I finally understand why hate SHV and the devs

[McBeck]

Originally Posted by JScones

Just like SH3 files were left behind in SH4 so the modders could easily get U-boats and other SH3 stuff into SH4? I recall people having to buy an add-on to get that stuff...can't recall too many U-boat based mods released before then.

No, the legacy files are more likely a result of, erm, "convenient" coding.

I dont know why the SH3 stuff was left in SH4, so this is speculation, but I think it was left there to give us the option to play with it if we wanted.

[mcarlsonus]

Originally Posted by McBeck

You are looking at the from a much to narrow perspective...if these were the options, please let me know which you would rather have?
1) The devs should take out all the SH3/4 stuff left dormant
2) The devs should leave the SH3/4 stuff left dormant

In my world, neither #'s 1 or 2 are relevant to the question at hand. My question has nothing to do with what should remain or what should be removed. It's more along the line of, "why remove/deactivate stuff that's proven useful, popular, and reliable in the past and has contributed significantly to the gaming experience?" Let's just take one relatively tiny portion of the game as an example: ship inventory. Now we have, basically, four freighter types (and Liberty ships also exist in the German merchant marine!) What happened to those fast, heavily armed medium European hot rods? The Victory ships? What about those tiny coasters, trawlers, armed tugs? They're all still there - just not available to the SH5 enthusiast. Does reducing shipping diversity contribute positively to the game experience? Highly doubtful - and easily, CHEAPLY remedied. SO, what WAS the point?

I believe the best way to describe it is: for some inexplicable reason, "they" threw out the baby with the bathwater.

[McBeck]

Originally Posted by mcarlsonus

In my world, neither #'s 1 or 2 are relevant to the question at hand. My question has nothing to do with what should remain or what should be removed. It's more along the line of, "why remove/deactivate stuff that's proven useful, popular, and reliable in the past and has contributed significantly to the gaming experience?" Let's just take one relatively tiny portion of the game as an example: ship inventory. Now we have, basically, four freighter types (and Liberty ships also exist in the German merchant marine!) What happened to those fast, heavily armed medium European hot rods? The Victory ships? What about those tiny coasters, trawlers, armed tugs? They're all still there - just not available to the SH5 enthusiast. Does reducing shipping diversity contribute positively to the game experience? Highly doubtful - and easily, CHEAPLY remedied. SO, what WAS the point?

I believe the best way to describe it is: for some inexplicable reason, "they" threw out the baby with the bathwater.

I give up and will leave the discussion

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by mcarlsonus

I believe the best way to describe it is: for some inexplicable reason, "they" threw out the baby with the bathwater.

Very unusual application, are you sure that's what you mean?

Anyway, what difference does it make if the developers left files from previous versions in the root directory?

Originally Posted by mcarlsonus

What happened to those fast, heavily armed medium European hot rods? The Victory ships? What about those tiny coasters, trawlers, armed tugs? They're all still there - just not available to the SH5 enthusiast. Does reducing shipping diversity contribute positively to the game experience? Highly doubtful - and easily, CHEAPLY remedied. SO, what WAS the point?

I believe the best way to describe it is: for some inexplicable reason, "they" threw out the baby with the bathwater.

have you ever considered it may have been done to reduce the computer slowdowns by have less for the game engine to deal with?

im not convinced 100% its a new engine (its so slow i see flashbacks of sh3 and IMO its the sh3 game engine with more stuff unlocked is all) but they say it is new so assuming its true and if we are looking at it from the devs side of thinking, you plug in everything from sh3 and sh4 and see what you can make work. well you ran out of time and a whole lot of stuff never got addressed or activated, what do you do? if you quickly just activate everything thats there it can start major bug issues and CTD that would prevent the games release and very likely cost you your job, or you can delete all that stuff but then why? why not leave it all there so IF a modder wanted to do the work to activate it he can because he would have the needed time to debug and test it properly.

[mcarlsonus]

Webster - you have a valid point - and I hadn't thought of that. Further, I agree. It's NOT a new engine!

Neal - Outside of housekeeping concerns, it makes no difference whatsoever that the program contains inactive code - and that's simply NOT troubling! I use the term "threw out the baby with the bathwater" in the context they deactivated code that enhanced immersion, depth of detail, and added richness and diversity to the gaming experience. They wrote, or RE-activated (looks like the former) code that resulted in, "dumbing down" the experience - like developmentally disabled escorts, an oversimplified - and pretty darned ineffective! - torpedo targetting system, and, concurrently, INCREASED the difficulty of handling ("conning") the boat due to such things as lack of instantaneous, "user friendly" rudder control (ala, hit the NumLock "." key to turn the rudder 1 degree). As I enter Campaign 1942, I've noticed that the escort AI has improved, but they're still not dangerous, just more persistent and less prone to sailing along like nothing happened after numerous companions explode dramatically around them. As mentioned, they still don't drop cans anywhere near me, but they frantically rush about pinging madly for much longer periods of time. Guess that qualifies as an, "improvement"...

What still baffles me, though, is WHY are the Historical and many of the MP missions so much MORE challenging and entertaining? The, "guts" are the same, yet the destroyers can kill you, the aircraft DO attack aggressively...

[Jimbuna]

In fact by looking in the right place you'll find jimbuna (and TarJak IIRC) mentioned as was the case in the files of SH4.

[Capt_Sluggo]

For "basically a training aid" FS sure has broad application (virtual airlines e.g.) and has a lot of fanatical developers and followers. And the "outside the pilot's seat" experience is most certainly part of the desire. Aircraft have working passenger doors, some have fully modeled passenger and cargo interiors etc. I salivate to think of how much money could be made if I had a payware C-130 to sell that allowed you to flip on the autopilot, climb back to the cargo bay and operate the goodies to make a low-level cargo drop, all in the same first-person way that the flight controls work. But that's not in the cards, because the FS engine won't allow it. You can only make yet another alternate panel, flip between that and outside view, and pretend. See Flightsim.com, simviation.com, avsim.com, ad infinitum.

No, of course SH5 is no FPS. The way one moves in the boat... oh forget it.

My point is that SH5's "you are there" immersion experience (in my opinion) cannot be matched by sims that peg the user into pre-defined stations. I may be mistaken but as far as I know it's the only PC simulator of any genre that has blended free user movement into a freely-controllable sim vehicle of any type with good results. It cannot have been an easy undertaking, as SHIFT+U suggests.

Sorry if I sound like a fan-boy here but I think the innovation deserves acknowledgment and I see very little of that.

Devs, you have my sincere thanks.

[mcarlsonus]

Originally Posted by Capt_Sluggo

Along with counting all the shortcomings, it would not hurt to step back and look at SH5 in a broader sense...
where else are you going to find (much less for a paltry sum roughly that of 3/4 a tank of gas) a "game" which places you as an FPS-type moving avatar inside of a complex, fully controllable and fully-rendered 3-D vehicle...

After 25+ years and 10 major revisions and all the financial muscle and savvy that Microsoft brought to bear, and the subsequent efforts of outsource programmers, you do not get up and walk around inside a Flight Simulator 747 en route. Not even when it is sitting still on the tarmac. Instead, you use key combos to "slide" your viewpoint, usually to a place that has been left undefined. That or "jump" to pre-defined fixed positions, exactly like SH3/4!

Based on your earlier post quoted above: clearly, it wasn't me who began discussing similarities to FPS's!

The comparison you seem adamant about supporting regarding similarities between MS Flight Simulator and SH any-version remain invalid. As a pilot with a ATP Certificate, I've spent many hours with MS Flight Simulator perfecting such things as instrument approaches in zero visibility conditions and partially disabled navaids. I frankly don't give a whit about whether the door's been shut properly or getting up and walking about the cabin. I'm sure others do, but, entertaining the masses is NOT the simulator's, "raison d'etre!" I've never used - or even SEEN - MS Combat Flight Simulator, though. Maybe that's more what you had in mind.

[Takao]

Simulation???? According to Amazon.com SHV is an "Adventure" game not a simulator Don't believe me, see here: http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Hunter-.../dp/B002PAIPQO
Look under the "Product Details." Quite frankly I agree with them, SHV is subsim "Lite". Hopefully, a supermod will raise it to GWX, but I have my doubts.

Now, would MS Flight Simulator have become as popular as it has if you could walk all around an airplane, but the only airplane you had to fly was a Boeing 747? Steel Beasts is an outstanding tank simulator, yet there is no interaction with other crewmembers, the same can be said for Dangerous Waters and other Sonalyst submarine titles.

I enjoy a real simulation, that's why I've stayed with SHIII + GWX

[mcarlsonus]

Originally Posted by Takao

Simulation???? According to Amazon.com SHV is an "Adventure" game not a simulator Don't believe me, see here: http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Hunter-.../dp/B002PAIPQO
Look under the "Product Details." Quite frankly I agree with them, SHV is subsim "Lite". Hopefully, a supermod will raise it to GWX, but I have my doubts.

Now, would MS Flight Simulator have become as popular as it has if you could walk all around an airplane, but the only airplane you had to fly was a Boeing 747? Steel Beasts is an outstanding tank simulator, yet there is no interaction with other crewmembers, the same can be said for Dangerous Waters and other Sonalyst submarine titles.

I enjoy a real simulation, that's why I've stayed with SHIII + GWX

Well, Takao, I'm inclined to agree with Amazon's categorization. Further, you're absolutely correct that SH3+GWX is more along the lines of a, "simulator" as the average person looking for a challenge certainly isn't going to be looking for that MUCH of a challenge!

As far as MS Flight Simulator, the continued references to the Boeing 747 were simply, "examples." Really I'd rather fly a DC-3 than a modern, "inflatable" heavy! But, no matter, people who bought MS Flight Sim expecting a game probably shelved it long ago, or did one have to have it to run the more consumer-oriented Combat Flight Simulator? And, of course, as we all know, the Microsoft sim team has been disbanded and no one's clear what happens now. No more Train Simulator - that's for sure!

(I REALLY liked the old LucasArts Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and all the add-on aircraft!)

[Reece]

Originally Posted by mcarlsonus

No more Train Simulator - that's for sure!

I prefer Trainz!! Would just love it if it was multi-playable though!

[Task Force]

Originally Posted by Reece

I prefer Trainz!! Would just love it if it was multi-playable though!

I thought trainz had MP?

Hateing the Devs is not the right thing to do. Hate the UBI suits who get these Ideas, and set the product budget. They make the decisions that effect the developers product. If they had gotten more time, and money im sure they could have done better.

Lets put it this way... Your developing a game, but you only get a limited amount of time to do it, and your budget is not the best. Now GO GO GO!!!

Is your product going to be great, or lacking. I think the after...

Originally Posted by Takao

Simulation???? According to Amazon.com SHV is an "Adventure" game not a simulator Don't believe me, see here: http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Hunter-.../dp/B002PAIPQO
Look under the "Product Details." Quite frankly I agree with them, SHV is subsim "Lite". Hopefully, a supermod will raise it to GWX, but I have my doubts.

Now, would MS Flight Simulator have become as popular as it has if you could walk all around an airplane, but the only airplane you had to fly was a Boeing 747? Steel Beasts is an outstanding tank simulator, yet there is no interaction with other crewmembers, the same can be said for Dangerous Waters and other Sonalyst submarine titles.

I enjoy a real simulation, that's why I've stayed with SHIII + GWX

Lol, I saw SH5 under Action at best buy today.
The issue with the GWX in sh 5 is. It will never happen, untill abunch of modder in the SH5 community get together and start working, GWX isnt together any more and wont be makeing a GWX 5. So untill someone starts a group up, It wont happen.

[Takao]

mcarlsonus,

I understand that the 747 is merely an "example", that is how it was intended in my post. After all, there is not much room to explore in a little Cessna.

No, one did not need MS Flight Simulator to play MS Combat Flight Simulator, the were separate games. Yeah, I've had both. Flight Simulator came with a basic dogfighting scenario, however, it was not that much fun to play.

I loved SWOTL and its many add-on aircraft, I used to play that game for hours on end! The FW-190 and ME-410(add on) were my favorite planes in that game.

[Faamecanic]

Originally Posted by TheSatyr

I kinda blame the Devs more than Ubi for the state the game is in. I'm sure they signed a contract stating that the game would be ready for release on a specific date and for a specific budget. And if the game ISN'T ready by that date than Ubi doesn't have lot of choices:

1)Delay the release,and add more funding. (Not likely since this isn't an AAA title.)
2)Take the financial hit and cancel the project. (Which I'm glad they didn't do.)
3)Release "as is" and try to patch it up to what it was supposed to be. (Which is what they apparently chose to do.).

I'm not trying to knock the Devs here,I just think they may have over reached on what they wanted to acomplish with the time and budget they had.

Like they did with SH3 and SH4.... except not as bad as they have with SH5.

But again I ask...did the DEVS feel compelled to over-reach in order to get UBI to fund SH5? Or did they just over-promise....