More Secret Ops Updates Coming Update ID

DefianceIndustries has announced the release date for the next big update to the Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack. The new version will make its debut at the CIC 20th Birthday Party on Saturday, August 18! This should include the grand revamp of the TCS Midway, which we're all anxious to see. Looking out further into the future, there's been good progress on cockpit graphics. A sneak peek at the Piranha and Panther are included below. There's lots of great things coming!
Greetings MUP fans! So we have a date for the next release for the MUP. August 18. If that date sounds familiar it's because it coincides with the birthday party. So we'll be giving everyone a birthday present. In the meantime I'm finishing the Midway but I wanted to post some updates on a "nice to have" we've been tinkering with. A while back we looked at the possibility of adding real cockpits to WCP and SO, now that the open GL supports glow mapping, we can finally start implementing them. It'll be a selectable option at install so if you want to keep the original cockpits which don't eat up as much real estate on the screen, you'll be able to.

Below you'll find the clays for the Piranha and a redone version of the Panther cockpits. Not sure if they'll be done in time for the birthday but I'll try. Stay tuned all.

Universe Map Origins Revealed in "Wing 5" Progression Map Update ID

Here's a peek at an interesting prototype of the Wing Commander Universe Map included with Wing Commander Prophecy. We first caught a glimpse of this during our 2012 trip to the University of Texas archive. While the final map detailed many sectors where most of the main events happened in the series, this appears to be a little snippet that just traces through the events of WCP. Due to the number of differences, it appears to predate even the preview map that was released online during development, which is pretty cool! Extra bonus: Pix, ace and LOAF posing Texas-style with George Oldziey's CD!

One Month To Party Time! Update ID

Today we'd like to officially announce our annual Birthday Party for the CIC's 20th Anniversary! This year we'll be observing the event on Saturday, August 18, 2018 at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT). We'll be celebrating two decades of Wing Commander community at wcnews.com, and we hope you join us! As usual, the day will be chock full of site updates, news stories, trivia and fun times! There'll also be one significant change this year. For the first time, we'll be transitioning the online party from IRC to Discord. A large group of Wingnuts has been testing out the program for over a year, and we'd like to invite you to join us there. Although the shift away from our trusty IRC server is bittersweet, there are some very cool advantages with Discord. The program makes it very easy to join on both PCs and via mobile devices, there's enhanced support for attachments and even voice/video features, although the baseline is still standard text chat. It's also easy to read up in the buffer, so people don't have stay logged in 24/7 to actively participate. Feel free to check it out early and get acquainted. And we'll see you there in just over a month!



Wing Commander Jazz Album Marches On Update ID

Following up on his recent release of the jazz and bar music digital recordings, veteran video game composer George Oldziey has sent out three more updates to his backers. George has exported the sheet music for several tracks from volume 2 of the orchestral project to video format. You can follow the score as the music notation is played back through the Sibelious sound fonts. The second update shows a preview of the artwork for the physical copy of the jazz album. It was made by community member SabreAce, who you may remember from his work on those awesome squadron patches a few years ago. And finally there was a response to a frequently asked question regarding the recommended listening order. If you backed this project, be sure to keep an eye on your e-mail or the Kickstarter page for the latest updates. Kickstarter e-mail updates always end up in my spam folder for some reason. The Victory bar music track has been released as a teaser, so check it out below if you didn't back the project!

Greetings! I was asked by several backers what my preferred, or recommended order would be for listening to the recent WC bar music files. I never really gave it much thought, until just now.

You all can obviously play them in whatever order you'd like, but MY preferred sequence would be..

  1. WC Victory Bar Music
  2. WC Bar Funk Music
  3. WC Bar Samba
  4. WC Bar Ballad
  5. Kilrathi Cha Cha (which I'm sure you already figured out was an adaptation of the theme from WC 3; Heart of the Tiger).

I've had lots of positive comments about the music, and I REALLY appreciate them!

All the best,

George

Origin Veteran's Postmortems Book Now Available on Paperback Update ID

Former Origin veteran Raph Koster recently published a new book titled Postmortems: Selected Essays Volume One. Available first in digital formats, you can now also get the hefty, 702 page paperback edition. Mr. Koster was lead designer for Ultima Online and went on to develop the ill-fated Privateer Online before moving on to Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest and many others. The postmortems book contains critical analyses and after-action reports on many of the games that he worked on throughout his long career. We've previously highlighted a few snippets on the proposed commerce system in Privateer Online meant to tease the various sections of the book. It promises to provide some fascinating insight behind the scenes of game development. The B&N Nook digital download is priced considerably cheaper than the Kindle version, while Amazon seems to have better pricing on the paperback version.

Few game designers have shared as many lessons learned as Raph Koster. In a quarter-century of writings and talks, he has offered up game design lessons, online community theories, and candid self-evaluation.

This first volume of a three-book set of selected essays collects previously written postmortems and many brand new pieces. They are accompanied by historical material such as posts written for players, chat logs, speeches, design sketches, and more. The result is an inspiring historical look back at the development of virtual worlds.

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