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Wing 4 Gets The Royal Treatment
Last month our own Cpl_Hades had the privilege of staying at Joe Garrity's Origin Museum for several days, doing some exciting Wing Commander research. Now, we can reveal one of the exciting things he found in the archives: the original script treatment for Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom!
This 88 page document walks through the entire story of the game, as it was originally conceived... and fans will immediately notice some significant difference! Instead of two halves (on the Lexington and then the Intrepid), this early version was divided into three parts: it opens with an extended segment where Blair serves as part of a planet-based squadron on Nephele! That's not all -- each section has new characters, too... Nephele, for instance, includes Cmdr. Tyla Braverman and Chief Tech "Mutt" Malone.
Finally, one part may prove very controversial: this document seems to be the source of the Wing Commander movie's "Pilgrim" storyline: Border Worlders are distinguished by the fact that having spent generations in space has altered their genetics (brief references to this survive to the finished movie, such as Paulsen's speech about Border Worlders being from 'inferior stock'). Astute Wing Commander historians may remember that the Phoenix Pictures Memo, based on the original movie proposal, referred to Border Worlders rather than Pilgrims.
You can get the new document here (25 meg zipped .PDF).
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Update published on September 18, 2006. View all news from that day.
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Official news, fan projects and topics of particular interest to Wing Commander fans.
- Fighter Tokens See Battle on the Table
- 2012-02-03 -- Progress continues to be made on Wing Commander TacOps Online. Avacar has implemented numerous bug fixes in the last several weeks and has big plans about the next phase of the game's development. After an upcoming flurry of coding is complete, the idea is to launch another beta test game that involves capital ships and their escorts.
- "And the last Kilrathi planet in the sector falls!"
- 2012-02-02 -- Tim Peel has put together another gorgeous scene with Howard Day's models. In this new image, he's beautifully recreated the Venice Assault from the end of the original Wing Commander. Flights of Hornets play escort as the Claw advances.
- Mission Accomplished!
- 2012-02-01 -- Origin founder Richard Garriott's mission to space has been well documented in the CIC news archives, but a whole lot more people are learning about the story thanks to the premiere of the Man on a Mission documentary about the trip. Rather than just a vanity film to commemorate his space tourism, the story has been highly-rated as an excellent adventure about a man realizing his dream to become the first second-generation astronaut. There are a handful of streaming options for fans who'd like to check it out, and theatrical premieres across the country are taking place now.
- Garriott Wins Release of First Sci-Fi Movie Actually Made in Space
- 2012-02-01 -- Man on a Mission wasn't the only movie recording during Garriott's time in space! In addition to gathering footage for the documentary, Richard also taped a short horror flick - the first science fiction film made in space! After years of lobbying NASA, Garriott has finally gotten approval to release Apogee of Fear, and distribution details should surface soon.
- From the Beginning, You Know the End...
- 2012-01-31 -- It's time for the start of a new poll, and this one's all about endings. Which game had your favorite conclusion? Are you more into the traditional blast-a-starbase final missions from the early '90s?
- Catching Up With Saga - GamePlay Complete!
- 2012-01-30 -- WC Saga hit an important milestone recently - it went gameplay complete, meaning that it's completely playable - but not yet perfected. The team is going back now to revamp their Prologue demo and continue bug hunting. Here's some new screenshots and their announcement: We have reached an important milestone that has been a very long time in the making.
- This Clawk Marks is Super
- 2012-01-29 -- One of the most fantastic websites on the entire Internet, Pix's Origin Adventures, has posted a nice high res scan of the game manual for the Super Famicom version of Wing Commander 1. This edition is more than simply Claw Marks translated into Japanese however, and the booklet gets tons of bonus art alongside reformatted text. Some drawings are brand new, and others are colorizations of art used in the English documentation.
- Prepare to Roll the Dice
- 2012-01-28 -- capi3101's been in the news lately for his tabletop tokens and Pen & Paper Armada, but the big project he's been working on for the last six months is an original Wing Commander RPG. Since last year, he's been steadily making progress on the game's character races, skills, equipment, ships, spaceflight and combat. capi estimates that the overall game is about two thirds written out, and more is completed each week.
- Orchestral Remix Strikes a Different Note
- 2012-01-27 -- Shiryu, who authored some hip Wing Commander Movie-themed techno tracks back in the day, has a new composition to share. Orchestral Wing Commander has a much more classical and decidedly mainstream tone than his first WC songs. He's synchronized the tunes to WC1's intro, briefing and launch below.
- 'Boxy, But Good' or 'Oh, Don't Mine Me'
- 2012-01-26 -- Cybot's back with another cool render of a Wing Commander Academy vessel. In addition to bringing back a fun variety of familiar designs, WCA also created a few of its own. This dedicated hospital ship is one of them, and it packs a lot of character for a rectangular box!
- LOAF on Sol: Exodus
- 2012-01-25 -- "Welcome to Sol Sector, Lieutenant!?" - Lieutenant Chris McCubbin, TCS ConcordiaSol: Exodus, the new space sim from Seamless Entertainment, will be available starting today on Steam for just $9.99.
- Contrasting Designs Added to Growing Fleet
- 2012-01-24 -- CMDBob has completed two new ships: the Dorkir transport and Arrow light fighter. Bob is using some new rendering techniques here, and the result delivers a great cross between animated and metallic texturing. You can check out more angles of these ships at the CIC Forums here.
- Congratulations Award Winners!
- 2012-01-23 -- The votes have been tallied, and we now have the winners of our 2011 Fan Project & Web Site of the Year awards! Many great nominees received a ton of votes, which speaks to how many great undertakings were pursued over the past year. Although only a few can win, we're still amazed at all the constant fan activity.
- Spacetime Studios Takes Time to Celebrate
- 2012-01-23 -- The good news continues for mobile developer Spacetime Studios. CEO Gary Gattis has posted a rollup that summarizes the company's accomplishments in 2011 and aspirations for the new year. Spacetime was founded in 2005 in Austin, Texas by a handful of game industry veterans, including several Wing Commander pros from Origin.
- This Gratha's Seen Some Action
- 2012-01-22 -- Zohrath has finished his Gratha model, ad the results are fantastic! The spaceframe had a very raptor-like feel to it, and the brown Kilrathi durasteel has some very fine wear and tear. Z's got more updates in the works, which we can't wait to see.
- BREAKING NEWS: Amazon Lists Wing Commander Academy!
- 2012-01-21 -- Amazon.com has finally posted a product page for Wing Commander Academy on DVD! This is a day we've been eagerly anticipating since the preliminary Canadian Amazon.
- Quick Awards Reminder
- 2012-01-21 -- If you still have not yet voted in the CIC's annual Fan Project & Web Site of the Year awards, today's your last chance! Hit the voting page to help pick the winners.
- Freddie Prinze Soldiers On
- 2012-01-20 -- Freddie Prinze Jr, who portrayed Christopher Blair in Chris Robert's Wing Commander feature film has lent his voice to the highly anticipated Mass Effect 3. Freddie plays a soldier character that coincidentaly bears the name of a classic Wing Commander locale: Jason Vega. He's not the first Wing Commander alumni to transition to the Mass Effect universe.
- Academy Comes to America
- 2012-01-19 -- There's good news and bad news tonight. The good news is that the Wing Commander Academy DVD set is now set for an American (rather than just Canadian) release. It should be available for preorder via Amazon and other retailers soon.
- Standoff Fan Patch Adds a Retro Touch
- 2012-01-18 -- danr put together a simple audio patch that takes the Prophecy/Secret Ops mass driver sound in Standoff and replaces it with the classic WC2 mass driver effect from the Kilrathi Saga. All of the original guns have a very distinctive sound and feel to them, so this little tweak adds a nice touch. Simply drop the contents of this file (35 k zip) into the Standoff folder and play.
- Massive Monolith Gets Modular Makeover
- 2012-01-17 -- Scooby Doo has put together a new Monolith concept. Aside from simply being a bigger sharper version of the design from Privateer 2, the ship has a new modular cargo system with a variety of customized transport sections. It can even carry fighters!
- Just Crusin' Along...
- 2012-01-16 -- CMDBob has put some of his numerous models to good use in a new wallpaper image. It features a Tallahassee being escorted behind a planet by several Rapiers. The setting is simple and even has a nice serene quality to it.
- Retro Gaming's the Rage
- 2012-01-16 -- If the Retrode just feels too stationary, the Retrobit RetroDuo Portable is for you! The device features the ability to play SNES games on its 3.5 inch LCD, plus it can also output video to your TV.
- Wing Commander Armada Taken to the Tabletop
- 2012-01-15 -- capi3101's latest role-playing project is an exciting "pen and paper" translation of Wing Commander Armada! The setup is fun and easy: players can use any Wing Commander sector for their battle. Gameplay pieces are comprised of capi's printable WC tokens and several dice.
- Last Week to Vote
- 2012-01-15 -- The voting period is starting to wind down, but it's not too late to make a difference! This is the last week to vote for nominees of the CIC's annual Fan Project & Web Site of the Year awards, and results will be posted next weekend. Head over to the voting page if you haven't cast your vote yet!
- Classic Magazine Feature Highlights Origin Hits
- 2012-01-14 -- st3lt3k found a neat video recorded for the February 1994 issue of PC Player magazine. The clip is a five minute feature exclusively on the cool things Origin had planned for the year ahead. Unfortunately there's no info on Armada or Wing Commander 3, but Super Wing Commander makes a cameo at 0:22.
- Saga Continues to Work Missions & Demo
- 2012-01-13 -- Tolwyn reports that WC Saga has "finalized" almost all of the game's missions and has started to go back and update the demo that was originally released in 2006. The latest advancements raise hopes that the mod could be released prior to its upcoming eleventh birthday! Two more teaser shots have been released.
- TacOps Pulls Out The Big Guns
- 2012-01-12 -- Avacar has coded a number of new features into WC TacOps Online that make it easier and harder to blow up bad guys. On the offensive side, anti-matter guns, the phase transit cannon and flak blasts have all be implemented, which gives capships a hefty boost in battle. For those on the defense, "line of site" has been introduced which allows ships to hide behind asteroids and large objects.
- Wing Commander Computer at Full Throttle
- 2012-01-11 -- LOAF is back to building Karga the Hero, and the "cockpit" is looking fantastic. The latest addition is a Thrustmaster TQS throttle, and there's some new high res photos to celebrate the nearly complete setup. Watch out for that first one, it's an 18 megapixel/7 megabyte behemoth.
- Dorkir Gets the Right Shape
- 2012-01-10 -- Here's a preview of CMDBob's newest model, a Kilrathi Dorkir transport. The ship has really great geometry, but it still needs textures. That's nothing a little brown and red can't fix!
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