What I'm thankful for Christmas (well one)

[dc1962]

Gentlemen:

For the past couple of days, while drinking a nice glass of Scotch by the fire, I've been musing over a comment made by the designer of SH3 Commander and how tired he was of all the negative comments about his effort and that is why he will not design one for SH4.

As we approach Christmas and look back at all those things for which we are thankful, I’d like to send my personal gratitude to all those designers who have spent countless hours building MODs over the years on the entire series of submarine games since the original Silent Hunter, which have kept me repeatedly entertained for nights upon nights. You have truly brought these games to a new level and scratched that itch that so many of us have for these types of simulations. Thanks again for all your work in making our gaming experiences so much better. BRAVO ZULU!

Merry Christmas from a hooked fan who is thankful everytime I resurface!

[Steeltrap]

People have complained about SH3 commander??

Sheesh! I've always taken it as a 'must have'. In fact, I have never started SH3 without it (well, ok, for the pedants, I did start SH3 once as COmmnder won't work until SH3 has been launched once).

Unbelievable!!!

[Overboard]

Yes!!...And a very Merry Christmas to all, Thank You Subsim' and Thank you Modders, and lets not forget the tireless effort from the modderators of this forum. :rock:

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

I concur. As a budding 3d Model Creator I know how much time and effort goes into a project. In fact I'm contemplating building a digital recreation of a U-boat that was sunk off my island during WW2. I'm going to research the topic and find out what type was sunk. As for SH3 Commander I think it's a shame when unwanted complaints make someone so sick that the creative element is gone.

[Rockin Robbins]

One of the "rewards" of being a modder seems to be all the nitpicking that immediately follows release. Sometimes this consists of polite private communications of bugs found, and this is done with a friendly intent to help the modder succeed. But for every one who behaves with class, there seem (sometimes) to be several whose comments are clearly made with intent to devalue the work the modder spent weeks creating. Modders are human and these comments hurt, even if they know that the source is not worth their attention.

Another problem with modders is the propensity of players toward CTD: compulsive tweaking disorder. Not being satisfied with something in the mod (usually without having lived with it enough to form a truly educated opinion) they take one of two paths. Path one: they tweak the mod, adjusting it to their "liking," most often not understanding complex interrelations between settings. Path two: they begin layering mods on top (see path one for comment on complex interrelations between settings). Then the paths converge and both groups complain about what crap the mod is.:rotfl: Once you layer another mod on top, you no longer have the original mod, you have a hybrid. You have created a monster. Sometimes the monster is good, sometimes the monster has very bad habits and hygiene. Either way, Frankenmod is your own creation, not the modders'.

Finally, and I make no claim of completion here, there are weird feature requests. I know that my weird feature request is your must-have, but we have to be careful to respect the modder's right to make decisions about his own mod. He owns that thing, and it started out as a house with a hundred rooms. Focused on a goal, the modder passed through the house on a path that would reach his destination. Many times, in a room with four doors, he chose one, meaning he did not pass through the other three. For example, Ducimus chose to make airplane attacks of submerged submarines possible. It is entirely possible this makes night surface attacks impossible, they are probably mutually exclusive choices given the underlying hard coding of the game. Every mod is a complex web of precarious balance. Often times the modder himself is not entirely satisfied, but hours of testing have convinced him that further improvement is not possible. Then he hears "night suface attacks aren't possible, the mod is junk!" and "planes see subs from too far away, the mod is junk" and "planes should see the submarine more often at periscope depth, the mod is junk." You may substitute your own four letter word for "junk." Mostly, these people only experienced the hated effect once, where the modder has 100 hours of testing and tweaking into the thing.

How do they maintain their motivation? I'll bet it's the high salaries and royalties. No? OK, it's the love and adoration of their fans. No? Would you believe beer?:up: How about they mod for their own satisfaction and from their own vision, not yours. They have a right to retain ownership of their vision and not yield to yours if they choose. They have the right to make mistakes even!

Folks, its a similar situation to the Ubi/dev bashers. If it were not for these fine people, there would be no submarine simulation to fight about! Subsim wouldn't have to exist. You'd be off fighting in the Unreal Tournament III forums. Oh the humanity!:o

So thanks to all the modders who put up with our crap when we can't be bothered to go through all the hundreds of hours of tweaking and testing necessary to release a mod that we complain about. You are the heroes of SUBSIM and Silent Hunter IV, along with Ubi and the developers. Salute!:up:

[Peto]

Spot on :up:.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Gentlemen:

For the past couple of days, while drinking a nice glass of Scotch by the fire, I've been musing over a comment made by the designer of SH3 Commander and how tired he was of all the negative comments about his effort and that is why he will not design one for SH4.

As we approach Christmas and look back at all those things for which we are thankful, I’d like to send my personal gratitude to all those designers who have spent countless hours building MODs over the years on the entire series of submarine games since the original Silent Hunter, which have kept me repeatedly entertained for nights upon nights. You have truly brought these games to a new level and scratched that itch that so many of us have for these types of simulations. Thanks again for all your work in making our gaming experiences so much better. BRAVO ZULU!

Merry Christmas from a hooked fan who is thankful everytime I resurface!

Nice post :up: Nice to play a series that is so moddable to one's taste. Thanks to all who contribute to doing this and making simming such an enjoyable experience :yep:


RDP

[Rockin Robbins]

It still amazes me. After the SH2 debacle, the announcement went out. A team from Romania was going to code Silent Hunter 3. The laughter was deafening. All the critics roundly panned the idea and played a funeral dirge for the submarine simulation genre. A bunch of (insert the unfair characterization of your choice) Romanians were going to play programmer! :rotfl:Must be nice to be paid to be so wrong.

Silent Hunter 3 and 4 have completely redefined what a sub simulation can be. The Romanian dev team was not afraid to make the tough choices that keep a simulation focused on the hide/hunt/kill aspects and off food, toilet paper, underwear, conning tower rust, playing with sonar frequency attenuators... Personally, I'd love to play with three discreet sonar heads and fiddle with attenuators, but I digress. One person's feature is another's distracting minutia.

It's amazing how silent those once-unanimous critics are now. Some of them even crow about how good the series is. There is no justice that satisfies like success. The Romanian dev team stands confirmed as the premier submarine simulation team in the world. Ubi stands confirmed as a darn gutsy company for betting on a bunch of unknown geniuses to continue the franchise. Here's hoping the new add-on sells more copies of both SH3 and SH4, keeping the sub-sim universe expanding for all of us. Salute!:up:

[Cap'n Spanky]

Here's hoping the new add-on sells more copies of both SH3 and SH4, keeping the sub-sim universe expanding for all of us.


Here Here~

and a huge thanks to everyone for an entertainment vehicle of lasting enjoyment.:yep:

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

Hmmm, interesting reading here indeed. I've never loaded a mod in SH4 before, so I'm using something called sobers super mod and see what happens. One question. Are there any objections in modding SH4 by UbiSoft? Is it in contravention of any rights by the developer. As far as law goes we don't have the rights to own the game (or modify it?) just permission to use it and for personal use only. There is some controversy surrounding the flight sim IL2 1946 (UbiSoft) and a Sound Mod.

[tomoose]

RR;
well put. A big thanks to the modder community for their time, effort and patience.
:up:

DaveyJones:
can you place a link to the Il2 "controversy", I wasn't aware of it and don't want to pull this thread off on a tangent. Thanks.:up:

[Rockin Robbins]

As far as law goes we don't have the rights to own the game (or modify it?) just permission to use it and for personal use only. There is some controversy surrounding the flight sim IL2 1946 (UbiSoft) and a Sound Mod.
How interesting! I was having that exact conversation last night with a person of some repute! Why don't you start a new thread on that one and we can beat on that situation for awhile. It is MOST interesting! Then this thread can stay focused, aside from my drivel. Switching to research mode!:-j

[Peto]

These sims were designed so they can be modded. THe reason is simple:

1. Modders have more time to tweak performance issues and set preferences for a wide and varying enthusiast base.

2. The devs couldn't spend their time on fine tuning every aspect of the sim. It's just too much to ask, especially considering release schedules.

3. The more moddable a game is, the more interest it generates from the gaming community. The more interest it gains, the more copies you sell. The better the modders do with a title, the easier it is to sell an expansion.

End result is everyone is happier :yep:

It's just plain good business to make a sim like this customizable.

And for the hardcode in the program? The devs don't make everything available. The guts are out of reach of casual modding.

[brandtryan]

I had to chime in here.

I've had countless hours of great entertainment over the past few months--and countless more in SHIII. Happy Holidays to the Developers, modders, and the great community behind these sims!

:rock:

[epaga]

i actually bought sh3 last friday because i knew GWX 2 was coming out... :up: (i already have sh4)

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

Read the 1946 sound mod issue here: http://mission4today.com/index.php?name=ForumsPro&file=viewtopic&p=12691

Well, I haven't heard any complaints from ubisoft about any modding so I guess they're ok about it.

[joea]

Good thread and some fine posts, RR for one. Believe me having spent time on the "inside" it is a LOT of work. Yet profoundly satisfying...look at the results!

BTW thank goodness these sims (SH3 and SH4) were mod friendly...that was a big help. Il-46 don't know why that was brought up had a different philosophy, was never meant to be modded so it's a different animal.

Hey UBI opened the door with the add-on...not only u-boots and fleet boats but maybe RN or Dutch or IJN subs dare we dream?? :arrgh!: