, and Academy made it easy to craft your own WC games with zero learning curve. Plus, it packed in new ships as well as a really fun (and challenging) gauntlet mode.

Armada also gets a lot of credit for doing something different in such a way as to expand the Wing Commander tapestry. There is a some discussion on how the game reused ship designs from Super Wing Commander, which is partially accurate. Much of SWC's assets were developed at the same time or just prior for Privateer. The SWC Salthi, which becomes the Armada Shok'lar, is also the Salthi in Righteous Fire, for example, and elements from SWC show up again throughout the series. The game's unique take on the Rapier forms the core of the Rapier that returns in Arena, among other similar intersections.

Last, but not least, Privateer gets an extensive rundown. Most of our readers are well acquainted with its ins and outs, but you can read the full piece here! Thanks to Tarsus for the tip.

It’s hard not to see why Privateer fired up the imaginations of PC gaming enthusiasts in the early ‘90s. The winning formula of immersive game design coupled with an open world was indeed very exciting, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as popular had it not been a refined experience that rewarded exploration and experimentation. The game does, however, have a steep learning curve, throwing you in the deep end and hoping you’ll learn to swim. But the reward for commitment is the opening up of new systems, new opportunities, and new factions. You have to fight for every little bit of progress, every gun you buy, every piece of improved armor plating, and Privateer makes it all feel well-earned.

25th CIC Birthday Party Set for August 19! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We're quickly cruising through the year here, so it's time for us to officially announce the next CIC Birthday Party! It's a big one this time as it will commemorate 25 years at wcnews.com! Mark your calendars for Saturday, August 19. The official event kicks off at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT) on that night, but there will be plenty of people hanging out well before and after. You can join the fun in Discord #Wingnut. Feel free to stop by any time beforehand to get acquainted with how everything works. We'll see you there!


Live Review of the Confederation Handbook On Now! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's been several years since our All Wings Considered live Wing Commander show has been in production, but LOAF is trying to get his space legs under him again. He's messing around on YouTube this evening in a totally unstructured stream about the WC Movie's Confederation Handbook. Check it out below!
In 1999, HarperEntertainment published the Wing Commander Confederation Handbook. Was it the greatest book ever written in the history of the world? Yes. Let's talk about it!

Ultima Online Still Thriving More than 25 Years Later Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here at the CIC, we used to keep pretty close tabs on Ultima Online. As a product that was developed alongside contemporaries such as Wing Commander Prophecy at the famous Austin studio, it was a big deal to see EA continue the MMO long after Origin's closure. When Electronic Arts finally did decide that they were done with it in 2014, that could have very easily been the end, but the game has somehow continued to thrive for another decade under Broadsword. So I was really happy to see this recent PC Gamer blurb about high turnout for the game's summer barbecue event. The game has been continuously running for more than 25 years now, so the fact that it exists at all is impressive - but all the more so that they're still having fun events in their tight knit community! You can skim through a few recorded streams below to see what the game's like in 2023:
Ultima Online still boasts an active official and unofficial events community—just the other day, the Siege Perilous server featured a choreographed rock concert where community favorite Lord Galois busted out some sick MIDI lute riffs, and Reddit users on the InsaneUO server have reported sightings of infamous monarch Lord British attacking random players and then letting people rifle through his inventory.

While I'm too young to have ever got into Ultima Online, it's really great to see one of PC gaming's earliest MMO communities continue to thrive like this, both with and without official support. Cheers to another successful barbecue, and here's to many more.

Iconic Interrogation Brought to Life Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

EmuMusicFan's super artsy take on the famous interrogation scene from Freedom Flight has been greatly expanded. Pages 8 through 12 now detail Prince Thrakhath and Lord Ralgha's interaction - and it's quite intense now with the visual. I've included the whole scene below so you can enjoy it as one! Let Emu know what you think at the CIC Forums!

All Tuckered Out From Playing Wing Commander 2 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Wing Commander II has some excellent tuckerizations! This is from Special Operations 1. Denis Loubet is the famous Origin artist, and the Miller is Craig Miller, who designed the Wing Commander II box. General Snell of Niven Colony was Wing Commander II's executive producer Dallas Snell (who is likely well known to many Origin Systems fans)! Lady Blue, CO of the Concordia's Ferret wing, is writer/assistant diretor Ellen Guon (who you probably know first as the co-author of Freedom Flight). Ghorah Khar Sabre pilot "Ladyman" is the man behind the manuals, David Ladyman. Blair's gunner Lieutenant Haley is programmer Richard Haley. Ghorah Khar rookie pilot "Cafrelli" is programmer Charles Cafrelli (who also voiced a Kilrathi admiral!). Do you know any others?
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WC4 Remastered Update Focuses on Gameflow, Menus and User Interface Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The WCRespace team is back with a new update on the WC4 Fan Remake. There's a whole new article by Pedro that goes into great detail about the game's user interface. He says it's not the most glamorous subject, and it might be tedious to design and program, but I love these liminal console screens. They're critical glue that helps sell the total experience. An especially big deal this time around is the adjustment to accommodate 16:9 widescreen settings. It takes some finesse to make them look authentic compared to the original 4:3 shape. The fourth and fifth images below are especially stark - they compare the original loading screen with today's update!
Now brute forcing in new UI wouldn’t be impossible but that removes some of the nostalgia. No problem, we’ll just upscale them like we do the rooms… except we optionally support 16:9 by zooming in on the gameflow rooms, and there is no way we could zoom in on the 4:3 terminal screens.

Fortunately FeklyrTarg came to the rescue and extended out the original images for us giving us 16:9 terminals (sorry fellow 21:9 fans, we’re going for consistency and zooming in on the rooms beyond 16:9 isn’t a good look. We will keep supporting you in gameplay however!).

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Ship map is now the default view when you bring up the pause screen. In the original game you had to press ‘M’ which meant having read the manual – something unfortunately difficult to convince modern gamers to do.

We are also ensuring that all menus and rooms can be navigated with a gamepad (and have added hotspot cycling).

And with that, other than the credits, the gameflow UI is complete, even if unpolished. Unfortunately for my soul there’s still the in-game UI to complete :)

Wing Loader Update to Add Enhanced Video to WC3 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Destro has returned with a spectacular announcement for the future of Wing Loader, which is a program he built to add audio speech to the Kilrathi Saga's WC1. The next evolution seeks to add high resolution video to KS WC3. The videos already exist. ODVS massively upscaled and enhanced the footage from WC3, WC4 and Prophecy a few years back, but at the time, it was only possibly to integrate these cutscenes into the latter two game. Destro's patch will finally close the loop and make it possible to enjoy the improved video in the game. There are many challenges to overcome still, but his success with WC1 shows that he has what it takes to make this happen! You can download the latest working version of Wing Loader here.
Hey everyone! I hope you are all having a great summer so far! This is my busy time of year but I'm keeping my head up and messing around with the next big feature of Wing Loader. I've been hesitant to reveal anything about it too soon (as it took me almost 3 years to complete the voice overs) but I figured..... What the hell. :p

What's next? The next major version of Wing Loader will have support for ODVS AI Upscaled videos in Wing Commander 3!

When? Please don't ask that just yet lol. There are a lot of things left to do and based on my last experience with getting voices into the game, there are always unforeseen obstacles to overcome. But 400+ videos are better than 2500+ voice lines I guess. :p

How? Using a similar method to how I approached voiceovers for Wing Commander 1, I was able to find a register in the game to identify when a video plays and create an overlay on top of the game for the HD videos to play. I can then call the ESC key to the game after the video plays to skip the original in-game cutscenes. It's a bit flickery and there are some issues already with this approach, but it works pretty well so far. Here is a little video test, showing it in action.

Ready for a Change of Scenery? Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Cybot has returned with a variety of exotic renders. This set is based on familiar WC2 and Privateer-centric scenes with a little bit of creative flair. Cybot's also made a handful of model files available to download, including the Drayman cockpit and some of the guns. You can grab those at the CIC Forums!
A Drayman cockpit. I think it works.

Every Wingnut Needs Star*Soldier Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Wing Commander fans love the various manuals and documentation that comes with the series, but we still find a lot of Wingnuts haven't seen the latest and greatest booklet of them all. Wing Commander Arena was released digitally in 2007, and a wonderful PDF guide was published alongside it to catch everyone up on all the relevant lore and tie up tons of loose ends. This amazing game manual is packed full of information on the current state of the WC universe. From the perspective of the frontier in the year 2701, it tells the story of the Nephilim War, updates the historical timeline and much more. The book is a free download and absolutely everyone should have it. Grab it direct from EA right here (7.7 meg PDF)! Our Star*Soldier Gloss feature also has commentary from the writers and designers for all 60+ pages. The Art of Wing Commander Arena provides a further glimpse at the game with dozens of cool concept art images.

Setting the Deathstroke Record Straight Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Wow, look who is trending! Mothers, lock up your ejected pilots.

To be clear: there are two Deathstrokes. They are similar but they are different kils. Dakhath nar Sihkag is the Wing Commander I ace, Dakhath nar Caxki is the WC3/CCG/Arena ace. The original Deathstroke flew a Dralthi during the Vega Campaign. He was ultimately shot down at Gimle by Spirit! Color art from the SFC manual: The later Deathstroke flew a Dralthi IV (and later a Dralthi Striker). The red livery is from WC3 but never actually appears since he isn’t really in the PC version! Some clever and handsome fellow did think to lampshade the similarities in their backgrounds:
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Shrike a Pose Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It’s a Shrike! Thank you to GeekToyLove for selling me this orphan torpedo bomber (and Thunder_Owl for sharing that it was available). Murphy Labs’ TB-81A Shrike was a four-person torpedo bomber (class B) developed for use aboard escort carriers during the post-war fleet modernization. They served with distinction during the first Nephilim incursions. GeekToyLove also made this fabulous Arrow!
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Curious Differences Emerge in Privateer Commodity Naming Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Tonight's rabbit hole: I noticed that Privateer has two different internal sets of names for its commodities, one used in the exchange (and on your PPC) and one used on the in flight manifest. Some are the same but others are different. "Movies" becomes... "Moviechips"! Games become Gamechips, Books become Bookchips. And PlayThing (tm) becomes...! So I ended up extracting everything and making a Spreadsheet of different commodity names across six sources (three in-game, three from the Playtesters' Guide). It also shows what type of container displays for each: Found some cut content, too: traces of the ability to eject passengers and a list of additional story-specific items that were cut when the plot was shortened: Alien Crystal, Alien Device, Ancient Gun, Alien Machinery and Alien Metal!
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This Post Is Blowing Up Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

My 4th of July contribution is a quick resource with the extracted fireworks graphics from Wing Commander I. The first three are VGA, and EGA is below. You can also find the sprite sheets here. Stay safe out there!
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Space Sim First Look: A-Spec First Assault, Capship Combat Inspired by Wing Commander Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

centaurianmudpig is back with a new space sim game to show his fellow Wingnuts. He previously released Absolute Territory, which was a more traditional WC-style shooter. Now he's branched out into a hybrid sim that blends newtonian physics and large capital ships with a variety of familiar concepts to WC fans. It sounds like a cool experience for people who would like to try something different just a little bit different! There is a demo you can try out via Steam and a preview video below.
Hey wingnuts, it's been a while since I last posted about my last big update for Absolute Territory, with space fighters and hostile aliens, on here.

Since then I started working on my next game, in keeping with sci-fi space combat, with large warships (corvette sized and bigger). I've been running a public playtest for A-Spec First Assault on Steam for the last year, and now preparing for Steam Next Fest: June 2023 Edition.

The playtest allows you to choose from 6 warships, customizable weaponry, and support modules, with a Team Vs. Team skirmish against bots. A-Spec is a single-player game. The playtest is focused on flight and combat, suited to Skirmish mode. Full Controller Support is included with default bindings for gamepads. HOTAS and flight pedals are supported with the same robust controller mapper screen from Absolute Territory.

I plan to have an entire campaign available in the final release, scripted missions following a main story, and random mission types to engage with.

Digital Investigation Reveals Korean WC Academy Broadcast Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Speaking of Wing Commander Academy, AD found some exciting evidence that the show was also dubbed and broadcast in South Korea. We've previously reported that the television program was translated into Arabic, but that was the only localization we were aware of. It appears to have been broadcast on the KBS station on Wednesdays and Thursdays, at 6:40, from June 17 to July 29, 1998. The name was translated to be 'Space Battleship Tiger'. And while we can't seem to find any clips of the actual show, AD dug very deep and found a Capri Sun advertisement that ran during the episodes and had a little logo in the top right corner with the revised title. He's also located a list of voice actors for the different roles.
cast list 성우진 Sung Woo-jin

김민석 - 매버릭 役 Kim Min-seok - Maverick

유동현 - 매니악 役 Yoo Dong-hyeon - Maniac

김 준 - 트라카 役 Jun Kim - Thrakhath

온영삼 - 튤린함장 役 Yeongsam On - Captain Tulin (Tolwyn?)

김익태 Ik-tae Kim
김혜미 Hyemi Kim
박상훈 Park Sang-hoon
남기원 Nam Ki-won
김순영 Soonyoung Kim

Wing Commander Academy Removed From Peacock Streaming Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It appears that the pending removal of Wing Commander Academy wasn't a false alarm. The show is no longer listed for streaming on the Peacock service. With the removal of great shows from a number of platforms and new paywalling/gatekeeping happening all over, it feels like the hits just keep coming. Fortunately you can still pick up the DVD for about $11. And never fear, the Wing Commander CIC remains free and there's no limit the number of forum posts you can view in a day. You can also always join us in Discord #Wingnut! A peek back at better days:

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