Rant - sorry, but I have to.....

[Steeltrap]

OK, here goes:

Well, after SHII was such crap, I decided NOT to buy SHIII until the good people of this site indicated most problems had been resolved (incidentally, by the people here, NOT Ubi - gee, such a surprise!). The result of that decision was that I picked up SHIII for $19 here in Australia and loaded NYGM immediately. Thus I never bothered with the rubbish that was vanilla.

So, this time I decided to give it a go with SHIV as I've been reading about all the great things the devs have been doing etc.

DUMB!!!! :doh: :doh: :doh: :doh:

So, what's that got me?

1. A price of $99. :hmm:
2. A TDC/PK that is broken.:down:
3. Air search radar that picks up ships at 32km. :damn:
4. With no map updates, the crew doesn't tell me when ships detected via 3 are actually visible....so, for example, I got rammed and sunk by a Jap DD (about 400km from Midway, mind you.....). :damn: :damn: :damn:
5. Enemy AI is retarded, brain dead, useless. There was a thread before the game was released (and I use the word 'game' advisedly, as this sure as hell isn't a sim in my books) wondering if this would be a turkey shoot. In fact it's a turkey shoot where the turkey is placed in front of your shotgun, gagged, bound and drugged. :huh:
6. Aircraft appear in the middle of the night all over the place. :roll:
7. The manual leaves SO much vital information out that it clearly wasn't written by a professional documentation writer. So we're left with all sorts of questions/things not explained at all (such as, for example, the effects different skills have and the 'optimal' allocation of crew/skills by watch area).

2-5 make 1 an insult. This excrement is unplayable as it stands. I am SOOOO sick and tired of being ripped off by Ubi. I guess I shall return this 'offering' to EB Games for a credit, wait for the community to do the work that Ubi ought to have ensured was done before releasing SHIV, then go pick it up at a reduced price. I won't be missing anything as it is worthless to me as a sim as it stands, and I've got NYGM SHIII to keep me entertained.

Anyone else feel this way, or is everyone so awestruk to receive a Pac Sim that the fact that it is such poor quality as released for the price asked - the salient points - doesn't matter?

Oh, and what's with reviews giving it 8.8 etc??? How far up their arses did the reviewers have their heads at the time??? This industry is really going the way of the dodo when it comes to quality and treating consumers with any kind of integrity/decency.

OK, I feel much better now!

BTW, let me make it clear that my irritation is fairly and squarely aimed at the ****** responsible for insisting it be released under-done, not the devs. The fact a patch came out so early suggests to me they already knew about many issues and were not allowed to fix them. I'm sure enough will be done for it actually to become a decent sim once the mod community here goes to work. My anger is at the fact that I'm asked to shell out $99 on a product that is so obviously and significantly defective.

[Reece]

Yes I got the Collectors edition at EB for $100, but I am very unhappy with SH4, SH3 had a lot of bugs but this is way higher, SH3 runs smooth as silk on my system but need new video card for SH4.:cry: Have also got problems with Securom every 2 out of 5 times coming up with an error to insert the original disk.:down: I think IMHO the submarine graphics is much better in SH3 than SH4, including the wakes!:nope:
Still after a few patches & a lot of mods it may turn into a good game!:yep:

[AS]

I think IMHO the submarine graphics is much better in SH3 than SH4, including the wakes!:nope:


Well, you shouldn´t say that unless you get an appropriate graphic card. I have an outdated GeForce 6600, and even on this one SH4 looks WAY better than SH3 ever did. The sea and sky are really close to photorealism, the subs have a very realistic shine on them.

As for the other stuff... yep, it´s another unfinished game. Good thing is, it has great potential and will be heavily modded. All we need now is some patience.

Cheers, AS

[Reece]

Yes the sea & sky is great, it's the subs, wakes & the run off, as I said eventually it will be fixed I have no doubts, but should never have been released with so many bugs!:-? I always maintained an expansion pack would have been better (IMO).:yep:

[It762]

100% ack about expension pack.

But with an expension pack you probably get only less bucks for the software...

Maybe a bundle would be good:
sh4 (upgrade to sh3) = 20 bucks
sh4 (full includes sh3) = 40 bucks

[Onkel Neal]

Why didn't you wait a few weeks/months and see how the game was received? Especially if you were skeptical that it would be problematic?

[Uber Gruber]

I've been following thiis forum closely and I'm very glad I made the decision to hold off buying SH IV untill a large number of the issues mentioned within are resolved - especially grpahic resolutions and anti-aliasing.

And you're right about the floppy phalus heads otherwise known as "management" at UBI....I feel quite sorry for the devs, having to have their efforts shat on by some Bachelor of Anything in a dodgy suit.

That is also another reason why I hold off from buying games released in buggy states, to discourage the practice becoming mainstream. Vista is a very good example of this, which is why i'm still running XP, and will continue to do so.

To summate then, if you want better quality games with less bugs on release - don't buy them until they've been fully patched.

[BBury]

Why didn't you wait a few weeks/months and see how the game was received? Especially if you were skeptical that it would be problematic?

Why didn't UBI wait a few weeks/months and give us a finished game?

On the back of the box where it says "Mild Violence", is that the expected reaction after you spend hard earned dollars for a half-baked game?

[Da_Junka]

The one good thing about the release of SH4 is that it makes SH3-GWX look so good :)

[Onkel Neal]

Why didn't you wait a few weeks/months and see how the game was received? Especially if you were skeptical that it would be problematic?
Why didn't UBI wait a few weeks/months and give us a finished game?

On the back of the box where it says "Mild Violence", is that the expected reaction after you spend hard earned dollars for a half-baked game?


They should have waited a few more weeks/months to release the game.

And if you were so worried about your hard-earned dollars, you should have waited until the game was released. It's that way for every game, no big surprise.

[Chiller1064]

It's your dollar (or pound, depending on where you live)- but the other edge of the sword is if everyone took the attitude of holding off buying a game until all the bugs were patched- the game wouldn't be patched because the developers would shut down due to lack of sales!

Right now (i.e. the first 2-3 weeks) is where the project needs to show some potential to make back the development investment- so if 50% of the community sat it out until sometime in the future, there would be no future for SH4 or any other product. Regardless of what you think of UbiSoft, I for one do not want to see them go out of business. Leaving the industry in the hands of the BIG TWO (Microsoft and EA) isn't a pleasant thought. Supporting the other guys like Ubi, Midway, THQ and Activision keeps them honest through competing for you entertainment dollar (or pound).

It sucks that release decisions for software rest with people who (a) generally aren't gamers, (b) don't really know what goes into making a game, (c) is more motivated to make retail vendors "happy" than consumers.

[Audie]

Being that the simulation gaming genre is rather esoteric, I think that it is a miracle that this game was even brought to market.

I am thrilled to have a new Pac Sub sim to add to my collection. I have been playing this thing virtually non-stop since last Tuesday and am absloutely loving it - bugs and all.

I won't go over my likes and dislikes, I'll merely state that I am grateful for the sim that we have, and I am confident that the glitches will be properly addressed in due time.

Farewell and Following Seas!

[Meerkat154]

2-5 make 1 an insult. This excrement is unplayable as it stands. I am SOOOO sick and tired of being ripped off by Ubi. I guess I shall return this 'offering' to EB Games for a credit, wait for the community to do the work that Ubi ought to have ensured was done before releasing SHIV, then go pick it up at a reduced price. I won't be missing anything as it is worthless to me as a sim as it stands, and I've got NYGM SHIII to keep me entertained.


You are lucky you can return the game...here in The US once you open the box, EB will not take the game back for any credit. Already tried that when BF2142 was released with ingame advertising :down:
-Meerkat

[Keelbuster]

Why didn't you wait a few weeks/months and see how the game was received? Especially if you were skeptical that it would be problematic?
Why didn't UBI wait a few weeks/months and give us a finished game?

On the back of the box where it says "Mild Violence", is that the expected reaction after you spend hard earned dollars for a half-baked game?

They should have waited a few more weeks/months to release the game.

And if you were so worried about your hard-earned dollars, you should have waited until the game was released. It's that way for every game, no big surprise.
Bugs can be expected. I usually wait anyway for a patch or two before getting a game. On the other hand, I have trouble seeing what Ubi actually did with all the development time it had. They didn't learn from most of the shortcomings of SH3, and somehow they managed to introduce new and ridiculous errors/disappointments/inconveniences. Most game series move forward over the generations. I guess that Ubi spent all it's resources making the water look good. Boy, the game industry has such a hopeless trajectory towards the superficial...we might as well go to the fracking movies.

[Onkel Neal]

Why didn't you wait a few weeks/months and see how the game was received? Especially if you were skeptical that it would be problematic?
Why didn't UBI wait a few weeks/months and give us a finished game?

On the back of the box where it says "Mild Violence", is that the expected reaction after you spend hard earned dollars for a half-baked game?

They should have waited a few more weeks/months to release the game.

And if you were so worried about your hard-earned dollars, you should have waited until the game was released. It's that way for every game, no big surprise.
Bugs can be expected. I usually wait anyway for a patch or two before getting a game. On the other hand, I have trouble seeing what Ubi actually did with all the development time it had. They didn't learn from most of the shortcomings of SH3, and somehow they managed to introduce new and ridiculous errors/disappointments/inconveniences. Most game series move forward over the generations. I guess that Ubi spent all it's resources making the water look good. Boy, the game industry has such a hopeless trajectory towards the superficial...we might as well go to the fracking movies.


I won't argue with that. Like I said in another post, the Ubi marketing brains were bent on capturing the Wal-mart gamers with Wowee! graphics.... and they didn't give them a tutorial or manual of any value.

But, I have to be honest and say I agree with audie; I'm glad to get one more decent subsim. I'll take an 80% finished subsim over no subsim. If anyone knows a no-risk way to bend Ubisoft to our will, I'm listening.

[Doolan]

Bugs can be expected. I usually wait anyway for a patch or two before getting a game. On the other hand, I have trouble seeing what Ubi actually did with all the development time it had. They didn't learn from most of the shortcomings of SH3, and somehow they managed to introduce new and ridiculous errors/disappointments/inconveniences. Most game series move forward over the generations. I guess that Ubi spent all it's resources making the water look good. Boy, the game industry has such a hopeless trajectory towards the superficial...we might as well go to the fracking movies.

I think this analysis is a bit simplistic.

Even games that aren't rushed and come from "respectable" publishers (say, Company of Heroes for example) have "show-stopper" bugs here and there. I've seen CoH quoted in this forum before as an example of a "good-from-release" piece of software, and I'm completely sure that this comes from a guy who was lucky enough not to experience any problems and thus ignored the support forums. It had CTDs and freezes with a wide array of graphics cards, skirmish maps crashed the game the first time they were loaded, etc. And even with all that, it was "good" for today's standards.

Games are no longer a matter of writing lines of text or drawing sprites. Graphics-centric gamers (a lot of those here judging by the complaints about the eye-candy) expect an incredible atmosphere: huge textures have to be painted, detailed models have to be made, life-like animations have to be implemented. Particle effects, HDR... All that without sacrificing gameplay and keeping the code complex. Give that to a relatively small dev team and you have a recipe for a four-year long project if not more.

So, Ubi releases half-baked games? Sure, but examples from other publishers are, simply, endless. It's a new trend, like it or not. Games take more and more time to be developed, which means publishers spend more time paying and less time getting cash. That leads to rushed products and tons of patches without which games are sometimes unplayable out of the box.

I don't like the situation, but with a little bit of perspective you'll see that SH4 is not, at all, the worst thing you've seen in that field.

I'm hooked to the game, which is more than I can say about half-baked, bug-ridden FPS clones with little or no content outside multiplayer fragfests, or RTS clones that pump up the eye candy while selling me exactly the same product the original Warcraft was.

Also, nobody seems to take into account that the release of a patch (v 1.1) so early is a sign of a dev team that is both aware of the issues and willing to solve them.

I'm with Neal in that a few extra months of development wouldn't have hurt SH4, but I don't know what that would have led to financially speaking.

Truth is, we don't really get what we pay for lately, but I am yet to read a single complaint post in this forum that gives any explanation other than "The developer / publisher must be evil and somehow enjoy releasing an unfinished product and pissing customers off".

[Liszt_]

And if you were so worried about your hard-earned dollars, you should have waited until the game was released. It's that way for every game, no big surprise.

Agreed and well put Neal. I also can't stand the folks complaining how their not getting their dollars worth out of the game. Sure there are issues that come with it, as there are with most games, but I still continue to play around the issues.

I still play the game and enjoy it so I'm getting my dollars out of it, even with the existing issues. I'll enjoy it even more when some of the fixes are implemented.

If you're pinching pennies to pick up the game, then wait.

[stratagees]

Why didn't you wait a few weeks/months and see how the game was received? Especially if you were skeptical that it would be problematic?
Why didn't UBI wait a few weeks/months and give us a finished game?

On the back of the box where it says "Mild Violence", is that the expected reaction after you spend hard earned dollars for a half-baked game?

They should have waited a few more weeks/months to release the game.

And if you were so worried about your hard-earned dollars, you should have waited until the game was released. It's that way for every game, no big surprise.
Bugs can be expected. I usually wait anyway for a patch or two before getting a game. On the other hand, I have trouble seeing what Ubi actually did with all the development time it had. They didn't learn from most of the shortcomings of SH3, and somehow they managed to introduce new and ridiculous errors/disappointments/inconveniences. Most game series move forward over the generations. I guess that Ubi spent all it's resources making the water look good. Boy, the game industry has such a hopeless trajectory towards the superficial...we might as well go to the fracking movies.


I won't argue with that. Like I said in another post, the Ubi marketing brains were bent on capturing the Wal-mart gamers with Wowee! graphics.... and they didn't give them a tutorial or manual of any value.

But, I have to be honest and say I agree with audie; I'm glad to get one more decent subsim. I'll take an 80% finished subsim over no subsim. If anyone knows a no-risk way to bend Ubisoft to our will, I'm listening.


No one seems to understand that if the "Wal-mart gamers" don't buy SH4, the sales numbers wont look good to the execs, who in turn will wonder why they're spending dev dollars on a product that doesn't sell, then they shut the franchise down. No more SH, plain and simple.

[FIREWALL]

I for one am glad I spent the money for the preorder with bonus materials at $61.10 . Their already out on ebay rangeing from $19.99 for basic to
$80.00 highest bid for tin box version. I figure it will be fixed soon and am enjoying it as much as I can now. :)

[BBury]

nm.

[HMS-Warspite]

I'm having a great time with SH4 ,i'm not running it at the top of the difficulty,maybe because i'm new with sub simulator this fourth chapter of silent hunter is great for me.
By the way i want to ask you what makes SH3 better than SH4...more contents?more sub options?more realism?
By now i'm happy with SH4(Bugs apart) but i think that very soon i'm going to be more confindent with the game and its mechanics.







p.s Why carriers sails alone without DD or something like that?

Bye ;)

[Keelbuster]

Bugs can be expected. I usually wait anyway for a patch or two before getting a game. On the other hand, I have trouble seeing what Ubi actually did with all the development time it had. They didn't learn from most of the shortcomings of SH3, and somehow they managed to introduce new and ridiculous errors/disappointments/inconveniences. Most game series move forward over the generations. I guess that Ubi spent all it's resources making the water look good. Boy, the game industry has such a hopeless trajectory towards the superficial...we might as well go to the fracking movies.
I think this analysis is a bit simplistic.
aye - short n sour.

Truth is, we don't really get what we pay for lately, but I am yet to read a single complaint post in this forum that gives any explanation other than "The developer / publisher must be evil and somehow enjoy releasing an unfinished product and pissing customers off".
Not necessarily evil, i reckon, but rather greedy, and a little too comfortable with the idea of us all eating captain crunch instead of red river. The whole thing reeks of a sellout; a compromise of basic values. RTSs have loose values, and are designed for 10-year olds. Sims are for adults, and should be made with reverence, and uncompromising dedication to [gameplay] realism and quality. Graphics are secondary to gameplay for sims.

I'm coming around to Neal's way of thinking on this - we're not going to get another SH4. We're stuck with this jury-rigged after-school programming project and we've got to make the best of it. On to the solution.

[JSF]

Hardest game I have ever played. UI for TDC is is leap ahead of previous sims but the quirkiness of its functions detracts from the original entent.

I would have bought the game irregardless. I genuinely believe this sim community will add another 2 years of life to this game before it's over with. And, I'm looking forward to it!

So, if you chaps would start with the TDC and fix that first...I'd be much obliged.

[Rykaird]

I'm not unhappy I bought the game. Whether I buy it now or two months from now it's going to be roughly the same price, and I believe it will ultimately be a good game.

As for the quality, it is buggy, and I've put it on the shelf while it bakes. I'll open it up again after then next patch and see where we're at. But I expect it to become stable through a series of patches.

Fortunately, I can continue to play GWX, which is only a few months old for me, so I'm not burned out on the Atlantic the way some of the original SHIII crowd are.

I also don't know what the mod community is capable of doing here, or probably more to the point what they are willing to do.

I remain optimistic. My only concern for the long term is that some of the capabilities to interact with the crew and the equipment may not be added or modded.

[Drokkon]

The only thing I'm unhappy about is easter eggs in a unfinished product. Maybe the time spent putting smileys in the radar should have been spent making the TDC work properly at 100% realism.

I'll look at the bright side though it gives the feeling of a WW1 sub. Curt Jurgens speech in the Enemey Below comes to mind.

[AS]

There´s still something I´ve obviously missed... WHY do publishers sell an unfinished product just to come up with the first patch one day later and other ones, say, two or three weeks later instead of finishing their product in the first place and releasing it AFTERWARDS???

I don´t intend to be ironic here (for a change:lol:), I really mean it - I don´t see what´s the advantage to sell an unfinished game "a bit earlier"? I mean both the Wal Mart casual gamer AND the hardcore fans wouldn´t really mind a one month delay considering they have been waiting for the game for one or two or 6 years (see "Stalker" which has been announced more than 5 or 6 years ago). No-one would ever refuse to buy a game he wants just because it is released in, say, April instead of March...:o

The "time is money" argument doesn´t help much in this case, since the DevTeam DOES produce patches, so there is no time saved or wasted if they put the "patches" into the original game right from the beginning...
???

Cheers, AS

[OneTinSoldier]

I think it may have something to do with what I have seen mentioned several times(see #2).

1) They need money NOW. I don't know if I really understand why they need money from the game now just to continue funding the Devs and development of the project(patches) unless the company is on the verge of going broke. Perhaps someone can explain that to me. Perhaps every time Ubi releases Silent Hunter they are on the verge of going broke and need money now. Meaning, they never have enough money to get a Silent Hunter into a state of completion(let alone somewhat polished) before they release it. So they release it now and expect us to buy it if we want to see the game continue being developed, no matter how bad a state the unfinished game is in.(?)

2) And this might be a big one! As some people have mentioned, it's the end of the first fiscal quarter of 2007. They want to look good to their stockholders and to the public(except maybe us cutomers, lol). Soooo, a lot of people have the game on pre-order and just before the end of the first quarter all they have to do is pull the trigger on those pre-orders and, bam! Instantly they have a lot more money to show in their quarterly report for the first quarter of 2007 from all those credit cards being charged for all those 'shipped' pre-orders. I believe that they did it just in time to get the money in their coffers and be able to have their first quarter reports prepared. This is all just speculation on my part influenced by what I have seen some others on here say, but I think they maybe right because it makes sense and the timing seems correct to me.

Does it really matter though? They seem bound and determined to make every Silent Hunter release a buggy one for whatever reason. :stare:

[Iron Budokan]

The only thing I'm unhappy about is easter eggs in a unfinished product. Maybe the time spent putting smileys in the radar should have been spent making the TDC work properly at 100% realism.

That's for darn sure. :up:

[Ducimus]

Less whining and more modding i say. Many of the standard complaints people have about this game are not hardcoded and have already been fixed by one person or another.

[xittix]

I worked @EA for a number of years and I will tell you WITHOUT a DOUBT that all the upper management cares about is sales volume. Nothing else. NADA. Not gameplay, realism, NOTHING. Only sales.

Everytime a new game was to come out it starts off with a meeting on all the "features" and "oh so awsome things" that would make the end product stand out head and shoulders above anything that came before it.

Problem is as time goes on costs add up. So to keep time down, you remove features. You remove realism, you remove/modify anything that is not core to the game.

Now you will always be given dates that will almost certainly creep forward, hardly ever back (with pubs/developers such as EA/UBI). Managent has more meetings, heck meetings 3 times a day when gold master is coming. Bugs are found...more bugs. Not uncommon to have 75000 bugs and more throughout the development. As time gets closer the management decides which bugs can be put off till a patch. Bugs are always divided into classes. A-D with A being a huge bug concerning things such as getting the game to even run, or there is a repreatable CTD at the menu. Things like that. Big bugs. Bugs such as oh....hitting the 'A' key fall into this category. The rest B-D scale from there. Gameplay bus, AI etc. I have been there when a producer said "that bug is not being fixed" --and this was a CTD!!!!!!

Now the people who make the game (programmers, artists, scripters, etc) do care about the game. It's their life, love and blood but alas the only thing that matters to anyone else is $$$$.

I remember producers who cared not about the game one bit, but rather about how big their bonus would be at the end of the cycle. Cared about NOTHING else. Only money.

Anyways my rant is over. I have seen and been in the inside of this industry for a while and I have witnessed it turn from developers/publishers who cared about the product to corporations who care only about the mighty dollar.

As for UBI, don't EVER expect them to put gameplay/realism over features that sell product. Just like EA, flash matters more than substance.

/endrant

Oh one more thing. Programmers have no say in which bugs are fixed in places like EA/UBI. It's the development manager's that decide if it's worth spending time on. SO don't blame them for bugs =)

[Steeltrap]

Xittix, you've pretty much confirmed what I expected.

I wrote in another thread about my experiences working as a consultant to large corporations - and I mean some of the biggest multinationals around - and I found that the commitment to quality was a concept that flowed easily from the mouth, but not much more. Certainly not to the point of insisting on certain quality levels. That didn't bother me particularly; what did was the endless talks given by senior managers about the importance of "doing things the right way every time" while, behind the scenes, they cut back/prevented the actions necessary to achieve that. Gutless hypocrites one and all.

I'm sorry if people think I'm being unrealistic in complaining that some things people say are just 'bugs' that will be 'fixed' to me are major issues. Air search radar detecting ships? Crew doesn't alert you that they've sighted a ship? The TDC is partially broken?

Yet people say they are enjoying playing. I really don't understand that, as I can't see what's enjoyable about playing when you have to cut back on any realism because the elements required to make that realism achievable are broken.

Oh well....I'll just go back to SHIII and wait for this to be fixed.

BTW, high speed internet is expensive and not accessible in all parts of Australia. I had to get the 1.1 patch d/l by a friend then meet them and get a disk on which they'd copied it. So relying on huge patches is actually a real pain in the backside.

[tenebrea]

Xittix, you've pretty much confirmed what I expected.

While in no way wanting to make excuses for a bugy product (which it is), the development manager faces a never ending tug-o-war of features vs resources.

At the one end you have the expectations of the community, developers, producers etc etc who *want* to make the best damm game possible. At the other end you have the limited resources (staff, time, budget) that are given to you.

In the end prioritising bugs and deciding what not to fix is a matter of balancing those two ends of the equation. You can't hire an addition 100 staff, you will go broke, you can't drop all functionality, the game will bomb. So hard decisions have to be made.

I have run development teams (business software not games) for years and face these decisions each day. As I said I like you am dissapointed in the bugs, but just wanted to make sure you all understand it is no easy task to control. AND that any anger is vented at the management not the devs.

Most game companies have a small roster of staff on any one game, and realistically apart from building technology and tool upgrades to be able to make the next game, most time taken is simply a fact of those limited resources. Unfortuantly the likes of Ubi control the strings when it comes to how long and how many staff :(

Yet people say they are enjoying playing. I really don't understand that, as I can't see what's enjoyable about playing when you have to cut back on any realism because the elements required to make that realism achievable are broken.

From my personal perspective, apart from many many years ago, I am new to the sub simulation scene. I have owned every version of Microsoft Simulator since the days it was Bruce Artwicks Flight Simulator, so understand and enjoy sims, but for me at the moment heading out on about 20% realism is all I can handle.

So because of the automation etc I am enjoying the simple things like heading out of the pens, setting course, snooping up on convoys etc. Yes the bugs are damm annoying, but I guess for me at the moment I can take a more simplistic approach.

But don't get me wrong, I totally understand where you are coming from if you were wanting full realism, for me it would be like sending out the next flight sim and leaving off the wings, due to lack of time.

Grant.

[Uber Gruber]

Thanks xittix (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/member.php?u=230368) for your post. It confirms what i've always suspected and makes a mockery of the term "upper management". There seems to be a vein in society today that dollars is everything, its a view thats even been defended in these forums, hell even this topic.

But lets think for a minute, instead of purely focusing on sales per quarter in order to appease share holders and market speculators. Why not focus on quality ? People will definately buy a quality game, even the Wal Marters. Furthermore, a quality game will spread by word and mouth, creating more sales. The end result would be a greater number of units sold and hence more profit.

The sales per quarter argument is interesting but only provides a temporary blip and could be considered to be a disaster on a PR front. However, in the current monopolistic games producer market then the argument has basis. One shouldn't forget though that markets change, such that the damage you do to your brand today by buggy early releases may stick to your brand tomorrow such that your customer base shrinks.

Furthermore, what is the point of generating ever increasing ammounts of profit ? So you can rise above the competitors and eventually buy them out, creating a total monopoly of the market and hence makeing more dollars ? For what purpose ? So that the few shareholders get richer and richer whilst the customers suffer an ever dwindling level of quality ? Doesn't this sound familiar ? Wasn't this one of the criticisms leveled at the old CCCP communist system ? Ironic that our capitalist systems seem to be heading the same way.

Personally, for the sake of myself and my concept of a human existance, I would rather concentrate my energy on building quality such that my customers are happy pay for that quality. The end result is a happy customer base, a decent income, happy developers and thus a good level of social as well as financial capital in the bank.

But thats just me......on Thursdays I like to wear a dress and call myself Janice.

[Keelbuster]

I worked @EA for a number of years and I will tell you WITHOUT a DOUBT that all the upper management cares about is sales volume. Nothing else. NADA. Not gameplay, realism, NOTHING. Only sales.

Everytime a new game was to come out it starts off with a meeting on all the "features" and "oh so awsome things" that would make the end product stand out head and shoulders above anything that came before it.

Problem is as time goes on costs add up. So to keep time down, you remove features. You remove realism, you remove/modify anything that is not core to the game.

Now you will always be given dates that will almost certainly creep forward, hardly ever back (with pubs/developers such as EA/UBI). Managent has more meetings, heck meetings 3 times a day when gold master is coming. Bugs are found...more bugs. Not uncommon to have 75000 bugs and more throughout the development. As time gets closer the management decides which bugs can be put off till a patch. Bugs are always divided into classes. A-D with A being a huge bug concerning things such as getting the game to even run, or there is a repreatable CTD at the menu. Things like that. Big bugs. Bugs such as oh....hitting the 'A' key fall into this category. The rest B-D scale from there. Gameplay bus, AI etc. I have been there when a producer said "that bug is not being fixed" --and this was a CTD!!!!!!

Now the people who make the game (programmers, artists, scripters, etc) do care about the game. It's their life, love and blood but alas the only thing that matters to anyone else is $$$$.

I remember producers who cared not about the game one bit, but rather about how big their bonus would be at the end of the cycle. Cared about NOTHING else. Only money.

Anyways my rant is over. I have seen and been in the inside of this industry for a while and I have witnessed it turn from developers/publishers who cared about the product to corporations who care only about the mighty dollar.

As for UBI, don't EVER expect them to put gameplay/realism over features that sell product. Just like EA, flash matters more than substance.

/endrant

Oh one more thing. Programmers have no say in which bugs are fixed in places like EA/UBI. It's the development manager's that decide if it's worth spending time on. SO don't blame them for bugs =)
Interesting post xittix - it's sobering to know more about the details (and the corruption) that occurs during the development process. Fears confirmed for me too. I'm an idealist about games, and not only for sims, which have a stringent quality requirement. I think of computer games as a new form of art, and it's heart-breaking to see its potential corrupted for greed. I loath the kind of person that views the world through a dollar-value filter. There are legions of pimps and prostitutes that seek to strip the beauty and the life force out of the art of game design.

[teeman84]

Well, I'm really not addicted to whining. But for ME this game is not playable right now. Playing a patrol/mission is somehow like throwing dices for me. My boat sunk without reason, some CTDs occured and my crew or boat refused to get going again, which resulted in my boat ending like a swimming piece of wood on the ocean (don't know if anyone encountered this bug).

I really want to play the game, love its atmosphere and therefore I'll just wait for the next patch - otherwise I'm going to start hating a basically great game.

[melendir]

I trust and agree with people, that SH4 will be finally patched and modded to a great game.

I also do feel bad about many bugs in the game and I would like to whine about them and I already have, under another thread, but the game feels good still.

Think positively, when that day comes, you have SH4 already at your hands and you can start to play immediately. :)

Like I bought FSX and I don't have it installed, because I don't have Direct-X 10 based graphics card and I don't have Vista and FSX addons aren't yet at the state that they were for FS2004, so I'm not ready to make a leap from FS2004 to FSX.

When the time is right, then I will rob myself to buy both Vista and new graphics card, then I'll install FSX and I don't have to wonder if shops will have it available immediately, because I already have it (even though at full price).

The bottom line is that "You can't go wrong for paying a sub game or flight simulator" :)
Those games are still so minor genres that if they don't get paid, we are totally out of simulators some day.
My opinion is that if company decides to make a simulator, there has to be some idealistic people, not just corrupted, because simulators really ain't the golden money retrievers to companies and with only corrupted people, they would never make a simulator.
That's how I believe, so not a fact just an opinion.

I remember time when game companies got big and were making just mainstream games. It was really quiet in the simulator genre.
I can't remember exact years, but I remember that there was literally nothing new in the simulator genre and the genre seemed totally dead. Every simulator fans were playing old games. At least we had and have those old games and couple new like SH -series :)

did I make any sense...?:hmm:

[sea enemy]

"Wal-mart gamers"

enjoy them while they last! ArmA comes out May 1st :)

[John Channing]

I worked @EA for a number of years and I will tell you WITHOUT a DOUBT that all the upper management cares about is sales volume. Nothing else. NADA. Not gameplay, realism, NOTHING. Only sales.

Everytime a new game was to come out it starts off with a meeting on all the "features" and "oh so awsome things" that would make the end product stand out head and shoulders above anything that came before it.

Problem is as time goes on costs add up. So to keep time down, you remove features. You remove realism, you remove/modify anything that is not core to the game.

Now you will always be given dates that will almost certainly creep forward, hardly ever back (with pubs/developers such as EA/UBI). Managent has more meetings, heck meetings 3 times a day when gold master is coming. Bugs are found...more bugs. Not uncommon to have 75000 bugs and more throughout the development. As time gets closer the management decides which bugs can be put off till a patch. Bugs are always divided into classes. A-D with A being a huge bug concerning things such as getting the game to even run, or there is a repreatable CTD at the menu. Things like that. Big bugs. Bugs such as oh....hitting the 'A' key fall into this category. The rest B-D scale from there. Gameplay bus, AI etc. I have been there when a producer said "that bug is not being fixed" --and this was a CTD!!!!!!

Now the people who make the game (programmers, artists, scripters, etc) do care about the game. It's their life, love and blood but alas the only thing that matters to anyone else is $$$$.

I remember producers who cared not about the game one bit, but rather about how big their bonus would be at the end of the cycle. Cared about NOTHING else. Only money.

Anyways my rant is over. I have seen and been in the inside of this industry for a while and I have witnessed it turn from developers/publishers who cared about the product to corporations who care only about the mighty dollar.

As for UBI, don't EVER expect them to put gameplay/realism over features that sell product. Just like EA, flash matters more than substance.

/endrant

Oh one more thing. Programmers have no say in which bugs are fixed in places like EA/UBI. It's the development manager's that decide if it's worth spending time on. SO don't blame them for bugs =)

Excellent post with some very vaild points.

I can think of one of the larger game companys whose CEO was actually a programmer. They really did put gameplay and features above the bottom line, and did everything in their power to turn out exceptions products, regardless of the costs.

Their name was Microprose.

Anyone know how they are doin' these days?

JCC

[Audie]

Their name was Microprose.

Anyone know how they are doin' these days?

JCC

I believe Sid is running Firaxis Games now (Civ Series). The other dude from MicroProse is running a MMO Flight Sim business. Both ventures are very successful. :up:

[John Channing]

I was refering to Gilman Louie.

"Louie founded and ran a company called Nexa Corporation that merged with Spectrum HoloByte which later acquired MicroProse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroProse). The company was acquired by Hasbro Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbro), where he served as chief creative officer of Hasbro Interactive and general manager of the Games.com group before founding In-Q-Tel."

Microprose went bankrupt and was bought up by Hasbro.

JCC

[oritpro]

Excellent post with some very vaild points.

I can think of one of the larger game companys whose CEO was actually a programmer. They really did put gameplay and features above the bottom line, and did everything in their power to turn out exceptions products, regardless of the costs.

Their name was Microprose.

Anyone know how they are doin' these days?

---------

I've played just about every Microprose and Janes title ever released. Those were the days when software companies actually made decent simulations. What happened though is that these simulations were becoming a little to realistic and the US Government stepped in and asked them to stop. Evidently, the terrorists were using them to learn the strengths and weaknesses of our military. Don't quote me on this but that is what I remember reading on the net quite a while ago.

It makes sense though, how many modern combat sims do you see on the market these days?

[John Channing]

Don't believe everything you read on the web. In fact, don't believe anything you read on the web.

Including this.

JCC

[seawolf34]

Excellent post with some very vaild points.

I can think of one of the larger game companys whose CEO was actually a programmer. They really did put gameplay and features above the bottom line, and did everything in their power to turn out exceptions products, regardless of the costs.

Their name was Microprose.

Microprose, now that brings memories flooding back, Ah the good old days of gaming on the C64/Amiga :D Have no idea what happened to them but all their games that I played were awesome, my favourite being Gunship2000 & Airborne Ranger :rock:

[Marko_Ramius]

But lets think for a minute, instead of purely focusing on sales per quarter in order to appease share holders and market speculators. Why not focus on quality ? People will definately buy a quality game, even the Wal Marters. Furthermore, a quality game will spread by word and mouth, creating more sales. The end result would be a greater number of units sold and hence more profit.

The sales per quarter argument is interesting but only provides a temporary blip and could be considered to be a disaster on a PR front. However, in the current monopolistic games producer market then the argument has basis. One shouldn't forget though that markets change, such that the damage you do to your brand today by buggy early releases may stick to your brand tomorrow such that your customer base shrinks.

Furthermore, what is the point of generating ever increasing ammounts of profit ? So you can rise above the competitors and eventually buy them out, creating a total monopoly of the market and hence makeing more dollars ? For what purpose ? So that the few shareholders get richer and richer whilst the customers suffer an ever dwindling level of quality ? Doesn't this sound familiar ? Wasn't this one of the criticisms leveled at the old CCCP communist system ? Ironic that our capitalist systems seem to be heading the same way.

Personally, for the sake of myself and my concept of a human existance, I would rather concentrate my energy on building quality such that my customers are happy pay for that quality. The end result is a happy customer base, a decent income, happy developers and thus a good level of social as well as financial capital in the bank.

But thats just me......on Thursdays I like to wear a dress and call myself Janice.



This is absolutly what i think about this concern . It really drive me nuts, i cannot understand why things are like we have got today.

Good quality --> lot of happy people --> lot of sales --> and lot of potentials sales for next product. Simple ...


Or maybe those companies think we are not enough of concern to give us good product ? This is a sad dollar world ..



In any case, if the game is not good, buggy, and almost not acceptable, we must complain ...

No one seems to understand that if the "Wal-mart gamers" don't buy SH4, the sales numbers wont look good to the execs, who in turn will wonder why they're spending dev dollars on a product that doesn't sell, then they shut the franchise down. No more SH, plain and simple.

If the product is good enough, then sales are good, and then, wil be a Sh5. Plain and simple ;)

[tommyk]

I was refering to Gilman Louie.


Guil crashed and burned in a bugridden F16... Hasbro took over and the whole FlightSimulationTeam was fired in 1998 because of mismangement (Hasbro believed sims with lots of bugs dont sell too well)

[Iron Budokan]

[quote=oritpro What happened though is that these simulations were becoming a little to realistic and the US Government stepped in and asked them to stop. Evidently, the terrorists were using them to learn the strengths and weaknesses of our military. Don't quote me on this but that is what I remember reading on the net quite a while ago.

It makes sense though, how many modern combat sims do you see on the market these days?[/quote]

Dangerous Waters.

[John Channing]

I was refering to Gilman Louie.


Guil crashed and burned in a bugridden F16... Hasbro took over and the whole FlightSimulationTeam was fired in 1998 because of mismangement (Hasbro believed sims with lots of bugs dont sell too well)

Actually Gilman stayed on after Hasbro bought out what was left of Microprose as Chief Creative Officer and General Manager of the Games Group for Hasbro. He later left to form In-Q-Tel where he is, I believe, today.

The reason Microprose went bankrupt was there ther was too much money invested in Falcon 4.0 for it ever to have even broken even (in spite of selling a reputed 500,000 copies).

My point is that it is possible to spend too much time in development. At some point a company has to make money, or they will disappear.

Hasbro never believed in simulations at all.

JCC

[tommyk]

My point is that it is possible to spend too much time in development. At some point a company has to make money, or they will disappear.

Hasbro never believed in simulations at all.

JCC

Jupp, I believe that is true but the key to success is imho not to lose track on your goals in development. Time to market is a major factor but so is quality. I have been project manager for over a decade and i am quite unforgiven when a PM loses track of milestones and proper QA. I dont blame the devs. I blame the PM. I believe the current state of SH4 is quite a shame to them (if devs have time to make smileys on radar but do not fix class A bugs like wrong torpedo speeds, its telling something about the goals and team structure)...

Anyway, I still hope they will get time to fix their project before they get assigned to do SH5 until xmas :)