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In this section of the Wing Commander Saga webpage, you can find historical details about development of Wing Commander Saga.

A Look Inside WC Saga’s Beta Testing (Part 4)

FROM: Colonel IceFire, TCN ONI
DATE: 2012.03.03

With the final release date coming very soon, I thought it was time for a final beta testing update. WC: Saga is very much a finished product now with the last minor details being worked out.

Prologue Mission Testing

Many of you have played the WC: Saga Prologue and remember it well. Almost every detail of WC: Saga has changed since that time meaning that the Prologue campaign was looking a little out of date. No longer! Our beta testers have rewound the clock and are back on the TCS Wellington running through the updated Prologue campaign missions.

What Was Old Is New Again

The old missions have been given a new lease on life with updated autopilot sequences, the improved visuals of the final WC: Saga product, the tweaked AI, and some slightly updated story as a bonus. The new missions are an overall smoother experience and they lead naturally into the full campaign. Even if you are an experienced pilot, I think the introductory nature of the Prologue is worth the immersion into the atmosphere of the Wing Commander 3 timeline.

The kinds of bugs we’re running into right now:

  • Minor spelling mistakes and typos. They always crop up no matter how perfect you may be. Spotted and corrected!
  • Balancing has been corrected with the level of defensive fire from the Wellington during the last mission.

These are hardly show stopping issues, but we do want to see them corrected before release.

Spit Shine

We are nearly there and the testers are pulling out the last stops to what will hopefully be a near perfect release. Nothing is ever completely perfect but every effort is being made to make it that. Just today I was play testing the early campaign missions again and while there were always bugs, or missing voice overs, or other issues in earlier days, there is now a sense that this is complete and that it is nearly ready. Stay tuned for more news in the very near future!

-IceFire

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Campaign With a Twist

FROM: Rear Admiral Tolwyn, CINCWEAPONSDIVISION
DATE: 2012.02.03

People are wondering how the Saga campaign is going to act. Well, here it is without giving much away.

The Prologue includes 5 missions. It's 50% instruction training and 50% combat related to the main plot. The reason why it's not a full-blown fight campaign is because many people will not be familiar with the FS2 controls. That's why this prologue's main purpose is to get everyone up to speed.

You are shifted through several squadrons throughout "The Darkest Dawn" campaign, which consists of 50 missions. Each squadron flies a different fighter (and only that fighter type). Each squadron has their own wingmen and a squad leader. During missions you fly with these wingmen, and the squad leader too if he's on rotation to fly a combat mission. There is a Wing Commander in charge of the air wing, and on occassions you'll fly among him in combat.

Just as Wing Commander, you fly patrols in elements of two fighters. If you are sent in a mission fully knowing there is going to be a stiff enemy presence, you go in flights of four. In more than one case, you fly as an integrated part of a strike team.

You will start off flying the Hellcat, then the Arrow, then Thunderbolt, then Longbow. You'll fly the Excalibur last. Due to the set FS2 engine programming there's not much we can do in terms of branching

Expect cameos from several notorious Kilrathi Aces of that period. We can't say which for now, but I will say that we made damn sure not to contradict the timeline, events and systems the Victory participated in during the official path seen in the WC3 novel.

Your carrier is the TCS Hermes. It fights in the forefront of virtually every operation of the Vega Sector Fleet, whether it is losing or winning. Some operations were mentioned in the WC3 guide, novel, and game.

Until next time.

-Tolwyn

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"Let's Play" - Khan's Darkest Dawn

FROM: Rear Admiral Tolwyn, CINCWEAPONSDIVISION
DATE: 2012.24.02

Big news today! We've teamed up with Rurikhan to bring you some "let's play" footage from the final beta. The video shows much of the progress we've made since the original Prologue release. There's a lot more polish, all assets were remade from scratch, and the gameplay is much much tighter. A huge credit needs to go to Rui Modesto (a.k.a. Rurikhan) for cranking with the crazy editing skills. The floor is yours, Rurikhan!

Now, in an awkward segue from the gameplay footage to the actual status of the game, we are working as hard as we can to bring you the game as soon as possible, but small changes are still popping up. Thankfully, at this point, these changes are usually pretty minor, but the sum total of all the changes really adds up and increases the quality of the game.

Till next time and if you liked the "let's play" video and would like to watch a few more episodes remember to "like" or "comment" and to subscribe to Rurikhan's channel at youtube.com/rurikain.

-Tolwyn

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A Look Inside WC Saga’s Beta Testing (Part 3)

FROM: Colonel IceFire, TCN ONI
DATE: 2012.05.02

We're almost there! The beta testing has been a long process for the testers and for the team but we can all see the end of this very long road. With ten years of development behind some of the team members this is an incredible project coming to fruition.

Final Mission Testing

I have described in earlier reports that the beta testers have not had access to the entire campaign but rather we have tested the missions in the same order that players will experience when the project is complete. After 15 beta versions we have now arrived at a content complete beta test and testers are working hard beta testing the final missions.

Scale and Scope

I've talked about before how the scale of the missions in WC Saga has a huge amount of variation. You can expect small skirmishes with a half dozen spacecraft at once or huge engagements with over a hundred spacecraft in combat at once. Keeping the player relevant in the melee is important. So is making sure that the battle plays out the way it should, provided the player is doing their job correctly.

So we've been testing dozens of times to ensure that everything works the way it should. With large scal battles the complexity and potential for errors to appear increases so testers are making sure that these final missions live up to expectations.

Here's just a few of the bugs that we've been able to identify and eliminate:

  • A Kilrathi raiding party arrives with several capital ships. In one instance two capital ships arrive on the same trigger and appear inside of each other. The triggers were changed and now they arrive separately. Much to the relief of the Kilrathi!
  • In another mission the player receives a message to protect a Confed capital ship, however, if the ship is already lost the sound file is still played. Problem solved.
  • A missing voice over causes a bug in the message line up resulting in some dialogue continuing over an autopilot sequence. Voice over files found and problem solved!

For All Mankind

There is a definite buzz and a sense that something special is really starting to come together as we test the final missions of the campaign where the story comes to its epic conclusion. More missions are green lit and problems are found and solved.

It takes many years of serious work and commitment to get to this point and there will be more time and serious work to come. I think it will be all worth it. Stay tuned for more updates in the near future!

-IceFire

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There is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel!

FROM: Rear Admiral Tolwyn, CINCWEAPONSDIVISION
DATE: 2012.06.01

By the end of next week, we will have finalized 48 of the missions from the main campaign, leaving only the final two climactic missions. In addition, we are also remastering and upgrading the original prologue missions to be released as a second, brief campaign as a part of the full Saga package. Beside that, we are finishing working out a few issues with the code, and of course we will resolve any issues that come up as we finalize the missions. We are just as anxious to be finished with the project as you are for us to be finished, but we are making sure to be careful and not take shortcuts on these final missions as we come around the bend on the last stretch to the finish line. So, while we do not yet have an exact release date because we cannot foresee what issues may come up as we make these last missions and code refinements, we are confident in stating that in a matter of weeks, Saga should be ready for launch.

After ten years of work, the end is indeed near!

-Tolwyn

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The Darkest Dawn is Almost Upon Us

FROM: Rear Admiral Tolwyn, CINCWEAPONSDIVISION
DATE: 2012.29.01

We have reached an important milestone that has been a very long time in the making. All 50 of the missions in the main campaign are now finalized; The Darkest Dawn is now complete! We still have a bit of work ahead of us before Saga is ready to launch. We are currently working on significantly updating the missions of the prologue campaign (with updated game play, improved missions, refined dialogue, more characters in game, and a few other things to bring it up to par with the main campaign) which will be included as a small, introductory campaign in the full Saga package. We are going through our final rounds of beta tests, making sure everything is fully polished and as bug-free as possible for launch.

Keep your eyes open for a release date announcement soon!

-Tolwyn

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