In general, I would agree that lack of copy protection is a major reason that games do not sell well. But I don't think that it applies to DW.

I think that the game in itself is useless without the printed manual, and having it copied at a local copy shop is just as expensive, or more, than buying it here on this site. I think that Sonalysts are still making money with it. So even it you haven't bought the game, you probably want to buy the manual.
However, I'll agree with you concerning the steep learning curve, and the manual does virtually nothing to solve this. You have to figure it out yourself, some way or other, and that's plain annoying. Even when buying a coffee maker, the manual doesn't explain how the thing works, but what I have to do when I want coffee. The DW manual works the other way round.

As for the fun factor: I've stated it above that I don't play DW for fun. It's something other than that - call it enjoyment or satisfaction. I don't expect it to keep me at the edge of the seat for all the thrill. Rather, I like it when ID, TMA and all that work out and I can track and hunt down a sub. Flaws and all, DW is still second to none in that category.

I disagree that Sub Command was a failure, in fact for submarine warfare I find it more enjoyable than DW especially with SCX installed.

Doing some raw calculations:

programmer cost/piece: 5000$/month
number of programmers: 3
duration of development: 12 months

Total expense: 5000x3x12 ~= 180'000 $

Number of copies to be sold to cover the production expense:

180'000$ / 60 $ = 3000 copies

Number of votants on current pool : 70 ~= 3% of minimal sell requirement


:woot:

There's other issues too. Scripted scenarios lack replay value and scripted campaigns are even worse. To do a multiplayer simulation realistically would take hours of time that people don't have. I mean... geez... one time I played one and people were complaining when they hadn't located the enemy after only 10 minutes of play time. The name of the game in ASW is hide-and-seek, so it's SUPPOSED to take a long time to find people, but 10 minutes is way too long for most video gamers.

Especially when there is no intelligence reports at all, you can end up not finding anyone after 2 hours because you search in the wrong direction... Realistically it takes days/weeks I guess? And seek and find nothing certainly isn't fun.

This has been one of the frustration factors to me in regards of DW.

The 10 minutes, was the "Weapons Free" limit in a lot of SC multiplay scenarios.

Hehe, life can be funny. I am currently on travel and just hop in here on the fly. Don't know what devil has ridden my back to jump into the DW forum after so long a time. I played SC and fought with it's technical state for over a year until their final patch solved most decisive issues, at least I considered them decisive, while most of the community was more forgiving. But then my interest already had faded significantly, and while then having a worth to be played SC, I did not any more.

Then came DW, and the same thing repeated, together with the same old graphics engine (although that did not concern me too much), which told me that they had not learned from their earlier mistakes. This time it just took months before I lost interest in DW. The idea and concept is great, the execution is - well, sub-optimal, to put it that way, or '"not convincing".

Regarding the poll: "bad programming" my choice. It's really a shame.

But they set up a benchmark manual. I really loved it. But I doubt that I will ever reinstall DW again, despite my attraction by that electronics environment. Huge potential - but wasted. So much was lost, due to not adding so little more.

I personally feel it was a combination of several things.

Buggy, unrealistic (TORPEDO IN THE WATER!!) and horrible graphics in combination with a very niche market :/

I personally hated that they always yelled torpedo in the water. I want to spot the transients myself, damnit! Couldn't you at least have made it "Transients, bearing 332!" instead of "TORPEDOES OMG!!"

Would've given a lot more feel to it. The physics engine and graphics are just awful. Compare it to Silent Hunter III, which is older and you have a MASSIVE difference. Comparing it to SH4 is just a big joke.

Most of what bugged me wasn't the distorted polygons though, but rather the physics. A ship barely got dented when hit (unless you managed to get a lucky shot and the thing suddenly looked like it'd been in a 15 car pile-up), and sank almost immediately in addition to spinning fast while sinking and then hitting rock bottom about 20 ft before actually touching the bottom, all the while looking like a piece of paper singling out of the sky.

There was just too little effort put into the eyecandy, in my opinion and that put me off big time.

:haha: I agree with you and it's easy to change... it's only a matter of find someone whith a voice similar to that in game.

It's more a problem of eyecandy than physics in my opinion. The sound physics in DW is by far better that SHIII and IV. So are the sail physics.

It depends on the relationship between the sensor ranges of the platforms involved and the sizes of the areas to be searched. I'd argue that in general it's more like hours to days depending on the platform and the scenario.

Are you sure about that? I agree on the sound physics. But sail physics? I'm not an expert, but it appears to me that the Uboats in SH3 behave much more credibly than the FFG in DW.

I'm ambarrased to say i have never finished the Karasea search V2. This is one of the things in my never-ending TO-DO list.
I totally agree on the scripted missions. This was one of my main problems, i didnt dare to start a mission just like that before mastering everything beacuse i was afraid of ruining the mission for me due to limited replay value. But that was the problem, i never had enough time on my hand to master it all (1st son was born few months after i bought DW, so spare time was something i didn't, and still dont, have much of it on my hand).

My problem is that i respect this sim too much that it prevents me from just playing it for fun (very silly of me i know).
But hey, i reinstalled it few weeks ago, and trying to get into it again (did i mention twin daughters are on the way:doh: so help me god).

BTW, DW's guide is far from being a benchmark, it really lacked the general picture explanations about the sea warfare tactics, sonar, sound conditions and so, not enough drawings and diagrams in the training sections like the 688i old manual or the other great guides written by other players since SC.

I voted bad programming -- mainly because there was no way to do an option which said "insufficiently fast time compression".

This also limited Fleet Command, by the way, it's SLOOOW time compression.

Yes .. this is important feature. And DW does not manage to run at full 32x in most late campaign missions.

Sure, it is CPU demanding problem. But I like SH approach with simplified simulation to achieve higher compression.

I don't think it's bad so much on the programmers' part as on Sonalysts part. The handed the developers an arguably obsolete base to work with and obviously did not devote a great amount of resources to it.

So I voted insufficient number of simmers for Sonalysts to justify a large investment.

PD

None of the above. The third option is closest, it was actually an insufficient number of sub simmers prepared to play games set outside WW2. You see pretty much the same phenomenon in computer wargames as well; games set in other conflicts can succeed, but WW2 games have a huge head-start in user interest and hence inevitably publisher interest.