If there was a new Wing Commander game?

Adm_maverick

Rear Admiral
So general discussion topic. Let's say that they were to make a new Wing Commander Game, what would you want from it? Continue where Secret Ops left off? Jump ahead to a different era? Prior Era? Perhaps have it set during the Kilrathi War from a different perspective, like a different ship? Would you want it to be be a pure flight sim or would you like it to incorporate different elements like character development from RPG systems, or command interface like in Strategy games?
 
my thoughts:

1- have it set during the Kilrathi war but from a different perspective then Blairs. Perhaps a carrier in the Morphus sector so it would occur simultaniously with Wing Commander 3 but not actually over lap with the events of that game.

2- the Point of the view character is the Carriers CAG.
This way the game can incorporate some additional levels of management as you get to select what pilots go on what missions with what class of ships.
You wouldn't get to actively select what missions the carrier goes on but you can influence the decision process by talking with the captain.
Like wise how you interact with the captain can have an effect on other aspects. Annoy him/her and they will be less likely to remember to pass along some extra bit of information that they got through different channels then fleet official ones. Perhaps they heard a Rumor that Dhakarth is in this sector and after you annoyed them they didn't think to mention that rumor to you.

So it's a bit like WC3 taking to the next level . In WC3 you got to pick your wing man and your armaments. My thinking here is that you would have a roster of 24 pilots, and get a list of missions that you get to pick which pilots go on which mission.

Your relationship with the Flight deck crew can have an effect when it comes to how quickly you can get repairs to a ship turned around. The game would utilize a system system. You only have so many of each type of craft, so many of the parts for the fighters and bombers, and so many of each type of missile. Use 'em all up and you can equip any more until you resupply.

Also have character dynamics so different pilots work better or worse with one another. Like say you have RazorBack, Banshee, and Viper. Viper and Razorback don't get along and they make poor wing mates, while Banshee works well with both of them. So you need to balance out the mission needs with your available resources.
 
I always hate when franchises reboot - so often we're told there is no choice, it's a new audience, but I'd take the Dr Who reboot over Star Treks any day of the year.

That said it doesn't have to be a war with the Nephilim, it could be with the Kilrathi again. Personally I'd set it in a period of peace after a large scale Nephilim invasion, have the confederation and kilrathi at eachothers throats over the limited resources left after a long period of war. Where it would go from there I'm not sure, but I see no reason to reboot as it's not exactly as if Wing Commander 1 introduced the war from the beginning.

I'd want VR support, it's such an obvious fit. We know two things work in VR - seated cockpit titles and teleportation. Think about how the navigation of your carrier worked, and you see everything it would be easy to support without making it a VR only game (very few titles work well both with and without VR).

I'd definitely want a heavy emphasis on plot as it's been a long time since I've played a game with compelling characters and story.
 
I always hate when franchises reboot - so often we're told there is no choice, it's a new audience, but I'd take the Dr Who reboot over Star Treks any day of the year.

That said it doesn't have to be a war with the Nephilim, it could be with the Kilrathi again. Personally I'd set it in a period of peace after a large scale Nephilim invasion, have the confederation and kilrathi at eachothers throats over the limited resources left after a long period of war. Where it would go from there I'm not sure, but I see no reason to reboot as it's not exactly as if Wing Commander 1 introduced the war from the beginning.

I'd want VR support, it's such an obvious fit. We know two things work in VR - seated cockpit titles and teleportation. Think about how the navigation of your carrier worked, and you see everything it would be easy to support without making it a VR only game (very few titles work well both with and without VR).

I'd definitely want a heavy emphasis on plot as it's been a long time since I've played a game with compelling characters and story.

Yeah I certainly wouldn't want a 'reboot', but again there are options for other stories beyond a reboot.

The VR I can certainly agree with. I tried the Occulas Rift at a Best Buy and while I was going through the demo the first thing that went through my mind was "They need to make flight sims using this!"

Also what Dr Who reboot are you referring to?
 
You don't even need a reboot for the game to take place during the war though. there's 20 years of war prior to the first game that hasn't barely been explored at all.. dozens of theatres of operation.. the 10 years where blair was a glorified security guard.. honestly If I get to see a new wing commander now it would make me happiest if it was a privateer style game set in the early days of the war. the war could be referenced but never really matter and you'd still get to fly arcade space fighters.
 
Try ten years later...

Myself, I'd like to see something in the early war era. You know, when the fighters were so good <sarcasm /> that three hits and you'd pop...

Maybe the campaign in the Landreich Sector? I could see that being a potentially interesting plot. You know, complete with the moral dilemma of WC4 - stay with the Confederation and abandon everything, or stick with the Landreich and try to keep your underbritches clean...
 
For Dr Who the story just continued on, it wasn't a reboot (sorry bad choice of words), but a continuation after a turning point that was easy for new viewers to latch onto.

I don't want to see tales from the past of the series - it never works, we know how that story ends. There's a reason Enterprise ended up resorting to timeline re-writes (and the new Star Trek movies for that matter) - you can't tell the story again, or even the past of it, and expect people to get as heavily invested as in a scenario where the outcome is unknown.

Oculus Rift is superb, now that it has the touch controllers it is easily superior to the Vive. It does have a great flight sim in Eve Valkyrie that proves space combat belongs in VR (sadly Elite Dangerous doesn't work in VR very well).
 
If we're talking about what I want as opposed to what I think is a viable product for today's market, then I'd love there to be a follow up to prophecy. There's also a story LOAF and I discussed that would take place after WC4 but before WC Prophecy where you play a pilot that end up working with the Kilrathi faction that Confed has decided should be the "legitimate" Cat government when Civil war breaks out, that I think would make a fantastic new story without breaking the things that made us love the originals.

What I would expect of any kind of official new game would be some kind of reboot. If you had to distill what suits would say make something a WC game it would be mankind fighting space cats on a space carrier flying fighters called Rapier's and Dralthi. The game should be about space combat with and feature strong character development.

I would hope if they went that route they just set it on some other carrier with another pilot and told some kind of concurrent story, but who knows...
 
There is any number of stories worth telling in the WC universe. I think I would agree with @Pedro and @AD, though - a continuation is what I'd like to see the most. The story should continue - and maybe not even after Secret Ops, but after Arena, so that the stage is clear for new storylines not constrained by what is known to have already happened. Besides this, however, I would love to see occasional spinoffs that go backwards and explore all those other stories worth telling. Hey, it worked for Rogue One!

But, I'll say something extremely controversial. I don't want to see any new official WC games at this time. I don't want the inevitable reboot. I don't even want to know what somebody else can do with the WC universe. I cannot imagine any company currently doing a good job of continuing what Wing Commander had been. I certainly think that Arena was already hugely problematic from this point of view, in spite of the fact that they actively collaborated with the CIC to ensure that the game would fit well into the canon. And it still didn't! Not in the sense of creating any discontinuities (there were none), but in the sense of going places that the universe's original creators had not intended to go. I can't think of any plot decisions in WC more controversial than the decisions taken to set up Arena's rather abstract setting.

I'm sure this will sound extremely arrogant and self-righteous from someone who has invested so much energy into WC modding, but I honestly believe that the only people who today could create a good continuation of Wing Commander are us - the fans, the modders. And there may perhaps come a time when there are game developers who include so many WC fans, that they can actually take on an official Wing Commander game and do a good job of it. But nobody else will, and I don't want to see them try.
 
Despite not being really a fan of the WCP story line (SOPS did it better) I always wanted an ending to that story. Since with the Star*Soldier manual we got at least some kind of closure, I am not so eager for it as before. A new privateer style game in the time after SOPS or even Arena would be good I think. Obviously, I'd like an early war story or filling the 10 years betwenn SM2 and WC2 as well but I'd fear it'd lead to situations "Why can these old ships do these amazing things that we couldn't do in WC1/WC2"?
And of course, my secret wish: replaying the Kilrathi War from the Kilrathi perspective, à la TIE Fighter.
 
But, I'll say something extremely controversial. I don't want to see any new official WC games at this time. I don't want the inevitable reboot. I don't even want to know what somebody else can do with the WC universe. I cannot imagine any company currently doing a good job of continuing what Wing Commander had been. I certainly think that Arena was already hugely problematic from this point of view, in spite of the fact that they actively collaborated with the CIC to ensure that the game would fit well into the canon. And it still didn't! Not in the sense of creating any discontinuities (there were none), but in the sense of going places that the universe's original creators had not intended to go. I can't think of any plot decisions in WC more controversial than the decisions taken to set up Arena's rather abstract setting.

The thing that was most controversial about Arena wasn't it's setting. Fans (both hardcore and casual people who only were familiar with the basics) rejected Arena for two reasons: the fact that it wasn't a first-person dogfighter and instead a top down shooter, and that it had (apart from the setting) pretty much zero single player and/or story campaign. The lack of ingame tutorial also contributed to a lesser degree, but mainly the 'vocal' internet crowd dismissed it as 'not a real Wing Commander' game before it ever released. The gameplay was fun, but critics were unfairly harsh and the lack of tutorial meant that the elements of the gameplay made it feel clunky and unresponsive to the uninitiated. Conserving boost is a good idea until you don't tell people that draining it prevents you from performing fancy manoevers.
 
I agree with Quarto. Wing Commander is in good hands with the fans. We have so many great mods and fan-games, including but not limited to Unknown Enemy, Standoff, The Darkest Dawn, Flat Universe, Flag Commander etc. We even have a series of audio-dramas (Defiant Few) as well as a WIP fan-series (Wing Commander Vega). And all these projects have managed to capture the spirit of Wing Commander well.
I also think that Wing Commander, just like Star Trek and Star Wars, has lots of potential for many great stories, especially considering the fact that its universe is vast and there are many unexplored timeframes and sectors.

What I'd love to see:
-the beginning of the Kilrathi war (let's say between McAuliffe and Custer's Carnival)
-possible events taking place between the destruction of the Tiger's Claw and the Gwynedd-incursion
-a continuation of the events of "False Colors" leading up to the Border Worlds conflict
-incidents between the Border Worlds conflict and the emergence of the Nephilim
-the Nephilim war between Secret Ops and Arena (partially covered by Defiant Few and Collateral Damage)
-the fate of the Ghorah Khar rebels after Special Operations 1
-further encounters with the Steltek
-finding out who the Mantu are (first mentioned in Fleet Action)

These stories could be from anyone's point of view, maybe a Confed pilot, a Border Worlds or a Landreich one or maybe even a Kilrathi one.
It doesn't have to be a space force pilot. It could be a militia pilot or even a privateer or someone from the many renegade factions including the Retros.
(However, I wouldn't know how a story from the Nephilim's point of view could work, but it would still be interesting)
 
I can't think of any plot decisions in WC more controversial than the decisions taken to set up Arena's rather abstract setting.

Agree 100%, and for the record this was top level meddling. The high level rules passed down that we had to work around were a cluster:

- It had to have the Kilrathi as the enemy.
- It had to follow Wing Commander Prophecy.
- ... but it couldn't continue Wing Commander Prophecy in any way.
- It had to use the 'most popular' ships from the classic games.

(I will say that if I were involved today and I had more influence, I would fight very, very hard to at least have a more appropriate roster of ships.)

Edited to add: on the other hand, I don't think there's a true sense of betraying some ideal of Wing Commander or going against something the series' creators intended. I know we don't want to believe this about our favorite franchises, but Wing Commander was always very much done one story at a time without some long term intent for how the universe would work long term.

If we're talking about what I want as opposed to what I think is a viable product for today's market, then I'd love there to be a follow up to prophecy. There's also a story LOAF and I discussed that would take place after WC4 but before WC Prophecy where you play a pilot that end up working with the Kilrathi faction that Confed has decided should be the "legitimate" Cat government when Civil war breaks out, that I think would make a fantastic new story without breaking the things that made us love the originals.

Yes! We have established that there's a five-way Kilrathi Civil War going on and obviously the Confederation would be very interested in making sure it is won by an ally or puppet instead of another Thrakhath. If the original trilogy was World War II in the Pacific, this would be Vietnam. You would have the Confederation allying with a particular clan and supplying them weapons, support and eventually taking over the war. It would be a shades-of-gray thing where you come to realize you aren't necessarily fighting for the right faction, etc., etc. (This has always been ideal in my mind because it addresses the one thing that gets every Wing Commander project stuck, the marketing requirement that it be about fighting the Kilrathi instead of humans or bugs WITHOUT being a reboot/prequel.)

The other, possibly safer idea I'd do with a big budget Wing Commander game would be to go back to the first days of the war and have you play a familiar character's younger equivalent: Tolwyn, Eisen or Paladin fighting the first battles of the war (likely starting with a space Pearl Harbor that you play through as the first mission.)

What I would expect of any kind of official new game would be some kind of reboot. If you had to distill what suits would say make something a WC game it would be mankind fighting space cats on a space carrier flying fighters called Rapier's and Dralthi. The game should be about space combat with and feature strong character development.

That is exactly my experience: suits want Kilrathi, the Tiger's Claw and Mark Hamill. A straight reboot of Wing Commander I is probably the most likely thing we'd ever see.

(The other pitch I've been involved with is exactly the opposite, where no one gives a flying Jrathek about Wing Commander's background or the details of the IP and instead they want to attach the name to Space GTA or a Facebook game that's unrelated...)


I always hate when franchises reboot - so often we're told there is no choice, it's a new audience, but I'd take the Dr Who reboot over Star Treks any day of the year.

I would say Doctor Who did exactly what I'd want and Star Trek at least tried. My bigger problem with the Trek reboot is how terrible it often is... I will give them a lot of credit for at least 'explaining' the reboot. (Which matters to me as a Trek fan!)

You know who did this well? Richard Garriott, with Ultima Online... where they literally open the game showing the world of Ultima shatter into individual shards for the MMO. Keeping it in the consistency of the world while still earning room to do whatever they want.

I'm far less fond of straight 'rebuilds' like Battlestar Galactica or Maguyver or even the recent Star Wars split where they're using the same toys for a different story without any connective tissue. Many of these new stories are great (BSG and Star Wars at least) but it irks me when they don't pay lip service to the old stuff.

I'd want VR support, it's such an obvious fit. We know two things work in VR - seated cockpit titles and teleportation. Think about how the navigation of your carrier worked, and you see everything it would be easy to support without making it a VR only game (very few titles work well both with and without VR).

I would want VR support as well, but I wouldn't expect it. If we're going into production today, VR will be a thing of the past by the time we ship. :) What is most telling to me is that Wing Commander's RealSpace engine had a truly fantastic VR implementation... in 1995 (in Wings of Glory.) It was just too hard a sell then despite being a wonderful idea and I think we're just seeing that on a larger scale today.

I'm sure this will sound extremely arrogant and self-righteous from someone who has invested so much energy into WC modding, but I honestly believe that the only people who today could create a good continuation of Wing Commander are us - the fans, the modders. And there may perhaps come a time when there are game developers who include so many WC fans, that they can actually take on an official Wing Commander game and do a good job of it. But nobody else will, and I don't want to see them try.

I strongly agree, we should be the ones to continue the franchise.

I will add that I do not especially want a new Wing Commander game. I don't believe anyone would do it justice and I'm not eager to see it tried... but I do think there's ample room to expand the franchise in ways that would be interesting to us. In the short term: obtaining the book license. I'm starting to see this with a number of smaller old franchises where the people who love them revive them in mangeable ways that the rest of the world doesn't notice.

Take a look at what folks are doing with Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium/War World franchise... there's a group that has purchased the rights and they're publishing (in small numbers because it doesn't matter to regular audiences) new books, RPG supplements and world building stuff. We don't need a hundred million dollar game to tell new Wing Commander stories or to expand and organize the universe... we just need EA to be willing to license a playground...

... or since Wing Commander is now a split franchise, it could be the folks who have the movie rights... :)
 
Yes! We have established that there's a five-way Kilrathi Civil War going on and obviously the Confederation would be very interested in making sure it is won by an ally or puppet instead of another Thrakhath. If the original trilogy was World War II in the Pacific, this would be Vietnam. You would have the Confederation allying with a particular clan and supplying them weapons, support and eventually taking over the war. It would be a shades-of-gray thing where you come to realize you aren't necessarily fighting for the right faction, etc., etc. (This has always been ideal in my mind because it addresses the one thing that gets every Wing Commander project stuck, the marketing requirement that it be about fighting the Kilrathi instead of humans or bugs WITHOUT being a reboot/prequel.)
Hmm, you wouldn't by any chance have any of that idea developed and or written out, would you Bandit LOAF?
 
I would want VR support as well, but I wouldn't expect it. If we're going into production today, VR will be a thing of the past by the time we ship. :) What is most telling to me is that Wing Commander's RealSpace engine had a truly fantastic VR implementation... in 1995 (in Wings of Glory.) It was just too hard a sell then despite being a wonderful idea and I think we're just seeing that on a larger scale today.

I'm in two minds about this - two months ago I'd have agreed with this assessment 100%; I was convinced that VR was going to be confined to the arcades. The touch launch titles have since convinced me there may be a long term future with enthusiasts, maybe eventually 25% of console + PC gaming market (but obviously nothing like the revolution some were claiming it would bring about).
Non dedicated VR games however have the issue of balancing visual expectation and performance - I can't see running Star Citizen at 90fps on hardware within my budget.
 
so lets say a hypothetical team of wing commander enthusiasts were to make a hypothetical book or board game. hypothetically how do we go about securing rights and not stepping on toes?
 
because I am hypothetically down. so down with this.

I'd be up for working on an actual game - but as Quarto well knows the ball is in his court. There are enough people here in the games industry, and that number won't grow much - but it would take a designer/ producer to lead such a project, not programmers and artists.
 
I'd be up for working on an actual game - but as Quarto well knows the ball is in his court. There are enough people here in the games industry, and that number won't grow much - but it would take a designer/ producer to lead such a project, not programmers and artists.

Yeah if there is one thing I've learned recently it's then it doesn't matter how good your team is, or how talented the producers of the material are. With a lead to be a face man and the negotiator, you're nothing more then a bunch of people doing stuff.
 
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