[GoldenRivet]

please do not take the following as an attack against SH5 or its players... this is simply a discussion relating to what *I* feel sh5 is or is not missing.

thanks

Originally Posted by Dogfish40

For one, it isn't a game, so the storyline is not really that much of a bother. It can be written out I suppose, but that leaves a lot of time to do nothing at all. I'll be playing this one for some time.

I played an entire 1x time compression patrol in Silent Hunter III and never had a problem with not being able to ask my XO about his sick wife... just saying, one thing that was great about prior installments in the series is that you could make up your own story line, come to subsim forums, write stories about your experiences and go as deep or as shallow with it as you wanted. With SH5 everyone has the same characters, the same back story, the same crew etc. There is no individuality to it. instead of being commanders at sea with our own persona, we are all basically playing the same role, playing the same character, having the same experience with SH5.

with prior installations we were all individuals at sea, each forum member had his own boat and crew and had his own unique experiences at sea... in Silent Hunter's current state... a large chunk of that element feels absent

Originally Posted by Dogfish40

I play the game very slowly, I use TC sparingly so immersion is important. This Simulation has a huge map, virtual freedom.

As is the case with SHIII and IV

Originally Posted by Dogfish40

No script; where you have to follow a certain path, do a certain thing to make the next act play out. It's not a game like that.

actually, it is a game like that. Ubi said so... There is a specific progress that you have to take through the game, specific ships that the game wants you to encounter and sink, specific conditions that must be met that do affect the next battery of missions.

Ubisoft made the campaign this way... it is semi-dynamic... meaing you can go out and explore the seven seas as you wish, however, the game wants you to encounter and sink a carrier, or encounter and sink specific troop ships - otherwise there will be a specific set of consequences later in the campaign.

prior versions of silent hunter were fully dynamic - go anywhere, sink anything, do as you wish and it is non scripted. comparatively SH5 is considerably more heavily scripted than SH 3 and 4. (perhaps the worst offender in scripting was SH2?)

Originally Posted by Dogfish40

Sure there are things missing, half the control room crew on fast dives are not even there (though the sounds are thanks to DBSM),

This is the very first thing that pissed me off about SH5... the first thing i did in the campaign was head for deep water and crash dive... In ubisofts trailer we see men running to their stations, all heading forward lots of activity and shouting and oh my lord the poo is hitting the fan lets get this boat under now! sort of feeling... but what we got in the release version was pretty much the exact opposite.

Originally Posted by Dogfish40

however, show me a game that gives this much detail (getting better all the time) with virtually free missions. I can't compare this to SH4 or 3.

Microsoft flight simulator X

again, i think submarine simulations could take a lot from flight sims.

i have recently downloaded a B-17 and a P-51 mustang from the wings of power series, and unless you run a check list and read the manual and actually learn what each one of a dozen switches do, why they do what they do and how... you arent getting that plane off the virtual ground

in that sense silent hunter 5 is a game... it is not an accurate simulation.

non of the silent hunter versions have been simulations. perhaps they were simulations on some level, but i would hesitate to call silent hunter 3,4 or 5 a true "simulation"

perhaps these subsims are more accurately called "emulations" in that they attempt to replicate or imitate a real life experience at a lower level of detail than a simulation would.

theoretically a true simulation would potentially involve the player's interaction with almost every switch, lever, dial, gauge, button, valve and knob aboard the u-boat, and the functions of those items would all be accurately modeled and have realistic effects on game play.

i for one do not desire or expect that much depth of simulation from my subsims as you are playing the commander - and as such you are the decision maker, the brain... not the actual button masher, not the actual person who would interface with these controls.

i think for most players of the silent hunter series who have been fans since the mid 1990s... and subsimmers who have played sub sims since the 1980s or earlier... silent hunter 5 is just too radical a departure from what we have spent decades mastering.

then again, i am one man and this is the opinion of one person... im sure there are those who agree completely just as well as there are those who think i am crazy.