News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2020.339 (December 4, 2020)

False Armistice Explored

Mac from Mac's Lore has created a new YouTube channel dedicated to explaining the deep backstory behind less famous sci-fi franchises. This style of exposition has gotten popular for series like Star Wars, Halo, Destiny and other AAA titles, so it's great to see it trickle down a little bit further to our neck of the woods lately. Mac's prior videos have been about the Starsiege universe, but he's kicked off the first in a lineup of videos about Wing Commander. Part 1 is all about the False Armistice as presented in Fleet Action.

2019.338 (December 4, 2019)

Happy Birthday, PlayStation!

The famed Sony PlayStation console turned an astonishing twenty five years old yesterday. The system was originally released in Japan on December 3, 1994, a mere five days before the original PC release of Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger hit store shelves (the system would be released in the United States a full ten months later in September 1995.) To mark this occasion, we'd like to share a short history of Wing Commander on the platform.The so-called "fifth generation" of game consoles began in late 1993 with the launch of the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer and, shortly after, the Atari Jaguar.

2018.338 (December 4, 2018)

Coriolis' Console's Coca-Cola Connection

Eagle-eyed Wingnut StarvingPilot spotted a Wing Commander prop reappear in a television commercial. A simple, but unique, console appeared near the Midway's hangar in Prophecy. The same unit popped up again in a Coca-Cola ad the following year. Both are visible just briefly, so this is a crazy catch!

2017.338 (December 4, 2017)

Recording Session Set For WC Bar Music!

There's a pretty sizable update on the progress of George Oldziey's second Wing Commander album today. A date has been set now for early February to do the live recording of the WC bar music. It'll be performed in George's personal studio in Austin. After this session occurs, the album will be close to finished.

2016.339 (December 4, 2016)

Terran Fighters Ready To Lock & Load

2015.338 (December 4, 2015)

Twelve Days of Bengal Turrets

The Bengal in Academy has quite a variety of ship defenses. LOAF has made a list of every turret or weapon emplacement, along with screencaps and the episode in which it first appeared.

2014.338 (December 4, 2014)

Space Game Tropes All Rounded Up

Space Game Junkie recently recorded a new podcast about "The Tropiest of Space Game Tropes." Wing Commander is guilty of reusing quite a few well known sci-fi conceits - none perhaps as common as the duplicitous traitor. Jazz, Hobbes, Admiral Wilson, Admiral Tolwyn, Prime Minister Jamison and Ortiz come to mind, just to name a few. If you'd rather jump to this and other focused WC topics in the discussion, scroll over to about the 44:30 timestamp, otherwise the entire two-hour broadcast is worth a listen if you have the time.

2013.338 (December 4, 2013)

Landing Pad Supports Kilrathi Takeover

AAN has revealed more pictures of his miniature painted Dralthi model, and this time the ship has a cool planetside dock to land on. It sounds like there was actually quite a lot of attention to detail put towards construction of this Kilrathi platform. The whole scene also gives off a very Lords of the Sky vibe - where's the Dolosians? You can let AAN know what you think at the CIC Forums or see about 3D printing your own miniatures at the Dream Foundry.

2012.339 (December 4, 2012)

WC Mod Developed for Sword of the Stars

Earl Somers tipped us off about a neat Wing Commander project that builds on the 4X genre Sword of the Stars. The game is billed as a Prophecy mod, but there are also elements from Secret Ops that have been incorporated, and the developer, R2dical, is even looking at WC Arena meshes. A preliminary test release is available here (79 meg rar). You can learn more about the project, help provide feedback and encourage development of the next update at the Kerberos Productions forums here.

2011.338 (December 4, 2011)

Kilrathi Concept Designs Fill Fearsome Fleet

Here's another batch of Cybot's "K-rathi fictions." Some of the ships in his fleet are directly modeled after known designs, and others are new inspirations that simply borrow classic Kilrathi styling. When they're all pictured side-by-side, it can even be hard to tell which is which. A few of the models are pretty innovative without losing their common design theme.

Nomination Time Comes Again

It's already December, so that means it's almost time to hold our annual Fan Project & Web Site of the Year contests! Before actual voting begins, Wingnuts have a chance to nominate their picks in each category. Email your nominations here, and check out some of the past winners below.

2010.338 (December 4, 2010)

OTV OTW Home

The first X-37B returned to Earth yesterday after a successful orbital test flight lasting about seven months. The small ship is the second US craft (after the space shuttle) capable of launching into space and landing in order to be used again. It's the first such reusable shuttle that's unmanned and capable of being remotely piloted.The X-37B program is demonstrating a reliable, reusable unmanned space test platform for the Air Force.

Wing Commander IV Storyboards - Scene 220

Scene 220 is just one image but it's a great one--and what excellent wording: "The Intrepid 'shoots the gap' and joins the armada."These storyboard images were recovered from a backup CD containing materials belonging to Origin's web development team. They were dated November 17, 1995 and were likely planned for a never-completed web feature.

2009.338 (December 4, 2009)

Wing One More Time

Two years ago, The Fatman published his Wing Commander soundtrack, "Wing One", through the Amie Street music service. Twenty-six tracks were released throughout the Summer of 2007. Thirty second samples of each track are available to everyone, and once you've bought a song, you can listen to the full version online or download it outright. These are plain old MP3s, free of DRM.

2008.339 (December 4, 2008)

Restart the War!

IGN is running an excellent article titled Franchises We Want Resurrected. Guess who's number two? They say:Though it vies with TIE Fighter for the title of king of all space sims, Wing Commander was a different beast. Wing Commander was an epic space opera in every conceivable way; it featured memorable characters, a desperate war for survival, and a cinematic presentation that was well above the norms for its time.

Making the Games: Alpha Tauri System

Today we see a detailed map of the Alpha Tauri System - which is apparently home to planets named Nancy and Bill, Dune and... Ice Planet Zero!Thanks to Captain Johnny for both archiving and providing this material! The series is winding down, though, so if you're a former Wing Commander developer with a story to tell or a document to share, we'd love to hear from you.

2007.338 (December 4, 2007)

It Sure Was Good While It Lasted

We've put together a quick tribute to those nine glorious months of Wing Commander on GameTap. It includes screenshots of all the 'bonus material' presented in the client along with copies of the games' manuals, the video trailer for Wing Commander I and other bits of GameTapicana. For those unfamiliar, the service will stop hosting Wing Commander I, II and IV on December 11th. The GameTap archive is available here.

Point of Origin: Vol. III, No. 34

This "Special SPA Issue" of Point of Origin is dated March 12, 1993... and, once again, Origin lost at the awards show. It's all treated very humorously, but you can be sure that this is exactly the kind of thing that would have driven Lord British crazy.Also note that the ORIGIN Music CD has been added to the company's library in this issue.

2006.338 (December 4, 2006)

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Replay

AD won a copy of EA Replay for composing a few lines... and now it's in the news! Much to our surprise, the copy we sent him ended up being Canada-specific -- it had a separate French-language manual shrinkwrapped to the UMD-case! AD was kind enough to take some pictures so everyone can see that Replay really is "une collection géniale".

Everybody Booze Up and Garriott!

In celebration of "gaming culture", MTV dispatched a VJ to Austin to survey the city's extensive series of development houses for an online series called Overdrive. Among those interviewed was Origin founder Richard Garriott, who now runs NC Soft. He talks about dropping out of school to design video games and then, I'm not making this up, sings a "rap tune". You can the video online here.

2005.338 (December 4, 2005)

Snips of Ships

Quarto recently extracted a set of unused specifications for the Copernicus-class Planetological Research Ship from Wing Commander Prophecy's game engine. It may not be canon, but it was enough to get /ships2 in gear! As a demo of what the updated ships section will someday be, we are proud to present entries on three 'weird' ships: the Copernicus-class Planetological Research Ship , its Drops and the Pegasus Naval Base. For these 'FMV only' ships, we've chosen to include a 'Visual References' collection -- so erstwhile fan project engineers can best render their own versions.

Pick Your Favorite Music Next

The results for our minimum system requirements poll are in. Most people believed that a modern 2.0 GHz system with half a gigabyte of RAM and a standard 128 meg video card could be the minimum specs for the next PC based Wing Commander game. This reflects our community's continued optimism that more games will be arriving sooner rather than later.

2004.339 (December 4, 2004)

Updates On Official Wing Commander Music Reorchestration

LeHah has done some digging and come up with two updates on the various official Wing Commander music projects in the works. The Team Fat Reorchestrated Wing Commander Album is still under production. Here's what Linda Law had to say.We are working on the orchestrations.

David Arnold History Updated

LeHah also noticed the upgrade at Wing Commander Movie soundtrack composer David Arnold's website. You'll need Flash to view the menu structure. Some people might have to try a different browser if it doesn't come right up. Click on the History area and scroll over to 1999 to see the blurb on Wing Commander.

2003.338 (December 4, 2003)

WC Saga Unveils Jutland Concept Design

Tolwyn has announced the latest ship for the Freespace 2 mod, WC Saga. It looks pretty neat, and I'll let him introduce it here.The first is the Jutland-class CVA, a Fleet Attack Carrier that entered service between WC1 and WC2 times. Named after famous sea battles, notable ships are the Jutland, Trafalgar (End Run novel), and the Leyte Gulf (Fleet Action novel).

Server Move Complete

Looks like everything took just two and a half hours. The CIC is even more secure now in the event of nuclear war or epic flooding.

2002.338 (December 4, 2002)

Prophecy Advance This Month?

Nintendo's Prophecy page has been updated with a couple of bits of information.. the most interesting one being a listed released date of "Dec, 2002". Great news if it's true, however Nintendo aren't publishing the game so their release date may not be totally reliable.. it's the closest thing to an official date yet.

WCPolaroids: Casey (15/24)

A weird blue and yellow metal thing lurks in the dark corner. Oh, and Casey is there too.

2001.338 (December 4, 2001)

Another Vote Needs You

The BBC is asking for your nominations for their "Great Britons" contest. Naturally several WC actors apply and Malcolm MacDowell (WC3/4 Admiral Tolwyn) seems to be the favorite among WC fans right now. Saffron Burrows (Movie Angel), David Suchet (Movie Captain Sansky), and 90% of the Privateer 2 cast also apply. If you aren't sure about someone you can check with IMDB.

Odd Link Of The Day

Local Oddball TC suffered insomnia last night which apparently meant that he had to send all kinds of links to us. Now you can suffer too! First link is this article which features Richard Garriott explain how EA thinks that there's no future in MMO (massively multiplayer online) games. Strange since that's exactly the opposite of what they've been doing!

Last Call For Nominations

Remember folks - today is the last day for submitting nominations for the Best Fan Site of 2001 award and the Best Fan Project of 2001 award. Send us an email here with your nominations by the end of the day, then check back tomorrow for the actual voting procedure. For more details about nominating, check the original update here.

2000.339 (December 4, 2000)

Crisis at Digital Anvil Update

The Lancers Reactor is reporting that the following is Microsoft's official line regarding FreeLancer: "Freelancer will be released by Microsoft, and will be a breakthrough game!"Noticed over at Blues News that the lead animator for Digital Anvil's Brute Force has started a forum at Developer's Corner, billing it as "It's the closest thing to an "Official" DA forum on the internet." Check it out here here.Another interesting rumor from a less familiar source is that Chris Roberts has a movie script that he is trying to get backing for.

Crisis at Digital Anvil

AVault reports that one of their sources has confirmed Chris Roberts' removal from Digital Anvil. They go on to report that Erin Roberts, Chris' brother of Privateer 2 fame, has also left the company. The most startling rumor of all, however, is that FreeLancer may be either scrapped or scaled down due to technological difficulties. This would seem to be counter to what was reported at the Lancers Reactor -- hopefully the confusion will be sorted out soon.

Press Release Inbound

We've been informed that Microsoft plans to issue a press release regarding the situation at Digital Anvil later today. Stop back later as we'll post it as soon as it is available.

Fleet Action Update

The latest from Fleet Action, the WC mod for Homeworld: Work is proceeding on the Concordia and the Hakaga, as well as a redesign of the mod's web site. They hope to post new screenshots soon!

Trivia 3 Week 6

Time for week 6 of the CIC/agwc Trivia game... As always, hit this page for your old scores. Good hunting!Welcome to Game Three, Week Six Trivia.

Sign of the Times

Peter Telep will be doing another book signing at Barnes and Noble in Orlando. Here's the skinny...Orlando, Florida, December 16, 2000: Author Peter Telep will be at the Barnes & Noble located at 481 North Alafaya Trail, Orlando, Fl 32828 407.275.

1999.338 (December 4, 1999)

Where Can I Buy...?

The CIC's new "Where To Buy" section is now online. This section can help you locate the Wing Commander merchandise you're still looking for. It's also a kind of summary of all the merchandise that's available today.

Calling all Floridians

Anyone from Florida? If so, get down to Barnes and Noble in Oviedo Market right away! Peter Telep is there today between 12PM and 6PM signing books to promote Descent : Equinox. If you be nice to Mr.

Time's Up

Sorry folks, but we are no longer accepting nominations for the Best Wing Commander Fan Site of 1999 award. Phase 2, the voting, will begin soon.

Police Baffled by Rodent Popularity

Demi-monde doyenne Tony Knox reports. CIS investigators following drag queen diva Julienne and her alternative retinue, now on Hermes, are perplexed. It seems that whereever the transvestite tribe go, Fluffy Rodent sales increase dramatically. However, CIS agents report that they never see Rodents in the possession of the free and easy cross dressers.

1998.338 (December 4, 1998)

It's Here

I'm happy to report that there was a package on my doorstep when I got home for a minute today... inside was a copy of Wing Commander: False Colors! I sat down and read it straight through... it was pretty dashed good.