In most likelihood it will remain the product of some furious mental masturbation. It's an activity I engage in a lot. Regardless, even fictitious concepts I come up with, I always try to ensure that the concept could actually work (if it was possible to collaborate with a group of people and do something with all these ideas).
Well, you know, doesn't this speak to your essential problem? Everyone else here *is* collaborating with a groups of people to do things... and you're standing off to the side pretending to wear a dress and do crazy things for no apparent. You've put yourself in this position.
I was thinking the idea would be that you'd have interactive scenes something like WC-Standoff (maybe some better graphics, but Standoff is good enough). Since the characters are computer rendered, the idea would be to configure the game so you could create fairly individualized character. I figured if you could actually walk through the ship kind of like the Star Trek Elite Force game, it would add depth to the WC Universe.
Almost all characters will be rendered from here forward. The major technical hurdles remain the voicework and the scripting process.
The awkward solution (see: Mass Effect) is to record both male and female dialogue and to apply them to whatever the character ends up looking like. That has some obvious drawbacks, many of which would hurt Wing Commander: it takes up twice as much disk space, it doubles the recording cost, it limits additional DLC and it forces writers to create broad dialogue for everyone that isn't reactive to the players' character choices (and of course even the two-recordings method isn't perfect for the main character; Commander Shepard as a 6'5" African American sounds just like Commander Shepard as a scrawny geek).
(I would argue that the folks on the business side of things don't like it, either. EA is having a bitch of a time merchandising the completely user-design Commander Shepard--figuring out ways not to involve him in the novels and comics, how to do action figures without showing his face and so on.)
*Laughs* true enough. Most of the data on the character was simply to begin the timeline out. Basically the character would start flying around 2661. Maybe I should have simply started with that.
There is a great, concurrent thread in the news forum (do not touch it, I am not kidding--read but do not touch) where we just talked about how even this information was far more than anything that ever went into the planning for the games. NONE of the Wing Commander games were even made with a particular year in mind. The people who made the good stuff didn't give a fig about this nerd stuff--it's detail that gets worked out later in one percenter spinoff material. The stories for the masses are written with nothing more than 'it's a few years after the last one' in mind.
Well, as Chris Roberts once said, if it was realistic you'd have a bunch of computer controlled sphere ships duking it out. Clearly that wouldn't be very interesting. Regardless, it would be realistic to at least have the fighters and ships maneuver in a manner that's more consistent with physics as we know it -- obviously it wouldn't be perfect, but it would enhance the quality of the game.
No, it would not enhance the quality of the game in the least--demonstrably so. Why is there a WCNews and not a MantisNews? Because the classic game was the one that was fun to play instead of the one with a slavish, game-breaking dedication to including 'Newtonian physics' (rather: how some nerd decided Newtonian physics must be represented in his otherwise impossible setting).
Here is the short, non-comprehensive list of things you are wrong about on this point:
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That realism is a single, measurable goal. I can see why you are confused because it seems like it's some kind of magic bullet, gramatically derived from science as it seems to be. In short, it isn't. There is no set of standards, there is no set of measures, there is no accepted concept of realism. The critique (and I hesitate to even call it that, it's more of a weasel word) is broadly applied to everything from character motivation to how impossible the physically impossible speed of a spaceship is in such a fashion so as to render it utterly toothless. In short, just saying that something is unrealistic has so little value as to even counterindicate any point you are trying to make.
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That other people think the same things you have decided. I know that the neurons sparking in your tiny forebrain are telling you that *of course* everyone thinks the roll ratio of the Panther is unrealistic because... incomprehensible idiot reasons... but you need to understand that no, they don't. No one has the same problem with this as you do; you have an unnatural fixation about this that just makes everyone first uncomfortable and then lets them enjoy making fun of you. I hesitate to call it a mental problem because that would make light of your numerous other apparent mental problems... so let's go with mental block. Your job is to work through this.
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That there is a correlation between realism and quality. I spoke to this above, but it's another mental block on your part that needs to be rooted out. The goal in game design is to create a game which is fun (or challenging or memorable), which is an entirely separate process than creating something that is (nebulously) 'realistic'. There is a reason why five million people buy HAWX and five thousand by Microsoft Flight Simulator--the former is an entertaining game and the latter is a hobbyist simulation. (And before your peabrain makes the leap, there is no market for a Wing Commander simulator because *nothing is being simulated*... the fact that we can recreate a 737 with a computer is tied directly to the fact that 737s exist in the first place to recreate.)
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That realism is the counterbalance to something being unrealistic. This is a simple fallacy that may be at the heart of everything that's wrong with your thought (
in the audience, Dundradal laughs) process. I see what you're thinking (
quiet!)--if a mixture is too dry then you can add water, if something is too fast then you may slow it down and so... if something is said to be unrealistic then you can add realism? Not at all--it doesn't work here. Ignoring the (still absolutely essential!) diference between 'can' and 'must' in all of these instances, realism simply isn't a quantifiable substance... and it isn't something that can be applied without terrible consequences--because criticism isn't a single issue vector. Here is a good example: if I were criticizing the science behind comic books then I could reasonably say that it is
unrealistic that Superman can fly. Men can't fly. In your very simple mind, the process would be would be: how terrible, I need to apply five quarts of realism to the mixture--now he can't fly. Except you didn't *fix* anything--you simply ruined the finished product.
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That criticism is a sum game. No, no, no! This is one of the most commonly misunderstood things. Criticism is an analysis, not a repair manual. When we look at Wing Commander and we say that this-or-that is 'unrealistic', that's the endgame--it doesn't mean that there is an obvious path to 'fixing' these things or even that there is a problem in the first place. When we say look at this-or-that unrealistic thing we're thinking about how the games were made and figuring out why decisions were made in a particular way and analyzing how it impacted the end project... not insisting that that point be responded to with a realism injection.
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That realism is even a goal at all. I don't think you are capable of swallowing this pill, but I'll shove it out there for the sheer shock value: no one's goal was ever to be realistic in the first place. Wing Commander is an arcade game that is decorated with beautiful things, not a flight simulator. The design process was to create a fun game, not a perfectly realistic future history. No one, ever, worried about any of this.
Here's a fun trick--the next time you want to say something doofy about 'realism', force yourself to say the *entire* thing. So, instead of "the yaw of the Panther in Wing Commander Prophecy is unrealistic" you need to go whole hog and mention the part that has been implicitly silent every time you've posted: "in this impossible future history of World War II in space but with giant talking cats that relies on any number of physically impossible things like faster-than-light communication and slower-than-light lasers, I think (the think is actually important here) that the roll rate of the Panther is unrealistic." Pretty stupid, right? That's how we're all seeing you.
I thought we both agreed to calm down. I've calmed down a bit, believe it or not, you look really annoyed.
Ah, no. Understand two things:
- I am not posting for your benefit. I am posting because it entertains me and because it entertains my friends. I am not annoyed by your existence (confused, I suppose) so much as entertained by the carte blanche it gives me to argue through things and to put on a show.
- What I said to you on IRC was that you were welcome to join the rest of us in reality. This means that I have no problem should you decide to drop your crazy gimmicks (hey everybody, I'm a gurrrrl, notice me!) and become an ordinary member of the community. That clearly hasn't happened--but there's infinite hope, so if you decide to switch off your broken parts and go back to being Bob Johnson who likes the same video games as us then I'm cool with that. I'll even tell Dundradal to stop harassing you.
True, but in Wing Commander, all the ships have to be able to perform a similar set of maneuvers, which inevitably include yaw/pitch/roll. Some of them are better at it than others, but they all possess those capabilities.
I'm not sure what you aren't understanding. If a Panther has a roll rate of 100 dps it's because (in the fictional Wing Commander universe) a fighter was built to that specification. If for some reason it *can't* have a roll rate of 110 dps then there's some story there, too--the spaceframe couldn't handle that and still have the nose turret or something. There's no super realism man who scoffs at inane crap like this.
Correct, however being that WC-vessels have to be able to perform a certain range of maneuvers, but rolling, pitching, and yawing are included in all of them. Some are better than others, but they can all do it.
Regardless, roll-rates naturally on aircraft are higher than their pitch and yawing rates. The reason isn't entirely for the role they were designed for, but physics itself. G-load limits and structural loads restrict pitch and yawing rates when you're moving, roll-rates on the other hand impose a far lower limit on the aircraft. In WC, g-loads are of course pulled, they have devices to counteract the effects of those g-loads on the pilot/crew or you'd need a sponge to pick what's left of them up.
I also think you don't understand Wing Commander Prophecy on some base level; the Panther and the Vampire were both specially designed to focus on one aspect of maneuverability over the others. That's what the big moving thrusters on them are for. This was part of the game design because it was goin to be a big part of the multiplayer, letting gamers choose between the ship that yaws better or the one that pitches better (that's why there's two of every fighter type).
(Ugh, I should not have explained that, since you don't understand how behind the screens stuff actors in to the continuity. And yet, you're really not my audience...)
I thought the WC-Bible and WC-Manual mentioned it too? Regardless, there are practical uses of shutting them off, you can accelerate to extremely high speeds that you'd never be able to do otherwise (and would explain how they could traverse significant parts of a star-system in a few days), and you wouldn't need an "autoslide" feature to do a shelton slide and such. I don't think it should be the most important part of the story, I just think it should be included in the story to enhance it.
You thought wrong (...there's a surprise). The whole 'ramscoop' history comes from and is largely isolated to Dr. Forstchen's Wing Commander novels. You will never see it mentioned in a game or a TV episode or a film or a manual. In all likelyhood, 99% of the people behind the games do not even know that it exists. As with everything, you are taking something that is tiny and known only to a small percent of Wing Commander geeks and pretending that it is somehow an essential piece of the lore. Stop doing this.
I understand the reason for the size changes, we went over it in the chat-room, regardless: I don't have a manner for scaling ships from the WC-2/WC-P scale to the WC-1/WC-3/WC-4 scale reliably, secondly there are some cases in which older ships are not rescaled (In WCP, the Excalibur, and Thunderbolt are still at their WC3/WC4 scales), thirdly there are more WC-games that use the WC-1/3/4 scales than vice versa, so it seems easier to convert the WC-2 scales to match the WC-1/3/4 scales.
No, you don't understand because you're still thinking there are different scales. There aren't. There is the length printed in the manual and that's it. There's no way to "convert" a ship from Wing Commander I to Wing Commander III or any similarly pointless nonsense. I'm sorry I helped you understand where the numbers came from in the first place because you just aren't able to handle such an insignificant peak under the skirt. Let me state for what I hope is all time: there are no scales, there is no contradiction between the games... there is simply the number printed in the manual. There is neither need for, call for nor ability to change these numbers.
I have created the means to fit everything into place.
The idea either revolved around averaging the size of the F-97 Wraith from Armada (35 meters) and the Wraith from Academy (19 meters), summarized as: [(WC-2 Length)*2.1875] / 2. Or simply multiplying the WC-2 length as follows: (WC2-Length) * (24/19).
Using the first scaling method, the F-97 Wraith goes from it's WC-2 size of 16 meters, to 25.5 meters, which is about good for a WC-1/WC-2/WC-3 medium fighter
The P-64 Ferret goes from: 10.2 meters to 16.3 meters
Which is smaller than any of the light-fighters from WC-1/3/4
The F-54 Epee goes from: 12.4 meters to 19.8 meters
Which is similar in size to the F-36 Hornet, and the F-27 Arrow V
The F-57 Sabre goes from: 23.6 meters to 37.6 meters
Which is similar in size to the HF-66 Thunderbolt VII
Using the second scaling method
The F-44 Rapier goes from 19.0 meters to 24.0 meters
Which brings it to the same size it was in WC-1
The A-17 Broadsword goes from 36.0 meters to 45.5 meters
Which is huge, but when you consider it has 3 turrets, weighs 100 tons, and Cruisers and Escort Carriers cannot operate it, the figure makes sense
Mope. Want to measure the Broadsword? Open up your Wing Commander II manual. That's all you can do.
(Which I can speak to professionally, as I came up with the new Broadsword stats for Wing Commander Arena. We didn't trawl the message boards until we found a zany enough conspiracy theory that makes the number exactly the size I want for no apparent reason... we checked the Kilrathi Saga manual. That's how a canon works, sunshine.)
I hate to deal with this any further and to remind you about a thing you're too dumb to grasp, but your goofy system doesn't even take into account the behind the screens stuff I explained to you on IRC:
- Wing Commander I, III and IV's numbers are entirely made up. They're the lengths that the manual writers felt would be appropriate given a drawing of the ship. It's quite possible, although not established, that they are unusually large because someone early on confused meters and feet. The baseline does seem to be modern jet aircraft, but with something wonky abou the units.
- Wing Commander II and Prophecy's numbers come from measuring the meshes (in 3DS and the in the properly scaled Vision Engine respectively). This is why they're so unusually precise. This is the kicker in your system, though--how can your perfect, useless system scale the Epee when the Epee has been "perfectly" measured already?
The various armor types were not clarified in WC-1/WC-2/WC-3/WC-4/WC-P. It was only clarified in WC-Privateer.
They weren't clarified there, either--it's pure fanon. Privateer measures everything in centimeters of durasteel just like every other game. You can buy special armor that adds something extra to your ship, but none of the enormous pile of bullshit that is how fans interpret Wing Commander armor because of that actually comes from the game.
You can blow up individual engines, shoot off the conning tower, like in WCP, and deliver "body-shots"? Because when I played WC-4 you could shoot off turrets, but you had to deliver body shots to kill the ship.
Wing Commander III and IV have a mechanic whereby 'vulnerable' areas of the ship are dealt (1.5x) more damage with each hit -- ie, the tower with the windows, the engines, etc.
Actually, I have Aspgerer syndrome, which is a autism-spectrum disorder. Which would explain my fixatedness sometimes. Luckily, I don't have any coordination problems.
Nope, bullshit. I wouldn't even buy it if I wasn't familiar with Aspergers as lonely internet geeks' number one self diagnosis. The, ah, definining characteristic of ASDs would make the process of social interaction alien. Yes, you'd just keep repeating the same question and not understanding where anyone else was coming from and that's certainly all part of your schtick...
... but you would be completely open about it. The reality of this situation counterindicates that--you understand how social interaction works to the point of trying to game it. A genuine aspie wouldn't have five different accounts to hide their past, they wouldn't understand that the previous posts were a problem at all. They wouldn't pretend to be a woman to get attention... the very mechanic of how that attention flows would be alien to them.
I didn't actually realize how much time passed by. I know I've been here periodically over the course of a few years, but I was very surprised to realize I've been doing this since 2007.
Uh, no, I'm sorry to break this to you but you've doing this since at least 2002 (that's two, with a two)... and that's just as far back as the archives go. As best I can tell, the 2002 chat Zone was already sick of you.
Actually, I did major in pre-med; I went to medical school for two years at which point I dropped out.
Did you drive there in your rocket car, or did you take the hoverbike? Seriously, do you really sit there thinking that people believe this shit? We don't. We aren't laughing with you, we're laughing at you. It's not even a friendly laugh at the clownish buffoon everyone loves to hate. It's a oh my God, look at this dreg of humanity, there but for the capacity for thought go I sort of a sad, forehead in hand laugh.
Even if you did have some interesting personal background that you could talk about ad was true (and who doesn't? I'm fascinating!) then why would anyone believe it? Do you really not understand that the dude whose entire schtick is that he pretends to be five different women to get attention at message boards signs away his right to have anyone believe anything he says in the process? It's boy-who-cried-wolf simple, man.
Uh, I make up fictitious names all the time. I could probably come up with a few dozen names probably. This surname, I've been using on other forums for a few years.
Don't worry, I wasn't pretending to be you, or a relative; I figured it sounded like a name that nobody would make up (I mean, "Smith" or "Davis" is a surname anybody could think up... but who would cook up "Lesnick" or "Weissman" or "Leibowitz")
I wasn't going for any kind of seduction, I was just using a name that I'd been using for a few years.
If I actually remembered your last name was Lesnick, I can assure you I would have used a different name. You don't how how much of a complication this has been trying to explain this one away.
I think the lord doth protest too much. Wait, no, I'll go right out and say it: you're just plain lying. From the moment you showed up at the Chat Zone (several minutes before Dundradal and I had figured out who you were, by the by) you were yucking this weird, weird thing up. (And in fact, a little Chat Zone search reminds us that two of your previous incarnations did also have a creepy fixation with my full name.)
Now, yes, it's just not okay to be a weirdo stalker in the first place. We'll leave that at that... but focus back at the beginning of this paragraph where you talk about how *of course* you have ficticious names! Earth to stupid--that's a fundamental character flaw on your part! There is something wrong with you! Seek medical attention! Do not pass go! Etc.!
