The failure of DW

[Max2147]

Originally Posted by Neptunus Rex

It took longer than 15 minutes to play a scenario. That's about the average attention span of most people.

Why do you think they call this generation "The Fast Food Generation"?

For some people, maybe. But I had no problem playing 6 hour long scenarios in Fleet Command, or playing entire patrols in one go in SH4. Somehow SC just didn't capture me in the same way, and I didn't see any reason why DW would be different.

[Hawk66]

Cocerning atmosphere:

A lot of missions lack atmosphere (for my personal taste). I mean for example, not enough messages(communication) and that stuff, no big suprises concerning the 'big' picture of a mission.
Also things like limited AI.

But that could be solved by the community: if you would write a scenario generator, which creates the missions (not completely random but based on scenario-stubs created by a designer) and scenario-dependent doctrines (it is possible) dynamic campaigns + interesting (generated) scenarions seem to be possible.

Would be very hard work, no question.
But on the other hand, concerning the SDK discussion a few years ago: Who should use such a SDK if the people do not use the possibilites which the sim is providing now?

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Hawk66

Cocerning atmosphere:

A lot of missions lack atmosphere (for my personal taste). I mean for example, not enough messages(communication) and that stuff, no big suprises concerning the 'big' picture of a mission.
Also things like limited AI.

But that could be solved by the community: if you would write a scenario generator, which creates the missions (not completely random but based on scenario-stubs created by a designer) and scenario-dependent doctrines (it is possible) dynamic campaigns + interesting (generated) scenarions seem to be possible.

Would be very hard work, no question.
But on the other hand, concerning the SDK discussion a few years ago: Who should use such a SDK if the people do not use the possibilites which the sim is providing now?

If I'm not mistaken, something like a limited dynamic campaign generator was done for Silent Hunter 2 which had no native dynamic campaign engine, only scripted missions were available. So something like that could be done for DW.
The problem if you want to call it that, is that many people with the required technical expertise just don't care anymore for DW. Maybe out of spite towards SCS for having vetoed any kind of "interesting" modding for many years who knows ?

[FERdeBOER]

Originally Posted by Hawk66

Would be very hard work, no question.
But on the other hand, concerning the SDK discussion a few years ago: Who should use such a SDK if the people do not use the possibilities which the sim is providing now?

Because it's a lot of work that has to be done with the DW editor as it is; SCS gave us the scripts and took away the user actions. A combination of both of them would give us many ways of doing fun missions and tutorials in "short" time; plus some options that are present but doesn't work or works bad (Dynamic position + dynamic groups, formations, collisions...) if all of this would have worked well I could have finished several campaigns I started to create...

I would use a SDK

@goldorak
You're right; I would love to know a little programming to try to create such a thing, but I have no time to do that at the moment...

[goldorak]

About the "user actions", have they been eliminated from the code or is it still there somewhere but inactive ?
The same thing happened to video playback during mission briefing, the support is still there (since they recycled a good part of sub command) but is inactive.
A little bit of reverse engineering could expose that capability if of course it is still present in the code. Now WHO would want to embark on such a journey ?

[Nexus7]

The AI already beats the human mind, when it comes to calculable events; think about chess.

The news with DW was, for me at 1st place, the multistations feature; obviously, that is is to be used in a multiplayer context.

Me personally, i basically get quickly bored when facing the AI, even if i loose.

Therefore, i think Sonalyst put theyr efforts on a fizzy multiplayer community.

I got the clear impression that if you look for vs AI scenarious, you need a different game.

[Shearwater]

Reading all the posts in this thread, Falcon 4.0 comes to mind. At its initial release the standard-bearer in terms of realism (though with a dynamic campaign), but also with many bug. Maybe the program that has broken Microprose's back (which is a shame, really).
I see many parallels to DW - at its core a very good, but still unfinished game that is one of its kind, but isn't supported by its publisher anymore (although this time for a different reason), and like Falcon, it has an active modding community.
To get to my point: Actually, I wouldn't mind if a bunch of modders got together and brought out a completely overhauled version of DW, much à la Falcon 4.0 Allied Force. If they could make some money (though they'd have to buy the license in the first place), a lot of the modding effort would be rewarded financially. I would definitely buy it (as I did with F4AF)

[Neptunus Rex]

Originally Posted by Hawk66

Cocerning atmosphere:

A lot of missions lack atmosphere (for my personal taste). I mean for example, not enough messages(communication) and that stuff, no big suprises concerning the 'big' picture of a mission.
Also things like limited AI.

But that could be solved by the community: if you would write a scenario generator, which creates the missions (not completely random but based on scenario-stubs created by a designer) and scenario-dependent doctrines (it is possible) dynamic campaigns + interesting (generated) scenarions seem to be possible.

Would be very hard work, no question.
But on the other hand, concerning the SDK discussion a few years ago: Who should use such a SDK if the people do not use the possibilites which the sim is providing now?

Atmosphere? Then try this.

Take your PC into the smallest room you have. Drag your bed in there too. Take your kitchen trash outside, pour some used motor oil in there and some dirty clothes. Allot of dirty socks too.

Take that bag and throw it into that small room. Don't tie it closed, that's cheating.

Now get a scuba full dive tank with 3000 psig and run a hose from it into the room.

Get some food and a empty can and take that in. (The can is your WC).

Have 12 friends join you in the room.

Close the door and have a friend nail the door closed.

Wait 12 hours in the "game room" to simulate the manuevering watch. Remain standing. Begin game play. Remain standing.

Tell your friend on the outside of the door that when he hears you shoot a torpedo, bang real hard on the door and give a blast of air from the dive tank.

For added fun, if you take a weapon hit and emergency blow, have your friend open the tank valve full open until the tank is empty. For even more fun, have him blow some smoke under the door to simulate a fire. Home Depot carries smoke in a can to test smoke detectors. Remain standing. Here's where your 12 friend in there come in. Tell them when weapons start getting shot, have them all start screaming "What the hell are you doing?" Not in unison, over each other. Tell them to keep this up for 30 to 60 minutes.

After 6 hours of game play, go to sleep for 12. Have your friend outside bang on the door every 15 minutes or so. Tell him when he wakes you to be rude about it. The messenger of the watch has the rest of the on coming watch section to wake up.

Continue game play for 6 more hours.

Continue game play until all food is expended and your WC can is full. Remain standing.

Don't forget to surface the ship and ventilate. Your friend won't open the door until you do.

Update - During game play, you have to announce that you need to take a dump. Your friend outside will open the door and place a sign over your WC can "Danger Blowing Sanitaries". You can't use it with that sign up. Your friend may remove the sign after about 15 minutes, but it sometimes takes as long as an hour. If you cheat and use your can, your friend will come in, stick the air hose in the can, then leave and shut the door. You are not allowed to stop or interfer with him. When he shuts the door, he will open the air valve blowing the contents of the can in "the game room". Remember, you're on watch. If you clean it up, you've left your watch station. Get one of your 12 friends in the room to help but I doubt they will.

[Frame57]

Ahhhh! Neptunus is making me home sick....

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Neptunus Rex

Atmosphere? Then try this.

No joke when I moved to my new place I considered making my walk in closet a computer room complete with rig for red lighting but before I could my clothing got put in there along with with my boxes of old stuff.

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

No joke when I moved to my new place I considered making my walk in closet a computer room complete with rig for red lighting but before I could my clothing got put in there along with with my boxes of old stuff.

This could be interesting: to set up some PC port (usb/serial...) to activate some room lights for actions like
-dive/surface
-battle stations
-don't know what else...

and of course a well placed 5.1 sound system is a must...

[adcaptorpedo]

First of all - Dangerous Waters never died. The only thing that died was peoples intentions to play. Fortunately - not everywhere. Some places are still occupied by people with imagination. That's the way this topic 'runs' - you are only talking bull**** just to get it going. Get a grip and start playing or shut the hell up.

Regards for real DW players.

[Nexus7]

Cool down (Goldorak ? ). I am expressing my opinion. Being the code closed, and the owner of the code absent probably forever, and no future for modern sub sims in sight, I consider it as a failure.

Second reason why I consider it a failure... the people posting here are still the same people like 2 years ago more or less, so even bad in promoting the gendre.

If you consider it a success... oh well...

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Max2147

For some people, maybe. But I had no problem playing 6 hour long scenarios in Fleet Command, or playing entire patrols in one go in SH4. Somehow SC just didn't capture me in the same way, and I didn't see any reason why DW would be different.

I know why or so I believe.

Yes you can play most games in hours or in prolonged hours like more than 3 hours easily.

But DW IS NOT most game. If you really handled most of the things in DW yourself you could probably at max spend about 2 hours more or less.
DW requires full attention of the player and it involves a lot of work while action is going on.

If one spent too many hours in DW, DW could easily change from being a leisure game to hard work!
DW is meant to be played a little at any one time.

Of course there's the auto crew option however that is not an option for me since if I were to turn on all the autocrew on I would be left with little to play. Since the heart of DW is at its various job stations instead of commanding the sub like in SH3.
If you think DW is about commanding Sub you're wrong. DW is about operating Sub or any other platform available not commanding them.

If you still don't see this just look at the game gameplay. Its various staions just scream: Come get here and operate me!!!
If you want to just command your sub the only station available to you is the map view which is without internal sound!
Plus take a look at the command bar that is there at every station emphasizing that DW expects the player to take command of the various stations while in control of their platform at the same time.

[Dr.Sid]

I have no problem with DW playtime. I mean in singleplayer. There is time compression .. and there is save. You can stop at any time and continue later. The amount of attention may vary, but most of the time I wanted higher time compression, and I was waiting for something to happen.

Multiplayer is altogether different. No time compression, no saving. So you wait much more. On the other hand, the tension is much higher and you hardly get bored, even if nothing happenes for two hours.

I like quick missions. They are usually solved fast. But the mission generator could be a bit better. You should be able to choose from weather conditions, select oponent more exactly, not just a class, add allies, and so on. Sure you can do all that in full editor, but it's much more work.