StarDestroyer.Net BBS

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I thought I was the only one who still remembered this game. It was cool, especially once you got all of the upgrades for your ship.

I guess all those rumors about a third Privateer game were just that. The second had great graphics but total crap for a story. Still, it was great to build your own ship.

Is it just me or has the space flight sim genre of games kind of gone by the wayside?

Heh heh. Somehow I knew good gameplay would live again in the hands of independent programmers. Now remakes. Tommorrow, who knows?

EDIT: what makes Priv 1 great and even greater than Priv2 is the actual freedom of actions, instead of Priv2 scripted contracts.

They really need to crack on with that Elite remake instead.

Darth Wong wrote:I thought I was the only one who still remembered this game. It was cool, especially once you got all of the upgrades for your ship.

You're not the only one. I played this game waaaay too much back in middle school.

I guess I know what I'm doing tonight...

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:EDIT: what makes Priv 1 great and even greater than Priv2 is the actual freedom of actions, instead of Priv2 scripted contracts.

No, what makes Privateer 1 so much greater is.......SUBTITLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can actually fucking understand what's going on, unlike Privateer 2,
whcih is Why I never even played Priv 2

WHeeeeeee!

MWHAHAHAHAHAH.

"Sorry boys, I'm just a tourist with a fragged nav console, could you tell me where I am?"

Man this game kicked ass. I have the CD version, but of course, the chances of it working on a modern system are precisely zero.

Anyone remember the floating body parts?

Does this version have all the speech from the CD version of the original? The cool cartoon cutscenes etc? God I LOVED this game. Centurion heavy fighter forever ...

Must.... resist.... urge.... fuck it! I WANT THIS GAME!!! Off to download.

Many thanks Shep. I've been wanting to play this game for so long.

HOLY FUCK! I loved that game! Thanks Shep. Maybe this time i'll get by that mystery alien ship.

I spent WAY too much time on that game!

I loved that game. It was superior to all WC games except WCIII.

*Kisses Shep* THANK YOU!! I miss these kinds of games.

Master of Ossus wrote:I loved that game. It was superior to all WC games except WCIII.

Eh, WCIII wasn't anything to sing and dance about, but from what I heard, WCIV is the WC game to get.

[EDIT] And the less said about WCP the better. Dear god that game was awful.

I never played Privateer but I have Privateer 2, which I have to say was fucking awesome, but unfortunately I can no longer play it on even my old computer (because for some reason, it now refuses to read CDs from DOS). This project sounds great.

Darth Servo wrote:Is it just me or has the space flight sim genre of games kind of gone by the wayside?

It's not you. For years there just wasn't anything, and recently all you'll find are mods, fan projects, and the occasional item by an independant developer. Well, in the states, that is. Russia and Scandinavia seem to love their space games, or at least that's where I've heard of any being made. They tend not to get ported, though.

Many Wing Commander fans blame it on Freespace 2, because it had such poor sales, making publishers uninterested in selling the genre. Freespace fans say it wasn't the game's fault, it actually sold out. The publisher just wouldn't make more of it for some reason. Personally, I think between the Freespace 2 thing, the general decline of Wing Commander (what with 4 being too much of a movie and not enough of a game*, and 5 being sufficiently lackluster to disappoint the core group of fans), and X-Wing Alliance being too obviously a rushed-out product (missing textures, many ugly ships, terribly laggy multiplayer, certain elements of the campaign, etc), the industry just decided that the genre was dying anyway and killed it themselves.

One interesting note about the present day is that I've heard bits and pieces to the effect that, besides still thinking that the genre can't draw enough of the market to be profitable, the growing amount of freeware available is scaring them off. There's I Found Her, Vega Strike, Freespace 2 source code-based projects, projects to improve and/or revive existing games, and lots of more minor or very recent projects out there, which makes the market continue to look undesirable. Sucesses by independent developers might eventually dissuade that notion, but it'll be a while.

Vympel wrote:the chances of it working on a modern system are precisely zero

Not so, says Wing Commander CIC. Between DOSBox and fan patches you can run any WC game on a WinXP-based system. The site also mentions that their tech support forum can walk you through it if necessary.

*Or so I've heard. I haven't actually played it.

The great Wing Commander scale of sucktitude, from best to most sucky:

1. Wing Commander: Privateer
2. Wing Commander 2 + Expansion Packs
3. Wing Commander 3
4. Wing Commander 1
5. Wing Commander: Prophecy + Secret Ops
6. Wing Commander 4
7. Privateer 2: The Darkening
8. Wing Commander: Armada
9. Wing Commander: Academy

Note that this is a relevant scale- even the wierd Privateer 2 was fun. Only Academy truly SUCKED ASS. Armada had no soul.

Armada is unique in how it let people fight against each other and incorperated strategy elements. But as you said, absolutely no soul to it what so ever.

I do hope the asteroid fields aren't near suicide to fight in like they used to be.

Alyeska wrote:I do hope the asteroid fields aren't near suicide to fight in like they used to be.

They are much nicer than before. Maybe a little too easy, but still better than the original.

oh the memories...

Alan Bolte wrote:Freespace fans say it wasn't the game's fault, it actually sold out. The publisher just wouldn't make more of it for some reason.

Interplay was steadily going down the crapper for a while, and they've dropped the ball on several wonderful games. Perhaps the most telling example was Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising. High production values, solid gameplay, wonderful storyline, excellent writing and acting, yet a few months after release, you could buy the game for two dollars, new, at your local gaming shop.

Nothing was wrong with the game at all, except that Interplay basically refused to promote it. Disgusting.

As for Space Sims, they've always been poor sellers in the grand scheme of things. Look at FPS games, and think how much easier they are to make than Space Sims. Same goes for flight sims, 4X games, and so forth. The big money makers are largely FPS and RTS games. RPGs, of course, still get lots of shelf space, but they're harder to do properly.

Case in point, we will likely never see Independence War 3 (or I-War 2 as it should have been, as it suffered much the same fate as KOTOR 2). Freespace 3 is slightly more possible, if only because Interplay is bailing water as fast as they can to save themselves, including selling of IPs they don't plan on using (note: so long as Derek Smart isn't the one to get the rights to Freespace, we should be good-he's already expressed some interest).

Speaking of Derek Smart, there's still the Battlecruiser series (now called Universal Combat). Great concept, but unfortunately I don't think he's been able to pull it of yet (or that anyone can really pull it off yet at all, I don't think the technology is ready for a massive game like that yet).

But it's late, so I'll pick up on this more at a later time.

Vympel wrote: Does this version have all the speech from the CD version of the original? The cool cartoon cutscenes etc? God I LOVED this game. Centurion heavy fighter forever ...

Indeed it does have the speech.

bugs?

worth me picking up a cheap USB joystick on the way home from work?