A request for all Silent Hunter 4 Forum posters

[John Channing]

So far today I have been called pathetic, a moron, and heaven knows what else (haven't read all the threads).

Neal has also been slagged off and it has been implied that he is secretly paid by Ubisoft to promote their wares.

A number of other Moderators have been the subject of personal attacks.

People.. that is not what Subsim.com is about.

We toss the word "community" around quite cheaply, but when push comes to shove I really wonder.

No one here is saying don't voice your concerns and complaints. Quite the opposite. For the developers to deliver another excellent piece of work they need our feedback. We are the hardcore, the grognards, the best-of-the-best and we know what we are talking about.

BUT...

We need to do it in a manner that respects not only the other person's ideas and position, but also their feelings. We are better than some of the behaviour we have seen here over the last few days. I know we are because I have been around here from the very beginning and I have seen it all.

So my request is this.

Continue to voice your concerns, but know what you are talking about first, and then do it in a positive, respectful manner. If you happen to be the Director of Marketing for UbiSoft, and you signed the memo that stated "PUSH SILENT HUNTER 4 OUT THE DOOR EARLY... SCREW THE FANS" then by all means comment on the inner dealings there. Otherwise talk about things you know about.

If your are one of the development team and you want to complain about Dan going on endless coffee breaks while you were trying to get the AA working, then by all means do so. Otherwise talk about things you know about.

If you want to threaten Ubisoft this is not the place to do it. If you want to jump on a "UBI SUX" bandwagon this is not the place to do it. If you want to take cheap shots at the developers this really isn't the place to do it.

And if you want to take shots at Neal... well... you and I will be having a chat real soon.

This is the place to make things better, not engage in silly, childish name calling, taunts, threats and uninformed accusations.

Keep it honest, informative and informed and things will be fine.

Thanks for the soapbox.

JCC

[DMarkwick]

Thanks for the hard work and understanding John, gaming "communities" are unfortunately the most demanding and unreasonable of online communities IMO, often taking quite minor issues to hysterical levels.

Perhaps a few days of merciless culling of useless repetative threads might help things along. It's having free reign to voice anything that occurs to people to complain about, again and again that is easily half the problem here. I'm not advocating censorship, just culling of useless threads for a few weeks, those threads that already have open topics elsewhere.

[John Channing]

No thanks necessary. Neal pays me a fabulous amount of money to do this.

The cull idea isn't bad, but I really prefer to let these things die a natural death. The really ugly, pointless ones can always be locked, but the little windstorms that blow up fast usually blow over just as fast.

Of course some topics refuse to die (Starforce anyone).

JCC

[Hitman]

Fortunately, time plays in these forums the same role as darwinian evolution in the species. In some weeks/months, the natural selection will eliminate all those who have their throats dry and hurt from yelling and whining around, as they will tyre and go away to do whatever other thing, or relax and enjoy the sim and all mods that start to blossom around (There are already some appearing in the nearby SH4 mods forum). But until then, I hope this call from John Channing serves as a cool-down reminder of the originally friendly and peaceful character of these forums. This happened before with SH2 and with SH3, so it was to expect it would happen again. Time will put everything in its place, and the joy in SH4 will surpass that of SH3, same as the joy in SH3 surpassed the one in SH2.:rock:

[Spaxspore]

No thanks necessary. Neal pays me a fabulous amount of money to do this.

The cull idea isn't bad, but I really prefer to let these things die a natural death. The really ugly, pointless ones can always be locked, but the little windstorms that blow up fast usually blow over just as fast.

Of course some topics refuse to die (Starforce anyone).

JCC
Dude john, ive noticed alot of hot heads since the release of this game... and people r unleashing thier dogs of war at people just cause they have a different opinion on a topic.


A constructive discussion is one thing, but when another user personally attacks another who happens to have a difference of opinion is in my book completly uncalled for.....

[NefariousKoel]

Don't worry, JC.

After a week or so of frantic "the sky is falling" syndrome, they'll calm down. Tensions are running high on a release everyone here had been awaiting for some time.

Please feel free to stab those people in the face who feel the need to complain about no anti-aliasing in every thread on every one of their posts. That gets old :dead:after a time.

[Schunken]

...this is a great place....with nice poeple....

and a patch will out soon, so what?

...and about graphics....and AA

..my playstation 3 outdate any PC on the todays market.... make it looks like a Commodore C64....

but there is no Subsims for Consoles ;)

anyway I bet that this will be the last Subsim for a very long time....

Andreas

[Skweetis]

:up: :up: :up: John!


I recall this happening at the release of SH2 and SH3, thankfully it always cools down after a while...

I just hope that its sooner this time!

[OddjobXL]

I'm new here myself, at least as a member - I've drifted in and out over the years to read reviews and the like. Folks should remember they're guests here and things will be fine. Though breaking out some discipline once in a while might not be that terrible. I vote for keel-hauling!

[Immacolata]

No thanks necessary. Neal pays me a fabulous amount of money to do this.

The cull idea isn't bad, but I really prefer to let these things die a natural death. The really ugly, pointless ones can always be locked, but the little windstorms that blow up fast usually blow over just as fast.

Of course some topics refuse to die (Starforce anyone).

JCC

Well you deserve a 100% raise then. Two beers per month! :up:

Thanks for keeping a tidy ship. Hope that in a week the sillyness lowers. On the intarwebs its often easy to forget yout good behaviour.

[Gizzmoe]

Hope that in a week the sillyness lowers.

IMO it hasn´t even fully started, 95% of our members don´t even have SH4 yet... :88)

[Takeda Shingen]

Hope that in a week the sillyness lowers.

IMO it hasn´t even fully started, 95% of our members don´t even have SH4 yet... :88)

Sadly, you are correct Gizz.

[AJ!]

Well due to the recent release of SH4 and the interest sparked by it, we are getting a huge wave of new members.... The number of posts and threads per day has suddenly sky rocketed in the SH4 section.

Of course this may bring in some bad seeds.... who knows. I cant really speak about new peeps, in the long run i guess im kinda recent :hmm:

[Ducimus]

Well due to the recent release of SH4 and the interest sparked by it, we are getting a huge wave of new members.... The number of posts and threads per day has suddenly sky rocketed in the SH4 section.

Of course this may bring in some bad seeds.... who knows. I cant really speak about new peeps, in the long run i guess im kinda recent :hmm:

I was about to post remaking on just that. A problem is, too many of them are used to posting like this is an MMO messageboard.

[DaMaGe007]

I tried to warn you in the "stop the negativity thread" it was bound to happen not just in that thread but in others.

Both Neal and some moderators and other forum posters insulted "complainers"

calling them girls, accusing them of crying (children), saying its a shallowing of the gene pool, saying its the "me" generation (calling them self centered)

The complainers werent attacking anyone else on this forum, just remember who threw the first stones.

Im glad that thread has dropped off the first page, but thats where the personal attacks started occuring. This thread is not helping either.

This doesnt need to be said John, this thread is only going to continue the bitching and fanboyizm, the war ensues.

The Fanboys and Complainers could have coexisted although disagreeing, untill people started taking sides against fellow forum members.

Ballance in the forum should have been provided not by asking for it, but by posting screens from your game, patrol logs, threads talking about the good aspects.

The complaints are to be expected when a product is released in this state, Ubi only have them selves to blame for the negative aspects occuring and the Fanboys dont need to save the day for the good of the games future...

EDIT:I hope this thread drops off the main page quickly too, as I can see we have the personal attacks against forum members continuing already in this thread.

[HEMISENT]

I remember the same thing happened when SH3 first came out, all the noobs and 13 year old wannabe's began yelling and screaming and threatening etc etc. I prefer to sit back, discount everything they're saying and read the previews from the older more mature guys that have been around this forum for awhile.

The reviews I'm going to listen to are going to come from guys like Neal, Sailor Steve, Rubini, Ducimus and a host of others that can talk about something with a bit of intelligence and have been around longer than 13 posts. All the rest is nothing but annoying white noise.

A vast majority of the blowhards that are screaming have no clue who or what a Neal Stevens is, could care less that JC has been around forever and is pretty much one of the more level headed voices around. And most will probably be gone in a few weeks back to their consoles.

Does sh4 have problems? Of course it's expected. Will they get resolved? Hopefully as time goes on with the help of patches, mods etc. Time will tell but I'm damn glad that Ubi put $$ into another subsim.

[Dowly]

Well, what can you expect. People are pissed off. SHIV was rushed out (the same way as SHIII). I know it´s not up to the devs, they dont make the deadlines. I´m sure things will settle down in a week or so, or propably tomorrow when the patch is released. :yep:

[Onkel Neal]

I tried to warn you in the "stop the negativity thread" it was bound to happen not just in that thread but in others.

Both Neal and some moderators and other forum posters insulted "complainers"

calling them girls, accusing them of crying (children), saying its a shallowing of the gene pool, saying its the "me" generation (calling them self centered)



Yeah, I think the hysteria was getting to me :-?

Actually, I was kidding and I think everyone knows it. I was kidding when I said this too (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=449958#post449958) :D

[DaMaGe007]

Your comment was pretty tame Neal, but those people are already in a bad mood due to thier disapointment and its how it can be interpreted.

Some of the comments in this thread are condecending too or at least look that way.

I think those who arent happy deserve more respect (which is what this thread is asking for)
Saying its Sillyness (is calling them silly)
calling them Console croud is viewed in a derogatry way
refering to them as "them" is not accepting them into the subsim comunity
calling them children when they probably arent...

and thats just in this thread...

It creates 2 different sides, and its better to just tollerate and discuss even if it irks you..

Im not perfect either, we all have our moments, and these "washins" are worthy people too...pushing them out of the forums isnt really in subsims intrest, more clicks are better right ?

[John Channing]

"Actually, I was kidding and I think everyone knows it. I was kidding when I said this too (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=449958#post449958) :D"

Neal Stevens

So, for clarification... you were kidding about the "hotties" part.

Cuz everyone knows that Drebble gets killed all the time!

Keeeding... I keeed.

JCC

[kiwi_2005]

Hope that in a week the sillyness lowers.

IMO it hasn´t even fully started, 95% of our members don´t even have SH4 yet... :88)

:rotfl: :rotfl:

Emotions are running high.

SH3 came out with bugs, i remeber the nvidia bug right on release where we had to press ctrl-F2 otherwise the game would slow down. SH3 looked great but if we install the vanilla now we would all agree that its abit on the crappy side in the graphics. Patches came out, glitches, triangles, etc., modders went to work to make SH3 the great game it is today.

SHIV is no different - Of course its buggy, and patches will be required. Im just glad im only a few days away from playing it!:rock: :rock:

[Lt commander lare]

i agree with john here as a moderator in the mutiplayer section i better not see any of this in there this forum and others on subsim needs to remain civil here i agree there are bugs with silent hunter 4 i have seen a bug with the save and load feature but it will get worked out belive me there will be a patch this happens, with any game just released please all of you be patient but remember that us moderators have a job to do and we want the name calling stopped now as you know im pretty understanding but the attacks on neal and john are uncalled for and down right rude, and i think whoever made the comments needs to aplogize and show some respect and enjoy the game until its patched


lt commander lare

[John Channing]

Your comment was pretty tame Neal, but those people are already in a bad mood due to thier disapointment and its how it can be interpreted.

Some of the comments in this thread are condecending too or at least look that way.

I think those who arent happy deserve more respect (which is what this thread is asking for)
Saying its Sillyness (is calling them silly)
calling them Console croud is viewed in a derogatry way
refering to them as "them" is not accepting them into the subsim comunity
calling them children when they probably arent...

and thats just in this thread...

It creates 2 different sides, and its better to just tollerate and discuss even if it irks you..

Im not perfect either, we all have our moments, and these "washins" are worthy people too...pushing them out of the forums isnt really in subsims intrest, more clicks are better right ?

It's not about clicks. It's about respect. Everyone is welcome here, as long as they obey the rules.

Neal and the moderators have been consistent in our message. Nobody is censoring anyone. State your case in a respectful manner, in the appropriate venue, and nobody is going to have any problems.

But spamming the forum with "AA" posts, highjacking just about every second thread to get your point across and using this forum to encourage people NOT to buy a Subsim are simply beyond the pale and shouldn't (and won't) be tolerated here.

If people want to debate a point... GREAT. No one likes an INFORMED, RATIONAL exchange of ideas than I. But posting about subjects that you know absolutely nothing about in a rude and disrespectful manner won't stand.


Are the Moderators perfect? Far from it. Do we always get the right balance? Rarely would be the better word. Recently Neal took me out to the woodshed ( in that gentle, kind manner that only Neal has) about something and you know what... he was absolutley right to do so. He reminded me that you get more results with honey than horseradish (although... with some medium rare roast beef... thick slice... but I digress), but honest to God, when you are called pathetic and a moron for asking people to contribute to a solution rather than a lynching in the same day it gets to be a bit much.

If you don't want to be tagged as a whiner, then don't whine.

State your concern, suggest a possible solution (if possible) and wait for the replies.

Respect.

A little word, but a tough concept.

JCC

[Fer32]

Well, what can you expect. People are pissed off.

So that is the green light to start insulting each other? That happen when a lot of newbies start showing around especially from UBI forums. This forum and SimHQ forum are where the people are more respectfull.

[WFGood]

Hear! Hear! I agree 100%. Besides, I bought Pacific Storm, and this is painless in comparison. So far today I have had a wonderful time.

[9th_cow]

Well, what can you expect. People are pissed off.
So that is the green light to start insulting each other? That happen when a lot of newbies start showing around especially from UBI forums. This forum and SimHQ forum are where the people are more respectfull.

lol arent you new ? i am too. ( to this forum that is)
being new doesnt make you a bad person. :)

every forum has its own nutters, im glad i no longer am involved in running any, use to give me a headache.

[Dowly]

Well, what can you expect. People are pissed off.
So that is the green light to start insulting each other? That happen when a lot of newbies start showing around especially from UBI forums. This forum and SimHQ forum are where the people are more respectfull.

No, I didnt say it is a reason to start all this hulabaloo. But that is the human nature in some cases, they get pissed off, so they stay that way and think that insulting a moderator/Neal will magically fix all their problems.

[simsurfer]

I think anyone who personally attacks Neal or any of the modders should have there account banned or at the very least suspended a week or two so they cant spew there mouth. As time passes they will cool off. That or start up a warning system leading up to warnings and or ban.

I remember several years aggo when Silent Hunter II came out, I was one of the peeps who went around posting that the game suked an in a lot of ways I guess my behaviour resembled what we have here today and guess what?? It got me no where fast.

Luckily for me Neal I think has since forgiven me I changed my name in the forums and have since gotten along with everybody, why?? It is a game people, thats all it is. If you dont like it, dont stay but at least act civilized about it.

[Dizoak]

i honestly think that the bashing is unwarranted as of yet, granted i havent played the game yet, but lets face it; most fans, having had SH3 and GWX for as long as they have, are used to a certain type of interface, graphics, gameplay, etc. most of which come from mods made by people in this community. as i stated in a different thread (not to beat a dead horse), but lets just take SH4 for what it is for now. can't most of us be happy that the mods that will, im SURE will SOON be coming from people here, satisfy our expectations about what SH4 should be (even if they arent upon first starting the game and messing with it for awhile) at the VERY least, shouldnt we be happy for the modders that they won't have to create all the ports, convoy routes, etc from scratch? from what i understand, SH4 is supposed to be fairly easy to mod, so hopefully that means a "Sharks of the Pacific" mod will be forthcoming relatively soon, and until then, im MORE than happy playing GWX. just a thought.

[Fer32]

Well, what can you expect. People are pissed off.
So that is the green light to start insulting each other? That happen when a lot of newbies start showing around especially from UBI forums. This forum and SimHQ forum are where the people are more respectfull.

lol arent you new ? i am too. ( to this forum that is)
being new doesnt make you a bad person. :)

every forum has its own nutters, im glad i no longer am involved in running any, use to give me a headache.

If my join date is correct Im not what you would call a new guy in this forum, I just dont post much ,but I check this forum everyday. You are right, not all newbie are bad persons, my apologise for that. What I was trying to say is that in the last couple of days, several people has joined the forum and many of them ( not all of course) post only insults here. Many of them, because of their way to write and using words, reminds me the Ubi forums.

[StandingCow]

John, I know how you feel, but that often comes with the title of moderator. Over at one of the HL2 mod sites I help super mod I even have my own Hate club. LOL.

As a mod you are going to be disliked by the members that just cannot seem to behave, you gotta learn to let it roll off and not bother you. Continue to make unbias correct actions and you will be just fine. :) The negative oftem seems to outweigh the positive because the positive response to your action is no response, but negative is somebody bitching.

[Onkel Neal]

If my join date is correct Im not what you would call a new guy in this forum, I just dont post much ,but I check this forum everyday. You are right, not all newbie are bad persons, my apologise for that. What I was trying to say is that in the last couple of days, several people has joined the forum and many of them ( not all of course) post only insults here.

You're correct, and it is common for guys new to the Subsim forums to bring old forum habits--ranting and personal attacks, negativity, etc. The moderator and indeed, many of the members try to help them adjust to our tone and fit in. In the end, most people like having a forum with hundreds of members helping each other, instead of trying to get attention by topping the last insult :)

thanks
Neal

[Audie]

Beautifully written Mr. Channing.

Subsim.com has been a wonderful resource for the simulation community :rock:
I am very proud to be a very small part of it.

Cheers,

[highkoo]

Glad to be here.....give it a few days and hopefully all of the negative energy will be turned towards getting everyone sailing safely or unsafely for that matter on the pacific. ;)

[nvdrifter]

I think that Neal and the moderators here have shown a great amount of restraint about this whole situation. They are not telling anyone to not criticize SH4 or talk about the bugs or other problems. They are just trying to keep this forum fairly civil. It wouldn't take much for everyone to get into a huge flame war with a bunch of personal attacks. People here doing some complaining or criticizing should be tolerated as long as it makes for constructive discussion and hopefully gets the developer's attention. If no one said anything about SH4's problems, it would hurt all of us. But it is hard to remain positive when this is the third time in a row that UBI has released a very buggy, half finished Silent Hunter game. :shifty: Hopefully a lot of the negativity here will eventally blow over once UBI releases a few patches to fix SH4. Let's hope for the best. :yep:

[Capt.LoneRanger]

I came here, because this forum is a great source of information and discussion.

Since the release it seems like the good old IL2-Forum. People ranting and complaining, feeling cheated and robbed of their precious money and if you say a good word about SH4 or UBI, you get flamed or worse. Even if I repeat myself, if you don't like it at all, give it back or sell it on ebay and that's it. Anybody else, let's sit together and see what can be done to fix things. This pre-teen ranting leads to nothing but a fanwar and this is what helps SH4 the least.

[TDK1044]

One of the main reasons I agreed to become a Moderator here is because of Neal's integrity and the respect that I have for this Forum, its members and Moderators like JC and Gizz.

'Release Week' is always going to bring out a whole range of emotions from old and new forum members and I think that's healthy, but this forum has never been allowed to degenerate into a nasty, accusatorial shouting match between its members and it won't on my watch either.

There are forums that tolerate and even encourage that kind of behaviour, this is not one of them. Spirited discussion and disagreement between members is welcome, petulent accusatorial nonsense is not.

[ACSoft]

A quick reminder: as we did when SH2 and SH3 were released, I would like to request your cooperation in keeping Subsim a positive and productive discussion forum for Silent Hunter 4.
...
Feel free to criticise and complain but please, do so with some respect, and courtesy. Even though this is the Internet, we should try to be professional.

This is perfectly OK for me, althrough it is probably really difficult to always speak about something fundamentally negative (like the state of the initial release of SH4) in a positive way. What is more easy, it is to be respectful and keep courtesy.

Now take this example:

That's is not a bug.

It is a game who is about to be published in an unfinished state, as usually.

ACS

As usual people start whining before they even have the game.:nope:

Why one of the moderators do no intervene in this case ? Because here, "hyperion2206" obviously broke the rules "respect" and "courtesy". I don't care about what "hyperion2206" said and I was big enough to answer, but speaking of your policy... ?!?

And I could have taken other more harch exemples where moderator do not intervene either.

Instead of that, I see moderators saying to unhappy peoples things like that:


...
The only person you're punishing by not buying the game is yourself. Ubisoft are not going to worry at all if a handfull of people in the subsim forums (and that's all it would be) choose not to purchase the game on a point of principle. That's your choice and I respect it, but it's also your loss. You don't improve a game by not buying it, nor does a handful of people not buying Silent Hunter 4 in any way influence Ubisoft's decision regarding Silent Hunter 5. The game either meets its projected sales target or it doesn't.

Why a moderator feel necessary in this case, to give such a "personnal lesson" to peoples who decided to cancel their orders ? I mean, is this action "respectful" and "professional", to retake the terms of your policy ?

So, I am not very surprised of all what happened.

But, like somebody else already said, all will probably calm down soon, especially now, with the very good news that a patch (a giant one apparently) will be published soon !

ACS

[SteamWake]

Yall need to check up on the attitude a bit lest Neal decide hes had enough and pull the plug. I know I wouldent blame him.

Moderators are entitled to their opinions this is NOT a democracy.

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

I can understand the frustration vented by people who've had very similar problems with SH3, but the incredible hysteria shown by some people is fairly ridiculous.

[Spaxspore]

Beautifully written Mr. Channing.

Subsim.com has been a wonderful resource for the simulation community :rock:
I am very proud to be a very small part of it.

Cheers,


BTW nice SIG!

I love bf109s

[Rickenbacker]

..my playstation 3 outdate any PC on the todays market.... make it looks like a Commodore C64....


I just spent about $2000 on a new PC, and I can confidently say that no, no it really doesn't. Nothing I've thrown at this thing so far has slown it down the slightest, and you should see Oblivion with everything maxed out :-).

But, returning to the subject at hand, I can understand people who are pissed about buying a game that was released even though they KNEW it wasn't in full working order. But that's no reason to start abusing the mods or other users, let's keep this forum the great informational resource and discussion forum it's always been (I may have lurked in the past, but I found tons of useful information here, given freely by people I've never met, thank you all).

[John Channing]

Oh dear!

I fear that people have misinterperted my intent here.

I was not looking for sympathy (although I genuinely appreciate it). This sort of stuff, while aggravating, does not bother me too much. I usually consider the source of the insult.

What bothered me was seeing this tremendous resource, this gathering place of like-minded people, this home-away-from-home for so many of us turned into a pit of vipers by an unusually large amount of immature posts and rants.

My only objective with this thread was to try to elevate the level of discourse, nothing else.

JCC

[Rykaird]

Whatever the cause, this forum is much, much different in tone right now than the SHIII forum. Over there, new folks are welcome, and even folks who haven't read the stickies aren't pounced on, but merely reminded. The SHIII forum is in fact the best game community I've ever experienced by a wide margin.

I'm sure this one will live up to that standard eventually. In the interim, we can only do what always works - don't feed the trolls, don't flame, don't return fire even if provoked.

[SteamWake]

Whatever the cause, this forum is much, much different in tone right now than the SHIII forum.

Its simple really I call it the new release syndrome. Its like this for virtually all games now.

Game gets released and noise level explodes for several weeks. After a period of time the noise level diminishes.

There are probably some folks in here raising a lot of ruckus whom dont even own the game. In fact the only reason there here is to raise a ruckus.

The SH3 forums were quite noisy at release if I recall.

[TDK1044]

Whatever the cause, this forum is much, much different in tone right now than the SHIII forum.

Its simple really I call it the new release syndrome. Its like this for virtually all games now.

Game gets released and noise level explodes for several weeks. After a period of time the noise level diminishes.

There are probably some folks in here raising a lot of ruckus whom dont even own the game. In fact the only reason there here is to raise a ruckus.

The SH3 forums were quite noisy at release if I recall.

I agree. Things usually calm down when everyone actually has the game and an even keel is established. It was just like this during the release of SH3.

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Someone insulted Neal and the moderators?!

...Where's my GUN.

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Beautifully written Mr. Channing.

Subsim.com has been a wonderful resource for the simulation community :rock:
I am very proud to be a very small part of it.

Cheers,

And for the record, no one is a "very small part". Everyone's a big fat piece of the whole that is Subsim :):up:

[John Channing]

Whatever the cause, this forum is much, much different in tone right now than the SHIII forum. Over there, new folks are welcome, and even folks who haven't read the stickies aren't pounced on, but merely reminded. The SHIII forum is in fact the best game community I've ever experienced by a wide margin.

I'm sure this one will live up to that standard eventually. In the interim, we can only do what always works - don't feed the trolls, don't flame, don't return fire even if provoked.

Everybody here is welcome.

Period.

Of course that doesn't mean you can't wear out your welcome. But everyone starts here with a clean slate. How it gets marked is entirely up to them.

JCC