I'm not ZeeWolf, but I understand your point
Silent Hunter 3 was a dead game, the engine has been updated with every new Silent Hunter (now on 5)
But people still play it because perhaps their computers can't handle SH4 or 5. Perhaps they prefer the mods for that game instead of the ones for 4 or 5. Silent Hunter 3 is obsolete as you just explained. it's survived because people kept it interesting, building supermods and the like.
Every modder's days are numbered.
Look at the Grey Wolves. they turned Silent Hunter 3 into a true simulation, but now they aren't making any more mods, not as a team.
Ducimus built TMO and many other mods for Silent Hunter 4 and now he's essentially retired.
I can list a great many. Myself included.
I used to make make subs campaign playable. but there are other people who picked up that torch. I am second in command of the Surface Warfare Supermod, building battleships for Silent hunter 4, a game, apparently obsolete. I won't do this forever, and I know that.
Zeewolf is offering an honest price for his work, it's a niche genre, not many people even
own a copy of TvsT. He is offering a price for all of the work he is doing, which is by himself. He is investing time he could be spent doing other things, thus, I would gladly pay him to take some time out of his life and make a quality simulation, and a stable game out of TvsT.
I'm glad someone is even doing it. I think far too many modders looked at the game and said "I'm not touching that."
Don't make him give up all of his hard work just because the game is "obsolete."
When this new tank sim you are talking about comes out, I think a very few people will have the machines to run it, and even fewer of them will actually have the interest to play it. It will have it's own modders and it's own support group.
TvsT is a blank canvas. Let's see what masterpeice ZeeWolf will make of it
