The Way Life Should Have Been (December 17, 2005)

[Bandit LOAF]

There's an exciting new addition to the CIC's Document Archive: the Privateer 3: Retribution script. The script was donated by former Origin employee Mark Vittek, who was heavily involved in the project. The script follows yet another main character as the Privateer but also features a lot of Wing Commander continuity -- Black Lances, Doctor Severin, Nephilim Stingrays and the like. It was written in late 1997 for a post-Prophecy project that was developed and then cancelled in 1998. Interestingly, the script includes a full budget for a film shoot and 3D renderings of various 'base' locations which would appear in the game. You can download the script here (26 megs, PDF). Below are some examples of the set design images contained in the script's third part.

The CIC is dedicated to archiving Wing Commander-related documents! If you're a former Origin or Digital Anvil employee with any scripts, notes, e-mails, design documents, advertising materials, company newsletters or the like then please contact us! We'll digitally archive them and return the documents to you.

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Original update published on December 17, 2005

[criticalmass]

Thanks a lot guys! I've been waiting for this since the day it was mentioned in some other thread - feels like at least a year ago. Anyway, the download is nearly finished, so let's start reading.

[Peidu]

Excellent, time to get some quality reading done

[Eder]

That's really nice material.

[Quarto]

Hehehe. "No large amounts of blood, for Germany's sake!"

[Martini Doctor]

we want bloooooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I uploading this thing for 45min now.... dial up sucks.....

[Death]

Originally Posted by Quarto

Hehehe. "No large amounts of blood, for Germany's sake!"

Well, it's probably cheaper to not include it in the first place then have to make 2 versions, like they did with the WC4 scene where Seether slashes Paulsen's throat.

[Martini Doctor]

I really still don't get where the problem was in those days. There was tons of blood in German TV. Blood, Sex, Blood.... all what makes life liveable.
But we had a christian-conservative government in those days... may explain a lot...

[Quarto]

Originally Posted by Martini Doctor

I really still don't get where the problem was in those days. There was tons of blood in German TV. Blood, Sex, Blood.... all what makes life liveable.
But we had a christian-conservative government in those days... may explain a lot...

Just about all countries that have governmental rating systems treat games differently than movies. The idea is that things like blood, sex, drugs and so on all become a lot worse and more influential when they're presented interactively. It's a silly, silly load of crap, but that's the way it's gonna be for at least another ten-twenty years. After that, things should be getting better - once governments are full of people who actually played games as kids, things will change.

[Pedro]

Quickly scanned through the document, its nice, I do love the "EA confidential do not circulate" and the fact the budget lists the completition date being a year later than the start date.

If the fans keep improving as they have been it wouldn't surprise me if we see this turned into a playable title one day in the distant future.

[Martini Doctor]

Originally Posted by Quarto

Just about all countries that have governmental rating systems treat games differently than movies. The idea is that things like blood, sex, drugs and so on all become a lot worse and more influential when they're presented interactively. It's a silly, silly load of crap, but that's the way it's gonna be for at least another ten-twenty years. After that, things should be getting better - once governments are full of people who actually played games as kids, things will change.

I guess it's not only an government issue. Most people are afraid of things they are not used to. So are parents. They are used to violence in TV but games themselfs are new and suspicious to them, not to speak of violence in games. And parents are voters. In 96 (IIRC in 96 WC was released) computers also were quite new to most families... I guess it just took (or is taking) time, until society itself gets used to it...

[Jason_Ryock]

I gotta say, I found this pretty interesting. The mix and match blend of material from the differant eras we see in the game just made me go...wow.

I don't know though, I read through the first half or so of the script in its entirety and I felt like to much of it was "you have to go here and do this". I mean, it reminded of a more linear play style then say, Privateer 2. In fact, I don't think I ever even managed to complete the main story line in Privateer 2 because I was to busy running around doing things.

EDIT:

I also have a silly question, or maybe not (having never played the original privateer)...is this supposed to take place in Gemini?

[AD]

A couple of quick thoughts. I liked the Charybdis reference, and the whole "feel" of the script. I really hate that the main plot device had to do with time travel. (even though there are time travel references in P2, they feel more like a joke and read as if they're right out of Hitchhikers guide). I think overall it would have been a really great - and a lot of fun! - game to play.

A s far as the linearity of the story goes, I think its a bir deceiving when you read it on the page. If you notice, there is opertunity (except near the start where it is explicitly stated) to go off between scenes and do a few cargo runs or pirating. Mind you, the end of the story makes pirating seem rather at odds with the character. But bounty hunting for sure and patrols and such.

P2 had a bunch of "side quests" with FMV lead-ins that would pop up at random, which was really neat. But the main story was no less "linear" than anything in this P3 script. In fact, to me, the idea of the emails when flying brough back flashbacks of P2.

[Jason_Ryock]

I agree, it just seems like alot of places the story says "If they don't..." or "as soon as" instead of saying, "after a few hours of gameplay".

Maybe I just mis-read it, I don't know.

And the idea of emails flying back gave me flashes to P2 as well.

[ChrisReid]

Originally Posted by Pedro

Quickly scanned through the document, its nice, I do love the "EA confidential do not circulate" and the fact the budget lists the completition date being a year later than the start date.

Wing Commander games actually only took this long. Games like Freelancer taking five years are a nasty relatively new development. Average Wing Commander game production time was about 10-12 months, plus several to six months of preproduction/planning time. The amount of time that Freelancer lingered in development was roughly equivalent to the Secret Missions-Wing Commander 4 or Special Operations-Prophecy time frame. It's really incredible how many quality WC games were produced so damn quickly (and how fast they evolved). There's not much reason to believe Privateer 3 would have deviated from this formula.

[Pedro]

Originally Posted by ChrisReid

Wing Commander games actually only took this long. Games like Freelancer taking five years are a nasty relatively new development. Average Wing Commander game production time was about 10-12 months, plus several to six months of preproduction/planning time. The amount of time that Freelancer lingered in development was roughly equivalent to the Secret Missions-Wing Commander 4 or Special Operations-Prophecy time frame. It's really incredible how many quality WC games were produced so damn quickly (and how fast they evolved). There's not much reason to believe Privateer 3 would have deviated from this formula.

Sorry, my mistake, I really should get over this insomnia, its frying my brain. What I meant to say was I'm impressed that the completition date was listed as a year EARLIER than the start date. Page 127, Start Date: March 16 1998, Finish Date: March 27 1997

[Quarto]

Finally got done reading the script. Is it just me, or is this a major Steltek overdose? I mean, in Privateer 1, finding one Steltek artifact was enough to get half the universe in motion, and when you found that gun, all hell broke loose, including an intervention by the Steltek themselves. Now, however, it turns out that Confed and the Kilrathi have dozens upon dozens of Steltek artifacts, including things like engines and plans for amazing destructo-matic-time-travel devices. That really detracts from the Privateer 1 story, IMO - suddenly, you wonder why it was that one measly gun got so much attention when half the universe is hiding Steltek artifacts in their cupboards.

[ChrisReid]

Yes and no.. Privateer isn't *just* about the one gun. There's a whole Steltek Carrier out there that the Steltek want to get their hands on. They trace down the owner of the gun so that they can find out where the rest of the stuff is. As for Confed with Steltek stuff, P1 tells us there's a Steltek ruins site being excavated right on Mars. P1 definitely shrouds the Steltek in mystery and all that, but I don't think the P3 stuff necessarily detracts for it by its take.

[Quarto]

That's true. Still, I think I would've preferred it had the Steltek remained as mysterious as they'd been in P1.

...Though it goes without saying - if I had to choose between mysterious Steltek but no P3, or P3 with a Steltek overdose, I'd definitely take option number two. There is actually a few other things that bother me about that script... but the fact that it never got made into a game is by far the worst thing of all .

[Ijuin]

Well, P3 is set something like twenty years after P1, so you would expect that more would be known about the Steltek by then, and that Confed would have been working hard all those years to amass as much as it could about them.

[Crowley]

Could someone explain what this sentence means or is it a freak typo? On page 120: "Our hero is temporarily blinded by the senator's pants."

[Death]

Well, in the add-ons to WC2 we know that Taggart liked to wear "loud" shirts...

[Kosch]

This was a most enjoyable read many thanks for making this available =)

Quite a few typo's and unusal sentances like the blinded by pants but I guess it was a very rough draught.

I wonder what the budget for Privateer 2's movie footage was.

Kosch

[dazza]

surely with the ability and standard of model makers and wot not around these forums, would it not be possible to make this into A fully fledged game?

[Kosch]

Are there any documents on how the game was to be designed, ie in terms of combat, upgrades, trading, factions, bbs missions etc? Would be interesting to see those.

Kosch

[Quarto]

Yes, there is a Privateer 3 design document in the archive.

[Wedge009]

Originally Posted by Quarto

Hehehe. "No large amounts of blood, for Germany's sake!"

Yeah, that made me laugh too.

There were a lot of spelling and grammatical errors in that, which made a little hard to read, but it was good fun, I suppose. My only complaint would be that it felt a little too short - I suppose the script is only a skeleton outline for the central plots.

Definitely one of the good things is how the individual stories make you feel some empathy for certain factions. I wouldn't normally feel happy about the game forcing me to work for pirates or the Lance (I assume that's what the Outcasts came from), but the story gives everyone their reasons for doing what they do.