They build a browser game with adds, doesnt matter who's playing, the adds are running and money is made( big finger to all of us, really deep), once the game is in Beta there will be no modding, no big changes, but the worst is there is a forum and they WILL delete 'bad' posts!
Just imagine sailing on the sea and seeing an add for 100m2 bricks or toiletpaper, there goes the 'intense experience', getting into the patrol area will be slow but the higher level you are the faster you can get there, you are going to pay them to travel faster! You are going to pay them to see further, to shoot better to do basically everything..you WILL pay!
It works both ways, either you buy your credits or whatever they will call it, or you have to spend enourmous amounts of time to generate credits and they can show you more adds, works out the same for them..not for me or you or us.
No influence from subsim just a bigger group of players with different interests, not people who just want a good sub game or simulator ( and give a part of their live for it to give us all a better experience, at NO costs) and the SHO forum fanboys/girls will love to jump at our throats when we complain about sonar not working properly or some other technical thing they screwed up because it works so well in the game, they won't care about realism.
For example i play WGT Golf, a 'free' browsergame. In 3 months i bought about 70 euro's of virtual clubs and balls to improve my game ( yes i caught the bait) to be able to get to a higher level. I gave them the benefit of the doubt as the clubs really are better (same as an enhanced tool in your sub, earn it with grinding or buy it) but now i got to a new Tier and my clubs are now useless because i didn't buy new ones when i levelled and the game is mad at me and wants me to buy even better clubs for more money, i drew the line right there and then. Also you can earn free credits by watching adds, now they increased the amount of views from 50 to 100(!) to get a lousy 75 Credits and 100 views is something like watching 7 adds a day for 14 days before you get the credits, but i'm drifitng off the subject..
All the browsergames work like this, it's all about generating money.
Is this worrying? Yes it is! It's the end of the line, it's a developer saying screw you we build this game and people will play because our marketing department says so,and they build in things to reward you so you develope a addiction in time ( that's the big picture) and the worst is they are right they will get their players. They will advertise with things like '2 million players on patrol' while they have 2 million subscribers, maybe 100.000 will play the game for a few days but they will try to lure us into it..
I'd rather have Ubi ask me to give them 100 Euro 's for a budget to build a good sub sim and let them do their stuff properly for a change for the next 5 years and give us SH6 with German ánd U.S subs and maybe some Japanese, British, Russian and Dutch subs too, especially Dutch
I just hope this game won't devide the people on this forum and get us into a fit about it, while THEY make money and people will succomb to the attractive pictures and screenshots on the website.
I've played loads of browser games, some where good others were less good but they never give you that total game experience, they never deliver the goods. I tried C&C Alliances, Battlestar Galactica and a few others but they don't come close to an installed game.
Just don't expect too much of the game..it's free, unless you pay.