Atlantic Warfare is born

[Hans Witteman]

Hi shipmates,

I am very excited to announce that Atlantic Warfare is now a reality and that development
of the new Sim is now on full swing with very talented people currently working on many aspect of the new Sim.

We will often refer to A.T.W.A.R. to talk about Atlantic Warfare.

For those who remember my early posts on subsim i mention clearly that a complete new Sim was on my mind.

We all know that most of you were expecting U-BOOT_HAHD as a super mod to be release but our priority
have now change since a window of opportunity have recently open to make something much more exciting
than a super mod on aging technology.

So from now on U-BOOT_HAHD will go on hibernation mode until we see if the simulation fans give us the
green light with the funding campaign on the Atlantic Warfare website and on Kickstarter.

Details on the pledge package and funding will soon be available on the Atlantic Warfare official website and
it will offer great value to people who contribute.

I have met with people who have work on the Silent hunter series 3,4,5 and 2 of them have already join us
and are currently working on the development of Atlantic Warfare.

So far we have assemble a fantastic team to make Atlantic Warfare a reality and all of them are naval simulation
die hard fans and experts in their respective discipline.

Here a quick list of team members involved in the development of Atlantic Warfare :

Gabriel Barbu : Gabriel was there at the very beginning of the Silent Hunter series and he work on SH3,4,5, he was
the lead graphic artist for SH5 and his experience make him an invaluable artist that we are very proud to work with.
You can have a look here at some of his work : https://www.facebook.com/pages/U-Boot-Pa...2714050708 (https://www.facebook.com/pages/U-Boot-Pangraphorium/127992714050708)

Calin Cazan : Calin is an excellent animator who also have work on the Silent hunter series and so far he already did
amazing work on various animation task i have ask him to do for Atlantic Warfare and you will all see the quality of his
work on the Atlantic Warfare game prototype. You can have a look at some of his work here : http://calincazan.blogspot.ro/

Daniel Calin : Daniel have also work on the SH series and he is experience in both programing and senior 3d&2d GUI with
3 years of experience in Unity.

Alban Montat : Alban is our French researcher and expert in naval battle history he will be in charge of gathering references
and historical info and also will promote ATWAR all across the web .

Paul Schwab : Paul(desertstriker)is well known here in the subsim welcome committee and he will have the same task as Alban
looking for references&historical info and promote ATWAR over the web.

Laurent Tremblay : Laurent was introduce to me by a colleague of mine where i am teaching video game design,
Laurent is very experience in the simulation field since he work for CAE on pilot training simulators, his experience
as a software engineer and his knowledge of C++ progaming make him the perfect candidate for Atlantic Warfare game mechanics.

Manos(makman94) : Many of you already know Manos from his excellent mods for Silent hunter 3 like Manos GUI and
Manos environment pro, Manos knowledge on GUI and optics couple with his mathematician and 2D artist skills make him
the ideal candidate to make state of the art GUI for Atlantic Warfare.

John(Reaper7): John is also a well known figure on the Subsim community and he did some amazing work for U-BOOT_HAHD
and others mods for the Silent Hunter series, John engineering knowledge couple with his skills as a 2D and 3D junior artist
make him a valuable candidate to bring Atlantic Warfare to the next level.

Hans Wittman : As the lead director of Atlantic Warfare i will put all my 16 years of knowledge in game development as a
senior 3D&2D artist and junior programer&scripting including 6 years teaching it in college to make sure Atlantic Warfare will
become the next classic in the naval simulation genre. I am also in charge of promotional material, website design and funding
campaign for Atlantic Warfare.

Other potential candidates have made contact with me recently and 2 are programers and another one is a music composer +
2 2D&3D artists, we are still in discussion and will keep you inform about new team members joining for Atlantic Warfare.

Atlantic Warfare main features:


-Enroll in the Royal navy and take control of a battleship to engage enemy fleet or protect convoy against the u-boat threat.

-Enroll in the RAF coastal command and wage war from the air against the enemy fleet.

-Enroll in the Kriegsmarine as a battleship or u-boat commander and engage enemy fleet or merchant shipping and convoys.

-Enroll in the Luftwaffe and engage enemy fleet from the air with advanced weaponry like the one use in the Bay of Biscay.

-Full Atlantic campaign and side missions including non conventional missions.

-Light RPG elements to bring a human dimension and interactivity with your crew like captain skills tree with various talents
buy with renown to upgrade your skills.

-Upgradable equipment on ships,u-boat and airplanes buy with renown at barrack located in harbors&aerodrome.

-Multiplayer will allow to play the Solo Campaign in multiplayer mode! In that mode, your strategic mind will be put
to the test through a long military campaign that runs over several days. Other game mode might be introduce later on.

-State of the art graphic&FX and realistic environment that will affect your strategy and decisions.

-Full 3D damage system with complex sinking mechanics and advanced damage managing system.

As we progress game features might be add or be modified to fit our framework.

So now it will be up to you the simulation fans to decide whether or not you want Atlantic Warfare to become the next classic naval simulation on your desktop.

The Atlantic Warfare website&forum should be going live in the coming weeks and pledges package for every budget will be available with
exciting exclusive content on some of them. Later on after we have reach all the gaming, simulation, ww2 enthusiasts, reenactment,
kit modelers website communities we will launch the kickstarter campaign to complete our necessary funding for Atlantic Warfare.

The Atlantic Warfare forum membership will be tied to a special ranking system that will take in account your donator status(Pledges package you choose)
and for some special package will give you access to participate in the private developers section of the forum to submit your idea and have an impact on game development features.

Other pledges package will give you access to exclusive content and a renown system will be introduce to buy exclusive new skins or models for Atlantic Warfare.

The first 250 donators will become automatically eligible for the close beta of Atlantic Warfare.

In late fall you will start to see actual in game footage shown on the Atlantic Warfare website so stay tuned.

The Atlantic Warfare team

[elanaiba]

:o

Good luck!

:woot:

[Hans Witteman]

:o

Good luck!

:woot:

Thank you and we wish you all the success with your own project.:Kaleun_Salute:
We are not starting from scratch here for Atlantic Warfare since a lot of assets are already done.

And the latest advanced in technology and unity expansion make a lot of task much more easier then 2 years ago.

Late fall will show some in game footage.

The Atlantic Warfare team

[soopaman2]

Have you thought of utilizing Steams Greenlight program, or at least looking into it?

I do not know the requirements, but it may help with funding .

I will be following the progress of this, as naval sims are rare, and seeing as there is a passion here, I can see great things.

Naval sims are a dying niche, I can only support a genre I enjoy.

Best of luck, sir.:yeah:

[O_Smiladon]

Thank you and we wish you all the success with your own project.:Kaleun_Salute:
We are not starting from scratch here for Atlantic Warfare since a lot of assets are already done.

And the latest advanced in technology and unity expansion make a lot of task much more easier then 2 years ago.

Late fall will show some in game footage.

The Atlantic Warfare team


Good Luck Hans and team,

Trying to do the same..

lets see if we can get both our projects up and running..

All the best

Steve

O_Smiladon

[Hans Witteman]

Have you thought of utilizing Steams Greenlight program, or at least looking into it?

I do not know the requirements, but it may help with funding .

I will be following the progress of this, as naval sims are rare, and seeing as there is a passion here, I can see great things.

Naval sims are a dying niche, I can only support a genre I enjoy.

Best of luck, sir.:yeah:

Thank soopaman and yes we are aware of steam but they take a 30% markup if i remember correctly and we prefer to try our luck with a good promotional campaign by reaching website communities.

And you are right naval Sim are not common these days but we have a different approach that might bring back some popularity into the genre.

Just take the example of Ship simulator, they sale more than 650,000 copy so far and there is not much to do in that except to go from one harbor to another and the graphic are way beyond most triple AAA title. So if they can be successful with this kind of game i think we have a pretty good chance to have at least the same amount in sales.

One thing is sure is that we have a very capable team with all the necessary knowledge and resources to deliver such a Sim.

We also have a vision on the long term to make the Sim even better with expansions and we will update and patch anything that need to be done for the players to enjoy.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Cybermat47]

Good luck! I'll try to donate as much as I can on kickstarter, but I don't have that much.

[Hans Witteman]

Good Luck Hans and team,

Trying to do the same..

lets see if we can get both our projects up and running..

All the best

Steve

O_Smiladon

Thank my friend, all the best and total success for your project:Kaleun_Cheers:
With a very passionate and talented team members sky is almost the limit.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Good luck! I'll try to donate as much as I can on kickstarter, but I don't have that much.

Thank a lot Cybermat and even a single dollar will help us since 1 dollar from a million person is 1 million dollars after all.

Keep in mind that all our pledge package will give you something in return so it is not like most funding campaign where people out of the blues ask public fund and give nothing back.

Once the website&forum are done all the info in detail will be clearly seen on site.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[hellfish6]

I'd definitely support this project. May I suggest some digital-only options for backer rewards? So many kickstarters offer t-shirts and toys and crap. I'd much rather have something in the game with more of the money going into game development rather than physical rewards that I'll never wear/use.

I dunno - maybe you can give backers a great gunnery officer or watchstander for his/her crew. Far more useful to me, as a person who wants to play this game, than a t-shirt.

[Hans Witteman]

I'd definitely support this project. May I suggest some digital-only options for backer rewards? So many kickstarters offer t-shirts and toys and crap. I'd much rather have something in the game with more of the money going into game development rather than physical rewards that I'll never wear/use.

I dunno - maybe you can give backers a great gunnery officer or watchstander for his/her crew. Far more useful to me, as a person who wants to play this game, than a t-shirt.

Hi hellfish,

Thank for supporting Atlantic Warfare and i hear you regarding kickstarter t-shirt, coffee cup, silicone breast rewards!

We absolutely don't plan to offer irrelevant rewards but exactly the kind of rewards you are talking about.

I am currently working on the pledges package and many ideas are in the air at the moment like exclusive content for the various pledges package.

I will keep your proposition in mind since i like the idea of including veteran crew for various battle stations that could give you an edge in battle and they could have a personalize badge that differentiate them from standard crew.

Customize camo skins will also be part of some package for the various battleships.

All package will also include various amount of renown points that will give people access to the forum special section where they will be able to buy different GUI,skins,custom models and many more but all related to game content. The renown will play a very big role in all game aspect and we are looking at some game mechanics that could link that renown to the forum renown points

The only reward that will probably be in some package not relevant to in game content will be like the beautiful IXC u-boat original plate made by Gabriel since this plan was made by him and it lead the Ubisoft headquarter to start the Studio in Bucharest to start the Silent hunter 3 production.
This plan will come on a nice quality paper roll in an elegant cylindrical container and will be sign by all the Atlantic Warfare team.

Since i am currently working on the pledges package i welcome any new idea that you guy's would really like to see for Atlantic Warfare.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Madox58]

:o
Wait a minute! You mean I can't get the silicone breasteses?
:nope:
:haha:
Go for it Hans! I'll be there to support you anyway!
:yeah:

[Hans Witteman]

:o
Wait a minute! You mean I can't get the silicone breasteses?
:nope:
:haha:
Go for it Hans! I'll be there to support you anyway!
:yeah:

Hi mate,

Sorry to disappoint but our silicone breast supplier went out of business recently!:k_rofl:
And thank for supporting the project because we will need to press every bit of juice from the tiny naval Sim fans community remaining in this world of dumb down cheap rpg.

Regards Hans

[Onkel Neal]

Awesome :up:

[Red October1984]

Great to see this moving along Hans!

Very very very excited. :woot:

[hellfish6]

OK, I get the battleships and u-boats. What about destroyers and corvettes?

[Hans Witteman]

Awesome :up:

Thank Neal:Kaleun_Salute:

[Hans Witteman]

Great to see this moving along Hans!

Very very very excited. :woot:

Hi Red,

Thank for your support and i remember one day here i said something like : It is only the beginning!

regards Hans

[Hans Witteman]

OK, I get the battleships and u-boats. What about destroyers and corvettes?

Hi hellfish,

Darn because of you i was force to do that tonight :

http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac68/Hans_Witteman/Flower-class_zps76858893.jpg


http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac68/Hans_Witteman/Z-class_zpsca05d009.jpg

No this time i cannot claim this to be my work it is a gift Gabriel send me at the beginning of Atlantic Warfare and what a gift it is, enjoy the very first previews of Atlantic Warfare here on Subsim!:Kaleun_Party:
Gaby is currently finishing the tribal class and it is looking gorgeous.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Julhelm]

I wish you all the best luck. Us naval game developers need to stick together.

[Hans Witteman]

I wish you all the best luck. Us naval game developers need to stick together.

Thank Julhelm and you are right together we are strong and alone we are weak.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[v-i-c-]

Nice to see that you are finally starting (and with a great team), it's the best thing to do your own sim :yeah:

[Jimbuna]

The very best of luck http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/6810/al.gif (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/571/al.gif/)

[Madox58]

Well Hans,

You tell Gabriel He's one of my Idols!
So I'll live without the breasteses.
:D
Anders Lejczak is another one.
:up:

I'm a pure hack compared to the work both do and love seeing thier work.
:yep:

[Hans Witteman]

Nice to see that you are finally starting (and with a great team), it's the best thing to do your own sim :yeah:

Hi Mark,

Great to see you here where all the virtual sailors come to quench their thirst of bytes!

Wish you all the success for your great project.

Regards Hans

[Hans Witteman]

The very best of luck http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/6810/al.gif (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/571/al.gif/)

Hi Jim,

Thank mate and also thank for the sticky:Kaleun_Salute:
A new voyage is starting and may clever winds lead us to safe harbor.

Regards Hans

[Hans Witteman]

Well Hans,

You tell Gabriel He's one of my Idols!
So I'll live without the breasteses.
:D
Anders Lejczak is another one.
:up:

I'm a pure hack compared to the work both do and love seeing thier work.
:yep:

Hi mate,

It is pretty hard to not like Gaby since he is one hell of a gentlemen and working with him is a true pleasure can't wait to meet him in Romania and having a taste of Romanian beer!:Kaleun_Cheers:
If we are successful with Atlantic Warfare i wonder if the Laboe museum would let us having a party in U-995!:k_rofl:
Regarding Anders i don't have the pleasure knowing him.

Regards Hans

[Jimbuna]

Hi Jim,

Thank mate and also thank for the sticky:Kaleun_Salute:
A new voyage is starting and may clever winds lead us to safe harbor.

Regards Hans

SINK EM ALL!! http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/7384/euu.gif (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/708/euu.gif/)

[biosthetique]

Wow!...That seems captivating!....Waiting for the opening of ATWAR website!....Good luck!

[Madox58]

Hi mate,

Regarding Anders i don't have the pleasure knowing him.



I don't know him personnaly but he did Ubisoft stuff also and is a killer 3D artist.

[hellfish6]

I'm thrilled to see the Flower-class in there. After reading (and watching) The Cruel Sea countless times, it's something I look forward to captaining.

[Hans Witteman]

Wow!...That seems captivating!....Waiting for the opening of ATWAR website!....Good luck!

Hi biosthetique,

The Atlantic Warfare website&forum should be going live in 2 or 3 weeks and everyone will be welcome to participate and give us feedback as we work.

We will need all the support we can get to commission this Sim.:Kaleun_Salute:
Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

I'm thrilled to see the Flower-class in there. After reading (and watching) The Cruel Sea countless times, it's something I look forward to captaining.

Hi hellfish,

The flower class is only one of the many playable ships that will be available in Atlantic Warfare.

Each battle stations will be available to the player and the ballistic is going to be model according to real data from the various weapons.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Laffertytig]

really hope this works out. if this project works out whats to stop some devs starting a kickstarter campaign to finally get a study subsim complete with a dynamic campaign.

how cool would that be:rock:

[skip]

Firstly I just want to say that I really wish you well with this new project of developing your own naval sim, these types of niche games are sorely missed and I really hope you succeed.

But I cant help but be a bit annoyed that this mod you've been working on for nearly 3 years for silent hunter 3 will probably not be completed and what is done will only be released if your kickstarter project is successful. I would have preferred that you finished this mod and sell it if possible to those willing to buy it ( I would ) and then move on to the new game I am sure you would have the community's full backing for the new sim especially as they would be able to see and play an example of your work with the HAHD mod and experience what you are capable of.

I just feel that all the waiting was for nothing, don't get me wrong I will probably contribute to the kickstarter but am just annoyed that the wait will now be even longer. lol I'm an impatient man cant help myself.

By the way before you go down all these other different sims of planes and battleships and so on, Would recommend only focusing on the U Boat campaign initially and getting that right before branching off into other sims and campaigns. Perhaps release the other stuff later as payable mods. If they were done right I would certainly pay for extra mods. I've purchased every DCS mod released to date... but that's just my 2 cents.

Do you have a rough idea of a projected release date ?
Will all the work you have done so far be able to be ported to the new game ?. certainly hope so would be a shame for it to go to waste.

Best of luck and despite my negative post wish you and your team the very best. Will definitely check out the kickstarter when up

[Laffertytig]

just curious why this mod wasnt based on sh5? ive tried several times to get into sh5 but installing all the mods is such a pain that ive given up.

sh5 imo is crying out for a supermod such a gwx which had an installer.

[Xaron]

All the best guys! I wish you success even though I think you have quite ambitious goals! Do you have any ETA?

[Hans Witteman]

Firstly I just want to say that I really wish you well with this new project of developing your own naval sim, these types of niche games are sorely missed and I really hope you succeed.

But I cant help but be a bit annoyed that this mod you've been working on for nearly 3 years for silent hunter 3 will probably not be completed and what is done will only be released if your kickstarter project is successful. I would have preferred that you finished this mod and sell it if possible to those willing to buy it ( I would ) and then move on to the new game I am sure you would have the community's full backing for the new sim especially as they would be able to see and play an example of your work with the HAHD mod and experience what you are capable of.

I just feel that all the waiting was for nothing, don't get me wrong I will probably contribute to the kickstarter but am just annoyed that the wait will now be even longer. lol I'm an impatient man cant help myself.

By the way before you go down all these other different sims of planes and battleships and so on, Would recommend only focusing on the U Boat campaign initially and getting that right before branching off into other sims and campaigns. Perhaps release the other stuff later as payable mods. If they were done right I would certainly pay for extra mods. I've purchased every DCS mod released to date... but that's just my 2 cents.

Do you have a rough idea of a projected release date ?
Will all the work you have done so far be able to be ported to the new game ?. certainly hope so would be a shame for it to go to waste.

Best of luck and despite my negative post wish you and your team the very best. Will definitely check out the kickstarter when up

Hi Skip,

I understand your disappointment toward U-boot_hahd but such an opportunity often happen only once in a life time and it was very frustrating to have all those limitations from an aging game engine when we have so many great assets already done.

But i think you have us wrong on one part in your message since U-boot_hahd will not be abandon if the campaign failed but will be release later on.

And if we are successful with the campaign just read the late posts in the U-boot_HAHD thread and you will see that U-boot_hahd will also get to be release in separate modules include probably in Manos environment pro if Manos approve this method.

As for the waiting nobody who follow us since the beginning is loosing anything in the process since every single assets build is re usable for Atlantic Warfare.

Finishing U-boot_HAHD before starting Atlantic Warfare was unfortunately not an option since it would required another 6 months and i simply didn't have the time available to do it since paying the bills was a priority.

Atlantic Warfare will not be base solely on u-boats operations since one major reason is obvious here to grab a wider audience, what i mean is that put yourself in a person shoes who suffer heavily and have lost relatives because of the u-boats operations i dont think that person would be very tempted in incarning a u-boat captain and sink their own side.

So that why Atlantic Warfare will offer playing both side allied&axis force and it would also bring a lot of re-playability since you can enroll in both side and even play as a pilot.

We have no worry about implementing surface ships, submarines&aircrafts because we have already a lot of assets done for that purpose that no one is aware so far mainly surfaces ships and aircraft's with full instrument cockpit ready and rig.

Approximate release date is set to fall 2016 but will depend on our funding campaign success if we have the funding we will hired more people so it will speed up the production.

And don't worry your post was not a negative one but more a positive critic that we appreciate.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

All the best guys! I wish you success even though I think you have quite ambitious goals! Do you have any ETA?

Hi Xaron,

Thank for supporting us and have no worry we have plan this project very carefully and people in team know what they are doing.:Kaleun_Salute:
It is not your typical teenagers dude "I want to make a game even if i know nothing about making a game" but professionals artists&programers.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

just curious why this mod wasnt based on sh5? ive tried several times to get into sh5 but installing all the mods is such a pain that ive given up.

sh5 imo is crying out for a supermod such a gwx which had an installer.

Hi Lafferty,

In short it was simply because of the lack of a complete campaign and submarine type limitations + the engine was new and no one knew how to break in to import assets and tweaks thing.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[04gabriel67]

Hello everybody!

Since I was a kid I was fascinated by submarines, I even scratch build wooden carved models, driven by rubber band “engine”!

Later I was lucky enough to star working on SH series, from the thrilling beginning till to the rather bitter end …

I was dreaming to work again on this kind of simulator and again life surprised me, I cross Hans path and we shared the same vision.

I strongly believe in this project and I am proud to be part of it.

I want to thank you all for the support you give on the SH series and personally I want to tell you all how much I appreciate having you all around us then.

For the first time I wrote on this forum and I am asking you all to be again on our side in this daring endeavor.


It’s not only about a simple simulator; it’s about creating a new and innovative Sim with the potential to revive the genre.

We could not compare ourselves with the big “mammoths” of the industry, with their resources and finances.

But we have something they don’t have - a dream and passion for it. We are better than them, and time will prove this. Yes we will progress slowly because all of us are doing the work for this project in their free time. We are a team from all around the world, from different cultures but the same passion.

We don’t have offices; we keep contact on internet, sometime maybe we don’t understand what the other say but in the end IT WORKS! Because it's about honesty, commitment and passion. We have a real liberty on creation, innovation, communication. Everyone who works in a big company will understand instantly what huge advantage we have!

Our project is built for you AND with you all over there that have the same passion as ours! Not the accountants will tell us what to put in game for better profit but YOU will do this.

The “mammoth” have resources and funds but we have the best team member –YOU the COMMUNITY.

Be with us, all of you fans over there. With you on our side we really could give birth to this wonderful project!

Be with us, people, and start spreading the new, start spreading it !

Thank you all!!!

Regards Gabriel
A.T.W.A.R. Dev Team

[Madox58]

Hi Gabriel!

About time you showed up.
:salute:

I'm not worthy!!!!
:haha:

[Sung]

Sounds very exciting.
I was involved in so many projects. To build up such a game from scratch in 3 years thats truely a big target. All the best for you, i will follow your work.
:salute:

[Myxale]

Lo' there old man.
:salute:
Good to see things picking up steam.

I had no idea when you first proposed the HAHD mod so many years ago, that it would escalate like this. :)

Keep us posted.:arrgh!:

[04gabriel67]

@ Sung
:D SH5 actually was done in 9 months. Yes , a bigger team. More resources. The final - good things and bad things as all you know.
Personally I want to be part of a team that could do the difference. From many points of view. I am aware that there will be hard times for us, basically we will give up to the most part of our life outside regular job. But I FEEL that we could do it and that why I was asking you to be with us.
We could be better and we will make the difference.

[Hans Witteman]

Sounds very exciting.
I was involved in so many projects. To build up such a game from scratch in 3 years thats truely a big target. All the best for you, i will follow your work.
:salute:

Hi Sung,

Thank for supporting us and have no worry if we were really to start this from scratch then release date would be something like fall 2019!:k_rofl:
But way before i even start creating the u-boot_hahd mod i already plan for a ww2 naval Sim and i build a tremendous amount of models, vehicles, characters and all sort of assets for that specific goal.

To sum it up a good 3 to 4 years of work is already done and will be release in promotional material soon.

So that why we are confident to make it under 3 years and recent advancement in technology and available library's of source code make many aspect of the game much faster to implement than only 2 years ago.

In the worst case scenario we wont do the mistake each big studio is making like rushing an unfinished game out to please the financiers.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Lo' there old man.
:salute:
Good to see things picking up steam.

I had no idea when you first proposed the HAHD mod so many years ago, that it would escalate like this. :)

Keep us posted.:arrgh!:

Hi mate,

Thank again you were there from the very beginning and i knew we could count on you!:Kaleun_Salute:
By the way all folks that support us from the beginning will receive the official Atlantic Warfare silicone breast implant for free!:k_rofl:
Regards Hans

[04gabriel67]

Hi mate,

Thank again you were there from the very beginning and i knew we could count on you!:Kaleun_Salute:
By the way all folks that support us from the beginning will receive the official Atlantic Warfare silicone breast implant for free!:k_rofl:
Regards Hans

With Oak leaves.:salute:

[Madox58]

Hi mate,

Thank again you were there from the very beginning and i knew we could count on you!:Kaleun_Salute:
By the way all folks that support us from the beginning will receive the official Atlantic Warfare silicone breast implant for free!:k_rofl:
Regards Hans

HEY!! :huh:
You told me the Breasteses place was out of business!!
:hmph:
I will accept Gabriel's autograph on a plain piece of paper however.
:D
It's a Man Cave collection I'm working on.
Ioan is lending a hand for that.
:03:

I will contact you with smuggling information at a later date.
"Do not seek the treasure!"
:har:

[Hans Witteman]

With Oak leaves.:salute:

Here you are guy's i just couldn't resist to do it!:k_rofl:

http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac68/Hans_Witteman/Breast-Implant_zpsbc6efdc0.jpg

I think this one will follow us until the end of the project so we might include it somewhere in game!

Edit: This is the saline implant directly from the Atlantic

[O_Smiladon]

Here you are guy's i just couldn't resist to do it!:k_rofl:

http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac68/Hans_Witteman/Breast-Implant_zpsbc6efdc0.jpg

I think this one will follow us until the end of the project so we might include it somewhere in game!

Edit: This is the saline implant directly from the Atlantic



Ha ha Love it! :Kaleun_Applaud:

[SeaSprite]

Walks onto the poop deck and steps on a highly decorated breastplant...

Looking forward to this very much! :arrgh!:

Its still International talk like a pirate day here, so... :arrgh!: :arrgh!: :arrgh!:

:)

[skip]

Well for whats it worth you have my full support and I will more than likely contribute to the kickstarter fund.

Do hope you can release the HAHD mods for silent hunter 3 as soon as possible because am gonna need something to help the next 2/3 years go by as quickly as possible.. hehe.

All the best and will be looking out for your pitch on kickstarter make it a good one.

Cheers and wish you and your team all the best

[Hans Witteman]

Well for whats it worth you have my full support and I will more than likely contribute to the kickstarter fund.

Do hope you can release the HAHD mods for silent hunter 3 as soon as possible because am gonna need something to help the next 2/3 years go by as quickly as possible.. hehe.

All the best and will be looking out for your pitch on kickstarter make it a good one.

Cheers and wish you and your team all the best

Thank mate we appreciate every bit of support because for this ambitious project to see the light of day we will really need to stick together and spread the news as much as we can so we can reach enough people.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Hi shipmates,

As i told you in the first page other team members have recently join us for ATWAR.

Dan Vlad : Dan have also work on the SH series and he is experience in both programing and senior 3d&2d GUI with 3 years of experience in Unity.

Almg : Alban is our French researcher and expert in naval battle history he will be in charge of gathering references and historical info and also will promote ATWAR all across the web .

Desert striker : Paul is well known here in the subsim welcome committee and he will have the same task as Alban looking for references&historical info and promote ATWAR over the web.

So let's warmly welcome them for the Atlantic Warfare development:Kaleun_Salute:

[Schwieger]

Here you are guy's i just couldn't resist to do it!:k_rofl:

http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac68/Hans_Witteman/Breast-Implant_zpsbc6efdc0.jpg

I think this one will follow us until the end of the project so we might include it somewhere in game!

Edit: This is the saline implant directly from the Atlantic

Now there's a prize worth aiming for :har::har:

[Cybermat47]

Hans, are you going to use an engine like Unity or start from scratch? :hmmm:



And what's with the breast implants?! :o

[raymond6751]

Count me in, Hans.

I hope you will consider a dynamic, ongoing campaign. The successes of players for both sides can be kept score by a server. This then can translate into gameplay results, similar to what they are doing with SH Online.

Supplies denied translates to ammo and repairs shortages and delays. That sort of thing.

Sincere best wishes for the project. :rock:

[Hans Witteman]

Hans, are you going to use an engine like Unity or start from scratch? :hmmm:



And what's with the breast implants?! :o

Hi mate,

Unity will currently be use for the game prototype but we are still looking if the Unity engine will be robust enough for the whole Sim and this honestly i doubt very much.

Unity is a very good piece of software and nothing beat it for fast prototyping but for a complex game like a Sim i don't think so.

C # is not as fast as C++ for certain type of computational task and so far unity doesn't have any decent ocean system even triton ocean is not looking very good and the waves algorithm is not looking so good.

We aim at a mix of Gerstner&Tessendorf formula to have nice waves in heavy Beaufort ocean states.

We will definitively build the game prototype in Unity but chances are good that we will move to Ogre3D and build everything in C++ with source code fully accessible.

And refer to post #11 for the breast implant!(it is humor)

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Count me in, Hans.

I hope you will consider a dynamic, ongoing campaign. The successes of players for both sides can be kept score by a server. This then can translate into gameplay results, similar to what they are doing with SH Online.

Supplies denied translates to ammo and repairs shortages and delays. That sort of thing.

Sincere best wishes for the project. :rock:

Hi Ray,

Thank for your support and yes ATlantic Warfare will have a dynamic campaign.

For the multiplayer we are still at the point of elaborating the online mechanics and we will take the best ideas that will make it a blast to play.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[235th.Corsair]

Hello ATWAR team,
That sounds very very interesting. I'm keeping eyes on this ;)

[Sung]

It sounds like a must buy game. Count on me :up:
Hans is it possible to play also midget Subs like Bieber, Seehund, Molch and X-Class Subs?

[Hans Witteman]

It sounds like a must buy game. Count on me :up:
Hans is it possible to play also midget Subs like Bieber, Seehund, Molch and X-Class Subs?

Hi Sung,

The Bieber is already done and the others will also be included in missions since we don't see the interest having them in campaign.

We truly want to include the midget subs and we will pay special attention to their handling including hazards like carbon monoxide.

Just keep in mind that it will be pretty hard to come back alive from those missions specially at veteran setting so it might be a good idea to familiarize yourself with them on the rookies setting and after some good practice try it on veteran.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Hello ATWAR team,
That sounds very very interesting. I'm keeping eyes on this ;)

Hi mate,

Thank for supporting us and once the website&forum will be online a media section will show many models included in Atlantic Warfare + more in depth info on the game mechanics and ships handling.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[raymond6751]

Online multiplayer games suffer a lot from both tech problems and hacking. I think a new idea would be single play with an online "chat" method like using the ship radio to send messages. (with attendant risks for breaking radio silence)
Only the results scored by players are kept record on the servers for the dynamic campaign management. Perhaps some player records for promotions or rewards too.

The above avoids hackers who manipulate just about every online game and destroy the honest competition. Contact is still made,in game, between those who wish it via the 'radio' system. You can have ranks with orders from HQ that way.

SH5 uses the Python scripting language and apparently that lends itself well to mod development by the community.

Please don't make your game such that one has to be online to play it like Steam, Ubisoft, and Origin. Play online should be optional, with local results communicated to server then, having been recorded while offline.

[Destraex]

This sounds very interesting.
I would love to see what this looks like.
I am also not a fan of online but think steam is still a good platform for ease of update and organisation of games. If your not on steamlike 99% of PC games then you really limit your exposure tbh.

I take it this is a real time game?

[Cybermat47]

Guys don't worry, Steam supports offline play :)

[Hans Witteman]

Online multiplayer games suffer a lot from both tech problems and hacking. I think a new idea would be single play with an online "chat" method like using the ship radio to send messages. (with attendant risks for breaking radio silence)
Only the results scored by players are kept record on the servers for the dynamic campaign management. Perhaps some player records for promotions or rewards too.

The above avoids hackers who manipulate just about every online game and destroy the honest competition. Contact is still made,in game, between those who wish it via the 'radio' system. You can have ranks with orders from HQ that way.

SH5 uses the Python scripting language and apparently that lends itself well to mod development by the community.

Please don't make your game such that one has to be online to play it like Steam, Ubisoft, and Origin. Play online should be optional, with local results communicated to server then, having been recorded while offline.

Hi Ray,

For the moment we are just looking at the best multiplayer game mechanics and we know technology will give us some limitations.

What we think would be very exciting is to be able to assemble with a group of friends and each of them choose a task force of their choice and go against another group of people and be able to voice chat the operations as they go along the attack strategy.

A mechanic of intercepting enemy communications can be implement and people could use cypher code to hide their strategy from the enemy.

Depending on the ship chosen player could have access to reconnaissance aircrafts to have early detection and plan their attack accordingly.

Like i said all these possible multiplayer scenarios will have to be evaluate in regard of what possible with current technology.

And have no worry about being force to be online, we will never put something like that to offend our players. The game itself will have no protection system except for the usual serial that any 9 years old can crack!

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

This sounds very interesting.
I would love to see what this looks like.
I am also not a fan of online but think steam is still a good platform for ease of update and organisation of games. If your not on steamlike 99% of PC games then you really limit your exposure tbh.

I take it this is a real time game?

Hi Destraex,

Late fall will show in game content and regarding steam i simply hate to give my hard earn money to giant corporations who kill the small guys!

We have to reach a very small and specialize niche of people in the simulation genre so we don't need to grab the attention of World of warcraft players!

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Fifi]

Sounds very interesting! :yeah: and i'm very curious:

- Are you going to use SH5 graphical engine? (or can we expect at least same eye candy?)

- Submarine/boats management a la SH5? (ability to mouve everywhere?)

- Planes playable?? :o (can we expect good flight model/cockpit modelisation, or just very basics ones?)

- Joystic required? (guess so..)

Anyway, good luck with this awesome project!

[barel80]

Excellent work !
It would be great to see new Atlantic Warfare page, where all news are publicated.
Also, i wait for Your project on Kickstarter.

[Chris65]

I have been wanting to play convoy escort since I purchased SH3 so this looks very sweet. I hope it makes it to life and doesn't die like Road to Moscow did (lots of promise and work but then it turned into a beast and became too much).

[hellfish6]

I have been wanting to play convoy escort since I purchased SH3 so this looks very sweet. I hope it makes it to life and doesn't die like Road to Moscow did (lots of promise and work but then it turned into a beast and became too much).

Wow... Road to Moscow. The great ghost of wargaming past.

Still, nobody's come close to that ambition.

[Hans Witteman]

Sounds very interesting! :yeah: and i'm very curious:

- Are you going to use SH5 graphical engine? (or can we expect at least same eye candy?)

- Submarine/boats management a la SH5? (ability to mouve everywhere?)

- Planes playable?? :o (can we expect good flight model/cockpit modelisation, or just very basics ones?)

- Joystic required? (guess so..)

Anyway, good luck with this awesome project!


Hi Fifi,

Don't get confused we are not Ubisoft here and the Sh series belong to Ubisoft, we only have 3 team members who have work on the Sh series and they shared the same vision with us about a new naval Sim.

All U-boats will be available and most are completely done as we write this, even midget subs will be include in missions . All sub compartments will be freely accessible in first person view except the toilet!

The flight physic will be handle as good as technology allow us to do it and all cockpits with instruments and pano view in cockpit will be there.

Heinkel 111, Messerschmidt bf 109 already done with full instruments and crews and are currently in the final stage before we can fly them in game.

A lot will be showcase on the upcoming Atlantic Warfare website.

Joystick will not be required but we will support it of course.

Thank for supporting us we will need every bit of support we can get to push this baby out to your desktop.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Excellent work !
It would be great to see new Atlantic Warfare page, where all news are publicated.
Also, i wait for Your project on Kickstarter.

Hi Barel,

Thank for your support and we are currently building the website&forum as soon as we go live this thread will have the link.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

I have been wanting to play convoy escort since I purchased SH3 so this looks very sweet. I hope it makes it to life and doesn't die like Road to Moscow did (lots of promise and work but then it turned into a beast and became too much).

Hi Chris and thank for supporting us and yes it is a dream we all shared here in team to have playable surface ships and also playing on both side.

The only reason for us to failed with this project would be not enough people supporting us so keep spreading the word.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

Regards the

[Xaron]

The only reason for us to failed with this project would be not enough people supporting us so keep spreading the word.

No offense but... WHAT?

So in case the project fails you just had not enough supporters? ;)

I don't want to throw a cat among the pigeons but this sounds more and more like a project team size of 100+ members with a development time of 4+ years. ;)

Anyway I wish you success as there is a strong need for good naval games! Keep it up guys!

[Hans Witteman]

No offense but... WHAT?

So in case the project fails you just had not enough supporters? ;)

I don't want to throw a cat among the pigeons but this sounds more and more like a project team size of 100+ members with a development time of 4+ years. ;)

Anyway I wish you success as there is a strong need for good naval games! Keep it up guys!

Hi Xaron,

I am afraid that in today world everything is revolving around funding so yes it would be pretty logical that without a successful funding campaign we would have to drop the project.

You have no idea what is already done for Atlantic Warfare and also no idea about our business model for release so i cannot see how you would know that we need 100 peoples for the job!

The advancement in technology in the past 2 years have made thing a lot faster to accomplish and we know how much time is required for such a project so have no worry since we are not a bunch of lunatics out of the blues but professionals.

Thank for your support.

The Atlantic Warfare team

[Xaron]

May I ask what your funding goal is?

[Hans Witteman]

May I ask what your funding goal is?

Hi Xaron,

This information will be available once when we launch the kickstarter campaign.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Xaron]

So you will work full time on this, right? :)

[Zander]

I will help. good luck.

[Sung]

Hi Xaron,

This information will be available once when we launch the kickstarter campaign.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

No offense Hans.
I think it's dead money. Because it makes only sense when you work fulltime.

To pay someone for a "community mega project" is a dangerous thing :D

Finish the fast 80% of the game and let the Fans pay for the last (boring) 20% to finish the game, because most projects dies in the last 20%.

That would make sense in my opinion.

[tonibamestre]

Just impressed!! I will be keeping an eye on this Project,sure. But, what can you tell us about 3D modelling? Any chance to have vessels with at least 4 to 5 full 3D walkable stations?
Could be really interesting if talking for example of the Royal Navy,to have controlable accurate CVs.

And finally...... any thoughts about a Pacific expansión on a long term followed by a Cold War expantion later on?

Thanks and wish you the best luck.

[Hans Witteman]

So you will work full time on this, right? :)

Hi Xaron,

If we are successful with the funding campaign we will have to work full time of course that a normal attitude for a project like this.

I am currently working 50 hr a week on Atlantic Warfare since i only teach 12 hr a week and yes i know i have absolutely no social life!

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

I will help. good luck.

Thank for your support Zander:Kaleun_Salute:
Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

No offense Hans.
I think it's dead money. Because it makes only sense when you work fulltime.

To pay someone for a "community mega project" is a dangerous thing :D

Finish the fast 80% of the game and let the Fans pay for the last (boring) 20% to finish the game, because most projects dies in the last 20%.

That would make sense in my opinion.

Hi Sung,

Our logic is to first see if we get support because no one will be willing to work like a slave if the Sim community doesn't want such a Sim.

We all heard the story in the Sim community about how the Sim genre is dying but at the end it's up to the community if they want it or not.

Before the Atlantic Warfare i was involved full time on a new RPG and believe me it was a walk in the park to program compared to a Sim and the chance of success was much higher but i return to the naval Sim idea because i believe there is still enough people who want such a Sim.

Like i said before Atlantic Warfare will see the light of day if you the Sim fans want it if not the kickstarter will tell us.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Just impressed!! I will be keeping an eye on this Project,sure. But, what can you tell us about 3D modelling? Any chance to have vessels with at least 4 to 5 full 3D walkable stations?
Could be really interesting if talking for example of the Royal Navy,to have controlable accurate CVs.

And finally...... any thoughts about a Pacific expansión on a long term followed by a Cold War expantion later on?

Thanks and wish you the best luck.

Hi Toni,

Thank for supporting us and regarding the 3D modeling you will see everything done so far on the new website also everything we did for the U-boot_HAHD mod is re usable in Atlantic Warfare.

The Tribal class, the VIIC and the Heinkel 111 will be showcase with all accessible stations in video trailer.

On the long term our goal is more towards adding the Battle of Britain campaign and tanks campaign in Normandy.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[hellfish6]

I highly encourage you to keep the focus on naval warfare. Battle of Britain and Normandy have been done to death in sims. I haven't conned a destroyer in the Pacific since Destroyer Command.

[Hans Witteman]

I highly encourage you to keep the focus on naval warfare. Battle of Britain and Normandy have been done to death in sims. I haven't conned a destroyer in the Pacific since Destroyer Command.

Hi Hellfish,

You are right that BOB and Normandy had been done more than the Pacific but it was done with older tech and now we can have much higher detail and game mechanics compared to the old Sim.

And also it follow the logic of war theater sectors and the Pacific was involving mostly the US against Japan.

We don't exclude the Pacific but it would be at the very long long term.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[04gabriel67]

Hi Sung,

Our logic is to first see if we get support because no one will be willing to work like a slave if the Sim community doesn't want such a Sim.

We all heard the story in the Sim community about how the Sim genre is dying but at the end it's up to the community if they want it or not.

Before the Atlantic Warfare i was involved full time on a new RPG and believe me it was a walk in the park to program compared to a Sim and the chance of success was much higher but i return to the naval Sim idea because i believe there is still enough people who want such a Sim.

Like i said before Atlantic Warfare will see the light of day if you the Sim fans want it if not the kickstarter will tell us.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

I am sorry I don't have enough time to involve more on this thread.
I am pretty sure the big players on computer games market will not invest soon in another naval sim. Just because it's a "niche" product, naval sim will never have compared sales as WOW for example. There will be NO other SH6 , or whatever. The big players have big production teams and bigger "side"teams. All of theses just rise the investments and not necessary rise the quality of the final release...believe me I know very well what I am saying...
What we know it's we could choose another way of approaching the creation of a sim. And not only a sim!
And because we all in the project started with the community in mind, we need the community to be on our side. All our efforts are done with this in mind.
As I say in a previous post, it's a daring endeavor.
We believe in what we could do. We believe in this project. If there will be not enough people to support us , well... we won't give up. Just try to find another way. Regarding the graphics, I stand for what I am capable to do. But it's not only the graphic, I know what Hans, John, and others from the team could do . And I am stand also for them.

I have the same oppinion as Hans:
"Atlantic Warfare will see the light of day if you the Sim fans want it if not the kickstarter will tell us."

[04gabriel67]

I will help. good luck.

Thank you Zander ! We will try not to disappoint.

[04gabriel67]

No offense but... WHAT?

So in case the project fails you just had not enough supporters? ;)

I don't want to throw a cat among the pigeons but this sounds more and more like a project team size of 100+ members with a development time of 4+ years. ;)

Anyway I wish you success as there is a strong need for good naval games! Keep it up guys!

Hello Xaron.
Fails? The project? There will be NO project WITHOUT supporters. It's that simple.
And you will ask me smiling ... :D and with enough supporters, you will have success with this crazy idea?
Answer :
YES :)
100+ people for 4+years? If you have read previous posts, I mentioned SH5 being made in 9 moths by a bunch of people, not 100+
Times , technology, have changed. We could do it.
You are with us?

[tonibamestre]

Hey guys, what do you tell me about development of a full controlable vessel like this;

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_(91)


Would be a challenge,and a stunning ship to command.


Regards.

[04gabriel67]

Hey guys, what do you tell me about development of a full controlable vessel like this;

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_(91)


Would be a challenge,and a stunning ship to command.


Regards.

Hello !
As graphics it's no problem. Going further it's about what "full controllable "mean, engine, resources, programming, game play to mention only few of the "ingredients". As I write few times, the Community will have the last word ! If they will find interesting such idea then we will search the best approach to fit it in the project.
Yes, I would like to model a carrier !:yeah:

[Chris65]

Wow... Road to Moscow. The great ghost of wargaming past.

Still, nobody's come close to that ambition.


That would have been an awesome game, an AI opponent that learns and adapts to your battle plans, and even adopts some of yours to use against you. I followed the development of that game for a long time before it turned to dust.

[Xaron]

Well I think I just wish you all the best. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see this project become a success, I just have seen too many projects dying...! :salute:

For now I just see that from a modeling point of view you already did a bunch of work. That's great. I'm more curious about the programmer's part. Don't underestimate the boredom of working for a long time on the same thing, especially as a coder. Working in huge (I really mean HUGE) projects with a lot of programmers involved I know what I'm talking about, too. ;)

I don't know how many programmers you have and how fit they are. You want to prototype with Unity, that's fine! Actually I'd stick with Unity, using something like Ogre3d might give you more freedom but Ogre is just a rendering engine.

Anyway I will just wait and see and I'm looking forward to your goals and website!

[Schwieger]

I highly encourage you to keep the focus on naval warfare. Battle of Britain and Normandy have been done to death in sims. I haven't conned a destroyer in the Pacific since Destroyer Command.

Yea... I'd really have to second this. I'd much rather have the priorities for the Pacific and Normandy/BOB reversed. Would really rather not fight over those areas again; it is perhaps the primary reason I didn't buy IL-2: Cliffs of Dover, among others. Personally, I'd finish naval and air forces first (including Pacific, as there's a great amount of vessels and plenty of potential for massed fleet engagements combined with aerial operations), then would come the focus on Normandy and other ground related aspects.

Just my two cents.

Cheers!

[tonibamestre]

Hey guys, what do you tell me about implementing an initial start similar to Flight Simulator? I mean, capability to choose the departure port,even the pier, time of day,meteo conditions and platform. Could be interesting a first person view on a walkable stations SH5 style. Also to be able to prepare the ships at port,refueling,ammunition,food,......
Concerning weather conditions,manually set the desired meteo+sea state or a weather engine like Active Sky,connected online with worldwide stations providing actual conditions. A slaved surface wind to the sea state would be cool in order to give nice ocean looking and real waves.

:up::up:

:salute:

[Hans Witteman]

Hey guys, what do you tell me about implementing an initial start similar to Flight Simulator? I mean, capability to choose the departure port,even the pier, time of day,meteo conditions and platform. Could be interesting a first person view on a walkable stations SH5 style. Also to be able to prepare the ships at port,refueling,ammunition,food,......
Concerning weather conditions,manually set the desired meteo+sea state or a weather engine like Active Sky,connected online with worldwide stations providing actual conditions. A slaved surface wind to the sea state would be cool in order to give nice ocean looking and real waves.

:up::up:

:salute:

Hi Toni,

When you will launch ATWAR you will be prompt with the country selection to start and available choice will be :

Axis

Allied

Then depending on your choice you will be prompt to choose what branch of the chosen force you want to be part of :

Kriegsmarine :U-boat or ships

Luftwaffe : Airplanes

Royal navy :battleships or escort

RAF coastal command : airplanes

Then after you pick where you want to go you will be sent either in a German harbor or Luftwaffe airfield or British harbor or RAF airfield.

This will be in first person camera and you will be able to go in barracks and various buildings to get briefing and choosing crew and equipment.

There will even be a cafe where the player will be able to interact with NPC to bring what missing from every Sim and by this i mean the human dimension of war.

Concerning weather it is a little too earlier to talk about it because we haven't yet discuss about how we will implement it but yes we will consider giving the player the choice to set the weather condition manually in missions.

The ocean model will use the best technology available but we will have to make sure lower spec system can run it.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Jimbuna]

This is sounding better with each passing day :cool:

[Xaron]

This is sounding better with each passing day :cool:

Actually it sounds more and more unrealistic each passing day...

[Hans Witteman]

Actually it sounds more and more unrealistic each passing day...

Hi Xaron,

I don't know your motive but they surely ain't friendly! Please don't come here just to bitch about ATWAR.

Since you are involved in another similar project i guess we can see the reason for your arrogance here.

I repeat you have absolutely no clues about our release game model and we are professionals not amateurs wannabe.

With supporters like you i would rather get back to finish my RPG instead of a naval title.

When we say something we mean it period.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Xaron]

Well oh well, for sure I'm NOT involved in a similar project. It's just a very tiny thing, something you'de do on a weekend I guess. ;)

Please forgive me my arrogance, I just have seen too many projects fail and believe me, I've failed dozends as well by myself. ;)

As I said I wish you luck! I dont' know you Hans. I know you do and know game design and modelling but you seem to have no clue about programming.

Again, I wish you all the best! See my arrogance just as a corrective part, a realistic view.

And you can mean what you say, I even believe that you think you can make it. That's phase I. Everyone thinks he can do it. ;) We will talk later in phase II.

[Hans Witteman]

Well oh well, for sure I'm NOT involved in a similar project. It's just a very tiny thing, something you'de do on a weekend I guess. ;)

Please forgive me my arrogance, I just have seen too many projects fail and believe me, I've failed dozends as well by myself. ;)

As I said I wish you luck! I dont' know you Hans. I know you do and know game design and modelling but you seem to have no clue about programming.

Again, I wish you all the best! See my arrogance just as a corrective part, a realistic view.

And you can mean what you say, I even believe that you think you can make it. That's phase I. Everyone thinks he can do it. ;) We will talk later in phase II.

Spreading negativity in our thread is not something i found very clever!

Do you see me getting in other project thread spreading negativity?

We already have 2 programers in team and there are no amateurs and a third one will soon join in.

If we release a statement regarding game features it is because we all have a discussion prior to see the feasibility.

Again since you don't seem to read what i wrote we have a business release model type that you are not aware off!

Your attitude is clearly unprofessional and unfriendly and we would appreciate if you keep your negativity for yourself.

regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Will-Rommel]

Count me in! I may not be the most active subsim member, but financially i never minded doing my part. :subsim:

Serious and passionate people can move mountains.

[Hans Witteman]

Count me in! I may not be the most active subsim member, but financially i never minded doing my part. :subsim:

Serious and passionate people can move mountains.

Thank for your support Will we truly need more naval Sim enthusiast just like you!:Kaleun_Salute:
Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[04gabriel67]

Count me in! I may not be the most active subsim member, but financially i never minded doing my part. :subsim:

Serious and passionate people can move mountains.

Thank you Sir !

[Xaron]

Dear Hans,

you call me arrogant and unprofessional because I just raised the question about all these features. You call me negative where I just criticize. This is a discussion board, right? So I feel free to discuss things here. Or is it just a place to praise the Lord? ;)

I'm a German, I'm an evil Kraut and I'm Nordish by Nature. ;) This will be a longer post and more technical - more from a programmer's point of view! I want to apologize if I'm too harsh or sarcastic. I really wish you success!! All I want to say is to keep your feets on the ground.

So let me just explain a bit more in detail why I think the way I think. For that I will just use your explanations. Look, I don't know your past, neither your future, I don't know your background, I don't know your business model, I just know this thread and I know what's probable (possible is everything).

Let me just summarize! All the following is my humble opinion and of course I can and will be wrong in some things, so please apologize again, it's just my opinion I'd like to discuss here! I don't have anything against you, Hans, or this project!

The team

You have quite some professionals! It's a really impressive list and I really mean that without any sarcasm!
So far I see:

Graphic artists (2d/3d): 5 (Gabriel, Calin, Manos, John, Hans)
Programmers: 2 (Daniel, Laurent)
Researcher/Web Stuff: 2 (Alban, Paul)

That's fine, especially as most of them are quite experienced guys! That's a huge plus!

Here comes the BUT: All these are humans, no super heros.

The work

From a artist view it seems a lot of hard work is already done. That's great for sure. I don't know if you have any low poly stuff or how high poly count your meshes are but yes, that's nice.
From a programmer's view it really looks like you have nothing at the moment. And that's what makes me scratching my head when I take a look at some of your arguments/features. So here we go:

1st - SH5 did take about 9 months with a small team

I mentioned SH5 being made in 9 moths by a bunch of people, not 100+
Times , technology, have changed.

Oh well, I love this one. I'm sure it's true, but how would that change anything? I'm pretty sure one of the main reasons for that fast completion is that they already had a huge code base to work with. Starting from scratch will delay things significantly! Sure, time has changed and it might be easier today to create a game, but there's still a lot of programming to do, all helper tools aside.

C # is not as fast as C++ for certain type of computational task and so far unity doesn't have any decent ocean system even triton ocean is not looking very good and the waves algorithm is not looking so good.

We aim at a mix of Gerstner&Tessendorf formula to have nice waves in heavy Beaufort ocean states.

That made me smile. The Triton guys worked at least one or two years on their ocean system alone but you will do better. Right. I leave it as it is here. I hope your programmers know enough about fourier transformations.

2nd - Comparison with the big boys

we have something they don’t have - a dream and passion for it. We are better than them, and time will prove this. Yes we will progress slowly because all of us are doing the work for this project in their free time. We are a team from all around the world, from different cultures but the same passion.

So you do that in free time, right? What's that Kickstarter thing for then? And you think the big boys don't have any passion? You know, a naval sim with that feature list would be a money printing machine. I wonder why the big ones haven't done that yet?

3rd - Kickstarter

Well I'm curious about this as well. You have a lot of stuff done, obviously you have the tools to create 3d models, graphics, assets and so on. Unity is free (the pro version is really NOT needed to create a game). C++ is free, Ogre3d is free. I know, you all must eat and pay bills and I really support Kickstarter projects as long as they have a goal which is likely to reach.
So I guess I will have to wait for your website to see the business model behind this and wait for the Kickstarter campaign to evolve so for now I just wonder what's this for. You do it free time? Well just continue it that way and show a running demo. THEN do your Kickstarter campaign. But yes, that's your decision. ;)

I see one risk here: If you don't reach the Kickstarter goal, will you continue or not? Will you blame the community?

4th - Feature List

Well that's a big one. Let me just summarize:
- ships, subs and airplanes will be playable
- you can freely walk in the ships and use all stations
- RPG elements (skill tree)
- harbors, barracks (where you can walk in of course)
- multiplayer (voice chat, communication interception)
- full 3d damage system, complex sinking mechanics
- dynamic campaigns
- free walk almost everywhere, interaction with NPCs, briefings, cafes, ...

So you can walk free in ships, subs, harbors and so on. You can fly planes with realistic flight physics, full cockpit and instruments (well that alone would be a game for itself).

Summarize

Some points from me. You have a professional team, no doubts. You have already a lot of assets, that's good.
From my point of view you really need more programmers. For me that's the bottle neck, the weak point for now as I see it. Personally I work in huge projects as a C++ programmer for 10 years now. And I still learn new things and I'm not failure proof. I often see the 80/20 is just true. I just see how often small things can block something for quite some time. You want so much, that's just incredible. It's a tough job for 2-3 years development time. Time passes by really, really fast...

Finally, go for it! I know these feelings, how great it is to start something like this. All the passion, the fascination, the motivation. Phew! Keep that momentum and go for it. I will support you! I want you to succeed, but please keep it realistic.

[tonibamestre]

Count me in aswell with my full support guys, I also want the ultimate classic aeronaval Sim here on my desk.
I was wondering if could be a good idea to develop this Sim like a full base itself with all the ítems implemented. The goal would be to have a future -Dynamic Shipyard - able to add new platforms from time to time,just like in real life. This way,if ships+planes have to be done further on its more simple,and more forces can be implemented from a wide range of countries.
Can you imagine a VIRTUAL SHIPYARD going on,where you can see the building progress of a new battleship or even a CV?

Cheers.

[Hans Witteman]

you call me arrogant and unprofessional because I just raised the question about all these features. You call me negative where I just criticize. This is a discussion board, right? So I feel free to discuss things here. Or is it just a place to praise the Lord? ;)

Well the comment after Jim positive feedback was pretty sarcastic so that why i call you arrogant and it was not a positive criticism but sarcasm.
Yes it is a discussion board and we appreciate positive dialogs but when people came in and use sarcasm it is my duty to defend my team integrity since you are mocking all the people involved in this project.

I'm a German, I'm an evil Kraut and I'm Nordish by Nature. ;) This will be a longer post and more technical - more from a programmer's point of view! I want to apologize if I'm too harsh or sarcastic. I really wish you success!! All I want to say is to keep your feets on the ground.

I was also born a dirty Kraut but been adopted by friends of my biological parents in Canada so i am as Nordish as you are and we accept your apologies and prefer to talk with the gentleman instead since it is way more positive and constructive.

Let me just summarize! All the following is my humble opinion and of course I can and will be wrong in some things, so please apologize again, it's just my opinion I'd like to discuss here! I don't have anything against you, Hans, or this project!

The Sim and specially the Naval Sim community is already so small that we must be united instead of empty dialogs that lead no where.

The team

You have quite some professionals! It's a really impressive list and I really mean that without any sarcasm!
So far I see:

Graphic artists (2d/3d): 5 (Gabriel, Calin, Manos, John, Hans)
Programmers: 2 (Daniel, Laurent)
Researcher/Web Stuff: 2 (Alban, Paul)

That's fine, especially as most of them are quite experienced guys! That's a huge plus!

Here comes the BUT: All these are humans, no super heros.

No one a super heroes but you will have a hard time finding team mates as dedicated and experience then the one reunited for ATWAR.

The work

From a artist view it seems a lot of hard work is already done. That's great for sure. I don't know if you have any low poly stuff or how high poly count your meshes are but yes, that's nice.
From a programmer's view it really looks like you have nothing at the moment. And that's what makes me scratching my head when I take a look at some of your arguments/features. So here we go:

Any studio can tell you that the most expansive part of any triple AAA title is the art assets and the time required to do it, that what is eating most of the budget for any serious game. We all work our models in high resolution to be able to use them in both cinematic&promotional material and then we reduce them to manageable mid to low res for real time rendering and everything work perfectly. Gabriel use the same technique as me and i think SH3,SH4,SH5, speak for themselves.

As a programer i just consider myself as junior since i start 2 years ago but i rely on Laurent who is a senior programer with 14 years of experience for the more complex math behind certain game mechanics.
Daniel is also intermediate programer and have work on lod and terrain so i don't think we have any weakness in the programing departement add to this that another senior programer that have work on 8 triple AAA title is currently in dialog with me.

1st - SH5 did take about 9 months with a small team



Oh well, I love this one. I'm sure it's true, but how would that change anything? I'm pretty sure one of the main reasons for that fast completion is that they already had a huge code base to work with. Starting from scratch will delay things significantly! Sure, time has changed and it might be easier today to create a game, but there's still a lot of programming to do, all helper tools aside.

I will let Gabriel answer this one since i was not involved in the SH series.



That made me smile. The Triton guys worked at least one or two years on their ocean system alone but you will do better. Right. I leave it as it is here. I hope your programmers know enough about fourier transformations.

There is already plenty of available open source code where the bulk of the work is done for real time ocean and Triton was develop years ago for the ship simulator game before the avalanche of already available algorithm for real time ocean. We only need to tweak it to behave correctly for our buoyancy model and we will make our own custom shaders for it. Unity like i mention also have a community project that already look 10 time better then triton but is still work in progress and like i said before we are evaluating at the moment if Unity would be capable to handle our complete game. Laurent have no problem with FFT transformation.

2nd - Comparison with the big boys



So you do that in free time, right? What's that Kickstarter thing for then? And you think the big boys don't have any passion? You know, a naval sim with that feature list would be a money printing machine. I wonder why the big ones haven't done that yet?

Any great game that i have play in my long gaming past was done by a small team with a passion not the other way around as a quick example the Witcher, no RPG done by the big boys even came close to this level of perfection but i know now that CDproject are consider big boys but they were not when they were working on the first Witcher!

This one is obvious i am surprise you didn't figure it out yet, big studios go with the trend and the trend said Sim are a dead end because most people find them to hard to learn and many don't have enough time to spend in a game. Second Sim programing and art assets are 10 time more complicated to achieve in a reasonable time schedule than a dumb down RPG. I can talk about this one since i was working for 8 month on a survival horror RPG and it was much more easy to program than a Sim.

3rd - Kickstarter

Well I'm curious about this as well. You have a lot of stuff done, obviously you have the tools to create 3d models, graphics, assets and so on. Unity is free (the pro version is really NOT needed to create a game). C++ is free, Ogre3d is free. I know, you all must eat and pay bills and I really support Kickstarter projects as long as they have a goal which is likely to reach.
So I guess I will have to wait for your website to see the business model behind this and wait for the Kickstarter campaign to evolve so for now I just wonder what's this for. You do it free time? Well just continue it that way and show a running demo. THEN do your Kickstarter campaign. But yes, that's your decision. ;)

Of course since we have not finish yet to set the detail for the business deployment stategy we cannot release sensitive information about this.

Take the example of Star citizen we can do something similar and just use kickstarter as further push ahead but mainly Star citizen funding came from community backers who bought various package on their own site.
All they did was good promotional videos and reach most gaming related site.

I see one risk here: If you don't reach the Kickstarter goal, will you continue or not? Will you blame the community?

Life is all about risk but calculated risk have more chance of success and of course we wont blame the community but we will clearly hear that there is not enough support for such a project and will probably try a different approach like the one i was attempted before i came back to the naval Sim project. My goal was to put aside my passion for Sim to make a RPG since the trend and perspective of success was much higher for this genre then if the project would have yield reasonable success i would have re invest the profit to make the Naval Sim but this was going to be a very long process to attain the same goal with all the risk of failure.

4th - Feature List

Well that's a big one. Let me just summarize:
- ships, subs and airplanes will be playable
- you can freely walk in the ships and use all stations
- RPG elements (skill tree)
- harbors, barracks (where you can walk in of course)
- multiplayer (voice chat, communication interception)
- full 3d damage system, complex sinking mechanics
- dynamic campaigns
- free walk almost everywhere, interaction with NPCs, briefings, cafes, ...

So you can walk free in ships, subs, harbors and so on. You can fly planes with realistic flight physics, full cockpit and instruments (well that alone would be a game for itself).

We don't see any problem with these game mechanics and there is nothing far fetch in implementing them and the way we intend to release the game will alleviate the bulk of the work.

And if we see that Unity is capable to handle our game then most of what you mention in that list is rather easy to do in unity since i already have most of them done for the game prototype and it is working flawlessly.

Like i have said before in only 2 years of recent technology advance thing have drastically change in the gaming industry, take example of Unity playmaker many studio that have problem finding good programers are now relying on playmaker to make complex programing behaviors and just read some threads about it and you will see what professional studios are saying about it. Another one is Rain one Ai : http://rivaltheory.com/tag/rainone/, i already have experience working with it and it is the best solution around to make complex AI behaviors and you can upgrade the behaviors nodes to include customs one you script. And there a whole bunch of other great stuff already done that save month of coding so we don't intend to be masochistic and re inventing the wheel when solutions are already available at a reasonable cost.

John is already beta testing FlightFS a realistic flight model for unity with cockpit instruments and the module is a breeze to setup and by just adding your airfoils wing shape the model adapt to represent a very close representation of the flight dynamic of that particular plane.



Summarize

Some points from me. You have a professional team, no doubts. You have already a lot of assets, that's good.
From my point of view you really need more programmers. For me that's the bottle neck, the weak point for now as I see it. Personally I work in huge projects as a C++ programmer for 10 years now. And I still learn new things and I'm not failure proof. I often see the 80/20 is just true. I just see how often small things can block something for quite some time. You want so much, that's just incredible. It's a tough job for 2-3 years development time. Time passes by really, really fast...

I agree we need more programers but specialize one and i already found a very good solution for this on a Russian freelancer site, we have to give the Russian this in the programing department nothing come close to them in term of coding speed and elegant solutions and pricing.
They are fast and cost half the price compared to north America programers fee's.

So in specific modules of the game various mechanics we will simply use freelancers to speed up our workflow and many triple AAA studios are using the exact same solution to cut the cost. Just Google it and you will be very surprised!

Finally, go for it! I know these feelings, how great it is to start something like this. All the passion, the fascination, the motivation. Phew! Keep that momentum and go for it. I will support you! I want you to succeed, but please keep it realistic.

Of course we will go for it and we are not starting this whole project from scratch, everything was carefully analyze long before we post the first thread about it.

Again like i said once our game deployment strategy will be known everybody will understand that our goal is very realistic so judging us by the sum of features and saying it is not realistic is premature without knowing first our deployment strategy.

And to finish i am glad that you left your sarcasm behind to introduce a more intelligent and constructive dialog that help the project instead of sinking it.

And since you seem to have excellent coding skills maybe we never know if you might not be tempted to join the ATWAR project since the whole gaming community know very well that mobile is not the future of gaming and specially not Simulation just Google it!

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Count me in aswell with my full support guys, I also want the ultimate classic aeronaval Sim here on my desk.
I was wondering if could be a good idea to develop this Sim like a full base itself with all the ítems implemented. The goal would be to have a future -Dynamic Shipyard - able to add new platforms from time to time,just like in real life. This way,if ships+planes have to be done further on its more simple,and more forces can be implemented from a wide range of countries.
Can you imagine a VIRTUAL SHIPYARD going on,where you can see the building progress of a new battleship or even a CV?

Cheers.

Hi Toni,

Well all this sound very interesting but for the moment we will have to concentrate on the main game features but we will listen and take all good ideas from supporters and see what possible to implement at a later stage within a reasonable time schedule.

But a dynamic campaign made these kind of extra possible but first we will build a solid base for the main gameplay and then we will analyze and see what we can add to further polish the Sim.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[04gabriel67]

Hello Xaron!.

Well, I want to thank you for your posts. If there was nobody to raise some doubts about this project, then I start to doubt about it
and about myself.

I have a good friend from Germany who actually helped me on SH3 (and it's on credits there :) ). I know very well his German way of being.
I am Latin as blood, let's say more temperamental. We have faith and we fight for our believes. Challenging and raising the bar, pushing it above the strict
realism, prove to be more creative.:) You will be surprised to see that what
you are told over there about us is far from reality.

We are with feet on ground, thank you so much for being worried for us. We are aware about bottle necks also, and each possible problem will be solved when it should be.

I am honored you take time to analyze few things I mentioned on thread but I am sorry, for the moment I could not say more. I stand on what I say; maybe the time to explain and detail a lot will come. In this moment it's not ethical to do it.

As I told you before, if the kickstarter goal will not be reach, there will be no project. For the moment. It will be our fault not advertising enough our intention, our fault not reaching and convincing enough people. We are part of this community and as long there are a lot of people here who support us, there will be nothing and nobody to blame here.

I say again, there will be this project as scheduled if there will be enough supporters. And it will have success. If there will be not enough, we won't give up, it will be an undesired delay only.

Neither do I know nothing about your past or present, I just suppose you are also into this small world of ship simulators. You say you work in huge projects for 10 years now...criticism was all you could offer as support?

Well, at least for me it was all I need :) I have more reasons now to support Hans and this project in which I believe.

Best regards


Gabriel

[makman94]

they reject it before even have seen anything about it yet!

thats really ,lets call it,... amazing

well , i have a question for the community and i expect an honest answer(not to me but to yourselfs) from everybody here (it is my vision of things),

some of us are many years around this forum and most of the old members can confirm my following words:

there was never real moders involved to sh3 and sh4. tweaks to images or adding 1000 ships - planes or tweaking sensors or rewritting campaign files isn't 'moding' . you can call it enhancement but not ...moding. nothing of the aboves is changing (i mean drastically) the gameplay of the game,the game remains the same . this doesn't mean that all of us ,the 'enhancers' didn't 'offer' to this game,on the contrary, but did we change it ,the answer is a big no.
ONLY ,pay attention to this, the last two years something really important made for sh3 and that was H.sie's and Stiebler's patches. yes,this can be called 'Moding' and this kind of moding is what sh3 really needed from day one. i am reading from time to time about the 'bugs' in sh3 and all that i have to say about this is that sh3 has very few (and not important bugs and most of them were solvable) after its v1.4 patch. (enhancements by 'enhancers' is just a matter of time to see the light of day).

the only game of series that is being modded from the start is sh5 by MAINLY only ONE person (TDW aka Racerboy). can you see the miracles that this man has made for this title and he is just one person!

i am trying to say that if you have some real good programmers in your team you can do miracles ! sure ,TDW , is working on an existed code (thats for you Xaron) but this doesn't mean that you can't see how far he went and how far he can go with it ! personally , i think that there are no limits for TDW...imagine him working at a code as he really would like it to be written.

anyway , my question to all of you is:
lets suppouse that you would have to pick the best from our community to be in a project like ATWAR at the 3d designing part. let aside your 'friendships' - egoism here, and name them !
i vote with a big yes to Hans Witteman and now Gabriel (who joined this effort). i would also vote to Tomi99 and Flakmonkey and i have no doupt that everybody will agree with me.
do you have anyone better than the above persons to suggest and trust them to the 3d designing part of the ATWAR ? becuase , i am wodering , who do you exept to start a so risky and so demanding project if not the best of subsim ?

unfortunally , we have no programmers in subsim in order to suggest-vote to them . i would say TDW or Skwasjer but i don't know(my knowledge on programming is...zero) if they are able or have the will for such an effort.

seriously guys, i don't know any better persons to start such a project. do you ?
yes, real talended programmers are really needed to ATWAR team and maybe kickstarter proove that it will be possible to catch the attention. only time will tell . for many of you ,the list may seems extra unrealistic but all that is needed is a good base engine that will be able to handle subs-ships-planes. the SH3 Warship Mod didn't convinced you yet that there are very few missing from sh3 code in order to enjoy surface warfare ? sh2 with destroyer command isn't an old proof that can be done?
as for the cocpit planes and user handling the plane , i also find it very extreme but yet not impossible after seen that almost a full pack for it is allready ready for unity engine. it is secondary in my wish list and personally i wouldn't mind if turned out to be rejected but ,if a good base engine is managed to be build, it will be just a matter of time for airplane cocpit to be added in the sim.

yes , there were many projects failed (i wouldn't say that 'fail' is the right word) at past . for me, the best effort made was the ''Danger From The Deep'' and still till today i was 'waited' somehow this project to be continued.still till today , i wouldn't say that ''Danger From The Deep'' failed.


anyway , i am trying to say that becuase of the past 'fails' ,we must stop ...trying ? becuase something failed ,means that everything will ...fail from now on?
now, look around in these forums and make your 'dream' team....would you leave out Hans or Gabriel from this team ?
as for programmers ...spread the news...the more we have the better i think.

ps: thats my personal point of view and maybe i said things that will 'annoy' some of you . it is just my sincere thoughts and thats only posted for sharing them with all of you. you can disagree-discuss with me if you feel that i was unfair but please contact me via pm as for keeping ATWAR thread clear from such posts

[tonibamestre]

Getting back to work........ any chance to include Royal Navy subs on the initial reléase?


http://uboat.net/allies/ships/rn_subs.htm


Thanks and please.......keep speed all ahead flank !

[Hans Witteman]

Getting back to work........ any chance to include Royal Navy subs on the initial reléase?


http://uboat.net/allies/ships/rn_subs.htm


Thanks and please.......keep speed all ahead flank !

Hi Toni,

First we will concentrate on pinning down the surface ships, subs and planes controls mechanics correctly.

Once we have one sub correctly setup it will not be very hard to add more subs later on but don't expect British subs to appear in initial first release.

We are currently looking at a very new and innovative way to release the Sim that will make adding new content a dynamic experience for the player, more will be reveal once the website is up.

Also i already notice that reference material is pretty hard to find specially for ww2 British sub interiors, if a am correct the only existing one is the HMS Alliance.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Xaron]

Thanks guys for the honest answers! :) I really appreciate it!

@Hans:
And since you seem to have excellent coding skills maybe we never know if you might not be tempted to join the ATWAR project since the whole gaming community know very well that mobile is not the future of gaming and specially not Simulation just Google it!
Thanks for the offer but for the moment I have more than a sh1tload of work with my own projects. ;) Well I agree that mobile gaming is not for hardcore sims, but I can imagine to use tablets as enhancements to a computer simulation or just to check things on the way.

@04gabriel67:
Neither do I know nothing about your past or present, I just suppose you are also into this small world of ship simulators. You say you work in huge projects for 10 years now...criticism was all you could offer as support?
Yes. Because that's just my experience. The bigger the project the more likely it is to fail. And, more team members don't necessarily increase the success of a project. I'm a simulation fan but I don't work in that business. My main work is as a software engineer (C++ all the day) for a medical device company including a lot of 3d rendering stuff.

As I told you before, if the kickstarter goal will not be reach, there will be no project.
That's a pity! I'm really curious about your Kickstarter goal and look forward to more stuff from you but again, is Kickstarter really necessary? I can only assume that it might be hard to reach anything beyond a $10,000 goal for such a niche product.

@makman94:
anyway , i am trying to say that becuase of the past 'fails' ,we must stop ...trying ? becuase something failed ,means that everything will ...fail from now on?

A simple answer: Yes. ;) A longer answer: There is no correlation between the number of failed projects and the success. When you failed 10 times it doesn't mean you'll succeed the 11th. Success is a function of knowledge, experience and realistic goals and resources. It's that easy. I don't say you must stop trying. But you must stop trying to bloat the feature list. Make it modular, do milestones. Don't trap into details. I can remember in countless hours of just optimizing the look of particles. ;) Make it just work, do the fine tuning at the end.

[raymond6751]

You never fail until you quit!!
Henry Ford

We gamers/simmers should be happy and welcoming every new naval game project. It does nobody any good to start ripping and tearing instead of encouraging those with the skill and willingness to give us a new sim.

Discussion thread does not automatically imply two sides of an argument. This is our opportunity to put forward ideas and suggestions of things we would like to see in their game.

The crew building this project are serious. Let's stand behind them!

[Xaron]

You never fail until you quit!!

Well you nailed it. The problem lies in the second part of the sentence "until you quit!!". :haha:

We gamers/simmers should be happy and welcoming every new naval game project. It does nobody any good to start ripping and tearing instead of encouraging those with the skill and willingness to give us a new sim.

Agreed! :)

Discussion thread does not automatically imply two sides of an argument.

Oh does it not? ;) Well I get your point. Must be my almost sceptical nature which just let me answer these posts where I just should shut the heck up. Sorry guys! Wasted a few hours to make some nice water transition caustics effect. D'oh! Works now! :88)

[DeMeza]

This game sounds like a fantastic project, and I hope you guys make it! :yeah:

Just a quick question - will there be Hilfskreuzers like Komoran or Atlantis? Pretty please! :yep:

[Hans Witteman]

That's a pity! I'm really curious about your Kickstarter goal and look forward to more stuff from you but again, is Kickstarter really necessary? I can only assume that it might be hard to reach anything beyond a $10,000 goal for such a niche product.

Hi Xaron,

Have a look here : http://www.simhq.com/daily-news/dcs-wwii-europe-1944-kickstarter-campaign.html

This guy raised 70,000 in a few days for a flight sim and we will offer far more in ATWAR wit a lot of replay value so i think you seem not very aware about the game market or at least you didn't upgrade your knowledge base since the past 3 years, thing move fast in the industry.

It is also depending a lot on the quality and professional level of your game, a well done preview of in game content, a cinematic trailer of your game and a solid web portal will get you a lot more .

Most people judge a game on the way it look this is not me this is a fact, yes even if the game play is horrible they look at the graphic first then they judge the gameplay after.

Most project that i saw who failed didn't look professional at all and i understand people not wanting to back stuff that look 15 years old tech.

EDIT: The flight sim reach 127,000 of the 100,000 with one day left.

Regards Hans

[Sung]

The flusi guy is from eagle dynamix. Do you know lock on, flaming cliff, cliffs of dover and many more?

Oleg maddox? :yep:

[Hans Witteman]

You never fail until you quit!!
Henry Ford

We gamers/simmers should be happy and welcoming every new naval game project. It does nobody any good to start ripping and tearing instead of encouraging those with the skill and willingness to give us a new sim.

Discussion thread does not automatically imply two sides of an argument. This is our opportunity to put forward ideas and suggestions of things we would like to see in their game.

The crew building this project are serious. Let's stand behind them!

Very well said Ray that exactly what we believe and the only chance we can succeed with this project is to get all the Sim enthusiasts united behind us to make ATWAR our next playground for years to come.

Because we will continuously support and expand the Sim with the community in mind and you guy's will have your words to say in the ATWAR forum and we will make polls to see what the next feature or add on you want to see in.

I see hobbyists who spent thousand of $ on their hobby each years so i don't think spending a few dollars to get the Sim everyone is dreaming about is too much asking for hours of leisure, just going to the movies with the kids now cost close to 50$ here!

ATWAR will be an ongoing project that will be fuel by the power of you the community, without you we are nothing and we will get no where.

We have an opportunity here to make something great so please let's get united folks and forget the stupid rivalry that ruin so many good idea before they even have the time to be launch.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

The flusi guy is from eagle dynamix. Do you know lock on, flaming cliff, cliffs of dover and many more?

Oleg maddox? :yep:

Off course we know Oleg!

By the way the kickstarter campaign was only a very small part of their funding since the most come from their own website pledges.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Jimbuna]

ATWAR will be an ongoing project that will be fuel by the power of you the community, without you we are nothing and we will get no where.

We have an opportunity here to make something great so please let's get united folks and forget the stupid rivalry that ruin so many good idea before they even have the time to be launch.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

Certainly been there and have the t-shirt so I fully endorse the above :sunny:

[04gabriel67]

Heeeloooo Xaroooon! :D:D:D

Well, do you ever consider get into politics? You are GREAT, I must admit, almost each day I see on TV this kind of performance!
I must admit I was almost convinced that you are really willing to discuss with arguments, till today.
From my point of view you have done a mistake and that was quoting only a part of what I wrote, trying to turn a certain statement to something that is not.
You quoted “As I told you before, if the kickstarter goal will not be reach, there will be no project”. Followed by your comment.
Well , there was more. If you don’t find the post, let me remind what I wrote!:D
“As I told you before, if the Kickstarter goal will not be reach, there will be no project. FOR THE MOMENT. It will be our fault not advertising enough our intentions…”
And juuust below” …”if there will not enough [supporters], we won’t give up, it will be an UNDESIRED DELAY ONLY.”
I was laughing realizing what you are doing, and that was sooo relaxing!
We have here a lot of old sayings, you know, old wisdom kind...
There is one, “Dogs are barking, bear keep going…” ( no , not the Russian bear, c’mon !).
And there is another one more appropriated for this kind of “discussion”. “The smarts ones take a step back”.
Ok , ok , let me translate it :
I have better and more constructive things to do instead losing my time arguing with you. There are other people who are more open and with initiative. My kind of people.

Best regards!

Your sincerely , Gabriel

Btw: Me , Hans , are presenting ourselves with our real names. Some other people from the team are also known on their real names. We could point some personal achievements.
Xaron? The 10+ years programmer in huge projects, lot of rendering stuff…showing me Silent Depth… weeeeellll …maybe.
Bottom line ?
:D

I ask apologies to the others thread followers for this last post. I really don't like my statements be distorted. There will be no further post like this one from me.

[Hans Witteman]

This game sounds like a fantastic project, and I hope you guys make it! :yeah:

Just a quick question - will there be Hilfskreuzers like Komoran or Atlantis? Pretty please! :yep:

Hi Demeza,

Thank for your support, and we surely will add Auxiliary Cruisers in ATWAR because our deployment model for the Sim will be an ongoing and progressive process constantly adding new content by polls priority from the community on our website.

In a word we will develop ATWAR as long as the community support us to do it so as you can see the possibilities are endless.

Imagine the community interactively creating their own dream Sim with professionals developers in a democratic way.

I think the future of any game is right there at your finger tips.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Certainly been there and have the t-shirt so I fully endorse the above :sunny:
Thank Jim but be aware that instead of t-shirt we offer something even better and original for our supporters ;

http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac68/Hans_Witteman/Breast-Implant_zpsbc6efdc0.jpg

:k_rofl:

[Jimbuna]

Danke Kaleun :)

[Sung]

Xaron? The 10+ years programmer in huge projects, lot of rendering stuff…showing me Silent Depth… weeeeellll …maybe.


Autsch! You hurt me.
What is wrong with our project?
Do you know Pacific Fighters? A game with a worse graphic you also laugh about?
Hmm. That game has 1Mio downloads and is made by one person over a long time. That game makes so much fun without gfx tralala.
Silent Depth is a smartphone game for all plattforms.
Please don't taunt others work.

[04gabriel67]

Autsch! You hurt me.
What is wrong with our project?
Do you know Pacific Fighters? A game with a worse graphic you also laugh about?
Hmm. That game has 1Mio downloads and is made by one person over a long time. That game makes so much fun without gfx tralala.
Silent Depth is a smartphone game for all plattforms.
Please don't taunt others work.

Yes you are right. I should not taunt others work doesn't matter what.
Please accept my apologies!

[Jimbuna]

A friendly advice note to EVERYONE:

I'd be really appreciative if we could all refrain from posting in a negative context.

Nothing wrong with asking questions, offering support and making suggestions but negative input, however veiled is not what I want to be reading on here so if you can't be positive and supportive use the PM function or create a separate thread that will be open to scrutiny the same as this one or any other.

Hans and his team are obviously embarked on a long journey which if successful will be of huge benefit to many in this community and something our favourite genre is well in need of.

I look forward to everyone's cooperation.

[Xaron]

First my apologies to everyone. I did not intend to offend anyone, just shy some light onto all this UHs and OHs and AHs! ;) Sounds like christmas!

@Hans: You're right, I don't have so much knowledge about this financing stuff. So yes, all my best wishes to you and success! :)

@Gabriel:

Btw: Me , Hans , are presenting ourselves with our real names. Some other people from the team are also known on their real names. We could point some personal achievements.
Xaron? The 10+ years programmer in huge projects, lot of rendering stuff…showing me Silent Depth… weeeeellll …maybe.
Bottom line ?
:D


So my real name is Martin. Should be easy to find out, just do a whois on my domain. Silent Depth is my part time project. My programming skills are quite normal, and yes I work full time in huge projects, but well, it's not in the game industry.

You may have worked for some great projects as a lead graphics artist. I'm impressed. I know that you already made really nice models, graphics and so on. As I said, that's not the problem, the problem I(!) see that there will be no one who will put this all together to a game. Making models is a diligent but routine piece of work.

Even though you attacked me I won't enter this kind of flame war. I have my opinions and time will tell.

Finally guys I wish you the best. 3 years are a short time and of course it's possible.

[tonibamestre]

Hey Hans, I know all these questions should be posted once your web is alive but I canot stop asking heheheheh.

The Project says ATLANTIC WARFARE, so does that mean that initially Atlantic Ocean will be the only visible área in the game? In other words, are you planning a initial Global scenery or just the full Atlantic possibly followed by other áreas?
In my humble opinión a GLOBAL base sim is desirable.Accurate addons can be developed later on, right?

Cheers guys.

[Hans Witteman]

First my apologies to everyone. I did not intend to offend anyone, just shy some light onto all this UHs and OHs and AHs! ;) Sounds like christmas!

@Hans: You're right, I don't have so much knowledge about this financing stuff. So yes, all my best wishes to you and success! :)

@Gabriel:


So my real name is Martin. Should be easy to find out, just do a whois on my domain. Silent Depth is my part time project. My programming skills are quite normal, and yes I work full time in huge projects, but well, it's not in the game industry.

You may have worked for some great projects as a lead graphics artist. I'm impressed. I know that you already made really nice models, graphics and so on. As I said, that's not the problem, the problem I(!) see that there will be no one who will put this all together to a game. Making models is a diligent but routine piece of work.

Even though you attacked me I won't enter this kind of flame war. I have my opinions and time will tell.

Finally guys I wish you the best. 3 years are a short time and of course it's possible.


Hi Xaron,

For me i already told you that i was accepting your apologies and that the case is close.

The only thing i want to see happening in this thread is community feedback and suggestions on game mechanics they would like to see for ATWAR since we are in the critical phase of development and need that input to insure we are not going in the wrong direction.

To commit ourselves in this project is demanding a lot of discipline and many in team have no more social life or leisure and are dedicated to the ATWAR project and without community support it would be pretty hard to maintain moral on the long haul.

I also wish you the best success for your project and i believe in friendship more than rivalry. One of my favorite movie is Enemy mines with Denis Quaid!

Regards Hans

[Hans Witteman]

Hey Hans, I know all these questions should be posted once your web is alive but I canot stop asking heheheheh.

The Project says ATLANTIC WARFARE, so does that mean that initially Atlantic Ocean will be the only visible área in the game? In other words, are you planning a initial Global scenery or just the full Atlantic possibly followed by other áreas?
In my humble opinión a GLOBAL base sim is desirable.Accurate addons can be developed later on, right?

Cheers guys.

Hi Toni,

First don't be sorry for asking questions since the purpose of the ATWAR thread is exactly for that.

The whole world will be represent and probably using the Mercator projection type since a spherical projection seem to lead to problems later on.

Shore lines will have elevation according to their real world couterpart but so far my research are telling me that we cannot use GIS data for commercial purpose except if we buy a license and i doubt we will be able to afford such a license, i am still reading on that and have not came to a absolute conclusion.(copyright MicMac)

I understand your point of view regarding global mapping just like in the Outerra engine(not release yet) but i don't think the technology is yet there to use something like Outerra to generate the whole world via GIS data + adding all the in game models and assets and keeping a reasonable frame rate. Maybe in 2 or 3 years but at the moment i don't think so.

The Mercator projection will allow you to go in any oceans of the world but the initial release will only have the Atlantic campaign populated and further expansions will add more theater of operations + additional ships,subs,planes,harbors,airfields.

Keep in mind that as we wrote this we are still evaluating all the best possible techniques to use for our terrain&ocean and lot of testing are going on in the backstage and we will keep you inform about any new info regarding this.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[tonibamestre]

You guys will do an excellent job, Im sure. What I would do is to pay special attention to the Multiplayer aspect,to be able to play loooong missions,to be at sea for days if needed and also be able to command civilian merchants and oilers. This way human factor will be a MUST all around the game, not playing with AI elements only.

P.D Will be the Admiral Graff Spee modelled guys?

[Hans Witteman]

You guys will do an excellent job, Im sure. What I would do is to pay special attention to the Multiplayer aspect,to be able to play loooong missions,to be at sea for days if needed and also be able to command civilian merchants and oilers. This way human factor will be a MUST all around the game, not playing with AI elements only.

P.D Will be the Admiral Graff Spee modelled guys?

Thank Toni we will surely do our very best within the limit technology will impose to us.

We agree the multiplayer aspect of ATWAR will have to be lay down very carefully to make sure everything will be well balance and to offer various play modes and we already have some nice ideas regarding this but we cannot release the info yet.

We already plan to have playable merchants not all of them but some will be, just keep in mind they might be available only after initial release it all depend on how smooth the development will go and to how many more artists we can hired.

Regarding Admiral Graff Spee rest assure that ATWAR will include all the capital ships available in the Atlantic theater.

We already have almost all the u-boats done including detail interior for each so our next step and it is already in motion are every major capital ships.

The ATWAR website will have a special section call the Shipyard and it will show the progress on each of the various ships and will be update weekly so you guy's can see the progression.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Heinrich Liebe]

I am pleased with this project and I wish you good luck!
I'd give my last penny for a new, good (sh) sim :up:
I'm waiting eagerly for the site and the kickstarter project ...

...sorry for my bad english :salute:

Lars

[tonibamestre]

Hans, reading your earlier posts you state that in ATWAR all the battlestations from the diverse commandable vessels will be available to the player.Is it going to be something similar like Ship Sim, walkable ships from bow to stern? I can understand that feature on a submarine,but what about a Battleship? Would not be better to limit the walkable áreas to decks and 6 or 7 3D stations talking about surface ships? I must admit that a whole 3D vessels would be AMAZING, but.......what a ammount of work guys !!

Regards.

[Hans Witteman]

I am pleased with this project and I wish you good luck!
I'd give my last penny for a new, good (sh) sim :up:
I'm waiting eagerly for the site and the kickstarter project ...

...sorry for my bad english :salute:

Lars

Hi Heinrich,

Danke :Kaleun_Salute:
Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Hans, reading your earlier posts you state that in ATWAR all the battlestations from the diverse commandable vessels will be available to the player.Is it going to be something similar like Ship Sim, walkable ships from bow to stern? I can understand that feature on a submarine,but what about a Battleship? Would not be better to limit the walkable áreas to decks and 6 or 7 3D stations talking about surface ships? I must admit that a whole 3D vessels would be AMAZING, but.......what a ammount of work guys !!

Regards.

Hi Toni,

Yes all battle-stations will be accessible to the player except main gun turret interior.

Player will be able to walk from bow to stern and this required no work since the collider for the deck will do this automatically.

Battle-stations available will be AA guns,torpedo, depth charges thrower, Hedgehog, Squid, search lights, small caliber artillery.

Once we have 1 ship setup for all battle-stations it is relatively easy to set the others.

Player will have the choice to control everything from bridge and will be able to teleport to the various battle-stations via GUI or keyboard shortcuts.

We are also looking at implementing co-op so you can have a friend taking control of the various stations.

Keep in mind that even if it sound like a lot of work our release strategy make all this possible and you will learn more once the website is going live.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[tonibamestre]

The more I read the more I love it!! Hope we will have available the Captain quarters,where we can writte our Logbook and have a nap.

:yep:

[Sung]

We already plan to have playable merchants not all of them but some will be, just keep in mind they might be available only after initial release it all depend on how smooth the development will go and to how many more artists we can hired.Regarding Admiral Graff Spee rest assure that ATWAR will include all the capital ships available in the Atlantic theater.

Hans sorry, but that that sounds more and more unbelivable.
Stearing merchants make no sense and definatly it makes no fun.
Its a boring job.

All capital ships in the atlantic theatre playable - uhh. Hmm, is that some kind of promotion i didn't understand ;)

:yeah:

[Hans Witteman]

We already plan to have playable merchants not all of them but some will be, just keep in mind they might be available only after initial release it all depend on how smooth the development will go and to how many more artists we can hired.Regarding Admiral Graff Spee rest assure that ATWAR will include all the capital ships available in the Atlantic theater.

Hans sorry, but that that sounds more and more unbelivable.
Stearing merchants make no sense and definatly it makes no fun.
Its a boring job.

All capital ships in the atlantic theatre playable - uhh. Hmm, is that some kind of promotion i didn't understand ;)

:yeah:

Hi Sung,

First i would like to remind you that you are exactly taking the same slippery road xaron begin in that thread last week and mod were warning you to stay out of here if your only contribution is sarcasms!

The purpose of this thread is to have feedback from the community about the kind of features they would like to see in and the more ideas from them the better for us to see what we will include.

Playable merchant ships is something very interesting since many were equip with cannons later on and some were carrying important supply to support troops on the various fronts.

And if you find that boring then ship simulator is exactly about only merchant shipping and they sold 650,000 copy so the potential is definitely there for at least some playable one and they will be done later on if we have some positive feedback from our forum.

OK i want to make myself clear here i am tired of wasting time with both of you so please stay in your thread if the only thing your capable is spreading sarcasms.

Just for the records here we have 2 guy's not coming from the video game industry who never release any commercial title trying to teach professionals video game developers how to direct their project.

Any more sarcastic reply from both of you will simply be ignored from now on.

[Sung]

Hans, there is no sarcasm in my postings.
Thats my personal opinion.

For example the royal navy had 1939 88 capital ships. I understand that you say all that ships will be playable. Such a mass is unbelivable for me.
And why you said i'm a non professional. I did not call you anything. Please be fair.

[SnipersHunter]

Im gonna stay tuned for news:up:

[Xaron]

I don't want to quote everything but lets face the facts. Sung and I just had some reality checks posted. We both stated we wish you success and warned about the unbelievable feature list. I understand that you just want to collect ideas but you should be fair to tell what's realistic to accomplish and what's not. The answers from your team were just personal attacks, calling us unprofessional, arrogant and whatever.

OK i want to make myself clear here i am tired of wasting time with both of you so please stay in your thread if the only thing your capable is spreading sarcasms.

Maybe we are too sarcastic. Apologies for that.

Just for the records here we have 2 guy's not coming from the video game industry who never release any commercial title trying to teach professionals video game developers how to direct their project.

Do you really think it matters whether you come from the game industry or not? So you are professional video game developers? Just for the records. We have Hans who has exactly what commercial title released? What's exactly your professional role? Game design? Oh dear...
I know you have a good team of 2d/3d artists who worked for the Silent Hunter series. I know you already did a bunch of modeling work. I still miss the guys who put this all together. Do your programmers even know about your feature list? I doubt it.

For me it looks like you do the specs on the fly. And that's no sarcasm. Again, I WISH YOU SUCCESS. :) Just keep your feets on the ground and god damn accept criticism!

[Hans Witteman]

Hans, there is no sarcasm in my postings.
Thats my personal opinion.

For example the royal navy had 1939 88 capital ships. I understand that you say all that ships will be playable. Such a mass is unbelivable for me.
And why you said i'm a non professional. I did not call you anything. Please be fair.

Hi Sung,

Since we start this thread i was always fair with you guy's but did you notice you are the only one here always commenting negatively about ATWAR!

Do you guy's read what i wrote here since the beginning here a reminder:

post 46 my answer to you :

Hi Sung,

But way before i even start creating the u-boot_hahd mod i already plan for a ww2 naval Sim and i build a tremendous amount of models, vehicles, characters and all sort of assets for that specific goal.

To sum it up a good 3 to 4 years of work is already done and will be release in promotional material soon.

So that why we are confident to make it under 3 years and recent advancement in technology and available library's of source code make many aspect of the game much faster to implement than only 2 years ago.

In the worst case scenario we wont do the mistake each big studio is making like rushing an unfinished game out to please the financiers.

Here a reply i made to your partner xaron post 78


Hi Xaron,

You have no idea what is already done for Atlantic Warfare and also no idea about our business model for release so i cannot see how you would know that we need 100 peoples for the job!

The advancement in technology in the past 2 years have made thing a lot faster to accomplish and we know how much time is required for such a project so have no worry since we are not a bunch of lunatics out of the blues but professionals.

Post 103 another reply to your buddy :

Hi Xaron,

I repeat you have absolutely no clues about our release game model and we are professionals not amateurs wannabe.

Post 105 another reply :

If we release a statement regarding game features it is because we all have a discussion prior to see the feasibility.

Again since you don't seem to read what i wrote we have a business release model type that you are not aware off!

Post 111 another reply in detail:

Again like i said once our game deployment strategy will be known everybody will understand that our goal is very realistic so judging us by the sum of features and saying it is not realistic is premature without knowing first our deployment strategy.

So as you can see either there is a language barrier or you deliberately stalking this thread!

Do you think we are nuts here and that we will launch ATWAR in 3 years from here with all the available fleets from both side on initial release?

Refer to post 111 just a few line up and you got your answer.

I am a very comprehensive type of guy so you are still welcome here if you can add something constructive otherwise you should put all your effort toward working on your game.

I truly hope it is the last time...

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Im gonna stay tuned for news:up:

Thank sniper:Kaleun_Salute:
regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

I don't want to quote everything but lets face the facts. Sung and I just had some reality checks posted. We both stated we wish you success and warned about the unbelievable feature list. I understand that you just want to collect ideas but you should be fair to tell what's realistic to accomplish and what's not. The answers from your team were just personal attacks, calling us unprofessional, arrogant and whatever.



Maybe we are too sarcastic. Apologies for that.



Do you really think it matters whether you come from the game industry or not? So you are professional video game developers? Just for the records. We have Hans who has exactly what commercial title released? What's exactly your professional role? Game design? Oh dear...
I know you have a good team of 2d/3d artists who worked for the Silent Hunter series. I know you already did a bunch of modeling work. I still miss the guys who put this all together. Do your programmers even know about your feature list? I doubt it.

For me it looks like you do the specs on the fly. And that's no sarcasm. Again, I WISH YOU SUCCESS. :) Just keep your feets on the ground and god damn accept criticism!

Hi Xaron,

Why in hell i am wasting time again with you? You are polluting this thread and people are sending messages in private telling me that i am incredibly tolerating your arrogance since far too long.

I work on 2 games none of them got release because both developers run out of fund and after this bitter sweet experience since the second developer didn't pay me for 3 month then i accept a teaching offer in college.

Some of my formers students work on game like Prince of Persia, Tom Clancy Splinter Cell, Assassins creed, Mortal Kombat and others!

Do you think you can teach that in college for 6 years if you have no clue about what your doing?

I also have teach Photoshop, webdesign, marketing and page layout!

So please get out of here and work on your project instead of polluting this thread like cheap trolls!

[Hans Witteman]

We seriously request a moderator to stop this circus once and for good since my patience is wearing thin!

This thread is currently hijack!

We sincerely apologies to our supporters for these incidents but we have no control over it.

[Sung]

Hans, i worked on over 40 projekts and i earn money every day with my work.
I didnt insult or taunt you or your teammembers with my postings. Why in hell you explode insuch way?
Stay cool.

[Xaron]

Hi Xaron,

Why in hell i am wasting time again with you?

I don't know, tell me. :)

You are polluting this thread and people are sending messages in private telling me that i am incredibly tolerating your arrogance since far too long.

Well maybe those people just could pm me as well please? I'm just curious.

I work on 2 games none of them got release because both developers run out of fund and after this bitter sweet experience since the second developer didn't pay me for 3 month then i accept a teaching offer in college.

So the developers were the problem. Oh I know that... ;) What makes you think you will succeed this time? That's just a serious question.

Some of my formers students work on game like Prince of Persia, Tom Clancy Splinter Cell, Assassins creed, Mortal Kombat and others!

That's great and tells a lot about your students, but what has this to do with your track record?

Do you think you can teach that in college for 6 years if you have no clue about what your doing?

No comment... ;)

I also have teach Photoshop, webdesign, marketing and page layout!

So you can create web pages and market stuff that even doesn't exist. Well. I know guys like you from the company I work in. They do sell stuff that doesn't exist and they do it pretty good. :)

So please get out of here and work on your project instead of polluting this thread like cheap trolls!

No. I stay. Just see me as the correcting moment. This is a discussion board. And beside all these UHs and OHs and AHs about this project that won't be finished with that feature list at all I will continue to comment it. And I WILL post my opinion WITHOUT personal attacks you seem to like that much.

[04gabriel67]

Autsch! You hurt me.
What is wrong with our project?
Do you know Pacific Fighters? A game with a worse graphic you also laugh about?
Hmm. That game has 1Mio downloads and is made by one person over a long time. That game makes so much fun without gfx tralala.
Silent Depth is a smartphone game for all plattforms.
Please don't taunt others work.

Hello!
Please don't misunderstand me but I think it's time for an Forum Administrator to take position. Personally I don't care anymore about what Xaron and Sung are posting.From my point of view they could stay full day writing here what they want. Anyway bad publicity is at least as good as good publicity in terms of building audiences.
If they want to support us perfect, if not it's their choice.
It's normal not everyone agreed with a idea, it's normal that there is no project that could make everyone to be satisfied 100%.
But for sure there are other thread followers that are more open and willing to discuss in a healthier environment.
For all the thread followers, I am sorry for this situation.

Best regards and thank you

Gabriel

Ps

No, I'm not meaning banning or anything that could be associated with forbidding the free speech. But something should be done regarding distorting statements, personal attacks and mocking others effort.
It was not ethical from me answering them in the same terms here, it was disrespectful regarding the others thread followers and I am really regret that.It won't happening again because I care about the people who support us. Even only with good words.

[Sung]

Gabriel,
constructive criticism is support.
In the first post you wanted a discussion about Atlantic Warfare? I belive that such specs never will be finishing the game. Why is that an attack?
I think also as a player that stearing merchants will be a boring thing. Others love it maybe. Thats ok.

In german there is a word for things that would be make all possible.
The word is "Eierlegendewollmilchsau" I didnt know the english word if it exist.
Such a thing will satisfy all, but none.

You are a very good modeler but is it possible to program it? Why we can not discuss in a normal way?

Greetings Sung

[Seeadler]

In german there is a word for things that would be make all possible.
The word is "Eierlegendewollmilchsau" I didnt know the english word if it exist.


"All-in-one device suitable for every purpose"

[Onkel Neal]

Ok. Simple. Keep this thread on topic, do not derail it, OK? Please free to discuss this project and ask questions about it, but be polite, and save your criticism for your own thread.

[Zander]

My promise to help still stands. Just ask or PM me and if I can do it, I will.
Remember, when we complain about the paucity of games\sims in this genre, implicitly we are acknowledging that we want a bigger pool to "play" in.
I would rather that people try and fail, than not try because of the fear of failure.
Good luck guys.

[Hans Witteman]

My promise to help still stands. Just ask or PM me and if I can do it, I will.
Remember, when we complain about the paucity of games\sims in this genre, implicitly we are acknowledging that we want a bigger pool to "play" in.
I would rather that people try and fail, than not try because of the fear of failure.
Good luck guys.

Danke Zander,

We truly appreciate your support and we will be able to make it happen if more Sim enthusiasts like you rally behind us.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Progrocker]

Great news, i am a dedicated old SH fan and i am really very happy to hear news about Atlantic warfare. Keep the great work guys. :arrgh!::):up:

[Xaron]

Hi there, please don't be afraid that I post again, I just have some questions, even though some of them are pretty specific.

1) As there will be multiplayer, will there be the possibility to team up with friends to staff battle stations?
1a) If so, what happens when one player has a disconnect? Will the AI take over?

2) As you like to integrate a "complex sinking mechanics and advanced damage managing system": Can I run into other ships (ramming) and sink them? Especially against submarines that was quite a successful tactic.

3) As I can free walk on all ships: How's that going under battle conditions? All bulkheads are locked in that case, can the player still walk through the ship? Will he be able to open and close bulkheads?

4) Let's assume a direct hit into the rear section of the ship. The engine room is flooded. Will the engine stop working?
4a) Can the player do repairs?
4b) So the engine room is flooded. Can the player open the bulkheads and sink the ship?

5) Will there be land masses?

6) How large will the area be at all?

7) I can fly planes, can I start and land them, reload ammunition?

8) When a player is hit over water, what happens to the player?

9) Can I make Kamikaze attacks?

10) Can the ships attack land based targets if there are any?

11) Will there be really all ships (the royal navy alone had 88) included, all free accessable and free to walk on?

Thanks for your answers! :)

[tonibamestre]

Mmmmm......That is a long question list Xaron,but good to ask everything.Personally, I would like to see a real COMPLEX simulator as a base reléase, and I dont mind if I am going to pay 200$ and its finished by 2017.

Keep up working guys!!

Regards.

[Hans Witteman]

Great news, i am a dedicated old SH fan and i am really very happy to hear news about Atlantic warfare. Keep the great work guys. :arrgh!::):up:
Hi Pro,

Thank for your support!:Kaleun_Salute:
Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Mmmmm......That is a long question list Xaron,but good to ask everything.Personally, I would like to see a real COMPLEX simulator as a base reléase, and I dont mind if I am going to pay 200$ and its finished by 2017.

Keep up working guys!!

Regards.

Hi Toni,

Often even in the best simulation game we cheat in many aspect of the game mechanics but as long as it do what it suppose to do.

Some systems are very close to their real world counterpart and other are only smoke&mirrors since even with today technology we are limit in what a computer can render in real time. The future will surely be very exciting regarding the advance in real time rendering.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Gotmilk]

Hello Hans.

First i would like to congratiulate you on this HUGE crazy project that you and your team have taken on. I wish you all the best and hope that your Kickstarter will be a major success.

Secondly i would strongly suggest you to stick with Unity (but i think that you guys have reached that conclusion yourself already). Ogre is nice, open and all but your programmers will have to do 1000% more work to create features that Unity has already built. Also Unity improves faster and their support has never failed me. Unity is going to be around in 10 years.

Now that all out of the way i want to apologize because i am going to be very negative here. When i discovered this thread today i was happy and started to read entire 11 pages of it. The further i got the less happy i was. I quickly recognized that this is one of these overly ambituous projects that will probably never see the light of the day. Sorry for saying that, i am not trolling or trying to demotivate you and your team.
The guys who usually make a lot of money on kickstarter with niche games are usually known industry veterans (but even 40% of them are still failing) and they already have some gameplay footage to show before going onto kickstarter.
Do you guys have any gameplay to show? Just showing off fancy 3d models wont do. Something that makes thousands of people to believe that you are capable to fill your promises and make a game that they want.

What amazed me the most was how unrealistic all the discussion here was until Xaron and Sung came here and raised some valid points. Sadly the answers were not so good because it is easy to talk how you "theoretically" implement this or that until you reach into real development cycle and realize how wrong you are.
These features you talk are unrealistic and cannot be done with a small team. And maybe its just me but i did not see them attacking you. They are just stating the truth that these features are unrealistic. If game designer is already talking about these kind of features (even if there is no game yet) then there is a high change that he actually dont know about game development that much.

Do yourself a favour and before you start to make such a big game try to make a simple arcade subsim game where you just shoot boxes trough periscope. No fancy AI,3D or simulation. This way you can see if you and your team have enough organization and skills to actually finish something.

And i would take very seriously what Xaron and Sung are talking. You know why? Because they were actually able to finish something. I did not know who they were unitl someone here dissed their own game. Then i discovered that they were the guys who develop Silent Depth. A game that i play on my android almost every day. EDIT4: <--- FAIL. I confused the game for Silent Subarine :/\\!!
This was the point were i got really angry. Here it is a situation where bunch of guys who have made nothing are gearing up for the next big project and when someone who has actually released several games before are giving their critical, constructive, and realistic feedback are getting their game LOL-ed and they are being called trolls because on for some reason you think that they wish you to fail.

One thing you need to understand is that game development is boring. You and your team may be super motivated at first and you may manage to make 80% of the game pretty quickly but then comes the other 80% when you realize that the last 20% turns into 80% of the boring work that you had not accounted for.
And then you are out of funding and motivation. You start to cut out features and your entire game vision suffers until it turns into something else. Something simple, a simple game with full of unfinished and buggy features. Then you realize that you have wasted 60% of the development time on those features because they do not work as itended. A mistake that could be easilly avoided if you had set and planned realistic expectations from the first day. Then one of two happens. The community will be very angry or they just dont care. You better hope that they would be angry because this means that your game would still have potential. Look at SH5. Big team did work for a year and turned out an unfinished buggy game. And they already had an engine codebase to work on.

I would wish, i would kiss, i would thank with all my heart if i had someone like Xaron or Sung who brought me down to earth 5 years ago when i started Unity and making my new crazy ideas. I have tons of finished projects that are crap and i will never show it to anyone. I have even more unfinished crap and i have some work that are finished that i am not particularly proud of.

To prove that i am a developer and not some anonymous "know it all"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10WgC8i-A8s&feature=c4-overview&list=UURWxf6kDAUtenu-ApJ5WxFA <--- unfinished Oculus Rift multiplayer prototype.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JRicJPcp_g&feature=c4-overview&list=UURWxf6kDAUtenu-ApJ5WxFA <--- VRJam entry that is my spare time project with a solid plan to finish it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwVmLTNwvOg <--- First revision of finished battle visualisation project. We are improving it constantly

So lastly i would like to say that in no way i am trying to troll or demotivate you. I would not waste 30 minutes of my time to write this lengthy post if i would not care. I wish nothing more than you to prove me wrong and make one kick-ass perfect game. The thing is that i have seen this one too many times. I have been on that road myself. Granted its a good learning experience but seeing as other members here (who do not know about game development) may take your words a little bit too seriously and areleady certain that they are going to see next great game coming from you in the next few years.

BTW: If i like what i see in your Kickstarter then i am certainly going to support this project. :salute:

All the best of luck for you and your team.

EDIT: Oh and please could you answer Xaron questions? These are all valid issuses that needs to be adressed if you want a coherent game.

EDIT2: I totally forgot to mention Vic20. A very talented developer who i respect with all my heart. He has been trying to make iPhone submarine simulator. He's inital plan was to release it 2011 but now in 2013 his game is "its ready when its ready" status.
My point? Even the talented smart developers are not sometimes able to forsee all the issues that they might have with game development and once these issues will arise you have to account for motivation and finance. I suggest you to contact him, he could be a perfect mentor and maybe he would help you to avoid some pitfalls. He's current wip looks wonderful http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ_YFmgWCMY


EDIT3: http://makegames.tumblr.com/post/1136623767/finishing-a-game <--- a very good article about making and finishing a game

[raymond6751]

Hans

All that being said, I hope you won't lose heart. Give up on this community, but don't give up on your dream.

The only mistake that you made, I think, was mentioning kickstarter fund raising. It is too soon for that. People just think "money grab" and get upset.

Stick with your project!! Don't listen to the negative. There was a time when people were saying 'personal computers will never succeed' and also 'the Internet?'.

Every successful game started with some doubters. Every inventor faced ridicule. Even famous artists have their detractors. Keep going.
:/\\!!

[Gotmilk]

Really? You put your title : yada yada and then keep feeding him "self help book" style of encouragement??? :)

but don't give up on your dream -- thats right. Always keep your dreams in mind and work towards the goals. Just keep them realistic and go step by step.

The only mistake that you made, I think, was mentioning kickstarter fund raising. It is too soon for that. People just think "money grab" and get upset. - Nope. No one cares about that. We are discussing about the game and what can be realstically done. Heck even big games studios tend to over promise :)

Don't listen to the negative. -- always listen to the negative. I know its not what you want to hear but you have to see the other side of the coin. You can only ignore negative when its done with bad itentions. Someone wants to fail, talk rubbish to demotivate you. Sometimes it may be hard to tell them apart. Which one is constructive negative feedback and which one is not.



There was a time when people were saying 'personal computers will never succeed' and also 'the Internet?'. -- I dont see what this has to do anything with successful game development?


Every successful game started with some doubters. -- Not to mention that only 10% of the released indie games are usually the succesful ones. So in order for you to get a chance to be successful you have to release a game first which is a huge challenge itself.

Even famous artists have their detractors -- No artist has ever becaome famous buy saying "i will do this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this" and get "you go boy, thats the spirit" attitude from everyone. Usually they become famous after they release something spectacular. No matter how much the "self help book" may try to persuade you... we all cant be Einsteins or Picassos :)

[v-i-c-]

…
EDIT2: I totally forgot to mention Vic20. A very talented developer who i respect with all my heart. He has been trying to make iPhone submarine simulator. He's inital plan was to release it 2011 but now in 2013 his game is "its ready when its ready" status.
My point? Even the talented smart developers are not sometimes able to forsee all the issues that they might have with game development and once these issues will arise you have to account for motivation and finance. I suggest you to contact him, he could be a perfect mentor and maybe he would help you to avoid some pitfalls. He's current wip looks wonderful http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ_YFmgWCMY



:huh: Thank you for the flowers :)

Actually Hans and I are in contact since 15 months…
You are right in many points, especially the Pareto principle (80-20 rule).

The feature list of their project is huge and I personally doubt they will add all those features in the initial release, maybe a lot of features will never see the light of the day - but it is possible to do this if you have time and money. I think naturally they will add and drop features and ideas during development.

Who knows how well a good prepared kickstarter campaign for this project might end? With a nice budget they could add more developers to their team - this would help fighting the time problem. From what I've seen they have made great game assets and I think their art department is capable to handle the amount of work. This is also a great plus for the kickstarter campaign. With all their art they could prepare some decent basic scene footage for the presentation.

This project is a challenge, but as any challenge you won't know how it ends unless you try to do it. This project stands and falls on the quality and quantity of the team. I am sure they will rethink features over time - this is just the beginning of ATWAR.

You've mentioned WOTA and its damned release date. It is in development since almost five years now - the first version of it will be released in april 2014. I can't count how often I've scrapped FINISHED elements of the game and each time it was the right decision because the new solution was much better.

In one point you absolutely can't compare WOTA to this project: I have to fight the comparable low performance and the limitations of mobile devices. This takes a lot of time. And while doing this the mobile devices evolve, offering new chances and new opportunities for features. ATWAR does not need to fight those issues - the performance of desktop computers is already capable to handle such a project.

My main problem are not development issues, my main problem is time. As a single developer there are way too many other things stealing my time. If ATWAR starts with a decent funding they will avoid a lot of problems.
I've tried to fund WOTA by creating WotP (a flight sim based on the blade element theory) - this was a terrible mistake because it turned out the potential of WotP was too good to waste it by doing it quickly - I've almost lost a full year. And the other titles I've released are just not selling good enough to fund WOTA.

They say the development of ATWAR is estimated to take 3 years, this is not a lot of time for development but it is a lot of time to learn things they just can't learn without trying them and to announce changes. And I think one thing is pretty clear: this has the potential to end as the start of the next generation of WW2 sub sims on the desktop - not because of their list of features - just because they are doing it and almost no one else is seriously working on the genre anymore (excuse me SHO…), the evolution of hardware and performance is their best friend.

[v-i-c-]

- Nope. No one cares about that. We are discussing about the game and what can be realstically done. Heck even big games studios tend to over promise :)


I think people should not discuss if a feature can be realistically be done - this is the job of the ATWAR team.

People should discuss if they WANT or don't want a feature and why, ask for features and mostly give feedback from a players point of view only.

Regarding development itself (except historically accurate 3D models), there are many other much more useful developer forums out there.

[Hans Witteman]

Hi shipmates,

Well many thing are going on in the back stage and many would be surprise about how good the news are for ATWAR so one thing is certain is that if i want to show you what we have done so far then i will have to work instead of arguing with people in this thread.

I am already overload with work and will be more available to go in detail upon website launch but all i can say is that many will be very surprise about our progress!

The team is currently working very hard and the moral is high.

On the positive side of thing i had the pleasure to take our first plane(B-24 Liberator) for a flight this morning and the flight physic handling is really realistic and i have play a lot of Il2 so i know what i am talking about here.
Kudos to Chris&John for this first but exciting test in game.:Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

P.S. Very interesting people are currently following our progress very closely.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Gotmilk]

Congrats on the progress!

And thank you v-i-c for answering because you brought up some very good arguments.

Hans i dont know if you are aware of it but few weeks back someone released UnityFS into assetstore. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/11321
It it supposed to be currently the best flight simulator engine available on Unity and the developer of this project is also a real life pilot.
Take a loot at their webplayer demo. It is pretty neat.

Also do you have any plans to add oculus rift support for your game? It could attract much more attention from oculus community. They are starving for new games :) It may help you get more attention for your kickstarter campaign.
All you have to do is to drag and OR camera prefab into a scene. I have a rift and can help you create a demo video for your campaign if you wish.

[Hans Witteman]

Congrats on the progress!

And thank you v-i-c for answering because you brought up some very good arguments.

Hans i dont know if you are aware of it but few weeks back someone released UnityFS into assetstore. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/11321
Its it supposed to be currently the best flight simulator engine available on Unity and the developer of this project is also a real life pilot.
Take a loot at their webplayer demo. It is pretty neat.

Hi Milk,

Thank and that exactly what we are using at the moment, this is a time saver and would need custom tweaking for more advance features but it will save us a lot of work.

I was very surprise about the realistic flight behavior and my first try i was able to take off smoothly, i didn't test it extensively but i think stall was not model.

That what i like about Unity why reinventing the wheel when something is available at very reasonable price and with some extra programing magic it will be perfect for ATWAR.

Oh well now i have to setup cockpit instruments for both my Heinkel 111 and bf 109 and finish coding the shader i was working on for instruments.

By the way nice work you did on these videos really impressive!

Since you use Unity in production do you have any serious recommendation regarding if Unity is robust enough to handle our type of Sim?

My main fear is not having access to source code and i also know it doesn't work well for big team work + a couple annoyances i found out when i was working on my RPG.

I have ask many questions regarding this but since each type of game is very different then you never get the right answer for this.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

I think people should not discuss if a feature can be realistically be done - this is the job of the ATWAR team.

People should discuss if they WANT or don't want a feature and why, ask for features and mostly give feedback from a players point of view only.

Regarding development itself (except historically accurate 3D models), there are many other much more useful developer forums out there.

Hi Vic,

I couldn't have said it better myself since if we start arguing over and over i will spent more time answering here then working on ATWAR.

People will understand soon enough why all these features are possible and the reason why and how they will be integrated but for the moment we cannot talk about it until the website will be going live.

Regards Hans

[Sung]

Since you use Unity in production do you have any serious recommendation regarding if Unity is robust enough to handle our type of Sim?


Hans of course.
But this question can be answerd by your Unity programmer.

Daniel Calin : Daniel have also work on the SH series and he is experience in both programing and senior 3d&2d GUI with
3 years of experience in Unity.

Think about the 80/20 rule.
Its easy to bring something on screen. But there will be no "makegame.exe"

Good luck :yep:

[Gotmilk]

Since you use Unity in production do you have any serious recommendation regarding if Unity is robust enough to handle our type of Sim?

My main fear is not having access to source code and i also know it doesn't work well for big team work + a couple annoyances i found out when i was working on my RPG.

team

I had the exact same question when i started my battle visualisation project. I needed thousands of soldiers running around and people kept telling me that Unity cannot handle it. That only Total War engine is capable of this and this engine was built ground up for that purpose.
On the other hand i did not want to start to develop my own engine or borrow an open source solution because then i would be still developing the stuff that Unity already has (and i would probably never finish it) .
Unity has hundreds of developers who work hard every day to make this engine better.

So i decided to use unity and soon enough i found out that almost in every case there are tips, tricks and cheats that will enable to you to achieve the result you are after. I could have thousands of soldiers, i just had to write a smart code that switched some geometry, ai, pathseeking stuff to lower level when camera was further. And now with Unity4.3 beta they have optimized the skinned mesh renderer and i plugged it into my project and have 30 fps with 10k characters.

So yes i am 99% certain that Unity will be suitable for your project. There may be some stuff that are harder to do because you dont have low level access but there are almost always workarounds from this. As a simulation game you really have to simulate stuff that your player sees. The further the object is the less simulation cycles it needs. Also thanks to the popularity of the engine you already get access to modules like flight sim engine. You have already saved hundreds of manhours and thousands of dollars from that. The same applies for GUI system, AI systems,lighting, shaders, visual editors (if you want to use them). There are just too many already done good things for you to lose if you are not going to use unity. And most important is that you get things done.

If still in doubt then just look what v-i-c has achieved with Unity. Hes has a good looking game (which in my mind is not a game but a submarine simulator) that runs on iPhone. If he can achieve that with Unity then you can certainly achieve your vision on powerful computer. You can set the goals "Chris Roberts style" where you are developing your game for a 2 -3 year future gaming computer. And maybe v-i-c can license you his ocean system. It may be not so hardcore as triton but it looks good and has the right feel to it.

As for a team size i cant really say much because i have no experience. My team has a 3 people. 2 Artsist who dont use Unity and me who does code and other stuff. But i know that there are bigger studios 15 - 20 studios who are using Unity. They have their own team workflow pipeline created and by doing some research i am certain you guys manage to work something out.

I also suggest to check this out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9aeNtKKXeo This is a huge project and they are giving very good workflow tips on how to not go crazy :)


BTW: I dont know if you noticed but i edited my previous post asking about Oculus Rift support. Since your kickstarter will be for he niche market then i think that adding primitive oculus support may help you find more attention outside of the subsim community. I am very active in Oculus community and its full of passionate people who are starving for top quality games that can be played in virtual reality.

EDIT: Since you already have a lot of good quality models may i suggest skyshop plugin. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/8880 This one is the best lighting solution. You can easily plug it into your game. Even if you wont use it in final game you can still make near photorealistic turntables for ships and distribute these as interactive "thank you's" for your backers :)

[Onkel Neal]

Hans of course.
But this question can be answerd by your Unity programmer.

Daniel Calin : Daniel have also work on the SH series and he is experience in both programing and senior 3d&2d GUI with
3 years of experience in Unity.

Think about the 80/20 rule.
Its easy to bring something on screen. But there will be no "makegame.exe"

Good luck :yep:

I think he was asking you, do you have any recommendation?

[v-i-c-]

So yes i am 99% certain that Unity will be suitable for your project. There may be some stuff that are harder to do because you dont have low level access but there are almost always workarounds from this. As a simulation game you really have to simulate stuff that your player sees. The further the object is the less simulation cycles it needs. Also thanks to the popularity of the engine you already get access to modules like flight sim engine. You have already saved hundreds of manhours and thousands of dollars from that. The same applies for GUI system, AI systems,lighting, shaders, visual editors (if you want to use them). There are just too many already done good things for you to lose if you are not going to use unity. And most important is that you get things done.

Since you use Unity in production do you have any serious recommendation regarding if Unity is robust enough to handle our type of Sim?

My main fear is not having access to source code and i also know it doesn't work well for big team work + a couple annoyances i found out when i was working on my RPG.


If you want you can have access to the source code of Unity - but this is expensive (price on application).
But I doubt you will ever need that. You can do almost everything by writing your own plug ins anyway.

As Gotmilk said you have easy access to a lot of solutions - but a lot of them will be useless for you. Most complex 3rd party assets I have seen don't have simulation (and simulating giant worlds/terrains) in mind. For example you can completely forget the Unity terrain for your purpose.
So everything you can expect are nice helper tools and time savers, but almost nothing that will really help you with the core of your simulation and game world. And those that are helpful often need code changes to really fit to your needs (so next update may break your changes)

I personally use Unity mostly as a kind of Organizer that extremely simplifies my work because it offers all the basic stuff and PhysX without too many restrictions. It's an absolutely professional and smart tool with a lot of nice extra features that even helps beginners to do something. But 99% of the day you will write your own code.

There are sometimes some traps with really basic stuff and performance that you would not expect. But that's something you just need to find out to avoid it.


I quote this for truth:


Think about the 80/20 rule.
Its easy to bring something on screen. But there will be no "makegame.exe"



My conclusion: You can definitely use Unity for ATWAR. You will write your own engine around the basic Unity features anyway.




Hans i dont know if you are aware of it but few weeks back someone released UnityFS into assetstore. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/11321
It it supposed to be currently the best flight simulator engine available on Unity and the developer of this project is also a real life pilot.
Take a loot at their webplayer demo. It is pretty neat.


Thank and that exactly what we are using at the moment, this is a time saver and would need custom tweaking for more advance features but it will save us a lot of work. I was very surprise about the realistic flight behavior and my first try i was able to take off smoothly, i didn't test it extensively but i think stall was not model.


Regarding UnityFS, this looks indeed like an impressive package if someone wants to quickly create a flight sim/game.

But as with many assets on the store it seems that the developer paid too much attention to (excuse me) unexperienced developers. Seriously something like cockpits, gauges and moving lifting devices is not what you should work on when making an asset for other developers - most developers would always want (or quickly realize that they want) to use their own solutions for that. At the end this might be a waste of time for both the asset developer and his customers.

I've talked a bit with the developer of UnityFS when he fist announced it some months ago - because I've announced my own UniFDM two years ago but did not want to release it before WotP is released - so I never prepared (made it ready for easy usage) UniFDM for the Store.
First it seemed his solution is almost identical to mine, at least this was the result of our talk, but something must be different and (I don't like to say that but it's my opinion) I absolutely don't like the feeling how it flies (when trying the web player). It feels too much like flying on rails. Ok, I am not a real life pilot, but I am addicted to flight sims and have about 12.000 hours of simulated flight. So I think I know at least what most fans of the genre would expect.

Certainly everything of the extra detailed physics I wanted to include in UniFDM is also missing in UnityFS. It also does not offer any simulation of damage. A problem that might result from the two different worlds of flight sim fans: combat and non combat. Even X-Plane does not support (combat) damage and it looks like Austin does not want to ever include it. In worst case you might wait a lot of time to see some important missing features (you've mentioned way it handles stall) in UnityFS because the developer could be biased in a way like Austin is: to civil (bus driver) flight and easy usage by adding another cockpit feature or something similar that you could implement on your own without getting into the core of the physics.

For me most impressive is his plane maker tool, and I did not work on a solution for that yet (I am building my planes with the X-Plane Editor and convert it into my own format).

This is maybe a bit of a hardcore example but again this is something I won't go for with a 3rd party tool. I would always prefer my own solutions if possible.

Here is a video showing UniFDM in action. Just ignore the bad prototype graphics, this was just for testing it.
The engine is (like in UnityFS) just a primitive controllable thrust without any simulated engine physics (which is something that in my opinion is an absolute must for such an asset). A primitive way to visualize the forces is shown at 1 minute 17 seconds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-_yhdGtbRk

Maybe I will release it someday after WOTA is finished.

And maybe v-i-c can license you his ocean system. It may be not so hardcore as triton but it looks good and has the right feel to it.

My ocean is optimized for PowerVR SGX. It's the result of a lot (uncountable) of work and testing. And it requires the other parts of my game world to run.

It would be hard to set a price and it is one of the core elements of WOTA. So it's not for sale.

Also it does not make any sense on the desktop because you could do something MUCH better pretty quickly on desktop hardware.


EDIT: Since you already have a lot of good quality models may i suggest skyshop plugin. This one is the best lighting solution. You can easily plug it into your game.

Unfortunately Skyshop won't work with a game like ATWAR. It works great for game levels only but not for huge procedural terrains and real time sky simulation. It needs to calculate special prepared cube maps, and these calculations are not possible in real time at all within the next years.
But this is a good example for things that will need your own very special (and tricky) reduced solution for sims like ATWAR… if you want to do something like that.

Hi Vic,

I couldn't have said it better myself since if we start arguing over and over i will spent more time answering here then working on ATWAR.


Well, I should better remember my own words and stop the developer babble. :haha:

[Hans Witteman]

I had the exact same question when i started my battle visualisation project. I needed thousands of soldiers running around and people kept telling me that Unity cannot handle it. That only Total War engine is capable of this and this engine was built ground up for that purpose.
On the other hand i did not want to start to develop my own engine or borrow an open source solution because then i would be still developing the stuff that Unity already has (and i would probably never finish it) .
Unity has hundreds of developers who work hard every day to make this engine better.

So i decided to use unity and soon enough i found out that almost in every case there are tips, tricks and cheats that will enable to you to achieve the result you are after. I could have thousands of soldiers, i just had to write a smart code that switched some geometry, ai, pathseeking stuff to lower level when camera was further. And now with Unity4.3 beta they have optimized the skinned mesh renderer and i plugged it into my project and have 30 fps with 10k characters.

So yes i am 99% certain that Unity will be suitable for your project. There may be some stuff that are harder to do because you dont have low level access but there are almost always workarounds from this. As a simulation game you really have to simulate stuff that your player sees. The further the object is the less simulation cycles it needs. Also thanks to the popularity of the engine you already get access to modules like flight sim engine. You have already saved hundreds of manhours and thousands of dollars from that. The same applies for GUI system, AI systems,lighting, shaders, visual editors (if you want to use them). There are just too many already done good things for you to lose if you are not going to use unity. And most important is that you get things done.

If still in doubt then just look what v-i-c has achieved with Unity. Hes has a good looking game (which in my mind is not a game but a submarine simulator) that runs on iPhone. If he can achieve that with Unity then you can certainly achieve your vision on powerful computer. You can set the goals "Chris Roberts style" where you are developing your game for a 2 -3 year future gaming computer. And maybe v-i-c can license you his ocean system. It may be not so hardcore as triton but it looks good and has the right feel to it.

As for a team size i cant really say much because i have no experience. My team has a 3 people. 2 Artsist who dont use Unity and me who does code and other stuff. But i know that there are bigger studios 15 - 20 studios who are using Unity. They have their own team workflow pipeline created and by doing some research i am certain you guys manage to work something out.

I also suggest to check this out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9aeNtKKXeo This is a huge project and they are giving very good workflow tips on how to not go crazy :)


BTW: I dont know if you noticed but i edited my previous post asking about Oculus Rift support. Since your kickstarter will be for he niche market then i think that adding primitive oculus support may help you find more attention outside of the subsim community. I am very active in Oculus community and its full of passionate people who are starving for top quality games that can be played in virtual reality.

EDIT: Since you already have a lot of good quality models may i suggest skyshop plugin. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/8880 This one is the best lighting solution. You can easily plug it into your game. Even if you wont use it in final game you can still make near photorealistic turntables for ships and distribute these as interactive "thank you's" for your backers :)

Hi Milk,

Thank for the input that exactly what i want to know before involving the team in a pathway that could have lead to a major change of direction after serious work has been done and switching engine is never easy and brought a lot of headache .

The video reference is really well done and they go in the detail to avoid major pitfall, i really appreciate what these guy's are doing since it save us a lot of frustrations along the way.

Regarding Occulus rift we will have a look at that later on but i am not convince yet that our niche genre would really benefit from it but if implementing primitive support doesn't required a lot of work then we might consider it and our forum website will surely give us the necessary feedback if people want to see us supporting it.

Recently i had an email from a coder from the McGill university who is currently working on a really impressive ocean model base on the Tessendorf paper that is render on the GPU in unity and i am anxiously waiting for an answer from him since he seem very interested in ATWAR.

I want to thank everyone in this thread for their recent intervention since it seem to have spark the interest of some serious coders for our project.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hellraiser]

I've seen enough...I'm in.

[Hans Witteman]

I've seen enough...I'm in.

Hi hellraiser,

Thank for supporting ATWAR and you will see more soon!:Kaleun_Wink:

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Xaron]

Any news here? It's late fall, we had our first snow here in good ol' cold Germany! :yep:

[Hans Witteman]

Any news here? It's late fall, we had our first snow here in good ol' cold Germany! :yep:

Hi Martin,

Late fall here mean December and i had to setup a small 10 cpu render farm to render the cinematic trailer for ATWAR.

My electricity bill will probably skyrocket!

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Tigershark624]

I, too, will be following this closely and eagerly looking forward to the web site and kickstarter page. I have two requests as of now, but I'm sure I'll think of others.

1. The ability to have two or more characters going at once so I can have a U-boat Kaleun and a Luftwaffe pilot to switch between.

2. The ability to put my own design on my conning tower. I still have an old tiger shark I created for a signature from way back in my SH2 7th Flotilla days and I'd like to put in on my U-boat. Come to think of it, it'd probably look good on a ME 109 or Fw 190 too.

Hope to be able to visit the web site soon. Good luck!

[Hans Witteman]

I, too, will be following this closely and eagerly looking forward to the web site and kickstarter page. I have two requests as of now, but I'm sure I'll think of others.

1. The ability to have two or more characters going at once so I can have a U-boat Kaleun and a Luftwaffe pilot to switch between.

2. The ability to put my own design on my conning tower. I still have an old tiger shark I created for a signature from way back in my SH2 7th Flotilla days and I'd like to put in on my U-boat. Come to think of it, it'd probably look good on a ME 109 or Fw 190 too.

Hope to be able to visit the web site soon. Good luck!

Hi Tiger,

You will be able to have multiple careers in all available branch but you will not be able to switch between a ship or sub to an aircraft while in an active career session.

The conning tower custom emblem is a classic so expect it to be implemented and we will also use the emblem system on airplanes.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[tonibamestre]

Hi again Hans,

What do you tell me about this - ocean model - for ATWAR ?

http://www.virtualtechart.com/home/topic/79-beaufort-real-time-ocean-simulator/

I find it really stunning!!

Cheers.

[Hans Witteman]

Hi again Hans,

What do you tell me about this - ocean model - for ATWAR ?

http://www.virtualtechart.com/home/topic/79-beaufort-real-time-ocean-simulator/

I find it really stunning!!

Cheers.

Hi Toni,

This is the Nvidia tech demo and it work only with cuda and since the industry as reject cuda for the Opencl from AMD then not a lot of game would use this.

Opencl is very promising since it is a lot faster than cuda but to see this kind of ocean in a real time game i think we will have to wait another few years.

We are currently testing an in house ocean solution and it will be showcase on the ATWAR website once ready for public view.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Xaron]

Opencl is very promising since it is a lot faster than cuda

I don't want to be the bad guy here again but that's simply not true. Actually the opposite is the case. CUDA is faster than OpenCL even though not a lot.

All in all it's just a matter of preference. But yes, OpenCL should be favoured because of the wider market share.

Beside that it's not a problem to convert CUDA stuff over to OpenCL.

[Hans Witteman]

I don't want to be the bad guy here again but that's simply not true. Actually the opposite is the case. CUDA is faster than OpenCL even though not a lot.

All in all it's just a matter of preference. But yes, OpenCL should be favoured because of the wider market share.

Beside that it's not a problem to convert CUDA stuff over to OpenCL.

Hi Martin,

I was referring to this regarding performance : http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/AMD-and-Adobe-Show-OpenCL-Support-next-version-Adobe-Premiere-Pro

But maybe this has change recently, thing change fast in the industry.

Regards Hans

[Xaron]

It hasn't changed recently it was always the case that CUDA is faster than OpenCL. I just think NVidia does a real good job there as well as with Physx and there graphics card drivers in general.

Your link is a bit of a cheat. Cuda is there compared with OpenCL on different cards from different vendors with Adobe Premiere which isn't really a benchmark. ;)

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1005/1005.2581.pdf

[rainiere]

Eagerly anticipating this one!
Any progress on the cinematic trailer for ATWAR?

[Xaron]

Looks like his cpu cluster went up in flames. ;)

Ah my evil German Kraut nature creeps up. Sorry for that!

Just a question: Wouldn't it make more sense to create some gameplay videos instead of a "cinematic trailer"? I mean you (want to) produce a game, not a movie, right? :)

[desertstriker]

xaron name a game that has not had a cinematic trailer. I can think of only one and it is the battlefield 4 debreifing ads on youtube other than that you only get the cinamatic on the TV and on the Internets any even Call of duty makes a cinematic trailer, World of Tanks had a cinematic trailer gameplay vids normally come after the game is released and most often those are made by the players.

[Xaron]

Well that's true of course. Should have thought about that more clearly. Sorry for that. 2 years are just a very short time period for such a project... That's why I'd prefer to see some energy going into programming rather than creating trailers.

Again: I want this project to succeed!

[desertstriker]

Xaron please trust that we know what we are doing and all of us want to see the project succeed but we also need something to show people for the kick-starter campaign that way more people can see what they are getting behind.

[Luno]

You definitely need a good PR campaign for Kickstarter.

Anyway, another thing you could do is set your goal to $1. If you set a goal and fail to reach it, you guys will get nothing, and the money is returned to the donors. Just be very explicit about it. Others have done this. :salute:

Is there an ETA on the Kickstarter? I haven't gone through this whole thread. Best of luck to you all!

[Gotmilk]

xaron name a game that has not had a cinematic trailer. I can think of only one and it is the battlefield 4 debreifing ads on youtube other than that you only get the cinamatic on the TV and on the Internets any even Call of duty makes a cinematic trailer, World of Tanks had a cinematic trailer gameplay vids normally come after the game is released and most often those are made by the players.


I can name you tons of Kickstarter indie games that do not have fancy cinematic trailer. Most of them are recycling gameplay footage and adding some post production effects to it. You guys are not Call Of Duty or World of Tanks who can throw tons of money on CG studios to produce high quality promo content.

Or are you talking about using ingame footage and cut a cinematic trailer from that?

[Hans Witteman]

I can name you tons of Kickstarter indie games that do not have fancy cinematic trailer. Most of them are recycling gameplay footage and adding some post production effects to it. You guys are not Call Of Duty or World of Tanks who can throw tons of money on CG studios to produce high quality promo content.

Or are you talking about using ingame footage and cut a cinematic trailer from that?

Hi Got,

Yes indeed many indie games don't have any cinematic but they are mainly not aiming for triple A quality so that expected from the people.

For ATWAR we want the project to rival triple A title and for this reason we are making a cinematic trailer and the cinematic give us a lot of good graphic promotional material for the website and for advertising.

A trailer is not required for a game but gamers are often judging the quality of a project by it own promotional material so if we want to be taken seriously we must ensure we have everything done just like big studio do.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

You definitely need a good PR campaign for Kickstarter.

Anyway, another thing you could do is set your goal to $1. If you set a goal and fail to reach it, you guys will get nothing, and the money is returned to the donors. Just be very explicit about it. Others have done this. :salute:

Is there an ETA on the Kickstarter? I haven't gone through this whole thread. Best of luck to you all!

Hi Luno,

Yes i agree here since most failure i saw on kickstarter were the result of a poorly prepared promotional campaign.

Thank for supporting the project since it is a very demanding and ambitious one.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Eagerly anticipating this one!
Any progress on the cinematic trailer for ATWAR?

Hi Rainiere,

Progress is steady but slow since i have to work on many aspect of the ATWAR project.

We should have some previews soon of the recent work done.

Thank for supporting ATWAR.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Well that's true of course. Should have thought about that more clearly. Sorry for that. 2 years are just a very short time period for such a project... That's why I'd prefer to see some energy going into programming rather than creating trailers.

Again: I want this project to succeed!

Hi Martin,

As usual you never read what we write we said the release was going to be for fall 2016 so that 3 years!

[Gotmilk]

any screenshot to tease us with?

[desertstriker]

Unfortunatly no at this time progress has been slowed by teammembers getting sick.

[happymeal2]

You guys have definitely come to the right place to start a fan base for this game. Nice to see you out and interacting with a community... unlike a certain game developer...

[tonibamestre]

Sure its a very positive Project. We, ALL the community need to push it up to see its birth and even more, give the chance to grow with expansions+ add ons till lets say the end of the Cold War into the 90s ?

[desertstriker]

Sure its a very positive Project. We, ALL the community need to push it up to see its birth and even more, give the chance to grow with expansions+ add ons till lets say the end of the Cold War into the 90s ?
Unfortunatly I very highly doubt we will go into the cold war and stay exclusivly in the WW2 realm. This is not t say however that us makingking this game and if it becomes successful Game developers wil see there is still a demand for the simulator genre and money to be made so they may make one.

Hans has said it the best by saying go where your intreast is and as he is the kaluen in this and his intreast is in WW2 atlantic warfare so that is what we are making and where it seems all our intreasts are.

and thanks for your support even if we don't devolope it into the cold war.


@happymeal2 thanks for your words of support and compliments

[tonibamestre]

Well sorry, probably I went too far. But a further development into other Armies/ Navies is not a crazy thought eh ? Italian navy and French would be interesting though.
And nevertheless to say a Pacific expansión. But guys, one ítem I think should be included into the first reléase are the British CVs available at that time. I have never seen a fully controlable CV in such similar games,so think would add a increased value to the simulator.

Regards.

[desertstriker]

Well sorry, probably I went too far. But a further development into other Armies/ Navies is not a crazy thought eh ? Italian navy and French would be interesting though.
And nevertheless to say a Pacific expansión. But guys, one ítem I think should be included into the first reléase are the British CVs available at that time. I have never seen a fully controlable CV in such similar games,so think would add a increased value to the simulator.

Regards.
We have discussed a pacific option and it is not conclusive but again probably not. not because we don't want to quite different from that but that is a possible option but ultimately it is up to kaluen Hans as to if we go to the pacific.and adding armies has not yet been discussed fully but is a good idea

[Xaron]

BTW it's Kaleun, not kaluen. ;)

[desertstriker]

I blame it on stiff fingures Xaron i normally am good at spelling it. Besides I think my auto correct is responsible at times anyways.

[Xaron]

HA! I know that! Auto correction can become a pain and/or very funny! ;)

Any news when your website goes online? I guess it will be http://www.atlanticwarfare.com ? :yep:

[desertstriker]

No news yet like I said earlier progress has slowed because some teammates got sick. That and there is alot on our plates but the website is a high priority. No idea what the URL will be though

[Hans Witteman]

You guys have definitely come to the right place to start a fan base for this game. Nice to see you out and interacting with a community... unlike a certain game developer...


Hi Happy,

Thank for supporting ATWAR and our goal is exactly to form a community around the project so you guy's will be able to suggest the kind of game mechanics you would like to see in via our coming website forum.

Of course submitting ideas is what drive a community but people also need to understand that ideas doesn't always transfer easily in code, so many time great ideas are not implement because of the amount of work and time required to code it.

Also many folks tend to believe we can add anything like ocean current, wind etc but even the fastest machine at the moment cannot handle those complex system in real time even buoyancy is fake in all game that i know.

Still we can make new thing and take advantage of the GPU rendering capability to push the level of realism higher.

Regards the Atlantic warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

Sure its a very positive Project. We, ALL the community need to push it up to see its birth and even more, give the chance to grow with expansions+ add ons till lets say the end of the Cold War into the 90s ?

Hi Toni,

Like Paul already answer we will probably not go in the cold war era simply because we truly believe that any developer out there should focus on thing they like to do and avoid working on a concept they are not passionate about.

Also the cold war would not be very action pack just because of the nature of that conflict and the only way i would see this concept to work is to make it unrealistic a little bit like a command and conquer game where you can nuke city and use strategic gameplay.

For the moment we will concentrate on the Atlantic theater and when this theater is done successfully we will see via our website forum what could be the next step in our progression.

Regards the Atlantic warfare team

[Hans Witteman]

HA! I know that! Auto correction can become a pain and/or very funny! ;)

Any news when your website goes online? I guess it will be http://www.atlanticwarfare.com ? :yep:

Hi Martin,

Yes the address is correct.

Regards the Atlantic warfare team

[BaronVonChahyll]

What kind of help are you looking for with this game?

Also to help get the site up and running I suggest getting a free Weebly site. you can set it up at no charge to the url you own already. I use it for my company site.

Good luck!

[Hans Witteman]

What kind of help are you looking for with this game?

Also to help get the site up and running I suggest getting a free Weebly site. you can set it up at no charge to the url you own already. I use it for my company site.

Good luck!

Hi Baron,

What we will need later on is mainly another programer and 2 to 3 more 3D artists, but this will be required only if we have enough support on the funding phase.

Thank for the suggestion for the website but we already took a hosting package with unlimited bandwidth.

Regards the Atlantic Warfare team

[Gotmilk]

how is progress going?

[Hans Witteman]

how is progress going?

Hi milk,

From now on every related news will be in the new Atlantic warfare dedicated thread since answering both place is not very efficient.

Progress is going well but we are 1 month behind schedule and the reason is that we are working on many front at the same time to make sure everything is triple AAA quality.

Thing will really start to move on next month since we will have a lot of new content to show.

Starting such an ambitious project demand a lot of time but once the main frame will be lay down then previews will start showing up in a regular basis.

Regards the Atlantic warfare team