Modern sub simulators

[Nexus7]

Silent Hunther V has just laucnhed the anchor...

I am visiting the SH forums with some frequency now... Before the first official announcement of the release, some wished the series to move over to cold war era or modern submarines times...

SH V will be a WW2 simulator again.

I am pretty sad I do not see any movements in the area

- 688(i) H/K
- Sub Command (a true hit with the name)
- Dangerous Waters (ironic name afterwards)

I know Dr. Sid is working on a modern era simulator, honestly I am too lazy to follow the inprovements (ouch)

While Dr. Sid is the only hope for a new modern sub simulator, there is an hole in that market niche at the moment :!:

Did anyone establish a link with Sonalyst Inc. ?

What are they working at now ?

Why did they have to abandon us ?

I sort of suffer in seeing such a masterwork like DW being abandoned by his father. What's the real reason ?

As an incompetent player, my wild guess is bad advertizing first of all.
The stock game version 1.00 was a good challenge.
Jamie did always look like being between the anvil and the hammer to me.

To me, the feeling is they received some important contract right after releasing the simulator and moved the forces over to something not visible.

Finally, I am quite confident that in a matter of 5 years something new will arise...

A modern sub simulator, in a world where information gathering technologies are exploding (google street view), will not remain that much behind.

On my wild guess, it's just a matter of time and we get attention

[Kaye T. Bai]

I agree with your post 100%.

I was hoping that Silent Hunter V would be a modern or a even Cold War-era subsim, similar in the direction that Infinity Ward took with the Call of Duty series with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

So, as you probably would've guessed, when I heard that Silent Hunter V was going to be a World War Two sub sim, my reaction was bittersweet. I was disappointed and maybe even a little upset because there are already so many World War Two naval-sim games on the market, more than I can count on both hands. While on the other hand, there are a very few modern subsims- if any.

Yet, I was excited because of all the new features that SHV was going to have, one being the ability to walk around inside a submarine and see the crew. This was a feature I had always wanted to see in any naval sim, modern or historical. Not only that, the graphical improvements look very nice.

In the 1990s, modern naval simulation games were plentiful, and they were revolutionary for their time, graphics-wise and gameplay-wise. Imagine playing Jane's 688(I) Hunter/Killer on a Windows 95 in 1997.

Dangerous Waters on the other hand, (again, one of few modern sims on the market today), while very fun and intriguing was outdated even for the mid-2000s. Almost half of the content in Dangerous Waters was ported from Sub Command and even Jane's Fleet Command. On a lighter note, I play Dangerous Waters occasionally, it is still a great game. The voice command feature in Dangerous Waters is one of my favourite features of the game, though it could use a little work, even with patches installed.

Hopefully there will be another modern subsim, revolutionary like Jane's 688(I) Hunter/Killer was for subsims, or how Grand Theft Auto 3 was for the sandbox games.

I hope it will only be a matter of time.

[Shearwater]

I agree with most of what you say, but I'm actually more surprised that DW got pusblished in the first place. I thought back then that even SC wouldn't sell that well. Sonalysts really should be given credit for their decision to make either game.
That said, I am a bit bored as well of yet another WW2 subsim. It surely won't be bad, but it's just more of the same. Doesn't lose that "been there - done that" feeling to me. Again a company chooses to play it safe by releasing yet another sequel. The SH5 forum is full of people who even now promise to buy it at its day of release or pre-order it Though it's good for the devs, it just rewards Ubi's unimaginative product policy.
What I'd really love to see would be something like 'Red Storm Rising' (I know that there's currently a project underway to make it work on modern PCs). I mean a Cold War subsim (and I really mean: Cold War, not some 'fight terrorists / pirates' on a submarine, and no other slightly weird political scenarios we had in DW or SC). It doesn't nearly have to be as detailed like DW, but I'd rather like something like a Command-style subsim in said era, and it really should appeal to new players. Apart from that, I'd guess that Dr. Sid's Comsubsim is still years away from being really playable. Regarding the development costs of games these days, I wouldn't expect a company to release anything like that in the near future.

[Kaye T. Bai]

I'm still holding out hope that Silent Hunter 7 will be a modern subsim.

Look at Call of Duty. Their games were all World War Two until 2007, when the first modern Call of Duty game was released. Call of Duty was a success as a World War Two game, and it was a success as a modern one. Hopefully this will be the case for Silent Hunter 7 as well.

[Shearwater]

I hope you're right. I just think that the differences between infantry warfare in WW2 and in the Cold War were much smaller than between WW2 Diesel-electric subs and modern attack submarines. Some developer would have to take that into account.

[Blacklight]

I don't think that most people in the "target videogame market" nowadays have the attention span to be able to handle the complexity and slow pace of a modern day sub sim. Out of all the people I know (aside from the people here), NONE of them would ever even DREAM of wanting to play these games (And I've tried to get them to).

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by Kaye T. Bai

I agree with your post 100%.

I was hoping that Silent Hunter V would be a modern or a even Cold War-era subsim, similar in the direction that Infinity Ward took with the Call of Duty series with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

So, as you probably would've guessed, when I heard that Silent Hunter V was going to be a World War Two sub sim, my reaction was bittersweet. I was disappointed and maybe even a little upset because there are already so many World War Two naval-sim games on the market, more than I can count on both hands. While on the other hand, there are a very few modern subsims- if any.

Yet, I was excited because of all the new features that SHV was going to have, one being the ability to walk around inside a submarine and see the crew. This was a feature I had always wanted to see in any naval sim, modern or historical. Not only that, the graphical improvements look very nice.

In the 1990s, modern naval simulation games were plentiful, and they were revolutionary for their time, graphics-wise and gameplay-wise. Imagine playing Jane's 688(I) Hunter/Killer on a Windows 95 in 1997.

Dangerous Waters on the other hand, (again, one of few modern sims on the market today), while very fun and intriguing was outdated even for the mid-2000s. Almost half of the content in Dangerous Waters was ported from Sub Command and even Jane's Fleet Command. On a lighter note, I play Dangerous Waters occasionally, it is still a great game. The voice command feature in Dangerous Waters is one of my favourite features of the game, though it could use a little work, even with patches installed.

Hopefully there will be another modern subsim, revolutionary like Jane's 688(I) Hunter/Killer was for subsims, or how Grand Theft Auto 3 was for the sandbox games.

I hope it will only be a matter of time.

Some games, I like to play them VS human opponent only, I am not sure why... maybe because some games allow to go farther and allow for some freedom of thought and action. Games I like to play VS the AI do have some kind of communication thingies in it that trigger me along, else, are mentally demanding (chess or similar).

The SH series never got my addiction, because lacking one of those factors maybe.

SC did... maybe because of the complexity that represents a challenge to my mind. The core of the complexity, to me, relied in the human vs human engagement only: knowledge and reactyness decided if I win or if i die. The way to achieve can be difficult or easy, but you know exatcly what you are doing, why, and how to do it good, and how to do it better...

I like to think that Sonalyst did a masterwork with DW, even if it was a commercial failure, meaning that Sonalyst raised the pot with DW, a bet on a market where the company was maybe ready to try & risk.

I see DW as premature for the times. I like to think at it as a try to bring flight simulator players to our niche sector of sub-sims.
My opinion was always that graphics count a crap in a sub simulator (the external graphics), but if i wanted to seduce flight-sim players, this factor is very relevant (they "see"... and how...).

Now what would attract those "flight-simmers" ? A challenge as it is a war simulator...