Next Wing Commander Game
- Thread starter Private_Maestro
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cff
Kilk'dymga'qith laq Ik'vikvi
I'd be careful with one thing: hoping for some cheap WC. As already been said the WC title has some scratches on it right now already. IMHO if the next WC game released on PC or Console (not GBA) is a flop or even only moderately successful this IS the death of WC. As I see it the weak position WC is in wouldn't survive another bad press, really.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Delance said:
The business model for the worlds most succesful video game company doesn't change to be completely opposite to itself. Ever.
Maj.Striker
Swabbie
Banned
cff said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want a cheap Wing Commander game merely that I'm surprised EA hasn't tested the waters with a cheap one. I mean in honesty, EA could probably produce a very cheap WC game for $100,000-$200,000 and it would rake in twice that on the name alone...more if the gameplay was actually good.
dextorboot
Spaceman
Hhmm, since it seems that we won't see WC1 on GBA anytime soon (grrr) and people aren't too crazy about a "cheap" WC game, wouldn't it still be possible for EA to re-release Prophecy Gold as a jewel case game complete with any fixes needed to run it on a newer PC (or at least a workaround on a support page)? If done this way, EA could at least have some people make some more downloadable missions and offer them up as another free expansion pack. With the old Lucas Arts stuff that gets rehashed in the jewel case bin I imagine EA could at least pull that off.
Speaking of Lucas Arts, I think the X-Wing series would probably have the highest expectations as a new space-sim game. If that Jump to Lightspeed add-on goes well, I imagine we'll see that somewhere down the road as well.
Speaking of Lucas Arts, I think the X-Wing series would probably have the highest expectations as a new space-sim game. If that Jump to Lightspeed add-on goes well, I imagine we'll see that somewhere down the road as well.
Edfilho
Cry some more!
People say that sentence since Wolf 3d and Doom. And the "craze" is still going strong...
agreed, they are making unbeliavable sums of money, why would they want to change??? EA is surely bussiness driven, the high ups are all executives in their hearts, who couldn't care less about games...
Aron Figaro
Spaceman
New WC Game
Well...this is an old dream. Honestly if EA does another WC game now, it's going to suck. The old developers are gone and a lot of the new guys in the industry are total no-talents. I've seen their work - it's not pretty! Even the "amazing" games these days don't match up to the good games of yore - they become all about the physics engines, the beautiful graphics - but they're designed to be addictive and repetitive, not for the storylines we always loved.
If Shadow Weaver EVER gets a chance at picking up the Wing Commander licence, we're going to do a game so fast you won't be able to BLINK first. Sure we have to make the big time before that happens (currently we're in the pen and paper RPG market, doing alpha testing, if anyone wants to talk about it mail me at overcommander.figaro@gmail.com). I promise you, if we do Wing Commander, it will be good. I can also promise you it won't have Mark Hamil, Tom Wilson, or John Rhys-Davies, because we can't afford anything that isn't CGI-rendered, but it will be good. It'll have a story - and that's what Wing Commander is about.
Oh, and on that note I do plan on acquring two other cool sci-fi licences that SHOULD be easily sold to us - Dragon Flyz and Bucky O'Hare. Both will make some very amazing flight sims if done right...
...and don't worry. If we do get a chance to develop a WC game, this place is SO our testbed.
Well...this is an old dream. Honestly if EA does another WC game now, it's going to suck. The old developers are gone and a lot of the new guys in the industry are total no-talents. I've seen their work - it's not pretty! Even the "amazing" games these days don't match up to the good games of yore - they become all about the physics engines, the beautiful graphics - but they're designed to be addictive and repetitive, not for the storylines we always loved.
If Shadow Weaver EVER gets a chance at picking up the Wing Commander licence, we're going to do a game so fast you won't be able to BLINK first. Sure we have to make the big time before that happens (currently we're in the pen and paper RPG market, doing alpha testing, if anyone wants to talk about it mail me at overcommander.figaro@gmail.com). I promise you, if we do Wing Commander, it will be good. I can also promise you it won't have Mark Hamil, Tom Wilson, or John Rhys-Davies, because we can't afford anything that isn't CGI-rendered, but it will be good. It'll have a story - and that's what Wing Commander is about.
Oh, and on that note I do plan on acquring two other cool sci-fi licences that SHOULD be easily sold to us - Dragon Flyz and Bucky O'Hare. Both will make some very amazing flight sims if done right...
...and don't worry. If we do get a chance to develop a WC game, this place is SO our testbed.
One of the things I've always loved about WC is the right mix of story and action it brings to the table.
I remember playing Half-Life for the first time and thinking, what a great game, and a good story for a FPS. Looking back on it though, I spent a long long time just making my way through levels, shooting endless bad guys and seeing something humorous or of storyline signifigance every once in a while. Looking back on the story itself, it's not that complex, doesn't have any appreciable character developement, and the only thing that made it 'deep' was the fact that most of the time the player was oblivious of what went on 'behind the scenes'. Hopefully HL2 expands upon this, and i'm sure it will. I had a great blast on HL and still consider it the best FPS I've ever played.
I have similar feelings about Halo.
Wing Commander though...The characters were 'real'. They had motivations, attitudes, quirks, and even families. The characters were developed and 'believable'. The story, though not a new concept by any means was well-developed and had a certain unique feel to an often done scenario. Even the enemies were cool. Thrakhath was a formidable enemy indeed and the player (or at least me) was chomping at the bit to finally settle the score after all we'd been through.
Wing Commander wasn't always "One man to save the Universe" (of course there was a bit of this but it was needed I think). You had wingmen, you had crewmates, you had a carrier that for the moment you called your home. You suited up, hopped into the cockpit, and flew out to save a destroyer, some other pilot's temporary home.
There was politics, and the player often had their own opinion about what the politicians should be doing with our hard-earned cred.
The enemy had their own politics and motivations as well. Wing Commander had it's own universe. Background, motivation, a theme. Confed had their backs against the wall and all a man could do was promise himself that he would fight the good fight.
After the war, new problems arrose out of the ashes of Kilrah. Peacetime budget concerns, recession, the need for a strong military on the scales against the need for a balanced budget...
Wing Commander had the depth and feeling that so many games lack these days.
Maybe it's because of a change in the industry? Game manufacturers are no longer a small group of collegues and coworkers who want to bring a vision to life and share it with the world. No longer storytellers, who instead of writing pages, write code.
Instead you have the corporate world of gaming. It's not about making a great game to make a great game. It's about making a great game for the aim of making money. Of course this is and always has been a motivation, but it is more mechanical than ever. If first person shooters are what's selling, first person shooters are what you get.
I remember playing Half-Life for the first time and thinking, what a great game, and a good story for a FPS. Looking back on it though, I spent a long long time just making my way through levels, shooting endless bad guys and seeing something humorous or of storyline signifigance every once in a while. Looking back on the story itself, it's not that complex, doesn't have any appreciable character developement, and the only thing that made it 'deep' was the fact that most of the time the player was oblivious of what went on 'behind the scenes'. Hopefully HL2 expands upon this, and i'm sure it will. I had a great blast on HL and still consider it the best FPS I've ever played.
I have similar feelings about Halo.
Wing Commander though...The characters were 'real'. They had motivations, attitudes, quirks, and even families. The characters were developed and 'believable'. The story, though not a new concept by any means was well-developed and had a certain unique feel to an often done scenario. Even the enemies were cool. Thrakhath was a formidable enemy indeed and the player (or at least me) was chomping at the bit to finally settle the score after all we'd been through.
Wing Commander wasn't always "One man to save the Universe" (of course there was a bit of this but it was needed I think). You had wingmen, you had crewmates, you had a carrier that for the moment you called your home. You suited up, hopped into the cockpit, and flew out to save a destroyer, some other pilot's temporary home.
There was politics, and the player often had their own opinion about what the politicians should be doing with our hard-earned cred.
The enemy had their own politics and motivations as well. Wing Commander had it's own universe. Background, motivation, a theme. Confed had their backs against the wall and all a man could do was promise himself that he would fight the good fight.
After the war, new problems arrose out of the ashes of Kilrah. Peacetime budget concerns, recession, the need for a strong military on the scales against the need for a balanced budget...
Wing Commander had the depth and feeling that so many games lack these days.
Maybe it's because of a change in the industry? Game manufacturers are no longer a small group of collegues and coworkers who want to bring a vision to life and share it with the world. No longer storytellers, who instead of writing pages, write code.
Instead you have the corporate world of gaming. It's not about making a great game to make a great game. It's about making a great game for the aim of making money. Of course this is and always has been a motivation, but it is more mechanical than ever. If first person shooters are what's selling, first person shooters are what you get.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I think we're looking at this through rose-colored glasses (aside from the 'wants to buy the license' fellow, he's looking at this through twelve foot wide supercondensed bricks of roses, with a good amount of crazy mixed in).
If anything, Wing Commander was the beginning of exactly what you're complaining about seeing in modern games.
In 1989 the economics of game development meant that you could sell your adventure game or your RPG to small, hobbyist markets. Which is to say that if the people who play Dungeons and Dragons buy your Ultima game or the people who enjoy fooling around with the insides of their Apple ]['s bought your Space Quest then it was probably worth the cost of developing it.
Wing Commander was really the game that changed that, that helped build the sort of sales model we see today. It was a big budget, broad-audience game that ended up being sold to everyone. Instead of selling thousands of units to individual markets, you could now sell hundreds of thousands on the mass market! As the niche games tried to compete with the likes of Wing Commander, they found that they had to simplify themselves more and more into the games that sell today.
Wing Commander isn't praised for having a unique story -- you can name dozens of old adventure games that have better, more in-depth and moreq unique storylines. Wing Commander was specialy because it told its story in a new way... specifically, that its "cinematics" could now tell a story that could be enjoyed by a larger market.
If anything, Wing Commander was the beginning of exactly what you're complaining about seeing in modern games.
In 1989 the economics of game development meant that you could sell your adventure game or your RPG to small, hobbyist markets. Which is to say that if the people who play Dungeons and Dragons buy your Ultima game or the people who enjoy fooling around with the insides of their Apple ]['s bought your Space Quest then it was probably worth the cost of developing it.
Wing Commander was really the game that changed that, that helped build the sort of sales model we see today. It was a big budget, broad-audience game that ended up being sold to everyone. Instead of selling thousands of units to individual markets, you could now sell hundreds of thousands on the mass market! As the niche games tried to compete with the likes of Wing Commander, they found that they had to simplify themselves more and more into the games that sell today.
Wing Commander isn't praised for having a unique story -- you can name dozens of old adventure games that have better, more in-depth and moreq unique storylines. Wing Commander was specialy because it told its story in a new way... specifically, that its "cinematics" could now tell a story that could be enjoyed by a larger market.
LeHah
212 Squadron - "The Old Man's Eyes And Ears"
Its a universal idiom that Wing Commander's greatest strength and weakness in story was that it was the ultimate generic Hollywood war movie. "One man stands against an army... with his spunky female companion, his best friend who's kinda crazy and the older guy who speaks in a {Insert Nationality Here} accent!"
It predates all this crazy Matrix or Star Wars tie-in bullshit. Instead of playing Mrs Will Smith, you play as a generic pilot in a generic war movie! You could just as easily sit down and pretend that you were playing, I don't know, Mosquito Squadron: The Game or The Battle of Britain.
It predates all this crazy Matrix or Star Wars tie-in bullshit. Instead of playing Mrs Will Smith, you play as a generic pilot in a generic war movie! You could just as easily sit down and pretend that you were playing, I don't know, Mosquito Squadron: The Game or The Battle of Britain.
Delance
Victory, you say?
But are there that many good generic Hollywood war movies... in space? Even WCM wouldn't fit that category fully, either because of 'good' or 'generic'. Despite the gameplay, Blair constantly tries to make the point that he's not a man against an amry, and that he needs his wingman.
SoulSkorpion
Spaceman
The attraction of Wing Commander's story is not that it's original but that the came actually HAS one. It integrates the story into the gameplay - you feel like you're actually out there flying for a reason, part of the tale. Who cares if you've heard the tale before? You're actually PART of it for a change.
It's a similar story to Deus Ex (heh. THIS comment's sure going to draw fire...) Deus Ex's story openly cannibalized a zillion sources, yet it was widely praised for the strength of storyline. Once again, that's because you can't go five minutes without encountering the story. It's deeply woven into the gameplay. Half-Life barely HAS a story, yet one of the reasons it was so revolutionary is how successfuly it thrust the player into the game world.
Shakespere didn't come up with a single original storyline, yet the world seems to have forgiven him for that. It's not in the plot - it's in the telling.
It's a similar story to Deus Ex (heh. THIS comment's sure going to draw fire...) Deus Ex's story openly cannibalized a zillion sources, yet it was widely praised for the strength of storyline. Once again, that's because you can't go five minutes without encountering the story. It's deeply woven into the gameplay. Half-Life barely HAS a story, yet one of the reasons it was so revolutionary is how successfuly it thrust the player into the game world.
Shakespere didn't come up with a single original storyline, yet the world seems to have forgiven him for that. It's not in the plot - it's in the telling.
NuclearPenguins
Spaceman
I can remember counting down the days to the next WC release... usually drooling in anticipation. I really miss that feeling. 
criticalmass
Vice Admiral
I guess we can safely repeat that there is, and will be, nothing new under the sun; and any sun for that matter. The thing that really changes is the audience's interest, and that only meanders between known parameters, too.
So, will the FPS craze ever diminish? I guess it depends on what is offered next.
The beginning of the gaming era offered the player to "be" a little white paddle that bounces back a ball. Over time, the player was offered more powerful alternate realities: Be the guy that stumbles through dungeons, or be the guy who invests resources to become wealthy. Then, with the introduction of graphics, the stories tended to become less complex, the experience moved to the front: Be the guy in a racecar, in a tank, in a plane, in a high-powered space fighter. Ultimately, now, with FPS it's "be yourself, but with a big gun".
How can you steal away that appeal, with every player searching for freedom and self-actualization in a game?
It seems to me that the idea of "playing" per se needs to be re-engineered, before any larger group of people starts to grow interested in the WC-type stories again.
Whereas, for me, a small, niche-developed low cost WC game would be preferable, if the emphasis on quality is greater than on gaining market shares.
So, will the FPS craze ever diminish? I guess it depends on what is offered next.
The beginning of the gaming era offered the player to "be" a little white paddle that bounces back a ball. Over time, the player was offered more powerful alternate realities: Be the guy that stumbles through dungeons, or be the guy who invests resources to become wealthy. Then, with the introduction of graphics, the stories tended to become less complex, the experience moved to the front: Be the guy in a racecar, in a tank, in a plane, in a high-powered space fighter. Ultimately, now, with FPS it's "be yourself, but with a big gun".
How can you steal away that appeal, with every player searching for freedom and self-actualization in a game?
It seems to me that the idea of "playing" per se needs to be re-engineered, before any larger group of people starts to grow interested in the WC-type stories again.
Whereas, for me, a small, niche-developed low cost WC game would be preferable, if the emphasis on quality is greater than on gaining market shares.
Mace
Vice Admiral
the next wing commander game should be a big budget all-out space combat sim with the movie quality surpassing all we have seen so far, familiar faces, return appearances(maniac?), and a story featuring the next phase of the nephilim war.
and for once(again) multiplayer capabilities!
else it would be just another space shooter.
and for once(again) multiplayer capabilities!
else it would be just another space shooter.
criticalmass
Vice Admiral
This thread is still hot?
I'd say the next WC game should be an artificial life simulation about the beginning of the Terran/Kilrathi war, with the player decoarting the appartments of peaceful civilians, building up insurance coverage and popularity to gain a highscore in sympathy and financial compensation for the family, once the first raid hits.
And in the sequel, you can send the orphans of your former heros to the Fleet Academy, if you have enough money. If you don't, they all become marines.
I'd say the next WC game should be an artificial life simulation about the beginning of the Terran/Kilrathi war, with the player decoarting the appartments of peaceful civilians, building up insurance coverage and popularity to gain a highscore in sympathy and financial compensation for the family, once the first raid hits.
And in the sequel, you can send the orphans of your former heros to the Fleet Academy, if you have enough money. If you don't, they all become marines.
overmortal
Bearded Person
Sounds like this thread is teetering on the edge of the toilet.