News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2023.208 (July 27, 2023)

RJC Fondly Remembers FMV WC Games

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.

2022.208 (July 27, 2022)

Happy Birthday Wing Commander Arena!

We’d like to spend time in today’s news taking a moment to recognize Wing Commander Arena’s belated 15th birthday! We reached the milestone on Monday, but the unfortunate passing of the legendary David Warner preempted this story. Arena was released on July 25, 2007, which feels like a lifetime ago now. It was one of the few 2000s WC releases, including other notable titles like Prophecy for Gameboy Advance and EA Replay on the PlayStation Portable.

2021.208 (July 27, 2021)

Onward to Victory

Mac's Lore has an exciting new video in their series on Wing Commander history. Their latest clip covers covers the exploits of the TCS Victory with an emphasis on the events that concluded the Kilrathi War in Wing Commander 3. The clip is broken down into several sections: service history, technical details, the crew and conclusion. In addition to his own narrative, Mac was able to source his high quality visuals from the WC Saga engine and ODVS' high quality video among other fan resources.

2020.209 (July 27, 2020)

Make a Model Morningstar

LYP Studios has put together a pretty neat Morningstar fighter for the Thingiverse 3D printing website. At nearly 15 inches long, it's a monster in the model fighter world and the large size allows for increased detail on the spaceframe. There's also plenty of ordnance it seems. Klavs was actually the person who spotted this and his art coincidentally served as the inspiration for this new iteration.

2019.208 (July 27, 2019)

Countdown to Party Time - Three Weeks To Go!

Time ticks ever forward, and we're quickly speeding towards the CIC's 21st Birthday! We're now three weeks away from the big party. It's easy to join the fun in #Wingnut on the CIC's Discord Server. This year we're also planning an extended livestream to accompany the chat in real time.

2018.208 (July 27, 2018)

Prowler Screenshots Show Off Robot Battles

Anatoly Shashkin posted some pretty nifty preview images of the canceled Origin game, Prowler. This was a mech combat game that some of the Super Wing Commander team worked on in the mid '90s. It never saw the light of day, so there's not much info out there, but the CIC has archived the game's box art, concept sketches and back story. It looks pretty dated today, and these are still pre-release shots from early in development, but this had the potential to be another neat Origin sci-fi series along the lines of MechWarrior.

2017.208 (July 27, 2017)

Wing Commander Music Kickstarter Relaunched - With Extras!

George Oldziey is back for a third attempt at creating a second album of reorchestrated music from Wing Commander 3, 4 & Prophecy. He's learned some good lessons from the last two trips out, and this time he's significantly retooled the effort with some exciting changes.For starters, he's framing today's launch as Volume 2, Phase 1. This campaign has a much lower threshold for success at just $15,000, down from the previous $45K, so it's much more achievable.

2016.209 (July 27, 2016)

Wing Commander Running On More Micro PCs

Allan Pead took this photo of Wing Commander 3 running on a LattePanda micro computer. Like with the Raspberry Pi, newer and better low-cost units continue to be developed, and it's great to see fans putting them to the test by seeing how they emulate WC games. It has a funny name, but if it can run The Heart of the Tiger, it's okay in my book! I still dread the loading wait times before launching from the Victory...

2015.208 (July 27, 2015)

Bearcat Gets Unreal Makeover

ScoobyDoo has made big progress importing his new Bearcat fighter into the Unreal 4 engine. In this new environment, he's been able to add tons of detail to the cockpit, hull surface and landing gear. Although he's known for adding lots of stuff like this to his ships in the past, he's being careful to walk a fine line and avoid making his ships deviate too wildly from the baseline Wing Commander examples. If you'd like to see more of the spaceframe itself, check out the previous post here.

2014.208 (July 27, 2014)

Twitch Stream Explorers Original Wing Commander

Whistler reports that BadNewsBaron is in the process of broadcasting a play-through of Wing Commander 1. The Baron is known for live streaming Star Citizen footage on Twitch, and he's turning back the clock a bit to see where Chris Roberts got started in space sims. If you're not familiar with Twitch, it take a concept like YouTube a step further by integrating live video, real time viewer interaction and a heavy emphasis on video game content. It's become very popular on the Playstation 4 and XBox One, but PC users also have many options, including built-in support for broadcasting games from EA's Origin platform.

2013.208 (July 27, 2013)

Two Weeks Until the Birthday Party!

The CIC's 15th Birthday Party is now just two weeks away. Join us on Saturday, August 10, 2013 at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT, early Sunday morning in Asia/Australia). Since the party is on a Saturday this year, we're excited that many of our Asian and Australian regulars will be able to make it on Sunday morning. The event will take place in our IRC channel, #Wingnut.

2012.209 (July 27, 2012)

Two Weeks Until Party Time!

The CIC Birthday Party is just two weeks away! We've picked up the pace of our preparations, and hopefully your excitement meter is rising too. Right now, CIC staff members are busily putting together special features, tweaking aspects of the site and organizing the prize giveaways that will dot the night. Stop by #Wingnut on August 10 at 7:00 PM Eastern US (4:00 pm Pacific US and 11:00 pm GMT) to join the fun!

2011.208 (July 27, 2011)

Two Weeks To Go!

We're now just two weeks away from the CIC's 13th Birthday! We hope to see you in #Wingnut on August 10 to celebrate. Newcomers can use the easy Java app and plan to stop by at 7:00 PM Eastern US (a Wednesday night, 4:00 pm Pacific and 11:00 pm GMT). As usual, there will be big reveals, trivia games and prizes for the duration of the event.

Taking the Party IRL

...we'll be in Texas for the birthday this year! Team CIC is packing up in a week or so to head down and celebrate in person on August 10, for the first time. All the details aren't set yet, but if you happen to be in the local Austin area, hit the Discuss link and let us know.

2010.208 (July 27, 2010)

Countdown: Two Weeks!

We're now less than two weeks away from the CIC's 12th Birthday! In addition to celebrating a dozen years at wcnews.com, we're also pumped up about the Wing Commander series' 20th anniversary this year, so this should be our biggest bash ever! It's easy to stop by #Wingnut and start hanging out with the coolest WC fans in the world.

Starcraft 2 Released

The long-awaited Starcraft 2 was released last night to legions of eager PC gamers. With nearly 12 years since the original game and its expansion, SC fans have quite a bit of patience in common with their WC counterparts. We've heard a lot of comments that the new game feels like a Wing Commander game, and that's no coincidence! The lead Blizzard designer has been quoted as saying "it's very Wing Commander" and that WC was among the dev team's favorite games.

2009.208 (July 27, 2009)

Ascii Sector

Last week's release of the Privateer: Ascii Sector game had a serious bug in it, so Chris Knudsen has pushed out a fresh build. This new version addresses problems with cargo transport missions and a couple of other, less important issues. Ascii Sector is available for Windows, Linux and Mac. Get version 0.

Making the Game: Comms Complete

Today's Excel chart shows, naturally, more comms. More specifically, it shows the percent of chance a particular 'type' of message should play after any event. Ie, what is the chance a random comm should play about a nav point being clear, once it is clear? Read on to find out!

2008.209 (July 27, 2008)

Confed's Last Best Hope

Invisible fighters, bioweapons and the Excalibur prototype all make an appearance this week as the Victory pushes into the Tamayo and Locanda systems. Apart from a run-in with Skipper missiles, last week's missions mostly involved patrolling and escorting. Here are DaveO's notes from Orsini:I meet up with Vaquero on the living level, and he's playing a lively tune on a guitar. He notices me sitting at his table, and salutes.

Making the Game - Part 83

The 'springboards' section of the Wing Commander Prophecy bible seems to be a list of lists - what the player can do, when different ships appear, what types of weapons need to be developed further. There's some fascinating insight into the development of the game in here.

2007.208 (July 27, 2007)

UPDATE: Wing Commander Themes Available!

Goodbye, Battlestations Midway pin-up girls, hello Kilrathi fighters -- Microsoft has released two Wing Commander Arena Xbox 360 themes on Live Marketplace! A "Terran Theme" and a "Kilrathi Theme" are now available for 150 MS Points each. They're very pretty - each blade gets a high resolution rendering of a different fighter with a different colored background. It also replaces the standard gray 'utility' background with the Confederation star or the Kiranka claw!

Arena Review Revue

The Wing Commander Arena reviews continue to roll in! Here's three more, following the two posted yesterday. The best news is from XBL Radio, who was incredibly positive about the game:If you are looking for a fast paced action game, Wing Commander Arena is for you. Only playing for just a few hours, it feels like Wing Commander Arena has made its way in the top five Xbox Live Arcade Games.

On the Polaris Roads Again

I'll bet you thought the days of seeing new Wing Commander Arena trailers were over... well, you're dead wrong! GameVideos has posted a three and a half minute video of the game's single player melee mode. You can watch the video online here.

2006.208 (July 27, 2006)

All Confed Models Integrated Into Homeworld Mod

The final major model for the Confederation faction in Aaron Thomas' WC4 Homeworld 2 mod is now an actual structure in the game. It will get an additional scaffolding/construction attachment so it can serve as a shipyard, but the pictures below give everyone a good look at the design. After the Confed skirmish mode is polished up, the Border Worlds and Black Lance sides will be implemented. A number of UBW/BL ships are already combat ready.

There's A Place For Everybody

Our new poll asks fans to pick an organization that best represents them. Technology-using technophobes can vote for the Retros in the first option. Kilrathi enthusiasts have the Cult of Sivar. Those concerned with the environment might want to help the Intergalactic EPA clean up Veratek.

2005.208 (July 27, 2005)

Party Count Down: Two Weeks To Go

Only two short weeks remain before the CIC's Seventh Birthday Party. The event always sneaks up on us quickly, and people are now scrambling to get things ready. It's been a beautiful summer for most of us, which doesn't make the work get done any faster. We expect that some people will be attending their first irc party this year.

Electronic Arts Announced Quarterly Results

EA has announced their quarterly performance results for the period that ended on June 30, 2005. They earned $365 million, which was a 16% decline over last year at this time. This resulted in a $58 million loss compared to a $24 million profit. The loss was attributed to a repurchase of 6.

2004.209 (July 27, 2004)

WC X-Type Still In Progress

Pedro sent us another screenshot to let us know that his R-Type inspired Wing Commander shooter is still in development. The original was a Java test program, but he has mostly transferred the game to C++. I'd like to request some help from 3D modellers. I need to to know how easy it is to convert multiple texture models into single texture models (so as to be compataible with md2), the alternative being to the WCP format (which has obvious mod benefits, but time is a factor).

Trivia Week 4 Begins

There are just two more weeks left in our summer trivia game. Week 4 begins today and the final week starts next week. Here are the new questions. Good luck!

EA Quarterly Profits Up

Electronic Arts has announced its results for fiscal Q1 2005. They had three new titles sell a million copies, and the slightly older Need For Speed Underground recorded its seven millionth sale. Q2 numbers will be even better, with NCAA Football and Madden numbers ranging 50-100% higher than last year's stellar totals.Net revenue for the first quarter was $432 million, up 22 percent as compared with $353 million for the fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2003.

2003.208 (July 27, 2003)

Two Weeks Until Party Time!

Time flies when you're going crazy trying to get ready. We're now just fourteen days from the CIC's Fifth Birthday. This time I'm happy to report that a number of the community's fan projects and groups will be joining us in the celebration. The type of participation varies from group to group, but a handful of organizations are working now to put together something special to also release on August 10 with us.

One Step Closer to Canadian Prophecy Advance

K1nG Gr4H4m has noticed that the Canadian Future Shop has begun listing Prophecy Advance here. This is one of the first listings of the game at a Canadian retailers, so perhaps there's hope for them yet. They list it as out of stock, but that was what was happening at American retailers prior to its launch when release dates were missed. At $34.

New Poll, Old Results

Many of you have already noticed we've switched the polls. We've got a fun one this time that asks which unconventional weapon is your favorite. This is a broad category that picks out a few of the more exotic weapons in the Wing Commander universe. I vote Nuke'em.

2002.208 (July 27, 2002)

Third Highest Score in PC Gamer History

PC Gamer's 100th Anniversary issue includes a list of the highest rated games in their history. Wing Commander 3 ties for third place.Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - 98%Half-Life - 97%Descent - 96%Links LS - 96%System Shock - 96%Gabriel Knight II - 96%The Sims - 96%Tie Fighter - 96%Warcraft II - 96%Wing Commander III - 96%The issue contains a few other bits on Wing Commander, including how Wing Commander 3 was part of the CD-Rom revolution. Thanks to TC and Chris Gerrish.

High Score!

High Score! The Illustrated History of Electronic Games is a new book detailing more than 30 years of computer game history. Since WC has been so influential, it gets it's own two page spread! Also of note is that the Origin Museum's Joe Garrity is credited in the book, and that myself and LOAF took the screenshots for that two page WC spread.

2001.208 (July 27, 2001)

Free as a Space 2

15th Rampage has kindly sent us the URL for his FreeSpace 2 TC, Black Lance. You can read all about it at scorpius.spaceports.com/~wcbl/.

New Mailbag

That's right, it's time for another one of our bi-annual monthly mailbags! Laugh, cry and be terrified at how stupid some people are right along with us! Check it out here... or, well, I'LL RIP YUOR ASS OFF COLLAGE BOY!

Contest Delayed

Due to popular demand (you all forgot to make your lists!), the Wing Commander names contest has been extended... until August 5th! You've got all that time to list as many Wing Commander characters as possible -- and we'll periodically remind you this time.

A Day in the LOAF

I'm off to some other state for the weekend (Penn-something, the one with the chocolate), so I'm leaving the news on autopilot... but check back for the usual weekend fair, along with pictures of a shirt! Wow!

From: CIS Headquarters, Special Ops. Div.

CIS Intelligence has learned of a planned attack on one of our Munitions Depots. Currently the majority of CIS forces are occupied elsewhere. We request your assistance in the defence of this facility at Nav Point 149. The main targets of the attack will be the cargo vessels.