News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2022.039 (February 8, 2022)

Get To Know the SAR-23

Know your Condors! Red is the search & rescue version, yellow is the refueling ship and grey is the shuttle (which I think didn’t make it to the game).

2021.039 (February 8, 2021)

Wing Commander 3 Campaign Set to Stream

Prolific game streamer and dedicated Wingnut Bonkus_Maximus is about to kick off a big series with The Heart of the Tiger. He's played plenty of classic Wing Commander on his Twitch channel before, but he's decidedly out of practice in WC3. This provides a prime opportunity to jump into the game anew for a fresh experience. You can join in live here on Twitch starting Tuesday at 8 pm Eastern time.

2020.039 (February 8, 2020)

Victory Hull Nearly Complete.

L.I.F. has made excellent progress in just a few short days on his TCS Victory model in From the Depths.

2019.039 (February 8, 2019)

OldiesGames Returns to WC4 DVD

DocteurJ is back with another OldiesGamesTV episode in his long running French language series on Wing Commander. The focus for this segment is the epic introduction to Wing Commander 4 and associated early sequences. He uses the DVD edition to ensure quality is top notch. It's great to see Wingnuts keeping the fandom global!

2018.039 (February 8, 2018)

New WC Toolbox Expands WC2 & Academy Support

The WC Toolbox has been significantly updated again. WC2 and Academy support arrived in November, but this was initially limited to COMM, DIFFLEVL, INTELSHP, PALETTE, SPEECH and WAVEINFO file type editing. The program can now modify quite a few more things. Additionally, WC1 support has been expanded again with a handful of new features.

2017.039 (February 8, 2017)

Spoiler Filled Wing Commander Review

The crew of Spoiler Filled have done a conversational podcast review of the Wing Commander feature film. Being unfamiliar with the Wing Commander franchise beyond the film's reputation, the podcast covers their expectations and then contrasts them with their impressions after watching the film. Their overall impression is not necessarily positive, but they do say the reputation is undeserved and give props to the movie's special effects scenes as being quite good for 1999.Yes, it’s time for Rich, Abi and Ant to have a not too hate-filled chat about the movie, for Rich to try and talk about ‘Star Trek’ similarities despite not knowing anything about the show, for everyone to speculate about the games without having played them, and for some discussion on why the story really doesn’t make much sense at all.

2016.039 (February 8, 2016)

Defiance Industries Meets Douglas Aerospace

DefianceIndustries has put together a really nice Hellcat, and it comes in two varieties! In the shift from Wing Commander 3 to 4, the workhorse fighter didn't just get slightly different color highlights. The earlier variant has four clear underslung guns in the same mount. Fans got a sneak peek of this one in last month's Banshee wallpaper.

2015.039 (February 8, 2015)

Underworld Ascendant Bringing Back Classic Franchise

Another famous Origin series is getting a new spiritual successor thanks to Kickstarter. Underworld Ascension was first announced last summer, and the team has spent about half a year doing initial planning on the game to ensure a successful crowdfunding campaign. The team behind the new game is led by designer Paul Neurath and others who were involved in the original. They're more than half way to a $600,000 funding goal in less than a week, so prospects look good.

2014.039 (February 8, 2014)

Ultima Online Shifted To New Development Studio

Ultima Online's producer has announced a major change in the operation of the long-running massively multiplayer game. UO was born in Austin, Texas alongside the Wing Commander series at Origin Systems. It was then transferred to EA Redwood Shores in California and has spent more than seven years being run out of EA/Bioware Mythic/Entertainment in Maryland. Now, a handful of Mythic employees have formed a new studio, Broadsword, which is taking over management responsibility from EA.

2013.039 (February 8, 2013)

Epee Gets Bold Introduction to Enigma

Enigma 2666's Concordia battle group is getting even more fighters. The multirole Epee is the latest addition, and it's available in two variants shown below. Option 1 features a streamlined paint scheme while Option 2 has a more elaborate livery. Let Deathsnake and RedBaron know what you think at the CIC Forums.

2012.039 (February 8, 2012)

Saga Beta Expands to Full Game

There's a new look inside WC Saga's beta test. The team reports that there have been many iterations of the beta and they are now starting to test missions in the later portions of the game. There have also been issues with capship positioning and audio recently, but these bugs are being worked through.We're almost there!

2011.039 (February 8, 2011)

How To Disable Kilrathi Saga Speech

Mincemeat has a clever tip for reverting to subtitles in the Kilrathi Saga port of Wing Commander 2. Most of the earlier Wing Commander games that had speech automatically hid subtitles when voices were enabled. If someone was interested in reactivating subtitles, the typical method involved going into the game's installation menus and deactivating special voice effects. Kilrathi Saga's Windows installation has no such option, so turning on subtitles is a little tricker.

Ultima Reel Shows Off Origin's Last Project

Ultima Aiera has posted a cool pitch video from January 2004. It's a pitch proposal for another iteration of Ultima Online 2. Several different iterations were attempted over the years, and this demo appears to be a dressing up of the canceled Harry Potter Online engine. Development did not go much farther, as Origin was closed in February 2004.

2010.039 (February 8, 2010)

"H'as aiy'hra n'hakh ri'kahri krikajj, nai korekh sha'yi"

"Beyond the eyes of my enemy, I shall prepare for the day of his destruction." Wing Commander Invasion's latest ship is the imposing but unassuming Kilrathi Comcon from the Movie. It's a support ship that fills an important surveillance role in the game. Players who deploy the sneaky craft will have a major sensory advantage over the Confederation.

New 747 Takes Off

The new Boeing 747-8 flew for the first time this afternoon over Everett, Washington. This inaugural flight comes one day shy of the anniversary of the original 747's first flight way back in 1969. The iconic hump over the forward fuselage is still present, but the body has been extended and the plane has been outfitted with a brand new wing design. Engines, the flight deck, interiors and other systems have been patterned after new technology developed for the 787.

2009.039 (February 8, 2009)

Master Of The Brush & Joystick

Blaster has been working on some very creative pieces of Wing Commander art. He's been practicing calligraphy and posted these three samples. The first is a Kilrathi oath, the second is a set of Kilrathi characters and the final shot is a full sentence. I love it when people try out new things like this, and these are all quite well done.

Making the Game: Art List & Object Names

Today's update is an early list of the art assets -- 3D models and other objects -- that the Prophecy team needed from their artists. Two fateful decisions here: "This should NOT disappear when destroyed", referring to a space station but ultimately every capital ship... and "Eisen can be on the other side of the Jumppoint", cutting the game's other carrier into oblivion. Note the inclusion of destroyers and cruisers on the Confed side -- but that the various 'intro' ships (Devereaux, pods, etc.

2008.039 (February 8, 2008)

Pioneer Taunts Fans With New Audio Test

Howard Day isn't just turning out pretty pictures these days. He's recently recorded an audio sample of various Kilrathi taunts. It's easy to overdo a Kilrathi voice or make it sound corny, but these lines come across pretty well. Listen for yourself by grabbing this file (3.

Point of Origin: Vol. V, No. 4

With the Arena artwork finished it looks like we're going to have to do one of these every day until the collection runs out! This is the April 7, 1995 issue of The Point of Origin -- and Wing Commander III is still on everyone's minds.A very special thanks to Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum for making this resource available and to Electronic Arts for sending them to him in the first place!In Ink has even more about WCIII:Meanwhile the Wing Commander III juggernaut keeps on rolling.

2007.039 (February 8, 2007)

Paper, Paper, Everywhere

A Wing Commander fan named Péricles has made some very impressive paper models, including the Dralthi, Jalthi, Sabre and Rapier II. He's also put together Anthony Greenfield's SWACS model! You can find more details at his website here, and see more Wing Commander paper models here. Take a look:You can download the models below:Dralthi (0.

Six from Saga

The Wing Commander Saga mod for FreeSpace 2 has released several new screenshots. Here's the official word:The first six are action shots from one of our simulator missions in which the player is desperately trying to save the carrier Ticonderoga from an intense Kat assault. In the next three screenshots (run through an ATI post process filter), some of our nebulae provide a backdrop for a conflict between Confed and Kilrathi capital ships. Confed comes out on top… this time.

2006.039 (February 8, 2006)

Time To Start DragonCon 2006 Planning

The new year is under way, and it's already been more than five months since our last meeting at DragonCon. New readers since last fall should check out our 2005 DC Gallery to get an idea of what happens each summer when the CIC staff gets together at one of the world's largest science fiction conventions. It's time to start planning for 2006's event, and the first order of business is to think about ordering convention passes. This year's get-together takes place from September 1-4 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Richard Garriot: The Best Is Yet To Come

GameSpot has caught up with Origin founder Richard Garriot to discus his recent AIAS Hall of Fame award. He also answered questions about his role in gaming history and how Tabula Rasa will be different from previous massively multiplayer experiences. A lot of the interview also has to do with the industry was shaped by the Ultima franchise and innovative steps that were taken back at Origin. You can find the complete interview here.

2005.039 (February 8, 2005)

PC Games Article Translated Into English

CF Koch has translated the German Wing Commander article that Tolwyn sent in last week. It has two parts. Half the space is spent talking about where Chris Roberts has been lately, and the other portion notes how Wing Commander 3 and Half Life 2 are tied for their best reviewed games of all time. You can find the full article here.

Tom Wilson Appearing Next Week in LA

BttF.com is reporting that Tom Wilson will be performing standup comedy on Monday, February 14 at the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, California. He will be half of a special presentation with Debi Gutierrez. If you live in the Los Angeles area and would like to attend this special Valentine's Day comedy show, you can make reservations at (310) 372-1193.

2004.039 (February 8, 2004)

Wine-ing About Secret Ops

It has been over three years since we wondered about the possibility of running WC games on alternative operating systems with the aid of an emulator. Now courtesy of Pepito "Peña" we have received our first report of a WC game running under Linux with the aid of the Wine emulator. It isn't perfect as the game will sometimes quit randomly, but it's a start. Know of another WC game supported by Wine?

Lost WC Article Better Off Lost

HotT found an old article on game to movie conversions that we missed back in the day. Article like this are mostly all the same, but typically the author claims to have seen most of the movies that the feature trashes. We're not fortunate enough to get that treatment here.I haven’t seen Tomb Raider...

2003.039 (February 8, 2003)

Official Prophecy Release Date At Last?

Nintendo's own Prophecy GBA page has had a bit of an update. It now contains a nice description of the game, and interestingly enough, a specific release date. Where it used to say just "Feb, 2003" now reads "Feb 25, 2003". This is the date currently listed by many retailers including EB.

Crius.net Hits Another Milestone

Earlier this past week the Crius.net forums slipped past 2000 registered posters. Things have been moving along nicely there for some time now. Welcome to our newest posters: lovecraft, bulch, cannabis, Diesel, Catweasel, BexHeck & JeffB this week.

WCPolaroids: Extras (11/16)

All smiles here except for sleepy-guy from yesterday, who this time looks like he is in pain from shrapnel in his leg or something.

2002.039 (February 8, 2002)

Lets Go Out to the Press Room

... and have ourselves a snack. Here's something we should have done a long time ago: a press release archive. Unfortunately, as we did not do it a long time ago, it's severly lacking in press releases.

Mini-Trivia Results

A while back I offered a chance for some trivia... find all the 'Saab' references in Wing Commander. While nobody actually entered, lots of people wanted to know the results... go figure.

2001.039 (February 8, 2001)

Official UO2 Fiction Contest Hints of Blair and Maniac

First snow in Seattle this morning, so we just have a couple quick updates here. Cutting to the chase, people email us regularly to ask if "Origin is still alive." Of course the answer is yes, but it's always heartening to see them do something in an official manner that reminds everyone that they haven't forgotten about Wing Commander. As part of their UO2/UWO:O prerelease hype, they're holding a big fan fiction contest.

Wishing Him Well

We'd like to wish LOAF well as he goes in for one of his most serious surgeries today. Things should go well, but these operations are always tough things. We should have another update on his progress soon.

He Wants A Job!

To lighten the mood and round things out, here's an old but good SomethingAwful article by Jeff K. It's about his adventures trying to become a game master for Ultima Online. You can find this funny odd feature here. And if you missed it before, you can find LOAF, Chris McCubbin and me at Cliff Yablonski's here.

1999.039 (February 8, 1999)

FOX Tells Press

For those of you skeptical about the March 12th date for the movie, skepticize no longer: here's the official press release from FOX (which came from Yahoo! Finance).Monday February 8, 2:20 pm Eastern TimeCompany Press Release20th Century Fox to Release ``Wing Commander'' in Theaters Nationwide On March 12LOS ANGELES--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--Feb. 8, 1999--Twentieth Century Fox will release the science-fiction adventure film ``Wing Commander'' in theaters nationwide on March 12, it was announced Monday by Tom Sherak, chairman of Twentieth Domestic Film Group.

See the Movies

Lars was kind enough to send in an update version of his Wing Commander 3 movie editor. Grab it here. The tre extractor now extracts WC4 files as well.

Oops...

Rip, who was an extra on the WC Movie site, sends the below correction with interesting information to the cast pictures page.One other thing, the picture of Rosie Forbes you have on the cast pics page- I'm almost positive isn't her. The girls on that picture are just extras, one was from Ireland and the other was French, they both lived in Lux. Rosie's hair was bleached and she was way better looking.