Newbie Question

R

Razorback

Spaceman
I've been pretty out of the Wing Commander loop for a while, but I've been playing the games for about ten years now.

Is Origin/EA planning on ANYTHING to continue the storyline after Wing V/Secret Ops?

The way they set up the ending in Prophecy and Secret Ops, it seems like it's very likely it will be continued with even more character development?

Thanks.
 
Originally posted by Razorback
Is Origin/EA planning on ANYTHING to continue the storyline after Wing V/Secret Ops?

The way they set up the ending in Prophecy and Secret Ops, it seems like it's very likely it will be continued with even more character development?
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You have it slightly backwards. Obviously the mere existence of Secret Ops, a free game they gave away, was just to hold over WC fans while they worked on the next chapter in the series. Origin and EA had very many things planned to continue the WC series. However through a complicated set of circumstances, over the course of two years all of those were drove into the ground and cancelled. I'd recommend reading up in the CIC news archives to catch up. At this point the next WC game on PC could just as easily be a prequel instead of a sequel.
 
Re: Re: Newbie Question

Originally posted by ChrisReid
You have it slightly backwards. Obviously the mere existence of Secret Ops, a free game they gave away, was just to hold over WC fans while they worked on the next chapter in the series. Origin and EA had very many things planned to continue the WC series. However through a complicated set of circumstances, over the course of two years all of those were drove into the ground and cancelled. I'd recommend reading up in the CIC news archives to catch up. At this point the next WC game on PC could just as easily be a prequel instead of a sequel.
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Ah, how would they do that? Mark Hamill isn't going to look younger. ;)

I was referring to the ending in which the tower seemed to fall through the gateway w/ Blair inside. The SO didn't really address that, but I agree, it seems like they just wanted to make sure people continued to follow the series.

I've never been able to get into these branched off versions of Wing Commander like Super Wing Commander, Armada, and Privateer. I've always just been into following the series. I guess I like a smooth transitional timeline.

I don't suppose you could sum up some of the past archives in which you're referring, and save me some umpteen odd years of reading. ;)

Thanks for your reply nonetheless.
 
Re: Re: Re: Newbie Question

Originally posted by Razorback
Ah, how would they do that? Mark Hamill isn't going to look younger. ;)
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Nobody uses live actors anymore.


I was referring to the ending in which the tower seemed to fall through the gateway w/ Blair inside. The SO didn't really address that, but I agree, it seems like they just wanted to make sure people continued to follow the series.
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Yeah, it did look like they were going to keep him going in one form or another.

I've never been able to get into these branched off versions of Wing Commander like Super Wing Commander, Armada, and Privateer. I've always just been into following the series. I guess I like a smooth transitional timeline.
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Well, a prequel could be as much a part of the "main" story as Prophecy. When Privateer, Armada, etc, were made, they were all following chronologically.

I don't suppose you could sum up some of the past archives in which you're referring, and save me some umpteen odd years of reading. ;)
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Well, when Secret Ops was over they were working on several WC projects. Wing Commander 6 Strike Team was to be the primary sequel. A few screenshots of Privateer 3 were leaked out. There were drawing board preproduction starts on a few smaller spinoffs. Eventually Privateer Online formed. Then EA determined it needed to make revenue from online games a certain percentage of its sales by a certain point in time. So all the resources for Strike Team, P3, etc, were put into POL. Then EA figured they only had so much money for Origin (to sustain UO and develop Ultima Online 2), and Earth & Beyond by Westwood was to be EA's online space sim. So POL was cancelled. Que the end of Origin making WC games. The subsequent year UO2 was cancelled. The year after that E&B did fairly poorly and Westwood was shut down. All this happened over the span of about four years. Despite all odds, we're still here today, and we're still blessed by the random $320 Kilrathi statue or amazing GBA port. Though perhaps it's not quite apparent through the years of disappoint, but I do believe we'll look back at some point and see today as a having been beyond the worst of times.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Newbie Question

Originally posted by ChrisReid
Nobody uses live actors anymore.
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That'd be strange if Wing 6 came out and had Blair in it, but without Hamill.

Man, from what I'm hearing, I dunno if I'll even be all that excited about another one without the actor who played Casey (he did a good job, I thought).

I've always played the games over and over with the excitement of wondering when the next one will come out and what will happen...hope that idea isn't going to be crushed...
 
Hey Chris one other question for you since you seem to have extensive knowledge of Origin/EA's R&D and financial endeavors: Did Wing Commander as a whole not make the money they wanted? It sounds like it must not have since they feel they need to take other routes to game making...
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Newbie Question

Originally posted by Razorback
That'd be strange if Wing 6 came out and had Blair in it, but without Hamill.
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Well, Hamill does as much voice work as live acting these days.

Man, from what I'm hearing, I dunno if I'll even be all that excited about another one without the actor who played Casey (he did a good job, I thought).
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Secret Ops used a different voice actor for Casey. :) Assuming a theoretical sequel wouldn't use live actors, it's probably not that huge of a deal.

I've always played the games over and over with the excitement of wondering when the next one will come out and what will happen...hope that idea isn't going to be crushed...
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Well, then you come back here. There's plenty of optimistic people with plenty to talk about. There's people doing their own thing to expand the WC community and I do believe there's great stuff ahead of us.

Hey Chris one other question for you since you seem to have extensive knowledge of Origin/EA's R&D and financial endeavors: Did Wing Commander as a whole not make the money they wanted? It sounds like it must not have since they feel they need to take other routes to game making...
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Wing Commander made tons of money! It takes no extensive knowledge of Origin to tell that. Prophecy was a lot cheaper than WC3/4 to make, and continued iterations without the live actors would have been even cheaper. WC was so profitable that they felt it appropriate to make an entire freakin game and release it for free on the internet to tide over the fans. As I said below, it was a complex waste of several years and millions of dollars that cut off PC Wing Commander games. If there's any money factoring into the equation it's that most space sims released since Prophecy have sold 5-10% as many copies as WCP (something like 750,000 copies versus 30,000 copies). Hopefully Freelancer reverses that trend and shows a few people that properly done space sims will be quite successful.. but Prophecy's profitability was never in question.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Newbie Question

Originally posted by ChrisReid

Wing Commander made tons of money! As I said below, it was a complex waste of several years and millions of dollars that cut off PC Wing Commander games. If there's any money factoring into the equation it's that most space sims released since Prophecy have sold 5-10% as many copies as WCP
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I hate it to play Doomsday, but I don't agree with Chris here. WCP made a lot of money, but not that much. If you compare it to the EA Sports line or stuff like Battlefield WCP did relatively poor. But cost more to do.
So while returning a good profit the percentage of profit versus investment is still poor compared to the myards of egoshooters out there.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Newbie Question

Originally posted by cff
I hate it to play Doomsday, but I don't agree with Chris here. WCP made a lot of money, but not that much. If you compare it to the EA Sports line or stuff like Battlefield WCP did relatively poor. But cost more to do.
So while returning a good profit the percentage of profit versus investment is still poor compared to the myards of egoshooters out there.
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Chris didn't say compared to sport sims or FPS, he said every Space Sim since WCP.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Newbie Question

Originally posted by T8H3X11
Chris didn't say compared to sport sims or FPS, he said every Space Sim since WCP.
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You're correct - that is what Chris said - but you're also irrelevant :). Those other space sims would have given EA some indication of how badly a new WC game might do, that's true. However, for EA it's not a question of whether a space sim will make money or not. The real question for them is, if they invest $1 million in a WC game, will it give them better returns than $1 million into an EA Sports game?
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Newbie Question

Originally posted by ChrisReid
Secret Ops used a different voice actor for Casey. :) Assuming a theoretical sequel wouldn't use live actors, it's probably not that huge of a deal.
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Yeah, you're right, it did use a different voice. I guess what I'm trying to say, and doing such a poor job of it, is that I like the live actor cut scenes. They always made it feel more 'real' to me, and gave me a better sense of the characters' personalites, and such...ya know?

From Wing 3 through Prophecy, it felt like you 'knew' the characters, and actually had a feeling when you came back from a mission. You knew what your character would look forward to and what he would want to avoid, as if you WERE him. I'd miss that if they stopped doing that.
 
I really did like the live acion cutscenes with real actors (which is one thing WC is known for) but what would really be going with the flow of gaming now would be computer animated pilots and cutscenes with actor voice-overs (can you imagine a CG Bluehair with Hamil's voice? :) ).
A quesiton though, is EA really losing that much in the sports games? I mean they have a strangle hold on console Football, baseball, and hockey games. Since consoles have gone online, I can see the PC market for these games deminishing but console seems to be the place to be these days if you're a sports game.

C-ya
 
Originally posted by Bob McDob
Hasn't the EA Sports line been doing relatively poorely recently, though?
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No, EA Sports has been doing amazingly well. They could support the rest of the company solely off revenue from their sports titles.
 
Oh, well they have nothing to worry about then and should spend all their current budget on WC games :D
 
Originally posted by Razorback
I've never been able to get into these branched off versions of Wing Commander like Super Wing Commander, Armada, and Privateer. I've always just been into following the series. I guess I like a smooth transitional timeline.
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If you can, I think you should at least try the original Privateer. It's probably the most popular of all the non-'main' WC games. You might be surprised how enjoyable it is.

Originally posted by Viper61
...can you imagine a CG Bluehair with Hamill's voice?
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Blair in WCATV wasn't so bad, was he? ;)
 
Originally posted by Wedge009
If you can, I think you should at least try the original Privateer. It's probably the most popular of all the non-'main' WC games. You might be surprised how enjoyable it is.

Blair in WCATV wasn't so bad, was he? ;)
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Yeah.. CGI or animated leaves lot of possibilities for creative sets and aliens without sucking away as much production money.
 
so chris, where u actually involved in WC??

yeah - i could see the sports titles.... take the FIFA series for example, right there u got a fan base of millions the world over eagerly anticipating the next release... some years they put out 3-4 soccer titles, and they all do well, even if its just a half-ass hash job...

they wouldnt even have many expenses, just gotta pay a few pros for motion capture and image / naming rights - everything else is animated...

cheers

joe
 
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