Why do you play Silent Hunter?

[Adriatico]

- Imersion, feeling of Atlantic WW2

- Washing my brain of my daily obligations and stress

- Like ocean activities - from my room

- General interest in WW2 activities, history and simulations

......

Reamaining 96 reasons will be published in my biography...

[Gezoes]

The last subsim I played was Silent Service I.

Then, after a quarter of a century and a zillion games later, I saw the first screenshots of SH3.

[Iron Budokan]

I like the realism and the historical aspects of the sim.

[msalama]

1) I've always been a history buff, and WWII as we know largely created the world we're still living in.

2) I'm interested in vintage technology, WWII-era machinery included.

[Graf Paper]

Me like blow up ships!

[msalama]

Yah an' dat 2 Herr Kaleun

[siber]

I find that 1st person shoot'em up games just don't work for me, as blasé aggression will often achieve the same results as sound strategy.

However, in realistic simulations such as SH3 (with all automatic assistance provided by the software - ship recognition, AOB calcs etc. - disabled) success depends upon good planning, preparation and execution. Steaming in, all guns blazing, will more often than not result in failure.

Being a scientist, I enjoy seeing my calculations of speed, range, AOB etc, and tactical preparation working as planned, and feel great satisfaction at success.

Also, the dynamic campaign means that, although the situations are often similar and the task the same, the actual happenings are never the same twice, giving the game longevity and enduring interest. This is prolonged by the gradual improvement of your opponents, and the ability to upgrade your equipment (submarines, torpedo types, sonar etc.) as time progresses.

Finally, the simulation acts as a practical history lesson, teaching me what crews of u-boats went through better than any documentary or film on tv (which tends to miss out the boredom, the cramped space, the feeling of uncertainty/fear when being depth charged etc).

Basically, with the simulation (and mods - great work all you modders/dev teams.) as realistic as possible, I enjoy and learn from the experience, both doing tasks that were required in real life and feeling the emotions that come with it.

To be honest, I think that this sort of game should be played/demonstrated in schools as joint lessons in history, maths, physics and socialogy. Perhaps that's a new market that game dev teams could look into?

[Sailor Steve]

I'm sorry; what kind of stupid question is that?

It's like a woman asking a man why the only things he ever cooks are chili and spaghetti? The only correct answer: there's something else?:rotfl:

I play it because it's there, of course.

[Kipparikalle]

I just happen to like WW2 simulations.

[Graf Paper]

success depends upon good planning, preparation and execution. Steaming in, all guns blazing, will more often than not result in failure.

Sneak good...blow up more ship.

Being a scientist, I enjoy seeing my calculations of speed, range, AOB etc, and tactical preparation working as planned, and feel great satisfaction at success.

Aim right...blow up ship.

Also, the dynamic campaign means that, although the situations are often similar and the task the same, the actual happenings are never the same twice, giving the game longevity and enduring interest.

Blow up different ship in different place.

This is prolonged by the gradual improvement of your opponents, and the ability to upgrade your equipment (submarines, torpedo types, sonar etc.) as time progresses.

Enemy get better, you get better or blow up.

Finally, the simulation acts as a practical history lesson, teaching me what crews of u-boats went through better than any documentary or film on tv

Learn blow up right ship at right time.

...(which tends to miss out the boredom, the cramped space, the feeling of uncertainty/fear when being depth charged etc).

Water go boom...bowels make room. One bathroom, many men.

Basically, with the simulation (and mods - great work all you modders/dev teams.) as realistic as possible, I enjoy and learn from the experience, both doing tasks that were required in real life and feeling the emotions that come with it.

Me like blow up ships.

To be honest, I think that this sort of game should be played/demonstrated in schools as joint lessons in history, maths, physics and socialogy. Perhaps that's a new market that game dev teams could look into?

Need more people blow up ships!

[gordonmull]

I bought Destroyer Command a while back and played around with it, not getting very far (always sunk by a uboat ) and saw there was a sister game....

Got SHII and was like wow this is just like Silent Service II that I'd enjoyed as a young kid (not getting very far, never did sink the Yamoto (sp?)) but way better. Also by then I'd seen Das Boot and was kind of inspired by it.

When I saw the first vid of SHIII the graphics blew me away. Amazing after SHII! I bought it as soon as it came out. Look at that sea, look at the ships. My long suffering girlfriend was so impressed that she said she might even have a shot.

I continue to play it because it presents a challenge, in terms of control, thought, tactics. Just when its another run of the mill attack, it all goes haywire and you have to get youself out of the situation.

Sure it's given me an interest in the history and I've learned a great deal about that, and some of it makes me angry for the lives that were thrown away later in the war, but what keeps me playing, really? A desire to get past 1942 without ending up

[Grayson02sept1980]

I just like U-Boats (I built two as models when I was young) and the technical aspect of the whole thing as well as history of submarines.

And I play the game (SH3) for the reason I can command a boat myself which is rather problematic in reality... it is the same as some people play FlightSims etc.
But I also like the "fight"-theme:
sneak up the enemy... set up my target..shoot... wait...bang! *cheers*
And then try to get out of there... "alife" -oh oh ... thrill - tactic - strategy etc.

If someone would ask me to analyse this I would say it is some kind of satisfaction of old prehistorical mental schemes.

What I also like about SH3 is the way one can and has to manage his crew... and the possibilty to upgrade and earn stuff.

... and of course:
Very big upgrade from SilentService2
GWX blew it up even more
OLC's GUI and some other mods add the last bit to get max realism out of it

the great community

[balto63]

Just to relax my mind, sometimes I prefer a book sometimes SH3.

Best regards

Why do I play SHIII? Hmmm......

Only got the game a few months a go. I was never really into the whole sim thing before, and only got it because it was on offer in the local computer shop. I make a habit of trawling the internet for game updates and mods before I play any new game that I buy, so I stumbled on this site.

The level of support on here is incredible - better than any other game I've ever played. The mods you can get (GWX and OLC for me) combine to make the game massively immersive. I never thought I would enjoy a game so much where you are doing almost nothing for 90% of the time, but I do. I enjoy the intellectual challenge of manual targetting, plotting intercept courses etc, I enjoy the claustraphobic feel of having to go deep with destroyers calling out for you, and I enjoy the fact that you have to be cautious and that you generally have more time to think in this game than others I play.

Cheers,

Wibbs

[ReM]

I'm a sucker for all military sims: flightsims, tanksims, helosims, subsims, strategy games, you name it. Have always had a special interest in U-boats and the battle in the Atlantic and SHIII gives you the chance to immerse yourself into that experience to some extent. Must admit that I had lost the will to play it until GWX came around; it surely extended the lifespan for SHIII. The new S-boot mod is great as well and a whole new experience!

The big minus is that SHIII gobbles up large amounts of time, even for a single mission; time that I should be spending with the wife and my 2 boys, although the elder one loves to pull the trigger when daddy KaLeun has a target lined up for a kill.