Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-73.220.89.40-20150318192417/@comment-24894280-20150328093739

Just a Simple Merchant wrote: It should be noted...the anime only has to follow through with the lore of the game, not the mechanics. But it was certainly enjoyable when I see inside jokes or mechanics which could only be understood by KC players. The part where Akagi eats ALOT. The part where Yamato gets hungry after 2 secs. The part where they wrestle for air control in the last episode. I got a good laugh when I saw the "expedition failure" from the 6div girls. There was an AA CI from Fubuki as well..

Game has always been the core

First and foremost, I would believe most should agree that the game precedes the anime. The game was the core product and the anime was developed, probably as an afterthought after the game was well received and also because the accompanying peripheral manga, dramacd, doujin(maybe) were well received. The anime was developed to partly reward the fanbase and I would suggest that it aims to draw in even more players. At the end of the day, it was aimed at boosting sales. The increased in player numbers would support this. Similarly, an game or real life product followed by an anime tends to be a decent formula in the anime industry, examples are animes such as Gundam Build Fighters, Pokemon, Rage of Bahamut, all the other TCG, etc.

KC designer used WWII ships, battles and events as inspiration 

That being the case, we would have to consider and gleemed into the mind(s) of the chief game designer as the one who conceptualise the game. If I have to describe this game to my friends, I would summarize it this way 'A web based game involving personification of WW2 IJN ships'. I would suggest that this is a game full of Japanese patriotism which views the WWII from the lens of by and large the Japanese public. Looking at the missions, the past events and even the expeditions, the developments and designers of KC have heavily modeled the game after real life events and battles. Even the equipments are supposedly modeled after real life counterparts, at least to a large portion.

The Abyssal fleet must have been a reference to the Allied ships

Since the battles and ships follow the real life counterparts and events. It would logically follow that the adversary / enemy in the game must have been modelled after the Allied ships. The various battles around World 1 to 6 suggests this. The events depending on the date it starts even tend to correspond with the past operations. As the various other posters have kindly pointed out, many of the players were able to find similarities in the abyssal and the real life allied ships. It amazes when players were able to predict the upcoming events based on historic battles and even able to make an intelligent guess whether it would be an event which requires lots of Reppus because of the fact that the similar past historic event featured alot of allied CVs.

Allied ships will not be added into the playable ships, at least not in the near future

Because there are actually 2 clear sides to WWII, I can safely say that allied ships will not be added in the near future. This has much to do with Japanese culture and how they viewed WWII. From the game and the various manga and the way they handle their affairs, Japan tends to take the view that they were not at fault for starting the war. I dont want to go into a debate about this but one can contrast this stand with the Germans who were constantly reflecting about their mistakes so that it doesnt happen again. Given that how this game was supposed to be "within Japan" only, (those of you who spoof cookie, API, VPN etc are not supposedly part of their intended playerbase), I would believe that it would run contrary to their policy to add in allied ships. I can only imagine the possible backlash back in Japan. It doesnt make any sense when you are trying to depict WWII and you have both sides of the team now in the same team.

'''But... there are alot of inconsistencies which suggest otherwise'''

The anime is there and seemed to add slightly more lore into the game. There is also some scenes which is pretty much inconsistent with the view that it was depicting WWII straightup.

1) The fact that the ships that were supposed to be sunk were not. Well Kisaragi was kind of sad. We have no idea where did Shouhou went, she didnt participate in the last battle. This slight deviation is only going to grow over time.

2) The hint and suggestion that the ship girls are reliving events which had happened in the past is the biggest wrench to the "we are depicting WWII" theory. This pretty much changes it to "we are using WWII as a background for inspiration and modifying to our own needs". Is this a good thing? I would think so. If not, I would hate to see half of the ship girls being sunk and by the end of the game / anime, I wouldnt even have a fleet left. From the game POV, this also gives the developers flexibility so they can pretty much make up a story to fit their needs and need not follow the WWI script exactly.

3) The floating hairpin which supposedly belonged to Kisaragi. This throws up the possibilties of what might the Abyssal be. On one hand, the abyssals are NOT allied ships, because objectively they are not stated as such. However they portray the allied ships and seemed to depict them. Altho the game has largely followed the formula of abyssal follows the allied ship as models, the floating hairpin suggests that they might have links with sunken ships.

4) Inconsistency with the history. Certain ships have equipment they are not supposed to have. Certain battles didnt play out exactly the way it is supposed to happen. I would think that there is no history professor in their KC development team and they might have consulted some authority regarding the war but it is inevitable to have some mistakes every now and then provided they are not fatal. This pretty much applies to every game. Throw in a game about some engineer and you can get engineers pointing stuff out that dont make any logical sense.

Moving forward, what can we reasonably expect?

From the developers' viewpoint, they already have ample materials to work on. They will simply flesh out the war and let it follow its course but amend it for their own benefit because I dont want all my ships to be gone by the end of the war. This would mean that upcoming events and future missions should occur in chronological order. They still have decent material to do it.

New ships that might be released into the IJN fleet will also try to follow the chronological order.

"According to a quarterly mook 艦これ鎮守府生活のすゝめVol.1 which was released in 2013, there are plans to implement new (Ukuru-class) escort ships, and because their displacement is less than that of destroyers, they would take a younger form, but they are said to be for the final phase of the war and thus, while they want to release it as soon as possible, they have told the fanbase to please be patient about it." (From the Easter Eggs page)

'''Are allied ships entirely impossible? '''

This being a game, the rule of thumb would be to never say never. If they are ever going to add in allied ships, it might be after they have played out the entire war and exhausted all their possibilities and then probably they might add it in. But it would surely be a long time away.