Interview: Joel Manners, Lead Designer on Wing Commander: Privateer

Interesting indeed.
Thanks for that one.

I never knew there was a spiritual predecessor to Privateer.
This Space Rogue sounds very interesting.
And it's even on GoG and Steam. :)
 
Interesting that that Origin game is on sale. Over 4500 games out of their 5000 game catalog are on sale right now, but not Wing Commander for some reason.

And cool interview!
 
There were big discussions about whether to include the Kilrathi, and a big push to ensure the game still felt like a Wing Commander title despite the unique setting.
I know there's a complex history for P2's development, but Privateer still felt like Wing Commander even though compared to WC1 and WC2 it was quite different, and even though there wasn't a huge Kilrathi presence (and there didn't need to be - pretty hard to earn a living in the middle of a war-zone as opposed to a sector just bordering the front-lines.

So, when Chris needed to put a small team together to investigate what would become Privateer, I was either the perfect choice or the one guy he could do without on Strike Commander. I never asked which one.
Ha ha, I'm sure it was for good reasons.

We’d say that Wing Commander was Luke Skywalker and Privateer was Han Solo.
There wouldn't have been any reason to, given his command of 'real' acting salaries, but would have been funny if Harrison Ford was cast as the player character in a live-action Privateer.

There were very complex rules regarding herds of sheep, I recall.
That would sound funny out of context.

There were many late nights when I would return to my office to find Chris at my desk, pondering why the space dust didn’t quite feel the same to him.
Space dust! The space dust isn't the same, it's not Wing Commander!
 
Thank you for the information. It was new for me, too.
Would have loved to asked him how many hidden jump point are in the game. ;)
 
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