SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

SUBSIM Radio Room Forums (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/index.php)
-   Silent Hunter Online (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=258)
-   -   The Way I See It (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=196699)

Red October1984 07-07-12 11:04 AM

The Way I See It
 
The age of Naval Simulations is over. Companies want to make big, blockbuster, moneymakers. So, as the "new simulation" they release cheap, easy, games that wont last, or they're broken without mods. Are we stuck hoping for a new SH3? Or a new Dangerous Waters. All we get are these little flash games like Battleship Chess. Battleship Chess is hard, and i dont like it too much. Nowadays, The Sims 3 is the top in the simulation category. That isnt a real simulation. Sims are going to free to play formats now. Microsoft Flight, Silent Hunter Online, etc. Maybe I havent done enough research. Correct me if you want, the only sims coming out now are crappy. Or there are very good ones like X-Plane 10. But thats a small company compared to Ubi, Activision, EA, etc.


Thats just the way I see it.

Sailor Steve 07-07-12 11:33 AM

The only thing companies have ever been interested in is making money. That is why they exist, after all.

I think the best sims have always been made by small groups who really wanted to do them. Silent Service was created by Sid Meier. Aces Of The Deep was Dynamix. Silent Hunter was made by Strategic Simulations Inc. When they were bought out by Ubisoft the downhill slide started. SH3 was a jump up, but after that they started to suffer because it was all being controlled by corporate heads who don't really care about sims at all.

It's the nature of the beast.

Red October1984 07-07-12 08:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve (Post 1906286)
The only thing companies have ever been interested in is making money. That is why they exist, after all.

I think the best sims have always been made by small groups who really wanted to do them. Silent Service was created by Sid Meier. Aces Of The Deep was Dynamix. Silent Hunter was made by Strategic Simulations Inc. When they were bought out by Ubisoft the downhill slide started. SH3 was a jump up, but after that they started to suffer because it was all being controlled by corporate heads who don't really care about sims at all.

It's the nature of the beast.

I will admit i have never played Silent Service or Aces of the Deep. I hear that they are very good. Microsoft has done some remarkable work with the Flight Simulator series. Now, the new Free to Play Microsoft Flight, i dont think, will ever live up to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, 2002, X, etc. I would like to try out AOTD and SS one of these days.

Hinrich Schwab 07-08-12 12:29 AM

Aces of the Deep is one of the best subsims ever made. Silent Service was good enought to both get a sequel and a NES port, thanks to Konami's old front company, Ultra Games. Both franchises are worth experiencing. As I have repeatedly said in the past, the next great subsim is going to come from the subsim community, not these greedy megacorps who only want cash-cow titles.

Hawk66 07-08-12 02:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve (Post 1906286)
The only thing companies have ever been interested in is making money. That is why they exist, after all.

Yup, ...else they could not survive ;) at least not within the western business model...but yes, especially big companies strive often for short-term goals due to the stock market.

So, in the 80/90's there was a market for simulation, simply the people were interested in such stuff and the graphics capability were not that strong so game mechanics was to some extend more important than today.

RedOctober is completely right...colleagues and buddies of mine buying iPads and that stuff like the hell, telling me that the PC is dead and buying nonsense games from the AppStore which they delete after a couple of days and buy the next. When you are saying that you are interested in naval simulations, with manuals big like a telephone book (Dangerous Waters), you get a weird look at the best.

The flight sim guys have at least DCS, which is very fortunate for them.

And apart from the Silent Hunter ('offline') series, also the modern naval simulation era looks in a very bad state...I've not seen any message from the Sonalysts guys for over a year now.

BigBANGtheory 07-08-12 03:45 AM

You have to carve out your own market for SIMs imho, the reason why DCS series works is that it sells itself and they offset some of the development costs with collaboration on commercial contracts.

My point is you need to put something out there that screams High Quality, even if its limited in scope. I think also people under estimate how fed up console gamers are of the rinse and repeat FPS games but they don't want some half arsed attempt or something that isn't up to par on the presentation its got to look real.

Above all else this is what BIS with Arma3 understands, lessons to be learnt.

mkIpetrucci 07-08-12 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hawk66 (Post 1906536)

The flight sim guys have at least DCS, which is very fortunate for them.

Agreed, DCS is the perfect counterexample that you can be succesfull and produce high quality simulators in the same time.

Red October1984 07-08-12 09:04 AM

DCS, i hear, is a very good group of sims. But, the 'puter isnt powerful enough for most games. Im stuck playing the favorites from 2004. Im not saying that my games arent fun as hell. I love a good flight sim. Good naval sim too. One of these days, im going to score a new desktop and catch up on all of the newer sims. Flight sims havent died yet. I dont believe that the PC is dead, I just think the game selection is changing drastically. Pop on over to amazon and take you a look through the Simulations category in the PC section. All I saw was the Sims 3 and its thousands of add ons. The PC isnt dead, simulations are dying. :Kaleun_Crying:



Moment of silence for all the greats.... :()1: :/\\chop

Takeda Shingen 07-08-12 09:59 AM

All things are cyclical. Simulations will be back.

USS Drum 07-08-12 12:31 PM

The last good Silent Hunter game was S.ilent Hunter 4

Red October1984 07-08-12 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen (Post 1906667)
All things are cyclical. Simulations will be back.

I really hope so. There is no better genre in the PC world. :rock:

Julhelm 07-08-12 12:37 PM

*rant on*

If you really love sims that much, take up programming and get working on one. Everybody here is all doom&gloom about how sims are dead etc but just look at the indie forum here and it is utterly dead. Literally no projects going except the random guy doing VS addons or projects like ComSubSim or Danger from the Deep which have been around for a decade and aren't going anywhere.

Like I've said before, I've been trying to launch a decent sub game for years now (I'm an artist) but always get stuck on not finding any programmers interested in subs. Then on these boards, where people are sub enthusiasts, noone steps up to the challenge but instead will bitch about how the evil publishers and casual gamers won't produce a sim for them.

Seriously, with flexibly priced middleware like Unity, Leadwerks, UDK and Cryengine around, it's never been easier to start an indie project on a competitive tech base provided the motivation is there.

*rant off*

Iron Budokan 07-08-12 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen (Post 1906667)
All things are cyclical. Simulations will be back.

^This. As a writer I have seen the same thing happen with genres. I've seen it happen with games, too. It is ever thus.

Hawk66 07-08-12 12:58 PM

@Julhelm...I think it is realistic to do a 2D sub sim like RedStormRising (concentrating on game logic and simplify the simulation environment a bit)...but 3D with a scope like Dangerous Waters(multi-platform including non-subs, which needs 3D) is a complete other story.

The engines you mention have not the focus on simulations..more on RPGs and that stuff...I am not claiming it is impossible but you would need months alone to learn the stuff to do simulations with it...

So or so to develop a 3D naval sim, you would need to find a bunch of very dedicated people, doing this for a decade or more in their spare time...

Hinrich Schwab 07-08-12 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julhelm (Post 1906734)
*rant on*

If you really love sims that much, take up programming and get working on one. Everybody here is all doom&gloom about how sims are dead etc but just look at the indie forum here and it is utterly dead. Literally no projects going except the random guy doing VS addons or projects like ComSubSim or Danger from the Deep which have been around for a decade and aren't going anywhere.

Like I've said before, I've been trying to launch a decent sub game for years now (I'm an artist) but always get stuck on not finding any programmers interested in subs. Then on these boards, where people are sub enthusiasts, noone steps up to the challenge but instead will bitch about how the evil publishers and casual gamers won't produce a sim for them.

Seriously, with flexibly priced middleware like Unity, Leadwerks, UDK and Cryengine around, it's never been easier to start an indie project on a competitive tech base provided the motivation is there.

*rant off*

It's nice to know you still won't miss an opportunity to let everyone know how much you truly hate the community here. Your argument that no one will step up to make a sim is invalid. The group here at http://www.u-boot-hahd.com/index.html are both working on a megamod for SHIII and are laying the groundwork for a new sim, as well.

Julhelm 07-08-12 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hinrich Schwab (Post 1906770)
It's nice to know you still won't miss an opportunity to let everyone know how much you truly hate the community here. Your argument that no one will step up to make a sim is invalid. The group here at http://www.u-boot-hahd.com/index.html are both working on a megamod for SHIII and are laying the groundwork for a new sim, as well.

Oh really?

I've seen that board and IMO it's going to be another vapourware project the likes of other "ultimate sims" like Fighter Ops or Danger from the Deep. Modding SH3 which already is a really good, solid sim isn't even comparable to creating one from scratch with all of the systems modelling and tech programming that requires. UBI tried with SH5 and even they couldn't get it right with a 50-something man team. So the idea of enthusiasts building the ultimate U-boat sim that blows SH3-4-5 out of the water simply isn't credible. Where's the funding? Fighter Ops aimed to be the ultimate flightsim and used one of the first crowdsourced funding models and they've been vaporware for almost a decade. Jet Thunder showcased awesome proprietary tech and artwork, even have a publisher but has failed to materialize, going the vaporware route. Danger from the Deep looked awesome = vaporware again.

What would have been credible would have been SH1-type sim with 2D interface and simpler 3D ships. But designed-by-committee ultimate full-3D all-systems-modelled u-boat sim? It's not a realistic goal. Hawk has it right when he says you'd have to have a bunch of very dedicated people working hard for over a decade and even then it's too big of a scope and since it's community-input driven, it's going to suffer from a bad case of feature creep. Remember S.T.A.L.K.E.R.? Originally set to release in late 2002? Then the devs fell into the trap of trying to implement every feature the community asked for to the point where THQ had to step in and drastically cut the scope down to something that was manageable.

Look again at the indie subsim forums here. It is littered with "never-went-anywhere" projects. And all of them will have failed on setting out with too big a scope and too lofty goals. Or they were one-man visions without the will to compromise and work with others, and died when spare time ran out.

@Hawk66:

The engines I mentioned can be used for sims if one is willing to give up modelling the whole earth:

Combat-Helo is pretty far along and uses the Leadwerks engine which is optimized for FPS's. Naval War uses Unity. For both of these, the compromise is map size. But the question is, do we really need to navigate the globe in realtime in 3D? Or can we live with transiting on a 2D map ala Silent Service and procedurally generate a 32x32km 3D area when combat occurs? Or have a set of smaller but more detailed maps? Modelling a globe sounds nice but it's going to end up like MSFS where you get the entire globe but in pretty lacking detail with a few key areas modelled to look authentic. Interestingly there is a flightsim that uses Google Earth as its terrain renderer.

Takeda Shingen 07-08-12 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julhelm (Post 1906734)
*rant on*

If you really love sims that much, take up programming and get working on one. Everybody here is all doom&gloom about how sims are dead etc but just look at the indie forum here and it is utterly dead. Literally no projects going except the random guy doing VS addons or projects like ComSubSim or Danger from the Deep which have been around for a decade and aren't going anywhere.

Like I've said before, I've been trying to launch a decent sub game for years now (I'm an artist) but always get stuck on not finding any programmers interested in subs. Then on these boards, where people are sub enthusiasts, noone steps up to the challenge but instead will bitch about how the evil publishers and casual gamers won't produce a sim for them.

Seriously, with flexibly priced middleware like Unity, Leadwerks, UDK and Cryengine around, it's never been easier to start an indie project on a competitive tech base provided the motivation is there.

*rant off*

Quote:

Oh really?

I've seen that board and IMO it's going to be another vapourware project the likes of other "ultimate sims" like Fighter Ops or Danger from the Deep. Modding SH3 which already is a really good, solid sim isn't even comparable to creating one from scratch with all of the systems modelling and tech programming that requires. UBI tried with SH5 and even they couldn't get it right with a 50-something man team. So the idea of enthusiasts building the ultimate U-boat sim that blows SH3-4-5 out of the water simply isn't credible. Where's the funding? Fighter Ops aimed to be the ultimate flightsim and used one of the first crowdsourced funding models and they've been vaporware for almost a decade. Jet Thunder showcased awesome proprietary tech and artwork, even have a publisher but has failed to materialize, going the vaporware route. Danger from the Deep looked awesome = vaporware again.
With stated attitudes like this, it is not surprising to me that you cannot find programmers to work with.

Julhelm 07-08-12 06:47 PM

Yes, heaven forbid one has a realist attitude when it comes to indie development.

Trying to do AAA-level DCS: U-boat is simply not going to happen unless there is substantial funding behind it to pay people to make it.

Until the HAHD team can demonstrate that, they'll be no more credible than Fighter Ops or Jet Thunder.

So go ahead and prove me wrong.

TheDarkWraith 07-08-12 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julhelm (Post 1906850)
Yes, heaven forbid one has a realist attitude when it comes to indie development.

Trying to do AAA-level DCS: U-boat is simply not going to happen unless there is substantial funding behind it to pay people to make it.

Until the HAHD team can demonstrate that, they'll be no more credible than Fighter Ops or Jet Thunder.

So go ahead and prove me wrong.

Have any of you tried to do any 3D rendering with DirectX or OpenGL? Trust me, it's not easy. It's easy to render a 3D model with them but rendering many 3D models in real time is not. Now you want to add realism to it also (parallax mapping, AO, bump, etc.) and you have little to no programming experience? It will be a LONG time before you have anything even remotely feasible. You can be a great 3D artist but that is just a very small part of making a complete game from scratch.

You need a team of programmers to make a new game from scratch!

Hinrich Schwab 07-08-12 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julhelm (Post 1906850)
So go ahead and prove me wrong.

Oh look. You are back to weasel-wording arguments. Takeda is right. You are the one with an attitude problem. The only thing you have really done here is bash on anyone who complains or refuses to agree with your narrow views.


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 11:28 PM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 1995- 2024 Subsim®
"Subsim" is a registered trademark, all rights reserved.