Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesT73J
Well, here's an interesting thing for you nostalgia fans. AOD and SH1 had more features than anything that followed. It's weird, isn't it?
AOD had wolfpacks, Milch Cows and all the allied tech like FIDO. SH1 was utterly brilliant.
The reason is abstraction. Greater computing power has allowed more scope for realising these things actually on-screen, but it is VERY hard to do right. We now have the full interior of a u-boat - great - but many other things that don't quite work properly. But, if you were to look at development time I'll bet the graphical engine was the lion's share, because once you walk away from abstraction it is a long road.
Likewise I support the products. Ultimately, it's many hours of entertainment for the same cost of a night down the pub.
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Great post.
The thing is that many things can STILL be abstracted, but modern designers seem incapable of absorbing this. In WW2OL, there is a player who has as a day job modeling the effects of high explosives for the US military. He has for ages suggested a statistical approach—since that's what the pros use. Many players, and devs too, have the idea of tracking shrapnel through the air and checking to see where it hits you, etc, as the holy grail of modeling when "rolling a die" apparently does far better at predicting real world outcomes.
Damage models are a case in point. Instead of all these complex damage and flooding boxes, the DM would in fact be more accurate done like any number of old miniatures games. Harpoon (the miniatures game) has progressive fires, good critical hits, damage control, etc. Damage is a prime place for forgetting (or at least stopping at the current level) more complex "3D" Dms in favor of a DM that is easier to tweak to really match RL.
Some stuff is still better done as SH has it now, but certainly not everything.