Journey's End for The Grey Wolves Mod Team

[Knipper]

I've just reloaded SHIII after an absence of three years and which mods did I load? GWX of course. I haven't bothered looking at the rest (despite having a hardly-used copy of SH5 and acknowledging the talent that's in this forum) because I know it could never get better than what the GWX guys turned this sim into. Thank you guys. SINK 'EM ALL!

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Knipper

I've just reloaded SHIII after an absence of three years and which mods did I load? GWX of course. I haven't bothered looking at the rest (despite having a hardly-used copy of SH5 and acknowledging the talent that's in this forum) because I know it could never get better than what the GWX guys turned this sim into. Thank you guys. SINK 'EM ALL!

High praise indeed and much appreciated

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

You know I've wanted to know something. If you knew how bad SH5 would be(at first as since then mods make it playable finally) would you guys still have split up or would you have finished the GWX4 project?

A good question and not one easily answered but on a personal note I remember talking to my friend Dan Dimitrescu (Ubisoft SH5 Dev) at Neals house during the SubSim Meet in 2008 and whilst he was limited in what he could discuss I don't believe anyone was prepared for what state the game would be in at time of release.

That is not meant as a slur toward Dan or any of his colleagues because we all know 'he who pays the piper calls the tune' and that is what I believed happened where Ubisoft was concerned. I'm confident Dan would and could have produced something far better had they been given the time and the resources.

One or two of the Grey Wolves were about to leave for personal reasons (unbeknown to the rest of the team at the time) and once that happened and upon seeing SH5 released in the state it was in I doubt the GWX4 project would have been taken forward.

Personally speaking, I was disappointed at what the community were served and wish we could have stayed together as a team and taken the game forward but I remain conscious of the fact that Ubisoft were gracious enough not to object to the work of the team, some might say because it helped sales of the original release which was obviously needed in order to get the mod to work.

All the above is my personal viewpoint/opinion.

[les green01]

it does suck that sh4 didn't get the love sh3 did on mods although the ones we have is great but could been much better

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by les green01

it does suck that sh4 didn't get the love sh3 did on mods although the ones we have is great but could been much better

I think a major part of the problem was SH4 came out too soon after SH3 did least from what I can tell. Seems most of the modders were still working on their SH3 mods and by the time they woul've switched over to SH4 number 5 was on the horizon so they skipped it. If it had come out a year later when the SH3 mods were beginning to wrap up you'd have probably seen more mods for it.

[les green01]

i think so too guess i need to work harder trying to figure it all out but what the gwx team had was a team sh4 has both ao's instead of several mods and multi sh4s why cant one mod be built that covers both ao's

[TorpX]

IMO, the modding efforts in SH suffer from a systematic problem.

Most of the mods are the product of individuals, with a few being the product of teams. However, there is little effort made to document the techniques used, or the knowledge gained. Inevitably, modders move on, get burned out, or just decide to pursue other interests. When this happens, their knowledge is lost to the community, and potential new modders must start from square one, and this naturally retards further progress. Also, there seems to be a virtual wall between SH3 and SH4 modders, with only slight communication between them.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by TorpX

However, there is little effort made to document the techniques used, or the knowledge gained. Inevitably, modders move on, get burned out, or just decide to pursue other interests. When this happens, their knowledge is lost to the community, and potential new modders must start from square one, and this naturally retards further progress. Also, there seems to be a virtual wall between SH3 and SH4 modders, with only slight communication between them.

Yeah, that's a known problem - and a tough problem, sadly. Back when SH5 came out, there was a bit of an effort to start up a modding wiki for it to share that knowledge, but the problem was that it needed someone to lead the project, curate it, and constantly bug modders to contribute. And in turn, modders often have to learn how to document their knowledge - that's kind of a whole skill set in itself. I didn't have time then for such a commitment unfortunately (and I still don't), and now that boat has sailed so to speak. It's a lot of effort to maintain something like that. What I hope is that next time we get a major naval combat title, we'll have the right resources and right people in place to support it!