SH5, shorter and more simplified than ever before?

[Paul Riley]

Hi guys.

Its been a while since I last used the forums but after recieving an email (interview with UbiSoft devs) from Neal something instantly grabbed my attention.I read that there will only be the type VII and all its variants available? Then after reading the email I decided to watch some footage on YouTube,then read some of the comments below the video and someone mentioned that the game also ends in 1943?If this is the case then that is quite sad really,as the IX and XXI UBoats were a lot of fun to use in SH3,and being able to sink ships right up to 1945 also made the game last longer and helped to make the game more tense,as the odds for survival were hugely against you!.
Its a shame lately that a lot of companies are only emphasizing on the graphics and not paying enough attention to the detail of the actual game,leading to a lot of rushed and unfinished games in some cases.But having said that UbiSoft are a fantastic company and have made some memorable titles and I can't imagine them resorting to such half hearted efforts.

Can anyone shed any light on these 2 points?
Thanks a lot.

Paul Riley

[Nimmo55]

Well Paul, you're really stepping into one huge debate going on the months leading up to the release. Bottom Line: no one really knows for sure what SH5 is going to be like. That in of itself is causing speculation...the lack of certaintity on some aresa that hardcore sub simmers consider very important...realism, campaign, substantive depth in the simulation, not just eye candy. The key issue that is being speculated about is whether the developers of SH5 have decided to aim for a much broader (read casual) audience with SH5...which in of itself, is not the problem. The suspicion (and I stress that this is only a suspicion...) is that they have dumbed the title down...made it easier for non hardcore players to get into the game. And that they have focussed on the look of the thing (to catch the eye of the casual gamer) at the expense of the substantive gameplay. There was the infamous 'periscope screen' in which a supposed screen from an advanced build of the game was posted...and it really set hares and speculation off and running..as it was truly terrible...cartoony, very basic and like some arcade shooter. (They seem to have done away with the realistic SH3 firing buttons and such..now more stylised than an accurate depiction of a real U boat firing apparatus...which is one of the things that got people wondering...) But we are told it was just a beta and not the final thing...and there seem to be other screenshots around which show a more advanced screen (but still not accurate, unfortunately...) (I hope this is so...) A lot of people are annoyed at the game finishing in 1943..that seems to be true....and the fact that some types of subs won't be simulated...cutting down on the choice of sub. (I for one don't care; if it means they put more effort into getting one right, then give me only one choice...I'll live with that. I say far better a 'study sim' than a 'survey sim' anytime!) There is also some murmouring about whether the campaign is truly dynamic such as SH3, but I can't see anything definitive that suggests it is not. There are many threads and a recent interview Neal did with the lead developer that you can trawl through and make up your own mind. But I guess we are just going to have to wait and see...I keep reminding myself that drawing hard and fast conclusions on the basis of little snippets now and then is probably misleading. I truly hope so.

Nimmo55

[Paul Riley]

I forgot,sorry to ask what has probably already been answered its just been a while since I last visited SubSim,and am somewhat out of touch.

PR

[timmyab]

I'd be quite happy to play with just a type VII as long as it's highly detailed and fully controllable. As for sinking ships into 1945, the reality was completely different.By 1944 the odds weren't just against you, it was suicide.With the game now ending in 1943, hopefully surviving until then will become much more difficult than it was in sh3 which will be more realistic. As for the point about graphics trumping gameplay, I agree totally, which is why I've stopped buying computer games.Here's hoping SH5 will be different.

[THE_MASK]

SH5 is not like SH3/4. They want SH5 to be an acurate portrayal of how life was like on a uboat so they have interactive crew , full interior of the sub . Think Das Boot and you get the picture . They said depending how SH5 sells , we might get add ons etc .

[sk065]

I dont want a story driven campaign - id rather have random. You dont know what to expect and I think thats were the SH3 replay value comes from.

As for a crew (or cast) of characters - I can see this becoming stale very quickly. There is only so much story driven dialogue that will get repeated and repeated regardless of how dynamic the campaign is.

Id rather have the crew respond to orders only.

[Paul Riley]

Thanks for the replies.Guess all we can do is wait,one thing that DOES sound promising though is the addition of frozen decks in icy seas,and the possibility of racing through blizzard conditions?.That will DEF add to the realism,as my old favourite haunts in SH3 were the Arctic routes and through the Denmark Strait.
Really hope they finally include some of the other bigger and more advanced UBoats,but probably not,as the VII was most widely used and the XXI was a late war weapon *sigh*

Cheers guys,appreciate it.

[Lorient Bunker]

Well I for one don't mind the mid 1943 ending for the following reason, and that is because all my Grand Campaigns in SH3 always ended up getting corrupted before I'd reached that far anyway!

For example I just recently had to abandon many months of off/on progress of a Grand Campaign in mid-mission during Nov 1941. A problem which affected the whole game not just campaigns and forced me to completely re-install.

My view is that so long this is just the start and we have DLC or add-ons to follow I'll be quite happy with this to begin with. But all those who have said they won't get the game because it doesn't have IX or XXI boats etc from the beginning need to consider this, that if sales are poor then the chances are that no DLC or add-ons will ever appear.

[jdkbph]

Originally Posted by sk065

As for a crew (or cast) of characters - I can see this becoming stale very quickly. There is only so much story driven dialogue that will get repeated and repeated regardless of how dynamic the campaign is..

Yeah, there's a reason why no one reads books any more... movies are only 2 hours long. Hope against hope that this reason is not the driving force behind UBI's "re-imagined" sub sim, aka SH5.

JD

[THE_MASK]

SH5 , more complex than SH3 with 160 ports etc .

Not quite sure whats going on over there at UBI.

While I'm impressed with some of the additions they have made to the 'sim' there are some blaring shortcommings to SH5.

Lets get over all this talk about 'well, we havn't played it'. Well, played or not.. who is the genious over there that decided the war for the U-Boats ends in 1943? And.... errr, why does he still have a job? And who agreed to this?

SH3 with some mod enhancements became quite a fantastic experience. A FULL experience. Half the enjoyment was dealing with new Allied technology that, as time progressed, so did the challenge. Surviving in the later years was difficult at best, but those encounters that had you on the edge of your seat for 5-18 hours resulting in survival and a return to port with a smashed up boat were exhilerating.

So we have half a war.

The focus on just the type VII (personally all I use, but still) is another blatant brain fart. We are looking for a U-Boat Sim, played in a Simulated war... I'm sure the entire community can vouch for that. Omitting the Type IX, at the very least is irresponsible, never mind all the other sub types.

Like really.... who comes up with these ideas?

This had so much premise, until they turned it into Diet Silent Hunter V - Half the War, even less Submarines.

Dissapointed.

[Rykaird]

Has anyone seen a screenshot of the TDC yet? My biggest concern is that the "thing" in the periscope IS the TDC.

One of the immersion factors in SH3 that was diluted for me in SH4 was the ability to directly control the equipment through the switches, knobs, and toggles on the equipment itself, rather than through a virtual interface.

I'm hoping the screenshot of the torpedo interface in the video walkthrough is the "simplified" interface for folks on lower realism settings.

[Highbury]

Originally Posted by Kptlt_Lynch

The focus on just the type VII (personally all I use, but still) is another blatant brain fart. We are looking for a U-Boat Sim

Alot of true simulators deal with only one vehicle. It is just games that get labeled as simulators (read: IL-2) that make people think a dev team can accurately simulate 40+ vehicles in a cost effective and timely manner. Sure we are talking a much smaller number then IL-2 but you can be sure alot more goes into building a full Type VII then one of Oleg's egg-shell plane models. DCS Black Shark is hailed as one of the best sims out for flight, and it has one vehicle. I have never heard complaints about that... maybe because that one vehicle is in the name... perhaps Ubi should have titled this "U-Boot Type VII: Silent Hunter V" lol

I will be very sad with no Type IIs (I have twice survived the war in them, and used nothing but IIs and VIIb's in SH3 or SH4 ATO mods.. I am a sucker for the early crap) but I can see the sense in focusing on one sub, considering they are supposed to be recreating the whole interior, I think focusing on one is a good plan, do the rest as add-ons.

As for the war ending in '43... makes no sense to me, but I am sure at some point they sat down made a decision on it. You can bet it was a weighing of pros and cons. Unless I know what was on the list for pros and cons then I can't really call it a stupid decision, just an unfortunate one. If the game really has "story" perhaps there is just so damn much of it that they can't write it all before Dec 2010 lol.. that is just speculating but there are many possible reasons.

[Ishigami]

I don’t think that flight simulators are good role model for naval simulations.
Just take a look at some of the really good flight simulators out there like the PMDG 747-400, MD-11 or LevelD 767 and you just have to admit the difference in depth and accuracy compared to Silent Hunter submarines or ships from Ship Simulator.
That said a KptLt probably never operated e.g. diving rudder himself so why should the player?
I’m willingly to give up on the idea to operate everything myself but I want at least a good imitation of the performance and behavior like it is done for the cars in Gran Turismo.
With that I could have fun to compute target solutions, to intercept convoys or evading escorts rather than operating the systems themselves given that the AI and environment behave realistically.
So I rather have detailed ocean layers and damage models, realistic AI behavior, drifts, waves and stuff like that instead of e.g. useable vents in the command room.
However UbiSoft made the first mistake regarding this by using a cylindrical world instead of a spherical one. Leading me to believe that SH5 is still going for the eye candy instead of fixing some of the “broken” gameplay elements of its predecessors.

[TDK1044]

I believe that Silent Hunter 5 will be a better game than many are giving it credit for. I think though that there is a big disconnect between the Development studio in Bucharest and the Sales and Marketing guys in Montreuil sous Bois, France.