[Lorric]

You mean picture of a hen wearing a tie right?

No, no, no. It's tai, not tie.

Obviously this is what he's talking about:



See, it's an anime dude, that's what Spoon's all about, anime. And he has a hen on his head.

[DahBlount]

It might not be noticeable now, but the Ray III now features (Cycles) baked glow maps.





+10 to realism

[headdie]

very cool, how did you set it all up?

[DahBlount]

I used The Dagger's tutorial, found here http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=87535.msg1747905#msg1747905

I modified the settings a little bit on my end but it works in the same manner.

[Spoon]

Merrrry Christmas~

I probably don't update this nearly often enough and when I do, its probably not even all that interesting! This is mostly because I didn't wanted to create 'hype' when I didn't even know when I would be able to release anything. Let's 'solve' this by setting some kind of release date!



So right now I am working my hardest to get Episode 1's release out early next year (Aiming for january, but don't hold me to it!). It'll feature around 7 mission (+1 tutorial one), 10 visual novel segments and a large amount of new and reworked ships. Making nuWoD look visually far more appealing than its original release and a story that goes into far more depth than "aliens invade, we blowup their flagship and win."

While the new release is still Wings of Dawn, its a reboot and a lot of things, be it story, lore, weapons and characters will be completely different from the original. A lot of this is due to the amazing Axem turning Freespace into a visual novel, giving me access to a whole new way to tell a story in Freespace, keeping a lot of the 'dialogue clutter' out of combat missions and making it far more replay friendly because it cuts out the unskippable talking sections.



Also, its a stand alone release. No Freespace 2 installation required. You can share it with those friends that are too stingy to get FS2 for 5 bucks off Steam/GoG 



A lot of development time went into updating existing assets and adding new stuff, while also completely reworking the ship and weapon balance from the ground up. So while I don't know what kind of release schedule I'll be able to keep after releasing Episode 1, rest assured that it won't take another 2-3 years for Episode 2 to get out. 

[Lepanto]

Looks awesome. I'm pumped. 

[Torchwood]

I'll hold you to that 'release schedule' thing, you know.

[niffiwan]

wow, looking really awesome! 

[-Norbert-]

Hey, we'll get to see our comrades out of helmet on something other than a loading screen 

I'm looking forward to it.

Though I have to say you're selling yourself (or rather your previous release) a bit short. There was more depth to it than just "there be evil aliens, let's blow them up".

[Commander Zane]

This looks good in ways I can't describe.

[Hades]

Here's a new (WiP) Caliburn model, based upon a gundam core-fighter variant.

It is currently missing four guns - two heavy and two medium guns, they'll be added shortly (probably).

[FrikgFeek]

The Caliburn finally looks like an assault fighter, it looked more like mini-bomber before. Hope it actually handles normally now(at least for WoD standards), and not like a heavy truck loaded with heavy trucks.
Also, if WoD is now standalone, does that mean we won't be able to use FS2 secondary mods(like Axem's Scripted Message) with it? Or will it just use a standard FSO launcher but just won't require FS2 Vps?

Weapon rebalance... goodbye my dear OP VK-01N, you let even a mediocre pilot beat the game on insane, I shall forever miss you. Although the weapon itself was just OK, it was completely ridiculous on the Ray's 6 gun bank. Making the Zy useless by shooting down their missiles, destroying the Fur'angle ships from 2000 metres, the mad spray easily dealing with the Cordi, and still being decent vs the Nordera.

[Lorric]

Looks incredible Spoon!

Comparing to the old Wings of Dawn, it's akin to the old Wings of Dawn being a console game at least a generation ago. It just looks so damn GOOD!

I hope you don't fall into the trap so many people here seem to fall into when it comes to release dates. But if anyone can meet a release date, I think it's you, since you managed to turn out Wings of Dawn at impressive speed all by yourself, and if you're setting for just a month from now, you must be really close.

I'm obviously greatly looking forward to playing the game, but perhaps even more, I want to get my hands on the new ships and tinker with them in FRED...

[Veers]

Will the original WoD remain available and awesome for awesomeness sake?

Looking good Spoon, looking forward to January* !!

[Spoon]

The Caliburn finally looks like an assault fighter, it looked more like mini-bomber before. Hope it actually handles normally now(at least for WoD standards), and not like a heavy truck loaded with heavy trucks.
Also, if WoD is now standalone, does that mean we won't be able to use FS2 secondary mods(like Axem's Scripted Message) with it? Or will it just use a standard FSO launcher but just won't require FS2 Vps?

Won't require any FS2 Vps, so if you wanna add any mods, you totally can.

Weapon rebalance... goodbye my dear OP VK-01N, you let even a mediocre pilot beat the game on insane, I shall forever miss you. Although the weapon itself was just OK, it was completely ridiculous on the Ray's 6 gun bank. Making the Zy useless by shooting down their missiles, destroying the Fur'angle ships from 2000 metres, the mad spray easily dealing with the Cordi, and still being decent vs the Nordera.

Fear not, the VK-01N is still present, and still has that same dakkadakka feel to it (though for some reason it got renamed to VK-03N, don't ask me why).

Will the original WoD remain available and awesome for awesomeness sake?

Looking good Spoon, looking forward to January* !!

I won't go out of my way to remove original WoD from the internet, so it should still be available for download for the very few that are interested.

[FrikgFeek]

Well, that's reassuring. I always thought that the VK-01N's damage and energy consumption must have been a tabling error. IT does 25% more DPS than the VX-02a, has 2500 range, and drains so little energy that you can basically divert ALL of your power to shields and engines and not run for the whole mission, especially if you recharge it when you're just flying around reading messages.
Dakkadakka indeed.

[Lorric]

People sometimes ask if they should play Freespace without the SCP to appreciate what it was like before.

Maybe one day people will ask if they should play the original Wings of Dawn before playing the new version for kind of the same reason...

BTW, you kept this one quiet, didn't you. I was under the impression it was still a long way away. Then "Oh, I'll be releasing the first part next month."

[-Norbert-]

Reminds me of the original release.

There I never even heard of WoD before the release.

[Spoon]

I'm probably just terrible at advertising my stuff 

[Lorric]

I'm probably just terrible at advertising my stuff 

Well...

Going by the description of the game on the site where I downloaded it and by the opening movie, this has to be the biggest example of underselling I have ever seen.

But that's not going to matter to those of us who have already experienced the magnitude of the awesomeness that is Wings of Dawn, and are blissfully anticipating this release.

So come on everyone! If he delivers, it's our job to create a buzz and spread the word that something awesome has arrived!