Wing Commander Collectors Edition Box Set petition?

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floodcasso2

Spaceman
Hey whats up everyone? I was surfing through the video game sites today and i saw that good old command and conquer (also one of my fav old game series) is getting a full box set of every game released in the series thus far.

wouldnt it be cool if we petitioned EA, to re-release a box set of EVERY wing commander universe game in a box set for us all to play with, that is win xp/vista compatible? I mean its not looking very likely that well ever get another canon wing commander game with a roberts at the helm, so why not cap off this AMAZING series of gaming history with a box set? I mean Kilrathi Saga was good, but it missed out on a lot of the other games, and completely ignored Privateer, which hasnt been easily runnable on a modern computer in YEARS)

Id love to see

wing commander 1+expansion
wing commander 2+expansion
wing commander 3 (remastered dvd quality cutscenes perhaps)
wing commander 4 (dvd version, natch)
wing commander prophecy gold
privateer 1
privateer 2
academy
armada

all in one nice big box.. what do you think, should we start a letter writing campaign to Electronic Arts and see if we can make it happen? Id certainly pick this up for 60 or so dollars, which is what i believe they are charging for the command and conquer set.

what do you all think?
 
I would certainly be great to see -- I'm not sure there's much we can do save buying the C&C set and hoping they get the message that people are interested in old games...

There's actually a DVD version of Wing Commander Prophecy that was never released -- it would be great to see that in a set like this.
 
Yes. Eight years ago we got Kilrathi Saga, which covered the main-series games up to that time. Let's have a new collection, one that runs on WinXP out of the box.
 
floodcasso2 said:
wing commander 3 (remastered dvd quality cutscenes perhaps)
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That would depend on the quality of the original source material; I don't know what resolution the sequences were originally rendered at.
 
Timby said:
That would depend on the quality of the original source material; I don't know what resolution the sequences were originally rendered at.
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The PSX and 3DO versions both have better (atleast cleaner) video than the PC version. So a version with enhanced video wouldnt be out of the question. DVD quality isnt the real issue though (as the masters are tape I believe and the compression is done from there) The real enemy is reality. The lower qualit video actually masks the fakeness of the sets and effects. To some degree the lower quality gives the video a more real feel. Like how the picture looks smother in prophecy on a smaller monitor with interlacing on because your eye is filling in the blanks.
 
Timby said:
That would depend on the quality of the original source material; I don't know what resolution the sequences were originally rendered at.
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Who cares?...
Just pack all the originals together on one (or 2, 3 or what ever) DVD and make them all work on Win-XP (and the coming Win-Vista) and let us have our fun!

KS was great, but I have the DOS version of Priv2, and my armada and Priv1 floppy-disks are long gone (and KS never did worked that smoothly).
 
Someone did a DOS-to-Windows 95 patch for Privateer 2: https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/5795

Only the first Command & Conquer game lacked Windows 95 support (and they rereleased it for Windows 9x a couple of years ago). Between Kilrathi Saga's issues and Armada, Academy and Privateer and the add-ons all being DOS only, it'd probably be a lot more work to get an XP bundle out for Wing Commander.
 
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AD said:
DVD quality isnt the real issue though (as the masters are tape I believe and the compression is done from there) The real enemy is reality. The lower qualit video actually masks the fakeness of the sets and effects.
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Indeed. While the photographed masters would be on tape, the tape would then transferred to computer for compositing. The final work would then, again, be output to tape (in theory, anyway).

So, while it's possible that we could get high-quality video of the filmed sequences in front of the greenscreens, the final sequences would never hit that level.

Since it's unlikely that the final comped sequences were ever rendered in high resolution (at that time, it would have been prohibitively expensive, given the amount of video), DVD-resolution video from Wing III would look...well, not good. It'd probably be reminiscent of the Babylon 5 DVDs, in which there is a noticeable drop in picture quality whenever the shot involves a blend of live-action and CG work; B5's CG was never rendered at a higher resolution than NTSC 720x480, so there's a jarring change when moving from the high-res 35mm film to the video. Wing III, on DVD, would probably look, at best, like blended B5 footage. And I don't know that that would be a considerable step up from what we have today.

Now, I don't know the actual resolutions of Wing III's video offhand, nor do I remember -- was it 320x240, or was it 640x480?

In any event, the video on the PlayStation/3DO versions is probably the best it will ever get.
 
Ijuin said:
Yes. Eight years ago we got Kilrathi Saga, which covered the main-series games up to that time.
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That may come to bite us in our ass. Kilrathi Saga didn't sell like EA wanted when it came out - which is one of the reasons that its such an expensive item on Ebay. (Thats not to say its a rare item, but people are willing to pay a lot of money to get their hands on it, after-the-fact)
 
i think the wing commander fanbase has actually grown over the years. I'm fairly sure with the right advertising that a wing commander set would sell fairly well. And considering that Kilrathi Saga got WC1 to run on windows without much problem, i dont see why privateer or privateer 2 would be a big deal. So what do you guys think? should we start a campaign? Ill be happy to write up a sample letter that people can mail to EA. Id say do e-mails, but real snail mail seems to have more impact with companies.
 
floodcasso2 said:
i think the wing commander fanbase has actually grown over the years.
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In terms of fanbase, I think that we have the same amount as we always did - but we certainly have a lot of "new faces", as some people rediscover the series later on. We have a huge fanbase considering there hasn't been an original WC game in almost a decade - but I think for a fanbase to really grow, there needs to be new material to attract new blood.

floodcasso2 said:
I'm fairly sure with the right advertising that a wing commander set would sell fairly well.
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Well, you're half right. The real problem per se is the gaming industry, which has shyed away from space sims since 1999/2000. Theres still a few games that pop up now and again, but no big names or revolutionary ideas. There will be a day when the spacesim comes back into style and thats when WC has the best chance in coming back. EA won't devote large sums of cash towards a project where the industry doesn't have the active fanbase - they're running a business, not a charity, after all.

floodcasso2 said:
should we start a campaign? Ill be happy to write up a sample letter that people can mail to EA. Id say do e-mails, but real snail mail seems to have more impact with companies.
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A campaign is a great idea. Write up what you think it should say and then show us the results.
 
floodcasso2 said:
wing commander 3 (remastered dvd quality cutscenes perhaps)
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Unlikely, becasue the originals are low quaility to begin with. They could redo all the CGI, since the originals are with a blue or green background.

Such an edition would certainly be great. Make Every single game runfine on XP just for the fun of it.
 
Delance said:
Unlikely, becasue the originals are low quaility to begin with. They could redo all the CGI, since the originals are with a blue or green background.
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It would be possible with current technology - but the expense of remastering a game from 12 years ago probably wouldn't be a good investment for EA
 
I think the WC3 scenes were shot on 8mm film...and wc4 35mm been a while since I've seen the numbers
 
I wonder if there's any chance that we may get a PS2 port of Prophecy?
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I doubt it. Wing Commander Prophecy Advance only came about because of an unusual and complex set of contractual loopholes.

Aside: a Wing Commander Prophecy/Vision Engine port for the Playstation was cancelled early in development by Origin because of technical issues.

I think the WC3 scenes were shot on 8mm film...and wc4 35mm been a while since I've seen the numbers
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Wing Commander 3 was shot on tape.
 
I'd buy it, And I'd deffinatly LOVE to see EA make a new WC game, been FAR too long, and with todays tech currently available, it would look absolutly incredable.
 
PattyMan2001 said:
I'd buy it, And I'd deffinatly LOVE to see EA make a new WC game, been FAR too long, and with todays tech currently available, it would look absolutly incredable.
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I doubt EA is going to make a wc game anytime soon but once saga's finished I think it'll be a good substitute.
 
Lt.Death100 said:
I doubt EA is going to make a wc game anytime soon but once saga's finished I think it'll be a good substitute.
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Yea i know it, its sad though, WC is a great series, and Prophecy left it so wide open for another.
 
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