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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: kasperl on April 19, 2004, 05:22:11 am

Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: kasperl on April 19, 2004, 05:22:11 am
now, i could easily google this, but the last time i looked at it, the community for this was less then, friendly, to anyone from here.

What is it? i only ever saw forum posts, some models, and about 20 minutes from a movie. Who started it? What are the basic physics (FTL excuse etc)? What is more important to the story, games, movies (are there books)?
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: an0n on April 19, 2004, 05:28:47 am
There's a load of games and a movie.

It was made by Chris Roberts.

Uses hyper-drives in conjunction with jump-points to travel between systems and AFAIK intra-system FTL was never explained. Though I think it's a matter of there being no in-system FTL'ing.

The Confederation Navy (Confed Navy) is fighting a race of alien cat thingies called the Kilrathi from the Vega sector.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Nico on April 19, 2004, 05:39:40 am
Yeah. Lots of games, the basic series is made from 5 games
Games 1 to 3 talk about the Kilrathi ( the cats ) war
Game 4 deals with some complicated political plot and biogenetics :p
Game 5 starts a war with another species ( nephilims, the grasshopers :p )
There's a "6th" installement which is free, based on Prophecy ( the 5th game ) and could be d/led from the game.

WC trademark is the plot, with lots of cutscenes and stuff. Mark Hamill ( Luke Skywalker :p ) played in WC3, 4 and Prophecy.

There's an handful of anecdotic side games ( armada, academy ), a couple addons ( for WC1 and 2 only, tho ), and, mostly, the Privateer series which takes place in the WC universe ( tho it's kind of hard to ell in Privateer2... ).
Disregarding any little WC/FS wa-war, I'd say I like WC as much as FS. And the WC universe is more developped and interesting imho.

The movie is ubber ****, and worth only being watched for the couple ( not so cool ) battles. Someone would make a clip out of them and delete the rest, would be better, acually :p
The movie keeps the names, and that's it, design is changed, characters are changed, plot is... forgotten.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: an0n on April 19, 2004, 05:52:48 am
The movie has Saffron Burrows in. Plot doesn't matter.

Hell, even Pearl Harbour would have been good if it'd had Saffron Burrows.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: kasperl on April 19, 2004, 06:05:47 am
ok, i heard about books, are there any?

also, are these games abandonware?
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Nico on April 19, 2004, 06:21:40 am
Quote
Originally posted by an0n
The movie has Saffron Burrows in. Plot doesn't matter.

Hell, even Pearl Harbour would have been good if it'd had Saffron Burrows.


:wtf:
I prefer Kate Beckinsale to your low-class midget :p
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Unknown Target on April 19, 2004, 06:25:27 am
I always thought the Kilrathi ship names sucked balls. They seem to take as many "th"s "r"s and "s"s, stick 'em together, and see what barely pronouncable (spelling?) name they could think of.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Nico on April 19, 2004, 06:30:02 am
big deal.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: jdjtcagle on April 19, 2004, 06:36:30 am
Quote
Originally posted by Nico
Mark Hamill ( Luke Skywalker :p ) played in WC3, 4 and Prophecy.
 


I remember now, my Grandpa played this with a 3D0 and never got to played the last few missions because he sold it.
Wow, I've actually been looking for this game!!:D
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: IceFire on April 19, 2004, 09:22:20 am
I like both :D
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: karajorma on April 19, 2004, 11:12:09 am
Quote
Originally posted by Unknown Target
I always thought the Kilrathi ship names sucked balls. They seem to take as many "th"s "r"s and "s"s, stick 'em together, and see what barely pronouncable (spelling?) name they could think of.


Try voice acting for the WCP then :D :rolleyes:

I actually had to send in a e-mail asking how to pronounce a couple of the names :)  

(which reminds me of something else on my to-do list)
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: ZylonBane on April 19, 2004, 11:44:29 am
The Kilrathi are just shameless ripoffs of Larry Niven's Kzin.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: karajorma on April 19, 2004, 12:00:36 pm
Quote
Originally posted by ZylonBane
The Kilrathi are just shameless ripoffs of Larry Niven's Kzin.


 There are a lot of resemblences. Then again the idea of a humanoid cat has been around for thousends of years and have probably been gods in several civilisations so there are plenty of places they could have stolen the idea from apart from Niven.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Stunaep on April 19, 2004, 12:07:36 pm
Ah, I remember the fond days of playing WC2. Damn good story it had. And the Secret Ops missions were nearly as long as the first game!

Too bad no. 3 and 4 are nowhere to be found.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Ace on April 19, 2004, 12:39:14 pm
Pretty much on the WC games you need to play it is:
WC1-4 (1-3 can be found in the Win95 compatable "Kilrathi Saga" I hope they re-release that with the WC1/2 expansion sets included as opposed to a download in a DVD format)

Privateer (Freelancer was done right the first time.)

Armada (It's a quirky, fun little game with some strategy elements)

Probably out of all of them Privateer and WC3 are my favorites. WC4 was a little too much movie, too little game.

I also like Privateer 2, but I don't really consider it a WC game since its setting is definately different than WC. (supposidely it's set in the distant WC future... supposidely)

Other than the pretty graphics, for the time, Prophecy is a smoldering pile of crap.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Nico on April 19, 2004, 01:03:13 pm
I like prophecy a lot, you tasteless bum :p
As for the WC4 thing, I hear that a lot, but that statement is kind of stupid, it's not like there's less gameplay, there's just more FMV. But people are never happy, so...
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: mikhael on April 19, 2004, 01:47:34 pm
Prophecy was, in my opinion, the best of the Wing Commander games.  The dogfighting was excellent, Mark Hamill gets killed, the Vampire is introduced (still the sexiest canon fighter in any planes-in-space game) and the Nephilim show up. It was like FS1 but with 100% more plot. ;)
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Kazan on April 19, 2004, 02:16:44 pm
most of what makes WC was it is is the DEPTH of the universe
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Antares on April 19, 2004, 02:32:35 pm
I'd advise playing the SNES port of the original Wing Commander, if you're interested in "entering" the fandom.  Although the older games have probably shifted to abandonware by now (wasn't there a big hoo-hah here about Origin shutting down or something?), there would probably be compatibility issues with today's operating systems.  Emulation would be an easier course to follow.  The first title in the series is the least complicated, and a lot of fun to play.

I recall reading somewhere that Chris Roberts had always envisioned cat-like aliens for the WC series (The "Starfire" series by David Weber and Steve White, on which FreeSpace itself is probably based, uses space-cats called Orions), but had trouble coming up with a name for them.  He eventually settled upon Kilrathi--"kill rats". :p

Watching the movie will give you a crash-course on the WC setting, and it was directed by Roberts, making it "official" for all purposes of fandom.  The various subplots are weird to varying degrees, however, and some details seem funky (like Paladin suddenly becoming French, as opposed to Scottish), so you may not find yourself liking the film.  If nothing else, however, it's a nice display of special effects--the Independence Day-style shield effects remind me of what Bobbau has recently put into place.

Pilgrims? :wtf:
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: J3Vr6 on April 19, 2004, 02:35:08 pm
Which Wing commander had Biff from Back to the Future?  Prophecy, right?  This is also the one that Mark Hammill is not the main pilot, right?

I honestly thought that Prophecy was a waste.  The graphics sucked.  I had played Freespace first and was disapointed by WC visually, since it's supposedly the daddy of all space fight sims.

The story also sounded awfully like Freespace:  Humans are fighting a long war against aliens when suddenly a new enemy shows up and they have to join forces to fight this new baddy.

I loved Wing commander 1... and I think that's all I loved about the entire series, and yes I played them all except the privateer ones.  The funniest were the outtakes from one of them at the end of the game, where Biff is making fun of Mark Hamil and doing his "hello, mcfly" routine...
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: mikhael on April 19, 2004, 03:31:58 pm
Yes, J3Vr6, the introduction to WC:P is indeed the same as Freespace 1. The difference lies in the fact that WC:P had a story that built from that plot hook. In Freespace, that was the totality of the 'story'. We had our basic universe, but we didn't have any real characters in it.

Besides, WC:P had better capships, fighters, and bombers. And the selling point of the game was the story, not the fact that capships were big. ;)
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: J3Vr6 on April 19, 2004, 03:40:22 pm
I wasn't talking about the huge capships.  I honestly don't remember how big they were.  I just remember the graphics were dissapointing.

I will admit and agree with you that the story seemed that much more there, and that has a lot to do with it being part 5 in the series.  You had 4 games before that that developed the relationship between the kilrathi and the humans, plus the characters.

But, I dunno, Prophecy didn't do it for me...
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Nico on April 19, 2004, 04:09:44 pm
Quote
Originally posted by J3Vr6
Which Wing commander had Biff from Back to the Future?  


WC3, 4 and P all had Tom Wilson ( Biff Tanen :D ) has Todd "Maniac" Marshall, which is, btw, my favourite character of the whole series :D
And to the credits of Wing Co Prophecy, you have Syd Mead's ( Syd Mead, Visual Director and Conceptor for Blad Runner, Aliens... ) awesome designs for the Nephilims. That alone is worth seeing.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: IceFire on April 19, 2004, 04:37:14 pm
I liked Prophecy for all sorts of reasons but I liked WC3 and WC4 for different ones.  Honestly they could have almost made WC3 and WC4 into movies without the gameplay there was so much spent on sets and actors....

But I did like the WC Movie for its quirky setting as well.  It had awesome theme music too...definately not a blockbuster but I'm kind of glad they did it just the same.

WC2 was probably a pinnacle in many ways.  That was awesome.

I also do not knock Descent: FreeSpace at all for taking a "cog in the wheel" approach to the player character.  Still it does lack depth in that way sometimes....
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: mikhael on April 19, 2004, 05:28:49 pm
"Cog in the wheel"? More like "ant among swarm of ants". No one had a name or face or life or story, with the possible exception of Snipes and Bosch.

WC2, btw, was the game that got me interested in space combat games. If it weren't for WC2 I'd likely never have even bothered with Freespace or Xwing or any of the rest.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: kasperl on April 20, 2004, 03:15:02 am
i am getting WC 1 and 2 from HOTU now, as part of the WCSaga thingy, they just ripped WC3, and it ought to have the music.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: kasperl on April 20, 2004, 05:33:07 am
well, WC1 feels like it is an Arcade game, which is good, really. it is rather hard to play with these controlls, and i don't have anything like a manual or a list of what key does what, and i haven't found an options screen either. I got to mission three, and now i keep dieing.

anyway, does anyone have a key list or something?
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Col. Fishguts on April 20, 2004, 08:26:05 am
For WC1: http://users.cybercity.dk/~ccc12836/wcmd.html

..and WC 2: http://www.blacklance.org/WC2/
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Bobboau on April 20, 2004, 09:18:15 am
can't you just reconfigure them, or look them up in an in game look up
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: kasperl on April 20, 2004, 10:11:13 am
thank you, Colonel Fishguts.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 21, 2004, 05:36:32 pm
I don't anyone has answered your book question:

yes there are books. a number of them actually, and they're canon because they're either the books of WC: III & IV, or because the WC III manual refers to events in the other books (like the battle for earth).


anyway, personally I like WC I -> III the most. For the war against the cats.

Prophecy: Secret Ops is a fav too because


as for the old games: Origin once made a win95 version of the three first games. These were called the Kilrathi Saga.

You can still buy them online (second hand) but you'll pay big bucks cause they're collector's items.
or you might try to get WC:KS via other means. It's certainly out there in cyberspace.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: 01010 on April 21, 2004, 06:16:30 pm
Never liked the Wing Commander series at all, seemed to mostly consist of "Fly to nav point A, then B, watch out for the asteroids/enemies/minefields at point C then fly back to the ship".

I don't mind a decent story but when it's a game I'm buying I'd like to be able to play it too.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Ace on April 21, 2004, 06:18:11 pm
Quote
Originally posted by 01010
Never liked the Wing Commander series at all, seemed to mostly consist of "Fly to nav point A, then B, watch out for the asteroids/enemies/minefields at point C then fly back to the ship".

I don't mind a decent story but when it's a game I'm buying I'd like to be able to play it too.


Sounds a lot like Mik's comment that all FreeSpace involves is pointing and shooting at ships until the screen is empty.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Nico on April 21, 2004, 06:21:37 pm
Quote
Originally posted by 01010
Never liked the Wing Commander series at all, seemed to mostly consist of "Fly to nav point A, then B, watch out for the asteroids/enemies/minefields at point C then fly back to the ship".


Which is like Freespace save for the fact that in FS you stay at point A :p
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: 01010 on April 21, 2004, 06:22:35 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Ace


Sounds a lot like Mik's comment that all FreeSpace involves is pointing and shooting at ships until the screen is empty.


All I seemed to be doing was flying patrol missions every mission which involved pressing the autopilot key until something stopped me once (sometimes twice for added thrills) then someone talking for a bit, then flying back to base.

I think my main problem is that I cut my teeth on Elite and Frontier: Elite 2 and almost every space combat game after those (even though they weren't really combat games) seemed to lack what I wanted.

Privateer was damn good though.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: kasperl on April 22, 2004, 03:23:38 am
i got WC 1 and 2, plus expansions, in a single package from HOTU. it's the KS, but without WC3 due to size restrictions. it's about 70 megs, but HOTU gives you about 25kbps max.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: mikhael on April 22, 2004, 09:27:33 am
Quote
Originally posted by Ace
Sounds a lot like Mik's comment that all FreeSpace involves is pointing and shooting at ships until the screen is empty.


That pretty much sums up my thoughts on Freespace combat--especially considering how bad the AI is.

That's one thing Freelancer had over pretty much every other space combat game I've played. There were places you couldn't go and things you couldn't do because you'd get your ass handed back to you in pieces if you popped through the wrong jumpgate/jumphole. There were times where you actually did have to run (not often).

Freespace and Wing Commander are both exactly the same in this respect: each and every mission is 'shoot enemies until there are no enemies', even when there are other goals. WC chained these missions together with a narrative, though, which Freespace does not do. Even better, Wing Commander branched (at least in 1 and 2) the missions based on how well you did or didn't do in the missions, making fulfilling secondary goals important. The worst that will happen to you in Freespace is that you'll have to refly a mission. In WC, the worst that would happen is that you would lose the game. I like that. :D
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: kasperl on April 22, 2004, 09:34:03 am
well, in WC1, i have to re-open my save everytime i die, pretty damn annoying.

and if i eject, i can just get on to the next mission without any consequences.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: karajorma on April 22, 2004, 09:35:56 am
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl
and if i eject, i can just get on to the next mission without any consequences.


You tend to fail the mission if you do that though. Your failures do eventually come back to haunt you.

Also if you eject too much they kick you out :)
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: kasperl on April 22, 2004, 09:37:32 am
ah.

well, i am not getting behond the first mission where you get the hosthot idiot pilot as a wingman.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Nico on April 22, 2004, 10:41:24 am
Maniac?
Don't ever criticize maniac! ( well, the movie one, you can, Roberts made him into a pussy :doubt: ) :p
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: IceFire on April 22, 2004, 01:01:14 pm
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl
well, in WC1, i have to re-open my save everytime i die, pretty damn annoying.

and if i eject, i can just get on to the next mission without any consequences.

There are plenty of consequences...fail certain missions and you start heading down the loosing path.  The enemies get tougher and more numerous (i.e. you start fighting Scimitars VS Jalthi - a tough matchup) and the Confederation starts loosing.  Go too far and you loose the war for Vega Sector.  In WC1....WC2 had a much more complicated loosing series and while it was less numerous it was even harder.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: karajorma on April 22, 2004, 02:46:52 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Nico
Maniac?
Don't ever criticize maniac! ( well, the movie one, you can, Roberts made him into a pussy :doubt: ) :p


Maniac is an idiot in WC1. The one time I flew with him I shot him dead and then flew the missions solo to cut down on his pathetic whining.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Nico on April 22, 2004, 02:52:42 pm
never played WC1, but in WC4 he ruled :p
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: karajorma on April 22, 2004, 02:56:57 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Nico
never played WC1, but in WC4 he ruled :p


That explains it. He's a dick in the first one. Actually he's a dick in all of them but at least in prophecy he backs it up with some ability. In the first one I wanted Paladin or even Spirit back. Hell as I said I'd rather fly solo than with him.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: mikhael on April 22, 2004, 03:27:21 pm
Quote
Originally posted by IceFire

There are plenty of consequences...fail certain missions and you start heading down the loosing path.  The enemies get tougher and more numerous (i.e. you start fighting Scimitars VS Jalthi - a tough matchup) and the Confederation starts loosing.  Go too far and you loose the war for Vega Sector.  In WC1....WC2 had a much more complicated loosing series and while it was less numerous it was even harder.


Another important note: in Wing Commander 1, you can screw up badly enough that it is impossible, even with godlike flying to fight your way back to a victory at the end of the game.

Wing Commander 2 addressed this. I think in most of the possible losing branches, you could fight your way back to at least a minimal overall victory.

Or maybe it was the other way around... *heh* I played these on a 386SX. Its been a day or two. ;)
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 22, 2004, 03:42:55 pm
Quote
Originally posted by mikhael


Another important note: in Wing Commander 1, you can screw up badly enough that it is impossible, even with godlike flying to fight your way back to a victory at the end of the game.

Wing Commander 2 addressed this. I think in most of the possible losing branches, you could fight your way back to at least a minimal overall victory.

Or maybe it was the other way around... *heh* I played these on a 386SX. Its been a day or two. ;)


you're correct.

In WC1, if you entered Hell's Kitchen system you're toast. Confed starts evacuating Vega Sector and abandons it. the last mission there is a suicide mission (cause the Claw jumps without you, so there's only limited time to land).
If you entered Venice Sector you'd win even if you ejected 4 times in a row.

In WC2: both the losing branch and the winning branch had a lose-win option depending on how you fly the last mission there.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: kasperl on April 23, 2004, 05:51:11 am
ah, that makes it all a bit interesting......
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Unknown Target on April 23, 2004, 06:22:11 am
Apparantly the first two games were ahead of their times :)
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Unknown Target on April 23, 2004, 06:24:09 am
Thought this might be of interest to some:

http://www.silicon-fusion.com/news/609/
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 23, 2004, 12:20:53 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Unknown Target
Apparantly the first two games were ahead of their times :)


actually Wing Commander is one of the games (if not the game) thatmade PC the gamesplatform it is today.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Fineus on April 23, 2004, 12:33:45 pm
Just a pity there's a rut in the space-sim industry right now. Some up-to-date style WC gameplay would be very good indeed.
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Flipside on April 23, 2004, 12:37:38 pm
Wing Commander was a good game, at least I enjoyed what I played of it. The Space Sim Industry will be back, even now for the main part the RTS Industry is flapping around like a trout out of water, looking for new ideas because they've overfilled the market, so I can see a nice little 'games niche' appearing, as soon as someone writes a platform for Space Combat that is up to date and effecient < Looks at SCP guys > ;)
Title: Wing Commandar
Post by: Lynx on April 24, 2004, 10:19:20 am
Quote
Originally posted by an0n

 Though I think it's a matter of there being no in-system FTL'ing.
 


Indeed, in WC there's no in-system FTL, the ships just accelarate at high speeds to get where they want.

The branching campaigns were one good thing too. You'd have to replay each game multiple times to see all the goodies. The different ends in WC3 were very cool. There were real loosing cutscenes depicturing the end of mankind(Earth's last stand at Proxima Centauri, the Victory ramming the Kilrathi Dreadnought, and seeing the Kilrathi fleet performing a full scale orbital bombardment of Earth while the emperor watches chuckling) or 'personal' endings(it doesn't show humanity destryed but Blair being killed thus ending the game), e.g. when you eject in the last missions in Kilrathi space, you'll get picked up by Trakhat's flagship. In the following cutscene, depending on whether you choose to beg for mercy or not, you'll get either desintegrated or clawed to death. Now, that's choice.:D

Another thing I like is that the technology seems to be more consistent, in-game wise. With physics beeing the same for Kilrathi and humans, they use about the same tech and weapons, while each race still retains a distinct style, not a movie like generalisation like Kilrathi=evil, so their weapons have to fire evil red stuff and so forth.