(03:51:53) AD: When is the special edition of the Wing Commander movie comming out? (03:52:14) music_guru: HD 3D version right? (03:52:15) AD: I'm still amazed that it's not on bluray yet (03:52:27) PopsiclePete: Blu-ray with redone Kilrathis and all :) (03:52:35) LOAF: Yeah, there's an HD transfer out there, it really needs a bluray release. (03:52:47) Chris_Roberts: One day I would like to do a full cut with digital Kilrathi, Merlin and the full Pilgrim subplot (03:53:48) LOAF: Do you remember who did the ship models on the original Wing Commander? I've heard it was contracted out somewhere. (03:55:21) Chris_Roberts: WC1? I dont remember exactly who anymore (its 23 years ago!) but it was a 3D modeler on the Amiga (03:55:19) AD: So I know that you wanted Robin Williams to play Merlin... I always pictured Merlin as kind of being a dry straight faced type of humor... What was your vision of the character? (03:58:36) Chris_Roberts: AD - I wanted Robin Williams because he liked and played Wing Commander and I thought he could handle Merlin's dry humor (he doesn't always have to be whacky Mork) (03:56:13) Pedro: If and when you were to return to the Wing Commander franchise do you think you would you be more inclined towards a continuation or a reboot? (04:02:03) Chris_Roberts: Pedro - If I did another Wing Commander I would definately do a reboot - Batman Begins or Sta Trek style. For me Wing Commander is really about the Kilrathi Confederation conflict (04:04:24) Chris_Roberts: With today's tech and what Ive learned from making movies I could take the immersion ad story to a whole new level (04:02:42) LOAF: Can you tell us what "Silverheart" was going to be? (04:06:30) Chris_Roberts: Loaf - Silverheart is cool _ I still have (and own) that IP and want to make it one day. Michael Moorcock (of Stormbringer fame) created the world and wrote the script. (04:06:57) AD: Didn't the silverheart novel eventually come out after the game fell through? (04:07:40) Chris_Roberts: A novelization did. I think teh critique of it was that it seemed to be written for a game's format (which it was!) (04:09:25) Chris_Roberts: We were in production on Silverheart at OSI before I left but we could never get the tech to work. We needed a livign breathing city - something Assasin's Creed does so well nowadays (04:08:43) music_guru: so, mr. roberts, have you been doing anything in hollywood of late? certainly you've had some great things happen in the family front :P (04:10:37) Chris_Roberts: music_guru - Not films at the moment. I'm workign on something that I will sahre with you guys very shortly! I think you'll be happy (04:10:40) Zeether: Chris, did you hear about Wing Commander Saga? What's your take on it? (04:12:39) Chris_Roberts: Zeether - I havent had a chance to play WC Saga as I'm been busy on my secret project but I love that people had so much passion for the universe that they spent 10 years crafting an updated version for the fans (04:14:12) PopsiclePete: Mr. Roberts, if you'd have a chance to make a new WC game, would you make it PC or console-only ? (04:14:26) Chris_Roberts: PC! (04:14:40) Chris_Roberts: And mayeb a console, but PC first and foremost (04:15:02) Chris_Roberts: PC is open 10x more powerful than current consoles and is always evolving (04:15:47) Chris_Roberts: Its also the platfrom that most of the greatest games / franchises were born on (including some of the biggest console franchsies today) (04:15:10) Pedro: Do you see the decrease in popularity of Joysticks as an obstacle in producing a modern space combat game? (04:17:38) Chris_Roberts: Pedro - not really. A gamepad has two analog joysticks on it, which makes it great for WC style action. BUt If I was making a space game I would also support the bad ass HOTAS setups you can buy as well! (04:18:07) bob: Would you ever go Steel Battalion? (04:18:54) Chris_Roberts: I've been whatching the MechWarrior Online stuff. I'm curious, although I have to say Hawken looks better to my eye (closer to the style I like anyway) (04:19:33) Chris_Roberts: bob - you mean laggy kinect only? Not for all the money MS coudl throw at me (04:21:44) Chris_Roberts: But if its decent NUI then I would want to use some of it. Like voice recoginition for voice commands like "ship status". And there's a new device that's meant to be super accurate in tracking your finger motion - doing a combination of some minority report HUD stuff with a normal gamepad / joystick would be super cool. (04:23:40) Pedro: I'd not heard about that. On a sidenote I did have the opportunity to implement Freelancer style controls with a a Wii remote, it worked really quite nicely. Were you not a fan of the mouse only controls of Freelancer? (04:25:22) Chris_Roberts: Pedro - The final muse controls we're the ones that were in teh game when I was leading it. I had a concept for the mouse controls that I thought would work - and maybe it woudl have - but the final implemnation wasn't soemthing that I was in love with (04:23:51) AD: I could see kinect style stuff also being useful for head tracking to control somthing like strike commander's virtual cockpit (04:24:08) AD: so less about controlling the ship but more about controlling your view (04:27:01) Chris_Roberts: AD - Yes I've actually looked at that and while the PC kinect skeleton trackign is laggy and just plain bad, the head tracking is quite good. The Occulus would be even better though! (04:26:25) music_guru: Mr. Roberts, you stay in touch with any of your old origin colleagues or actors that you worked with? (04:28:21) Chris_Roberts: music_guru - Yes. Whenever I'm back in Austin visiting my parents - and I also keep in touch with Richard, Fred & Dallas @ Portalarium (04:26:20) PopsiclePete: Question to Mr Roberts: why was it decided to remove the cockpits in WC4 ? What it because of time constraints or a deliberate decision ? Many fans missed the realism of the "real" cockpit. (04:29:30) Chris_Roberts: PopsiclePete - I hate that the cockpits were removed. Its my big regret. (04:30:53) Chris_Roberts: Cockpits help create the immersion for me - and I think I'm hearing you all agree. (04:30:02) Flashfire: Chris_Roberts: I remember that in WC1 or WC2 my love or distaste for a ship or how cramped it felt (eg epee) really was defined by the cockpit artwork and layout of the gauges (04:30:04) AD: Was work done on cockpits for WC4? Or was it scrapped early on? (04:30:05) Chris_Roberts: It was a schedule thing and that part of the team felt they were uneccesary. (04:32:12) Chris_Roberts: The fantasy I always wanted was to be a bad ass top gun star fighter and having the cockpit around me, seeing my legs and hand on a joystick put me in that world. With no cockpit you feel disconnected (04:31:47) LOAF: Here's a question for Chris - do you remember anything about a Strike Commander followup called "Phoenix Force"? (04:34:05) Chris_Roberts: LOAF - No... I dont think it was during my OSI time, maybe after I left? (04:32:35) Mike: Chris Roberts: When you Made WC3, did you know there was going to be a WC4? (04:35:44) Chris_Roberts: Mike - No, I saw WC3 as the end. Then EA came and begged as it was a console change over (Sega had gone away, kind of like what is happening now) and WC3 was the buggest selling game EA had. (04:36:12) Chris_Roberts: So I put Silverheart on hold and worked on WC4 (04:36:30) Chris_Roberts: It was tough because originally EA wanted WC4 in NINE months! (04:36:51) Chris_Roberts: Its why so much was spent on the FMV & Story and the game wasnt pushed so much (04:37:41) Chris_Roberts: Its easy to add value / quality in the filmed side, but without 18 -24 months on the game side it was impossible to do much in terms of pushing the tech or gameplay (04:23:53) Flashfire: Chris_Roberts: was Hobbes' feelings and comraderie with the pilots genuine during WC2 or was it all just a sham/personality overlay (04:37:28) PopsiclePete: Mr Roberts, earlier Flashfire asked a question I too qould like to hear you about, if possible: what was your intention about Hobbes ? Why the treason ? Personality overlay or he simply decided he could not betray his kind though the destruction of his homeworld ? (04:39:21) Chris_Roberts: PP & FlashFire - Hobbes didnt know he was a plant so his feelings / inetentions were honorable at the time (04:41:30) PopsiclePete: Mr Roberts: so even if the "overlay explanation" scene wasn't in the PC version of the game, it's what better describe why he turned is coat back to the Empire ? (04:43:51) Chris_Roberts: PP - When we were writing WC2 we hadn't plotted out WC3, so the deep plant (Manchurian Candisate style) was a device that the WC3 writers and I came up with later (04:43:21) AD: The WC movie is heavily influenced by WW2 films... Tora Tora Tora, Dambusters, and others Was that also how you saw Wing Commander 1 when you first designed it? (04:45:06) Chris_Roberts: AD - WC was directly based on WW2, or more specifcally the war in the pacific. THe US Navy was teh COnfed, The Imeprial Japenese Forces teh Kilrathi, planets were islands and space the paciifc. (04:44:35) eddieb: Chris: I'm wondering if you have any memories about how the wing commander AI was programmed. Nested state machines? Any recommended papers to read? It's one of the programming tasks I find intriguing. (04:46:25) Chris_Roberts: eddieb - its been so long - I actually coded the original wingman AI system and my brother built the data / scripts. If I recall it was a pretty basic state machine (04:47:46) LOAF: How is your brother anyway? I see his name on those Lego games! (04:48:17) Chris_Roberts: He's great - he is also a proud father - he has a two and a half year old son! (04:49:13) Chris_Roberts: He runs the Travelers Tales Fusion studio which builds half the TT games (the open world lego game that everyone is talking about is his) (04:50:07) Chris_Roberts: the TT Fusion studio is basically the core EA Manchester team that built Privateer 2 and then later went onto to become Warthog and build Starlancer. (04:51:21) Mike: Yes. The Roberts brothers are a great success at what they do...but what abour our needs! (04:51:31) Mike: We need more WC! (04:52:24) Chris_Roberts: Mike - I love WC, but EA owns it, so its not eay for me to do another one on my own terms (04:52:22) eddieb: Chris, what games have your eye nowdays? (04:54:38) Chris_Roberts: eddieb - This past year I've been busy, but the games that I liked were Uncharted 2 (stil havent unwrapped 3), Demon Souls, Battlefield BC2, Starcraft (04:54:10) LOAF: Was there ever any thought to revisiting the Strike Commander world? (04:54:37) LOAF: (Actually - did you see Strike Commander as being the same world as Wing Commander? Or are they unrelated?) (04:55:05) Chris_Roberts: LOAF - different worlds (05:02:08) Vinman: I hate to ask again, but I always wondered, considering the difficult development of Strike Commander, what was your opinion of the end result? Was there anything you really wanted in there that ended up being cut? (05:03:25) Chris_Roberts: NO _ I actually rate Strike as one of my best games - it does everything I wanted it to do and had ground breaking tech - proper gouraud shading and texture mapping beofre anyone else.. Id included. (05:03:54) Chris_Roberts: The only problem was you needed a 486/66 for it to run well (05:04:40) Chris_Roberts: But if you look at what we did you will see a lot of that in every current day sim (virtual cockpit was one of the innovations) (05:04:58) music_guru: Mr. Roberts, out of the Wing Commader games that you spend time on, which one did you enjoy working on the most? (05:06:30) Chris_Roberts: WC1 & WC3 for different reasons. WC1 was magical and everythign just came together. You may not believe it but the missions were exactly the ones that Jeff George designed on paper - we didnt need to do any balancing at all! (05:07:11) Chris_Roberts: WC3 was great because we pushed the story and characters - it really did feel like you were in a movie (05:07:27) Chris_Roberts: And it was fun learning filmmaking on the job (05:07:25) ^Death_: CRoberts, so do we have to track down Mr. George to thump... err, thank him for the Ralari rescue mission in Kurasawa 2? :P (05:10:33) Chris_Roberts: The Kurasawa mission is a dead skill in games nowadays. In the old days you had to EARN progression. I guess that's why I liked Demon's Souls! (05:12:55) music_guru: Mr Roberts, I know your brother Erin had worked on privateer. Did you talk with him often about the game while it was developed? Did any of your feedback go into the game or was it mostly him and his team? (05:16:00) Chris_Roberts: music_guru - are you talkign about the first or the second? The first was my concept and I produced it, so I had a lot of creative input. On the second that was all Erin and the guys in Manchester. Originally it wasnt even going to be Privateer (which is why the universe seems so different) but EA likes a brand. (05:16:12) ChrisReid: hey ChrisRoberts, if you're still there... do you still see live actor video as viable for games? or is it all animated cinematics now? (05:17:13) Chris_Roberts: CR - I dont know - I certainly wouldn't do FMV now - I would go Avatar style... (05:16:40) Mike: When you cast Mark Hamill as Blair, did you think there might be some backlash because he was Luke Skywalker? (05:19:31) Chris_Roberts: Mike - I didnt think so - I just thought he would be cool because the blair we wanted had been through a lot and used to be a young buck full of ideals once. I felt his Star Wars background played into it. And it was amazingly cool to work with Luke SkyWalker! (05:18:38) Flashfire: thank you Mr Roberts: been waiting a long time to say thank you for making my childhood so fun with all the WC games (05:18:50) Flashfire: and making me want to learn programming...it's why I got into the field (05:21:58) Chris_Roberts: You're welocome. I make games because I love them and I'm usually driven to make a game that I see in my head and want to play but doesnt exist. Its awesome that so many people liked the ones I made. (05:19:50) NinjaLA: Mr. Roberts, were you to make a new wing commander.. would you be tempted to use familiar faces (mark hamill, tom wilson, etc..) as voices or recast new and fresh? (05:24:18) Chris_Roberts: All teh actors were great to work with and they all had great, crazy stories. We had a lot of fun on WC3 and 4 and if I ever did another WC I would try to get them back to do the voices and mocap for the digital charcaters. (05:27:49) Chris_Roberts: I have to say, what really makes me smile is to hear everyone talk about the characters as if they were real people that you had a connection to. (05:28:29) Chris_Roberts: Its easier today to acheive that, but WC1 did that 22 years ago when it used to be high scores and how many levels you cleared (05:29:27) Chris_Roberts: It was a crazy idea back in 1989 when I started work on the game... (05:29:58) eddieb: I wonder what the relationship was with with X-wing/Tie Fighter crowd. If they ever met the WC dev team. (05:30:44) bob: How *do* you feel about the connection with WC and X-Wing/Larry Holland? (05:32:29) Chris_Roberts: I was freindly with the Lucas guys (and Larry). In fact what Larry did on Battlehawks 1942 gave me inspiration for how I did the sprite 3D engine (previously I was going to do it with simple 3D wireframes / polygons like Space Rogue but I think that wouldnt have been nearly as immersive) (05:33:14) bob: I read that you were initially interested in doing a top-down strategy-style game - does that idea appeal to you today? (05:35:04) Chris_Roberts: Originally Wing Started out as a top down action game (not so much RTS). The sprite rotation tech that I developed for rotating the top down views of the ships was used for rotating the appropriate 3D sprite view in WC1/WC2 (05:36:31) bob: I guess I want to know what your feelings on multiplayer are? (05:36:54) Chris_Roberts: I love multiplayer (05:37:23) Chris_Roberts: The tech wasnt there in the old days. It is now. But it has to be approriate multiplayer (05:37:31) Chris_Roberts: I hate tacked on MP modes (05:37:49) Chris_Roberts: Like in Uncharted 2 & 3 - great games, but I dont play them for MP (05:37:48) NinjaLA: I'd love to see some co-op objective based missions (05:39:21) Chris_Roberts: NinjaLA - For me teh co-op aspect is some of the most interesting. The co-op part of MP in Battlefield is one of its strongest pulls - its why I prefer BF MP to COD MP (05:40:12) Chris_Roberts: Also I liked how Demon Souls tacked MP and persistence in a single player game (05:42:57) Chris_Roberts: DS is tthe game I have both loved and hated the most in equal measure of anything I've played in almost 20 years! Its not normal for me to put 300+ hours into a game (05:44:08) NinjaLA: in the last 10 years the only games I've put 300+ hours into were the mass effects. unless you include wing commanders/privateers and several other mid 90s games I still play regularly (05:44:51) Chris_Roberts: I like ME1 & 2... Havent played 3 yet (as I said I've been busy this year) (05:45:29) NinjaLA: I got wrapped up in the story of mass effect.. gameplay ended up being pretty secondary for me. (05:47:10) Chris_Roberts: Yeah it was story and setting for me. Gameplay was standard 3rd person cover - nothing that interesting and with today's game design approach the gameplay seems to be busy work - there was never one time I was worried abotu dying as I would just re-spawn a second or so ealrier and start again until I won. (05:48:56) LOAF: Oh I know what to ask you about! Your cameos! We know you were in the movie and in WC4... (05:49:04) bob: and WC3 (05:49:07) LOAF: Flying the Broadsword that rescues Blair, and in the court (05:49:12) LOAF: Were in in WC3 somewhere? (05:49:21) Chris_Roberts: Funeral seqeunce (05:50:11) AD: Which of the movies that you worked on did you cameo in? I heard you were in Punisher... any others? (05:51:22) Chris_Roberts: I only do a cameo in something I direct - I'm not in any of the movies I produced (I'm not in the Punisher) (05:51:58) music_guru: good to know... so for future directoral work, we'll know to look :P (05:52:36) Chris_Roberts: Yeah, although in a game I guess you'll have to look for my mo-cap! (05:53:52) bob: Chris Roberts took the punch for Jazz (05:52:40) eddieb: So maybe I missed it, Chris_Roberts, could you tell the gang whatyour next projects (film/games/etc) might be (05:54:05) Chris_Roberts: eddieb - I've got soemthign I'm going to announce soon - and in about three weeks I'll give you guys an early heads up (05:55:04) Chris_Roberts: And with that, with my apologies I need to bow out for the night! (05:55:20) Chris_Roberts: Night guys!