Prologue Released!

[Tolwyn]

Greetings, fellow Wing Commander fans!

You are about to download a true labor of love. Our team has poured countless hours of sweat into creating Wing Commander Saga, and we are all extremely pleased to share the first fruits of our labor with you. After all, without the support you have provided us, none of this would have been possible. For that, you have our deepest thanks.

Following in the footsteps of a game like Wing Commander 3 is an amazing challenge. We hope you will find a familar sense of space combat as you experience our vision of the Wing Commander universe and play your part in the incredible story that will unfold in the months and years to come.

The team is very proud of this game, and we look forward to hearing your reaction. And once again, on behalf of the entire team, let me thank you for standing by us. It means a lot.

Tolwyn & Starman
Producers Wing Commander Saga

Download (Windows Installer, 282 MB)

[Don]

What a way to end a year. And what way to start a new one for any fans of this mod.

Thanks Tolwyn and to the SAGA team...

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

[Tolwyn]

WING COMMANDER SAGA
PROLOGUE README


1 INTRODUCTION

In an interview with TCN News, Colonel Christopher “Maverick” Blair said, “I have never felt comfortable with people calling me ‘The Savior of the Confederation.’ Sure, I was the wing leader in the raid on Kilrah, and I was the one who dropped the Temblor bomb. But I don’t want people to forget that I only got that far because of the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of others.”

This is their story.

The conflict between Earth and Kilrah is drawing to a close, and the Terran Confederation is not winning. Humanity’s only hope lies in a desperate plan that will require even idealistic young fighter pilots to stretch themselves beyond all imagination. It’s the end of the world, and you have a front row seat.

Raw emotion, realistic characters, a hard look at the devastation of war, and intense large-scale space combat action await you as you assume the role of 2nd Lt. David “Sandman” Markham. Twists of fate will throw you out of your dull backwater assignment and right into the hottest spots of the most devastating war in history.

Wing Commander is back. You know Blair’s story, now experience the rest of the Saga.


1.1 ABOUT THE PROLOGUE
In the prologue missions you join Markham at the beginning of his career on the TCS Wellington. These missions are not part of the full game, which will be released in winter 2666. The upcoming full release contains more than 40 heart-pounding missions that will take your experience with the Wing Commander universe to the next level.

Game features:

• Enhanced Freespace 2 engine with features such as autopilot, carrier landings, enhanced graphics, effects and more
• Entirely stand-alone, Freespace 2 not required
• Breathtaking, high-detail models
• Dozens of believable characters
• Bountiful mission variety
• Combat ranging from minor fighter skirmishes to full-scale fleet battles
• Complex and compelling storyline
• Complete voice acting by an original cast

The following features have been excluded from the prologue:

• Multiple environments including nebulas and mine fields
• Command Briefings
• Ship and weapons configuration
• Multiplayer

1.2 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

> Minimum Specifications:

Computer: 100% DirectX 8.1 compatible computer
Operating System: Windows® 98SE/ME/2000/XP
CPU: Pentium® III 700 MHz or AMD Athlon 600 MHz processor
Memory: 256 MB RAM for Windows® 98, 384 MB RAM for Windows® ME/2000/XP
Graphics Card: 32 MB NVIDIA® or ATI Hardware T&L card
Sound Card: Windows® 98/2000/XP-compatible sound card
Imput Device: Windows® compatible mouse and keyboard
DirectX®: DirectX® version 8.1 or higher
OpenAL: OpenAL is a cross-platform 3D audio API appropriate for use with gaming applications and many other types of audio applications.
Installation: 600 MB free HD space

> Recommended Specifications:

Operating System: Windows® 2000/XP
CPU: Pentium® 1.6 GHz or AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz processor
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Graphics Card: 64 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 4 or ATI Radeon Hardware T&L card
Input Device: Thrustmaster Afterburner or a similar input device


1.3 KNOWN ISSUES

• Glow maps may fade in and out or exhibit intermittent flickering effects at a certain distance. If this is the case, you may want to activate 4xAA and 4x AF in your driver’s options.
• When the autopilot is engaged, other ships may appear to rapidly jump back in forth in relative position to the player’s ship. Many times, this will not be noticeable because the other ships will be in formation behind the player. While this bug is visually strange and occurs only seldomly, it should not cause any problems, and will be corrected for the full release of Wing Commander Saga.
• Capital ship surface shields are simulated and a specific sound is played when cap ship shields are hit, there is currently no visual effect. This is an issue that is being worked on and may be resolved for the full campaign. Although the surface shields of capital ships are not visible, they are active, just as they were in Wing Commander 3.
• For some lower-end computers, the apperance of asteroid fields causes a significant slowdown. If you are experiencing this problem, enabling “Asteroid Field Performance Fix” option in the installer will fix it. If you are not experiencing this problem, we do not recommend that you use this option.

1.4 INSTALLATION

The game needs at least 600 MB free memory on the hard drive. Initiate installation by running prologue_setup.exe. Follow the on-screen instructions. The setup will automatically enable the settings that should allow Saga to run well on your system.

> Click on the desktop icon labeled “Launch Prologue”:

The game is now ready to run. Double click on the desktop icon labeled “Launch Prologue” and you can enjoy the improved graphics and enthralling story.

> Create a Pilot:

Once the game is running, you will need to create a pilot by entering a name and select the “Prologue” campaign in the “Campaigns” section. Then, click on Continue to begin playing Wing Commander Saga.


1.5 CUSTOMIZING LAUNCHER OPTIONS

The default settings that we have provided should allow most systems to run Wing Commander Saga well, and we recommend that you use them. However, you can customize your options by using the launcher program.

> Run the launcher:

First, run the launcher. This can be accessed through the Start/Programs menu.

> General Settings:

• Level of Detail: Leave set at High unless you have a really crappy system.
• Use Large Textures: This allows the game to use large textures (bigger than 256x256 in OGL and bigger than 1024x1024 in D3D).
• Fix Font Distortion Problems: Some graphics cards experience problems at the edges of letters. Checking this box fixes that bug, however if you don’t have the problem in the first place it will cause the problem. So, do not select this item unless you actually have the text distortion problem while this flag is not selected.

> Configure the video options:

Click on the Video tab and select which mode you want to run the game in. You have two main choices at time of writing: OpenGL or Direct3D8. You may want to experiment to determine which one leads to better performance on your computer, but bear in mind that Direct3D is not supported by Wing Commander Saga.

> Set the command line settings:

Click on the Flags tab. Flags tell the game which new features to activate. Because the flags change frequently, it is possible that the launcher will pop up an error stating that it doesn't recognize a flag. Most likely, the flag that has produced such an error has been replaced by another one or the feature has been turned on by default. Alternatively, if you have written a flag manually rather than selecting a box, you may have misspelled the flag.
Flags:

• -spec: This flag turns on the specular lighting code (which makes the models look better).
• -glow: This flag turns on the glow mapping code (which also makes the models look better).
• -env: Enables environment mapping. Environment mapping intensity will be determined from the intensity of specular maps. At the time of this writing, environment mapping only works when the video mode is OpenGL.
• -ambient_factor xx: This flag changes the ambient lighting which makes certain effects look more impressive and alters how well models are lit by ambient light. Try -ambient_factor 100 as a starting point and feel free to experiment with the number. Lower levels of ambient lighting will allow you to see the various lighting effects better. Higher levels will allow you to see the models more discretely, similar to how they are rendered in Wing Commander 3.
• -wcsaga: Enables feature set for The Wing Commander Saga
• -no_vsync: Disables vertical sync.
• -fps: This flag turns on the frames per second counter so you can see if the effects are slowing down the game.

> Notes:

• The specular lighting and glow maps tags are also essential. Turning them off will not result in increased performance.
• 640x480 and 800x600 resolutions are not supported. Most systems should be able to have decent performance on the default resolution setting.

> Click Run:

After completing your custom setup, click the run button to launch the Prologue, or press the Okay button and launch the prologue from the desktop icon.

>Troubleshooting:

If you experience any difficulties, feel free to post questions.

Visit the Wing Commander Saga Website at:
http://www.wcsaga.com


1.6 MAIN MENU

The following options are available in the Main menu:

• Continue – starts/continues the demo
• Tech data – launches encyclopedia, simulator, credits list
• Campaign - select campaign
• Options - game settings
• Pilot – manage your pilots
• Exit – quit game

2 CONTROLS

The controls may seem complex at first, but will become familiar after a little practice. Each demo mission explains part of the game mechanics. You may access a list of controls through the “Options” menu in-game.
It should be noted that the Arrow features the same autoslide (or "Shelton Slide") feature that it had in Wing Commander III. Autoslide is toggled on and off by pressing Alt + G. When Autoslide is engaged, maneuvering the Arrow with the joystick or keyboard will make it pivot on its axis without changing its direction of flight, which has multiple tactical usages.

[Razer92]

OMG!! thank you so much! Great way to end an old year and start a new one

[meisdavidp]

Wonderful to see this released at last. Looking forward to trying this out. Great to see that classic elements such as the "Shelton Slide" have made it in. That must have been hell to add to the engine.

[MartySheen]

Nice one saga team!

Happy new year to you all

[Tolwyn]

Don't forget to try out the sim missions as well. They are on the single player tab in the tech room.

[Zelvik]

Thanks, brightens up an otherwise bleakly dark new year for me. Realy made my day.

[McGruff]

The initial cutscene looks awesome, though my sorry ass computer can't handle the actual gameplay Guess my new year's resolution has to be to get a new one just for Saga.

[meisdavidp]

I'm thusfar very impressed, haven't had a chance to fly around much, but the voice acting and cutscene actually reminded me of star trek episodes. None of the cuts were too long and the dialogue is for the most part both believable and in good quantities. Some of the briefing for the first training mission seemed a bit deadpan which would be fine... if what was being said wasn't a joke. Just something to look at next time. The installer was well implemented as well. Almost missed the fiction viewer. Might want to draw a little more attention to that, it's definately worth looking at.

[redneckf15]

NICE! I'm downloading now and will confirm waht I already know from following this on teh net for a wile now. THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the hard work and have a very HAPPY New Year.

EDIT: HOLY CRAP! You guys rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm gonna be up all night playing this game. Graphics are awesome, controls are very nice, interface is incredible, and you've captured the feel of the WC universe perfectly. Amazing considering it's FREE and even professionally paid game houses failed to do what you've done.

Thanks again - now I just have to figure out how to get out of the New Year Party so I can keep playing... Can't wait for the next installment!

Cheers ;-)

[jaeger]

yay, this makes my year. at least the last several hours of it =X

[floundericiousMI]

CTD, CTD, and CTD... *sigh*

I'll try again tomorrow, after all the fun of tonight! BTW, if there's something obvious in my error message, speak up! :-)

Error: Could not load in ChoosePilot-m!
File:J:\src\cvs\fs2_open_3_6_9.final\cod e\UI\WINDOW.cpp
Line: 237
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
kernel32.dll 7c816fd7()
------------------------------------------------------------------

[Lt.Death100]

Jeez, next thing you know a full version of Duke Nukem Forever will be shipped right to my house. Thanks guys, looks like I'll have to put off playing some of my birthday presents!

[Death]

Originally Posted by McGruff

Guess my new year's resolution has to be to get a new one just for Saga.

Like most people on these boards haven't upgrade their hardware specifically for WC at one point or another...

(As for my impressions, going to be downloading while at work tonight. Yes, working during NYE does suck. )

[Lt.Death100]

Waitaminit, WTF? It won't let me play on the basis that "You have to have OpenAL 1.1 or newer installed" which I have installed, any possible explanations?

[hurleybird]

Originally Posted by Lt.Death100

Waitaminit, WTF? It won't let me play on the basis that "You have to have OpenAL 1.1 or newer installed" which I have installed, any possible explanations?

Reinstall


Downloading saga...

[jaeger]

OUTFRIGINSTANDING! you guys did a heck of a job!

[Lt.Death100]

Originally Posted by hurleybird

Reinstall


Downloading saga...

Tried reinstalling both game and software 3 times.

[QuailPilot]

Ok...

When I turn on the game:

It had the "Program did an unusal operation and must be shut down error"

any clues what to do?

[hurleybird]

Originally Posted by Lt.Death100

Tried reinstalling both game and software 3 times.

Try going into the configurator and select generic hardware from the menu. If that doesn't work, see what happens when you select 'no sound'.

[hurleybird]

Just completed second mission, game looks great so far. There is a bit of a problem when you press F1 in the main menu though.

[Vipermist]

awesome game guys
i have all details on max running it on a 22 inch widescreen moniter in high res looks awesome, plays flawlessly graphics rock
game brings back memories from wc3 days.

voice acting is great although is there any key i can press to skip though it tho, say when i die i have to listen to it all again can be annoying after awhile.

What a great gift for new years!

I've just been up all night playing, couldn't stop, had to keep going untill the end You really got the feel of WC to a T. I had more fun playing Saga then any game I payed money for in 2006, no word of a lie.

Thanks again and can't wait for the rest of it

[LeHah]

Nice job on the mod. Don't mean to be rude - but some small bugs caught my eye.

1.) Random sound skipping during the end of the first training mission. This could be attributed to my computer doing something like downloading new virus definitions, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

2.) Sudden skipping (visual and audio) when I failed the escort mission by firing on the pirates before given the go-ahead. This one seemed like an actualy "game" issue and not simply a computer burp. Again, minor.

3.) I was moving from one nav point to the next and when I checked what was behind me using my HAT button, I noticed that the patrol leader Arrow was... well, he was bouncing around and clipping out quite a bit. Just something I noticed.

Otherwise, the mod looks fine and strong!

[hurleybird]

I can't help but be impressed with the performance of this build. Running on a crap integrated graphics (geforce 6150) laptop, with all details max. Getting awesome frame rates (with no indication of frame rate drops) and amazing details. Good job to the modelers designers and coders - this game has a performance/visual ratio far higher than most commercial games.

[Falcon988]

I just played the first training mission and I gotta say, this is just magnificent. I had no idea you guys were creating something THIS good.

[hurleybird]

Just finished playing and... wow that last mission was intense!

Found a bit of a bug though: If the friendly Cruiser (not sure what the name was, it began with 'd' though) is destroyed, the debriefing will report that both cruisers were destroyed, even when the other one survives.

[Starman©]

I'm really glad you people like it I try to answer a few question for the people who encounter problems, though Tolwyn is usually better in this computer technical stuff (but he may still suffer from his new years party and will show up later )

Originally Posted by floundericiousMI

CTD, CTD, and CTD... *sigh*

I'll try again tomorrow, after all the fun of tonight! BTW, if there's something obvious in my error message, speak up! :-)

Error: Could not load in ChoosePilot-m!
File:J:\src\cvs\fs2_open_3_6_9.final\cod e\UI\WINDOW.cpp
Line: 237
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
kernel32.dll 7c816fd7()
------------------------------------------------------------------

Have you changed the game resolution within the launcher ? This happens when you change back to 800x600 or even lower. Unfortunately this is not supported. Try with 1024x768, it should really run on older machines (you can try to disable glow and spec maps though, but they shouldn't have a big performance impact too).

A note for people with lowend systems : While we realized that 1024x768 is running really on older systems, we encountered a problem with our high poly asteroid fields.

The installer offers an option in the custom installer variant to install a lowres asteroidfield that should made the game more playable.

Waitaminit, WTF? It won't let me play on the basis that "You have to have OpenAL 1.1 or newer installed" which I have installed, any possible explanations?

This one is new to me. When you have already tried to reinstall, I have currently no idea where the problem lies. There must be something conflicting on your PC.
I suggest you check or post here for technical support, these guys can certainly help you :

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/ind...oard,50.0.html

There is a bit of a problem when you press F1 in the main menu though.

Ups We need to check that in time. Luckily that's not a vital part.

voice acting is great although is there any key i can press to skip though it tho, say when i die i have to listen to it all again can be annoying after awhile.

Sorry, but that's not possible ATM. Believe me, this was also a pain in the *** in the countless times I was bugfixing the missions. As funny as the dialogues may be, when you have to hear them a few hundred times they start to become annoying I'm just glad I can now start working on the maincampaign.

1.) Random sound skipping during the end of the first training mission. This could be attributed to my computer doing something like downloading new virus definitions, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

2.) Sudden skipping (visual and audio) when I failed the escort mission by firing on the pirates before given the go-ahead. This one seemed like an actualy "game" issue and not simply a computer burp. Again, minor.

This one is also new to me. Does it appear in other missions too, or it is reproducable at always the same part of the mission ? Currently I can only give the usually advice to update your sounddrivers if you haven't already, I'm interested to see if more people encounter this.

3.) I was moving from one nav point to the next and when I checked what was behind me using my HAT button, I noticed that the patrol leader Arrow was... well, he was bouncing around and clipping out quite a bit. Just something I noticed.

Yes, that's unfortunately a known bug. It was introduced with the autopilot code and then comes and goes with newer exe builds. One has it fixed, others only suffer a little from that, in others it's quite obvious. I'm confident that it will be fixed for the final release.

Just finished playing and... wow that last mission was intense!

I also liked that final battle the most

@All : Don't forget the additional sim missions. They are located in the techroom. On the main menu click Tech-Data, then mission simulator and at last single missions on the lower left of the screen

[Don]

I like to congratulate the team again for creating the most intense space-sim based on a mod ever!!! And I repeat...EVER!

But i seemed to have run into a problem already .

After the movie cutscenes finish playing, the games always hangs. The problem occurred once when I finished the INTRO but after replaying it went fine...only for the second cutscene to hang again.

Whats going on? And incase for anymore problems, I'm playing the game with the following specs:

Dell INSPIRON 5150
2.4 Ghz Clock-Speed
Windows XP, inc. SP2
DirectX 8.0 compatible
256MB RAM
NVIDIA George FX Go5200
Sigma Tel Audio Device

Playing, in 1024x768 resolution by 16bit-depth mode. General settings set to Medium.

[Starman©]

Hm, this exe build is brandnew, as is the movie player code. I'll check again with the coders and will hopefully come up with a fix. Is it happening everytime, or on a random bases ?

What happens when you start the movies from the techroom ?

[Don]

Again the cutscene hangs and freezes. I played the scenes again in the tech room and the same problem occurs, I avoid the problem though simply by pressing ESC just before the cutscene can finish.

Thanks for the quick response.

[Tolwyn]

I need to double check this issue, but:

Theora, like all of modern codecs, relies heavily on CPU performance. That and the fact that you have only 256 mb of RAM might explain occasion problems.

It is also possible, that there is a small glitch in the movie player code, that we missed.

[Razer92]

beautiful mod, can't wait for the next part.

[LeHah]

Originally Posted by Starman©

This one is also new to me. Does it appear in other missions too, or it is reproducable at always the same part of the mission?

I'll attempt to reproduce the error, if possible - and get back to you.

Originally Posted by Starman©

I'm confident that it will be fixed for the final release.

About how far done is the whole project?

Again, cheers for what you've put out.

[BradMick]

Howdy, just finished. While this was one hell of a product, I have to be honest....what seriously took so long to do? The two cutscenes are really nice, but easily produced, the voice talent could be done pretty well, and from what I remember of my days with playing around with FRED, not a whole lot other than the Autopilot trick could be acheived with vanilla FRED. I don't mean to be rude or anything....just really curious because that was quite short for the sheer amount of time taken to put it out.

BradMick

[Tolwyn]

Originally Posted by hurleybird

Just finished playing and... wow that last mission was intense!

Found a bit of a bug though: If the friendly Cruiser (not sure what the name was, it began with 'd' though) is destroyed, the debriefing will report that both cruisers were destroyed, even when the other one survives.

both cruisers must survive, otherwise it's game over.

Originally Posted by BradMick

what seriously took so long to do? The two cutscenes are really nice, but easily produced, the voice talent could be done pretty well, and from what I remember of my days with playing around with FRED, not a whole lot other than the Autopilot trick could be acheived with vanilla FRED. I don't mean to be rude or anything....just really curious because that was quite short for the sheer amount of time taken to put it out.

It took us 18 months to develop the prologue, another 6 months to get rid of all the bugs. Plus, we had to heavily enchance the engine. Autopilot, movie player, automatic death screams just to name a few new functions. I have to admit, that we did not plan to work on the prologue for more than a year, but there you are. I guess "lagging behind schedule" is common in the game industry

Originally Posted by LeHah

About how far done is the whole project?

Well, there are about 15 missions in the beta stage, but they will require some heavy modifications due to the addition of the autopilot function plus a couple of changes done to the scripting system. As of tomorrow we will start merging Prologue and Hermes ressources.

[Tolwyn]

Originally Posted by Lt.Death100

Waitaminit, WTF? It won't let me play on the basis that "You have to have OpenAL 1.1 or newer installed" which I have installed, any possible explanations?

Most likely you have an old OpenAL installation. You should check your C:\Windows\system32 folder for either ct_oal.dll or nvopenal.dll and delete them if you find them. Then install OpenAL by running prologue_setup.msi (C:\Windows\Downloaded Installations).

[haderak]

Hi guys, been a while.


Awsome that it got released. It feels like ages since Darkmage started this. Its incredible how things evolved since I was gone. I came here on purpose just to congratulate the team for such a long lasting and fruitfull project!


Happy new year all!

[Tolwyn]

Originally Posted by haderak

Awsome that it got released. It feels like ages since darkmage started this. Its incredible how things evolved since I was gone.

Hey, haderak, nice to see you. Just one small correction: Darkmage never started this.

[haderak]

oh, Im not sure, I was under impression he was the first, remenber his WC fighter mod? He had some capital ships donne and asked me to resume his work (I was at Babylon 5 MOD for FS2 at the time). At least I know I came to WC saga cause of him.

The team grew since then because we had, what? 3 menbers then? its been several years now (2000?) I might have been wrong but I was under the impression that his mod was the seed for this project.

[Tolwyn]

Not exactly. I believe, that the project you are refering to was abandoned 2000. Wing Commander Saga was founded 2002 as a spinoff of the original Wing Commander Saga mod for Conquest: Frontier Wars.

[haderak]

Ah, forgot the origins of the rest of the menbers. Its curious that, then WCsaga had more than one "father"

[Tolwyn]

There was also another mod for FS2, founded 2002. It was abandoned as well. As far as I recall, it was called GE (Genetic Enchancement) Program.

I am on the mission where u have to save the Wellington however even at fun burn I keep losing the Wellington everytime I get into firing range. Any tips.

[Tolwyn]

If it is the 5th mission you are refering to: you can't save the TCS Wellington

[Mace]

I was very pleased to play through this.

However, i keep getting sound static.

I Am using the onboard audio of a ASUS A8N-E(realtek chip)
Not using the 7.1 audio features, just stereo.

[Tolwyn]

I have the same mainboard ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe and no sound problems.

[Aries]

Downloading right now and I can't wait to check it out. Can't think of a better way to start the new year than playing some WC! Thanks for all the hard work you guys put into this.

[Sharpshooter]

Wow. Looks awesome.

I'm having a little problem in mission 2, however. When Baws tells me to form on his wing, I seem to lose the mission no matter what I do. Am I an idiot? Is there a special button to keep formation with my wingleader? Did I miss something?