And why exacly does the full 3D interior add nothing to gameplay?

Originally Posted by Méo

Some were whining because this feature was not in SH3, now some are whining because this feature is in this time...

Ahhhh. The joys of selective reading. There was no whining on my part, I was not complaining that the features are included merely that I cannot see using them. Are you saying that the new graphics will not increase load time on an older machine nor take up more H-D space? And you know this how? Perhaps you missed the part about "...to each his own"?

I'm with SS on this, outstanding graphics without the features he mentions has an arcade flavour about it, however I will reserve specific judgement on SH5 until release.

Good Hunting

[Méo]

Originally Posted by Randomizer

Are you saying that the new graphics will not increase load time on an older machine nor take up more H-D space?

Every new game does that, only evolution.

Edit: look, I didn't mean to insult you, to me the full 3-D interior is a good thing, even if I would have prefer to see Wolfpacks first.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Somehow this discussion seems to have gone from "why does having full 3-d interior add nothing to gameplay?" to "adding 3D interiors means gameplay will be broken". If the major gameplay functions are broken, yeah, there is no game.

I didn't mean to turn it into an argument, and certainly Oscar's original post is strictly about the 3D First Person aspect itself, and not compared to other things. That said, his question was "Why will it not add to gameplay?", and part of the problem is the way different people react to the word 'gameplay'. To some 'gameplay' refers specifically to how the game functions, that is does it operate realistically. I'm one of those, and to us all the rest is fluff. Good fluff, for sure, and I love anything that adds to the ease of immersion. I still tout SH3 over SH4 just because of the harbor traffic mods, so I can't claim I don't appreciate eye candy. Or ear candy, since DBSM, which I translated from SH2 to SH3, is certainly not required for good gameplay. Nor is having the merchants you sink be given names, and we all know where I stand on that one.

So I definitely want to see this, and hope it works well, and hope the other things get fixed as well.

I think where most of the people who will disagree with Oscar is in the idea that immersion and gameplay are not the same things. Yes, this will add greatly to the immersion, and that is very important. But gameplay? I disagree, but only in the semantics.

[Steeltrap]

Another point to consider is how does the 1st person aspect integrate with broader gameplay?

Suppose you have a choice of going to a damaged compartment in person and improving damage control, the trade-off being a delay in broader commands etc. That would mean the view/option was directly affecting gameplay, so is no longer solely 'eye-candy'.

While that example has issues of its own in realism (and I'm not attempting to advocate it), it can show that this might bemore than simple prettiness.

So perhaps we should wait to see how the 1st person is used before drawing any conclusions.

Cheers

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Steeltrap

Another point to consider is how does the 1st person aspect integrate with broader gameplay?

Suppose you have a choice of going to a damaged compartment in person and improving damage control, the trade-off being a delay in broader commands etc. That would mean the view/option was directly affecting gameplay, so is no longer solely 'eye-candy'.

But that doesn't quite make sense to me. Why would the presence of a commander in a compartment equate to an increase in damage control efficiency? Unless he was an engineering specialist before becoming a commander, that makes no sense.

[FAdmiral]

I, for one, would give up all the 3-d eye candy even if partly
functional to go back to the good ole days when SH2 played against
Destroyer Command. That NEVER got old like going on endless patrols
would do. The game needs to be programmed out of the box instead
of giving the box more compartments to look into.....

JIM

[IanC]

I'm just trying to imagine playing in a fully explorable boat, walking through the compartments, heading up the ladder to the bridge... That must add to the immersion, big time.
I bet after hours and hours of playing this way, we develop a much deeper sense of attachment with the boat and crew, than with any previous subsim.

[Steeltrap]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

But that doesn't quite make sense to me. Why would the presence of a commander in a compartment equate to an increase in damage control efficiency? Unless he was an engineering specialist before becoming a commander, that makes no sense.

As I said in my post,

While that example has issues of its own in realism (and I'm not attempting to advocate it), it can show that this might be more than simple prettiness.

So perhaps we should wait to see how the 1st person is used before drawing any conclusions.

My point here was not that the example I gave made sense and/or should be implemented, rather it was an attempt to say it's technically feasible they might make moving around in first person do something other than simply provide pretty graphics.

I am of the opinion that the mechanics/gameplay are the important parts - this is meant to be a simulation, after all - so my preference is to focus all efforts on that IF there's a resource constraint forcing a choice between accurate simulation and 'pretty internal views'.

Not to say some level of views aren't important to the general 'feel' of the sim, they are. It's a question of degree.

If walking around the boat doesn't alter gameplay, then I, too, tend to feel there's little point in it.

I've expressed this view consistently throughout discussions on SH5.

Cheers

[IanC]

Originally Posted by Steeltrap

If walking around the boat doesn't alter gameplay, then I, too, tend to feel there's little point in it.
Cheers

Like I just finished saying, you don't think it would add greatly to the immersion? But try hard to imagine it, the boat rocking back and forth, you walking through men at work, heading for your bunk, then up to the bow to see the progress of the torpedo loading, etc...
I personally think immersion (sense of being there) is very important in a simulation.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by IanC

Like I just finished saying, you don't think it would add greatly to the immersion? But try hard to imagine it, the boat rocking back and forth, you walking through men at work, heading for your bunk, then up to the bow to see the progress of the torpedo loading, etc...
I personally think immersion (sense of being there) is very important in a simulation.

As I said in another thread, anytime someone mentions "immersion" it means "yeah yeah yeah, you're right it adds nothing but it's something I want to see."

The presence of accurately modelled destroyer behavior, planes that can surprise you by dropping out of volumetric clouds, having to deal with mechanical breakdowns and a BDU that issues realistic orders does a heck of a lot more for "immersion" for me than watching a computer generated depiction of some schmoes in the bow compartment load a torpedo.

[Steeltrap]

Originally Posted by IanC

Like I just finished saying, you don't think it would add greatly to the immersion? But try hard to imagine it, the boat rocking back and forth, you walking through men at work, heading for your bunk, then up to the bow to see the progress of the torpedo loading, etc...
I personally think immersion (sense of being there) is very important in a simulation.

To be fair, the sentence before the one you quoted in my post is...

Not to say some level of views aren't important to the general 'feel' of the sim, they are. It's a question of degree.

So I didn't say it doesn't matter, it's a question of how much it adds and how it does it versus what development opportunity was lost by choosing this path.

Cheers

[IanC]

Originally Posted by Steeltrap

To be fair, the sentence before the one you quoted in my post is...

Not to say some level of views aren't important to the general 'feel' of the sim, they are. It's a question of degree.

So I didn't say it doesn't matter, it's a question of how much it adds and how it does it versus what development opportunity was lost by choosing this path.

Cheers

I got ya. Sorry, didn't mean to 'over snip' your quote. I don't see that much would be lost, unless of course they did something stupid like say 'let's skip this x realism feature and concentrate on the interior.' I guess we'll know soon enough.

[Steeltrap]

Originally Posted by IanC

I don't see that much would be lost, unless of course they did something stupid like say 'let's skip this x realism feature and concentrate on the interior.' I guess we'll know soon enough.

I imagine most people feel this way to some extent.

For my part it's a 'nice to have'. The realism nuts here - most of us, I guess! - worry about the 'nice to have' being put before the 'game breaker must have'.

Cheers

[Méo]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

The presence of accurately modelled destroyer behavior, planes that can surprise you by dropping out of volumetric clouds, having to deal with mechanical breakdowns and a BDU that issues realistic orders does a heck of a lot more for "immersion" for me than watching a computer generated depiction of some schmoes in the bow compartment load a torpedo.

But in an interview, Jürgen Oesten (who spent nearly 600 days at sea) says:

As far as submarine commander is... of course, the main thing and the most important thing is the crew, the training of the crew, the experience of the crew and the mentality of the crew...

So why everything that goes inside the boat should be ignored?

BTW, I didn't see anything from the devs that state that their MAIN FOCUS is to create the full 3-d interior.

Think about it, in SH3 there was what... 2 compartments?

Now there is what... maybe 2, 3 or 4 more compartments... it's not like creating the whole Fallout 3 world.

[JScones]

Wow, so many good points all round here (well, apart from the now all too common threadcrap )!

I don't know what I think now!

Focusing on the original question, I wouldn't say it adds nothing. Indeed, I would consider it complementary to the main task, which, at the macro level is pretty much as Neal states, at least in SH3 (ie goto AM52, sink ships, return home). Where I tend to disagree with Neal though is that at the micro level every engagement tends to be different, requiring different tactics, different skills, different, well, everything. To this end, I can't help but think that walking through the boat will become more repetitive much quicker than sinking ships. How many different ways can I interact with "Torpedo Guy" versus an enemy Destroyer?

Of course, the "boom" crowd would disagree - they're likely to be the ones who set everything to auto and as soon as they see an enemy ship, no matter what the solution, will press the fire button...effectively turning every engagement into the same thing. So the 3D view may add more for them than for me.

Where I will find the feature not adding to gameplay is if implementing it comes at the price of more "core" features, as others have already raised here and at various times over the last five years. Then I don't care whether "Radio Guy" massages my feet and gives me a neck rub, no amount of 3D interface will make up for it...for me.