The Way I See It

[Julhelm]

Originally Posted by Hinrich Schwab

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]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

*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*

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

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]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

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.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

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.

I think you are missing the point. You trash a whole bunch of people's projects in the course of your posts and then complain in the next sentence about how nobody wants to work with you. Come on, you can't put those two things together? Improve your attitude and people will be more willing to collaborate.

[Onkel Neal]

Attitude is very important, to developers and to gamers. It's tough to see people who have bad attitudes expect better results.

[Julhelm]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

I think you are missing the point. You trash a whole bunch of people's projects in the course of your posts and then complain in the next sentence about how nobody wants to work with you. Come on, you can't put those two things together? Improve your attitude and people will be more willing to collaborate.

FYI I work with other people on shipped commercial projects all the time and never have a problem since I'm always the first to kill my darlings.

And no, I'm not trashing people's projects: I am saying they all ended up as vaporware. That's the truth.

It doesn't matter if they started off with the best of intentions, because in the end they all failed to deliver because ambitions were too high. So what good are community projects like these if they at best fail to deliver (like Jet Thunder, DotD) and at worst scam people through paid-access forums (Fighter Ops)?

Come on. If a project runs on and on for 5-6 years without even an alpha release, then it's not going to happen any time soon. And even if it does, it faces the problem of looking obsolete and poor against the competition so it ends up like Duke Nukem where engines are swapped out, content and code has to be scratched and redone and features are added in the meantime etc. So it gets perpetually delayed as the bar keeps getting raised and when and if it ever ships, it's going to be broken and unsuccessful.

What I want to see is a proper project plan where milestones and deadlines are planned ahead, a design document that describes how the game plays and what features are and are not in, and a funding plan, be it publisher money or preorders with alpha build access. And it has to have someone in charge acting as a producer that can manage things so the project isn't killed over in-fighting between team members or losing a key member. Without this organisation, it's not going to be any more credible than the projects I listed.

For the sake of perspective, consider that DCS runs on about 15 years of legacy codebase and experience. FSX/Flight has 30 years of legacy development. X-Plane about 20 or so? Even Strike Fighters has over 10 years and only began to be "complete" some 3-4 years after release. So if you develop your sim from scratch today, that's the kind of timeline you're looking at before you can reach that level of production values/fidelity.

Again, this isn't a case of bad attitude on my part. If you go look at the state of indie projects, you'll find 90% of them never make it to beta, much less release, for all the above reasons.

[PL_Andrev]

It is no time for "true sim" now. All developers look at our money only and keep attention for arcade or simply games. Unfortunately only the big game companies can give us usually good and playable game.
The open projects have too poor background - examples: undeveloped DotD, SurfaceWarfareSuperMod still not developed, GR2Editor for SH5 is developed by one person only...

At this moment only "World of Battleships" can be good target for us. Developers still change the idea of this game (latest news tell us about shooting torpedoes by destroyers and transport ships) - maybe in the future we'll spot submarines at this - unfortunately arcade game...

Other idea is access to open source of game - this forum join many moders with some brillant ideas. But no open codes for horizon included old project like Battlestations:Midway, SH3 or Enigma:Rising Tide...

[SilentOtto]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

What I want to see is a proper project plan where milestones and deadlines are planned ahead, a design document that describes how the game plays and what features are and are not in, and a funding plan, be it publisher money or preorders with alpha build access. And it has to have someone in charge acting as a producer that can manage things so the project isn't killed over in-fighting between team members or losing a key member. Without this organisation, it's not going to be any more credible than the projects I listed.

Ok I think you would make a great Führer for this project. Now we only have to find some people who would want to work under your iron heel...

[Ducimus]

Personally, i don't think we'll see any more submarine sims (not sure if this upcoming flash based game qualifies or not), and i also see a decline in "big name modding" on subsim in terms of "super mods".

I don't think many have thought about it, but a lot of the big name supermods are made by the same generation of modders on subsim. The scene that developed on SH3 might have been unique. Since then, there has been a steady decline in participation by much of this older generation , and not as many new modders are picking up the baton and moving forward.

Five years from now, half the people on subsim will still be playing SH3 on some screwed up aspect ratio, with no real headway going forward on the other titles that are more current to the technolgoy of the machines these games are being ran on. If people were smart and got together, they'd make a concerted and organized effort to move to SH4 or 5, but the likelyhood of that is remote. There's a lot of loyalty in the community to platforms (be it SH3, 4, or 5), and a lot of "Brand loyalty" to whatever brand name mod of your choosing.

Unless a fire is lit under some asses, and people stop expecting this small cadre of people to make everything for them, i think eventually, things will sort of fizzle out. People need to stop relying on the same old names to provide for them. Eventually, all these same old names will get bored, and move on to other hobbies, taking whatever knowledge they have out the door with them.

[Red October1984]

I agree. If a group of people got together, they could make SH4 and SH5 as good as any supermod for SH3. Take SH5 and add GWX. Wouldnt that be great. But yes. I see people complaining, I have done my share of complaining too, but why cant SH4 and 5 be as great as SH3? It isnt as if its a lost cause, I just think that people have their mind set that SH3 is the best and there will never be anything better. I say, stop thinking like that. Supermods are slowly being developed for SH3? A pretty old game. Mods exist for SH4 and 5. But has anybody sat down and tried to do a supermod for 4 and 5?

[SilentOtto]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

I agree. If a group of people got together, they could make SH4 and SH5 as good as any supermod for SH3. Take SH5 and add GWX. Wouldnt that be great. But yes. I see people complaining, I have done my share of complaining too, but why cant SH4 and 5 be as great as SH3? It isnt as if its a lost cause, I just think that people have their mind set that SH3 is the best and there will never be anything better. I say, stop thinking like that. Supermods are slowly being developed for SH3? A pretty old game. Mods exist for SH4 and 5. But has anybody sat down and tried to do a supermod for 4 and 5?

I hope TDW (and many others!) won't need their heart pills when they read this...

It's not as if Ubi has made their games uber-modder friendly, man, he has been even working with damned disassembler to make stuff work, and then patching the exe file...

[Julhelm]

Originally Posted by SilentOtto

Ok I think you would make a great Führer for this project. Now we only have to find some people who would want to work under your iron heel...

Here's a better idea:

You find me the funding, and I'll hire you a bunch of competent people to do the job fulltime. That's the only way large, ambitious projects like coding hardcore sims from scratch can be done.

Don't believe me? How many AAA-level indie/community sims not based on a commercially available base have released so far?

And yes, you really do need a führer to manage big projects and make the tough decisions if you want it to succeed. That's kind of a no-brainer.

[SilentOtto]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

Here's a better idea:

You find me the funding, and [...] That's kind of a no-brainer.

ftfy