What about SH4 improvements that really count?

[Buggins]

Aside from the fantastic new graphics the thing I am most interested in, and have been most excited by is the expanded dynamic campaign, which we have heard a reasonable amount about. The idea of getting non standard missions, and indeed getting any kind of instruction aside from 'Go to point A' 'Convoy at point B' along with enhanced radio chatter, nets/mines etc, dynamic harbours. All othese things seem like big improvements over the occasionally sterile SH3, the eye candy is just a pleasant extra!

[Mush Martin]

Originally Posted by Captain Krunch

The number one improvement to me is that the game is American subs back in the Pacific theater, just like the original Silent Hunter. No offense to those who prefer the German side of things, but I'm a huge fan of the American sub campaign, so SH4 is a very welcome effort to me.

I grew to love Pre atomic submersible warfare twenty years ago almost
by playing silent service and reading Undersea victory as my first text
on the subject as a History book it had the virtue of reading better than
most fiction. However I became enthralled with the subject and both
Campaigns were Incredibly titanic. Gargantuan efforts

the whole thing is incredible to discover and Although I started On the
american campaign I cant limit myself to just it. The story of the
Battle of the Atlantic is amazing as a subject unto itself also

thats what makes the whole study of early submarine warfare so good
the wealth and richness and depth of it. there are so many aspects
that influenced the outcomes of the Three major strategic sub campaigns
of History.


in short.

SH5 should have Alled and Axis Driveable subs and surface ships
AI subs and surface ships and be available from 1937 from 1946
World wide with US, UK, Cdn,Italian,French, German, Russian, Japanese
Chinese,Brazilian, and other Home playable combatant
countries this would be a plus for Ubi
as it would only have to pay for one dev to cover the both markets
Destroyer guys and sub guys. doubling sales and lowering overhead
and it would pull the genre out of
enland and make it a Global game, Further Campaigning online
would be much improved. including built in VOIP interceptable
radio.
with an SDK released as the gold edition bonus prize.
player and AI weaps should be interchangeable
Torpedo bombers are essetnial.
MM

wadda ya think.....................................

[edit] ooopps I forgot to include the flyboys.
That would be cool online a player captain of a carrier ordering
a player pilot off the deck to respond to a player sub spotted
by an ai convoy and player frigates detaching to the contact.

yeah I can see it now!.

[theluckyone17]

Originally Posted by Aimbot

Be careful what you wish for regarding the crew of ships. The biggest advantage this game has in terms of performance is that it focuses on a few large and relatively static objects. They move, but little on the ship actually does. You animate a dozen or so sailors on a ship in a complex way and the framerate won't drop noticably, but what happens when you run into a large convoy. Suddenly not only is your computer projecting a highly dynamic backdrop, the sea, and a series of eplosions and activity, but also a hundred or so individual sailers running around on the decks. And they all have to change behavior whn something happens. And they all have to have seperate actions and paths, so it doesn't look like a coreographed Broadway musical. And so on, and so on.

There's a concept called "LOD" - Level Of Detail, I believe. The idea being, that the system only draws what's actually in visual range. I imagine it'd be kinda hard to see individual sailors at a distance. So SHIV only needs to "keep track" of sailors on ships that are within a certain range of the sub. Then, it only needs to draw the sailors that are within the viewing range, and not hidden by superstructure or the like. Ships that are sunk at a distant range can skip the crew running around and just go directly to creating the lifeboats.

Falcon 4.0 pulled something like this off... at a distant range, groups of tanks/aircraft/etc. were bunched together, and acted under a "group AI". Once the player reached a certain range, the bunch was unbunched, and each individual AI took over.

So it could be doable... question is, whether the dev's had enough time & desire to implement something on this scale.

[TDK1044]

For me, the Devs deserve a lot of credit here. Dan and his team have worked very hard at taking a WWII sub sim to the next level. They have listened to and acted upon various opinions expressed in this and other Forums, and I believe that most fair minded people will give them the praise that they are certainly due when the game is released.

Silent Hunter 4 won't please everyone in every way, how could it? But I honestly believe that we will see significant improvements over Silent Hunter 3 in gameplay and graphical appearance.

So let's try and keep a sense fairness and common sense when the game is released, and not start nit picking about cosmetics. I think that this time the modders will be making subjective enhancements to the game rather than trying to fix it.

[Mush Martin]

Originally Posted by TDK1044

For me, the Devs deserve a lot of credit here. Dan and his team have worked very hard at taking a WWII sub sim to the next level. They have listened to and acted upon various opinions expressed in this and other Forums, and I believe that most fair minded people will give them the praise that they are certainly due when the game is released.

Silent Hunter 4 won't please everyone in every way, how could it? But I honestly believe that we will see significant improvements over Silent Hunter 3 in gameplay and graphical appearance.

So let's try and keep a sense fairness and common sense when the game is released, and not start nit picking about cosmetics. I think that this time the modders will be making subjective enhancements to the game rather than trying to fix it.

Its because theyve been so responsive and listened to the community
that Im starting to frame up 5 now.LOL

[Iron Budokan]

Here's my prediction. I think the improved gameplay will surprise everyone. The downer will come when gamers say, "Hey, my game doesn't look as eye-candy pretty as the uber-cool photos released by UBI."

And it won't. A lot of those in-game photos have been obviously tweaked for dramatic purposes.

Anyway, please remember the devs have said SH4 is built on an SH3 engine. There's only so much you can do with that. Please, don't get me wrong. I'm very eager to get my hot little hands on this game. I've already pre-ordered it like most people on this board. And if some elements in the game do suck canal water then I'm sure our superior modder community will do everything they can to correct those problems....

Finally, SH5 will be about German subs. SH3 sold too well for UBI not to return to that well once more....

[IRONxMortlock]

I'm kind of in the same mind as the OP. I'm worried about this game and I feel it has been rushed and will be released with a litany of problems. A month ago when Neil had a little shot at it the game it didn't seem like it was even close to being ready to go. A month prior to release everything should be running very smoothly and just small bugs should need ironing out. Neil's preview made it seem as though the game was largely incomplete.

We'll see soon enough I guess but I really don't have my hopes up.

Thank God for GWX!
:p
________
xNAUGHTYNAOMIx

[Janus]

Originally Posted by IRONxMortlock

I'm kind of in the same mind as the OP. I'm worried about this game and I feel it has been rushed and will be released with a litany of problems. A month ago when Neil had a little shot at it the game it didn't seem like it was even close to being ready to go. A month prior to release everything should be running very smoothly and just small bugs should need ironing out. Neil's preview made it seem as though the game was largely incomplete.

I am sorry to say that, but this seems to become best practice among game/sim developers. There are many examples.

I wonder when the point will be there when we - the customers - react and say: stop this, we want finished products with decent documentation. I am willing to pay more for this when the gameplay and stuff ensures a reasonable long time motivation...

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

The downer will come when gamers say, "Hey, my game doesn't look as eye-candy pretty as the uber-cool photos released by UBI."

And it won't. A lot of those in-game photos have been obviously tweaked for dramatic purposes.

Another thing that is commonly done in the game industry, pimping the preview-screenshots.

I am not very looking forward to SHIV, I don't want to be disappointed again like with SHIII...

[Snakeeyes]

Originally Posted by nvdrifter

I am starting to get concerned, because I am once again seeing some worrying and familiar signs in the pre-release of SH4 that were the same signs in other previously released sims that ended up being majorly unfinished let downs. By this I mean mostly the pre-release focus and excitement on new, improved, pretty graphics and crickets chirping silence regarding improved ai and realism features. But I hope you're right.

Yeah, amen to that. It did seem that SH4 came out damn fast but who am I to complain? Looking at the staff and how they reach out to the community they should KNOW that if they crap on their serious fan-base (that would be us) down goes their profits. I'm not worried. It's going to kick ass in terms of realism AND looks. You'll see.

[John Channing]

Originally Posted by Snakeeyes

Yeah, amen to that. It did seem that SH4 came out damn fast but who am I to complain? Looking at the staff and how they reach out to the community they should KNOW that if they crap on their serious fan-base (that would be us) down goes their profits. I'm not worried. It's going to kick ass in terms of realism AND looks. You'll see.

Just to keep things in perspective regarding the "serious fan-base"...

There are 8,595 registered users here at Subsim.com. Now not all of them are devotees of the Silent Hunter franchise, but for the sake of arguement let's say they are.

Silent Hunter III sold over 300,000 copies.

That means we represent, at best, 2.8% of total sales.

Everytime I start getting taken with my own sense of self-importance I like to remind myself of this.

JCC

[Captain Krunch]

Originally Posted by IRONxMortlock

I'm kind of in the same mind as the OP. I'm worried about this game and I feel it has been rushed and will be released with a litany of problems.

See, I just don't get this attitude. How can you say it's been rushed when it hasn't even been released yet? And what are these "litany of problems" you are speaking of?

A month ago when Neal had a little shot at it the game it didn't seem like it was even close to being ready to go. A month prior to release everything should be running very smoothly and just small bugs should need ironing out. Neal's preview made it seem as though the game was largely incomplete.

Goodness gracious, did we read the same preview? Neal did state that certain features from prior versions were missing, but he made it clear that these were design decisions on the part of the developers, not that the game wasn't ready. I just skimmed through the preview again, and he makes the game sound like it's going to be quite good, not that it's incomplete.

[John Channing]

Originally Posted by Captain Krunch

See, I just don't get this attitude. How can you say it's been rushed when it hasn't even been released yet? And what are these "litany of problems" you are speaking of?

Goodness gracious, did we read the same preview? Neil did state that certain features from prior versions were missing, but he made it clear that these were design decisions on the part of the developers, not that the game wasn't ready. I just skimmed through the preview again, and he makes the game sound like it's going to be quite good, not that it's incomplete.

It's Neal, not Neil.

Neal, like... ummmmm... ahhhh... well, Neal.

JCC

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by nvdrifter

I guess what I was trying to say in my first post is for everyone not to get too excited before we actually get our hands on the game. SH3 was and is a great game, but there were some big disappointments after it's half-finished release. Hopefully SH4 will be released more... ummm ... complete. Will SH4 be all fluff and no filling? We'll see...

Well said, we will see soon.

[fumblyoldcarpenter]

Originally Posted by Janus

I am not very looking forward to SHIV, I don't want to be disappointed again like with SHIII...

As had been said...... SH3 ( even with its bugs ) was a major improvement over SH2, at the end of the day who will be truly satisfied anyway

[Janus]

Originally Posted by fumblyoldcarpenter

As had been said...... SH3 ( even with its bugs ) was a major improvement over SH2, at the end of the day who will be truly satisfied anyway

I did not mean to say anything else but compared to the dev diarys, chats and promises before the release it was a big disappointment for me. To be fair I have to say that I became aware of SH3 just a few weeks before it's release (very similar situation like now with SH4 but I definately won't buy it as fast as SH3. Don't know if I will buy it at all :hmm.

I have the feeling that SH4 brings the stuff that at least should have come with stock SH3, apart from the pacific theatre of course.