I was just thinking about why Wing Commander hasn't seen a continuation for a while now, and it's occured to me that maybe continuing Wing Commander wouldn't be the best idea. That is, continuing it how most Wing Commander games continue... fast forewarding a few years into the future, giving you characters and a setting that you should be familiar with.
I can see why Chris Roberts went the route of the Lancer series. Wing Commander has ammased so much complicated history over the years that it's very unlikely that modern gamers would go back and play the old Wing Commander games to learn about the history of the series and its characters. If another continuation was made then only hardcore fans of the series would get the most enjoyment out of the referances and the characters, the new gamers would be a little alienated and thus not really willing to pick the game up. The last thing the space sim genre needs is more players scared away from it.
There's two routes that I can see future Wing Commander games going. Either they completely scrap the current timeline and create a new alternate one in its place or they go with my more favorable idea. I think new Wing Commander games should focus themselves towards the Kiltrathi war again, when I originaly saw prophecy and its generic bug aliens I was pretty dissapointed. Anyway, I think the best way to preserve the current timeline and make a new game is by showing us different parts of the war, putting us on a different carrier with different characters fighting different battles. In essence filling in the blanks of the Kilrathi war and not heavily referancing the characters and ships from the original games that are off fighting the fights that we've all ready fought so new players would be introduced to the soul and goodness of the original Wing Commander universe without being alienated and not being forced to play old games that they would be automatically prejudiced against.
Judging but what I see with the WC mods completed or in production, it seems the fan community has the same idea as I have. So, this is basically just a long winded rant of what I think future WC games should give us, enjoy it, ignore it, or just slap me.
I can see why Chris Roberts went the route of the Lancer series. Wing Commander has ammased so much complicated history over the years that it's very unlikely that modern gamers would go back and play the old Wing Commander games to learn about the history of the series and its characters. If another continuation was made then only hardcore fans of the series would get the most enjoyment out of the referances and the characters, the new gamers would be a little alienated and thus not really willing to pick the game up. The last thing the space sim genre needs is more players scared away from it.
There's two routes that I can see future Wing Commander games going. Either they completely scrap the current timeline and create a new alternate one in its place or they go with my more favorable idea. I think new Wing Commander games should focus themselves towards the Kiltrathi war again, when I originaly saw prophecy and its generic bug aliens I was pretty dissapointed. Anyway, I think the best way to preserve the current timeline and make a new game is by showing us different parts of the war, putting us on a different carrier with different characters fighting different battles. In essence filling in the blanks of the Kilrathi war and not heavily referancing the characters and ships from the original games that are off fighting the fights that we've all ready fought so new players would be introduced to the soul and goodness of the original Wing Commander universe without being alienated and not being forced to play old games that they would be automatically prejudiced against.
Judging but what I see with the WC mods completed or in production, it seems the fan community has the same idea as I have. So, this is basically just a long winded rant of what I think future WC games should give us, enjoy it, ignore it, or just slap me.