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Star*Soldier Gloss: Cover
... and here's our new daily feature which will carry us through the next two months! We'll be offering commentary from the writers and designer of the Wing Commander Arena Star*Soldier manual for each page. Have a question you'd like answered about this or a future page? Post it to the forums and we will pass it along! Just think, this is a fairly short entry -- this is just the notes about what's going on on the cover...
INTRODUCTION: Hello, and thank you for reading this text commentary! Star*Soldier was a gift for the Wing Commander online community and it was honestly just a joy to put together. This is, without a doubt, the single project that I am most proud of working on. The real credit should go to Producer Sean Penney for seeing the book through to release (and into print, which was no one's plan) and to the guys at Gaia who designed a very fun game (and provided the noticably superior pieces of art in the manual.) We wanted to archive some perspectives on the 'making of' the manual and also provide a catalog of the various references and in-jokes. If that's the sort of thing you prefer to find for yourself then... you are a very cool person and I would like to buy you an ice cream sundae... and you shouldn't read on.
CONCEPT: I spent several sleepless nights trying to come up with how to do a new take on the classic Wing Commander manual concept - Claw Marks was the shipboard magazine, Voices of War was the scrapbook, Victory Streak was a strange ostensibly-computer... I wanted something in exactly that vein, but different. The first concept was that it would be a 'shelf' of books that you could select from: a FODORS-style travel guide for the planet, a JOAN'S guidebook for ships, a newspaper and so forth. We even did a mockup of this concept... but ultimately ended up just ripping off Strike Commander and doing a magazine for mercenaries instead.
NAME: The name was basically a placeholder, too - I expected to come up with something else but never did ("So, Poochie okay with everybody?") It grows on you! I later found out that there was an original Nintendo game called Star Soldier - I hope that isn't a lawsuit in the making. For my money, the correct way to write the name is with an asterix: "Star*Soldier." Special kudos to Electronic Arts for not insisting that the manual had to say 'Wing Commander Arena' on the cover. Even Claw Marks said 'Wing Commander Special Edition' on it! (And I distinctly remember someone at Origin taking issue with Crusader's promotional newsletter for suggesting that Origin was releasing a mech game called TopLine...) It would have been a reasonable request here, since it's technically a piece of advertising material rather than something you see after you open the game's box...
IMAGES: The background image for the cover is cropped from one of the earliest released screenshots of the two battlecruisers fighting. I had hoped to replace it with a special rendering or some 2D artwork or something, but it seemed to fit the feel I had for the game by the end of the project. The inset image is more interesting. It was originally a perspective 3D rendering of the Mass Driver Cannon from Wing Commander: Privateer (salvaged from Origin's 3DS file archive.) Somewhat late in development, Gaia Industries provided us with a big fat ZIP folder of concept art and I made it my mission to include all of it somewhere. Out went the mass driver and in went... this thing.
REFERENCES-
"Antares issue" - the Antares Quadrant, formerly the Antares Sector, was the location of Secret Missions 2: Crusade. We didn't choose the location. Arena's Producer insisted on picking a known time and place for the game very early in development. Antares was chosen because it was on the frontier between the Confederation and the Kilrathi, because it had several familiar star systems and because it was home to the oft-ignored Firekkan species
"Spacedock" - In retrospect, I'm not sure that this word exists outside the context of Star Trek. That should tell you my background!
"January 2701" - the year was established by the Wing Commander Arena team (the requirement was that it be long enough after the last released game for the Nephilim War to be over - and yes, Privateer 2 was discussed) but the month was my choice. I went with January because I liked the idea that this was the very start of a new century (it also gave me something to reference once or twice in the text.)
"10c/1600k" - As many Wing Commander fans know, humans use credits. We came up with a stylized 'c' to represent that. The Kilrathi character is from the Terran Confederation Handbook, which provided a chart of Kilrathi characters used in the Wing Commander movie's subtitle scenes (which probably means it was originally designed by an artist at Digital Anvil.) This is, to the best of my knowledge, the first time we've seen Kilrathi money... they use Confederation credits in Action Stations. Maybe it's kind of a cheat, giving an alien species an economic system that seems to work just like ours, but it seemed like too cute a reference to exclude. Note that the exchange rate between human credits and Kilrathi {somethings} is fixed throughout the booket at 1c/160k. My basic concept here was that the post-war Kilrathi fulfilled the same role as the Japanese or the Italians in the 1950s, with both a wrecked economy and a reputation as a source for especially cheap goods.
The bar code doesn't mean anything, in so far as I know. Has anyone tried to scan it?
[LOAF]
[# 8850]
[Discuss]
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Update published on August 11, 2008. View all news from that day.
Wing Commander CIC - Visit the front page
Official news, fan projects and topics of particular interest to Wing Commander fans.
- Wing Commander's Got This
- 2012-02-10 -- Matthew Khouzam found a video with a cute Wing Commander cameo. XCOM Lore in a Minute is a quick run through that series' backstory. When the clip reaches X-COM Interceptor and its genre shift over to space combat, the fighter pilot is clearly a tribute to Christopher Blair from WC2.
- RPG Finishes Background Timeline
- 2012-02-09 -- capi3101 has completed writing out the chronological setting for his new Wing Commander RPG. The universe takes elements from the Star*Soldier timeline and merges them with info from the unpublished Privateer Online. There's also a sprinkle of knowledge from the Movie's Confederation Handbook and Privateer 2 too.
- Saga Beta Expands to Full Game
- 2012-02-08 -- There's a new look inside WC Saga's beta test. The team reports that there have been many iterations of the beta and they are now starting to test missions in the later portions of the game. There have also been issues with capship positioning and audio recently, but these bugs are being worked through.
- LOAF Fixes an Amiga
- 2012-02-07 -- With the addition of some recent finishing touches, LOAF has essentially completed Karga the Wing Commander Computer, and he's looking for new challenges. Although there are a few opportunities for Karga expansion later, the next great frontier lies with the Amiga. These teaser shots provide a glimpse into the adventure ahead, and LOAF sets the stage below.
- Wallpaper Honors the Escort Carriers
- 2012-02-06 -- This wallpaper isn't Wing Commander-related, but it was made by a talented Wing Commander fan. "Sunset Over The Bay" is Klavs's take on WW2 carrier aviation, and it's a pretty sweet scene!Hi guys, it's not strictly Wing Commander, but since it's WW2 History related I figured I could squeak by.
- "The sport jumped right on schedule. You covered her well."
- 2012-02-06 -- Tim Peel has followed up his Venice Assault with another classic scene from Wing Commander 1. In "Convoy," a squadron of Draymen are shepherded through space by a determined Exeter and some Hornets. This is the kind of thing people imagined in the original game when the autopilot cinematic played during an escort mission.
- Amazon's Academy Price Increased
- 2012-02-05 -- Amazon.com has slightly raised the presale price of the upcoming Wing Commander Academy series on DVD. It's now going for $22.
- Wing Commander Airing in Brazil
- 2012-02-05 -- The Wing Commander Movie will be showing twice in the next few days in Brazil via the Telecine network. In Portuguese, the film's title is A Batalha Final, which translate into "The Final Battle." Check it out on the TC Action channel on Feb 6 at 8:05 pm or Feb 8 at 12:20 pm.
- Classic Style Ship Viewer Built for WC3
- 2012-02-04 -- Farbourne has put together a neat app that compares the stats of Wing Commander 3 fighters. The numbers themselves are readily available, but the charm comes from the ability to pit two ships against each other. Each attribute is compared, and the fighter with the advantage in each category is highlighted.
- 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!
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