The Gameplay importance is easy. Its an RPG Element of course, but thats nothing bad. And i think you get more customers if u can provide some 3d interiors filled with life. Just because of the eye candy.
Think about that point: how many customers did a sim like DW scare away just because of the plain loveless mechanical style?

That's right

DW has some very nice looking, useful, 2D stations with attractive art. The TMA station on the FFG is seriously cool. The 3D graphics were behind where most games were when the game was released, and look even older now. Both 688i and Sub Command used the same interfaces, and sold well in their day. I'd say it was more of an obsolescence problem rather than a loveless one! (My personal point of view; I was a player like you guys when DW was released, I joined the company after it came out.)

It's not easy to tell how many customers were scared away by the visual style vs. the technical gameplay. Or because there wasn't the big publisher Electronic Arts behind the distribution.

I'd sure love to work on a full up 3D interior DW, with gameplay RPG elements to support it. But with a dispassionate look at how much time and resources it would take vs. the expected return on the investment, it's a hard sell to any publisher or company. No luck so far.(sigh)

Maybe the interiors itself are just a part of the story. You will also need the possibility of some cinematic style missions (which remembers the customer of films like hunt for red october for example). The reality deliveres many other ideas about good missions, you "just" have to present them well enough. And even then its hard to tell if a subsim can ever be succesfull enough to attract a publisher. Even most of my friends would stop reading and step over to another game if they read something about a submarine.

I personally would love to play such a game but most of the other gamers wouldnt, and thats seems to be the point about that we can be happy if a publisher ever will release a modern subsim, no matter if graphic or "realism" is good or bad. Just like a big sign: "Attention! No money inside" for every publisher.

Maybe your dev team spent too much time making it look cool instead of making it functional. It's useless for anything further than 5000 yards or so (and by then you have it on active sonar anyways, which makes it nearly 100% useless). And even if the contact is in "range" it's much harder to use than the sub-TMA stations.

See? See!? This is what happens when you put form ahead of function!

And I would expect any RPG elements/3D interiors to have similar complaints about them. This is why I'm curious as to what actual gameplay purpose a 3D interior could serve that wouldn't alienate hard-core naval simulation players, or if the gain of non-hardcore players would be so vast it wouldn't matter. Very few "immersion" features have much effect on gameplay beyond making it harder, or more time consuming, to get information. Or they take control out of the player's hands and give it to an AI crewman, who then must be managed to get the desired result.

Personally, I think a crew management game with 3D interiors and a high level of immersion would be cool as all get out... (but I don't think I'd like "Dangerous WatersVille(TM)" on Facebook!)

I wonder if SH5 on iPhone will be any fun. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

well obviously the 3d interior would be there to attact the less hardcore players.

I still occasionally play DW and am perfectly happy with the simulation since I enjoy realistic submarine simulations and modern naval warfare. To me what is under the hood (like a decent underwater sound propagation system) is more important than the eye candy. However, the number of simmers who will buy what is basically a 2d sim is small. (although if you guys want to put out a DW2, let me know when I can pre-order :ping:)

If it is done right, a 3d interior allows you to satisfy the hardcore sim player while still attracting more casual players.

Obviously, the best example of that is IL-2. When it was released in 2001, many people thought the flight sim market was dead, especially for a flight sim focusing on the Eastern front. Yet that game proved there was a market for a sim which was drop dead gorgeous (at the time) as well as very realistic.

Just as obviously, it is very much a balancing act as you can see with the entire Silent Hunter series which has managed to displease hardcore players who find it a bit light, without really attracting the more casual gamers.

No you're not!


:)

thats true.

Personally, I miss the that 'just being captain' role since some AI crew stations are limited (especially Sonar crew).

I think that's one reason why non-hardcore players might be reluctant to try out DW.