Thoughts on the future

[paleodust]

Now that you're getting the Wii Remote to work with RWFF, the next logical step would be to make it work here as well!

[paul]

That Wii remote thread on the RWFF forum has caused some confusion. It's actually a 2 year old thread, when I was beta testing support for the Wii remote in RWFF. Someone recently replied to the old thread that had asked for beta testers, which made it look like a current thread. When I beta tested the Wii remote support it turned out to be far more complicated to get working than it was worth. The results were good when it worked, but inconsistent from one computer to another. Depending on which bluetooth adapter you had and many other factors, it might work easily, or it might never work as it should. The bottom line was that the tech support work that would be created by supporting it would keep me from getting anything else done, so I decided not to support it. Instead I decided to wait for a similar wireless controller to become available for the PC, and that happened last year with the Stix controller. The functionality is very similar to using a Wii remote with the PC, but installation and setup is simple. They're also less expensive, as you can pick them up on Amazon.com or eBay very reasonably. The Stix controllers are already supported in VR Sportfishing.

TIght lines,

Paul

[Fisherman]

At times the Depth-Finder box interferes with seeing one's rod-tip, making only the line movement the only way to tell if you have a fish on. However, the Line-Tension and Line-Out sliders are really far bigger than they need to be. They could be shortened and raised up, and the Depth-Finder box moved to the LEFT side of the screen, just above the Quit and Pause boxes. This would eliminate the interference with the rod-tip.
Of course, adding lateral movement of the fishing rod would eliminate the need for this.

[paleodust]

I know a lot of us like to stare at fish and admire their beauty. How about a virtual livewell? It would allow us to size up what we've caught, at a glance.

On a similar note, why not add a menu item for viewing your trophies. It would be cool to see your most impressive fish up on the wall in a virtual trophy room. And, for those of us who are strictly catch-and-release anglers, we could pretend they are fiberglass replicas.

[mitchlin]

I totally agree with a trophy room. You could even have the trophies you've caught hanging on the wall of the bait shop. Have the biggest fish of every species caught on each particular lake. Each bait shop would have the biggest fish caught on that lake...However way its done, there definately needs to be a way to see the "trophies" a person has caught.

[Fisherman]

Yes, some way of recording visually would be nice.... How about this? Since we can already take in-game photos, how about a thing very common in baitshops 'round the world? A PHOTO WALL? We could go into any lake we have fished and see a picture of us and our individual top three or so fish in any given species the lake holds? This would add a sense of realisim and individuality to the baitshops as well....

[paul]

I like that idea very much - It should be pretty straightforward to automatically save a screenshot each time you catch one of your new biggest fish on a given lake, and add it to the photo wall in the bait shop for that lake. Then the bait shop just needs a button to visit the photo wall to see your records. I'll get that on the list!

Paul

[Fisherman]

A couple of things. First, the AI, or truly, its lack. I'm in a tournament on Kinni, and hear a motor to my right as I near my chosen spot. I stop to fish and a boat cuts right in front of me. Had I not stopped at that moment by sheer chance, I would have hit the other boat amidships and been disqualified. On another lake, in a tournament, another boat is in the same bay as I, going around and around and around in wide circles. I creep by it, catching bass after bass. The other boat just continues to circle about. Something really must be done about the behavior of the other boats.
***
Ok, I am tournament fishing and night falls. It starts to rain as well. Suddenly, there are no more lights on the baitshop. I have to navigate by the map. This is on Kinni during that same tournament. On another tournament, another lake, I hit a mudflat, the program resets me going the other way. In the fog, I don't notice this. Trying to find my way back, I hit another mudflat and am disqualified. Some mixed feelings on these. While I don't mind a challenge, this is unrealistic, at best. Perhaps some bouys would be a nice addition, to warn of such hazards. One should not have to navigate by the map. Or go the full distance and put in a series of GPS devices for purchase. That might also help with marking hot fishing spots, an added bonus. Certainly, no one likes to be disqualifed by a bad boater, or a mudflat.

[Fisherman]

Ive done some underwater view fishing of late, and noticed that after the cast, the line almost always runs to the opposite side of the screen. It should always be "connected" to the direction the cast actually comes from.
***
At some point, you might consider redoing the fisherman's wrists, as they are chunky as if a long sleeve shirt cuff is there, under the skin.

[paul]

The wrists and hands could use some refinement, yes. As for the underwater view, at least the lure profile view, the game always places the camera to the left (port) side of the lure, so you'll always see the line going off to the left side of the screen. The line truly does go back to the tip of the rod, regardless of where the virtual camera is that gives you your view. Depending on the view you had when you cast the switch to viewing the left side of the lure may be a bit disorienting.

Paul

[paleodust]

Sometimes, it will switch to the left side while you're retrieving, switch to the right side while it rests, then switch to the left as you retrieve, and so on, back and forth. It can be very annoying when you are using a retrieve, pause, retrieve technique while in an underwater view.

[Fisherman]

Yes, I have the same experience, and, on some lakes during tournies(See below), using the camera becomes important. The effect is just a bit awkward, as the lure faces one way, the line another and then jumps.
***
I would like to see more variety in the tournaments, pertaining to time of year, day and weather. Seems like, whenever I fish the Kinni Lake Tournament, it is always late in the day, raining, and the second round is always night. We should get a notice somehow of the month, day and weather going IN to the tournament, so we have a bit of data to use to prepare our equipment.

[paul]

Tournaments taking place at night is actually a bug. That will be fixed in the next update. They're all supposed to start in late morning.

Unless you want a night fishing tournament?

Paul

[Fisherman]

Yes, the night fishing is very challenging, so having a tournament at night is ok. What I would really like to see is a variety of tournaments, with a notice of time of start, day, month, and, for tournaments that might be on the same day, weather forecast. Sort of a tournament trail to follow.
***
Longer tournaments are a request as well. It seems one barely has time to find a spot or two, much less upgrade a limit if one has reached that point.

[paleodust]

The other day, I was in a pike tournament and all I could catch were muskies (normally, I wouldn't complain about such a thing )! The problem is that muskies apparently don't count as pike in a pike tournament. Made me wish there were a muskie tournament available (or a combination of the two, for that matter).

Of course, I'm looking forward to the implementation of trout tournaments.

Also, the thought keeps occuring to me, "Why don't I ever catch tagged fish during a tournament?"