WC 3 and WC 4 remake

M

maniacmagic

Spaceman
Hi,

First I’d like to thank to the WC Saga team for the prologue and the following autopilot flyby demo. My opinion is WC saga showed us how the WC battles and games would look like if they were done lately with new technology. I’m looking forward to play the main WC saga title anxiously.

I’m a space sim and wing commander fan and I played WC 4, WC Prophecy Gold and I loved them. But I must admit WC saga gave me the taste of how a wing commander game should be.

I always wandered how it would look the old WC 3 and WC 4 and even prophecy if they were redone with FS 2 and WC saga engine with their movie content since I first played the prologue.

I saw in one of the posts that (I don’t remember whose actually, I think it was mustanger’s or Houkiboshi’s post) people were talking about WC3 and WC4 remakes with WC Saga engine.

Actually I would like to see some one do that. I find the idea more managable since I saw the autopilot flyby demo. But there are some issues I suppose.

1-Most of the models in WC 3 and WC 4 are done by WC Saga team. Of course there are some missing models, but they can be modelled. For this of course WC saga team members must give permission to use their models, engine, editor, codes and other stuff to the project bearers.

2-The main problem is probably the planetary missions. I didn’t play FS 2 I have no idea if the engine allows that kind of gameplay. If it does it’s just fine but if it doesn’t what shall be done? Skip planetary missions? It can be done in some missions but If that happens how will the final mission in WC 3 (the one with temblor bomb)shall be performed.

3-Implementation of the original movies. Although this looks like a small problem because as we can see in auto pilot flyby demo it can be done. But maybe intearctive contents in the movies will create a problem or it won’t?

4-Because New FS 2 engine’s capabilities are beter, I think original missions should be edited a little bit. For example in order to make missions and battles more intense, size of the cap ship fleets and fighter squadrons may be larger than the original (like Kennedy Battle group in WC saga Prologue). Or some other additions may be done.

5-The last issue according to me is the copyright issue. Although it will be a non profit fan-made remake Project. Probably the original copyright holders and EA should be informed about it. In order not to face legal problems.

Though I came up with these issues I stil think that Remake projects I mentioned above are managable. And I stil would like to see and play them. :D

Best Regards
 
well one thing i can tell you, is that WCSaga team has no problem with allowing people to use stuff they released - check the HLP Saga forum for more info, but generally Tolwyn encouraged people to make their own missions.

Also the implementaion of movies would be a problem - the conversation choices are out of question as far as i know it - what you see are just the extracted cutscenes played just like they would be played on the media player.

As for the planetary missions - the PSX versions had cutscenes that replaced them so you could use them.

last part - instead of talking start working get fred and go on :) I'm sure the team and the community will give you all support you can get :D
 
I like the idea. And especially the WC3 missions should be fairly easy to implement. WC4 will require some heavy scripting.

First of all, you will need this: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,47735.msg973410.html#msg973410

Attached to my post is the autopilot template.

I think it should be noted that many missions are done in a very similar way (example would be 1st and 2nd mission - the only difference is the kilrathi transport at the final nav).

maniacmagic said:
1-Most of the models in WC 3 and WC 4 are done by WC Saga team. Of course there are some missing models, but they can be modelled. For this of course WC saga team members must give permission to use their models, engine, editor, codes and other stuff to the project bearers.
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We'd love to see what you can come up with :)

2-The main problem is probably the planetary missions. I didn’t play FS 2 I have no idea if the engine allows that kind of gameplay. If it does it’s just fine but if it doesn’t what shall be done? Skip planetary missions? It can be done in some missions but If that happens how will the final mission in WC 3 (the one with temblor bomb)shall be performed.
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The final campaign will hopefully feature planetary missions. In Wc3 PSX planetary missions were replaced with cutscenes, in WC4 there were alternative missions (and the Panther path was removed)

3-Implementation of the original movies. Although this looks like a small problem because as we can see in auto pilot flyby demo it can be done. But maybe intearctive contents in the movies will create a problem or it won’t?
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Interactive content is a huge no-no. It will be more like the WC3/4 movie with interactive missions in between.


Though I came up with these issues I stil think that Remake projects I mentioned above are managable. And I stil would like to see and play them. :D
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The easy part is that you can recycle all voice overs/comm videos from the games. That does make ones life easier. :)

EDIT: we have quite a few WC4 models finished. They were done about 4 years ago as our first intention was to make a WC4 mod. Most of them are no longer up to the current standards and might not work anymore. I could dig 'em up though.
 
maniacmagic said:
But I must admit WC saga gave me the taste of how a wing commander game should be.
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I get the feeling that your new in all this, so I'm going to pace my response so as to not be terribly rude or mean-spirited: No. Just no.
 
Thanks

Hi,

Thanks for the help Tolwyn,

and LeHah yes you are right, I'm new to modding but not to WC Series. I used to play WC IV and WC Prophecy. So I'm somewhat familiar with the wing commander Universe.

I didn't get offended so no worries. Of course you are right in one point. I'm not sure also if I'll be succesfull. But why not give it a try? If I can't come up with something good enough may be I'll not even post it for download.

I just wanna try it and create some missions at first as Tolwyn did. Probably for me its gonna be more harder and take more time for me because I'm not an experienced modder like him.

But there is always a posssibility for successfully finishing this kind of project.

As I said I just wanna try it.
 
Yeah, I think it's an interesting idea as well. I think that Saga does largely mimic the feel of WC3 & 4, but it does have some of it's own quirks as well. While this is fine for Saga (which, personally, I love the way that Saga plays), the differences could make missions from WC3 seem either too easy, or too difficult. This is where it get's dangerous, because straying from the original game too much defeats the purpose of a remake, IMO.

Anyway, the thing to do is just start making some missions, and see how they turn out. If the balance is okay, and the missions are as entertaining as they were in WC3, then you can build the rest of them. If nothing else, you'll have good practice on FRED for your own campaign :)
 
I get the feeling I know where this thread is going. Anyway I think it would be cool to give it a shot, hell Ill download it and give it a try. Really what does anyone have to lose or gain for that matter?

Also didn't freespace have a campaign selection mode? It would be kind of cool to play the saga campaign then just click it over to a wing commander remake campaign.
 
maniacmagic said:
and LeHah yes you are right, I'm new to modding but not to WC Series. Of course you are right in one point. I'm not sure also if I'll be succesfull. But why not give it a try?
Click to expand...

Short answer: If its not broke, don't fix it.
 
Come now, no one is claiming WC is "broke." :) I'm sure that wasn't his intention to say that. Everyone here is a fan. He is just curious as to what it would be like to play the original WC 3 and 4 missions in a newer game engine. There is no harm in that. After all, a remake is a compliment to the originals, although I admit it should be undertaken carefully and not in a slapdash fashion. I would be just as happy to see someone try it in Prophecy's engine, or Vega Strike's engine, or the X-Wing Alliance engine, or whatever engine may be out there.

For this sort of thing, I would just encourage anyone with a creative idea to give it a try. Some may like it, some may not, but seeing knew things being produced by fans along with new official titles (like Arena) energizes a community. Indeed, I think that perhaps one of the reasons Arena is being produced is because this community has been so productive.

So, Lehah, I can understand that a remake may not be to everyone's taste, and that's fine because there is no pleasing everyone. I support the idea that a remake should be done with all due respect to the original, and should seek to be as faithful to the original as possible. But I say heck, give it a try maniacmagic. I'd love to see what you can do. :)
 
Sphynx said:
So, Lehah, I can understand that a remake may not be to everyone's taste, and that's fine because there is no pleasing everyone.
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The problem with this statement is that the original game made me very happy - and made everyone else very happy. In fact, as far as this discussion goes, the original game *did* please everyone.

Sphynx said:
I support the idea that a remake should be done with all due respect to the original, and should seek to be as faithful to the original as possible.
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See, heres the trick hat - if you're going to make a perfect recreation of the original game, you're wasting your time because I have the game sitting right behind me, along with the rest of the WC games. Just because it has an updated graphics engine doesn't mean a damn thing - if anything, a remake would be at a loss since we all have stronger nostalgic pulls toward the original game than we ever would or could with a remake.

A fine comparison to this idea would be the Gus Van Sant shot-by-shot remake of Psycho in 1998. Remember how bad of an idea that was? This is exactly that same idea.
 
I can certainly understand where LeHah is coming from. Anyone who suffered through HellcatV's Privateer Remake job-grab knows to be very, very wary of fan 'remakes' of professional games. There's so many very dark alleys such a project can go down... these things so often become sinister with a 'fan' deciding he can make a name for himself using someone elses art and game design. Or, they decide they can 'improve' perceived flaws with the original game, which makes no one happy... and even a well meaning development team can be completley incompetant - knowing you want FreeSpace to do X, Y and Z isn't the same thing as being able to have it do them yourself.

Even though this particular concept is being suggested with the best of intentions it still brings with it an uneasyness -- the very idea that Saga is somehow better than Wing Commander III because it has more modern graphics seems very obnoxious for longtime fans. Also, it seems wrong to anyone who empathizes with the original developers in the first place. Would you want me to take all of Saga's art designs, storyline, dialogue, FMV, etc. and then drop it into a nicer engine with my name on it? Given all of this I think there's a *strong* argument to be made that 'remakes' should be done anonymously...
 
Yeah, I think LOAF is largely correct in this instance. A good remake needs to have the same feel as the original.

I hate to discourage maniacmagic from trying to duplicate this feel, because it could be interesting, and very entertaining. At the worst, if the remake isn't well recieved, it will simply fade away. The best case is that the game replicates the feel of the original game, and has the added benefit of enhanced graphics.

Incidentally, I do agree with LOAF about giving credit to the original game designers. They did an amazing thing, and this stuff wouldn't have been possible without them.
 
mustanger said:
A good remake needs to have the same feel as the original.
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I think LOAF's point was more that a remake is generally not a great idea, considering we all already have the game or can get the original on the cheap from Ebay.
 
The basic concept is a positive one, but I'm not sure it's actually an achievable goal.

The Wing Commander community's only real experience has been with the nasty Privateer Remake mess... but groups like Ultima and Sierra adventure game fans have longstanding relationships with these kind of projects which are, by and large, very negative. The team deciding that it either needs to 'redesign' the game in some basic way or deciding that they've done so much work and deserve to profit on it somehow seems to be constant outcomes. It isn't your job to decide that Ultima I needs a different story (and no spaceships!) and it isn't your right to sell Space Quest 2 to anyone no matter how nicely you redraw the graphics.

Ultima remakes especially fall apart in droves, often to the point of being shut down by EA. Note that well, prospective remakers - you need to be *very* careful... literally reusing all the same FMV and sound files is a lot more likely to get you and the community in trouble than Saga just copying WC3's 'look' (though I imagine even this team already knows to tread more lightly given EA's future plans for the franchise).

(Quick addition - there should also be a *reason* to remake the game. The Privateer group actually lost theirs early on, as DOSBox allowed anyone to play the classic game easily during the course of their development. With EA getting ready to sell Wing Commander 3 through services like GameTap and the PS3 Home service, a fan made remake doesn't seem appropriate.)
 
wc3/4 remake interactivity

I was thinking is(I know nothing about freespace mods other then playing them) could some buttions be added to the briefing menu of the game? What I am thinking is this is just some ideas so the people who know how to mod can do it.

Is say after a mission the game plays a cutseen, say showing you land on the Victory. then the game goes right to the cutseen showing you talking to Maniac on the bridge, the game comes to the point where in the orginal game of WC3 you pick a option, say make fun of Maniac or not. What I'm thinking is how about after the cutseen is played the game goes to the briefing menu, where instead of a briefing it shows the 2 choices to pick from, and below there would be 2 buttions to pick one or the other choice.

Now when you pick 1 or 2 it then plays the cutseen of your choice. sounds fairly simple.....tho again I know nothen about modding freespace. also perhaps the cutseen for picking wingmates could be played before or after you click on the pick wingman buttion. (Those buttions are there in the saga prologe but don't seem to work), as to the way the orginal WC3/4 choices effected morale...how about say if you pick the choice of making fun of Maniac when you start the next mission it changes Maniacs flight skills and or ship and lowers the stats.

Well, theses are just some ideas, I do plan on d/l the freespace open source as soon as I get enough hd space..(my hd space is currenly taken up by the Saga prologue as well as WC Standoffo h and gametap...;)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
The basic concept is a positive one, but I'm not sure it's actually an achievable goal.

The Wing Commander community's only real experience has been with the nasty Privateer Remake mess... but groups like Ultima and Sierra adventure game fans have longstanding relationships with these kind of projects which are, by and large, very negative. The team deciding that it either needs to 'redesign' the game in some basic way or deciding that they've done so much work and deserve to profit on it somehow seems to be constant outcomes. It isn't your job to decide that Ultima I needs a different story (and no spaceships!) and it isn't your right to sell Space Quest 2 to anyone no matter how nicely you redraw the graphics.

Ultima remakes especially fall apart in droves, often to the point of being shut down by EA. Note that well, prospective remakers - you need to be *very* careful... literally reusing all the same FMV and sound files is a lot more likely to get you and the community in trouble than Saga just copying WC3's 'look' (though I imagine even this team already knows to tread more lightly given EA's future plans for the franchise).

(Quick addition - there should also be a *reason* to remake the game. The Privateer group actually lost theirs early on, as DOSBox allowed anyone to play the classic game easily during the course of their development. With EA getting ready to sell Wing Commander 3 through services like GameTap and the PS3 Home service, a fan made remake doesn't seem appropriate.)
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Ok, Bandit LOAF has a point here. I didn't know that.

Looks like EA has future plans in Wing Commander Titles. Today it is WC 3 tommorow it may be WC IV or WC prophecy. So a fan-made remake project has the possibility to turn into trouble (legally).

If voices and cutscenes can’t be used because of the copyright issues. Than a remake Project becomes out of the question in the very beginning. Because If you don’t use them it won’t be a remake project. Am I right? It turns into something else like the saga team does.

That's why I decided to leave this "remake project" dream aside. I don't want to deal with any legal problems anyway.

I’am sorry for stealing your time.

Thanks for your opinions.

Best Regards.
 
A good discussion is never a waste of time, maniacmagic.

I think you should try to make some missions with FRED and see what you can do.
If you have good ideas then the result will be much better than a remake of any game, so try what you can do. Mustanger did that and the results were good.

So give it a try! :)

-Aginor
 
LeHah said:
The problem with this statement is that the original game made me very happy - and made everyone else very happy. In fact, as far as this discussion goes, the original game *did* please everyone.

.
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LeHah,

You are absolutely right, the original game did please everyone here. I did not state myself very well. I meant that when a fan tries to pay homage to the original, in some way or another he will inevitably make it in the way he perceived it or valued it, and so it may not come across quite the same to others.

I, too, love the nostalgia of plugging in WC3 again, and I love the way it looks in the original graphics engine. I certainly never want to give the impression that I think Saga is somehow better than WC3 or 4. Saga would be nothing without WC 3 and 4, and we all know that. Saga, like ever other fan project, is in homage, and is an attempt at emulation, never at supplanting or overthrowing.

So, I think I can understand the points that you and LOAF are making. At the same time, just for me personally, I wouldn't mind seeing some or all of the missions recreated. Certainly anyone wanting to use the original voices and such should seek to obtain permission, and if permission is not given, then the project should not be undertaken. I wonder, though, if what could be used for those things are what was used in other fan projects, such as the WC3 and WC4 movie projects which have been endorsed by this community? It's worth exploring, at least in my opinion.

All I know is that if I played the Freya missions in the Saga, or Vision, or any other engine, it would just make me want to fire up WC3 again and enjoy the orignial. For me, that's a good thing and it enhances my enjoyment, rather than detracts from it. However, I realize it may not do that for everyone. Anways, that is the main reason I would love to see someone try. But, I know it isn't up to me.
 
I wonder, though, if what could be used for those things are what was used in other fan projects, such as the WC3 and WC4 movie projects which have been endorsed by this community? It's worth exploring, at least in my opinion.
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I have had my doubts about the 'movie projects'... but we have recieved permission to host them (with some limitations - they can't have *all* the video from the game, for instance.) They also don't really compete with the games - with all respect to Queeg and company, nobody cares about the Wing Commander IV video if they haven't already played the game.

Actually, the one where we ran into the most trouble was the Wing Commander Prophecy DVD materials.... since they included *all* the video from the game. I felt very strongly that we had to get that out, though, because there was no other way to have it available (EA doesn't even have the game in their archive, so it's unlikely to appear in the future). Nevertheless, we had to develop them as a 'patch' for the CD-ROM game rather than just extracting an image of the DVD.
 
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