[Titan]

Well, uhm, dunno quite where to put this, but, here it is.

[The E]

Highly character driven, Wing Commander style. That's how I like it.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Mackie FTW!

[Titan]

Y'know, I think Mackie is the one second from bottom. He never developed a real relationship with the player. But you still learn to love him.

[tinfoil]

In FS2 you had some character based wingmen. (IE Snipes)

[Titan]

Thats an exception.

[Aardwolf]

Snipes AND Xinny and Xero. (or was it Zero, normal spelling?)

[Titan]

Do those guys even speak in that mission? I remember them being untalkative, strong silent types in that mission. The only voice was Snipes continually shouting stuff at you.

[Aardwolf]

Well they have callsigns at least. Actually didn't one of them say something that prompted Snipes to say "What, do I look Shivan to you?"

[Rhymes]

Well they have callsigns at least. Actually didn't one of them say something that prompted Snipes to say "What, do I look Shivan to you?"

Well, if Snipes' first name is Carl, then maybe he would look shivan. 

[BS403]

I'm going to say that in a perfect world they would have names and a few personality traits, and also be hard to kill, but if they do die have a new pilot be inserted into their old spot with a new name and personality.  Although I believe this would be hard to do.  Although I think I did play a campaign that did something like this after one of my wingmen died. but that may have been preplanned.

[Snail]

Well, if Snipes' first name is Carl, then maybe he would look shivan. 

His first name is Christopher.

[Ransom]

I think it really depends on the kind of story it's trying to tell. The retail campaigns were focused on the big picture - you felt like a cog in a war machine, and most of the recurring characters were well up the chain of command or never even really featured in the gameplay. Wingmen characters would have been counter-intuitive.

I'm a fan of more traditional character-centric narratives, but there's no 'best' way. If the campaign isn't intended to be a character story there's not much point slapping some characters in it who never go anywhere.

[Rodo]

named characters and immortal! that way you can traumatize the player by killing it's long loved wingmates in an unpleasant twist of fate!!

[tinfoil]

The way you say that you seem evil. And a little insane.

[Vrets]

I'm working on a six mission campaign, and I tried to give the pilot's squad a personality, rather than the individual wingmen. I use special hitpoints and scripting to prolong their lives, and use additional SEXPs to make them say amusing things amongst themselves when one of them bites it.

[Herra Tohtori]

Transcend.

[Dilmah G]

Highly character driven

These men and women are your WINGMEN!

They are NOT faceless! You have every meal of the day with them, you play poker and whatnot with them, you ***** about **** with them, they're supposed to be a tight knit group who take it really badly when one of them goes down. Which results in the rest being somewhat cold-hearted towards the green replacement.

That's why character driven campaigns really have me on edge, they're REALISTIC.

[Retsof]

I agree, Charicter driven is the way to go.  Hard to have a good story without good charicters.

[Dilmah G]

I agree, Charicter driven is the way to go.  Hard to have a good story without good charicters.

Amen to that