Jamie & Bill what´s about future plans

[wayne69]

To Jamie:
Any future plans about DW add ons or totally new game decide yet?
To Bill:
Will there be another fantastic Chrismas present like last year?
Regards from Germany
Wayne69

[Nightmare]

A similar question was asked last month and here is where it stands that we've/ last heard.

Read Jamie's post 1/3 of the way down: Here

Sonalysts has stated that Dangerous Waters did not meet their sale expectations and wasn’t considered a financial success, so I doubt we will see further add-ons. They are still working on another patch, but they have to focus on more profitable areas with their non-commercial and government contracts. This is why it’s been 9 months since the latest patch was released. As far as another game? I doubt it, or at least not very long time.

[Kapitan]

Now is the point where i can say i told you so

[Sea Demon]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

Now is the point where i can say i told you so

What did you say? You told us what?.......

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Sea Demon

What did you say? You told us what?.......

He's just happy that DW didn't sell well enough to warrant an expansion pack.

[Linton]

Perhaps if SCS are slowly losing interest in providing any add-ons a tactful approach from some of the mod-squad may let us have the game we all want.

[Sea Demon]

Originally Posted by Linton

Perhaps if SCS are slowly losing interest in providing any add-ons a tactful approach from some of the mod-squad may let us have the game we all want.

I haven't seen any indications that SCS is losing interest in it's products. :hmm: They just did a re-release of their older games with improvements, and they are still looking at releasing a 1.04 patch for DW. In addition, I haven't seen anyone from SCS say they definitely will not be making any add-ons for DW or a new game entirely. I think that's why wayne69 asked the question. Just wondering about the future. I'm curious myself.

[Linton]

I plus many others want a DWX.The Lwami mod has been excellent for improving the doctrine but more drivable platforms are the icing on the cake.
Expansion packs such as extra campaigns can be done easily by the community.If I was SCS and had the money I would at least make a SCu changer for the submarines as a start.One already exists and I am sure it would not take a lot to get it to work in DW.This then opens up a whole host of platforms and scenarios. The p-3 could be modded into an Atlantique or an Il-38 but there would probably not be that much interest.
A range of different skimmers to drive would be nice but as they are almost all very different that would be an unrealistic project.
A major improvement would be a western diesel submarine such as a Collins or one of the German ones.An old Oberon would be welcome.
So Jamie,DWx please or a diesel boat ,preferably both for Christmas.

[Kapitan]

In a post long time ago i did say that if sonalasyst didnt bring the game out earlier and patch it and also bring out addons it wouldnt sell well and thats exactly what has happend.

[XabbaRus]

IT hasn't sold well because it is a niche market. Most people who buy games are the 16 - 25 category I guess and most of them are FPS or RPG types.

[Dr.Sid]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

IT hasn't sold well because it is a niche market. Most people who buy games are the 16 - 25 category I guess and most of them are FPS or RPG types.

All simulation is niche .. but SH3 sells well and it is not much more simple. Even DW is simple with Show Truth on. And SH3 with all with manual computing of firing solution is harder than anything in DW.

DW could sell better, if SCS would invest more into it. It is so 'cheap' .. graphics are more or less same as the Sub command or Fleet command, same goes for scripting and everything else. In fact, DW is more or less add-on for Sub Command.
Now it looks like one man is fixing DW and not even full time. Even much better sound model in 1.03 looks like it was intended for 1.0 (because 1.0 model was just way too simplistic).
Silent Hunter which was released later has many patches, add-ons and SH4 is almost complete. You can really see progress there.

To me it seems SCS just don't want to make games any more. It is sad for us, players, but fully legitimate. Naval pack is more like a dot after nice game-industry carrier.

I don't believe in any future add-ons for DW. I hope 1.04 will be released, to fix mostly bugs introduces in 1.03. And that will be all for DW.
Only hope could be that SCS will release no-new-playables policy, or even will give some support in form of some documents how to do it right.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

IT hasn't sold well because it is a niche market. Most people who buy games are the 16 - 25 category I guess and most of them are FPS or RPG types.

Naval simulations are kind of weird if you ask me, because simulations are a niche market, and naval simulations are doubly so. Unlike flight simulators, where you can fly several missions in a day with a high degree of realism, naval simulations are much more slow moving. Take the television review Jamie posted, they were making fun of how a lot of DW consisted of sailing around, looking at nothing, doing calculations, etc. In a good scenario, because stealth is a submarine's armor, it's completely possible to sail around for HOURS and not see a thing, once at least one side detects the other, the whole thing is over in a few minutes.

Personality wise, it takes a certain kind of person to play a game like that. Naval sims are like a nice afternoon of fishing compared to X-treme downhill BMX stunt racing for adenaline junkies.

I think another problem is that there's not a well developed literature on submarine tactics. Anyone can go to the bookstore and get a copy of Fighter Tactics and have a pretty good idea about what a real dogfight looks like, and the kinds of things fighter pilots think about.

There exists no such literature in the public domain, so people don't understand the logic behind the various weapons systems and how to employ them. They're left on their own, so when you put an area in front of people and say, "go find the submarine," I think a lot of people don't know how to think about the problem. You can kind of make extrapolations from some of the stuff in things like, Wayne Hughes Fleet Tactics, or other works of analysis in the public domain. Mostly, though, issues like how to search for a submarine, once you find him, when to shoot, what to shoot, how many to shoot, how to get into a position to shoot, etc. are mysteries. That can be very liberating for some who would like to experiment, but on the other hand, it makes a lot of scenarios people come up with kind of unsatisfying.

[goldorak]

I'll put my .02 € in this discussion.
I agree with Dr. Sid in regards to the "cheap" feel factor of DW.
This in my opinion has been a very grave error on the part of SCS.
They marketed from the beginning he game only to the hard core audience and this backfired on them.
Just look at SH III, its as difficult as DW (albeit in a different manner) but it found its audience way outside the hardcore simulation crowd.
Take for instance Orbiter, a freeware space simulator.
That game is in a certain sense way way more complex than DW will every be, and nontheless the number of persons, adults and young children (12-14 years old) that download and play it are if you look at the numbers way more than what DW presumably sold.
And why was that ? Because of the WOW factor, graphics.
Yes the graphics aspect that so many here consider here irrelevant is not.
Casual gamers are attracted to new genres because of graphics.
Some limitations in the game were absolutely unjustified in 2005, for instance the lack of 32 bit graphics.
It doesn't make sense, and it feels "cheap".
We can forgive the lack of AA and AF filters but playing in 16 bit color with all the dithering and banding, is like playing a game of 10 years ago.
It just doesn't work anymore.
So yes the game is great, but it was not as polished as it should have been.

[zeropoint]

Just a quick question:

Is it a simple matter to replace the models and textures in the game for a person with mod experiance?

I know that serveral mods already exist, but what is the extent to which the game is modifiable?

Perhaps if Sonalysts don't want to invest the time and money to support the game anymore (an unfourtunate but neccessary reality it sounds) they could make it as easy as possible for modders to take over where they left off.

[XabbaRus]

I agree with one thing Sid says and that is teh graphics. It isn't just a case of updating models. That was started with SCX and even with a higher poly count certain things like lighting has to be considered.

I think the scripts and doctrine are very felxible and powerful if used correctly.

Thing is SCS don't have the budget that Ubi had for SHIII, also the primary customer for DW is teh US Navy as a training aid, they don't give a danm whether the graphics are pretty as long as a ship looks like a ship and a sub a sub.

I would rather SCS make take it up a level and charge more, I'd pay $120 for a SB Pro type version of DW.