What will the Next WC Game Be?

Don't forget about the cutscenses in SO. They implied the other kinds of things going on throughout the Terran/Kilrathi border and in Confed space itself. Ambush on several stations, destruction of numerous caps, but victories were also won.
 
It seems often forgotten that during WCP/SO there is also a whole confederation hanging around and that they are also fighting the nephilim on other fronts. It's hard not to get caught up in the action you see and forget that others might also be fighting elsewhere...
 
The problem is that it kinda gets away from the original concept of "WWII . . . In Space!"

I think that (among, admittedly, other reasons), is part of why WC began to decline (the decline of the space shooter genre in general notwithstanding). It started to lose that "WWII . . . In Space!" feel. The deeper you delve into digging up more advanced alien races to kill off/be killed by, it's gonna continue to decline. Perhaps what WC needs is more of what was sampled in WC4. Except without the obvious sci-fi cliche of "breeding the perfect warrior". That's right. Just a good, old fashioned civil war. A civil war that not only splits humanity, but beats it back into the downtrodden dregs that felt like wc1.

A game or two where humans battle themselves back into a state of non-supertech would open up a door for subsequent games where galactic struggle with another race (such as the Kilrathi, but not neccessarily . . though, admittedly, we all enjoyed killing cats) would have the original feel and appeal of the WC1 "WWII . . . In Space!" motif.

Either that, or some retrospective stuff, (not unlike Standoff). Or, as many of us have been hoping to see, a deeper explaination of the pre-wc1 universe. Flying a Wildcat as Tolwyn? (probably not, actually). Custer's Carnival?

At any rate, those are the two options I see.
 
I would agree that an Action Stations-era game would be great fun. I would love to know more about the early history of the Kilrathi War, and that could certainly help to fill in the gaps. Preferably I would like a game that doesn't focus solely on the content of the book, perhaps another carrier, crew, you know the drill...

Conversely, the idea of a Privateer-style game set after the Kilrathi War is very appealing to me. Remnants of Kilrathi Clans and colonies, unrest in the Border Worlds, and a failing Confed economy could mean great things for your random 27th century smuggler just trying to get by. Add multiplayer to the mix, and I probably wouldn't leave the house.
 
I think the problem with the WCP is that there was an enemy that wasn't humanized at all. You were fighting giant freakin bugs who flew around in organic spacecraft. Yeah, lets all clap our hands together as they are somehow invulenrable to all but our most capable of craft.

There was no sense of loss or pressure like in the other games. It just lost its dire feeling... and the fact that the Kilrathi didn't insult you also took a lot of the fun away. There weren't World War 1 dogfights going on. It was very cold. The game also took itself way too seriously.
 
Dingo said:
I think the problem with the WCP is that there was an enemy that wasn't humanized at all. You were fighting giant freakin bugs who flew around in organic spacecraft. Yeah, lets all clap our hands together as they are somehow invulenrable to all but our most capable of craft.
The trouble with the Nephilim in WCP isn't that they weren't humanised, I think... rather, it's the fact that we've seen them before. A million times. I mean, good grief, how many (bad?) sci-fi games, books and movies begin with a super-advanced alien race coming to destroy us for no reason whatsoever? Really, the main difference between WCP and one of those "The evil Steltek come back to kill us all!" fanfics is that the bugs in WCP are not called the Steltek.
 
Really, the main difference between WCP and one of those "The evil Steltek come back to kill us all!" fanfics is that the bugs in WCP are not called the Steltek.

Eh, I think the primary problem I have with the "evil Steltek (or vaugely mentioned novel race)" is that they're named Steltek, though. Hey, the only game they've ever been involved with says they're living peacefully without technology... but we'll ignore that part, and make them attack us for no reason!
 
I think the only way to go for a new game is a strategy game. It would be hard to come up with a good story line for a new space shooter. I think it's all pretty much been done.

With a strategy game, you can start from scratch and play the whole war out yourself. An option to either control the fleet or fly combat would be cool, but probably somewhat complicated, especially if your fleet is large.

They could do something like Starfleet Command's conquest mode. Give you a carrier, you tell it where to go, and missions are randomly generated until someone wins the war. They could throw a storyline in there as well, much like the SFC campaigns did. It would be simplistic, but hey, a simplistic game is better than no game at all.
 
Dingo said:
I think the problem with the WCP is that there was an enemy that wasn't humanized at all. You were fighting giant freakin bugs who flew around in organic spacecraft.

Interesting (unfortunately, I have yet to play WCP on the PC yet since I didn't have the necessary 3d hardware when it was released). So what came first? The Nephilim, the Zerg, or the Yuuzhem Vong? :D
 
They all showed up at just about the same time... along with Species 8472, those Babylon 5 Thirdspace dealies and a couple other 'look! a whole CGI alien race!" alien species. It kind of killed the market for mysterious alien enemies.
 
wc3 said:
With a strategy game, you can start from scratch and play the whole war out yourself. An option to either control the fleet or fly combat would be cool, but probably somewhat complicated, especially if your fleet is large.

They could do something like Starfleet Command's conquest mode. Give you a carrier, you tell it where to go, and missions are randomly generated until someone wins the war. They could throw a storyline in there as well, much like the SFC campaigns did. It would be simplistic, but hey, a simplistic game is better than no game at all.


Sounds like a more complex form of armada.

The idea of prequels is great since we only have really 1st hand knowledge of a few years of the war (and it was over 30 years long) the 20 years preceeding 2654 would be interesting to experience although it seems like a lot of the 2640s were fairly quiet in the sense of no really major engagements (from what we know)

Flying around in 2634 would be great I would love to see a confed and kat battlewagon slug it out over McAuliffe. "This is Yorkshire. Long Live the Confederation"
 
Mekt-Hakkikt said:
That's the problem and that WCP failed utterly in creating a sensation that the Nephilim were advanced in any way.

Right. One could argue that the bugs are merely a slave-race to a more advanced master, but that still doens't make it much better.
 
Nephilim sucked...it sounded like a good start at first (ancient race that challenged the kilrathi and set their whole culture in motion) but then turned into a corny B movie fighting space bugs in their fish named ships....now where's the detonator on the A/M mine?....oh here it is....
 
I don't even care that much that it was done before. It's hard to come up with something really new and I kind of like the idea of the ancient evil. But that was something I appreciated in Freespace: the Shivaans worked for me. They were a challenge, they were mysterious and even though the destruction of Vasuda Prime was only detailed in a text and a small animation, it ewoked more suspense for me than WCP.
It was better in SOPS since Terran core worlds were in danger and you saw some more stuff (luxury liner etc...) but the Nephilim still sucked, now even more with Confed ships enhanced and their ships not, even downgraded regarding the guns.
 
Let's look at the running theme here... this is main games, however. No addons(WC:SO, etc), or extra "free games"(secret ops) should be counted in this... those were, more or less, bonuses that branched off of the main plot.
WC1: Fight the Kilrathi.
WC2: Fight the Kilrathi+Fight Conspiracy.
WC3: Fight the Kilrathi.
WC4: Fight Conspiracy.
WCP: Fight the Bugs(Stand in for the kitties.)

So, more or less... the next full-length retail WC game should be a "Fight the conspiracy" game. Perhaps...
Kilrathi factions are being randomly attacked by Confed fighters. In response, the Kilrathi once again begin to band together, and prepare to put a stop to it once and for all... by destroying the Confed fleet. You are either placed in a position to get to the bottom of it(Col. Casey?), or are dragged along for the ride, fighting out battles and trying to do some good. Eventually the bad guys are revealed.(something similar to the Black Lance theme, though not genocidal towards humans... genocidal towards those loveable fluffy kitties!) The "bad guy humans"- possibly based out of a carrier that mutinied, kind of like the Gettysburg- or even better, a full carrier group- are working to incite a new war, to convince Confed to wipe them out, once and for all. (motivations: Hatred, a la Hawk. Perhaps an old warhorse that just can't sit back and let the kitties become busom buddies with Earth?)

General mission structure:
Mixed, carrier defense from enraged kittens, protection of kilrathi convoys from rouge pilots, assaults on "bad guy" carrier group... and so on...

Come to think of it, this wouldn't be a bad mod. :)
 
Manic said:
WC1: Fight the Kilrathi.
WC2: Fight the Kilrathi+Fight Conspiracy.
WC3: Fight the Kilrathi.
WC4: Fight Conspiracy.
WCP: Fight the Bugs(Stand in for the kitties.)
Nah... you're stretching things there to match your theory :p. There was no conspiracy in WC2 - or at least, the Mandarin plot was not in any way comparable to the Black Lance plot. I mean, your contact with the Mandarins in WC2 involved the capture of one (!) traitor (since you're not counting addons and such). On the other hand, if you do insist that the two situations are comparable, then WC3 also involved fighting a conspiracy (Hobbes, conspiracy of one). Thus, it turns out that it's not every second game that involves fighting a conspiracy as you imply, but rather WC2, WC3, and WC4. This means that fighting conspiracies was a phase the WC series went through and has already outgrown, and the next game will not involve a conspiracy.

My point isn't to suggest that I think I can predict what the next game will be about - precisely the opposite. I'm trying to demonstrate that there's no way to predict this. When Origin employees in the past (and EA employees today?) sat down to work out the plot for the next game, they didn't ask, "Well, what was the last game about? Oh, the Kilrathi? Ok, that means it's time to do a conspiracy again".
 
Have they ever discussed remaking Wing Commanders 1 and 2, and perhaps optimizing WC3 for today's computers? Now that would be nice.
 
many a times fans have brought up the idea...it would be nice be seems to be just out of reach....
 
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