SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - I've missed you, Skybird! :) (re: DW and SA)

Skybird · 03-22-06, 06:32 AM

Hi Jamie,

The locked threads you refer to were the result of a confrontation going off the rails with one guy who currently is banned by Neal, but meanwhile has excused and will be allowed to come back. The real rule-hurting postings by him had not been locked, but meanwhile deleted. And no, I do not lock threads being critical on something that I do or say, neither yours, nor those of that guy, as you seem to imply in your opening remark. It is (and was) about behavior, and forum rules only.

I did not say that Sonalyst does not support it's products. What I expressed in several topics during the SC era, and with regard to DW as well, and in the quote you gave, is that patching obvious bugs that imo really hit gameplay in anything but minor ways, cannot be compensated by beeing present in the forums. You are right, you guys do spend a lot of time in the forums, and I am certainly aware of that. However, like it was with SC back then, the patches come at an incredibly low pace - and the way a publisher adresses and repairs broken things is the deciding criterion for me in assessing his suppoort policy, not his forum presence alone. 1.08 for SC was the first patch that gave me a stable SC - but after over one year helping myself with workarounds, and cursing over unwanted details that were affecting gameplay, at that time SC already was close to dead for me, one year simply was too long to get it right. Since then I only played it occasionally, rarely. With DW it is the same long time now, my personal interest is the subs, and very much exclusively so. You remember my short visit in the DW forum some weeks ago, after the new patch came out - and I descriobed the ridiculous, completely idiotic steering behavior of the subs that is present with 1.03. Again, it is over one year, and still such showstoppers present. Of course I can help myself by going to 25 knots when wanting to dive, with an enemy close by that just is waiting for me too get noisy - but makes it sense to do so? Of course I can stick to a private rule: never climb when making a turn, else you turn faster than a Ferrari - but is this "simulation-like"? I mean it is so pretty obvious that these things are broken. The flaws that others reported , i even have not adressed. I know that Luftwolf and Amizaur have come up with workarounds and adjustements, and I have red all their readmes, but there are some severely broken things they cannot heal by themselves - and Sonalysts don't do it since over a year now. Forum presence is nice and well but it does not help to change that fact.

When I say I consider eSim's support to be better, it is because they are smaller than you and have far smaller ressources, have contracts with military customers as well - and put them on ice to concentrate on SBP. Like you they do not make a living by making this release to the public (didn't you say last summer that for some time you havd stopped working on a patch because military customers were your prioroity for some weeks or months? I remember vaguely there was something like this), so one would expect eSm needs to take even more time to patch it'S baby. This is not the case, even when considering that their situation has changed since the release of SB1.

Anyway, Jamie, I did not mean any personal aggression when doing that comparison between eSim and Sonalysts. I know about your forum presence, and compared to most others it is very high. Same is true for esim. But your patching policy is not en par with the potential of your sim and your forum policy. Almost one year ago, after the release, when i still had not bought, I was locked in a longer debate in the DW forum, where I said that by feedback from gamers I know that Sonalyst is being remembered by quite some people outside the subsim-community, for taking too long time for it's patchings, and that a change of this would maybe decide the question of how successful DW will be among players outside this strict community (like I myself also waited until late summer before I bought it, and then second-hand only, from a freind'S brother: who also was pissed off by the needed repairs not being done). I received angry replies, and plenty of them, although I meant it constructive. since then, my impression that the DW forum only welcomes not really critical postings - these will receive a laughter at ebst, a bashing at worst - has not grown any weaker: I have given up scanning the SH3 forum, but I am still scanning the Dw forum regularly. It'S just that I have lost the interest to post (and I am out of touch with many things being discussed anyway). There are also several people on this board who were playing SC, but refused to join DW - due to the technical shape it is in. They rarely, if ever, post in the DW-section now.

Today when I ask around amongst people that I sometimes met, most often see via Internet, DW seem to be known to many people outside this community, due to the press coverage and mouth-propaganda, but almost noone has bought it or has voiced an interest to do so. Not always but often I am told: "You know, it takes them too long." I can understand that members of this community here are having a greater willingness to forgive this or that, and to workaround, or accept broken details, and wait endlessly. That is because they are die-hard fans of the genre of naval simulations and subsims. But when I get asked by someone how the subs are in DW, and I tell them of the potential, but also of that steering behavior, and the many things that had been tweaked and worked around by the community, then I cannot be surprised if they wave me off.

I was angry after SC, that is what made me letting it down. After 1.03 DW I was not angry, but laughed, somewhat. For it exactlyfollows the way that I have feared, and nthat I have warned of. Maybe you see it differently, but your slow patching costs and have already costed you potential customers, and not just a few of them, and it will cost you more once the boxed version hits the European market. It would have been better policy, imo, to patch it thoroughly, have it all included in the boxed version and then come up with a "Gold edition" like it was with SB Gold. that one made their sale rates raising very high, and no more patch was needed (the definite argument for quite some people, and for me as well). But if 1.03 represents what is included in the box, I remain sceptical and not really interested. I could live with non-realistic sensor-values, since I do not know the real thing anyway, and with mods that take a long while, and with minor things, but not with subs behaving like I have seen with 1.03, sorry. That is a core issue, not just a minor one.

This was and still is criticism of mine that is meant constructively, althoiugh a lot of people will disagree with me and will be angry becasue I said something abd about theirbaby of choice. That'S why I will not engage in an ongoing discussion about this stuff. I have said what I have to say oin it, and repeatedly so, no need for me to repeat it over and over again. People in the DW forum have their thing and say they are happy, and Sonalysts maybe tells us that it is satisfied with the way sales are going, well my congratulations to both, it is no problem for me. i think both situations could be far better, but it must not be my concern. I am neither a pro-DW-lobbyist, nor am I on an anti-DW-crusade. when I got asked privately what DW is and what I think, I gave both my positive and negative thoughts and refreed to this forum board and left it to the other to form his decision pro or contra buying.

BTW, I just met Boomer yesterday in the SB-forum at eSim. He's alive and well and joined up there after having stumbled over the interview and review.

I will look at the subs again if there comes out a new patch anytime - which probably will not be too soon again, am I right?

I am busy with SB anyway.

Snorkels in both sims!

Sky

03-22-06, 06:32 AM	#3
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,578 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	Hi Jamie, The locked threads you refer to were the result of a confrontation going off the rails with one guy who currently is banned by Neal, but meanwhile has excused and will be allowed to come back. The real rule-hurting postings by him had not been locked, but meanwhile deleted. And no, I do not lock threads being critical on something that I do or say, neither yours, nor those of that guy, as you seem to imply in your opening remark. It is (and was) about behavior, and forum rules only. I did not say that Sonalyst does not support it's products. What I expressed in several topics during the SC era, and with regard to DW as well, and in the quote you gave, is that patching obvious bugs that imo really hit gameplay in anything but minor ways, cannot be compensated by beeing present in the forums. You are right, you guys do spend a lot of time in the forums, and I am certainly aware of that. However, like it was with SC back then, the patches come at an incredibly low pace - and the way a publisher adresses and repairs broken things is the deciding criterion for me in assessing his suppoort policy, not his forum presence alone. 1.08 for SC was the first patch that gave me a stable SC - but after over one year helping myself with workarounds, and cursing over unwanted details that were affecting gameplay, at that time SC already was close to dead for me, one year simply was too long to get it right. Since then I only played it occasionally, rarely. With DW it is the same long time now, my personal interest is the subs, and very much exclusively so. You remember my short visit in the DW forum some weeks ago, after the new patch came out - and I descriobed the ridiculous, completely idiotic steering behavior of the subs that is present with 1.03. Again, it is over one year, and still such showstoppers present. Of course I can help myself by going to 25 knots when wanting to dive, with an enemy close by that just is waiting for me too get noisy - but makes it sense to do so? Of course I can stick to a private rule: never climb when making a turn, else you turn faster than a Ferrari - but is this "simulation-like"? I mean it is so pretty obvious that these things are broken. The flaws that others reported , i even have not adressed. I know that Luftwolf and Amizaur have come up with workarounds and adjustements, and I have red all their readmes, but there are some severely broken things they cannot heal by themselves - and Sonalysts don't do it since over a year now. Forum presence is nice and well but it does not help to change that fact. When I say I consider eSim's support to be better, it is because they are smaller than you and have far smaller ressources, have contracts with military customers as well - and put them on ice to concentrate on SBP. Like you they do not make a living by making this release to the public (didn't you say last summer that for some time you havd stopped working on a patch because military customers were your prioroity for some weeks or months? I remember vaguely there was something like this), so one would expect eSm needs to take even more time to patch it'S baby. This is not the case, even when considering that their situation has changed since the release of SB1. Anyway, Jamie, I did not mean any personal aggression when doing that comparison between eSim and Sonalysts. I know about your forum presence, and compared to most others it is very high. Same is true for esim. But your patching policy is not en par with the potential of your sim and your forum policy. Almost one year ago, after the release, when i still had not bought, I was locked in a longer debate in the DW forum, where I said that by feedback from gamers I know that Sonalyst is being remembered by quite some people outside the subsim-community, for taking too long time for it's patchings, and that a change of this would maybe decide the question of how successful DW will be among players outside this strict community (like I myself also waited until late summer before I bought it, and then second-hand only, from a freind'S brother: who also was pissed off by the needed repairs not being done). I received angry replies, and plenty of them, although I meant it constructive. since then, my impression that the DW forum only welcomes not really critical postings - these will receive a laughter at ebst, a bashing at worst - has not grown any weaker: I have given up scanning the SH3 forum, but I am still scanning the Dw forum regularly. It'S just that I have lost the interest to post (and I am out of touch with many things being discussed anyway). There are also several people on this board who were playing SC, but refused to join DW - due to the technical shape it is in. They rarely, if ever, post in the DW-section now. Today when I ask around amongst people that I sometimes met, most often see via Internet, DW seem to be known to many people outside this community, due to the press coverage and mouth-propaganda, but almost noone has bought it or has voiced an interest to do so. Not always but often I am told: "You know, it takes them too long." I can understand that members of this community here are having a greater willingness to forgive this or that, and to workaround, or accept broken details, and wait endlessly. That is because they are die-hard fans of the genre of naval simulations and subsims. But when I get asked by someone how the subs are in DW, and I tell them of the potential, but also of that steering behavior, and the many things that had been tweaked and worked around by the community, then I cannot be surprised if they wave me off. I was angry after SC, that is what made me letting it down. After 1.03 DW I was not angry, but laughed, somewhat. For it exactlyfollows the way that I have feared, and nthat I have warned of. Maybe you see it differently, but your slow patching costs and have already costed you potential customers, and not just a few of them, and it will cost you more once the boxed version hits the European market. It would have been better policy, imo, to patch it thoroughly, have it all included in the boxed version and then come up with a "Gold edition" like it was with SB Gold. that one made their sale rates raising very high, and no more patch was needed (the definite argument for quite some people, and for me as well). But if 1.03 represents what is included in the box, I remain sceptical and not really interested. I could live with non-realistic sensor-values, since I do not know the real thing anyway, and with mods that take a long while, and with minor things, but not with subs behaving like I have seen with 1.03, sorry. That is a core issue, not just a minor one. This was and still is criticism of mine that is meant constructively, althoiugh a lot of people will disagree with me and will be angry becasue I said something abd about theirbaby of choice. That'S why I will not engage in an ongoing discussion about this stuff. I have said what I have to say oin it, and repeatedly so, no need for me to repeat it over and over again. People in the DW forum have their thing and say they are happy, and Sonalysts maybe tells us that it is satisfied with the way sales are going, well my congratulations to both, it is no problem for me. i think both situations could be far better, but it must not be my concern. I am neither a pro-DW-lobbyist, nor am I on an anti-DW-crusade. when I got asked privately what DW is and what I think, I gave both my positive and negative thoughts and refreed to this forum board and left it to the other to form his decision pro or contra buying. BTW, I just met Boomer yesterday in the SB-forum at eSim. He's alive and well and joined up there after having stumbled over the interview and review. I will look at the subs again if there comes out a new patch anytime - which probably will not be too soon again, am I right? I am busy with SB anyway. Snorkels in both sims! Sky __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.