Piper's Pit BBS/FTP: ibm 0040 - 0049/ibm0040-0049/ibm0040.tar/ibm0040/RELEAS17.ZIP/WC2.CON

Text File | 1991-10-24 | 28.4 KB | 780 lines

=================================================================
                  -- CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT --
   Flight Simulation Forum -- CompuServe Information Service
                (GO FSFORUM) October 21, 1991
Special Guests -- WING COMMANDER II development team from Origin
=================================================================

Entering Space Combat room...


Mike B/HOST: Hi Guys! How's it going? Hiya Mike/Origin!

LARRY MINTZ: Hi Mike just sitting to see whats going on.

Mike B/HOST: Not much yet... still getting set up here.

john: SMILEY

Mike B/HOST: Hi John!

LARRY MINTZ: Is BAO "MALLARD"?

john: HELLO, O

Mike B/HOST: Nope, Mallard is a separate company, in Texas I
think...they have a licensing deal with BAO for the new sound
stuff for FS4.

john: WHEN DOES THE FUN START?

Mike B/HOST: Aren't we having fun yet? <g>.  Hello Stephen/Origin,
Welcome!

Stephen Beeman/ORIG: Hi there.

mike: I am here trying to get everything set up. I am on a machine
that was not designed for conferences.  I am basically going to sit
and watch

Mike B/HOST: Stephen, glad you made it... are you on the same terminal
as Mike, or a different one?

LARRY MINTZ: Watch what??

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: No, I've got my own. Mike's on a cheesy Mac
that doesn't let you backspace.

Mike B/HOST: Ahh... what's he doing using a cheezy Mac? <grin>.

john: HOW DOW

Stephen N Freed: Hello. Has the formal con started yet?

Al C.: Hi All...well I guess Mike can't make any mistakes <g>

Mike B/HOST: Hi Stephen, no we're just getting warmed up. I'll wait
forthe room to fill up a little and the other guests to arrive before
we go formal.

Stephen/Origin, who else is coming tonight?

Stephen N Freed: Dunno.

Mike B/HOST: Whoops, I mean Steve/Origin.

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Ellen Guon should be on-line any minute now...
she's here in the room, but is having trouble with her computer. You
wouldn't think a computer game company would have so many hardware
problems, would you? :-)

Mike B/HOST: Okay, no rush... we usually don't start the Big Show
until five after the hour.

Stephen N Freed: Question: in WC2, is there any way to cheat(besides
WCSave)?

Mike B/HOST: You?? Have hardware problems?? <g>. Stephen, do you know
about the "WC2 Origin" plus Alt-Delete trick?

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Only with the machines we try to use for on-line
conferences.

Stephen N Freed: Yeah, but i couldn't get it to work. How do you
do it?

john: MAKE SURE YOU USE ONLY A CAPITAL O

Mike B/HOST: It's case sensitive, you have to type "Origin" just
like that. Then ALT-DEL blows up any targeted ship.

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: "WC2 Origin" is all you need to type. Just target
any ship and hit Alt-Del. But I didn't tell you that.

Stephen N Freed: Thanks. ANY ship?

Mike B/HOST: Yes, any ship,including I think your own if nothing is
targeted <g>.

john: BUMMER!!!

Stephen N Freed: <heh heh heh>

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: You can only kill yourself in WC1; in WC2, if
you have nothing targeted, nothing happens.

Mike B/HOST: Oh, okay.. got that wrong then.

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Oh, and in WC2, Alt-Ins will wipe out every
ENEMY ship in the area, except for capital ships (which you still
have to Alt- Del by hand).

Mike B/HOST: Ah ha! I think that's new to us. Thanks.

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Keep in mind, though, that another "feature"
of the cheat keys is that they sometimes crash the game. Caveat
emptor.

john: Sounds like a Wave Motion Gun- a la Star Blazers

Mike B/HOST: Well, a real Space Hero wouldn't use the cheat anyway,
right?

Stephen N Freed: Right!

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: We call it the "Finger of God" cannon, or FOG
gun.

Mike B/HOST: Steve/Origin, I'm showing two of you here with that
handle... both using same account I guess.

Steve/Origin: Evening, gentlemen!  I'm Ellen Guon, also an Originite.

Mike B/HOST: One of you should change your handle so we know who's
who.

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: When I call up /USERS, I only see me. What are
you talking about, Mike?

Stephen N Freed: One of you is Steve Beeman/ORIGIN and the other
is steve/origin

mike: I think that steve/origin was changed

Steve/Origin: So, other questions about Wing II?

Stephen N Freed: When are the Special Operation disks coming?

john: when are the Special Ops Disks due out?

Steve/Origin: I'm directing the first Special Ops disk... it's not
definite yet, but we hope to ship it for Christmas. No release date
yet for Special Ops 2 or 3.

john: 3?

Stephen N Freed: Special Ops3?

Mike B/HOST: Ellen, do a "/name Ellen/Origin" to change your handle
so
you don't show up as Steve/Origin.

Steve/Origin: Yes, there are three Special Ops currently on the
schedule.

john: What about Strike Commander?

Mike B/HOST: Okay Ellen, lookin' good! Steve/Origin, do you think
Mike will make it or should we start without him?

jeffrey kraus: hello

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Dude, Mike's here.

mike: I am here, big brother is listening

jeffrey kraus: have we started yet

Mike B/HOST: Oh, you're *that* Mike <g>. Sorry....

mike: I wont be talking much because I am stuck on a cheesy mac that
will not backspace

Mike B/HOST: MIke, do me a favor and enter a "/name Mike/Origin"
so I can keep the transcript straight.

Ellen Guon/Origin: Strike Commander is looking great...no release
date on it yet, but it'll be an awesome game, as much a leap in
technology from Wing II as Wing II is from Wing I.

Stephen N Freed: Hi Kenny

Kenny Rueter: hi

Mike/Origin: is that better

Mike B/HOST: Mike, yeah... thanks!

Kenny Rueter: Stephen, where are you

Stephen N Freed: Whoah!

Mike B/HOST: Okay everyone, we're about to start <rapping gavel!>
Let's quiet down for a minute...

jeffrey kraus: can anybody tell me what the status of the COMPAQ
fix is yet!!

Kenny Rueter: no

Mike/Origin: I will be sending something out in the Forum about that
tomorrow.

Mike B/HOST: Before we begin, a few words...

The FORMAL part of the Conference is starting now. Before I introduce
our guests I'll say a couple of words about Conferencing. Please
keep in mind this is a FORMAL Conference. DO NOT interrupt the person
speaking/typing. Please try to refrain from interjecting comments.
We'll have an informal session after the formal one is complete, and
I would like to invite everyone to stick around to the end.
AFTER I CALL FOR QUESTIONS, if you have one, just enter a QUESTION
MARK and CARRIAGE RETURN like this
?

Mike B/HOST: and I will call each person in turn to ask a question
and one follow up question or comment.  We'll have several rounds
of questions. --- VERY IMPORTANT --- It's customary in FSFORUM
Conferences to signal that you're finished talking by typing GA (Go
Ahead). Also, please focus on questions and comments regarding game
design and game play. Questions concerning game installation
difficulty or other problem reports are best handled with a GAMPUB
message to the publisher rep. Thank you for your attention!

We're honored tonight with guests from Origin, publishers of the
Wing Commander series and the new Wing Commander II. Everyone, please
join me in welcoming Michael Rundell of Origin who will introduce
our guests. Welcome Mike! GA
<clap clap clap>

john: yeah!!!!

Stephen N Freed: <clap clap>

Mike/Origin: Tonight we have Steve Beeman and Ellen Guon The are
some of the <THE> people on the design team for the Comamander series.
It is all yours. ga

Mike B/HOST:  Okay, welcome to all and congratulations on a terrific
game. I'd like to open the floor to questions...  Anyone with a
question please send a "?" now.

john: ?

jeffrey kraus: ?

john: ?

MICHAEL SPERTUS: I?

Mike B/HOST: Anyone else for the first round of questions? Okay..
Take it away John! GA

john: I love the sxI love the situational ara

Stephen N Freed: OH JOOHHN?

john: awa"Iw|mI'm wxUxtI'mI'M GETTz|NG 3]TATIC ON LIq

Mike B/HOST: Wow, looks like major line noise... Let's take the next
question from Jeffrey. Take it away Jeffrey! GA

jeffrey kraus: are the explosions digitized photos ? if they are
what did you blow up? ga

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: OK... The explosions are just graphic touch-
ups from the ones used in the previous game. We filled in the black
pixels and holes in the original art. It took up more space, both
in memory and on the disk, but like a lot of things, we felt the
effect was worth it. DONE.

jeffrey kraus: Can you shed ANY LIGHT on the COMPAG problem? ga

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: The two-bit answer is that it's a problem with
old ROMs. You can get more information in the GAMEPUB forum,
section 12, from Mike. He'll be posting something tomorow. DONE.

jeffrey kraus: okiedokie!! ga

Mike B/HOST: Okay, Tte next question comes from Michael, go ahead
Michael! GA

MICHAEL SPERTUS: I have two suggestions.  The first is do you have
any plans for human-human conflicts via modem. It seems that would
be pretty easy to implement and you could even do group play ala
the Sierra net.ga

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: We've thought about it. EVERYONE wants it...
a bunch of people even want to see network play over a LAN! You're
right, it would be pretty straightforward to do. But all our current
programming staff is tied up in other, "front line" projects. But we
plan on incorporating modem play into some of our future releases...
not Strike Commander, but maybe a flight sim next year. DONE.

jeffrey kraus: yea! network it like avaitor for suns!!! (sorry got
excited )ga

MICHAEL SPERTUS: Also, could you have the left VDU that displays
your own ship also also display the shield and armor status like
the targeeting VDU does. That would really help me.GA

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Now that's a good idea. Frankly, no one around
here even thought of it. Sure, there's no real reason why we couldn't.
The only reason why things look the way they do is for consistency
with WC1.  Too late for WC2 or Special Ops, but that might be a neat
thing to add to WC3 Good suggestion; I'll pass it along.  DONE.

Ellen Guon/Origin: Definitely too late for Special Ops, unfortunately.

MICHAEL SPERTUS: thank you.  done

Mike B/HOST: Let's open the floor for another round of questions.
Anyone with a question, please type "?" now.

Stephen N Freed: ?

Al C.: ?

Mike Mielnicki 7351: ?

J. Cole: ?

Mike B/HOST: Okay, first up is Stephen Freed, go ahead Steven GA

Stephen N Freed: Alright. How come you can't lock on anything with
the turrets? GA

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: You can't lock onto anything in the turrets
because there are no targeting VDUs, and thus no targeting computers.
The reason why there are no targeting VDUs is because we couldn't
find a place to put them. Seriously. DONE.

Mike B/HOST: Stephen, do you have a follow-up?
GA

Stephen N Freed: Nope. GA

Ellen Guon/Origin: Actually, if we're between questions for a moment.

Mike B/HOST: Go ahead Ellen.

Ellen Guon/Origin: I'd like to introduce two more members of the
Wing II team...Charles Cafrelli and Rey Castro...

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Yeah, no sense letting them off easy.

Mike B/HOST: Hey Charles and Ray!  Welcome!

Ellen Guon/Origin: ...they're two programmers lurking in the
background under Charles' user name.

Charles Cafrelli/Origin: Hello.  Both Rey and I are working from
the same term. Hardly lurking.

Mike B/HOST: Glad to have you both here.

Charles Cafrelli/Origin: glad to be here. thanks.

Mike B/HOST: All right, let's take our next question from Al C.,
go ahead Al! GA

Al C.: Thanks, Can you tell us anything about Spec Ops__anything
different... more or less complex scenes? GA

Ellen Guon/Origin: Ellen here...  We're adding new material for Spec
Ops, in addition to a new storyline.  Charles can tell you a little
about the new ships.

Charles Cafrelli/Origin: We're adding several new ships.  2
confederation ships, and one Kilrathi. One of the confed ships
(The Crossbow) you'll be able to pilot. It's similar to the broadsword,
but a LOT more maneuverable.

Ellen Guon/Origin: Part of the storyline revolves around a mutinous
group of Confed pilots. You'll fly against them in their stolen Confed
ships, as well as the new Kilrathi ships.

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: <yo ho ho and a bottle of rum>

Ellen Guon/Origin: Yes, it's "Space Pirates" time.  The story also
continues the political intrigue going on in the Kilrathi Empire.
(One in-house subtitle for the game is "Prince Thrakhath's Crimean
Vacation.") GA

Mike B/HOST: Sounds great! Al, a follow-up? GA

Charles Cafrelli/Origin: IT IS????

Al C.: Thanks, sounds nice....Will they push the hardware/video any
more than WC2? Thanks...Done

Ellen Guon/Origin: Ellen here...  Special Ops will run with a modified
Wing II executable, so we won't be pushing the technology frontiers
very much. The next new technology project will be Strike Commander.
We can't increase the video resolution yet... it would quadruple the
size of the game. So Wing II would ship on 32 disks, not 8. Not
practical yet. GA

Mike B/HOST: Okay, I'll take a question here... This is for Ellen.
What kind of research do you do for these story lines? Someone obviously
read some Larry Niven at some point <g>. Do you read sci-fi novels,
look at space opera movies? What's the research process? GA

Ellen Guon/Origin: Okay... Steve and I joined the Commander team
after Wing 1, so I really don't know what Chris used as source material
for Wing 1, but as a professional writer (not just games, but television
and novels), I'm constantly reading and researching material. We
discuss a lot of the stories around the office, and try to evolve
interesting material that'll catch the players' imaginations. GA

Mike B/HOST: Well, you did a good job.. it's an interesting story
and I'll be interested to see how you develop it. Okay, lets do
another round of questions...

Ellen Guon/Origin: Thank you, Mike!

MICHAEL SPERTUS: ?

jeffrey kraus: ?

SMILEY: ?

Al C.: ?

Mike B/HOST: Michael Spertus is first up, take it away Michael! GA

MICHAEL SPERTUS: The difference in difficulty between WC1 and the
secret missions was very large.  Could you have at least the first
few special ops missions be more intermediate between the 2? also,
it would be nice if the wingmen improved as they got more experienced
as well. Thanks. GA

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Well, Ellen just took off for a minute, so I'll
have to field this one. First, the enemy got so much tougher between WC1
and SM1/SM2 because so many people felt that WC1 wasn't enough of
a challenge. The enemy in WC2 synch themselves to your skill level,
so improving the intelligence in the Special Ops disks should not
be necessary. Some of the individual missions may be harder, just as
in WC2 some missions were harder than others. As for the wingmen, we
can't have them improve over the span of one campaign, but there's no
reason why Stingray can't fly better in SO1 than in WC2. Provided Ellen
has time to do it, that is. DONE.

Ellen Guon/Origin: Time is a major concern on these projects,
unfortunately.  DONE

Mike B/HOST: Follow-up, Michael? GA

MICHAEL SPERTUS: Thanks.  It would be awesome to get to fly with
a really good wingman sometimes even if it meant having to have a really
difficult mission along with it.  Still, you guys are doing a great
job.  done

Charles Cafrelli/Origin: Charles here.  During beta testing, we were
still playing with the AI on the wingman. And hadn't quite gotten
it down to perfection yet. So, for about 3 weeks Shadow upon seeing
Kilrathi fighters would immediately take off and intercept the Kilrathi
for you.  Then promptly blast the bits out of every one of them before
you could even get to the fight.  In addition, to make the wingman
really good, they also have to ignore the player. (Sort of like
Maniac.  HE could be REALLY good, but would you want him to be?) GA

Mike B/HOST: All right... the next question is from Jeffrey...  go
ahead Jeffrey! GA

jeffrey kraus: here is a two parter, how can i get involved in the
beta testing program, because of all the probs that are out there?
Next, I have heard about a command line switch that will let you
change game params (shield ,guns,etc. ) any truth to this? ga

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Okay... As far as testing goes: We have to keep
ALL of our testing in-house, for security reasons (WC2 was available
on bulletin boards BEFORE it shipped. If we let it out two or four
weeks earlier...). As for changing game parameters: The only thing along
those lines is the -k switch (which only works when you type "wc2 Origin".
The -k option either makes you TOTALLY INVULNERABLE or it crashes your
game. We make no guarantees about the cheat keys. DONE.

Mike B/HOST: Jeffrey, follow-up?

jeffrey kraus: what about a select group held by a non disclosure
agreement ? Like I have with Microsoft and other business publishers.
If they were to release a buggy package like this ,no matter how good
it was it would simply not sell!!! It could be done leaglly and with
security too. ga

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Well, there's a basic difference here... People
depend on the every day, every minute perfect functioning of their
business software for their livelihoods. With games, it's just not as
critical. If the game crashes, play again. In fact, we took special
care in WC2 to preserve your game, just in case of the inevitable
crashes. And no matter how much playtest you give a product, bugs ALWAYS
get out. Look at DOS 4.0.

jeffrey kraus: but here is 100 $ worth of hard earned cash that is
almost getting thrown to the wind..

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: ...or ANY version of Wordstar... Out of house
testing is no magic panacea, I'm afraid. And, considering how many
copies we've shipped, and how few calls back we've received, WC2
is one of the cleanest games we've done. If you're having problems,
our Customer Support people--who, by the way, are FREE, unlike business
publishers'--will be happy to help you And if you've got one of the
rare machines that, for one reason or another, just won't run the
game... ...well, then, I'm sure your retailer will be happy to refund
your money. It happens,unfortunately. DONE.

Mike B/HOST: Our next question is from Smiley, go ahead Smiley! GA

SMILEY: Would it be possible to a an audible alarm to warn of a nearby
missle and thus allow you to avoid a hit?  ga

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Would it be possible? Yup. Anything is possible.
Can we do it in Special Ops disks?  Nope.

SMILEY: too bad!

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Are they gonna do it in Strike Commander? Prolly.
They should -- real planes do. But, like a lot of things, we didn't
think of it in time. (That's another suggestion for WC3!). On the
other hand, the LOCK light blinks to show how close the incoming
missile is.  Keep an eye on that and it should help at least a little.
DONE.

Mike B/HOST: Smiley, do you have a follow-up? GA

SMILEY: but a sound and a light is a much more positive warning than
a blinking light ga

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: You're absolutely right. That's why real fighter
planes use an audible tone. Like I said, in upcoming "real-world"
flight simulators, and possibly in WC3, that'll probably be a feature.
DONE.

Mike B/HOST: Okay, next up is Al C.  Take it away, Al! GA

Al C.: Thanks, Any consideration given to user-selectable wingmen...
each with their own strenghth & weaknesses could add a lot of variability.
GA

Ellen Guon/Origin: OK... I'm not certain on that, but I think it
might be a feature in Strike Commander. We don't have any plans to do
that currently in the Wing series, though. A lot of the features in Strike
aren't set yet, so no guarantees on it.  DONE

Mike B/HOST: Follow-up, Al?

Al C.: Thanks...just an idea. DONE

Ellen Guon/Origin: Good idea, but not implementable for Special Ops,
unfortunately.

Mike B/HOST: All right, I'm opening the floor for questions again....

SMILEY: ?

FT [GAMERS]: ?

Al C.: ?

J. Cole: ?

Viper: ?

Mike B/HOST: Okay, let's hear it from Viper, go ahead Viper! GA

Viper: Ok, When you said that WC2 is prolly one of your most bug
free games yet, I agree, but I did find that it has some problems
with certain versions of QEMM. It would have been nice if you had
some sort of note or something to say which versions of the popular
EMS managers were recommended. It would have saved me many, many,
*many* hours of grief. GA

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Well, you must have a relatively old version
of QEMM. We developed with versions 5.11 and 6.0, and swear by them.

Viper: I had version 5.00, version 5.11 works great.

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: (Yeah, see, there you go.) As far as determining
which versions work... it's awfully hard to come by version 4.0 of
QEMM these days, much less some of the weirdo off-brand EMM managers.
Basically, it SHOULD work with any EMM that supports LIMM 4.0.  If
it don't, who you gonna call? ORIGIN.  DONE.

Mike/Origin: whoa, 5.11 and higher on qemm please. <sorry to interrupt>

Mike B/HOST: Follow-up, Viper? GA

Viper: Oh well. Another ?.

Mike B/HOST: Sure go ahead GA

Viper: What can we expect to see in WC3, and when? If it comes out
fairly soon, I don't see how you can put many more features in the
program without requiring some awesomely fast computer to run the
sim. Right now WC2 (IMHO) is pushing the existing PC hardware right
to its limit. This is not bad, I haven't played another game that
even come close to WC2, but in WC3, I really don't want to see a
WC2 rehash. GA

Charles Cafrelli/Origin: Ok, WC3 will use some of the Strike
Commander technology.  You'll get to fly over texture mapped terrain
and see the best terrain of any home computer game. It will definitely
NOT be a re-hash of WC2. The new technology will allow you to feel
like really flying over and through terrain. GA

Mike B/HOST: Our next question comes from Fleeting Thought, take
it away FT! GA

FT [GAMERS]: Thanks, Mike! I've always wondered, who are the
fantasy/sci-fi writers that have most influenced the writing/design
team in the creation of the evolving WC story? And similarly, is
there any story behind STRIKE COMMANDER that's served an equivalent
inspirational function? GA

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Well, to take 'em in reverse order... The major
influence on Strike Commander is cyberpunk literature. I can't say
what the influences were on WC1. On WC2, obviously, Ellen and I had
to work with what we had, so the primary "influence" was WC1 itself.
Mostly, we were trying to take the WC1 material in a new direction.
We deliberately AVOIDED any "homages" or cliches ...and now Ellen
wants to talk, so here she goes:

Ellen Guon/Origin: One of the major influences in my writing is C.J.
Cherryh...especially her handling of political intrigue and suspense,
as in her book "Cyteen." Other than that, no real obvious influences,
other than modern politics and world events. DONE

Mike B/HOST: Follow-up, FT?

FT [GAMERS]: Just wanted to say that I _love_ the rich fabric and
texture of the unwinding tale, it's conceived in ways I find powerful
and moving; keep up the good work!  GA and DONE

Mike B/HOST: Okay, next up is Smiley... go ahead Smiley! GA

SMILEY: There is an insert in the WC2 game that suggests a CD-ROM.
Which CD-ROM and when will this be used in your games? ga

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: The new Multimedia PC standard is pretty good,
and we expect a lot of people to move to it.

Viper: Sorry to break in here (I know this is against the rules),
but you guys...

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: It's basically a standard CD-ROM drive, running
MSCDEX.EXE, with a data throughput rate of 150kbps.

Viper: at Origin really outdid yourselves with WC2, and I really
love it. Good work!!!

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: I think the Tandy drive is the cheapest one
on the market that currently meets this standard--about $400. I don't
know about quality. As far as WHY we're so hot for CD-ROM... here's a
quick mathematics lesson:

        8 5.25" floppies @ .45 each = $3.60 for 9.6MB
        1 CD-ROM         @ 2.00!    = $2.00 for 600MB.

Big difference. The reason why we (admittedly) skimped on the docs
for WC2 was to squeeze in two extra floppies. But with CD-ROM, we
can have the docs AND more game than ever before. DONE.

Mike B/HOST: Smiley, do you have a follow-up? GA

SMILEY: You still did not answer when you will use this WC3 or Strike
Commander... and i would also like to know if you plan to support
the Sound Blaster Pro or Ad lib Gold anytime in the near future.
ga done

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Oops. Well, we're planning on doing a
WC1/SM1/SM2 CD-ROM "shovelware" port. Depending on the success of that,
we could see a major CD-ROM product in the Commander series in early
'93--maybe a Strke Commander port. In addition, we'll probably do a
Multimedia PC game in the fall of '92, which of course will be a CD-ROM
original product.  That'll be a strategy- simulation game, not an
action-arcade game. As for the Sound Blaster Pro or AdLib Gold -
they're like CD-ROMs. As Multimedia takes off we'll be supporting that
hardware more and more. DONE.

Mike B/HOST: Okay, next up is Al C., go ahead Al! GA

Al C.: Ok... That was my question..WC2 on CD-Rom, When? So I'll ask...
What will be min hardware (incl video ram) req for SC & WC3? GA

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Minimum video hardware for Strike is a standard
VGA or MCGA card--nothing special there. You'll need a 386 with 2MB
of RAM and a fairly chunky hard drive.  Depending on what improvements
we make to the technology, WC3 may require 256K or 512K of video
RAM, but Strike supports plain old VGA.  Pretty butch, but we're
figuring that over the next year, this configuration will gradually
become "the standard." Ultima 7 needs the same setup. DONE.

Mike B/HOST: Follow-up, Al? GA

Al C.: OK...

Well, ok..thanks...I ask because my 386/25 512k video got a little
sluggish on some complex scenes in wc2. DONE

Ellen Guon/Origin: Just a quick comment here... Due to some changes
in how we're running the cinematic sequences (everything that's not
in "flying loop" combat)... Special Ops 1 runs noticably faster than
Wing II for those conversation scenes.  DONE.

Mike B/HOST: Okay... I'll take a quick question before we wrap up.
Steve, earlier you said the enemy pilots in WC2 synch themselves
to your skill level. Could you elaborate on that? It sounds like a
major development in flight sim AI.  GA

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Well, basically it goes like this... Every time
you kill a Kilrathi, all the remaining ones get one "notch" smarter.
Every time a cat hammers you, all the remaining furballs get one
notch dumber. It goes beyond that - there's some "elasticity" involved,
so that the skill level adjusts smoothly - but that's the short version
of how it works. The net effect is that the better you fly, the better
the cats get; the worse you fly, the easier they get.  The basic intent,
though, is not necessarily to create "a major development in flight sim
AI." Like everything else in the WC saga, the main objective is to
create the feel of an interactive action-adventure film. So, for example,
in Star Wars: If Luke encounters five TIE fighters, they'll all be bozos
and he'll hammer them.  If he encounters a single fighter, we all know
it's gonna be a tough fight. That's the basis of the dynamic intelligence
in WC2--making sure the difficulty of the game is apropriate to the plot.
DONE.

Mike B/HOST: Wow.. fascinating. It's transparent too, you don't notice
it during combat. Okay, the formal part of this CON is now officially
over!  My thanks to Steve, Ellen, Mike, Rey, and Charles for stopping by
FSFORUM tonight!

Ellen Guon/Origin: Our pleasure, Mike!

Al C.: Thank YOU!

Mike B/HOST: <clap clap clap clap>

Al C.: <Standing Ovation>

Mike/Origin: If anyone has any tech.  questions, I will be more than
happy to take 'me in gamepub section12

Ellen Guon/Origin: Good night, y'all!

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: Night everyone!  Thanks for showing up!

Mike/Origin: good night

Mike B/HOST: G'night Ellen!  Night Steve!

Mike/Origin: night mike

Steve Beeman/ORIGIN: A big bye-bye from the Lone Star State!

Al C.: Mike B.?

Mike B/HOST: Yeah Al?

Mike, thanks for helping set this up, it was fun!

Mike/Origin: bye see you tommorrow

Mike B/HOST:  G'night Mike!

Al C.: OK...G'night.

Mike B/HOST: I'm bugging out too...  see you! ZZZAAAP!

<transcript ends>