I am going to have to agree with IanC; It also appears to me that the developers are placing an undue amount of effort on the production of "pleasing" graphics.
I wouldn't dare tell the developers what they should or shouldn't do with their project. It is after all their own endeavor, with which they may do what they please. And I would only encourage such an attitude on their part, as that is the essence of open source software, and of artistic and technical creation in any shape or form. But as a member of this community and a fan of subsims, there are certain opinions that I wish to express in regards to their progress on this interesting and promising piece of software.
Over the years us subsimers have experienced a great deal of disappointment with the small number of game titles made available to us. And it has only been recently that certain development teams have begun to listen to the community as a whole and implement those features that we so strongly crave in a game. I am referring specifically to Ubisoft and their production of the recent Silent Hunter installments. This has been a massive step forward. I can only imagine the potential that a community based subsim could have, if only more of us were willing to come on board and take upon us the vast responsibilities available in such a project.
My advice to the developers of Danger from the Deep is simple. Leave the graphics alone and focus on creating a game that works, with the features that gamers want. You are a talented group of individual who have coordinated a production that no other group before you has been able to. The subsim community is chock full of individuals who are more than willing to offer their graphical expertise to a game that shows the promise of enjoyable and realistic play. There is evidence of this in nearly every mod available for Silent Hunter II - IV. The talented people in this community have a real knack for turning lead into gold. Provide a good foundation and leave the rest of the work for them.
Another piece of advice I would like to share with you is again related to graphics. I believe that it is imperative that you offer players a way to adjust the graphical demands of your game. As it is, my current computer is seemingly unable to run this game due to its hardware requirements. In keeping with the spirit of open source software I think it is important that you offer us a game that can be run on sub par systems.I don't know this for sure, but I am willing to bet that the majority of us Linux users are running on somewhat dated hardware. I know that I am.
I believe that the real subsimmers, those of us who have been at this for a while and are in it for the fun and the realism, are more than willing to look past some cosmetic issues for a game that functions well. In this day and age the majority of games rely on dazzling graphics to lure in players, continually sacrificing integral parts of ejoyable gameplay. Nevertheless, I enjoy eye candy as much as the next guy, so I hope I don't get any flak for these comments.
At any rate I must congratulate the developers of Danger from the Deep for keeping it together for this long. I trust that in time you will have reached a level of completion that will offer the community a great game to play. I hope that you are all reading these forums and taking notes on what we would all like to see this game become. And I hope that I have not been out of place or too forward in stating my opinions on your work. I wish you all the best of luck and above all that you have fun with your project because, after all, that's what this is all about.
