The inevitable Poll....

[The General]

The cheque is in the Post. Good luck seeing that with the state of our Postal System. :rotfl:

[STEED]

Originally Posted by The General

The cheque is in the Post. Good luck seeing that with the state of our Postal System. :rotfl:

Royal Mail that bad, really? :hmm:

OK I may vote but I need a bit of a think and a nice cup of tea.

[Rockin Robbins]

Are you serious?

I'd bet after an hour of fun watching seagulls on the deck or painting an other "from [insert sub's name] with love" on a torpedo in the torp room, everyone would sit in the kitchen playing cards and listening to the gramophone. I might as well stick to last.fm and partypoker.com ...[/quote]

Don't bother me with the truth, my mind is made up!:rotfl:Sure, there are gameplay obstacles that need to be overcome, but there was a different set, just as formidable, in the single player game. The devs seem to have been able to get decent gameplay out of that. So don't count out a possible online game until you've seen it. Minimizing paint chipping, card playing, tatooing each other out of sheer boredom would have to be minimized as a condition of making the game consistently interesting enough to play. Maybe some type of auto TC could maximize time spent in actual life and death conflict. But sure, there's a lot of details to be worked out. If it was easy, it would already be out there.

[nematode]

Even if they'd fixed all the bugs we're still left with 2 full price Silent Hunter games that are essentially identical. Altho Oleg/IL2 proved it could be sold, I'm done with buying the same game a third time.

Until someone produces a subsim that's more than an incremental improvement over a 15 year old AoTD with new gfx, my entertainment $$$ are going elsewhere.

[The General]

I think a SilentHunter Online type game would have to be one player for each vessel. Players who want to go offline will either have the choice of docking at a friendly port (like the Space Stations in EVE Online), or just 'anchoring' their vessel wherever they wanna leave it. I get goosebumps just thinking about this stuff!

[longam]

Online simulation was great back in the falcon 4 days (excluding the CTD).

We always used voice communication, took off in a group and flew in formation. It was cool flying wing tip to wing tip with the occasional joker flipping his plane upside down over another. Then the waves of attack fighters would come in and we would call targets and chase them or long shot with a missile then rejoin group. When it came time for the ground attack it usually went to hell and most were killed or wounded. Flying back together was rare, and if you did land it was CTD, so u never went back up but we enjoyed it.

So online can be a great experience in the right conditions and with the right people and the right kind of game.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by The General

I think a SilentHunter Online type game would have to be one player for each vessel. Players who want to go offline will either have the choice of docking at a friendly port (like the Space Stations in EVE Online), or just 'anchoring' their vessel wherever they wanna leave it. I get goosebumps just thinking about this stuff!

They also could replace players who logged out pretty instantly. Maybe the new player would have to observe for 5 minutes or so before he replaced the man on duty, just like in a real submarine. I'm sure that all the problems could be worked out. It would be boring to have more than one crewmember in a merchie. Maybe one person would control a fleet of merchies, who knows? But destroyers and subs, at least, would have multiple person crews because interpersonal interaction would be the hallmark of the online game. Too bad I don't have a clue how to make it work.

Isn't there an online game where each person takes a station in a WWII bomber and individuals fly the escort fighters? Seems to me that vacant positions there get automatically covered with AI. Lotsa copying of ideas that work there could be a real boost to making an online SH work.

[SteamWake]

How would you handle the vast expanses and time needed to get 'on station' ?

MMO's have portals and magic gates or 'fast travel' options like griffons or horses.

Eve had wormholes and warp drives.

I'm pretty sure these dont exist in the pacific theater.

SH4 already has a multiplayer aspect in it now and very very few have or tried to have used it.

Have you ever read the multiplayer section of the forums ? Not only is it so quiet over there you can hear a pin drop the vast majority of the posts read along the lines of "How do you make this damn thing work ?".

Oh and what about the 'leveling' aspect. This is a basic tool of all RPG's giving one a sense of accomplishment as their charecter advances and becomes more powerfull. SH4 scratched at this with its 'renown' system but a large percentage of the MMORPG society is going to want there glowing cloak of uberness to make there sub invisible when they want. Otherwise they are going to burn out quickly. A step up from an S boat is not going to cut it.

Is that something you want ?

[The General]

@SteamWake

Well, we're just hashing out some ideas here. Luckily, the distances involved in circum-navigating a virtual globe in real-time do not compare with the vastness of space. So 'Jump-gates' and the like are not necessary. The virtual globe doesn't have to be to scale remember, it could be 1/8th size or something. I think with enough players online, piloting planes aswell as Naval and Merchant vessels, there will be plenty to see and do. Like in Eve ,some people will just hang out and be sociable, others will be transporting troops and/or cargo, others will play purely a military role. We're just trying to establish if a WWII, Naval based MMORPG is feasible:hmm:, any suggestions are welcome.

As for player satisfaction from the acumulation of wealth or power, I'm not sure, but BF2 has a simple promotion system that's kinda fun, maybe something similar could work for this?

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Yeah, we computer voting here and there's no way to cheat? Where's the fun in that?:rotfl:I want to stuff the ballot box.

I agree with you that the next place to go is a subscription based online Silent Hunter series. All ships and submarines could have real crews, no more faulty AI, there would be none. We'd quickly find that people are even more faulty than faulty AI. If Silent Hunter is to evolve it has to play on its strengths, and that has been WWII. A huge knowledge base has been built up, a lot of mistakes made and corrected. The war was long enough ago for hostilities to dissipate but recent enough that the technology is still interesting. I just can't see Ubi throwing all that experience down the drain to do a cold war sim.

If that's out, online is the new theater of war. Imagine voice communication between the captain and the torpedo room. The captain actually says "fire one" and the torpedoman actually fires the torpedo. (they actually did the firing, right? I'm asking here). Firing teams could work just like the real submarine. The merchies would have real crews, as would any escorts. The convoy would have orders to be in a certain port on a certain date with no set course or speed. Can you imagine the possibilities? This truly is the best way to revolutionize the subsim genre.

That sounds interesting EXCEPT everyone would want to be Captain.

Where you gonna get a crew ?:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

That sounds interesting EXCEPT everyone would want to be Captain.

Where you gonna get a crew ?:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

That's true. I don't know many people who would want to sit for three hours, pressing Ctrl+F4 repeatedly to simulate torpedo loading.

[Captain Vlad]

Could work like WWII Online is supposed to, I guess, with the subs being one-person runnable, but with 'multicrewing' available, where you can have one guy steering and doing torpedo solutions and another firing the deck gun and perhaps another manning the AA just in case there's planes about.

Generally though, I'd see an idea like this being 'one person, one sub'. If it's based on submarine warfare, though, it's gonna get boring real quick without real people running the ASW and such. If you really wanted a game like this, you'd probably have to sim destroyers, airplanes, and other platforms as well to keep in interesting. There's also the whole 'why are we sinking ships if it doesn't accomplish anything' factor, which means you need some way to win the war.

Perhaps take the WWII Online idea and instead of emphasizing land warfare, make the navy the king. Each side must advance by launching invasions (somewhat abstract to keep the emphasis on Naval stuff) of enemy islands from their own territory, and if you want to stay on the offensive, you have to keep your forward areas supplied in the face of all those rabid submariners.

When one side loses, the campaign restarts.

Oh and what about the 'leveling' aspect. This is a basic tool of all RPG's giving one a sense of accomplishment as their charecter advances and becomes more powerfull. SH4 scratched at this with its 'renown' system but a large percentage of the MMORPG society is going to want there glowing cloak of uberness to make there sub invisible when they want. Otherwise they are going to burn out quickly. A step up from an S boat is not going to cut it.

This is assuming we're talking about an RPG as opposed to a virtual battlefield kind of thing. As it happens though, the SH series already has upgradeable boats and crew, so that would work well as a way of improving.

Want a five-inch gun or new radar or an acoustic torpedo? Earn some renown. That's aside from the 'working for a better' boat idea, which would also be fun.

As a former EVE player, I can honestly say tinkering with my ship setups was one of my favorite aspects of the game. We could have something like that available as well...especially if we're talking about minute advantages, like a .25 knot speed advantage over a stock boat of the same class or what have you.

[JU_88]

Well I can think of one good reason why Silent hunter might never become a MMORPG (or even come close to resembling one) - time compression.
Who is going to play a silent hunter campaign online - in 1x TC?
I wish I had that kind of time on my hands ....

[Sailor Steve]

:rotfl:

"Tony, I just got online! Where are you?"
"Off the coast of Korea, stalking Japanese cruisers. You?"
"Two days out of Wilhelmshaven!"
"Dang! Guess we won't be playing together this month."

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

:rotfl:

"Tony, I just got online! Where are you?"
"Off the coast of Korea, stalking Japanese cruisers. You?"
"Two days out of Wilhelmshaven!"
"Dang! Guess we won't be playing together this month."

Yep...you see the problem, LMAO :rotfl: