Silent Hunter V Dev Team Interview: Deeper, Kapitän, deeper. (1/19/10)

as i expected, there is a lot i am dissappointed to read and there is also

a lot about sh5 that i am very happy to read about.


give it a few more reads guys and do it with an open mind

and you will see they are giving us a very very moddable game

is it perect? nope, it is tragic? nope, will i buy it? yes definately


i see sh5 as a ready made fixer-upper that just needs to be fine tuned by the modders to be a very great game. after all, we as modders are able to devote a lot more time to the game then the devs are allowed to so i trust this will be a wonderfull game when modded.


plus dont forget they said near the end that if sh5 did well it was likely we would see an expansion for it to add more subs and content to the end of the war. i dont mind paying for another ($10-$15 hopefully) expansion if the new content is done correctly and ads something more to the game.

[tonibamestre]

Perhaps would be interesting to continue the dynamic campaign beyond 1943 via modular releases.New campaigns,new added environments,new extra full 3D vessels,join with the Pacific war and..............FINALLY..........ENTER THE COLD WAR

[609_Avatar]

Wow, took a bit of time to get through these 9 pages. Really nice to see the developers here posting, even if they can't be as forthcoming as some of us and they may like.

Thanks for the interview Neal and Team. I enjoyed reading it. As with others, not quite what I was expecting but that doesn't mean I won't like it.

I will be buying it, just not sure when is all, too little time for a lot of gaming and I have way too many games that I'd like to play as it is! For some reason certain games seem to only be played during certain seasons and for me the SH series always gets played the most during the winter months when I have more time indoors to do more gaming.

Thanks again for the info!

[kapitan_zur_see]

Originally Posted by elanaiba

Yeah, and then somebody on UBI boards will say "they are answering questions on subsim!". If I go there somebody here will gringe. And then marketing will have my head.

Then throw grenades at them! or settle down some landmines and defensive turrets to prevent that UBI guy to reach your head and answer as many dangerous questions as possible in the meantime!

By the way, it's the focus of the next Ubisoft big release!

Unreal Bucharest Tournament!

Play as a SH5 dev where you lock yourself down into your studio and have to prevent some suit wearing Ubi guys to break in and invade your base!
Or play as Ubi guy and wear that special black business suit armor, try to break inside their base and once their defenses have been put down, prevent their main character class, the Dan Dimitrescu unit, to reach the server or internet location in the map so he won't reveal info on the game!
Everytime the Dan reach it, wait 15 seconds and the health&flooding bar is complete , it sends one answer to the subsim.com forum and the Dev team earns one point. If Dan is forced to cancel in the middle of the process to defend himself, it sends a vague answers and makes a subsim member spawn inside the base that will try and find Dan everywhere and annoys him to no end unless a new complete answer is sent through, thus adding to Dan stress!

Release date not known at present...
Lead designer: GKane.


BTW, Dan your irritation that shows through your last messages is quite possibly what has reassured me the most so far! It now clearly shows your
enthusiasm to reveal things you clearly stated you couldn't, hence showing you're confident the game would please us and that it annoys you deeply not to be able to share that.

[flag4]

as i read through all the views here i get an impression that No.5 will be Brighter Tighter and Shorter - with a door left open here and there and maybe one at the end?

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by elanaiba

Neal's preview version comes packed with a set of landmines and defensive turrets.

That sounds like a yes

[mookiemookie]

After giving it some thought, I can definitely understand the decision to only include the Type VII. Having to model an entire interior and associated crew would, I imagine, be a pretty time consuming process. Having to do all that work for multiple sub types would, I assume, not fit into their timeline.

On some level I can understand the 1943 decision as well. Think about when the "rules of the game" changed, so to speak - right around 1943. Allied radar became a concern, hedgehogs, schnorkels, BOLD decoys, FaT and LuT torpedoes, etc. A lot of new technology was introduced in the latter part of the war. To accurately model all of that and its interaction and effect on the sub and your mission would be complex. I am assuming again, it would not fit into their timeline.

The sub and technology you start out with in 1939, for the most part, is basically not much different than what you've got in 1943. The major upgrades over that time span that I can think of off the top of my head would be improved AA armament, maybe one or two turm upgrades, very early versions of the FuMO and Metox, and not much else. Those things are probably not that hard to model in, leaving the developers time to focus on the boat and the first years of the war.

So I keep seeing it mentioned, but I guess it really is a question of quality over quantity. I'd rather have the first 2/3rds of the war done well, instead of the entire war done so-so.

As an aside, and since I mentioned it, I always was kind of irked at the reliability of the Metox in SH3. From what I've read, it was nowhere near as reliable as it is modelled...especially when the Allies introduced the Mk III radar which the Metox could not detect.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

You guys who are freaking out should take a pause and remember, if Dan says it's dynamic, it is.

Neal, Dan also said back in 2005 that the SH3 campaign was dynamic. Heck, my DVD case says it is too. But look at Dan's post #147 where he now states that it actually wasn't dynamic all along but really just random (of course, we certainly found that out quick enough anyway)?

So pls excuse me for remaining sceptical about similar claims for SH5...fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...

[bigboywooly]

Thanx for the interview Neal
Very interesting read

Was really looking forward to release of SH5
Less so now
Will still buy it and give it a spin

I can see the reasoning behind only one uboat type with all the new compartments and interaction but will miss the type 2 and 9
Type 9 moreso as that my preferred choice of sub and generally start in a IX and end in a D2

Can possibly understand the 43 finish as thats when the Battle of the Atlantic was more or less over
Didnt end then with boats sent out up to the last days of the war and still having success although reduced

I guess focusing on the type 7 - aside from less work on the sub side - also reduces campaign work as no Black Sea or Indian Ocean to worry about and not a great deal in the way of South Atlantic or US coast
Type 7s were there of course but in a much smaller role than the 9s

Modding comments were interesting too
Will have to wait to see how that pans out I guess

My only hope is as the game will focus on a small cross section of the war that the campaign will be complete for the period it covers
And the ships included will be various and many

Lets see what March brings eh

[Rictavian]

Limiting the U-Boat selection to just the type VII would be a huge mistake. At least include the type IX and offer the chance to perform long range patrols. If a dynamic game is desired, just think how many variables would arise from closing distant ports. Think of the re-allocation of escorts from the North Atlantic. The whole idea of a dynamic game is its scope of events that it will encompass.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by JScones

Neal, Dan also said back in 2005 that the SH3 campaign was dynamic. Heck, my DVD case says it is too. But look at Dan's post #147 where he now states that it actually wasn't dynamic all along but really just random (of course, we certainly found that out quick enough anyway)?

So pls excuse me for remaining sceptical about similar claims for SH5...fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...

That's my fault, when I say "dynamic", I'm meaning non-scripted. I can see where the SH3 game was random, which was fine with me. As long as it wasn't like SH2's campaign.

[capthelm]

good enough the way they have done it for now 1939 to 43


http://www.olive-drab.com/od_history...42atlantic.php

[floundericiousWA]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Well if I were an Ubisoft exec in charge of the SHV project reading this thread, right about now I'd be feeling nervous.

Meaning no disrespect but they probably don't care that much about what people here think. Even if every poster on this thread bought the game (or didn't), that would be what, 55 copies? This is analagous to trekkies getting upset about something in a trailer for a new star trek movie...it ends up being something that the average game buyer doesn't understand or care about.

Things that determine the commercial success of SH5 will have more to do with quality of execution, fun factor, accessibility for the casual gamer, eye candy, sound quality, etc. That's pretty hard to gauge from reading an interview.

I think SH5 sounds like a good attempt to capture the Kaleun experience and I look forward to reading more about it and, perhaps, buying it in a few months.

[Wolfehunter]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Thanks, and I did, see the part near the end about expansions. They are not ready to go into thse details.

One thing that strikes me as funny is how people cannot understand, a totally dynamic campaign can also have limited scripted elements with objectives. You guys who are freaking out should take a pause and remember, if Dan says it's dynamic, it is.

Sometimes I wonder... like so many people were coming up with conspiracies over the missing link to part 2 yesterday when I overwrote my file? "OMG, Ubi made Neal take it down!"

Calm down

Ok Sorry I didn't see it or miss read that part. I had the feeling there intention was to add a second part, Maybe part of is in Japan pacific sea's where there were some German UBoats..

Thanks again,

WH

[floundericiousWA]

Originally Posted by Rictavian

Limiting the U-Boat selection to just the type VII would be a huge mistake. At least include the type IX and offer the chance to perform long range patrols. If a dynamic game is desired, just think how many variables would arise from closing distant ports. Think of the re-allocation of escorts from the North Atlantic. The whole idea of a dynamic game is its scope of events that it will encompass.

Quite right...but it also compounds the complexity of the simulation model. What you're asking for might be at or beyond the limits of their current build game engine!