Can anyone explain to me why they're not depressed by games that always end in death?

[DiveMonkey]

Originally Posted by Chock

DiveMonkey, there are a few sites with this info, here is one of the more concise ones:

http://www.bluejacket.com/ww2_ship_loss3.html

Good find, thanks

Not a single reported sinking by aircraft. Most not reported, simply, failed to return. A couple accidental sinking's, mechanical failures...I get the feeling this was a leading cause of attrition...Maybe 1.3 will make some improvements in damage model.

[DiveMonkey]

Originally Posted by kakemann

Dive Monkey. Good to take some here to find whats best for you. There are a lot of good stuff out there. Packs like RFP, FTT and single mods.

Find what suits your own needs! We all wants to enjoy the game! Thats whats important, right?

Yea, life's to short to be worrying about how someone else thinks I should be playing a game.

I use Beery's mod because it fits better how I like to play, I make a few personal adjustments to fine tune my fun

[GnarPow]

Originally Posted by Beery

The interesting thing is I've maintained a respectful tone throughout this thread. It was a simple question. But some of the responses have been downright rude. Now I'm wondering what it is about this line of questioning that makes some people behave this way?

As for your argument, realism is not the same as reality. For realism only the things in the sim have to be realistic, NOT the stuff outside the sim. Time compression is not unrealistic if the simulated crew of the sub are experiencing time at 1:1, and they are.

Guy is saying he is DEPRESSED over a video game... obviously he needs a little time away if that is an issue... Games are for fun, who cares if you live or die... IT IS A GAME

just like calbeck said, its all zeroes and ones

How am i being a jerk by saying he needs to put his computer down for a minute? lighten up

[perisher]

Originally Posted by Beery

Time compression is not unrealistic ...

Indeed it is not. IRL I work in railway operations, we use simulators for training. We usually run these at 8 x real life, it means we can achieve more in the time available, if we have to think a little faster than in RL that's probably a good thing and we get 8 times as many tea breaks. It still reflects reality.

[TheSatyr]

The problem with discovering the cause of sub losses is that the Japanese went on a "records destroying" binge,between the surrender and the occupation.

We will never know how many of the "overdue,presumed lost" subs were sunk by enemy action simply because the reports were probably destroyed at the end of the war and the Japanese military personel that may have been involved either died in the war or never spoke about it after the war ended.

[perisher]

Originally Posted by GnarPow

Guy is saying he is DEPRESSED over a video game... obviously he needs a little time away if that is an issue... Games are for fun, who cares if you live or die... IT IS A GAME

just like calbeck said, its all zeroes and ones

How am i being a jerk by saying he needs to put his computer down for a minute? lighten up

Because he is looking at the reality behind the game. Warfare is nasty, people die in horrific ways, but we play games about it. Okay you can say it's a mental exercise in strategy and tactics, or a more complex form of chess. It is indeed a form of escapism and a very safe way of becoming a hero. It's fun to blow things up, I love it, but we should reflect on the reality as well and, occasionally, think about what it really means.

I really like SH3, but I have one little problem with it, my Father made 36 crossings of the Atlantic during WW2, all in troopships. Playing SH3 I never had a trooper in the cross hairs without thinking about that. I still fired though, because it's fun. So it should be, but we must not forget the reality behind the game.

[vindex]

The only time I die in SH4 is when I take silly risks because (a) I want to see what will happen or (b) I'm too lazy/impatient to take all precautions I would in RL.

Regarding the above post, yeah, I recently read the book "Finest Hour" which includes the story of the sinking of the City of Benares with 77 evacuee children on board. Wikipedia: "The sinking ship took on an immediate list, thus preventing the launching of many of the liferafts and trapping numerous crew and passengers below decks. As a result, many of the 400 people on board were unable to escape. As hundreds of survivors struggled in the water, the U-boat's powerful searchlight swept once over the chaotic scene, before the boat left the area for good. The survivors in the boats were not rescued for nearly 24 hours, as the nearest allied units were 300 miles away, and in that time dozens of children and adults died from exposure, or drowned, leaving only 147 survivors. One boat was not picked up for a further eight days."

Really sobers you up.

Several Japanese merchant ships sunk by U.S. submarines, unbeknownst to them, contained Allied POWs. Worth pondering next time you send one to the deep.

[Chock]

To expand upon my original post on this thread me, the fact that sims remind you of the real thing is actually a quite a good thing in a lot of ways. I think it helps preserve the memory of a lot of very gallant actions, and serves as a warning for some of the nastier ones too.

Actions such as the sinking of transports with POWs on board - or anyone else for that matter - would for many people otherwise uninterested in history remain forgotten were it not for them appearing in simulations. And even though I've always been interested in history, I'll freely admit that many simulations have encouraged me to read a wider field of literature than I probably would otherwise have done.

It's also interesting to note that a shared interest in a subject, such as submarine conflicts, has brought many people together on this forum from around the world. Such an international meeting is going to make it ever-increasingly difficult for governments to demonise other nations in an attempt to get their populace to go and kill them. So in that sense, you could argue that submarine simulations are actually anything but depressing.

I'd certainly hope so.

[heartc]

Oh dear. Some people here didn't get the point of this thread at all. I'm pretty sure Beery is not really "depressed" about "death" in computer games from a psychological / philosophical standpoint - instead this thread is a follow up to a realism debate which was previously coming up shortly in several different threads and now was time to get its own one to share opinions on the matter. The matter being real life sub loss rates vs. sub loss rates in the game. If people would have read Beery's initial post in this thread instead of just the header this would have become clear, too.

[vindex]

I read the initial post (hence my comment about my own death-rate), but like so many threads this one also went off in another worthwhile direction. No biggy.

[daft]

I think Beery is on to something. Of all the mechanics that makes a game work, deaths are the least explored I think. From the run-of-the-mill action games to hardcore sims such as the SH-series, we seldom get penalized in any way for dying. There is no sense of loss other than a little dent in our pride after having been outsmarted by some stupid AI destroyer. Of course, the penalty cannot be too severe as that would scare people off, but having an option that would in some way make us curse and actually fear in game death would add a whole new dimension to gaming I think.

[vindex]

Well, I'm not really sure HOW you could be penalized for dying in a computer game. Anything they put into the game itself would simply frustrate people and could be worked around.

The same problem crops up in military training exercises. I remember running around the woods shooting my M-16 and not REALLY taking cover and concealment THAT seriously because the worst thing that could happen would be my little beeping device would go off if I was hit. The unreality of the situation actually has a very distortive effect on tactics. There is no such thing, for instance, as real suppressive fire, because nobody is actually ducking bullets.

All simulated combat, computer or otherwise, permits risk-taking that would find no place on a real battlefield.

[TDK1044]

I think the answer to Beery's original point is that the WWII sub Captains didn't have those historical figures to relate to because they were creating those figures with each mission.

They went to sea in the hope of sinking as much enemy tonnage as possible and then getting themselves and their crew home safely. Some would have taken greater risks than others. None of them knew if they'd survive the current mission.

The reason I state over and over that this is a game and not a simulation, is because we can alter the parameters of each mission or career to fit our mood or our needs.

In my view, for this to be a sim, 100 percent reality settings would need to be forced on you just as they were forced on the real guys. But if that was done, then most people would find the game too challenging and not enough fun.

Therefore, we use a mixture of reality settings and mods to make this game what we want it to be. We tweak things like the number of radio mesages we receive, the number of air strikes, the srength of our weapons, the accuracy of our sensors, our fuel consumption, our battery discharge rate, how good the enemy is at detecting us etc.

Silent Hunter 4 is a $49 video game targeted at people who want to play at being a WWII Submarine Captain and go to sea and sink enemy ships.

Enjoy it for what it is.

[daft]

Originally Posted by vindex

Well, I'm not really sure HOW you could be penalized for dying in a computer game. Anything they put into the game itself would simply frustrate people and could be worked around.

The same problem crops up in military training exercises. I remember running around the woods shooting my M-16 and not REALLY taking cover and concealment THAT seriously because the worst thing that could happen would be my little beeping device would go off if I was hit. The unreality of the situation actually has a very distortive effect on tactics. There is no such thing, for instance, as real suppressive fire, because nobody is actually ducking bullets.

All simulated combat, computer or otherwise, permits risk-taking that would find no place on a real battlefield.

That's up to the developers to decide I guess. Personally I think death is a subject that needs to be explored further by games developers in order to evolve gaming in general. If implemented in an optional way it would be really cool to have some sort of "death penalty" imposed. Make death something you want to avoid and it would add to my experience. Personal taste I suppose.

[U-Bones]

Simple. If it were real or realistic it would be both boring and horrifying.

Thankfully, it is a game.

I think I enjoy it, but of course I am really in denial, and need my subjective perception of reality tweaked.