Wing Commander: Privateer is back!

General Discussions
#1

For those of you who’ve missed the annoucement, the VegaStrike folks have remade WC: Privateer! All the original gameplay is there, plus some extra features such as flying a Drayman, Turret AI, and using your Drayman as a poor-man’s carrier (have to complete the original missions first, though)! Check it out at:

http://priv.solsector.net/

No, it’s not Java related. But it is damn cool that a wonderful piece of gaming history has been brought back to life like this. Three cheers for the Privateer Remake and VegaStrike teams! :slight_smile:

#2

YOU’RE ALL ASSES, BITCHES, BASTARDS , ETC.

#3

Excuse me? May I help you somehow? If not, then would you kindly exit our board, Stage left?

#4

[quote]For those of you who’ve missed the annoucement, the VegaStrike folks have remade WC: Privateer! All the original gameplay is there, plus some extra features such as flying a Drayman, Turret AI, and using your Drayman as a poor-man’s carrier (have to complete the original missions first, though)! Check it out at:

http://priv.solsector.net/

No, it’s not Java related. But it is damn cool that a wonderful piece of gaming history has been brought back to life like this. Three cheers for the Privateer Remake and VegaStrike teams! :slight_smile:
[/quote]
That’s great for WC fans (myself included), but it means my little Java space shooter will have freeware competition from a team of 39 people :frowning:

Oh well, I’m using Java, so no worries… a team of 39 on a C/C++ project is about the same as 1 Java developer :slight_smile:

#5

[quote]That’s great for WC fans (myself included), but it means my little Java space shooter will have freeware competition from a team of 39 people :frowning:
[/quote]
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. The instant success of this remake (which still has quite a few bugs) shows that gamers are hungering for another Wing Commander. Unfortunately, EA bet the francise on two major blunders:

  1. Forcing the use of 3D cards when the market was still emerging.

  2. Focusing on an MMOG game before first building up experience and demand with Networked Wing Commander games.

There were other mistakes, but those were sort of the killers at the time. The former meant that the games now fail to run on modern Windows PCs without MAJOR compatibility mode tweaking, which killed late-market sales that were the bread and butter of Origin’s funding. The later meant that EA diverted more and more resources from saleable projects to a project that never saw the light of day. In the end, all the projects were killed except for the MMOG. And we all know what happened with that. (i.e. Nothing) :frowning:

#6

I am glad to see there is interest in games like WC…counting on it actually :wink:

I am not really worried about competition, it’s a big world and competition is just a fact of life.

If nothing else I think I can kick their butts in the graphics department (and hopefully game play). I just got a new ship model constructed and integrated into the game about 5 minutes ago. It needs a little tweaking, but I am pretty happy with it:

“Exigent” class fighter

Three down, 12 more to go :-/

#7

What killed Wing Commander was Chris Roberts. He wanted to make movies not games. After each release you played less and watched Mark Hamill
more… got old.

#8

Very true. It started to turn into one big cut scene with a game thrown in. :wink:

#9

Hey now, some of us appreciated the movie aspect. Especially when the movies and missions integrated with one another. Kept things interesting and fresh. One of the biggest complaints about Wing Commander Prophecy was actually that the movie sucked. It focused all on flying, which got a bit repetitive after awhile.

Nope, Wing Commander died after Chris Roberts left. WC3 and WC4 were some of the best Wing Commander games ever made. Now if only WC4 wouldn’t give me so many stupid options. i.e. Which system to jump into, let crewmembers fight or break it up, blow up the civilian base or make a run for it, etc. I just wanted them to get on with the story! :slight_smile:

Actually, the one scene that did bug the starch out of me was the final scene in the Senate chambers. Instead of treating you to a well-deserved ending sequence, they give you a bunch of dumb movie choices that can cause you to fail the mission! And if you fail, you have to fight Seether all over again! ARRRGGGHHH!

#10

[quote]What killed Wing Commander was Chris Roberts. He wanted to make movies not games. After each release you played less and watched Mark Hamill
more… got old.
[/quote]
Absolutly. That situation repeats itself ciclicly for every new generation of yhaoo game designers that replaces the old one.

Don’t know if it was Chris Roberts fault. I knew he was a very experienced game designer with a good game culture to go after a noobie illusion.