For all fairness
 

I bought DW second hand, tested 1.03 and was so pissed that I sold it to the brother of a friend again, last year. My almost exclusive interest was in steering the subs - and their steering was badly broken. I just kept the manual, which I fell in love with from the beginning.

I were with those two guys last weekend. they did not know of 1.04 (they had shelved the sim, too). I told them of 1.04 being out, we decided to give it a go, and then we spend the rest of the day and the better part of the night with it, and I came back on Monday, and tested the subs even more.

After TWO years, I finally was satisfied with what I saw.

I have voiced quite some criticism two years ago, and also warned - and later: laughed - about the ridiculous marketing strategy of making potentially interested customers staying away by not taking care that serious flaws in a prodcut do get repaired within a reasonable timeframe. the damage they have created has hurt themselves, and as was said, sales did not go as well as expected. So, no surprise here.

But for reasons of fairness I also want to say - in public - after my many criticisms, that finally DW seem to be a good, stable, reasonable simulation and that now it makes sense to invest the many hours of gameplay into steering the subs. I might even be tempted to buy it a second time.

Two years! If only it wouldn't have costed them so long. The late arrival of 1.04 may bring DW's subs into playable shape now, but one must have serious doubts that this will revive the initial potential interest there was. It's a solid sim now, but as a sad matter of fact: it became that far too late. The market does not function in reverse time mode.

I am currently busy with other stuff and private things, but I probably will buy it again in spring or summer this year (that friend of mine does not want to sell it back to me now, 1.04 made him a believer again, too). For a full-price product (intially even more expensive), 1.04 is what should have been one and a half year earlier.

My dispute with DW is settled.

Good to hear Sky, maybe I can sink you in MP one of these days.

Sky...great to see your faith reinvented! I might suggest that you look at the read-me for LWAMI 3.06. The TIW being screamed out when a transient missile launch is one of my favorites! Not to metion that I'm starting to like playing the OHP with control of the MH-60 and utilizing the waypoint feature to 'dip' if you will.:up::up::rock::rock:

No disrespect meant, but...there's more to DW than just steering...:yep: How about sinking something, eh? :arrgh!:

Difficult if for example you can't change to the other side of a thermal layer because the sub needs an hour to dive or climb those 50 ft, or rotates on point seven times per second., or you can't change depth levels without spending a day to acchieve that. Not too mention to be able to do turns only at high speeds that give position away imemdiately, or not being able to avoid an incoming in the vertical (the sub eventually raises it's bow by 90° and stands upright in the water like the tower of London) or again - ropates 6 times per second on it's position until all crew vomits it's breakfast over the screens. And when you need to do let's say 20 knots in shallow water in order to manage a turn with a reasonable turn speed, then detection avoidance becomes a whole new ball game.

Hope I raised your level of insight a bit. ;)

But thankfully all that seems to be history now. I did my best but was not able to replicate these things (that I replicated at will with 1.03) anymore on weekend . So RIP, showstoppers of the past. Today I wrote a customer feedback at German Amazon site, and as you can see I gave the company zero points for their customer service and full score and maximum points for the sim, together with maximum recommendation:

http://www.amazon.de/CDV-Software-En...8&s=videogames

Sky...I can't read German. :damn::damn::damn::damn::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I've read the Review ...

Not bad tho I dont concur with everything in it. In my opinion this game was playable out of the box and tho there was the issue with the 1.03 Patch and the weird Physics it was not that big a Showstopper (in my opinion). But thats just me ...

This is actually the one main issue I have with the review ... you let it sound like the game was unplayable for two years and only now with 1.04 it got fixed - thats something thats definitly wrong (again - in my opinion).

Aside from that it was a good review and very honest ... no question this game is definitly not for the uninitiated or uninterested in ASW and comes equipped with a huge learning curve. And you pointed that out very well - including the rewards if you actually get over that curve.

Cheers
OS

Well, I NEVER complained in the past about the helicopter or frigate, because I did not know much about them. They did not caught my attention. As I often said, I see it from a subdriver's perspective only, and very much exclusively so. I made that clear repeatedly. And I, like other players that I still remember from the times of SC, saw no reason in playing the subs with 1.03, if hours of mission play could be messed up so easily and at random, betraying you for the fruits of your efforts, while there were other issue before 1.03.

I wonder if some of those old names will come back now. Boomer, for example, or Brad, to mention just two. and several more said that they have shelved it until it got fixed.

Now, it is. Get back aboard, guys! ;)

BTW, will get DW earlier than planned. Next month. Have started reading the manual again.

The way Skybird put it, sounds like steering was total crap. For me, it didn't feel that way, so I agree with what OneShot said. I thought it was much weirder with 1.03patch - e.g. my Kilo would speed up to 10kts when I tried to change depth from cca 150m to 30m, and before changing depth my speed was 4kts. I'm no real life submariner (pure landlubber, actually), but I don't think that was normal (does that happen with real subs??).

Not to mention Akula's bow would start bouncing up/down near the surface, someone somewhere said that it looked like a drunkard was steering it.

Now with 1.04 it really feels proper :yep:

Timetables, Skybird's way: "this summer" became "this spring", "this spring" turned into "next month", and "next month" finally meant "today" - boarded my sub three hours ago, looking for a ping. :) That's an unpredictable enemy, isn't it!? :lol:

Maybe I was lucky then, to come to Sub Command 2-3 years after it's been released.