There has never been a game i have been more excited about. If this game evolves into its final form, it will have a world wide impact on the PC platform. I truely believe if people had a reason to step away from their tablets and into the 3D triple panel display PC computer custom built to immerse themselves into a game like this.... They will never go back to a tablet... WORD!
Weird, wonder if the cult of personality has struck again? My info about Roberts was that he was always more interested in 'making movies' than in making games, even at the time of the Wing Commander series. He spent most of his time filming the cinematics, while others at Origin were more involved in the programming and game design. His Wing Commander movie was awful, and the string of movies he produced after that were not very good, and not very profitable. He spent ten years in Hollywood and did not do that well. I am worried that the 'return to games' is more a calculated business move.
Doesn't mean he can't end up producing a decent space game, of course, but lightening does not always strike in the same place again. Lots of examples of that. I'd be crossing my fingers....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Doesn't mean he can't end up producing a decent space game, of course, but lightening does not always strike in the same place again. Lots of examples of that. I'd be crossing my fingers....
Actually lightening stuck more than a few times in the same place for that man:
WC - hit
WC2 - hit
Privateer - hit
Freelancer - hit
I think besides him, there are few others that can make decent space-sim games (David Braben is the other, guys who make the X-series at Egosoft and the original crew who made the X-Wing vs Tie Fighter series).
Here is the most important bit for those who skim articles:
"Dodging investors who only want mobile or social PC start-ups"
- Investors conception of what will make a successful game has moulded gaming from the start. But increasingly with ever higher costs to make a game you need to follow a template to get enough investors on side. You see here what they are currently prepared to put their money into. Games on mobiles and social PC platforms. Hardly a recipe for innovation and an expanding MMO or gaming genre is it?
Doesn't mean he can't end up producing a decent space game, of course, but lightening does not always strike in the same place again. Lots of examples of that. I'd be crossing my fingers....
Actually lightening stuck more than a few times in the same place for that man:
WC - hit
WC2 - hit
Privateer - hit
Freelancer - hit
I think besides him, there are few others that can make decent space-sim games (David Braben is the other, guys who make the X-series at Egosoft and the original crew who made the X-Wing vs Tie Fighter series).
Game developing is a huge team effort nowadays, especially for the large projects. Things can change and morph, and end up quite different from the intended game. Believe me, Tabula Rasa as released was not nearly what Richard Garriott initially intended. The view that the lead name is somehow the person completely responsible for a game's nature? Well it is usually more complicated than that. Thus my reluctance to do cartwheels over Chris Roberts' announcements.
I hope the project turns out well. Gushing with joy over such things now is not for me. I'll wait and see what really shows up.
This from the Wiki:
"Roberts wasn't as heavily involved in the sequel Wing Commander II, which he only produced. He instead concentrated on Strike Commander. First shown to the public at Summer CES 1991, the project suffered from numerous delays and was not released until 1993. He returned to Wing Commander soon after, devising the original concept for the spin-off Wing Commander: Privateer (which his brother, Erin Roberts, produced) and being more deeply involved in Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV. For these sequels, Roberts directed the live-action cinematic scenes."
and,
"The company (Digital Anvil) was acquired by Microsoft soon after, who sold two of Digital Anvil's projects to Ubi Soft. Roberts left the company after the acquisition, abandoning the director position of his ambitious project Freelancer, even though he remained with the game in a consulting role for a while. The game was commonly regarded as vaporware due to its promised release date of 2001. The game was eventually released in 2003 with a markedly different feature set than the initial plans, but was received fairly favorably."
it looks awesome but my fear is the the developers might be abit too ambitious, develpiing a single player game ANND a mmo multiplayer component? How big is the team? Since it sounds like a fairly indie effort I'm guessing not so big, and if they're planning for a 2014 release date...
Just not sure if the elements are there for his vision to succeed.
Well since it is buy to play game and and it is wing commander, oh the goold old days, I need a new joystick. I just gave tehm 125 bucks for the lancer package. If it does not work and they don't get the funding well you know what I look at this like a stock offering, stock goes up, stock goes down. You win some you loose some.
If I win well take a look at what your going to get, if I loose well thats just to bad. However I got to say I always loved wing commander. I not played it in years as I kind of got away from it and more into mmorpgs. I wish I could find my disks, Gosh I remember running that on a card that had 256k ram Lol.
Finally my pledge went through after 2 days of constant tries. Their site is overwhelmed with traffic since the announcement and a post on the forums states that in 48 hours they raised 450,000 USD. With 26 days to go i think that they are going to set a record in crowd funding.
A space game combining elements from the Wing Commander saga and the Privateer / Elite legends if done right, and it will be, is going to be an epic.
Here is the hour long announcement panel in GDC where Mr. Roberts talks about his project and the technologies behind it:
MMO = Massive Multiplayer Online game. I'd posit that it could well be an MMO, or it might not. Depends on the online servers we get going. On NWN Original we had thousands of people playing on different servers. That's pretty massive. That's pretty multiplayer, and it's pretty online. So saying this isn't an MMO isn't necessarily true.
Might not fit your definition of mmo but it certainly fits mine. Hope they get off the ground with this one. Better start saving for a new rig.
I played the hell out of WC and was drawn briefly to EvE-Online due to some similarities to the WC series but of course it didn't take long to realize that it lacked that death-defying seat-of-your-pants in the cockpit feel.
I am looking forward to this and I am strongly considering putting up some cash. Clearly this is a project that has been producing something that predates the crowd-funding from RSI. My thinking is that Chris may be footing the bill for the initial start-up capital because $2 million seems just a little short by about half of the total funding needed (assuming he put up the other half).
Crowd-funding $2 million should bulk up his programming staff enough to flesh out the title and of course just about every contributor to the cause is invited into both the alpha and beta testing. A great way to build a solid player base is to invite them early enough to the party that they can help decorate.
And after reading everyones comments I can't say how great it was to not see some fanboy screaming "it's a WoW clone"...
Oh my god, I just creamed my pants reading this. Freelancer is among the top 5 of my gaming favorites, and the wing commander series was just as awesome. Really looking forward to this, just shelled some cash to support the team. Woot!
PS. Can't wait to un-install the X3 series that i've been playing to keep away the Freelancer itch.
Comments
If it ain't free, make it...
Weird, wonder if the cult of personality has struck again? My info about Roberts was that he was always more interested in 'making movies' than in making games, even at the time of the Wing Commander series. He spent most of his time filming the cinematics, while others at Origin were more involved in the programming and game design. His Wing Commander movie was awful, and the string of movies he produced after that were not very good, and not very profitable. He spent ten years in Hollywood and did not do that well. I am worried that the 'return to games' is more a calculated business move.
Doesn't mean he can't end up producing a decent space game, of course, but lightening does not always strike in the same place again. Lots of examples of that. I'd be crossing my fingers....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Actually lightening stuck more than a few times in the same place for that man:
WC - hit
WC2 - hit
Privateer - hit
Freelancer - hit
I think besides him, there are few others that can make decent space-sim games (David Braben is the other, guys who make the X-series at Egosoft and the original crew who made the X-Wing vs Tie Fighter series).
Here is the most important bit for those who skim articles:
"Dodging investors who only want mobile or social PC start-ups"
- Investors conception of what will make a successful game has moulded gaming from the start. But increasingly with ever higher costs to make a game you need to follow a template to get enough investors on side. You see here what they are currently prepared to put their money into. Games on mobiles and social PC platforms. Hardly a recipe for innovation and an expanding MMO or gaming genre is it?
Hope he gets this of the ground.
Game developing is a huge team effort nowadays, especially for the large projects. Things can change and morph, and end up quite different from the intended game. Believe me, Tabula Rasa as released was not nearly what Richard Garriott initially intended. The view that the lead name is somehow the person completely responsible for a game's nature? Well it is usually more complicated than that. Thus my reluctance to do cartwheels over Chris Roberts' announcements.
I hope the project turns out well. Gushing with joy over such things now is not for me. I'll wait and see what really shows up.
This from the Wiki:
"Roberts wasn't as heavily involved in the sequel Wing Commander II, which he only produced. He instead concentrated on Strike Commander. First shown to the public at Summer CES 1991, the project suffered from numerous delays and was not released until 1993. He returned to Wing Commander soon after, devising the original concept for the spin-off Wing Commander: Privateer (which his brother, Erin Roberts, produced) and being more deeply involved in Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV. For these sequels, Roberts directed the live-action cinematic scenes."
and,
"The company (Digital Anvil) was acquired by Microsoft soon after, who sold two of Digital Anvil's projects to Ubi Soft. Roberts left the company after the acquisition, abandoning the director position of his ambitious project Freelancer, even though he remained with the game in a consulting role for a while. The game was commonly regarded as vaporware due to its promised release date of 2001. The game was eventually released in 2003 with a markedly different feature set than the initial plans, but was received fairly favorably."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Roberts_(game_developer)
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
it looks awesome but my fear is the the developers might be abit too ambitious, develpiing a single player game ANND a mmo multiplayer component? How big is the team? Since it sounds like a fairly indie effort I'm guessing not so big, and if they're planning for a 2014 release date...
Just not sure if the elements are there for his vision to succeed.
Well since it is buy to play game and and it is wing commander, oh the goold old days, I need a new joystick. I just gave tehm 125 bucks for the lancer package. If it does not work and they don't get the funding well you know what I look at this like a stock offering, stock goes up, stock goes down. You win some you loose some.
If I win well take a look at what your going to get, if I loose well thats just to bad. However I got to say I always loved wing commander. I not played it in years as I kind of got away from it and more into mmorpgs. I wish I could find my disks, Gosh I remember running that on a card that had 256k ram Lol.
Finally my pledge went through after 2 days of constant tries. Their site is overwhelmed with traffic since the announcement and a post on the forums states that in 48 hours they raised 450,000 USD. With 26 days to go i think that they are going to set a record in crowd funding.
A space game combining elements from the Wing Commander saga and the Privateer / Elite legends if done right, and it will be, is going to be an epic.
Here is the hour long announcement panel in GDC where Mr. Roberts talks about his project and the technologies behind it:
http://uk.gamespot.com/shows/gamespot-live/?event=roberts_space_industries_gdc_panel20121010&tag=Topslot;TheNextgenOfSpaceSims;RobertsSpaceIndustries
MMO = Massive Multiplayer Online game. I'd posit that it could well be an MMO, or it might not. Depends on the online servers we get going. On NWN Original we had thousands of people playing on different servers. That's pretty massive. That's pretty multiplayer, and it's pretty online. So saying this isn't an MMO isn't necessarily true.
Might not fit your definition of mmo but it certainly fits mine. Hope they get off the ground with this one. Better start saving for a new rig.
Wow! Awesome! That video makes me want to install my Wing Commander games again!
That capital ship at the beginning of the video looks like The Tiger's Claw. I Can't wait!
I played the hell out of WC and was drawn briefly to EvE-Online due to some similarities to the WC series but of course it didn't take long to realize that it lacked that death-defying seat-of-your-pants in the cockpit feel.
I am looking forward to this and I am strongly considering putting up some cash. Clearly this is a project that has been producing something that predates the crowd-funding from RSI. My thinking is that Chris may be footing the bill for the initial start-up capital because $2 million seems just a little short by about half of the total funding needed (assuming he put up the other half).
Crowd-funding $2 million should bulk up his programming staff enough to flesh out the title and of course just about every contributor to the cause is invited into both the alpha and beta testing. A great way to build a solid player base is to invite them early enough to the party that they can help decorate.
And after reading everyones comments I can't say how great it was to not see some fanboy screaming "it's a WoW clone"...
Oh my god, I just creamed my pants reading this. Freelancer is among the top 5 of my gaming favorites, and the wing commander series was just as awesome. Really looking forward to this, just shelled some cash to support the team. Woot!
PS. Can't wait to un-install the X3 series that i've been playing to keep away the Freelancer itch.
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