Has the "magic" gone?

[SubSerpent]

Just wanted to see how other folks felt about this game now. I remember almost a year ago this time, we were all devistated when the DEV team informed us that SHIII would be delayed yet again for another few months. The days, weeks, and months went by so slowly. The excitement was too much to bear, but most of us came here for some insight and hoping to see a new screenshot or hear a precious breath from the DEV team that the game would soon be shipped. Now that those days are gone and over with, how do you feel nearly a year later about this game..

I honestly am beginning to look at it much the way I looked at SHII after playing it for an incredible length of time and just about couldn't stand to look at it on my CD-ROM shelf when browsing through them to find something I wanted to play again. I'd get so bored just looking at the case of the game that I had to go to the store and buy something else that I didn't even care about just to entertain myself some more. I know, how sad! Now, I am getting that way with SHIII, and I now find myself depending on MODS to rekindle that special feeling I had before SHIII came out! I'm afraid however, that despite all the hard work and efforts that the community has done to improve the game, I feel as though we will soon run into a dead end without the SDK that could be so useful to build much more and much better MODs.

Anyways, that is my current feeling and I am starting to look forward to Operation Flashpoint 2, Xbox 360 and a few its games, as well as the PS3. I never thought I'd ever go back to a console but damn, some of the games on Xbox 360 and PS3 are looking quite awesome.

[SubSerpent]

Oops, meant to post this in the general SHIII forum!!! Can I get a helping hand please?

[Fidd2]

I remain surprised that Ubisoft ceased patching it as early as they did. In many ways it seems barely half-finished. It would have been nice to have been able to have internal views of all crew compartments, a more progressive damage model, and above all, all the great multitude of apparantly clickable guages and switches in internal view actually work. (The ones where the mouse-hover goes red)

It's a great game, but I doubt I'll be purchasing another ubisoft product, I've had way too much grief with starforce and more still with a recent purchase of another ubisoft product that wouldn't install properly.

[SubSerpent]

I agree with you. Perhaps I am just missing the WHOLE U-boat experience. We should have a fully explorable U-boat. Perhaps an addon or SH4 will have this?

[WolfyBrandon]

Humm, not option I wanted,

SH3 is still fun, and having new mods come out just keeps the game as great as it was when I first got it!

:up:
Wolfy

[CCIP]

As a game, it's still the mainstay of my spare gaming hours - as much as it was 6 months ago. So no, nothing's changed in that regard - thankfully, enough new stuff happens to keep it interesting.

[SubSerpent]

HEY :-? , who voted for the seventh option?

Not nice! :nope:

[glenno]

Its not just the game thats still great . What about the great guys on the forums , modders etc .

[Beery]

Oops, meant to post this in the general SHIII forum!!! Can I get a helping hand please?

Your wish is my command. :D

[gdogghenrikson]

As a game, it's still the mainstay of my spare gaming hours - as much as it was 6 months ago. So no, nothing's changed in that regard - thankfully, enough new stuff happens to keep it interesting.

I totally agree :up:

[Dowly]

I`m just a liiittle bit bored to SHIII.

I`m waiting BdU to assign me to a flotilla and to my first patrol in WaW. Maybe that´ll keep the game "fresh" for a few weeks.

[The Avon Lady]

I`m waiting BdU to assign me to a flotilla and to my first patrol in WaW. Maybe that´ll keep the game "fresh" for a few weeks.
Just you wait!

That's what keeps this game constantly fresh for me! Some WaW members event portray 2 Uboat captains! I barely have the time for one.

[Dowly]

I filed my training mission KTB yesterday. Hope they assign me to 7th or 29th. :)

[Sheppard]

I got bored, and sorta gave up on SH3, but with all the new stuff coming out and now that we've cracked the 3D model code....I'm
getting back into the swing

[FERdeBOER]

What? Bored? Of course!!! :zzz:

I'm in a tin, with 50 rude men, traveling at 10 knots for weeks to set in position and wait for some merchant (convoy? they are real? :P ) to pass close, then return and find a great objetive when I,m out of torpedoes... :damn: That's the U-Boat life, hours, days of boring, for minutes, maybe a couple of hours, of enjoy.

No, seriously, It's normal that you start to bore after many months of playing. And the anxiety for waiting SHIII increases this sensation, but I still play. :up:
In fact, I set the navigation course, put the time to 128 and read a book, watch the tv, make my univertisy homeworks... you can play also gamecube while you wait to your crew to alert you for a plane or a ship in the horizont. :arrgh!:

Of course I play other games, like Dangerous Waters, Brothers in Arms, Lock On... chess. Making allways the same bores to everybody.
You are not betraying SH and you are not poorer kaptain if you left it fow a while. :rock:

[The Avon Lady]

I'm in a tin, with 50 rude men
They're so polite and civil on my boat!

You must be doing something wrong. :P

[Dowly]

I'm in a tin, with 50 rude men
They're so polite and civil on my boat!

You must be doing something wrong. :P

I only have problems with my deck gunner, Jurgen Söllig.

I`m pretty sure he´s an OSS agent. He misses always when we are engaging allied ships, but hits always if there is a German ship around.

Jurgen Bilstein, kaleun of the U-589 will continue the investigations.

[FERdeBOER]

My fisrt officer allways says to me that my "rum from everybody" policy is not good for the discipline, but I allways answer that I will not ask them anything that I would't do :-j

[1916]

I haven't gotten bored yet (!) . It's still fun to watch the explosions and I've yet to live through an entire campaign, so I haven't received any medals yet (nor "unlocked" too many things for that matter). Striving to earn new things and knowing that there are all these mods keeps it fresh. I only play sims right now, and other than SHIII, IL2, and FS2004, I haven't touched anything else lately. Although I do have Rome : Total War and Empire Earth II sitting next to my sims :rock:

[CWorth]

I voted for option 5.

I still like the game but am starting to get bored with it.I am taking a break from it to start playing my IL2FB+AEP+PF game again.Will return to it after a short break and all will be great again.

[deckard]

atm im having more fun making mods for the game than actually playing it,
UBI made SH3 really fun to mod compared to other games i have modded,
here most things seems possible, but requires alot of brainwork to actually complete. :hmm:

[Rubini]

atm im having more fun making mods for the game than actually playing it,
UBI made SH3 really fun to mod compared to other games i have modded,
here most things seems possible, but requires alot of brainwork to actually complete

The same here!

Rubini.

[Archangel]

Still very much looking forward to play it when I fire it up on my PC.

Though I have probably taken a slightly different approach then many other players here.

I am still only on my 10th patrol and in my VBII.

Got transfered from Wilhelmshaven to Brest now though.

Last I saved I was hunted by a flower Corvette, took my boat down to 100m...can`t wait to continue.

My carrer has been very nice so far, best patrol with around 58.000
and running on 67% realism.

Lost two of my initial crew though, both were flak gunners.

[toryu]

I'm not bored yet by a long shot. But I don't try to play SH3 every day. If you overdose yourself on anything, you'll get sick of it. I don't have much choice, it has to be said. Job, wife, child, assorted other things. I usually fire up SH3 when everybody's in bed. Creep into the living room with the lights out, slap on the digital headphones, and have at it. It's still hugely entertaining for me. I'm still playing my first ever and only career, Joachim Steiner, 1st Flotilla, U-49 (Type VIIC), September 1940. I'm on my tenth patrol, my first sailing out of Brest. My crew are getting a lot of experience, a lot of specialization in their tasks and we're turning into a very professional boat. Which is just as well, because the RN are beginning to get more deadly. My 9th patrol, which was my last in the North Sea, was basically spent dodging a bunch of very nosy destroyers. When we got the message to transfer to Brest, I went around the Orkneys, and lurked off Donegal. I hit a convoy, and sunk two ships after potting the lead destroyer, but I got a tough time from the Flower Corvette who was bringing up the rear. He called for air support, and F12 showed me a pair of RAF aircraft flying over low, and bombing the ocean where I was. The Flower Corvette dropped a line of depth charges on me, and my damage repair team had their first real test of multiple damages. But we made it. I dove to 100m, and gradually crept away to sink a ship I'd damaged earlier. The swine spotted me though, and no sooner had I sunk him than I noticed a destroyer making a 30kt beeline for me. He turned around once the merchant sunk though.

So it's beginning to get tough. The ships are calling for help, so I have to be more careful.

Before sailing on this patrol I installed the Harbour Mod 1.45(?) and the Airpower Mod that came with it. I like having a populated harbour, other Uboats, and an escort out to the open sea.

So no, I'm not bored. If you do anything too much you'll get bored, and I haven't done that.

[von Buelow]

Creating custom missions is my favorite part, the campaign is bouring with patrol after partol after...

I'd like some sort of specific target/mission tossed in every few orders. And being able to prolong the war and/or change some outcomes (like sinking a boat Churchill was on) would be a super-nice feature!

[Sailor Steve]

Not bored at all; but then I like sailing in and out of harbors in real time, watching the ships come and go. I like watching the sky and sea change as I cover the miles to and from my patrol zone. I like chasing a convoy for hours, wondering if the torpedoes will work properly and if those escorts will find me before I can do any damage.

I love each new mod that lets me feel as if I'm really there.

Nope, not bored at all.

[Detritus]

I voted for the fifth option. I'm getting a bit bored to tell the truth but still not even close to give up. Currently playing in varying realism settings (changes almost mission by mission, decided by gut feeling), usually between 73-87%. It's autumn 1943 and I've decided now to see the war through, so dying doesn't make any difference (haven't yet :rock: ) and looking foward to start a new career with many mods I've been saving for it. But, nevertheless, my attention span/patrience has dropped quite a lot as well as time I play on each session. I've also found myself glancing all the other games on the shelf more often, especially WW2 flight sims(my fav) . I think after the second campaign I'm gonna give SH3 a longish shore leave and do something competely different, though it will remain in my 'Evergreen' category= games that I keep and return to as long as I play.

[baxter]

I guess I would be bored if it weren't for RUb and all the other mods. New things keep being developed and the game has enough depth to keep me interested.

[Von Scheerbach]

Not bored at all, but I've managed some upgrades after each career.

Career 1 (KapitanLeutnant Von Scheerbach) I played with the stock game, getting to Oct 1942 before being sunk by allied destroyers off NY.

Career 2 (KapitanLeutnant Leonhard Jackel) I played using SH3 Commander (v1). I was sunk in Sept 1942 this time by alled aircraft, again off NY.

Now I'm on career 3 (Leutnant zur See Gunter Brummer), using Sh3 Commander 2 and oRGy's IuB, currently in Sept 1939 on Patrol 1. I may refuse any patrols to grid CA this time around....

[Kalach]

I had enough of it and stopped playing for a month. I came back, installed RUB, Commander, and some graphical mods and have enjoyed SH3 again since then :)

Now i'm playing a bit less, and alternating with some other games to make sure it doesn't get 'overplayed' again. SH3 has certainly made it in to the 'classics' of my games collection :up:

[iambecomelife]

ATM I'm spending so much time trying to mod that I haven't had a career in weeks - hence, I'm not bored with the game right now. When I get bored or frustrated with attempting to make 3d models I fire up the flak gunnery training mission and let loose at those swordfish. Then it's back to the drawing board...

[U-552Erich-Topp]

:)Hello all, Try the mission editor and build your own missions (but validate them first), then host them on UBI's server to have a little more challenge and fun. Good Hunting, Erich Topp U-552

[Twelvefield]

I don't play SHIII exclusively to other games, or even as much as other games, but I'm not bored of it. Rather the opposite, sometimes it gets too intense for me, and I have to put it down for a while. I guess I am sensitive. I had an unforgettable encounter with a night convoy pyrotechnic display. I got pretty upset when I was bombed by allied planes in my home harbor, and I was shaken up when my sub took half an hour to sink past crush depth. These last two events were the result of some nicely written mods, so definitely the modders have added some legs to the SHIII game.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

I don't play SHIII exclusively to other games, or even as much as other games, but I'm not bored of it. Rather the opposite, sometimes it gets too intense for me, and I have to put it down for a while. I guess I am sensitive. I had an unforgettable encounter with a night convoy pyrotechnic display. I got pretty upset when I was bombed by allied planes in my home harbor, and I was shaken up when my sub took half an hour to sink past crush depth. These last two events were the result of some nicely written mods, so definitely the modders have added some legs to the SHIII game.

I hope you are watching gouldjg's work on a new damage model in the mod workshop... looks to be very intense and in my opinion more reflective of a real sub crew... IMMERSION!

I hope you are doing well Twelvefield sir!

[Spike]

You forgot one,Question:I would be happy if the bugs were fixed,check...

[himmelreiter]

I still am happy playing SH3. But this is only true because...

...of the high quality support community we are here
...the modders are doing most of the work UBISOFT should have done

...I am in a well moderated offline campaign (wolvesatwar.com).

It is my primary game I play with, seconded by SH2, also playing in a community: www.geocities.com/atlantikcampaign/

[Mud]

I haven't played with SH3 for a few months now.
Still exactly knowing where I saved it then suddenly another (old) game came along.
Good old FS2004 when I bought the addon FsPassengers and hooked on it eversince.

I prolly go back to SH3 when I get bored and it's good to know that there are many new good mod's out there.

cheers

Mud

[Twelvefield]

I don't play SHIII exclusively to other games, or even as much as other games, but I'm not bored of it. Rather the opposite, sometimes it gets too intense for me, and I have to put it down for a while. I guess I am sensitive. I had an unforgettable encounter with a night convoy pyrotechnic display. I got pretty upset when I was bombed by allied planes in my home harbor, and I was shaken up when my sub took half an hour to sink past crush depth. These last two events were the result of some nicely written mods, so definitely the modders have added some legs to the SHIII game.

I hope you are watching gouldjg's work on a new damage model in the mod workshop... looks to be very intense and in my opinion more reflective of a real sub crew... IMMERSION!

I hope you are doing well Twelvefield sir!

I am doing well if one of the biggest stressors in my life is video games!

And yes, I am looking forward to the new damage models. For me, the biggest flaw with RUB 1.44 right now is that it doesn't incorporate the mods that will be coming out in the next month!

Some time ago, I remember being advised of a top-level gaming studio convention where the topic of conversation was on how to get gamers more emotionally involved with video games. The reasoning was that graphics and special effects are about to equal what you would see in movies, and once the public gets used to that, they would become bored with games.

I don't know if I really agree with that idea, but it set the stage for the idea of creating emotional responses in video games.

You can probably come up with your own examples, but at the outset, one of the easiest emotional key sets to press would be shock/fear/dread. There's any number of memorable shocking moments -- Half Life and Alien vs. Predator (the original games, and to a lesser extent the sequels) come to mind.

Humor is also a fairly easy mark to hit, as in the Leisure Suit Larry games, or Serious Sam, or any of those great old LucasArts adventures.

What game developers want, though, is for you to become so totally invested in your game character that you feel what the character feels. Most first person shooters don't give you much of this, nobody weeps for the families of the soldiers in BF2. Still, there's exceptions: when Gordon Freeman looks into his locker at work and sees the picture of his infant child, it provides a strong impetus to get through hell, if only to see his family again (which doesn't happen at the end of the game - a truly disappointing ending!)

The Sims is, I feel, one of those games that's getting to the forefront of linking emotion to games, although EA doesn't seem to be above linking emotions to commercial items -- more on that in a bit. Especially Sims 2, where the characters have defined life spans, it's a bit of a shock to see the character that you've spent so much time on get old and frail, and approach death.

Brothers In Arms is another game that intentionally tries to make the player identify with the characters. The developers were explicit about that -- they wanted us to feel big emotions when one of the squad gets killed. It almost works, as the game is based on real people's experience in real-world locations -- but if they get killed in one mission, they get resurrected in the next.

Call of Duty, on the other hand, doesn't really seem to make a lot of use out of the characters -- they all seem more or less interchangeable -- but some of the action set-pieces are so vivid, you get a real visceral sense of the horror of war.

In any case, one goal of game studios is to make a game that's more emotionally compelling. Why do this? Games that pack an emotional charge tend to sell well, and people will generate a lot of word-of-mouth buzz about the game. Presumably, a game where you become emotionally involved would provide a more satisfying gaming experience.

And then there's "branding". Branding, in short, is the advertising trick of replacing the form and function of a product with a generated emotion. For instance, you could advertise that Car A has 20 more horespower and 5 inches more legroom than car B, or you could just say that driving Car A is like riding a magic carpet to the Land Of Beautiful People Who Like You And Only You A Lot, which should make you very very happy indeed.

If you can link a powerful, positive emotion to your product, then people will tend to associate that emotion with the product. You don't see ads telling us what Coca-Cola tastes like (although there were those taste-test promotions, but those still didn't tell you how the product tasted, only that one product was better than the other), you see ads showing how happy people become when they are with the product.

Back to the Sims: EA and other major studios are being actively courted by advertising agencies who want to capitalize on the high level of emotion that games generate. If the positive emotion is there, it's a simple effort to link products to that emotion. In the Sims games, you could buy virtual Pepsi and a virtual Big Mac. In more and more sports games, the "fake" advertising signs are becoming real. The in-game music is created by real-life chart-topping bands, who in turn are under contract to a record label, who are in turn are owned by a giant company like Coke.

So, it's interesting that SHIII (for me, at least), has the power to generate some heavy emotional content. A lot of it has to do with the suspense that happens with the game -- it's open-ended enough so that you can't predict exactly what will happen next. As well, I feel that the gamer that gets the most out of SHIII is the one that is willing to employ a large amount of imagination.

If you treat SHIII like Quake U-Boat, you're liable to to come away unimpressed -- the visuals and effects only go so far. But if you can get into the head of the kaleun (interestingly, the most powerful and interesting character in the game is never seen nor heard from), then SHIII will send you on some really great voyages.

[jasonb885]

Funny you started this thread. I was about to post in my IC thread that I think I'm done. I haven't played in about 4 months seriously. Actually, I haven't played seriously since 1.4b came out. I spent two months working on IC and then, well, I never got back into playing. I've never actually played a campaign with my own mod. Sad, eh?

:yep: