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Fluffysheap · 09-22-09, 02:08 PM

Been thinking about first-person a bit and how it could be good vs. not be very good. Physically moving through the boat could be a lot of fun and look cool, but not add much to gameplay. If you've got an action that can only be taken from a particular location, then you as the captain should have to be in that location. So if you are in the conning tower fiddling with the TDC, then you're not on the bridge looking for ships. You'll have to rely more on your officers and delegate some things. I kind of suspect this wouldn't be that great (taking control away from the player never works out) but there might be some advantages as well. Currently there are some things that you, as the player do, that the captain would not ever actually do - like manning the flak gun (or the deck gun). On the other hand, manning the flak gun is kind of fun, and on the Type II, you have to do it because it serves as the deck gun too and the crew won't use it that way unless you do it manually. So when you switch from fiddling with the TDC or looking through the UZO to manning the flak gun, you're kind of breaking the immersion a little bit... however if you prohibit this you're taking fun away. Requiring the player to physically climb down the ladder onto the deck kind of doesn't make sense, because then either the captain is manning the gun, which he never would actually do, or else you're still just moving the player between stations, you're just doing it more slowly. Plus, standing around on the deck is a pretty useless place for the captain because you can't do anything else there, and what if some armed merchant shoots you? Finally there is the fact that you still must have hotkeys to move from station to station, because otherwise the fifteenth time you get stuck on the navigation table, or end up clipping through the hull and sticking your head out into the ocean, you are going to be wishing you were playing good old SH3. Overall I'm still not sold on the whole first-person thing. I'm not horrified by it but I think that it isn't going to really improve things much.

09-22-09, 02:08 PM	#266
Fluffysheap Bosun Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 63 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	Been thinking about first-person a bit and how it could be good vs. not be very good. Physically moving through the boat could be a lot of fun and look cool, but not add much to gameplay. If you've got an action that can only be taken from a particular location, then you as the captain should have to be in that location. So if you are in the conning tower fiddling with the TDC, then you're not on the bridge looking for ships. You'll have to rely more on your officers and delegate some things. I kind of suspect this wouldn't be that great (taking control away from the player never works out) but there might be some advantages as well. Currently there are some things that you, as the player do, that the captain would not ever actually do - like manning the flak gun (or the deck gun). On the other hand, manning the flak gun is kind of fun, and on the Type II, you have to do it because it serves as the deck gun too and the crew won't use it that way unless you do it manually. So when you switch from fiddling with the TDC or looking through the UZO to manning the flak gun, you're kind of breaking the immersion a little bit... however if you prohibit this you're taking fun away. Requiring the player to physically climb down the ladder onto the deck kind of doesn't make sense, because then either the captain is manning the gun, which he never would actually do, or else you're still just moving the player between stations, you're just doing it more slowly. Plus, standing around on the deck is a pretty useless place for the captain because you can't do anything else there, and what if some armed merchant shoots you? Finally there is the fact that you still must have hotkeys to move from station to station, because otherwise the fifteenth time you get stuck on the navigation table, or end up clipping through the hull and sticking your head out into the ocean, you are going to be wishing you were playing good old SH3. Overall I'm still not sold on the whole first-person thing. I'm not horrified by it but I think that it isn't going to really improve things much.