The future of Submarine simulations

[PL_Andrev]

Originally Posted by Schakal_U109

1st - We took a game like SH2/DC or SH3 and make a list of what we have to change to make a good sim (graphics, realism, gameplay etc....) >>> then look what we need for this >>> how much money is needed for this >>> wo can realise it (community + a professional studio) >>> try to find someone
Biggest problem for this: The gamerights belong to Ubisoft. We can try to give them a concept or to get the permission of them to recreate their game...

The best idea is a game source code from older productions like SH2/DC, SH3 or Enigma:RT.
But no access for it. Unfortunately.

Originally Posted by Schakal_U109

2nd - Search a game which is already modder-friendly and has the possability to create a naval game (Virtual Sailor !? don't know such games very good). The do the same like on top, create a list of what we want and what is needed for realising this >>> Coast budget > award a contract

Let's calculate:
20 programmers, 12-month term, year market salary 60.000$ = 1.200.000 $ total budget

Who pays?

Originally Posted by Schakal_U109

3rd - Creat an completly new game from stock. But if that should be a sucess we need the help of some professionals who can realise this. If we have a basic game, the modding community can build it up like we want it.

The example of "Danger of the Deep" show us that is it team order not for few fans only but for whole community. Project was cancelled at 0.5 verion.

Originally Posted by Schakal_U109

4th - Look how other games are made: At first there is someone with an "Idea". Then someone makes a script of it. And then he goes with his ideas and scripts to the gamestudios and perhaps someone will make it.

Now I see only one candidate: WarThunder (fleet in development) - the engine and game concept allows to put submarines / destroyers there.

[tommo8993]

for a game engine, unreal looks surprisingly well
http://www.indiedb.com/games/seacraft

[finchOU]

Well I've argued before that what the SH series lacked in general was competition. Not one serious contender to supplant AOD besides UBI. Competition kind of creates a checks and balance system as to not release a buggy or incomplete game. Something I don't think UBI had done once with the Silent Hunter series.
I can't speak to programming or development aspects of making a Sim from scratch. What I can tell you is that if someone did start a SH6 type of Uboat sim from the ground up...where would be issues with the community. Too many Chiefs and self described experts trying to via for selfish inclusions and endless streams of "suggestions". I think the only way it works with a community so dedicated to the cause.....is to poll the crap out of the community as to focus in one direction. Release a statement of what they are going to build with exactly what features. Then let it be and let development go and do their thing. The biggest let down with the Silent Hunter series IMHO has been the lack of progression (or straight up regression (post MODs to new game development) of core game play aspects, lack of testing (buggy incomplete games), over focus of graphics and RPG specifics, and general lack of support post release. I always felt that after playing AOD in my younger years....that the next step in Uboat sims would be amazing. While the graphics didnt disappoint. ......most everything else did.
If I was a first time PC gamer that didn't know any better, didn't know of SUBSIM.com and MODs, and played SH5 stock. I'd be turned off within hours....never to return to WW2 subsims.

So I think Silent Hunter series or UBI needs to die. The progress has been lackluster based on where it started in Dynamix's AOD. Which they obviously didn't play or refused to follow. Had they just made AOD with better graphics, it would have been a huge success in SH2. SH3 was much better (MODs made it AOD part 2...without some easy immersion that AOD had.... victory flags, bar inport with news, attempt a wolfpacks). SH4 ...buggy (i hear), then SH5.. .which was a huge step forward in graphics (at least for the series, and a huge step back in core aspects and was boarder line unplayable out of the box. It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the series has been completely comfortable in its unchecked (read: competition) post release "let Subsim fix it" mentality...and that the series was more or less done. As harsh as it sounds...and as much as everyone owes UBI for trying .... it's the truth. Am I telling anyone anything they don't know? Probably not. Am I an untalented (at least programming wise) whiny person complaining on the WWW? you bet. But I've spend a lot of money on crap...and I've still yet to see the type of quality I used to see in a sim released in the 90's. I do heart ...as I'd would have left uboat sims had I not discovered it while struggling to grasp how bad SH2 was. It gives me hope.... maybe when someone with passion, a bank roll, and community backing can reinvent the Uboat sim. It's hard to see with our 'got to have it now' world view....but maybe. I'm still hopeful that when I retire in 30 years or whatever I could be engrossed in a Sim as much as I was in AOD. Until then....Don't give up the Ship! hehe

[BigBANGtheory]

Ubisoft: 'We want to improve our relationship with PC gamers'
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ubiso...gamers/0111333

Maybe someone should point Stephanie.Perotti@Ubisoft.com in this direction to test if they are serious or just making throw away comments.

Personally I love the silent hunter. When I bought the first copy years ago, this was an accident by they way and it me took several attempts at playing before I found I was hooked.

Looking back I ask myself what was it about the sim that reeled me in, it was the western approaches and the North sea. The shallows where uboats first operated that had me hooked. Without the added feature of ocean depth the only survival technique was stealth on the continental shelf around the British Isles where the waters may only be 50 meters deep, this is the challenge I personally find alluring, how those men did this amazes me.

Of coarse this will be different for everyone who plays, some may like the big convoy attacks and diving further than anyone has yet managed and survived. Again the excitement can be addictive taking your boat down another 30 meters when your already at 175 m. Then there are the spy drops, photo ops etc etc, but it really does't go a lot further as far as scenarios go, personally speaking.

Seems to me a complete rethink is needed for SH, a fresh set of minds to capture a new and daring generation of Captains into the service. The big failure of SH5 is the lack of the type IXC of coarse, it's probably Ubi's single biggest mistake, I always hoped for an addon to be released but Ubi had already cut their cloth as it were and that's exactly what I mean by a rethink of production and marketing, the lack of imagineering. If you what to know what SH5 should have been, load up SH4 with Uboat missions along with Lurkers Operation Monsun mod and try crossing the Bay of Biscay in 1943, you'll understand what I mean. This is how SH5 should have been, difficult and hard core. Ubi could have done a lot worse if they had offered Lurker a place on their thinktank before launching SH5.

I now only use two mods on SH5, Dynamic Enviroment and a little enhancement put together myself to improove the type VII using some od Sobers seaworthy mods and SteelVikings interiors, these give me the playability I like. I hope there will be another generation of Silent Hunter, but without some clear and fresh thinking it will be pointless sad to say.

[thruster]

ok too much wine tonight, but im gunna lash out anyway...
i think im a perfect demographic for SH franchise. but the online requirement gig just killed me. i worked [then] in a place of very poor internet, there was no way i couldve sustained a constant reasonable line to get into SH. i utterly adored SH3, was wasted by the pointlessness of bad antisub of IJN inherant in PTO SH4 and couldnt wait till SH5.
by the time my work situ settled, and even when SH5 ? lost its internet req, it was too late. there was so much modding going on [which is awesome, please please please dont stop that] i was just lost and didnt know where to start?
i love campaigns, i love the 'immersion' that i think [at least till WW2 tank sims wake up] only subsims [SH3-modded] give. i think ubisoft killed opportunities by their on-line requirement, and alienated a % of its customers [regardless of their motives, im one of them!].
to me the magic of subsims is that to a sub cmdr [especially a ww2 uboat commander, no matter how many boats were supposed to be in his wolfpack] he still operated on his own. he made the point of attack and the cunning escape a recipe of his own. modded, it was seriously PLAUSIBLY realistic! i think, modded, SH3 caught that; and its what vanilla subsims should aim for.
i have missed SH5. i regard this as tragic. im not in the generation of computer fluency, i struggle with simple stuff and despite having an IRL life altering occupation, cant be assumed to have simple knowledge of computers. i need an utter IDIOTS spell-it-out guide to manipulate mods.
i look fwd to SH6, or perhaps its intricately explained modded SH5 offline version that eludes me.
i am an end user. i am a subsim fan. this was my voice. that was my 'soapbox'.
cheers to you all.

[Singed]

A big step in improving their relations with my tiny little part of the PC community would be sell me something I can play. No stupid DRM, no having to log in to something like uplay, I can find communities to game with on my own (hello subsim.com!), I just want to buy the game and play it.

The big failure of SH5 is the lack of the type IXC of coarse, it's probably Ubi's single biggest mistake, I always hoped for an addon to be released but Ubi had already cut their cloth as it were and that's exactly what I mean by a rethink of production and marketing, the lack of imagineering.

I'd have been really happy with a type VII sim, even just restricted to say a VIIC, to me the big failure (once you get past all the release issues, DRM and bugs) is the entire campaign layer. They had some awesome examples of good campaigns coming from the modders in SH3 and SH4, GWX and RFB + RSRDC are my favorites, but each of them has several quality options, NYGM, Trigger Maru, etc. Yet with all of this awesome work done for free by the community, they give us something that is really a console style series of achievements.

The modders have been heroic on SH5 and gave us something more than playable but I'm still finding SH5 kind of hollow and drifting back to SH3.

What I'd love to play:

An SH3+(megamod) style campaign / career on SH5 with Sober's mod list and all the goodies, real nav, scripting, etc. I realize that mix is too hardcore for most of the non-subsim community, but realism can be tweaked to make it as easy as one would want.

[flag4]

Originally Posted by BigBANGtheory

Ubisoft: 'We want to improve our relationship with PC gamers'
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ubiso...gamers/0111333

Maybe someone should point Stephanie.Perotti@Ubisoft.com in this direction to test if they are serious or just making throw away comments.

...come back and fix SH5. actions speak louder than words.

[tommo8993]

Originally Posted by BigBANGtheory

Ubisoft: 'We want to improve our relationship with PC gamers'
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ubiso...gamers/0111333

Maybe someone should point Stephanie.Perotti@Ubisoft.com in this direction to test if they are serious or just making throw away comments.

Angry email now sent

[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by BigBANGtheory

Ubisoft: 'We want to improve our relationship with PC gamers'
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ubiso...gamers/0111333

Maybe someone should point Stephanie.Perotti@Ubisoft.com in this direction to test if they are serious or just making throw away comments.

I vote for, "throwaway comment". Ubisoft's actions indicate that it will maintain its current course of action, much to the consternation of all PC games, not just us. I feel as if they have just written all of us off.

[BigBANGtheory]

Originally Posted by Hinrich Schwab

I vote for, "throwaway comment". Ubisoft's actions indicate that it will maintain its current course of action, much to the consternation of all PC games, not just us. I feel as if they have just written all of us off.

Personally I bet Ubisoft made good money from Far Cry 3 (PC version) above their expectations and someone is trying a weak effort as part of thier career promotion prospects to close a quick gap, tick in the box, sell it internally as a win etc etc.

...but I'll gladly eat my own words if genuine progress is made, show me the olive branch and I'll listen.

[Iron Budokan]

Considering how Ubisoft treated players in the past I wouldn't trust anything they have to say now. Wanting to repair their 'relationship' with gamers is nothing more than a desperate attempt to repair their salable image.

They have proven time and again they really don't care about the gamers they profess to respect. So they can cram it as far as I am concerned.