I once had a dream... the former Dynamix design team reunited and created; Aces Of The Deep II.
Mike Jones you reading this?

i think this is an important thread indeed.

the first sub game i played was silent hunter II. i guess the general consensus is SHII was terrible. but i don't know - at least it still had alot of features from SHI.

with everything going on in SH3, perhaps we can take it on for ourselves to make SH3 as close to SH1 and aces of the deep. this is why it is so important to get an SDK

we could also make sh5 our sh1 with mods too

nice to see some old school skippers here .:yeah: yea silent hunter series is just like everything else ...just try and buy a gallon of ice cream or even bleach..hey lets give em 1/5 less and we can make an extra .05 of a penny per unit,,,,,,,,, effin greedy bastards:shifty:

Yep...its all graphics for the console generation now-a-days. Why ? Cos that's how software company directors interpret consumer buying patterns. Sad isn't it....made only worse by their rather amature interpretation. I've sat in many meetings where some "Bachelor of Anything" excitedly stands up and presents what can only be descibed as an horrendous understanding of the beautiful field of mathematical statistics.

One only has to profile a company to see that the bulk of employees occupy the somewhat oxymoronly named position of "manager"....so many managers, so little innovation.

There are people that want things done, and people who do things. In between there is just chaff. :zzz:

Good old days, when PC games were major game product and most of the developers were thinking about realism not about fun and arcade only.

The sadest thing is the developers now make game mostly for console your users and PC game is console port only. Games are in this time simply, not complicated, easy to learn (not it is not even necessery), just fun. But its all about money. Its better from them to sell 1mln arcade game for 12 yo console users then real sim for 10k PC gamers.

Totally agree with you, Uber Gruber

Actually, developers were thinking about fun, but what they aimed for was the right balance of realism and fun so the game would appeal to a wider crowd. There are lots of unrealistic or 'gamey' elements of SH1 (crowded sea with tons of contacts, seeing the Yamato over and over again on the same patrol, the infamous red triangle, etc). But it was combined with enough realistic detail that the end result was a well balanced game that appealed to simulation fans as well as the more casual player, and maybe even helped turn some casual players into sim fans...

I never understood why they cant lay cool graphics on top of the hardcore simulation?

Ive been onboard since 688! and it had a little 3d window of your command room. I would dream that in the future we could have crew and walk through the boat etc. but I never dreamt of sacrificing the underlying sim for that.

I bet the devs are looking at this list and wondering why they didn't add any of these features to SH5. Probably too late now.

Its always too late now.. thats all Dev's say, but the next version...

The quick mission generator was lost, but a dynamic campaign was gained.
I still remember how people were up in arms telling, shouting like they wouldn't buy SH 3 if it had scripted missions or a mission editor.
They wanted a dynamic campaign. Complete randomness. They got it, Ubisoft pushed back SH 3 to include what many of the hardcore group wanted.
Really good games, good simulations can be developed without having a dynamic campaign. In most cases a mission generator like that in SH I, or like that found in Wings over Vietnam is pretty good.
DW was "ostricized" by many in this community because god help us it didn't have a dynamic campaign. All the while ignoring the fact that the game had an extremely powerfull mission editor.
Damned if you do damned if you don't.
This is what game developers must be thinking.

Because that wouldn't sell to today's FPS players. I've had friends that have seen me playing subsims. They don't seem to understand that I'm actually involved in the game, without constantly doing something in it. Usually, I have the laptop next to the desktop, surfing the web, or watching a movie, and waiting for the next contact to appear. Sometimes I'll go on a patrol, turn up the volume and go clean up the kids' toys. Hours sometimes pass between one explosion and the next.

It's not the style of play that sells well these days. It seems like now, it's constant action, flashy graphics, go from one explosion to the next as soon as possible.

It's not a matter of it being possible to put great graphics on hardcore sim, it's a matter of being unable to make enough profit off of a hardcore sim to justify the investment.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. There is no technological reason why hardcore features can't be added - it's just that the return on investment on them makes them not worth it from a business standpoint. How many extra units will you sell if you include an intricate manual navigation system vs how many extra units will you sell if you include "ships that done blow up real good!"

SH1 and Aces had a random campaign in the vein of SH3 and SH4. None of them are truly "dynamic" (like Falcon 4) in that sinking aircraft carriers or large tankers doesn't alter the outcome of the war one bit.

I think its more about the ammount of profit rather than suitable return on investment. Mind you, they need to make a fortune on each game now-a-days, mainly to pay the salaries of all the chaff they've accumulated.

I have a theory that if a game is good, and I mean GOOD, then it will sell itself over time. But such an idea would be too scary for a business that has sold itself on quarterly profit forcasts. Their thinking is just far too short range. They have become a profit factory rather than a games company. :nope:

Anyone remember Elite ? The original version ?