News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2023.287 (October 14, 2023)

Fall Down the Privateer Rabbit Hole

Here's a fun rendering by Cybot of various Privateer ship upgrades. You've got things like guns and missile launchers, radars, engines, shields and ECM countermeasures. If this piques your Privateer interest, why not head over to the CIC Wiki WCPedia? LOAF and team have exhaustedly detailed out everything you might want to know about the game's ships, missions, weapons, equipment, commodities and more!

2022.287 (October 14, 2022)

SNES WC Manuals Turned Into Convenient Videos

AD came across some interesting videos by RetroShell. They're digitized versions of the SNES WC1 and Secret Missions manuals that have been turned into YouTube videos. At first, the concept is puzzling. Why do these exist rather than PDF scans?

2021.287 (October 14, 2021)

Fantastic Sale Discounts Arrow Model

Fantastic Plastic is holding a flash sale that discounts the slick 3D printed Arrow model digitized by Alfred Wong. The original $70 price was a bit on the high side, but the marked down $55 plus shipping is pretty competitive with highly detailed models like this. We've seen this one pop up here and there, and it's a nice design! There aren't all that many current options to choose from, so this is a great opportunity to get into a physical model kit.

2020.288 (October 14, 2020)

WC4 Fan Remake Dives Into Classic Assets

We posted an exciting trailer this past weekend that gave everyone a solid update on all of the progress being made for the WC4 Fan Remake. The team has also published a new article on classic assets and how they differ from the fancy new models. The original models and textures are used as an index to ensure the new content is spot on. There will even be an easy switch in the game that allows players to swap between the old and new graphics.

2019.287 (October 14, 2019)

Freelancer Port Goes on Bug Smashing Rampage

L.I.F. continues to run troubleshooting interference on the Freelancer port and zap any glitches that pop up along the way.

2018.287 (October 14, 2018)

PC Games Previews Wing Commander IV

End your week with a nice blast from the past: a German PC Games magazine with an EXTENSIVE preview of Wing Commander IV! The cover features an awesome clear shot of the Kilrathi guard seen in the background of Wing Commander III and the exhaustive preview is full of rarely reproduced Wing Commander IV set photos and concept art.

2017.287 (October 14, 2017)

Homeworld Mod Adds Confed Light Cruiser

The Homeworld Remastered mod has been looking at how to fill a gap in the Confed fleet lineup, and L.I.F. found their solution in the Tolmacs light cruiser.

2016.288 (October 14, 2016)

Second Wing Commander Album Kickstarter Launched!

The campaign to create a second album of fully orchestrated Wing Commander music is now live! Origin composer George Oldziey has kicked things off with a recap of the fantastic efforts Wing Commander fans undertook in 2014. Last time, more than $46,000 was raised to enable the live recording of fantastic WC music with a full symphony. The results were well worth it, so we hope Wingnuts can pull together again to make the sequel possible!

2015.287 (October 14, 2015)

Digital CCG Project Off To Great Start

capi3101 has embarked on a new project to digitize the Wing Commander Customizable Card Game in the VASSAL engine. He's studied prior attempts to do something like this and has already made some good progress laying the project's foundation. capi has an excellent track record of sticking with projects and providing regular updates, so we're excited to see where he can go! Right now he's soliciting feedback from people who've played the CCG to help shape how the things comes together.

2014.287 (October 14, 2014)

Trip Report: Citizen Con 2014

The CIC Staff is all back home after nearly a week in Southern California. While KrisV, AD & Dundradal held the fort online, LOAF, Frosty, ace and I kept busy in Los Angeles. We got a chance to check out the latest on Star Citizen at Citizen Con 2014 last Friday. Chris Roberts presented a status update on what Cloud Imperium Games and its affiliate studios have been up to, revealed new ships, gave a planetside demo and set forth the roadmap for the next year.

2013.287 (October 14, 2013)

Sabres Dance In The Dark

Klavs' artistic new wallpaper image is titled 'Sabredance'. It coincidentally stars the same F-57 Heavy Attack Fighter that was recently added to Howard's Concordia Hangar. It's a popular ship lately! The scene is eerily lit by their doomed target, one of Klavs' dark and imposing Snakeir carriers.

2012.288 (October 14, 2012)

RSI Pledge Total Back Online

Roberts Space Industries has announced that the core of their website has been restored, including the tally of how their funding campaign is going. So far, more than 6800 people have donated around $660,000, which means the project is already about a third of the way to its first goal. However, it can be hard for such projects to maintain their momentum after initial announcement, so RSI promises to keep a steady flow of information coming that will include more fan-polling, fiction features, Wing Commander history and Chris Roberts Q&A. If you're not seeing the new RSI site after a shift-reload, try clearing your browser cache and returning.

2011.287 (October 14, 2011)

Squadron Form Up! It's time for another round...

Of the Wing Commander CIC's new monthly Wing Commander chat session. We are going to be holding monthly Wing Commander meetings on the CIC IRC channel #wingnut. The time of the meeting each month will be rotated to give our international Wingnuts a chance to participate. This meeting will be held at 1 pm EDT, which converts to 7 pm in Berlin.

Space Sim First Look: Star Conflict

Music Guru spotted a sharp looking new PC MMO space sim, Star Conflict. Players control everything from small scout ships to large warships and ultimately fleets. There's a wide variety of missions and strategies that then determine each person's style of playing the game. A preview video is available at the game's website.

2010.287 (October 14, 2010)

Goofy Game Gossip Unveils Underlying Ultima

The internet is aflame today following an angry rant from a supposed former Bioware Mythic employee which exposes lurid details of the company's internals. Most of it is common sense crafted to enrage the Linux crowd (Electronic Arts wants to make money?!), but one paragraph should be of interest to Origin fans:Oh yeah, and he needed Paul Barnett. You know him as the crazy British dude that appears in random videos at EA to promote his latest bullshittery.

Wing Commander IV Storyboards - Scene 21

Today's storyboard update, featuring ten drawings, is the longest series discovered to date--so don't worry that the front page will be filled with cartoons like this forever! Scene 21 is Blair and Maniac's shuttle trip from Bluepoint to Orion Station (which had not yet been named). Note that the scene is staged here to include a separate shuttle pilot... which should be interesting to anyone who wondered how the 'hot dog' line could be more awkward.

2009.287 (October 14, 2009)

Invasion Explores New Base

WC Invasion has a new space station borrowed from Howard Day and Pioneer. The Star Wars Empire at War mod already uses some familiar WC bases, but this extra structure will help fill a gap in Major Payne's lineup. The first two shots are rendered for the EAW engine. Check out the game's latest beta build here.

Making the Game: Web Fiction - Episode 4 Positive

Following up the WEC notes in the unappreciated in-joke category is the fact that the names in the General Assembly transcript included in Episode 4 are all taken from 'Treasure Island' -- from the characters (Cmdr. Silver, Israel Hands) to the ship itself (Hispaniola).These updates are thanks to John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel, who provided several CD image archives of material used by the Wing Commander Prophecy development team!

2008.288 (October 14, 2008)

Brickrolled

We're a bit late in posting this, but Death Angel created an awesome new Lego Commander image in celebration of our tenth anniversary back on August 10th. It features Angel, Blair and Paladin as minifigs... with a sky full of Hornets!

Making the Games: Confederation Cruiser

Our next series of daily updates features a treasure trove of Wing Commander artifacts from former designer John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel. Johnny worked on Privateer 2, Wing Commander Prophecy and Secret Ops... along with several of the final projects attempted by the original Maverick team. More importantly, he has always been incredibly kind to Wing Commander fans - and for these updates he has dug up two CDs filled with amazing images, documents and data from his years at Origin.

2007.287 (October 14, 2007)

Make Every Shot Count!

As promised, Standoff Episode 4 includes some improvements to the mission simulator onboard the TCS Firekka. Now the Convoy Strike and Blockade Run (missions 9 and 10) are being tracked by the online scoreboards, here on the CIC. In addition, you can check up on your firing accuracy and accumulated flight time. To see how you stack up against other Wingnuts, you need a Crius.

Point of Origin: Vol. II, No. 11

February 14, 1992: the delays of Strike Commander, Ultima VII and Underworld have forced Origin to push ahead several budget 'collection' releases. Here we see that plan put into practice, plus some frank (and cautiously positive) discussion of the company's future. Of course, there's plenty of Wing Commander in the mix...A very special thanks to Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum for making this resource available and to Electronic Arts for sending them to him in the first place!

2006.287 (October 14, 2006)

Gemini Gold Goes Shopping

Gemini Gold's latest improvement takes place in the Commodity Exchange. They've taken out the ungainly purchase menu and put in an interface that closely resembles the original. Some of the back stock appears to have sold out and a light bulb must've popped up front, but the new store looks pretty good. John Cordell and team have spent most of the year removing rushed elements that didn't mesh well and painstakingly replacing them with new art.

Origin's Innovative 'Virtual Reality' Worlds Revealed

Origin's record of innovation didn't stop with Wing Commander: this trio of CGW advertisements promotes Ultima Underworlds I & II. These classics created "the first continuous-movement, 3D-dungeon, action fantasy" - which is to say that they're early RPG-derived ancestors of the first person shooter genre which dominates gaming to this day. Wolfenstein 3D, which was released soon after The Stygian Abyss, ultimately became more popular, but the Los Angeles Times preferred Underworld, saying "the 3D perspective lends an element of virtual reality not seen in other first-person adventures. A rich texture of character and story detail combine to keep a determined adventure involved for hours.

2005.287 (October 14, 2005)

Wing Commander Fan Project Heads To The Nintendo DS

SirJorj has been working on a project to create a fan made Wing Commander scroller shooter for the Nintendo DS. He began working on the project as a fun learning experience, but he hopes to have some sort of release preview in a few weeks. So far the Hornet moves and shoots, and he is working on integrating both screens, adding a dynamic starfield and implementing enemy ships. Some specialized hardware would be necessary to get the game into an actual DS, but the finished project will also be playable on regular computers via emulation.

Steven Spielberg Teams Up With EA

Electronic Arts announced today that they have entered into a partnership with director Steven Spielberg to collaborate on three upcoming original projects. He will be consulting with development teams based out of EA Los Angeles, which has been responsible for parts of the Command & Conquer, Lord of the Rings and Medal of Honor series. The studio is also where any new Ultima or Wing Commander properties would probably be developed. One of Spielberg's primary contacts will be EALA lead and former Origin general manager Neil Young.

2004.288 (October 14, 2004)

Work on Behemoth Continues

We have another update from Fatcat:Just finished putting the ends of the ship on, and I've sanded them flush with the rest of the ship. I also got photo-etched girders for the Bridge.The model is being made out of wood and fiberglass. We previously reported on this in July and September.

Online Rollenspiel Looking For Players

Scorpion's German Wing Commander RPG club has close to one hundred members, and they're looking for a few more. German speakers can find out more on our Forums or at wingcommander.de.

2003.287 (October 14, 2003)

Pilgrim Truth Synopsis Back Online

It was early 2001 when we were eagerly awaiting the final installment in Peter Telep's Wing Commander movie-based novel trilogy - Pilgrim Truth. Because of numerous delays, an outline of the novel was released providing a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of what would happen in the new novel. At the time, we stored the file on a lousy free web site because of bandwidth issues. Sadly, the novel was cancelled by its would-be publisher despite being completed, however the synopsis hasn't been forgotten.

Bi-Weekly Poll Updated

Just kidding. Next up in our series of polls is the Wing Commander III era. This time the biggest gun in the universe takes on Tin Can Sally. In our last poll the TCS Concordia (62%) crushed the TCS Tarawa (16%).

Golden SPs Next To Come

It's been a month or two since the last new GBA SP color, so we thought Nintendo might be slowing down. To no one's surprise, they have announced another color though. This time the Starlight Gold color. It appears this one will be a Japan Toys R Us exclusive though.

2001.287 (October 14, 2001)

Jumpgate Designer Partially Inspired by WC

Death reports that an interview with Scott Brown, NetDevil President and Lead Designer on Jumpgate mentions Wing Commander as one of the games that inspired them.We have of course all played Elite, Wing Command, and XWing and have always wanted to play a MMP version of these games. Also, many of us read Sci-Fi and there are scenes from many books that are inspiring as well. We took what we thought was great from all these things added our own ideas and improvements and the result is Jumpgate.

Holding The Line, Chapter 105

Here's Raptor with the introduction to the next instalment in this Aces FanFic series.Hey all, Raptor here.HTL continues with part one of the Tiger Hunt series, which looks at the start of the fighting in the Loki system, as the heavily outnumbered Confed and Border Worlds Combined Fleet tries to hold back the invaders. The Tiger Hunt is a 15 part story arc written by myself and another writer which follows the efforts of the Border Worlders.

Game Three, Week Fifty Trivia Reminder

Remember to submit or e-mail your Week Fifty answers before the end of the day. Game Three is almost over, so get some practice in for the upcoming Game Four, when everyone gets a fresh start. Here are this week's questions again.- Question 99: Name the person that said: "If anything is going to happen to a pilot in the Morningstar, I want it to happen to me first.

2000.288 (October 14, 2000)

AceNet Moves

The Wing Commander Aces Club's hub site, AceNet Central, has moved to its own domain -- http://www.wc-aces.com. The Aces are the internet's vanguard Wing Commander RPG & PBM club -- like the WCSC, but with 'members'.

You Deserve a Fan Project!

#WingNut regular Capsule has submitted the following article: The Wing Commander Combat Information Center's Guide to Making Your Very Own Fan Project. And while writing that nasty letter, please remember that we're making fun of ourselves, too.

1999.287 (October 14, 1999)

Wing Commander for Christmas

André M has received an email from the German film.de about the possible Wing Commander release date. It looks like another two months of waiting for the many German fans, but now it'll make a nice Christmas gift. You can find the detailed info on Wing Commander from film.

Positive New Australian Review

Sean Tudor over at alt.games.wing-commander posted about a new Australian movie review. It's pretty positive.

New, from Pulchresse... the CosmoDrone

Girls! Is your lifestyle too hectic? Do you want to look like a catwalk model, but find you just don't have the time? Is your complexion suffering from too much long-distance travel and hard bargaining?

1998.287 (October 14, 1998)

Waiting for Goldot

I did some investigative reporting today (okay, I went shopping), looking into the imminent arrival of Prophecy Gold. According to Electronic Boutique it should be in tommorow. Babbages says they should have it by next week, and CompUSA was, as usual, clueless. Anyway, I'm gonna be away for a day or two, but I'm hoping to have a brand new copy of Gold to talk about when I get back on Friday evening.

Do It Yourself

The man best known as HCl has released a WC3/4/Armada to WCP/SO converter, so as to allow other people to continue his work converting ships to the vision engine. HCl himself will unfortunatly be quite busy for the next several months, but was kind enough to leave us all this. The download includes the newest version of WCPEdit, the WC4 file format and ready-for-conversion models of the Vindicator and Longbow. Grab it here.

Play It Again, Sam

Karl "CFF" Frank has released a patch for Secret Ops allowing the player to revert the game back to its original episode 1 format (so as to allow those who have installed later updates the ability to get the episode 1 passwords). Grab the English version here or the German version here.

It Never Ends

Baen has put up the 'back cover' text for False Colors... check it out below.MORE WAR . .