To what exactly?

Silent hunter online
 

not sure if this would be a good thing or not. but it looks to be killing the SH franchise

I thought the franchise was dead when SH5 flopped?

If i was to pull numbers out of a hat, i'd say that the majority (50 percent?) of the sub sim community never left Sh3. As activity goes, From Sh4, onward, there has been a downward spiral for many reasons.

That's probably true. IMO tho, I'd rather have a new 'different' subsim than no new subsim at all. It's a crying shame they can't just do SH1 with better graphics but have to change everything with each new iteration.

Back when SH3 was under development we said exactly the same thing. We just wanted Aces Of The Deep with modern graphics.

I agree, I've always welcomed new subsims, they are too rare as it is.

Wondering how this game will end

This game will be nothing but a money-time sink, which is what all the new "F2P" games are. I played World of Tanks for a while, quit a couple months ago, when I realised I had spent more money on that game than I had ever spent on any other game. The objective is pushing you to spend countless hours grinding new equipment or spending $$$ so you unlock it. In Ubisoft's case, well I think it's something similar to give sharks appetite pills. If they were hungry sharks before, now they will be bloodthirsty!

No, I don't think that's accurate. The F2P games are designed to be engaging and fun. If that happens to be the case for you, then you get your money's worth. A traditional subsim could be called a "time-sink" as easily, after all, you spend hours when you play it grinding our convoy attacks. :) Did you enjoy World of Tanks? I had not really paid much attention to it before now. I hear it is very successful.

Focus
 

Maybe they should focus on making their releases as polished as can be before they go and publish new, half baked products. just my opinion:03:

Neal, to answer your questions. Yes, World of tanks is succesful. Sorta. Has some huge gameplay issues (artillery implementation, for one), and balancing issues (most tech tree, notably the heavy lines, are really unbalanced amongs themselves, some tanks being clearly much better than others). It's suffered some major problems with highly questionable developer decisions that has led to some huge balancing crysis (such as putting the Type 59, 1957 tank, into a game with 80% WW2 tanks)

And on top of it it's got an atrocious matchmaking system.


However overall, globally considered, yes, it works, and yes, it's fun and quite addictive. And the F2P label attached to it holds at least some (not much, but still some, which nowadays is something) credibility to it.

It's got its issues anyway. Grave case of developer just skipping by any community requirement based on real, practical and reasonable grounds, for one. Draconian EULA, for other.

The game on itself is enjoyable and fun, but has HUGE weakspots and the developer's attitude is far from the best. I played it quite a lot, still do now and then, but once the flaws really got to me (artillery, horrendous matchmaking, unresponsive developers, atrocious cases of moderator/sanction unfairness greelighted by an abusive EULA), I simply dropped it as an usual gaming experience.

Yea I have to agree that any good game is a time sink too :D but not in the way this grinding games are... I mean, you can play a career in SHIV but it's not like you will spend your time just to get a better weapon, or other piece of equipment... Sims are good to play with what you have, and I love doing some patrols on S-boats or Type-II from time to time.

The issue I raised is because for all I have known, these F2P games are really a money sink in that if you want to be competitive on them you have to spend a lot of money (or what to me, with three kids and in these times of crisis, is a lot of money for a game... like, 20 or 30 euros a month). And if you want to be in the top players, even more.

Of course they'll say that most of the stuff can be grinded for, yea if you have unlimited supplies of time, and no life at all. So they tickle your weaknesses and you end up paying, paying and paying some more.

About WoT, I mostly agree with what RAM says, it is a fun and exciting game with awesome flaws. Was fun for me until I got quite good at it, and joined a clan, and then is when the fun went away... you try to be good, you have to grind grind grind and pay pay pay. I quit the game because of that, it felt like a crack addiction. Maybe its just my personality! :hmm2: But when I took a look at my paypal logs, I saw I had spent in a year more than 300eur in that game!!! I was so shocked you wouldnt believe it. That's not my idea of what you should pay for a game, but hey, microtransactions are like that, you don't feel the 10eur now, 10eur next week, oh I don't want to spend another week grinding just to get the new tracks for this tank, without the tracks I can't use the gun I already unlocked... without the gun I am not effective at all at this level... oh ok I can afford 10 more euros, can't I? Oh, cool now I have the new gun! But next week it will be the same... and the next after. And when you get to level 10 and have the greatest tanks, oh well they introduce a new system which "freezes" your tanks when you are destroyed in battle... so you have to wait another week before you can help your clanmates. Oh, but there is a solution, yea, start the grind all over again with another nation... Hateful.

So imagine my thoughts, when I come back to sub sims, my ever beloved games, only to find that Ubi's next move is not a sequel (should we call it fix?) for SHV, oh no, it's a new F2P online game. That felt so bad, after my WoT experience, that I can't explain. Of course it's just the way I feel, they are a company, want to make money, and you run a website and have to try your best to manage this old farts community. :up: But I know I won't be touching that thing with a 10 foot pole. I still hope we can get something else running as I have been saying around. And I understand I shouldnt be ranting and spilling my anger and pain in this part of the forum, which should be to praise the new online sensation... :O:

But now I let it all out, won't happen again, I'll stay in the old farts section from now on! :salute:

If you put 300+ euro's in WoT, and reading the rest of your post, I think that would be best yes. No offence, but I do think you have a slight problem there.

Thanks for caring... :P

As I said above, I've been clean for a couple of months. But I tell you, among the people who were top-ish in that game, I wasn't one of the big spenders at all. Their target is guys on their 30s, with some good job of work, who spend between 500-1200 eur a year on the game. You can buy the so-called "gold ammo" which gives you a totally unfair advantage since it's able to penetrate most tanks' armor even if your vehicle is inferior.

My problem there was that I'm a stat whore (can I say this uncle Steve? pretty please?) and the only way to improve your stats is play well and PAY.

And now, you've made me post again in this thread where I promised uncle Neal I wouldn't post again! :haha: