New Poll Destroys Them All (February 26, 2006)

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator

Our new poll asks which destroyer in the Confederation fleet was your personal favorite. Is it the ancient Confed Valiant class? Or maybe it's the Paradigm, one of the Confederation's most advanced destroyers. These workhorses held the line against thousands of opposing warships during the various wars, and many proud Confed destroyers were sacrificed over the years to protect valuable carriers and colonies.

Last time we tried to find out which game fans thought were most technically impressive when they were released. Wing Commander 3 took the cake with a strong lead. Each and every Wing Commander game pioneered exciting new technologies and features, so we know it was a difficult choice. Armada came in last, but its incredible multiplayer modes were way ahead of their time.





Which game was most technologically impressive at release?


Wing Commander 1: 16.05%



Wing Commander 2: 5.67%




Wing Commander 3: 44.45%



Wing Commander 4: 11.99%




Prophecy: 11.81%



Armada: 1.49%



Privateer: 8.53%




Total Votes: 1676



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Original update published on February 26, 2006
 
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A lot of effort seems to be made to try and fit all these different kinds of designs into the same continuity with one another, but I think the best explaination is: Origin changed artists. I love the WC 1-2 designs, and much to my surprise apparently a lot of people love the 3-4 style. That's cool, whatever people are into. I just don't think we need to pretend that these ships all cohabitated with each other. It's just different artists' interpretations, limited by our computer specs from the mid 90's, of essentially the same things.
 
Dyret said:
Brad proved you wrong.

No, he didn't. Brad proved that the old claim that the engine couldn't display WC2-looking ships was wrong -- he certainly didn't have anything to say about changing artists.
 
Bearcat said:
A lot of effort seems to be made to try and fit all these different kinds of designs into the same continuity with one another, but I think the best explaination is: Origin changed artists. I love the WC 1-2 designs, and much to my surprise apparently a lot of people love the 3-4 style. That's cool, whatever people are into. I just don't think we need to pretend that these ships all cohabitated with each other. It's just different artists' interpretations, limited by our computer specs from the mid 90's, of essentially the same things.

I was reffering to this part.
 
Bearcat said:
A lot of effort seems to be made to try and fit all these different kinds of designs into the same continuity with one another, but I think the best explaination is: Origin changed artists. I love the WC 1-2 designs, and much to my surprise apparently a lot of people love the 3-4 style. That's cool, whatever people are into. I just don't think we need to pretend that these ships all cohabitated with each other.

Everyone knows that different artists made different ships. That's a completely separate issue from how the ships work together in the Wing Commander universe though. Achilles patrolled with the Tiger's Claw which sailed next to Exeters. Gilgameshes escorted the Concordia which went down in the same game with Coventry type ships. The Intrepid faced Excaliburs, which later escorted Murphies. If you want to pretend every Wing Commander product is its own isolated universe, that's fine, but it's obviously not the reality here. It seems like you spend a lot of effort trying to create divisions where none exist. A lot of people here spend a lot of time having fun exploring the different connections that have been established. That seems like a much more fulfilling pastime than sitting around and mocking those people.
 
So... the United States Air National Guard used F-4 Phantoms while the United States Air Force used F-15s and F-16s, and A-10 Thunderbolt II's were also part of the inventory, but looked nothing like the F/A-18's and F-14's used by the Navy at the time that all six plane-types were deployed. Clearly, due to the seperate designs and how they look so dissimilar to one another, these planes are not all used in the same time period by the same political power.

Oh, wait a minute.. they WERE all in use in the same time period.
 
All sarcasm aside, the guys here have a point. While it's true that different artists will inherently have varying styles, and the styles varied quite broadly between 2 and 3, it doesn't negate the fact that such designs could have existed at the same time. Modern naval craft have a very long lifespan, and I'd suspect the lack of corrosive environment would enable ships like the Tiger's Claw and it's ilk to survive much longer, so long as they weren't flat-out destroyed. Besides, though I do like the WC1-2 designs, most of them made no sense whatsoever, when it comes to design... the box design does make more sense, as there's no drag in space to worry about, and it maximizes storage capacity.
 
Manic said:
Besides, though I do like the WC1-2 designs, most of them made no sense whatsoever, when it comes to design... the box design does make more sense, as there's no drag in space to worry about, and it maximizes storage capacity.
That is a slightly risky statement to make - we don't really know what design concerns drive ship design in the WC universe. They probably don't need to worry about aerodynamics, but some shapes may nonetheless work better than others for reasons unknown to us. For example, we can presume that, over the course of a three-decade war with a species that values the psychological impact of intimidating-looking ships, Confed might start making ships that would, you know, put the fear of God into the Kilrathi :).
 
Bandit LOAF said:
He's saying that Origin changed artists between Wing Commander 2 and Wing Commander 3.

Thanks for the explanaination, LOAF. I did get the part about changing artists, but I'm not able to interpret this "It's just different artists' interpretations, limited by our computer specs from the mid 90's, of essentially the same things" without the limited by our computer specs" thing coming over as the old engine limitation argument. I'm sorry, I guess I'm just having a bad language day.:(
 
The changes between 2 and 3 are great. They also had something to do with the sprit-based technology easly handling round forms, while realspace and software-rendered 3D put a limite on the shapes of the ships. The way they dealt with this is fantastic, and a testimony to how great Origin was with game design. The Kilrathi ships became sharp, angular and agressive, and the manual explained that in cultural terms.
 
The changes between 2 and 3 are great. They also had something to do with the sprit-based technology easly handling round forms, while realspace and software-rendered 3D put a limite on the shapes of the ships.

Here's the urban legend you're chomping at the bit to point out that BradMick disproved, Dyret.
 
Manic said:
All sarcasm aside, the guys here have a point. While it's true that different artists will inherently have varying styles, and the styles varied quite broadly between 2 and 3, it doesn't negate the fact that such designs could have existed at the same time. Modern naval craft have a very long lifespan, and I'd suspect the lack of corrosive environment would enable ships like the Tiger's Claw and it's ilk to survive much longer, so long as they weren't flat-out destroyed.

Space can actually be pretty harsh. In this context, ship shields are probably (and would have to be) protecting the hulls from high-speed impacts with space dust, rocks and junk that damage current space craft.
 
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