New Crew textures coming...

[Beery]

Originally Posted by BladeHeart

Would not the Sanchal's new model installer do the trick?

I sure hope so. The first things I'll be looking for are new 3D crew models and reflections for the boats that are currently missing them. These are both essential in my view, but the problem is that it's very tempting for folks to get caught up in adding new ship models and other 'chrome' rather than getting these annoying issues sorted out. These things get left out because they're not all that exciting to work on, but these little details are the things that make potential new players regard the game as poorly finished and perhaps less worthy of their time than other similarly-priced games. Chrome can only lengthen a game's appeal when players are becoming bored, but unsolved bugs and errors can kill a game in the minds of those who might be willing to try it. As these things continue to go unresolved, the fewer new players the game gets, and the less likely it becomes that the simulation genre will come back to popularity. I believe it's very important always to fix bugs first so that new players are drawn in, then do the chrome later. In my view, doing it the other way around tends to shorten the lifespan of a game, and to delay the resurrection of the simulation genre.

In the late 1990s it took just a couple of big sim releases that got the reputation of being very bug-ridden (Falcon and Red Baron 2) to all-but destroy the simulation genre - a genre that was preeminent until that time. These days, with simulations being very much weaker as a genre, even a minor issue with a single game can cause serious long-term problems for the genre as a whole. I believe game companies are looking at SH3 and seeing whether it's worth putting money into simulations again. The more we can do to make SH3 attractive to new players, the more likely we are to see high quality simulations make a comeback.