Thanks, oh and I forgot Finchou: no, the good feeling is a major reason to why I still bother leaving port for another patrol in my VIIC, today 1½ years after SH3 was released. I really, REALLY enjoy the silent moments on the conning tower, just cruising across the waves as the rising sun climbs above the horizon. At some point, yes I tend to ignore this "graphics" but perhaps it is because they are rather good and makes me forget about them being graphics. Actually, I am reminded every time I gawp at a ship through my periscope and notice the jaggies created on the ships wires running from masts. It is there because the low resolution makes it impossible to draw the line unbroken, even with 6x AA turned on.

But no, good graphics means high aesthetics. And you never grow tired of a good painting ^_^

I never really understood why people constantly need to point this out.

"Too much spoils the experience"? That goes for all things. Too good graphics might get in the way of playing the game. Too much simplicity could get in the way of playing the game. And so on and so forth.

Isn't that your problem more than the game's?

Yup. In the beginning, sure it's great to have 3D compartments, a cheering crowd at dock (complete with marching band), and what the Heck not. But today, I spend ,5% of my in-game time in the 3D compartments, I've grown tired of waving at my fans in port, and the sea-gulls are "just there".

Sure, graphics are awesome, but, it's game-play that's the experience.

Well it is a game problem if you think Realism. 8000m visibility from a conning tower about a dozen feet above the surface and in bright clear sun shine? Isn't that a bit of a problem for a game that supposedly simulations a u-boot skipper and his crew doing submarine warfare on the Atlantic? The lookouts could see smoke columns 20-30 km out from the conning tower in good weather.

Yes, you make your point very well, Immacolata. Now let me tell you why you're wrong... oh wait, I agee with most of it :yep:

If you don't, I will :)

Agree completely, especially how it can prevent one from enjoying a game if allowed to.

The realism issue is an interesting one. To many, realism is vital. To me, a realistic feel to the game is important, but so is the enjoyment level of playing the game and that sometimes conflicts with realism.

As an example, if you take the actual realism game settings; I find playing SH111 at the 100 percent realism setting very challenging but less enjoyable than allowing myself a few cheats and playing at about 70 percent. So I choose enjoyment over absolute reality. And for those that say that realism is everything; then the sim should show us badly burnt, injured and dead people floating in the water as you pass on the surface a ship that you sunk at close range.

As Immacolata stated very well, "realism is overrated".

I agree with a lot of nvdrifter's list of complaints, and there are others as well. I won't mention them, because I'm in an 'on the other hand' sort of mood today. One of the major complaints is the 'instant death' screen, but for realism's sake it should be mentioned that when you die you probably don't get to see your boat sink into the depths, and I'm certain you can't read your own obituary in the hometown newspaper. Those are features I would like to see, but I'm just arguing for realism's sake.

Likewise, if we are criticizing UBI for blowing it on realism, one of our loudest complaints should be about all the time, energy and memory wasted on those stupid external views. How much better the game would have been if they had devoted themselves to a realistic interaction between you and the people you deal with. Wouldn't it have been better to have a cut scene of Onkel Karl himself pinning your Iron Cross on your chest, or your sailors stepping off the boat and having their girlfriends leap into their arms. These are things you could really see in real life.

No, don't take me seriously; I'm just being contrary.

I would have loved to have seen the crew on the deck of the boat prior to leaving base so you could have given them a up and at them type of speach to get them in the mood for the patrol. also when you return from base it would have been great to have your pennants flying showing how much tonnage you had sunk.
A more relastic build patrols in the baltic prior to leaving on your first war patrol would have been great.

It all boils down to preferences
No one is forced to use a particular mod that makes things harder or graphically better
Your choice

I will say this though
The out of the box game was a great idea and step forward
The reality is the stock game was a half arsed half finished release
If I hadnt stumbled across this site my SH3 would have been back in the box on a shelf long before now

Big sales may help Ubi short term but if a couple of months after playing it its back in the box cos it didnt grab\hold your attention then your not going to rush out and buy the next Ubi release are you

Well I am not anyway

I agree with Nvdrifter, games these days rely more and more on eye candy..games companys dont give a hoot these days..money money money...thats why we get patch after patch to fix things..look at BF2 they release a patch to stop people unlocking weapons, screwed up the game so they release a patch to fix a patch
Games back in the 80's early 90's had better gameplay due to having not so good graphics, Thats all they had to sell the game, the game HAD to have good gameplay ( replay value ) due to having shocking graphics ( by todays standards ), these days they hope you get blown away by the graphics.

If you want 100% realism nip back in time and enlist in the U-Boat service and you will have all the 100% realism. OK only joking, but face facts there is no such thing as 100% realism, on the graphics side of the issue yes there are a lot of people out there will rush out and buy a game based on the pictures on the box. That reminds me of one of my friends who has that habit, there are many games out there which look great but how long do you play them before getting bored with them.

Games in the U.K cost the earth and I am very careful on the one's I buy. On the SH3 front I am still enjoying this game and next year I will be doing a bit of upgrading on my PC ready for SH4 and also I am going to give grey wolfs ago as well.

Wouldn't agree with this. As you say, those graphics are shocking...*by today's standards.*

At the time, they were incredible, and got the same "Wow !" reaction that good graphics deservedly get today.

Hell, I remember when I thought wire-frame F-16's in a flight sim were amazing. :)

I agree with John. I can remember when I used to race Papy's first NASCAR sim and Papy's IndyCar2 sim. I learned I could run them in 'high res' which at that time meant 640x480 and I can remember being quite impressed :)

I also think the developers should take the SH3 graphics engine, fix the significant bugs with it, and use it to make SH4. The graphics are good enough as they are.

The focus needs to be on the interface and game engine. I would very much like to have a tremendous amount of "historical" bulletins and directives as part of the campaign. Missions with frog-men/UDT would be interesting, but not absolutely necessary.

I would also like to see the graphic engine split off from the AI, so the people with dual-core processors can get some use out of them. This would also significantly improve game performance.

The other thing to remember is us. :) Well, not all of us but the us that made the wonderful mods! The devs won't have to put everything into SH4. All they really need do to is make a beautiful, exciting, easy to get into sub game that mass markets can appreciate and enjoy.

Than comes the community. As long as the devs have built for us the tools and framework to extend the game to the levels of SH3 (and beyond hopefully!) anything "lacking" from SH4 will quickly be added, improved and created out of thin air by the players. That's the magic of this system. The devs make a product, and let us do with it what we will. We can make it as real or as gamey as we want.

So there will be room in SH4 for the gamers and the grognards both I'm sure.

Subsim: What other improvements can the players expect?

SH4 Dev Team: The most striking improvements will be in the graphics department, where the water and weather have gained a facelift. The ships are totally out of this world, so to speak. Multi-channel rendering with normal and occlusion maps, combined with higher poly counts and larger textures have greatly improved the look of our game.


:shifty:

We've come a long way since Atari Pong, lol.

http://www.pong-story.com/atpong2.htm

Yours, Mike

You can hardly claim that implementation of thermal layers will be "striking" can you? Or that adjustments to weather routines will have a profound effect on the overall experience? I think you are nit picking semantics, and that you will find something to hang your detraction on no matter what. Of course there will be focus on the graphics, thats the first bloody thing you see! If there are changes to the simulation mechancis these most likely will be felt as subtle, and only reveal themselves over long periods of gaming. I am sure that the simulation is as well looked to so that the gameplay experience overall is improved. Notice that they just point at one improvement, the most striking. They are trying to sell the game here on some of those things that will catch people's attention.

[quote=nvdrifter]Subsim: What other improvements can the players expect?

SH4 Dev Team: The most striking improvements will be in the graphics department, where the water and weather have gained a facelift. The ships are totally out of this world, so to speak. Multi-channel rendering with normal and occlusion maps, combined with higher poly counts and larger textures have greatly improved the look of our game.


:shifty:[/quote]

Feels like a game requiring a decent P4 processor, a Gig of RAM and a good video card to me.

There is no such thing as a decent P4 processor ^_^. At 2007, asking for a gig of ram and a 2000+ Mhz processor isn't entirely unreasonable. Simulators on pc's have a long history of high system demands.