Roberts Space Industries Passes Go, Collects $200 Million Update ID

Chris Roberts announced today that proceeds towards Star Citizen and Squadron 42 have now surpassed $200 million. This incredible milestone comes a bit over six years since the project launched and comes from 2.1 million different gamers in 171 countries. For those who haven't tried the current playable version, a free play event will be held from November 23-30 with various options each day. For those holding out for the Squadron 42 story game, the team plans to release an updated roadmap to completion next month. That will be interesting to see!
This week marks the start of our 2948 Anniversary Event, which celebrates the end of the original crowdfunding campaign back in November 2012. This year we are particularly excited by our Free Fly event where we are opening the opportunity to try out the 80 flyable ships and vehicles in game. Star Citizen Alpha 3.3.5, which brings a lot more content, including the planet of Hurston, it’s moons and the major landing zone Lorville, is currently in PTU and should be Live in the next few days.

We are getting closer all the time to having a living, breathing persistent universe and as we close out this year, I look at the technology we must complete to achieve the vision and realize we are nearer to the end than the start. This knowledge, aided by the continued support and excitement we feel from all of you propels us forward with enthusiasm and a thirst for seeing the universe of Star Citizen become a home for gamers everywhere.

Thank you, each and every one of you, for believing in the vision, supporting its development with unwavering commitment and making gaming history. See you in the ‘Verse!

— Chris Roberts

Watch the French Resistance Achieve Victory Against the Kilrathi Update ID

DocteurJ is back with another extensive stream and commentary on the Wing Commander series. In this episode, he's flying the final mission of Wing Commander 3 to cap off his summertime playthrough of the game. As you're already aware if you skipped ahead and pressed play, DocteurJ is helping make sure Wing Commander fandom lives on in the French gaming community. Along with his work with OldiesGamesTV, he's covered everything from the first few WC games all the way through Prophecy for Game Boy Advance. It's great to see fans doing their thing around the world. Merci!
Enfin ! Le combat final contre l'empire Kilrah commence ! Va-t-on réussir à remporter la victoire ?

Finally ! The final fight against Kilrah's empire begins! Will we succeed in winning?

Japanese Advertisements Highlight Intriguing Ports Update ID

Here's a couple of really cool Japanese advertisements that LOAF recently came across. As is common in the country, they're chock full of text and liberal with the exclamation marks. The first is a small embedded ad for the Mega CD port of Wing Commander 1, which was the only version that got full speech as it was transferred to the disc-based format. We also get to see a sell sheet for the Japanese Armada, which was ported to a surprising number of platforms: PC-98, FM Towns and DOS/V. I love that Armada color tone filling the Japanese block text!

Little find this morning: an ad for the Mega-CD port of Wing Commander I from a Sega flyer. I'd love to find the advertising ASCII did for Wing Commander SFC in Japan!

Art Portfolio One Step Closer to Production Update ID

Mike Winterbauer reports that he's finished putting together the dedication page in his Wing Commander Art Portfolio with all of the project backers who pledged at the appropriate $25+ Book threshold. For a limited time between now and when the material soon goes to print, he's put out a call for anyone who missed the end of the campaign and wanted to upgrade to be included. If so, send Mike a message. There were at one point quite a few folks who hadn't input their addresses for the rest of the project rewards, so if you missed that cutoff, be sure to send a quick message regarding that too!
The exciting news is I have added the book pledge backers names to the second page of Wing Commander Art Portfolio!

If you want to get your name in the book, you can still upgrade your pledge, send me a note and I will work with you, but time is running out.

Thank you all cool backers for making Wing Commander Art Portfolio a reality!

Sincerely,

Mike

Flying Pancake Complements Two-for-One Salthi Update ID

DefianceIndustries has moved over to Kilrathi ships as he fills out his WC1 fleet, and the first two fliers are the Dralthi and Salthi. We've seen a hundred Dralthi variants over the years, and they just never get old. This one is as gorgeous as we've ever seen, so it's just a treat. The Salthi is also a lot of fun, and I especially love the light shining on its side. This greenish hue gives it a soft throwback to the Jalthi from SNES Secret Missions, which was essentially a green Salthi. Very cool!
You fly like the apes that you are...
Or my all time favorite: "Hmm, that ape squealed when it popped!"

Check Out the Original Secret Missions Update ID

Here's a really cool find that LOAF recently came across. From the outside, it might look like a nifty WC1 Special Edition autographed by Chris Roberts, but it's what's inside that's pretty rare! The set was originally purchased directly from Origin in 1990, and the included Secret Missions were special mailed in a WC branded envelope instead of the standard slim black box. Not many of these were produced like this, and even fewer still exist today!

I lucked into one of my grails! It’s a copy of the Special Edition of Wing Commander with the Secret Missions mailer! This version was only available via mail order from Origin in 1990. The mission disk came separately in the mailer in December when it was finished.

They hadn’t originally planned to release Secret Missions at retail at all, it was an extra mailed directly from Origin. But there was so much interest they ended up doing a boxed version... which was a hit that lead to many other addon disks!

Bengal's Tiger Stripes All Lit Up Update ID

The WC1 sprite refresh that Unnamed Character, Goliath and Howard Day are working on was a big hit last month, so here's a closer look at one of the stars. These are the full 1024x1024 frame shots used for the upgraded Bengal. They're higher res than the upgraded assets in engine so you can really get a good look. It's been more than a decade since Howard first debuted this model, and it still holds up amazingly well. This iteration also has some updated light effects that really make it pop. These are just six of the 62 frames that make up a WC1 ship - you can find the rest at the CIC Forums.
Re-renders with some material tweaks for goodness

Get a Glimpse of Classic Origin Customer Service Update ID

Entartika posted this look back at a physically distributed patch for Special Operations. Apparently in regards to an autopilot glitch, the team at Origin modified the SO1 executable and sent it to people to copy over their existing WC2 installation. Origin did have a BBS in the early '90s with a few things like this, but relatively few people had modems to access it, so they had to send out updates in the mail. We've sure come a long way! Thanks to JJ2078 for the tip.
How games used to be patched, in the olden days

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