What is your favorite WING COMMANDER game?

[Dundradal]

The scale of the capital ships, and the way their 'corpses' stayed around exploding was nice.

This is something that actually most people complained about, myself included. I wouldn't mind a burnt out hulk a la WC3/4 (even though they only hung around for a few seconds), but seeing the capship just sit there and explode drove me up the wall. Especially because the "damaged"/"destroyed" capship didn't look that different from the ship normally.

That's probably my biggest pet peeve about Prophecy, otherwise I also find it very enjoyable.

 

[Captain Obvious]

^^^

I agree completely. The burnt out hulls in WC3/4 were cool but I always thought Prophecy's approach was really strange and not very satisfying. I blew you up! I want to see you destroyed!

 

[Wojo]

I wonder what the rationale was for not destroying the burnt-out hulks completely... maybe they never finished a debris system or something, I dunno.

Did anyone ever let the midway be destroyed? This never happened for me, guess I never lost any of those protection missions. I did get the occaisional 'you have no place to land' message I think, but never saw it go down completely.

 

[Wedge009]

My understanding is that a number of features had to be dropped from Prophecy due to time constraints (EA really wanted it out in time for the Christmas season) - so something cosmetic like more realistic capital ship destruction were among the things which were cut.

 

[Wojo]

Sounds about right for the game industry "Just cut it - only kids play games right? And 10 year olds won't notice the difference." Pretty much every big game ever made probably had some douchebag producer in his 50's with too much money and a mercedes utter something like that. [facepalm]

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I wonder what the rationale was for not destroying the burnt-out hulks completely... maybe they never finished a debris system or something, I dunno.

It was a direct response to player complaints that the hulks in WC3 and 4 would exlode before they could be examined. It was a design decision that just didn't work out in the end. I did a group interview with the core Prophecy team after the game came out and they asked what I would have changed. I said I would have shipped the multiplayer and everyone laughed and said yeah but seriously... and I said I would have had the capships explode. And everyone looked sort of sheepish and said yeah, they had thought what they built would be cool but didn't realize how it would come across.

My understanding is that a number of features had to be dropped from Prophecy due to time constraints (EA really wanted it out in time for the Christmas season) - so something cosmetic like more realistic capital ship destruction were among the things which were cut.

I think you're thinking of the multiplayer, which was a whole different ball of wax--the story there is a complex mash of politics, budget and scheduling that went well beyond the ordinary rush to ship.

(Seriously, though, this isn't a time-or-budget issue... having capships explode like a myriad of other objects in the game would have been easy to do, had it been desired.)

Sounds about right for the game industry "Just cut it - only kids play games right? And 10 year olds won't notice the difference." Pretty much every big game ever made probably had some douchebag producer in his 50's with too much money and a mercedes utter something like that. [facepalm]

I know you're talking in general terms here, but I have to tell you--the EA producer on Wing Commander Prophecy was a man named Mark Day... and you will not find a man more dedicated to the franchise. At the time he called in every personal favor he had to get Prophecy's film shoot done with the drastically reduced budget... and he's been an absolute friend to the community since those days. I can't tell you most of what he's done for us, but for everything at the CIC you've seen and wondered how did they get permission to post THAT? there's a pretty good chance he helped. He still visits the IRC channel fifteen years later to check on the fans he knew as kids. He's just a great, great guy.

 

[QuailPilot]

He sounds like a great guy.

 

[Wojo]

Faith in humanity = restored!

Sounds like he is a subset of the non-douchebag spectrum of the species.

Hah in all seriousness I have also met some fairly decent dedicated folk who were great to work with and actually cared about the project. I'm generally just wailing about how easily and how often projects are derailed by internal politics & money (Privateer online anyone?). But then again, what in this world ISN'T like that?

One wonders if the folk at Gaia are making plans for their next WC installment, or whether the license has moved on from them... As WC fans, I guess a prerequisite is patience... Although I doubt that many will claim Arena as their favorite Wing Commander, you have to appreciate their dedication and investment in writing depth into the universe (i.e. Starsoldier) and of course a return to (some of) our favorite ship variants.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Hah in all seriousness I have also met some fairly decent dedicated folk who were great to work with and actually cared about the project. I'm generally just wailing about how easily and how often projects are derailed by internal politics & money (Privateer online anyone?). But then again, what in this world ISN'T like that?

Heh, I think one of EA's problems with Origin at the time was that the producers they sent to Austin tended to 'go native' in favor of the team's visions instead of acting like political officers (just the town will do that to you, though).

Not sure we'll ever know what the full story with the Privateer Onlines was. The decision to turn Origin into the "MMO studio" was among the worst ever made in history... but even that should have led to Privateer Online, had corporate not become far, far too reactionary about development.

I think there was a big disconnect in California--they did not differentiate the quiet Wing Commander projects with the incredibly expensive and troubled Ultima ones...

One wonders if the folk at Gaia are making plans for their next WC installment, or whether the license has moved on from them... As WC fans, I guess a prerequisite is patience... Although I doubt that many will claim Arena as their favorite Wing Commander, you have to appreciate their dedication and investment in writing depth into the universe (i.e. Starsoldier) and of course a return to (some of) our favorite ship variants.

Heh, Gaia is no more--they did another XBLA game under contract (something... about... baseball?) and then the team drifted apart. They never had the Wing Commander license or anything, though. They were an independant studio that EA contracted to do Arena. The project was managed by Sean Penney in Burnaby (who has also moved on, IIRC) and promotional things like the manual were done through EA proper.

(EA's big goal in their first wave of XBLA games was trying to decide if they should acquire studios for future projects. They were "testing" Gaia with Arena and Bizarre with Boom Boom Rocket... and Activision bought Bizarre right out from under them... and then gutted them just recently.)

 

[YCDTD]

Wing Commander 2 is the best, just slightly better than WC3. But WC3 is actually by favourite. Both of them are great because you play an older character rather than some young hotshot (something I appreciated even in my teens). Hamil's performance in 3 was especially good at capturing the "I'm-tired-of-seeing-all-my-friends-killed-but-can-still-kick-major-ass" attitude of Blair (who can forget his great "I don't let myself " response?).

3 did have some problems:

• I loved the designs of the Kilrathi ships but not so much the Confed fighters.
• seemed to push you to romance Rachel instead of Flint
• did not like the look of the Kilrathi (it was convincing, but not aesthetically pleasing)
• Hobbes' bizarre betrayal with no explanation

WC4 was very good (not great). Problems with 4 included

• Maniac was a caricature of his WC3 self
• no cockpits
• the ugly BW fighters
• the mysterious disappearing Catscratch
• I read the novel first (blasphemy! and was disappointed by the lack of quite a few elements of the novel in the game (Blair's doubts about himself, his romance with Sosa, the BW using the WC2 ships etc.)

• just an overall feeling that the FMV stuff was more important to the development team than the gameplay (WC3 was much better balanced in that regard)

 

[Phox]

Just finished my third playthrough of WCP (and went through WC1, WC3 a few weeks ago). Gameplaywise, WCP is the best (not surprisingly), more so with OpenGL. Especially liked sharpshooting with the Devastator gun (in behind-the-ship view), tons of fun. The story, however, is crap. I liked playing against a new enemy but I missed the dialogue decisions they had in WC3. Also: that ridiculous crystal they strapped into the Midway?

WC2 had by far the best story and atmosphere and WC4 comes next in that regard.

WC2 had the best music, WC3 coming in second.

WC1 holds a special place in my heart, nice music and atmosphere but not quite as good as WC2. Best cutscenes though.

And the most beautiful girl of Wing Commander of course is Angel in WC2

 

[Dean478]

Wing Commander really stands out for me. It was the first game I played, it was unique in setting, the setting itself was just absolutely awesome. It also gelled really well considering I was only 5-6 years old when I got it. I remember the drive way of my first house being the hangar bay for the Tiger's Claw.

Wing Commander 3 though I'm more inclined to call my favourite. There was far more to explore and do on the carrier, the war was quite dire by that stage. The characters and story were deeper thanks to newer (gameplay) technology and the uniforms and fighters were very appealing. So I'll have to go with WC3.

Privateer is an honourable mention. By the time I was playing Privateer I had also experienced the Ultima games, Strike Commander and many other games that offered a virtual world and not just a game. To be able to truely live in the Wing Commander universe was fantastic. The only thing missing from Privateer was the ability to fly with Confed in a persistent and dynamic conflict in the Gemini Sector.

 

[Kaunisto]

WC1 is still my favorite, for gameplay and structure. SO1 has the best story.

I generally prefer 1/2/Priv to 3/4. Prophecy was great as a game (SO in some ways even better), but not that good in story and feeling.

 

[Ijuin]

WC3 was my favorite for story/gameplay, but Privateer was the one which ate the most hours of my time. I would really love to see a Privateer 3 (or Privateer Online) on Xbox or something . . .