Vintage Preview Reveals Early 1991 Origin Plans Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Shot97 has uncovered a fantastic preview of early '90s Origin plans. It dates back to the April 1991 issue of The One in the UK. This puts it very early in the development of Wing Commander 2, and as such, a lot changes between this point and release. You can see right at the head of the article is the Confederation corvette design which actually the Sabre model! It's painted up in green capship colors prior to being deemed a fighter (a similar process occurred with the Crossbow). They also talk about a mid 1991 release for WC2 and 1992 for WC3, which were a ways off from that. Speaking of delays, Strike Commander is also heavily mentioned, but it's called Ground Commander at this point. There's also mention of ports for the Genesis are arcades, whew!

An Appetizing Look at EA's 3DO Lineup Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's another interesting chapter in the tragically funky series of EA advertisements for the 3DO. We've previously reported on the prints that used a dead fish, cubic lard and fancy pastries to sell Super Wing Commander and Wing Commander 3. RetroDetect has recently posted pics of a whole EA Lard booklet that includes promos for both WC games, among other offerings for the console. There's no telling if the system would have been more of a success if the marketing firm here would have gone with slightly less disgusting subject matter, but at least the games were awesome! You can find the other pages here.
#3doThursday is cool & its fun.... But dont ever try to put a #3do up your bum! Instead, lets take a look at this product booklet featuring some Electronic Arts Lard!

Not Quite the Combat Information Centers for Disease Control... Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We're all living together in these uncertain times, and we've got a new poll up today that reflects this new reality. While we are all charged with needing to socially distance as much as possible today, people in the Wing Commander universe are also frequently required to go long stretches far apart from most others. Which one seems like the best way to avoid a pandemic to you? These are all challenging circumstances, and we are more successfully when we stick together (virtually). Hit the discuss link below and let everyone know how you're getting through this. Or visit us on Discord and chat with fellow Wingnuts in real time!

When we started the last poll in January, the coronavirus was still far from most of our minds. We asked about everyone's favorite communications options. "Break and Attack" was far and away the most popular choice with almost half the vote. About a sixth of people enjoy the taunt, and 12% really like asking to land. I was surprised to see that another 10% selected the option to send their wingman home, but I was even more shocked to see that just 1% picked "Help me out!"

Reorchestration Updates WC1 Theme Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Li Huang of Improbable Cadence has a musical treat for us today. He's put together a digital fan reorchestration of the original Wing Commander theme by Dave Govett/Team Fat. It uses the Roland MT-32 MIDI as a source of inspiration. The track's a faithful reproduction that really amps up the tone throughout! Listen below or grab the high quality mp3 here (5 megs).


I recently finished a rendition of the WC1 theme.

Kevin Droney Talks Wing Commander Script Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's an interesting German podcast that covers things like film and video games. The Wing Commander Movie is naturally an intersection of both, so it's no surprise they got around to the Wing Commander movie. The podcast features a discussion - in English - with the screenwriter of the film's first draft: Kevin Droney. The German site is here and you can find an English autotranslation here. Any German speaking fans out there want to take a shot at a summary or translation of the German parts?

The Droney portions of the conversation are actually part of a longer interview that covers his work on both Mortal Kombat and Wing Commander. The Wing Commander segment starts around the 43 minute mark. You can also find it on Apple Podcasts here.

In our interview, Kevin discusses how he created the story for MORTAL KOMBAT, a game that didn't really have a plot, and how he focused on the mythological aspects of the game's background. He talks about how Linden Ashby kept adlibbing lines and confusing his fellow actors, and he also talks about how his love for the Bruce Lee movies influenced the script. Kevin also shares his memories of developing the WING COMMANDER script together with Chris Roberts and exploring his sci-fi universe, and he discusses how the script got rewritten without his involvement and why the finished film doesn't really represent his original script. We also talked a little bit about another film that Kevin wrote, a drama starring Raul Julia and Laura Dern called DOWN CAME A BLACKBIRD, a captivating, serious story about a clinic for survivors of torture that shows Kevin's versatility as a screenwriter.
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Spacedock Highlights Midway Carrier Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Daniel from Spacedock has produced another wonderful profile of a Wing Commander ship. This one covers the Midway from Prophecy. He delves into the design's origins and how Blair was involved with the development. There are comparisons to the Vesuvius class as well as an overview of the ship's role in the Nephilim War (per Star*Soldier!). Spacedock is a wonderful channel with a huge reach, so we're elated to once again see Wing Commander in front of so many people!
Spacedock breaks down the experimental Midway Class Heavy Carrier, as seen in Wing Commander Prophecy.
Thanks to FekLeyrTarg, DefianceIndustries and HotT for the tip! Also check out these previous clips on the Yorktown (TCS Victory), BWS Intrepid and top carrier. Daniel happens to be a big WC fan, and he's previously spoken about how much he enjoys the series like WC that focus on specialized roles for each ship.

Toolbox Upgrades Reveal WC3 Details Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The WC Toolbox has been enhanced once again with more extraction support for Wing Commander 3. UnnamedCharacter has been able to pull out images for things like characters that overlay on top of the background scenes, but he's also found some interesting composite sets. What this means is that certain rooms were made in one pass, and then the game adds much of the interior look over that. Check out the images below to see the bar and crew quarters without all the tables, chairs and lockers! You can read all about the new update and how to use it at the CIC Forums. Grab the latest tools here.
Here's a few shots that show how the color palette changes based on the game's built in gamma correction.
Added more extraction support for WC3; this time something we can actually see. This update includes support for extracting an image representation of a palette; this is actually a little trickier than it might seem. The colors in WC3 are not simply presented as they are encoded in a palette. Instead, gamma correction is applied to brighten or even darken a scene if necessary. In DOS the options are more limited. Either gamma correction is disable which creates a very dark scene, or it is set to a low or high increase in brightness.

In Windows, a default gamma shift is set, but you can easily brighten or darken a scene in graduated steps. This is done by using a seed value to generate a mapping table which is used to shift the individual color components. When extracting a palette, I use the same default setting as in Windows, but you can specify a different value if you wish. You can also disable gamma shifting and produce the same effect as in DOS.

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