Lost and Found: WC4 Ships (December 15, 2020)

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
Strange how the black lance carrier looks like the Soviet Recycler from battlezone 98

fortgot to put the link
 
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Is it possible the initial plan was for you to be able to stay with confed, play from that side and uncover the black lance stuff that way?

I mean the endgame scene would still work from a scripting POV (you've just put all of the pieces together and are rushing to the senate to stop Tolwyn). All you'd really need (besides a butt load of extra filming) would be a new carrier to take over when the Lexington goes down (when Eisen, Maniac and Vagabond defect), possibly a BL carrier that you do a few missions off of (before finally discovering the truth) and maybe a BW installation to use in a similar manner as the Confed one where you have to choose to blow it up or not.
 
Is it possible the initial plan was for you to be able to stay with confed, play from that side and uncover the black lance stuff that way?
I do not think this was ever the plan, no. The entire theme of the story is crystal-clear and turning the perspective upside-down is exactly when one does in a long-running story. We are fighting among ourselves now and its the faction you thought was okay in the past is such a classic premise and well supported by real life history (war leading into civil war) that I highly doubt this was ever "not planned".

I guess these were all designed for missions that got scrapped or did not work for some reason. For example, the station could be from a Playstation-like scenario in which one has to rescue the scientists from it, rather than on a planet surface. And the carrier under construction could have been intended for some shipyard-scenario, maybe even a level around Confed HQ. And then, stuff changed.

Overall, especially the final missions of WC4 feel incredibly rushed and toothless, all missions involving the Vesuvius dont really work gameplay-wise. I guess they were running into hardware limitations and just did the best they could at the time.

Is there a write-up of the WC3 unused assets somewhere, in the same style?
Sorry for pinging my own message, but I really want Bandit LOAF to see it.
 
anyone else get a "kilrathi-esque" vibe off that black lance carrier? I could imagine if it can cloak or something it might have kilrathi technology integrated maybe?
 
anyone else get a "kilrathi-esque" vibe off that black lance carrier? I could imagine if it can cloak or something it might have kilrathi technology integrated maybe?
According to the novel, the Vesuvius had integrated Kilrathi design ideas. For the Black Lace carrier, when I built one for Flag Commander, we envisioned it as a stealth ship and it can cloak, that lacks direct firepower and relies entirely on its air wing for defense and striking power (of course a wing of Dragon is pretty intimidating).
 
I do not think this was ever the plan, no. The entire theme of the story is crystal-clear and turning the perspective upside-down is exactly when one does in a long-running story. We are fighting among ourselves now and its the faction you thought was okay in the past is such a classic premise and well supported by real life history (war leading into civil war) that I highly doubt this was ever "not planned".

Yes! Early treatments for Wing Commander IV have survived and the major difference early on is that there was a plan to divide it into three parts instead, with a longer tutorial/introduction series where you're based on Nephele. But that's long gone by the time they got to the script and all of that would've happened before the artists were doing 3D that was this well implemented.

WC3 has some more interestingly cut stuff with reasoning behind it but my guess for all of these is that they were either slightly buggy (clipping or turret issues) or just clipped when mission layouts changed.

Sorry for pinging my own message, but I really want @Bandit LOAF to see it.

Whoops, apologies for the delay! There's not a WC3 writeup... yet. These usually start as random threads on my Twitter which Chris turns into articles, so I'll get started on one for WC3 ASAP. I'll link it here once it's published! (There's some interesting stuff in there...)
 
Whoops, apologies for the delay! There's not a WC3 writeup... yet. These usually start as random threads on my Twitter which Chris turns into articles, so I'll get started on one for WC3 ASAP. I'll link it here once it's published! (There's some interesting stuff in there...)
That would be very nice, considering you already wrote WC3 is chock full of completed-but-unused assets.
 
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