Wing Commander Collectors Edition Box Set petition?

floodcasso2 said:
i dont particularly think thats true. A lot of that thread was based upon the usage of those petition signing websites, which in my opinion carry very little weight with the professional world. Actually spending the few cents on paper and a stamp though seems to carry a little more weight with opinions.
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"Hey, I'm not trying to sell you a car, I'm trying to sell you an automobile!"
 
It's certainly worth a shot, but I think you're aiming a bit high. I could certainly see Electronic Arts developing a package similar to the Command & Conquer First Decade DVD or the upcoming Sierra collections.

Getting things like Super Wing Commander for the PC or Wing Commander Prophecy DVD aren't as much unlikely as they are impossible -- in an likelyhood there's no EA archive that keeps track of failed projects from studios that don't exist. The old demand that EA release the source code for the original games was always somewhat unlikely just because they probably don't *have* the source code for the old games.

Finding the root parts of Super Wing Commander or the high quality Prophecy DVD movies is a job for the fans... we should be tracking down old developers and asking them for such things. EA doesn't know they exist.
 
floodcasso2 said:
i dont particularly think thats true. A lot of that thread was based upon the usage of those petition signing websites, which in my opinion carry very little weight with the professional world. Actually spending the few cents on paper and a stamp though seems to carry a little more weight with opinions.

Ill post the letter here when its done, and I urge people to send off a copy to EA anyway, whether it works or not, at least we will have let people know that there is an interest in a product like that.
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Absolutely. Im with you 100% on this.

Come on Chris! dont you think it's good for Wing Commander fans to keep in touch with EA, let em know we're still alive and Wing Commander is still alive.
I know that the great work you do here (and that goes for all the other WC fan sites) is evidence enough that the series is still kickin, but i dont think it would do anyone any harm to tell the folks at EA how we feel about it
 
Besides, not much has to be done to WC1 WC2 and WC3 to get them from running primarily on win 98 to xp or vista, WC4 shouldnt be too difficult since it is more or less based on the WC 3 architecture. Most of the work would probably go into privateer, and privateer 2, and possibly Super WC.
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Is it just me, or does completely converting games to different OSes that are seperated by decades seem a little tricky or time consuming? I'm no expert at coding, but at the very least, it wouldn't be a simple copy and paste job.
 
All the new releases (C&C, Sierra) build emulators instead of doing much retooling to the games themselves.
 
MartySheen said:
Absolutely. Im with you 100% on this.

Come on Chris! dont you think it's good for Wing Commander fans to keep in touch with EA, let em know we're still alive and Wing Commander is still alive.
I know that the great work you do here (and that goes for all the other WC fan sites) is evidence enough that the series is still kickin, but i dont think it would do anyone any harm to tell the folks at EA how we feel about it
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Maybe if everyone who's ever come up with the petition idea went back in time and all sent their letters when the market was more viable and franchise more well known, then maybe it would have had an impact. Will you send the next letter in a few months when some other people sign up here and suggest this same idea? What about the 20th time you hear it a few years down the line? The point is, if your letter isn't sent till 2006, that just shows you haven't been around for the last five years of petitions. And if you weren't there then, is EA supposed to be convinced that you'll be around in a couple years to buy the game your letter is supposed to inspire today? EA has tens of millions of customers. Have they also been keeping a big tally sheet of all the letters they received about Wing Commander over the years?

I guess my point is that most of us have all sent our letters many times. By email, by postal mail, by blood, sweat, tears, thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of time every day over the last decade or more. There are many people here that EA can clearly see are fanatical about the series, and there's many ways to have fun and show your enthusiasm in the series at the same time. I don't see how sending another form letter to be routed to an intern in a California basement will really materially increase our contributions. I guess everyone has to send their first one at some point though, and you might as well do it now if you never have before. If I were them, I wouldn't expect the letter writers of today to stick around too long, but the most important thing you can do is prove us wrong.
 
The market for space sims is too small. Not a single hit for a long time. I still think that a simpler (cheper to develop) game for a handheld device could be an alternative. Not that it's cheap. But the costs to develop new game for the new consoles is just too high to justify the risk, apprantly. Either that or a compilation, for the basic reasons. I mean, if you could emulate every single WC game and make it run on the 360, that'd be awesome.
 
Hello everyone.. just my 2 cents. I think a lot hangs on how well the C&C works out for them. If there seems to be a market they might look into other lines, because getting them running on XP is a lot easier then making a new game. As far as the SNES version goes... I doubt it. The Prophecy DVD.. If they have it in archives they probably would.. if not don't expect them to pull out all the stops to find it. I would doubt the extra shots from the 3DO because that would require really digging into the engine, but maybe on an added disk.. just the footage.

I could see all the games all the expansions, all the instructions and books on CD/DVD.. as well as maybe some Press release stuff.. pics things like that. some Soundtracks, and maybe the DVD movie, and soundtrack.

I figure if C&C does well they might start looking around for other ones... but they have quite a few to choose from NFS, 007, Madden, and NBA

Remeber the things we have going for us.
1. The games are made.
2. It doesn't cost that much to bring them up to speed.
3. They don't look to make a killing at these. Just some easy money.
4. If C&C sales.. I would bet money they will look at more, and this is a long series. (not saying we are next in line, but I would say top 4 or 5)

All we can do is hope for the best, and if you do like C&C and stuff.. buying the new set won't hurt. I will probably get it but I like most them games heh.

So mail, email, sign, whatever... none of it hurts All we can do is wait and hope.

PS I will probably email them or something just because I feel like it heh.

Scavenger
 
Scavenger said:
I figure if C&C does well they might start looking around for other ones... but they have quite a few to choose from NFS, 007, Madden, and NBA
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The do have othe series. But it makes no sense for them to release a NHL, NBA or Football, or FIFA first 10years pack. THe whole point of sports franchises is usually to have the newest playes and the fancy graphics. I would hardly think sports games fans want to go back and play the 97 or 94 versions.

Racing on the otherhand like EA's Need for speed series has different focus depending on the version. Like Porche unleashed, hot persuit, underground... But I think they already have packs like that.
 
True on the Sports thoughts, but they released an older madden on a plug in system.

While they have done the NFS packs they have yet to do an all inclusive one, of course NFS-MW is still a big seller I doubt that will be any time real soon.

I just mean if the C&C sells they might look at several of their lines. I hope WC would be one of the next ones they look at. They have a lot of other ones that they might want to do also. Again.. pretty easy money for them.
 
Scavenger said:
Remeber the things we have going for us.
1. The games are made.
2. It doesn't cost that much to bring them up to speed.
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I think this is a common misconception. A lot of the time, and definitely in the case for part of the WC series, the owners/creators don't have or don't have access to all the source material. Sometimes they have to start practically from scratch to "port" older games to modern systems. In addition, things like the movie, soundtracks, music for older games and so on have complex licensing issues. It takes a lot of legwork and additional costs to solve those issues. And once you ship a game, you have to have a tech support staff knowledgable in the pack to support it for while it's in stores. There's marketing costs to consider, and when all is said and done, simply rereleasing old games is not the automatic easy shot that many people think it is.

Scavenger said:
3. They don't look to make a killing at these. Just some easy money.
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This is another big issue. EA doesn't run little side projects for easy money. They have a corporate culture based around blockbuster million-selling titles. They don't print the small production runs that most companies do. Stores are packed to the gills with copies of C&C First Decade, and EA definitely intends to make a ton of money off this project. They would not have gone ahead with it for just a little easy money.

If it was all this easy, it would have been done a long time ago. EA is waiting for certain particular circumstances to be met before they go ahead and invest in a new Wing Commander game or serious compilation. This is good news though, because when something finally is made, it won't be a little under-the-radar budget release. It'll be a big freakin deal.
 
ChrisReid said:
I think this is a common misconception. A lot of the time, and definitely in the case for part of the WC series, the owners/creators don't have or don't have access to all the source material. Sometimes they have to start practically from scratch to "port" older games to modern systems.
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It would be very difficult to por the games. Couldn't EA simply run them on an emulator?

This is another big issue. EA doesn't run little side projects for easy money. They have a corporate culture based around blockbuster million-selling titles. They don't print the small production runs that most companies do.
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That's correct, but they used to have a budget line for older titles, didn't they?

If it was all this easy, it would have been done a long time ago. EA is waiting for certain particular circumstances to be met before they go ahead and invest in a new Wing Commander game or serious compilation. This is good news though, because when something finally is made, it won't be a little under-the-radar budget release. It'll be a big freakin deal.
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Well, a small under the radar release could be a sleeper hit, you never know. On the other hand, I have some hope for them to revisit the franchise once they need a new space combat game for a console game. It might not be what we are used to recevied, but it could still be very interesting. I think it's too bad WC never made it to other major genres, like C&C. One *good* RTS or FPS could justify them investing on new games once in a while and not depend just on the space combat market.

They have that Star Trek 4X game, the Starfleet Command, the RTS, and the FPS shooter. They may not be great games, but at least you know you can use the brand name to make a variety of games.
 
It would be very difficult to por the games. Couldn't EA simply run them on an emulator?
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They would have to -- but that means developing or licensing an emulator... and then running QA for all the games to make sure they work (and when they don't, fixing the emulator). It's a pretty significant expense.

That's correct, but they used to have a budget line for older titles, didn't they?
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I believe that this was primarily to sell off unused OEM stock (that is to say, there's a reason Wing Commander II Classic is very very common and Ultima VI/Wing Commander I classic is not).

They have that Star Trek 4X game, the Starfleet Command, the RTS, and the FPS shooter. They may not be great games, but at least you know you can use the brand name to make a variety of games.
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Entirely separate case -- with Star Trek you have a giant pre-existing audience who is buying games because of the label... not because of how great other Star Trek games are. If 1% of the people who watch Star Trek buy a Star Trek game, that game is a fantastic success. If 1% of the people who play Wing Commander buy a Wing Commander game, we're very very screwed. :) (It's like the Wing Commander movie -- far more people saw the movie in theaters than ever bought a Wing Commander game... but it was still a financial failure because it's an entirely different medium. A million people seeing a movie is a huge loss, a million people buying a game based on a movie is a huge success.)
 
Delance said:
Well, a small under the radar release could be a sleeper hit, you never know.
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That's the problem. You never know. There are small publishers whose business model revolves around betting on these games to ocassionally succeed. As I've already explained in specific detail, this is not how Electronic Arts does business.
 
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