[Killer Whale]

Lotsa' updates means lotsa' content means lotsa' good content means good story, yay!
You actually fly a fighter, or any large ship, yay!
There's a squillion and one polies, yay!
Persistent universe and ship interiors, yay!
The game is so far before alpha it isn't funny, nay!

[MatthTheGeek]

Lotsa' updates means lotsa' content means lotsa' good content means good story

Huh wat. Sounds like you have a heavy reasoning failure here.

You can have lots of content (lots of good content even) and nothing even coming close to a good story. Haters gonna hate, but Skyrim comes to mind.

[General Battuta]

The Wing Commander story has always been pretty basic WW2 in space cheeseburger fare and Freelancer was barely any less superficial. Executed well it can be fun, though it's never had the subtextual or philosophical depth FS2 had. Maybe we'll get more of the same.

Given that most science fiction fans are satisfied with plot and gadgets I suspect they don't need to reach too far to meet demand.

[Luis Dias]

Oh look it's blue pew pew pew ... in spaaace!!! So kewl one1!!!

[Gloriano]

This could be reallly awesome if it get's made since it seems to be crowd funded game where the first goal is at 2 million....

[Dragon]

The Wing Commander story has always been pretty basic WW2 in space cheeseburger fare and Freelancer was barely any less superficial. Executed well it can be fun, though it's never had the subtextual or philosophical depth FS2 had. Maybe we'll get more of the same.

Given that most science fiction fans are satisfied with plot and gadgets I suspect they don't need to reach too far to meet demand.

TBH, I found philosophical elements in FS2 "overengineered" and a bit out of place, you could say "detached" from the player and events in the story. Even if idea was very intelligent, the execution was poor. BP done that much better, it was very deep, but also very immersive, and the philosophical elements felt much less abstract. Perhaps having actual characters was the thing, as philosophy without characters to think about it usually seems either empty or preachy.

Wing Commander storylines might seem like fairly standard "WWII in space" fare, but they were cleverly executed, had memorable characters and some interesting twists, not to mention excellent cast in the later games. Not to mentions early WC games most likely played a role in establishing the aforementioned standard.

[Hades]

If you want to shoot a lot of things with shiny graphics and flashy weapons, so play BF3 (or retail FS2 campaign). Or any other mainstream game, there's an entire gaming industry just for you. Classics are played not for graphics or flashy gameplay, but for deep story, interesting characters and good plot. That's why I consider vanilla FS inferior to WC and XWA. Too much shooting, not enough story. Wing Commander feels like were playing a movie (and WC3 is even called "Origin Interactive Movie" on the box I have) rather than a game.

Wing Commander is definitely worth your time if you like a good story with great immersion, even though your cellphone could probably do graphics better than WCP (the latest game in the series). Also, the quality for the FMVs in WC3 to WCP is excellent (starring Mark Hamill as the main character, BTW).

WC isn't dull because it has a story, WC is dull because it has a massively cliche story that's very straightforward in its execution and gives nothing new or interesting to the formula. The story and plot were about as deep as a puddle of water.

The ships are also more or less best described as dull too.

And I've certainly seen classics that had fun gameplay and good story, like FreeSpace 2.

Classics are played not for graphics or flashy gameplay, but for deep story, interesting characters and good plot.

Why would I want to play a game with a dull story and dull gameplay? Gameplay is easily the most important aspect of a game, hence the name. A game without good gameplay may as well be a movie or book.

[Deathsnake]

http://www.gamespot.com/shows/gamespot-live/?event=roberts_space_industries_gdc_panel20121010

if you miss the Live Show

Gogo 2 Millions are the minimal target. I'm in with 60$

[TrashMan]

[Dragon]

WC isn't dull because it has a story, WC is dull because it has a massively cliche story that's very straightforward in its execution and gives nothing new or interesting to the formula. The story and plot were about as deep as a puddle of water.

The ships are also more or less best described as dull too.

And I've certainly seen classics that had fun gameplay and good story, like FreeSpace 2.

WC had a cliche story, mostly because it created these cliches. You could say that about any sufficiently copied story. It seems to give nothing new or interesting now, simply because it was the original. TBH, same goes for it's gameplay (you should see the ads for it back in the day...). Keep in mind these things are ancient, and were among the most innovative games of the day. It still did a few things better, notably damage system and cockpits, which added greatly to immersion. WC3 already had some things we're still missing from FSO.

WC didn't delve into philosophy like FS2 tried to, and IIRC, it was better off for it. It was well written and had good, likeable characters, unlike FS2. BP is how metaphysical subtexts in FS2 should've been handled. I also didn't had anybody to care about in FS2, while in WC, there was a whole ensemble of people whom I really learned to like (and a few I didn't like, but in the "enjoy seeing him clobbered" way ). Also, while the story of most WC games wasn't really deep compared to some others I played, WC4 stands out in that it had a very deep story asking some very important questions. And unlike in the movies, you could choose the answer youself.

Classics are played not for graphics or flashy gameplay, but for deep story, interesting characters and good plot.

Why would I want to play a game with a dull story and dull gameplay? Gameplay is easily the most important aspect of a game, hence the name. A game without good gameplay may as well be a movie or book.

Actually, Origin even called Wing Commander "Origin Interactive Movie", and the movie-like experience was one of the things I missed the most from FS2. Gameplay in FS2 was also rather medicore compared to I-War or Starshatter, being arcade-y and not consisting of much besides shooting at things (a few gimmick missions notwithstanding). It wasn't much better than in Wing Commander, and even inferior in some places (usually ones important for the immersion).

In general, I think Wing Commander does immersion a lot better than FS2, with little things like cockpits, carrier landings, visible instrument damage, ejection seat, memorable wingmen... FS2 had none of those things.

[Colonol Dekker]

I am content... This might ruin my relationship before it even starts 

[General Battuta]

The philosophical content in FS2 was in the subtext and the formal relationship to its predecessor. I doubt 95% of players ever kenned to it in anything but a visceral sense.

[JGZinv]

Don't suppose we could get back to talking about Star Citizen....

After sitting through the hour long video, I can see he's passionate about the game, but I wonder if they are overselling it.
An EVE for the monetary and more combat based WC style is what I think a lot of folks thought EVE would be in the beginning.
There's a heck of a lot of things that can bite them in the butt though, largely I think on the multiplayer side (so many objects at X res in an instance)
that you're not going to see a RTS MMO level of BoE throw down. More likely you'd have a much larger "system war" with dozens of instances
of smaller groups of players, with the verdict tipping the scale towards who won the area type thing.

But his bottlenecks are going to be internet connections, particularly in the US.. are still in a pretty poor state. Since this has a November 2014 tentative
release date, the hardware might have come around closer, but he's talking about this running on a GTX600 series, which is a micro percentage of people's
rigs out there currently. That'll have likely shifted to the mid range by then... still that's a heck of a powerful card/entrance fee.


I think my concerns right now are:

1. How moddable is this going to be. It was a keynote in his speech, but he didn't directly reference it other that thruster damage. They are shooting
for standalone servers, which pretty much means if someone tries hard enough, it'll get hacked and editable... and you've got a fs2netd replacement.
How I wish someone would just make a mod engine and market that... let the players make games, let the developer focus on feature additions to make
greater worlds possible.

2. Will it have lateral thrust and glide/slide.   Sliding as in newtonian whiping around in an arc was mentioned, but not what we have as glide/slide.
Lats seem entirely possible, as that's just another thruster placement, but it wasn't brought up.

3. There's quite a few tiers to pay into this, the most bang for buck is the $250. But... I don't see anything on what the ships you're getting look like
or have capabilities of?  There's a generic "this is fighter, this is freighter" but not much more on it than that.

[TrashMan]

The Wing Commander story has always been pretty basic WW2 in space cheeseburger fare and Freelancer was barely any less superficial. Executed well it can be fun, though it's never had the subtextual or philosophical depth FS2 had. Maybe we'll get more of the same.

Given that most science fiction fans are satisfied with plot and gadgets I suspect they don't need to reach too far to meet demand.

TBH, I found philosophical elements in FS2 "overengineered" and a bit out of place, you could say "detached" from the player and events in the story. Even if idea was very intelligent, the execution was poor. BP done that much better, it was very deep, but also very immersive, and the philosophical elements felt much less abstract. Perhaps having actual characters was the thing, as philosophy without characters to think about it usually seems either empty or preachy.

Seriously?
I prefer FS2's story over BPs any day.

[General Battuta]

They're very different. I don't think comparison is particularly productive and I can definitely see why you'd like FS2's better.

[The E]

still that's a heck of a powerful card/entrance fee.

Just continuing the proud tradition of Origin games, I suppose.

How I wish someone would just make a mod engine and market that... let the players make games, let the developer focus on feature additions to make
greater worlds possible.

CryEngine Free, OGRE, UDK, Unity, NeoAxis and others would like to say hello.

In other words, making a game is hard. Not as hard as it was a few years ago, but still not exactly easy.

2. Will it have lateral thrust and glide/slide.   Sliding as in newtonian whiping around in an arc was mentioned, but not what we have as glide/slide. Lats seem entirely possible, as that's just another thruster placement, but it wasn't brought up.

I don't think they have the gameplay formula locked down completely yet.

3. There's quite a few tiers to pay into this, the most bang for buck is the $250. But... I don't see anything on what the ships you're getting look like or have capabilities of?  There's a generic "this is fighter, this is freighter" but not much more on it than that.

I suspect that they don't know those yet. Hell, they have just completed a first rough tech demo in the hope of attracting investors; it would be silly for them to have made such decisions at this point.


Also, JGZ, you are aware that you do not have to insert manual linebreaks everywhere? I don't know how big your browser window is, but I can guarantee that your posts will look weird on any other
because of these
linebreaks everywhere.

[JGZinv]

CryEngine Free, OGRE, UDK, Unity, NeoAxis

None of which are designed for MMO or space sim specific.

Also, JGZ, you are aware that you do not have to insert manual linebreaks everywhere? I don't know how big your browser window is, but I can guarantee that your posts will look weird on any other
because of these
linebreaks everywhere.

Call it force of habit, as people have been reminding me of that since I joined in 06.
I have 2*23 inch screens at 1920x1080... so things have plenty of room to stretch out.

[Colonol Dekker]

Just watched the reveal/presentations vid... I'm still keen.

[Gloriano]

I really don't understand why they don't use Kickstarter site for this the site site crapped on me when i was putting 60 towards this game.

[Colonol Dekker]

Anyone else having trouble logging in?

I fear my golden ticket has been pwnd :\