Silent Hunter Online

[P_Funk]

You know CoD sucks. I hate it, I hate the gameplay, I hate the community, I hate how it makes Counterstrike look like bloody ArmA, I hate the fact that they limit it to 60 FOV now not just cause Xbox isnt as powerful as a PC but also because it narrows your view thus increasing the spammy gameplay, but... when all that is said and done, I understand it. You know that most people are idiots anyway with no taste. For every John Lennon, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix you get a million Bee Gees. Alright, I can live with that, cause I always roll my eyes and laugh and go find my niche that is so much better.

And while I've been able to do that with film, music, books, pretty much everything else, gaming has slowly been killing the niche. Why? I don't know. They just can't seem to get on board with a project anymore that breaks new ground, is polished to a high quality, and which appeals to more than just the face rolling 15 year olds who apparenlty can't even muster the brain power to play an even marginally challenging game.

So I said it, I understand why CoD exists, whatever, game on. But why do companies like Ubi take a niche game and try and turn it into a mainstream one? I don't understand. Its like pissing off all the Patriots fans cause you decided to replace them with an XFL team.

Sims are niche games. They appeal only to a very very small crowd. I don't get it why they look at the relatively poor sales and try and make it into something that it isn't. Its not like there's potential in this game. Does anybody really think in that boardroom that this online thing is going to make them a lot of money? I think its almost a reflex. They just naturally like someone with OCD tinker and bugger with everything to try and fit their little agenda. They have that vision and its usually completely out of touch with reality. How many great games get directives from publishers and when the reviews come pouring in they say its crap and needs patching?

I'm so pissed off. I'm so tired of it. I've been an avid gamer since the late 90s and I've watched the steady decline. I feel like Hunter Thompson sitting in a Vegas hotel room looking out over the desert seeing where that wave broke, wishing I was still there. Gaming used to be great. Now its just polluted by absurdly bad money grabbing.

I was playing the new Tribes game this week. Its also free to play. They gutted the core of that game. Made it so casual accessible. Another great game ruined by the need for "mass appeal".

I don't get it. Why can't they just have their niche market and their mainstream one? Why do they have to marginalize us? They know we're gonna hate it. But we're the ones that made Silent Hunter into a franchise that existed for 5 releases. How does that make sense?

Its baffling. But I think we're in a critical mass for gaming right now. Looking at how things are going Ubi and for EA they've been playing some strange games in their development. EA is really in trouble I think. Not real trouble but I can see some issues down the line for PC gaming. Bioware got bought by EA and now they stink. The Old Republic? Awful. Mass Effect 3? Well they keep saying 'don't finish it, disappointed'.

Its like, they've cracked the mainstream, now they don't know how to actually make it good. All the energy seems to go into making money, the schemes for collecting it. Why make a good game when you can make amediocre one that costs like 60 to 80 bucks in microtransactions for the average user to see it all and then decide it sucks?

I remember back in the day when a game that launched needing a patch just to be playable was a kind of sin. Like a laughing stock. Now, its business as usual. I've seen the high water mark. I saw the wave break. I'm going back to GWX and pretending this news never penetrated by cynical consciousness.

[mookiemookie]

My guess is that it has to do with the increase in popularity of games in general. It used to be that the audience for PC games was smaller and more... tech savvy? (I'm guessing here.) This crowd appreciated in-depth games with steep learning curves....games like simulators, the Ultima series, A Bard's Tale and all of the other D&D titles...things that required patience. Game companies could afford to indulge the niche category players because that's all there was. You weren't going to increase your audience substantially by dumbing down...excuse me, streamlining....your games, as there wasn't much of audience as a whole to gain. The entire market was a niche.

As video games grew in popularity, the audience grew bigger and less sophisticated as a whole. Stuff like shooters and hack and slash and fast twitch games appeal to someone who doesn't want to think, but just wants to play. By getting rid of the hardcore detail-oriented parts of your game, you could appeal to these players and gain more of this growing audience. If you restricted yourself to niche type games, you're only ever going to sell to the niche type market, which comprises a smaller percentage of the market as a whole than it did 15 or 20 years ago. And when it comes down to it, unit sales are the only real metric that matters, so anything that limits your sales is out of the question.

Pure speculation and I have no evidence of any of this other than what I've pulled out of my butt. But it makes sense to me.

[W_clear]

http://us.silenthunteronline.com/

[Hinrich Schwab]

There are already about half a dozen topics on this already

[Sailor Steve]

Including one on this forum.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=194793
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=194697
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=194683

[THE_MASK]

Hello W_clear

[von faust]

With my bad English I'm writing to Ubi this: "Ubi, You are really losing my trust because of how they put out SH5. Why UBI ????? There are hundreds of players waiting for new patches and features for SH5. Why you have abandoned the project ????"

[W_clear]

Originally Posted by sober

Hello W_clear

Hi

[Gorduz]

Ubisoft relasing MMO called silent hunter online that can be played in you browser?
Is this true?

http://pc.gamespy.com/web-games/sile...1223838p1.html

I feel like this guy:

[Sailor Steve]

I can understand that you might not read other forums, but how did you miss the other two threads about it on this very page?
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=194807
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=194793

[Gorduz]

sorry, I skimmed through but missed them.. just block this thread,

[McKenzy]

Hell yeah. FB and Twitter. "John "kaleun Killer100" Smith has changed status to "had one 800-toner today!", BigBoy2000 has created a community "Seriouzzzz guyzzz wolfpack school 12, Manitoba", twitter @Dud torpedoes suck!". Jesus. We're doomed.

Gone to run my Kilo aground somewhere in the Pacific to think this all over.

[Peter Cremer]

If they pay me to play it, I might consider it. They would have to pay me a lot though.

[Drebbel]

It better be good. Because I forgot how to spell Messerwetzer

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Drebbel

It better be good. Because I forgot how to spell Messerwetzer

Good to see you around, old friend.