I forgot all about this! I was following news teasers before the big announcement day, and then it slipped my mind totally. o_o Thanks for reminding me.
The thing that makes me a bit hesitant however, is that there's a dark side to Roberts, too - he basically fell in love with the movie industry. Some of the roots were always there, but supressed by technology, space limitations, and common PC gaming wisdom at first. Putting aside the nostalgia blinders, Wing series degraded considerably with each title, in direct proportion to Roberts' ideas about using cinematics/dramatics in games, and over time he fell more and more out of gaming and into that industry, until he moved over full time.
Now he's coming back to make games again from that perspective. I...just don't trust him yet. =/ Nobody delivers *everything* they promise in the gaming industry, but I have concerns that Roberts can even deliver the same kind of game experience people like you and I are expecting from all that, much less the promises themselves.
I do like is that he's still on board with providing both public and private server packages to people. Not nearly enough people are. I suppose we'll see. I am not convinced enough to kick money in until I see what the final goods are looking like - Chris Roberts is certainly no Warren Spector - but if I like where it finally winds up, I'd certainly be on board with paying for the final product.
*On a lighter note, I'm also concerned about how much voicechat will figure into it. Back in the day, actual, real communication between wingmen was what we all wanted. Now that you can actually *do* that, I *don't* want it. I'd want to banter with Hobbes, or tell Maniac to STFU. In practice, these days it'd be more like bantering with an *actual* maniac, who calls you vulgar names you think may have something to do with unnatural acts with tigers. @_@
I haven't, but I did look it up when I first read your post, since I vaguely remembered it.
Going by Wiki's explaination of events and timeline, at least, it sounds like a great deal of the final product was only 'faithful to Roberts' vision', rather than being designed by Roberts himself. He apparently left his active development role three years before the game wasreleased, and at least a year before the "we're still making this game guys, really" demonstration version even showed up.
I've never had fault with Roberts' vision per-se. Much like George Lucas though, it's his execution of his vision that I find problems in. I can predict what one man will lean towards, but I can not predict who and how many people it takes to restrain that one man from destroying his own dream with bad decisions. Hence my wariness.
Objectively however, it's more accurate to say he "still had it... ten years ago." The time between then and now, he has spent immersed in the movie industry, rather than designing games.
Though I certainly know how it doesn't feel like it sometimes for us older gamers, that's a long time.
He remained on as a consultant until the project was finally released as I recall.
Funny: one of the least appreciated (and sort of hidden) features of the game where on the map of a system you could pull up the lore for the system you're currently viewing, describing the economy and overall recent events. At the time I thought to myself "wow, this really does take me back a bit", and two years later I finally found out that Chris actually was involved in it.
So yeah, I'll admit to going with my gut feeling there to an extent. The overall vibe I've gotten from this project though is that it's an opportunity to make the Freelancer he always wanted.
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that, for sure. =)
It's just when the guy's mentioned as a dev like this, I feel his bad side has to come with it, since it's *very* relevant to his approach on game-making, and the related issues are frequent gamer complaints nowadays. How much importance others'll put on that as a factor is up to them, o'course. There's more I could say about him, but it veers pretty heavily into guesswork I can't back up in any way but "that's interesting, but it could possibly be coincidence too."
As much as I loved Origin, it's just a truth that not all its famous personalities are all that and a bag of chips, despite putting out a disproportionate amount of the best games of the time. Look at poor Dr. Cat. Ultima veteran, even did work for tinymuck, and then he winds up.... making Furcadia.
IIRC, Denis Loubet really likes his baudy art, too, though I'm sure his cover art moved a LOT of copies off shelves from the wow factor. Tossing him into google isn't painting too flattering a picture of what he's been up to lately, either.
Its been a fun 10 years in the film industry and I've made some films I'm proud of like Lord of War and Lucky Number Slevin. I wasn't happy with how the Wing Commander turned out - it didn't match the picture I saw in my head - which is unusual for me, but I think it was down to my inexperience as a first time director, having a deal making vs a film making producer, a ridiculous short pre-production time (2 months!) and a low budget ($20M) for a complicated sci-fi film. There's still some parts of it that I thin are very well done, but if made that film again today t would be 10x better I'm giving film a break for now and am fully focused on building SC as it represents everything I love about games or movies - universe building!
day, and then it slipped my mind totally. o_o Thanks for reminding me.
The thing that makes me a bit hesitant however, is that there's a dark side
to Roberts, too - he basically fell in love with the movie industry. Some of the
roots were always there, but supressed by technology, space limitations, and
common PC gaming wisdom at first. Putting aside the nostalgia blinders, Wing
series degraded considerably with each title, in direct proportion to Roberts'
ideas about using cinematics/dramatics in games, and over time he fell more
and more out of gaming and into that industry, until he moved over full time.
Now he's coming back to make games again from that perspective. I...just don't
trust him yet. =/ Nobody delivers *everything* they promise in the gaming industry,
but I have concerns that Roberts can even deliver the same kind of game
experience people like you and I are expecting from all that, much less the
promises themselves.
I do like is that he's still on board with providing both public and private server
packages to people. Not nearly enough people are. I suppose we'll see. I am
not convinced enough to kick money in until I see what the final goods are
looking like - Chris Roberts is certainly no Warren Spector - but if I like where
it finally winds up, I'd certainly be on board with paying for the final product.
*On a lighter note, I'm also concerned about how much voicechat will figure into it.
Back in the day, actual, real communication between wingmen was what we all
wanted. Now that you can actually *do* that, I *don't* want it. I'd want to banter with
Hobbes, or tell Maniac to STFU. In practice, these days it'd be more like
bantering with an *actual* maniac, who calls you vulgar names you think may have
something to do with unnatural acts with tigers. @_@
Reply
Reply
remembered it.
Going by Wiki's explaination of events and timeline, at least, it sounds like
a great deal of the final product was only 'faithful to Roberts' vision', rather
than being designed by Roberts himself. He apparently left his active
development role three years before the game wasreleased, and at
least a year before the "we're still making this game guys, really"
demonstration version even showed up.
I've never had fault with Roberts' vision per-se. Much like George Lucas
though, it's his execution of his vision that I find problems in. I can predict
what one man will lean towards, but I can not predict who and how many people
it takes to restrain that one man from destroying his own dream with bad
decisions. Hence my wariness.
Objectively however, it's more accurate to say he "still had it... ten years ago."
The time between then and now, he has spent immersed in the movie industry,
rather than designing games.
Though I certainly know how it doesn't feel like it sometimes for us older gamers,
that's a long time.
Reply
Funny: one of the least appreciated (and sort of hidden) features of the game where on the map of a system you could pull up the lore for the system you're currently viewing, describing the economy and overall recent events. At the time I thought to myself "wow, this really does take me back a bit", and two years later I finally found out that Chris actually was involved in it.
So yeah, I'll admit to going with my gut feeling there to an extent. The overall vibe I've gotten from this project though is that it's an opportunity to make the Freelancer he always wanted.
Reply
It's just when the guy's mentioned as a dev like this, I feel his bad side has
to come with it, since it's *very* relevant to his approach on game-making,
and the related issues are frequent gamer complaints nowadays. How much
importance others'll put on that as a factor is up to them, o'course. There's
more I could say about him, but it veers pretty heavily into guesswork I can't
back up in any way but "that's interesting, but it could possibly be coincidence
too."
As much as I loved Origin, it's just a truth that not all its famous personalities
are all that and a bag of chips, despite putting out a disproportionate amount
of the best games of the time. Look at poor Dr. Cat. Ultima veteran, even
did work for tinymuck, and then he winds up.... making Furcadia.
IIRC, Denis Loubet really likes his baudy art, too, though I'm sure his cover
art moved a LOT of copies off shelves from the wow factor. Tossing him
into google isn't painting too flattering a picture of what he's been up to
lately, either.
Reply
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11wivt/i_am_chris_roberts_creator_of_wing_commander/c6q9jci
Its been a fun 10 years in the film industry and I've made some films I'm proud of like Lord of War and Lucky Number Slevin. I wasn't happy with how the Wing Commander turned out - it didn't match the picture I saw in my head - which is unusual for me, but I think it was down to my inexperience as a first time director, having a deal making vs a film making producer, a ridiculous short pre-production time (2 months!) and a low budget ($20M) for a complicated sci-fi film. There's still some parts of it that I thin are very well done, but if made that film again today t would be 10x better
I'm giving film a break for now and am fully focused on building SC as it represents everything I love about games or movies - universe building!
Reply
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