SH4 Interview Questions - Survey thread

[Onkel Neal]

When I turn in my Dev Team Interview, your questions will be included.

Cheers,
Neal

[Phullbrick]

Hi all :)

Just some comments about this survey and SH4.

Imho, one interesting question to ask to the community is "will you buy SH4 without a DC2 ?" or "Do you expect a DC2 with SH4 ?"

Many of us who played with SH2/DC (or still playing which is the case on Mille-Sabords), didn't move on SH3 because of the lack of DC2. Some of us are really dedicated destroyers players and never wanted to sail a sub. Thus, there was no future for them with SH3.

Today with SH4, the question remains the same. Will old SH2/DC players move to SH4 without a DC2. Is DC2 still an expectation from the community ?

If yes, I think we need to push this message to the dev team and speak all together.

I have already some elements which make think there's still a strong desire to see a DC2 coming.

We have a survey on Mille-Sabords since last April with 2 short questions :

1/ Do you want a DC2 ?

Yes 91.45 %
No 3.29 %
Perhaps 1.32 %
No opinion 3.95 %

Will you buy SH4 without a DC2 ?

Yes 32.24 %
No 44.08 %
Perhaps 23.68 %
No Opinion 0.0 %

304 people answered the survey.

As you can read, half of our community will not buy SH4 if no DC2 is made. 23% are not sure they will. Only a third will buy the game without a DC2.

Just means to me there's a strong expactation, for many players, to enjoy what they found with SH2/DC and couldn't be recreated in SH3 without the human challenge.

It also means there is a market for a SH4/DC and it could just simply worth the development !

It would be great to speak a single voice and let the DEV know what they can do to match the players expectations ! :up:

When I see we just finished our 3rd championship on Mille-Sabords for 2006, with 5 y old simulations like SH2/DC, it simply means nothing has not yet replaced them. ;)

Kindly,

Phullbrick

Edit : I missed the right forum ! Could someone move my post in the right torpedo tube please ? :)

[Rosencrantz]

Hello Neal!
Few suggestions under. I tried to left out the q's I'm sure you'll be asking anyway.



1. Submarine damage model didn't pleased players in SHIII. Can we expect to see something better this time?
2. Among the players there has been discussion about the immersion "you are left alone on the sea". Is Dev Team planning to do something for that?
3. Can we expect to see some variations within the missions, like photo recon, mining, life guarding etc?


Greetings,
-RC-

[CruiseTorpedo]

I'd like to see some kind of interaction with aircraft or other vessels. Say if your within range of some friendly planes to come over and help when you spot an enemy destroyer, you give off a quick help me signal and the airforce flys over to bomb them or at least distract them enough for you to slip away. Or better yet a friendly warship picks up the call and sails over to bail out their submarine buddies!

[Safe-Keeper]

Will there be life-boats and downed pilots this time around? If so, will players be allowed to massacre them, or are you "playing it clean"?
A lot of fans of the 3D compartments have asked that you "take it one step further" and model the entire submarine, with a working crew and everything, in 3D. What is the current opinion on this in Ubisoft?
Can we expect more types of weapons and equipment this time around (such as rockets, AI-fired torpedoes, and so on)?
Are you planning land units such as tanks? What about shore installations such as bunkers that can be destroyed by bombardment?
Are you accurately model major cities and ports, or will you use "generic" ports again?
Will you be adding anything to the graphics experience? For example fish, dolphins, whales, shooting stars, the Northern light, waterfalls, rivers, animals on the shore, more kinds of birds, the occassional insect, and so on? Will the landscape look better? Will the sea-floor have some details such as sea-weed, rocks, or corals?
Could you implement some "missions" for AI craft? Things like fishing boats actually fishing (dragging nets, etc.), tug-boats actually pulling big battleships out of harbour (or towing wounded vessels home), and hospital ships responding to distress calls and picking up survivors?
While the mission editor that came with the game was very stable and user-friendly, many users have complained about how it is too simplistic and does not allow for the creation of advanced, more dynamic scenarios. Can we expect more features in Silent Hunter IV's mission editor?

[Drebbel]

As you can read, half of our community will not buy SH4 if no DC2 is made.

And how many percent of those people did buy SHIII ? I bet it was the vast majority. And we all know SHIII did not have a DC2 either.

One should not forget people often "lie" in these kind of polls in order to influence game developpers.

But I see that DC/SH is still very populare at your site, I think that is great. Unfortunately I could never get the online game run stable on my system.

But the bottomline is probably that the DC sales where not good at all. But that might be changed by a DC in the pacific and a DC that atleast runs on our system ! :-)


Are you accurately model cities and ports, or will you use "generic" ports again?


When one takes a look at the map of the pacific theater and notices the huge amount of ports and coastal cities it is obvious IMHO that there will be a lot of generic cities and ports. There must be hundreds and hundreds of them. It is simply unrealistic to expect most of them will be modelled accurately. Even collecting data on how they looked like during WWII would be an immense task.

But I expect the Major ones to be modelled somewhat accurately. I am also wondering if they will model the US coostline and some major ports there, or if they will skip that all together.


Could you implement some "missions" for AI craft?


Good Q. I also would like to know if we finally will get an escort from/to base. Since this was starndard operation in WWII and no subsim has modelled this yet.

[Hyena]

I only have one question I'd like asked in the interview:

Will there be a possibility of a 'merged install' with SH3/4? Be nice to have all the improvements from 4, if any, available with the German boats. And then there is the idea of Monsoon ops and covert freight missions :D

[Wilko]

my question was, what is the realistic minimum computer specs to run this thing, my rig is now on the older low end side and I gotta feeling I will need to upgrade but here in Aussie that is a expensive thing to do

[THE_MASK]

My question was , will SH4 be more than one dvd .







edited to say sh4 not sh3

[Onkel Neal]

After 72 hours: Players responded = 1570

[cappy70]

My question was: What graphic engine will the game use?:arrgh!:

[Safe-Keeper]

After 72 hours: Players responded = 1570Isn't that a bit odd when only 382 people have opened the announcement:p?

[Immacolata]

My question was , will SH4 be more than one dvd .


.... why does that matter? Isn't that completely irrelevant?

[Gizzmoe]

My question was , will SH4 be more than one dvd .

.... why does that matter? Isn't that completely irrelevant?

Yes... :)

SH4 will fit one DVD btw. A DVD can store up to 8.5GB of data, SH3 only needs 1.66GB.

[Safe-Keeper]

SH4 will fit one DVD btw. A DVD can store up to 8.5GB of dataWhich is not nearly enough for all the features we fans want.

3 DVDs might do it, though I doubt it. I'll put my money on four:arrgh!:.

.... why does that matter? Isn't that completely irrelevant?Nope.

2 DVDs: Changing of DVDs at least once.
1 DVD: Much more convenient.
[/smartass]

Please ask them if they read the suggestions on this forum.

[gdogghenrikson]

All I can say is....NO STARFORCE!!!!

[ricnunes]

Regading the Manual/Auto TDC I think an important question was left behind:

-> Did you use the Torpedo solution from the Weapons Officer?

This IMO this is very important since it was IMO one of the best new features of SH3 and it's the one that I use in SH3 -> Manual TDC, Torpedo Solution by the Weapons Officer being possible.
Since this question wasn't included I answered "Auto TDC" in the SH4 survey.

[Onkel Neal]

After 72 hours: Players responded = 1570Isn't that a bit odd when only 382 people have opened the announcement:p?

I sent a newsletter alert Friday night, that hits over 20,000 players. ;)

Neal

[Safe-Keeper]

Oh, that. Now I remember.

Three more questions [so shaddup Wilko:p]:
1. It is unfortunate for handicapped gamers that you cannot give orders or go to another screen while the game is paused. For some players, this is actually the determining factor when deciding on whether or not to buy a game. Given this, how will pausing be implemented in Silent Hunter IV? Will you still be unable to do anything while the game is paused, or will you be able to "cheat" by giving orders and such while time's frozen? Could it perhaps be an option that you could turn on or off at will?

2. How will weather be implemented in Silent Hunter IV? Will it be local (ie. "rain clouds off starboard bow, skipper!"), will it be less random, and can we expect more types of weather (snow, hail, monsoon rain, more powerful hurricanes with huge "killer waves", etc.).

3. How on Earth could something as trivial as a movie (read: The Matrix) make people wonder if the world we live in is really reality (I'm going to buy a thousand copies of Silent Hunter IV if it answers this one):roll:?

[Wilko]

theres 3 questions there SK :rotfl: and how do you know that you are not in fact dreaming all this :hmm: :o

[Deep Six]

Oh boy, how do I answer that Q?

What I would give to see SHIV play out like the old Silent service game with modern graphics and sounds.....Big patrol area's , no off limit boundaries like in SHI

A forgiving time compression that starts the mission in base but after exiting you have the "Option" of warping to a half way station.....Pearl Harbour to Bungo Suido is a long long way to travel even at TC1024, and nothing much is gonna happen to you until you kinda reach the Wake and the Marshall islands....Then Japanese interests get a little more intensified......

If you are fortunate enough to get a boat out of Freemantle then warping would not be needed as most patrols were around the Philippines anyway....and the Java straights.

Deep Six

[Onkel Neal]

Players in survey: 2669

AGE
Under 16: 1%
16 -24: 15%
25-34: 29%
35-44: 28%
45+ : 26%

Not many young guys, I read that as the target audience for this sim is not an arcade crowd.

The most original question to date: "why not include a conversational function with certain members of the crew..rest room facilities?" :rotfl:

Ok, own up, who wrote that? (I know but I wanna see if he will post here ;))

[Safe-Keeper]

Question: Will you implement man-over-board?

Not many young guys, I read that as the target audience for this sim is not an arcade crowd.I like hanging out in e-crowds of all people. It makes old me feel so young.

It's also evidence that it doesn't take young people to turn a questions thread off-topic into a suggestions thread;).

--Safe-Keeper (20)
PS:
how do you know that you are not in fact dreaming all this :hmm: :oBecause there's nothing to suggest otherwise. If a voice from above boomed "this Matrix has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down", I'd be convinced. But not earlier. You might as well believ in hob-goblins or an orbital China tea-pot:p (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVQoxrrMftA&search=dawkins%20teapot).