Silent Hunter Online

[Cyril]

Like some of you guys points out, I think, that we should give SH5 Online a chance. At least we will see yet a new subsim and general interest might grove for such type of game. But general, I must admit, that I find it diffecult to belive, that a sim game like a subsim should be an online game.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

But I still say that the Silent Hunter brand was damaged, probably irreparably, by SH5. In an attempt to broaden the audience for the game, some half baked RPG elements were mashed together with sim elements that were rushed and incomplete. The end result is a product that makes no one happy, and consequently sales tanked. If Ubi had allowed/told the devs to stick to the blueprint that SH3 laid out, and update and improve where necessary they may not have increased the audience appreciably, but they would have given the existing fanbase what they wanted and redeemed themselves in the eyes of the customers who made the SH franchise what it is. While that would be great for us as sub sim fans, I think it would have also delivered decent enough sales, which helps the bottom line. I'm a firm believer in the idea that doing right by customers is the best way to profitability.

That is debatable. The potential market for hardcore simulations as always been very small and even when quality naval sims come out, the customers are not there:

"Dangerous Waters" had all the elements players say they are looking for in a subsim: many platforms, realistic sensor and weapon performance, 500 page
manual. Sales were poor and Sonalyst has abandonned the market;

"Silent Hunter 4" was an improvement over SH3 in many areas, but because of a few minor bugs at release it was savaged by the community and sold relatively poorly.

In addition, wargamers are notoriously difficult to please. They are ten times more demanding and critical than other gamers.

So if you are an executive at a major publisher, why would you waste your time on sub/naval sims when simmers themselves may not even buy what you offer them? For much less aggravation, you can produce "Assassin's Creed X" and be garanteed $100 milion in sales. Its a no brainer.

[i2Cold]

Guys I figured it out. Silent Hunter V didn't have a beta. Which means no bugs were fixed. However Silent Hunter Online has some beta testing which means we get to track down all the bugs. Besides F2P games are usually not left alone such as "APB Reloaded" "Battlefield Heroes" "Battlefield Play4Free" "MicroVolts" this means that there will always be new Content/Patches for the game. Anyways that's what i think. That's my opinion. I'd love if you give Ubisoft one more chance. God forgives then you should forgive.We will see how the game ends up.

Thanks for taking your time to read this message and goodbye

[Julhelm]

I don't know about Dangerous Waters. It it basically retained all the flaws of 688I and Sub Command and just added more platforms. They also completely dropped the ball on the chance to make the modern warfare theme exciting, which is Big Fail when you deal with something a lot of people are predisposed to think of as boring.

[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

That is debatable. The potential market for hardcore simulations as always been very small and even when quality naval sims come out, the customers are not there:

While the customers are fewer than mainstream games, they are dedicated, generally older than the average gamer and will pay for a quality sim without question. I know I would.

"Dangerous Waters" had all the elements players say they are looking for in a subsim: many platforms, realistic sensor and weapon performance, 500 page
manual. Sales were poor and Sonalyst has abandonned the market;

The problem with Dangerous Waters was one of marketing and advertising. Quite frankly, I never heard of it before I came here. However, I had seen advertisements for SH 3, 4 and 5 around their release times. Likewise, Sonalysts is a DoD contractor. The bulk of their work is for the military and I never expected them to make a dedicated footprint on the gaming market. I hypothesize that Dangerous Waters was an in-between project to keep the company going between defense contract projects.

"Silent Hunter 4" was an improvement over SH3 in many areas, but because of a few minor bugs at release it was savaged by the community and sold relatively poorly.

I can't really comment on this. The impression I received from other members who were about during the SH4 release was that the bugs were a bit more than minor. Likewise, some bugs that were in SH 3 (crash dive bug. Submerged save bug) carried over and created a lot of flak.

In addition, wargamers are notoriously difficult to please. They are ten times more demanding and critical than other gamers.

Yes, and for good reason. Wargamers expect a simulated experience, not a casual one. Wargamers want something more than a simple, casual game but equally less than the real thing (due to various limitations). Many are either history buffs, professionals or veterans if not some combination thereof. Another issue is one of technical mastery and skill. Anyone can play "Battleship", but to master Silent Hunter or Dangerous Waters and survive against human opponents of equal or greater skill, is an accomplishment.

So if you are an executive at a major publisher, why would you waste your time on sub/naval sims when simmers themselves may not even bu[y what you offer them? For much less aggravation, you can produce "Assassin's Creed X" and be garanteed $100 milion in sales. Its a no brainer.

I am not an executive and therefore anything I say is pure speculation. I see the wargaming market as a small niche that for all its weaknesses and challenges is begging for a reliable publisher to satisfy its needs. Will it make billions of dollars? No. However, producing a product that goes out of its way to please the grognards of the community will ensure an ironclad customer base, which is guaranteed income.

[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

I don't know about Dangerous Waters. It it basically retained all the flaws of 688I and Sub Command and just added more platforms. They also completely dropped the ball on the chance to make the modern warfare theme exciting, which is Big Fail when you deal with something a lot of people are predisposed to think of as boring.

Define "exciting". If you expected a modern naval warfare game to be exiting in respect to blowing stuff up, I am not surprised that you are disappointed. Modern naval warfare is about tension and brinksmanship. It is about how sneaky one can be without getting caught. How far can one push before triggering an international diplomatic incident. Likewise, many modern naval missions are surprisingly mundane. Oceanographic surveys, reconnaissance, general patrol and such. My only gripe with DW is the generated missions are about blowing stuff up and the generator doesn't necessarily give you enough time to plot a good solution before the target escapes. It is quaint the first few times, but becomes dull quickly.

[elanaiba]

I'd say just this, the problem with the simulation market is that the buyers cant even agree on whats wrong with the products.

[Julhelm]

Exciting as in WW2-exciting. Or Hunt for the Red October-exciting. Or Red Storm Rising-exciting. Red Storm Rising managed to portray 1980's submarine ops in an intense and exciting manner because it went for a big, WW2-style shooting war against a numerically superior enemy.

DW on the other hand portrays modern ops much like the small-scale skirmishes one would realistically expect post-USSR and as a result is rather more dull. Sometimes you just have to sacrifice some realism in order to craft a fun experience. Even milsims like ARMA do this to some extent. As it is, such a hardcore sim as DW will never cater to anyone but the most hardcore simmer, which is about as niche as it gets. It can have all the merits in the world in regards to systems modelling etc but that doesn't matter when the stock scenarios it ships with are unimaginative and mundane. At least in SH4 you get some payoff for all the hard work by getting treated with some nice fireworks, but DW fails in that regard too.

I'm a more casual simmer so while I find more "lite" sims like Strike Fighters or Red Storm Rising entertaining and worthwhile ultra-hardcore sims like DCS and DW are too complex and dull to be worthwhile to me.

Btw, consider that I play Red Storm Rising and Fast Attack more or less on a regular basis still, while the Sonalysts games remain shelved. But maybe I'm an anomaly.

[Julhelm]

Originally Posted by elanaiba

I'd say just this, the problem with the simulation market is that the buyers cant even agree on whats wrong with the products.

It's probably because the simulation buyers aren't a homogenous bunch. There are the hardcore simmers who want 100% uncompromising realism ala DCS and then there are the lite simmers who prefer more easy-going realism like Wings of Prey or Strike Fighters. The only thing they have in common is that they dislike arcade flight games like HAWX or Ace Combat Assault Horizon

[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

Exciting as in WW2-exciting. Or Hunt for the Red October-exciting. Or Red Storm Rising-exciting. Red Storm Rising managed to portray 1980's submarine ops in an intense and exciting manner because it went for a big, WW2-style shooting war against a numerically superior enemy.

DW on the other hand portrays modern ops much like the small-scale skirmishes one would realistically expect post-USSR and as a result is rather more dull. Sometimes you just have to sacrifice some realism in order to craft a fun experience. Even milsims like ARMA do this to some extent. As it is, such a hardcore sim as DW will never cater to anyone but the most hardcore simmer, which is about as niche as it gets. It can have all the merits in the world in regards to systems modelling etc but that doesn't matter when the stock scenarios it ships with are unimaginative and mundane. At least in SH4 you get some payoff for all the hard work by getting treated with some nice fireworks, but DW fails in that regard too.

I'm a more casual simmer so while I find more "lite" sims like Strike Fighters or Red Storm Rising entertaining and worthwhile ultra-hardcore sims like DCS and DW are too complex and dull to be worthwhile to me.

Btw, consider that I play Red Storm Rising and Fast Attack more or less on a regular basis still, while the Sonalysts games remain shelved. But maybe I'm an anomaly.

You aren't an anomaly, DW just doesn't suit your preferred play style, that is all. To be fair, DW is pretty hardcore, as is Sub Command and the other Sonalysts sims.

[Julhelm]

Yeah. I'd like to believe there probably exists a whole bunch of customers like me that haven't been sufficiently catered to in the nuke sim market. God knows I've wanted a Red Storm Rising-like game literally for ages. It's actually to the point where I'm learning programming just to be able to do it myself

[Sonarman]

In case you haven't seen it before you can read Sid Meier's thoughts on Red Storm Rising and his other games in this excellent Gamespot article

Subsim member Weps was actually working on an RSR remake but his site has not been updated in a while - check it out here

[martes86]

Well, I think we can safely assume that the market for subsims is pretty much a goner unless a new independent company rises up and develops the subsim of our dreams. With the most outstanding saga of the genre going haywire, seems like we'll be stuck with the same titles for a veeeery long while.

While I don't doubt that SHO could indeed be fun and all that (haven't tried it yet), specially since I've played a few MMOs, so it's not like I despise the genre, I think that (and I'm sure lots of people will agree with me) it wasn't the way to go. Lots of things could have been done on SH5, but instead, they try to squeeze more money by converting a WW2 naval sim into an MMO, a genre which I never thought I'd associate with a sim.

Oh and it runs in Flash (game performance issues, anyone?). Definitely not the way to go, folks. We're not given access to source codes because they know for a fact that anything coming into the community's hands, returns as a kick-ass product loved by everyone without need for anything else, which means no new purchases, no business for them.

Finally, I couldn't miss the chance (now that I've noticed the previous posts; hi Dan ) to thank the devs again for doing all they could in taking the SH saga to a good place, too bad that money is the only thing that talks (besides the CEOs) at corporate management.

Cheers

[Hinrich Schwab]

Ubi is writing this in ActionScript??!!



Good luck with that and all of the fun bugs that generates...buttons that don't work. CPU hogging...disappearing local data and such.

Originally Posted by elanaiba

I'd say just this, the problem with the simulation market is that the buyers cant even agree on whats wrong with the products.

lol, sad but true, everyone wants something different for it to be their perfect sim game


thank you for all you have done for us and the SH series

it makes me want to get in someones face and tell them to show some respect when i see some of the offhand and uncalled for remarks directed your way.

i pray you always find a way to ignore them and not be bothered by them