Not happy with SH4? Write your own!

[longam]

Learning to Program.
If you want to be a great game programmer, the first thing you must excel at is math. Not just adding and subtracting. I'm talking about Linear Algebra, Geometric Functions, Physics, etc. If you aren't good at math, you might want to re-think your desire. Or, if you still want to work in the game industry, consider being a designer or graphics artist (right now, the ratio of programmers to artists for most major games is anywhere from 1:5 to 1:30). Knowing math is a good first step, but there's a lot more to it. You will also need to have mastery of:

• Computer Languages: Notice I didn't use the singular term. You should master several languages to understand the nuances of each. Sure, you'll probably want to focus on C++ or C#, but should also learn dynamic languages like Python, Lua, or Ruby.

• Data structures: Not just knowing how to use STL or System.Collections.Generic, but also what _kind_ of structure to use in a specific situation

• Floating Point Numbers: This may seem strange, but most programmers don't _really_ understand floating point numbers (quick: can you describe the difference between "accuracy" and "precision" to your non-technical next-door neighbor?). I recommend reading David Goldberg's "What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic".

• Programming Tools: Learn how to master every tool you have. Debuggers, profilers, editors, linkers, etc. These things will save you hours upon hours of heartache. And while you're at it...use the latest stuff. If you're still using Visual Studio 6, stop. Technology moves fast, and you're not doing yourself any favors by using 7-year old tools to write a modern game. If you can't afford high-end versions of Visual Studio, consider using Visual Studio Express, which uses the same optimizing C++ compiler (or CLR) that is in the full version. Also, learn how to use the powerful tools that come for free in the DirectX SDK like PIX.

• Computer Architectures: As more and more machines move to dual-core (or more) configurations, you need to be much more aware of the nuances of each type of CPU. Yes, the compiler does a lot of the hard work for you, but you really can't master the craft of writing high-performance games without knowing the CPU. If you're writing managed code, you have the additional task of needing to know the CLR inside and out.

Simple huh?

[Spaxspore]

why should we, when we put down 50$ expecting a completed product, with minor bugs if any???

[joea]

Simple huh?

Yup off to learn and prgram the ultimate everything sim, or "Holodeck" version 1.0

See you in 25 years. :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:


Hats off to programmers. :rock:

[Mud]

I'm to dumb for that , I use also auto TDC.
Me more a gamer not Einstein.

Mud

[Bum]

why should we, when we put down 50$ expecting a completed product, with minor bugs if any???

That's what you expected? From a computer game??? NOOB :rotfl:

[SharpShin]

Didn't work.

[Linavitch]

I see where you're coming from with your post and I for one haven't posted any bad vibe posts. However, consumers are entitled to get what they pay for. It is an alarming trend how software is released in the way it is these days. I know the reasons why it happens but I'm still not sure if it is 'right'.

For what it's worth I haven't actually encountered many critical bugs with SH4 and the realism/gameplay issues are the designers brief IMO. and I know we got all them great modders to fix them issues.

(I just wish my pen worked underwater;))

[Drokkon]

Should a programmer need to know how to run a powerplant and wire transformers before he complains about power shortages that keeps him from programming? No. When you pay your electric bill you expect uninterupted service barring any acts of god. I don't see why a finished product after spending $50 seems impossible.

I guess with the do it yourself attitude we would all have out-houses,gardens and chickens.

[StandingCow]

Didn't work.

LOL! :rotfl:

I tried my hand at C++ in college... I hated it.

[Seminole]

I don't program games for the same reason I don't cut my own lawn, change my own oil, or do my own dental work.

That is, there are people who do that sort of a thing for a living. I don't. Besides it would take all the fun out of it if you knew all the intricate nuts and bolts of it. Same as making missions with mission builders. They are a lot of fun to make but not much fun to play because you are fully aware before hand what is going to happen.

But back to not doing DIY gaming....I don't cut my lawnman dentist, or mechanic much slack. I expect a first class job. They deliver or I call someone else in. Why don't I demand that of game makers...well...its simply that there isn't a whole lot of alternative choices in realistic simming. I won't play console games. Ditto for racing, fantasy, or sports PC games.


:know:

[brieder]

Ok, I am a senior engineer for a game company. Trust me, the developers want to do a good job. Schedule and budgets set by managers say otherwise. Just the general trend.

[Grunt]

If SH4 were a free open source game...I would not complain.

But seeing how I preordered the game, and loved SH3...Ima complain till:

A) Im blue in the face or...

B) the bugs are fixed.

[brieder]

I'm not saying you can't complain. :) But from the projects I've worked on, the developers/artists care...management doesn't.

[Linavitch]

I'm not saying you can't complain. :) But from the projects I've worked on, the developers/artists care...management doesn't.
I get this at work all the time. I'm a manager and the staff accuse the management of not giving a toss. But I work for the same company, the same profits pay my wages. There's no 'I' in team (but there is 'me' if you look hard enough!).

[partyboy]

I guess you're not allowed to criticize a movie unless you're willing to spend a few million dollars making your own, either.

[brieder]

Well ok, it's not that management doesn't care. But they are focusing on other things. Schedules, budgets, etc. At some point, everyone has to comprimise. But things are getting a bit out of hand. I know there is so much we want to do on projects but there's only so much money allocated.

[Drokkon]

Breider I know where you are coming from. The people signing checks want results. Pretty screen shots please them, so games tend to look great ,but play buggy. It's hard to show them substandard graphics , but smooth gameplay and have them be impressed. Thats why things look shiny on the outside but broke on the inside.

[brieder]

Breider I know where you are coming from. The people signing checks want results. Pretty screen shots please them, so games tend to look great ,but play buggy. It's hard to show them substandard graphics , but smooth gameplay and have them be impressed. Thats why things look shiny on the outside but broke on the inside.

Very, they aren't impressed with correct torpedo phsysics...but shiny stuff is just amazing.

[JSF]

I'm not saying you can't complain. :) But from the projects I've worked on, the developers/artists care...management doesn't.

Management cares.......But cost overuns which negatively impact the capitalized budget for any project causes the shareholders to go into a tailspin....It's all about the money....Period!

[brieder]

It's all about the money....Period!

As is any well run company. ;)

[Iron Budokan]

So the next time I purchase a brand new car and the engine catches fire and kills my wife and three children because their safety belts fail to unbuckle I should hitch up my pants, take a deep breath, put it down to a lesson learned, and go build my own car.

Right. :roll:

[Onkel Neal]

Hey, if building bug-free code that makes every player happy and turns a big profit was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Building cars and building software are apples and oranges. When was the last time a game killed your family :)

[Psycluded]

You know, I'm about to finish up my 4th semester of work towards a "game programming" degree at a reputable college (I already have a software engineering degree, just getting the extra coursework in), and watching the topics in this forum almost make me want to throw my hands up and walk away. Maybe I should just stick to retro games and mobile game development. Sure as hell there's a lot of ingrates in the simming world.

It's been said elsewhere in this forum. Any game released today -will- have bugs. About the time the game becomes remotely playable, the publishers are getting ansy about the money they're spending on development, wanting to just "get it out there" and see what kind of reception it gets, then gauge how much additional development to pay for based on that. "We can always patch," is an oft-heard mantra, even in business application development, which is where I've been for years.

Silent Hunter 4 is no more or less buggy than any other game I've purchased in the last year or so, and is far more playable than some. To be fair, I've been looking forward to SH4 for some time, so it would take a lot to disappoint me. I love the new interface, now that I'm used to it, and I've been enjoying the interactivity of the world, from contact report responses to the news items fed down by radio. About my only complaint thus far is the lack of historicity of the major pacific naval battles. I searched 30-32N/179-180W(and E) before and during June 4th, 1942, and never once saw a Japanese carrier. :arrgh!:

[corvette k225]

I was hopeing that the dev team learned something from SHIII and seen what the folks that made GWX+1.02 could do with a small or no budget in Fixing the game and making one hell of subsim, Maybe the GWX group or guys or what ever, should go and see a banker and stratup a new game software company and make some millions, and put out a good Subsim. Good work GWX team? maybe some game site should give those guys a good review!:up: :up:

one needs to ask, do you enjoy playing a game or fixing a game!

[Onkel Neal]

Glad to hear from someone who actually knows how challenging it is to create a game of the magnitude of the Silent Hunter series.

To all new to this forum, take a second and read the Subsim Memo. (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=448148)


SUBSIM Memo
Ahoy fellow Subsim skippers!
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. I know the dev team have worked really long and hard to make a great US Pacific sub simulation. Just like every computer game made since Duke Nukem wore short pants, there will likely be some glitches and bugs. All games get patches, none of this is news to long time gamers. Let's list anything we see amiss in the Bug Thread. Silent Hunter is the only show in town and Subsim is here for the long run. 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.

Good hunting!
Neal
Subsim
I'll have to post a few reminders, I guess. We have ton of new guys here. :ping:

[Psycluded]

I was hopeing that the dev team learned something from SHIII and seen what the folks that made GWX+1.02 could do with a small or no budget in Fixing the game and making one hell of subsim, Maybe the GWX group or guys or what ever, should go and see a banker and stratup a new game software company and make some millions, and put out a good Subsim. Good work GWX team? maybe some game site should give those guys a good review!:up: :up:

With the kind of vitriol being slung at Ubisoft over the bugs in SH4, why in God's name would anyone with a brain want to rush off and form a company dedicated to creating submarine simulations? I'd rather write preschooler educational programs. They have yet to learn most of the words being tossed at Ubisoft.

[corvette k225]

Maybe thay would just enjoy making subsim, or combat games,you see the GWX was done for free!!:D

[Sgian Dubh]

. Thats why things look shiny on the outside but broke on the inside.

Wow. That pretty much sums up a lot about modern society right there. I'm gonna jot that one down in the old journal.

[Sgian Dubh]

You know, I'm about to finish up my 4th semester of work towards a "game programming" degree at a reputable college (I already have a software engineering degree, just getting the extra coursework in), and watching the topics in this forum almost make me want to throw my hands up and walk away. Maybe I should just stick to retro games and mobile game development. Sure as hell there's a lot of ingrates in the simming world.

It's been said elsewhere in this forum. Any game released today -will- have bugs. About the time the game becomes remotely playable, the publishers are getting ansy about the money they're spending on development, wanting to just "get it out there" and see what kind of reception it gets, then gauge how much additional development to pay for based on that. "We can always patch," is an oft-heard mantra, even in business application development, which is where I've been for years.

Silent Hunter 4 is no more or less buggy than any other game I've purchased in the last year or so, and is far more playable than some. To be fair, I've been looking forward to SH4 for some time, so it would take a lot to disappoint me. I love the new interface, now that I'm used to it, and I've been enjoying the interactivity of the world, from contact report responses to the news items fed down by radio. About my only complaint thus far is the lack of historicity of the major pacific naval battles. I searched 30-32N/179-180W(and E) before and during June 4th, 1942, and never once saw a Japanese carrier. :arrgh!:

So what I wonder about all of this is why it wasn't always like that.

Used to be that Microprose, SSI and Janes were companies that when they put something out you didn't need to check the reviews. They put out quality stuff, period.

Many aren't aorund any more, but not because (from my understanding) they weren't successful companies, but that they were purchased because of their success. But the purchasing companies weren't after the quality, they were after the quantity.

Someone on here said that its all about the money and someone else said that all good businesses are run that way. Well I don't buy that, and I never will.

I am in sales, which is about as focused greed as you can get. But I don't operate on that principle at all. My goal is to never have a customer that won't buy from me again and again. I tell it just as it is, every time, all of the time. I am brutally honest with the customer and they buy from me because I don't mislead them - ever. I make a pretty good living that way. There are some who make more than I do by using the more "only the money matters" tactic - and they fall off after a few years once the word gets around that they will say whatever it takes to 'close the deal'.

If you have people who are raving fans about your product and/or about you - the money will come. The other way around and you have to keep hoping that there is another sucker just around the corner, every day.

In my previous company we had the best service in the industry, and it was my team that created that level of service. We were bought out and the bean-counters tore it all apart. Now long time customers from that company are glad to see and talk to me, but they don't buy products from that compnay any more.

"Only the money matters" is a bunch of bunk shoved down our throats by Wall Street who feels that because they choose to gamble by buying stock rather than going to Vegas that they are entitled to a sure 'win'.

Any, I'm getting off my soap box now. Sorry for getting carried away....

Oh, and I am really enjoying SH4, when I can squeak out the time to play it.

[OneTinSoldier]

I'm sure most games are big hairy complex monsters. Is it possible to make one such that it's fairly bug-free on release? Perhaps needing only 1 patch 4-6 weeks or so after release? Or is that just not possible!?!?

If it is possible, I'm kind of surprised there aren't more companies willing to do (almost)WHATEVER it takes to achieve such an endeavor, as it seems to me there is a market for such titles. I've been to a number of forums concerning the release of new titles recently and I've seen a phenomenal slew of complaints about buggy releases and get the idea people are getting a little fed up with being let down at release time(SH4 is not alone). I could be wrong, but I almost see the biggest concern and #1 question that will be asked of a publisher/developer in the future is... "Yeah, sounds and looks great, but how buggy will it be?" There are of course a lot of people that hold off on buying a new title until other guinea pigs have tried it out and then have their say on forums, and I wonder if that number is growing. Sure, we all know that games can be expected to have some problems and require some patching after release in this day and age, but just how shoddy should a release be allowed to be before it takes a heck of a beating from customers and reviewers? It seems to me that pretty soon we will all being expecting alpha software as the 'it's gone gold' product. Because, again, it seems to me that we are now getting what a few years ago would have been considered beta software. And although I'm not going to rattle off the names of a bunch of recent titles at the moment, I'm not just talking about SH4! How low can companies go? Of course, only time will tell.

Perhaps the only way a company can achieve the goal of a well polished release nowadays is if it's a privately held company with no shareholders breathing down it's back and it's willing to take somewhat of a risk. I'm not blind to the fact that games are big hairy complex monsters requiring big budgets, so I imagine it'd have to be a company with pretty big privately held pockets.

[Psycluded]

It's interesting to note at least one phenomenon in the game development world: Blizzard Entertainment.

Note to all, this is not a WoW rant.

Back in the early 90's, Blizzard had made its name with a little title called "WarCraft." It wasn't the first of the RTS genre, but it was one of the best to-date and showed great promise. It was complete out-of-the-box. Very few bugs, and none of those game-breaking.

Cut ahead a few years.

Blizzard broke the mold with Warcraft II, and are trying to do it again with their new sci-fi title, StarCraft. The hype for this game was unbelievable. People were climbing the WALLS in anticipation of this game. As its release date approached, Blizzard announced that release was being pushed back 6 months to deal with some "major issues." Alright. Release date approached again, and again Blizzard postponed the game. It began to look like vaporware, to be honest.

Then the game was released. I have to be honest, I have never seen so polished a game, not in all the years I've been playing games. In well over 20 patches, there has never been a game-breaking, OMGWTFBBQ horrifying bug found in that game. They delayed release... to bring us an actual -complete- game on release day. Oh, yes, there have been patches, but the contents of those patches have been minor bugfixes and balance-related issues, as well as anti-cheating measures of course.

After StarCraft I vowed never to be too put off by moving release dates. I tell myself, "Hey, at least the company cares about the quality of the product they're releasing." Take "Spore" for instance. Wil Wright must be itching to release almost as much as I, and many others, are itching to play his latest creation. That doesn't stop him from keeping a tight lid on the game until, in his view, it is -done-.

And to refute any lofty claims of Blizzard's production ethics, I would contend that the reason they release only "perfect" games is that they despise, and are terrible at, customer service. :lol: They just want to avoid having to support a bad release. Hehe.

[OneTinSoldier]

I want to say to the OP...

Let us know how that big bug-free blockbuster title turns out, ON YOUR OWN.

[OneTinSoldier]

@Psycluded,

Yep, there are a few of those type of developers out there, but very very few. Perhaps I should become a Blizzard and Valve customer only. :hmm: Sigh, if only they made Subsims. :lol:

[Psycluded]

To further this little challenge, here's what you'll need to make your very first game. At least, this is probably the easiest road you could take...

1. MS Visual Studio Express (C# at least)
2. XNA Game Development Studio (API and other such tools)
3. DirectX SDK (for the half-dozen or so tools that come with it)
4. A -lot- of time.

Armed with these 4 things, go make us a sub game. *grin* Oh, you wanted good 3D graphics? Well, you'll need Maya, 3D Studio MAX or another such modeling solution, as well as Photoshop and Illustrator. Oh, you can't draw? Sucks to be you. Math not your thing? Probably be a good idea to take a few classes anyway. Linear Algebra, Trig, basic Calculus and Numerical Analysis being pretty much required. Oh, and don't forget the trig- and calc-based physics classes. God, I don't even want to think about the physics involved in submarine motion, much less simulating sound behavior in water. *Edit* Which, I might add, Ubisoft did -very- well in both SH3 and SH4. Several times now the thermocline layer has saved my butt and allowed me to escape escorts while they depthcharge the location they heard me.

[OneTinSoldier]

Psycluded,

Yeah, they did pretty good with the sound behavior in water in SH3 and SH4.

But, have you ever played Dangerous Waters? Now that game REALLY simulates sound behavior in water. :rock:

[Psycluded]

Gods, DW is insane.

Did I mention that I interviewed for a position at Sonalysts a while back? ;) When they called me I just about freaked out. Still haven't heard anything from them. *shrugs* You win some and lose some.

[longam]

I want to say to the OP...

Let us know how that big bug-free blockbuster title turns out, ON YOUR OWN.

I really don’t believe it will turn out well, but if I bought a car…:oops:

[Harmor]

I find it to be quite hilarious that, if I read between his lines correctly, the OP says that I don't have the right to complain about bugs in a game as long as I do not know how to make games myself. I surely understand how hard it is to become a programmer, but that is completely besides the point. My niece for example is studying medicine, and she will one day carry a lot of responsibility. If something goes awry and one of her patients (god forbid) should die, she can't possibly tell the family to stfu cause they never studied medicine.

But back to the actual topic. I have every right to be as unhappy as I want to be with a product I buy if it doesn't work the way it should. Surely it depends on how you voice/word your opinion and complaints, I'll agree there. But game programmers are nowhere near supernatural entities like the OP is trying to make them out to be. If I go grocery shopping, I expect the products to be in good quality, and I don't care who had a heck of a day at work to make sure of it. If I buy a car I want it to function like advertised, with all the advertised features and nifty little things inside working the way they are supposed to. If they don't, the retailer is going to have hell to pay for sure .. and in turn, the manufacturer will be a little on the receiving end of abuse too. It is the way it is, plain and simple.

I don't need to know who spent how many years in uni to get a degree on whatever and how hard it is .. I am aware of all that. And to get back to PC games .. if you put a bug ridden game out on the market, you better put on the flame retardent suit because slander will be coming your way, and (to a degree), rightfully so. And do we who report bugs and complain about the unfinished state of SH 4 not have a point? I believe we do have a point indeed because figuring out that this game should have been more polished before release isn't exactly rocket science.

Which brings me to one of the most fubar bugs I have ever seen in my 14+ years of gaming - the savegame bug in SH 4 covered elsewhere on this forum. It is gamebreaking, right now it discourages me to continue playing until it is addressed .. and apparently, it has been around since Silent Hunter 3. I am sorry to say so, but I don't need a degree in programming to find that fact alone outragious. To be quite honest, Ubi Soft has been going south since a few years now (anyone remember the bugged-beyond-belief coop mode in Splinter Cell 3?), and it seems with Silent Hunter 4 they have hit yet another low. I love the game when it works properly, but sadly that isn't the case all too often, and as a paying customer I really could care less how much it takes to create a game of this magnitude. The customers I deal with at work also do not care what it takes me to do my job properly, and demanding them to do so before allowing any sort of criticism is quite frankly elitist behaviour which doesn't sit too well with me.

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

So the next time I purchase a brand new car and the engine catches fire and kills my wife and three children because their safety belts fail to unbuckle I should hitch up my pants, take a deep breath, put it down to a lesson learned, and go build my own car.

Right. :roll:

To be fair mate, if it was any American built vehicle other than a Jeep Wrangler - I'd consider myself lucky I survived myself.

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

Psycluded,

Yeah, they did pretty good with the sound behavior in water in SH3 and SH4.

But, have you ever played Dangerous Waters? Now that game REALLY simulates sound behavior in water. :rock:

It doesn't simulate it that well, but still moderately well I admit.

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

After StarCraft I vowed never to be too put off by moving release dates.

After having the release date for Hidden and Dangerous moved back quarterly for a period of 2 years, neither am I :rotfl:

[McBeck]

I'm not saying you can't complain. :) But from the projects I've worked on, the developers/artists care...management doesn't. And if you read the Subsim Almanac 2007 you will find that it goes for the SilentHunter games too...man did the team work their ass off for us!!!

[joea]

I'm not saying you can't complain. :) But from the projects I've worked on, the developers/artists care...management doesn't. And if you read the Subsim Almanac 2007 you will find goes for the SilentHunter games too...man did the team work their ass off for us!!!

You got that right!!! :rock:

[Faamecanic]

Ok, I am a senior engineer for a game company. Trust me, the developers want to do a good job. Schedule and budgets set by managers say otherwise. Just the general trend.

Agree...thats why in my posts where I have expressed my disappointment/frustration with SH4 in its current state, I have never blamed the devs. Ubi is the big gorilla beating on the backs of the devs and is to blame for rushing stuff to the market.

Im sure if it was up to the devs, they would have waited another year and added all sorts of goodies, had a good closed beta with members of this forum, and made sure the product worked. Question is where would the devs get the money to fund an extended development program?

Time and money..... are the fixed constraints here.

[Antrodemus]

Some excellent, measured responses to an arrogant, presumptious OP. :up:

[SimJack]

I am heavy into MS Flight Simulators. The same thing goes on for developers of add-ons that cost as much as this game. One aircraft add-on can cost $25-$50, and the next thing you know, it's FUBAR with needed patches that take months to get (if at all).

All driven by the almighty dollar (or euro) to get it released before the competition does. At least the sub community has people willing to devote time for mods and not charge for them. I have never paid for a sub mod, Flight Sim mods can get into mega bucks.

[badkarma]

Interesting post, especially for me as I'm a C# developer :up:

I think I get who you're aiming for, the people who pass off SH4 as no good and say they could do it better, it's easy. For those people, your post is an excellent start on their education to how hard good coding is.
The problem is, it's also read by (and maybe taken to heart by) a lot of people who know that it's hard to code and they couldn't do it.. yet have bought a faulty product from a company.

Maybe the car crashing and killing the family was an extreme example, so here's a more down to earth one...

A new style of TV comes out, we'll call it Ultra-HD. You head to the local electrical store and after being told by the salesman how great it is, you buy one and take it home.
When you get it home you find that it switches itself off every 2 hours, sometimes the picture shudders or shows half of 1 channel and half of another.
What do you do?
At any point whilst you discover this TV's problems do you think "Hmmm, Radio Shack/Maplins sell wire and stuff, I might try making my own one of these over the weekend"?
Or, do you go back and demand that something is done so that the faulty equipment that they quite happily took your money for is made to work as it was specified.

The problem with the gaming industry is that it is acceptable to push out unfinished, not fully tested products and "sort them later". No other sales industry allows this, yet we gamers seem to just put up with it, and it's madness.

I don't expect everything in life to be perfect, I'm not that unrealistic, but some of the buggy junk that games producers throw out that they then fix later on when they get round to it, is rediculous.

I guess I'd sum up with, if SH4 (or any game) is faulty or not as described then complain directly to the creators (posting in endless threads on forums just gets lost) and/or take it back to your game shop for a refund.
Ranting that you can do better is no use (and most likely very very very wrong!) but also putting up with it means that SH5 is gonna be JUST the same :D

[Onkel Neal]

Ranting that you can do better is no use (and most likely very very very wrong!) but also putting up with it means that SH5 is gonna be JUST the same :D
Ha! What SH5?

[Antrodemus]

Ha! What SH5?

Was that an informed prediction? :-?



/hopes not...

[Floyd]

I've always found the design/modelling part of any project way more difficult than
the implementation/programming part. Imagine sitting in front of a white
paper and start to write down all (sub)systems that have to be designed
and "glue" them together (make a model) ... a nightmare.

Well, programming was real fun but it just takes too much time. If you can come
up with 200 lines of code a day (including design and debugging , so a really
optimistic value) and if a project has 200.000 lines of code (so rather small),
it will take you 1000 days or ~3 years of daily work to complete - so better forget it.

We should all enjoy the game, don't curse the devs and hope for a few
patches to fix the more or less annoying bugs. In this sense, happy hunting.

[Onkel Neal]

Ha! What SH5?
Was that an informed prediction? :-?



/hopes not...



I stated this in 2001 when SH2 came out, it still applies today. No sales = no future Silent Hunter. If Silent Hunter 2, which was a noble but crippled game, had not sold well, you would have never heard of SH3, let alone GWX or NYGM. People, in case you have not noticed, no one has made a real sub simulation other than Silent Hunter since 1994's Aces of the Deep. If you enjoy playing a sub simulation, you may want to think before posting a rant about some insignificant annoyance. If you have a criticism, by all means express it, but be reasonable, productive, and supportive. Show a little tact. Make it easy to distinguish your discussion from the spewmonkies who screech and foam like someone choked their dog over every problem, real or imagined. You are working with the dev team, in a partnership of player and developer, to keep naval sims alive. Because that's pretty much how it is, folks.


Just in case someone cannot read between the lines, let me black & white for you: If the game sells, they will consider future projects. If the game does not sale, it's on to Rayman: Raving Rabbits 2.

[joea]

...it's on to Rayman: Raving Rabbits 2.


:rock::rock::rock:


Oh wait... :down:

[lord bame]

90% of the cases its the publischers fault for rushing out a unfinished game.

[SteamWake]

Why in the world would I want to create a game on my own ?

Look at all the grief you have to put up with.

[fredbass]

I think most of us know it's not easy to build these games.

And it's not just UBI who's at fault, as most of us are fully aware. I think it's pretty clear that the entire system will need revamping if we're going to see a difference with the quality of products that are released.

Right now, it seems the only way it will change is when the execs can see enough negative financial impact towards their gaming companies, because complaints and suggestions have not been enough by themselves to get it done, unfortunately.

Otherwise, I don't know. Maybe somebody else who knows more than me will make an intelligent suggestion or have a realistic and plausible solution in mind that can get their attention.

I'm listening. :yep: :)

[John Channing]

90% of the cases its the publischers fault for rushing out a unfinished game.

Did you actually read anything that Neal posted above, or did you just feel the need to pound out a completely uninformed statement?

Perhaps a more appropriate name might be Lord Blame?

JCC

[lord bame]

90% of the cases its the publischers fault for rushing out a unfinished game.
Did you actually read anything that Neal posted above, or did you just feel the need to pound out a completely uninformed statement?

Perhaps a more appropriate name might be Lord Blame?

JCC

completely uninformed statement? :88)
yeah like all software houses around the world deliberately release their precious game with full of bugs & critical errors... that would be suicide, don't you think ubisoft is the bad guy here?

personal attacks nice touch mr moderator..how old you are 14?

[Immacolata]

why should we, when we put down 50$ expecting a completed product, with minor bugs if any???

Because the product you expect cost $500?

[Antrodemus]

I'm surprised this thread was even allowed breathing space... it was a flame-fest just waiting to happen, with some rather surprising participants. :down:

[boatfull]

Its not only difficult to design and build a program like SH3 & 4
but think of the hardware

hundreds of Computers some more powerfull than others
hundreds of video cards
two different OS (Vista,XP)
Thousands of drivers for the above

Its quite daunting.:o
(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/daunting)

[Immacolata]

personal attacks nice touch mr moderator..how old you are 14?

Old enough to not pull random numbers out of his butt and state it as a fact. Thats SO 12YO behaviour.

[Immacolata]

A new style of TV comes out, we'll call it Ultra-HD. You head to the local electrical store and after being told by the salesman how great it is, you buy one and take it home.
When you get it home you find that it switches itself off every 2 hours, sometimes the picture shudders or shows half of 1 channel and half of another.
What do you do?
At any point whilst you discover this TV's problems do you think "Hmmm, Radio Shack/Maplins sell wire and stuff, I might try making my own one of these over the weekend"?
Or, do you go back and demand that something is done so that the faulty equipment that they quite happily took your money for is made to work as it was specified.


You would be surprised to learn that you are close to reality. Let us take, say, sony. They make all things PlayStation. Now I could spin you yarns of tales of woe and worry about those dodgy, flimsy things. The average life expectancy of a sony PS2 lasser pickup must be, what, 1 year or so. I know this from a few guys that work for a living repairing them. They released the V9 series of the PS2 with a component defect that more or less guarantese your pickup will short circuit sooner rather than later.

Now take sony TVs. I had a very good friend whose Sony TV actually turned it self off. Oh boy. And he had it in for repair 4 times, they never fixed it. So, surprise surprise. Dumping buggy **** on customers is a well known practice. do not think The Man is after games customers especially.

[Torcher]

90% of the cases its the publischers fault for rushing out a unfinished game.

Did you actually read anything that Neal posted above, or did you just feel the need to pound out a completely uninformed statement?

Perhaps a more appropriate name might be Lord Blame?

JCC

Forum powertrippers crack me up:lol: :rotfl:

[GreyOctober]

What this fuss all about? Ive yet to see a sim with no bugs from day 1, and if i see it, ill go down to check the icycles in Hell. Does anyone remember Falcon 4? Unplayable out of the box, Lock on etc. This hard work these guys are doing and it would be done properlly if it werent for those tight schedules. Lets be patient, itll work out.

Cheers!
GO

[TDK1044]

What this fuss all about? Ive yet to see a sim with no bugs from day 1, and if i see it, ill go down to check the icycles in Hell. Does anyone remember Falcon 4? Unplayable out of the box, Lock on etc. This hard work these guys are doing and it would be done properlly if it werent for those tight schedules. Lets be patient, itll work out.

Cheers!
GO

Someone who gets it. How refreshing! :D

[WFGood]

There seems to be a recurring theme through many of the posts regarding SH4. It is not perfect, and I wanted it to be, and therefore the company (Ubi) is trying to cheat me in some fashion. Look how well SH played. etc. Modern computer programs are exceedingly complex. I still have Silent Hunter, and it looks much different from this current version. SH4 is phenomenal compared to it! The water washing off the scope as it breaks the surface. The modeling of the ocean, light reflections, explosions, smoke, crew, etc. Last night I was amazed to see the crew of a freighter fall to the deck as a shell exploded near them. We did not have that in the original game.
Yes, there may be some bugs in the code. Yes, it may not run perfectly on all machines, but therein lies the difference. When I purchased SH, there were very few computers out there, and they were all very similar. The computer industry has exploded with previously unheard of options now existing. Stock machines are rare as people can upgrade or even build their own rigs to suit their needs. The problem is that all of these machines, drivers, components react differently. Drivers need constant updating, conflicts need resolution, etc. It is a very different world. Back in the 80's when I was in college, I chose marine/nuclear engineering over computer science for two reasons. First, I wanted to be a nuclear submariner (and at USNA that was the best route), and secondly, computer science seemed too crazy to me.
The point is that nothing in life is perfect. Things that are created in a sterile environment do not always perform so in the real world. Are there some bugs that could perhaps have been detected prior to release? Probably. Could those bugs have cropped up as an unforseen result of a fix in another area? Absolutely. We, as a community, need to be patient. I have watched this site and forums for years and posted less than 30 times, but this needs to be said. Patience is a virtue. There are games out there that were much worse. Look at all the positive reviews this game is receiving. If you want to see a game with real bugs, then look at the reviews for Pacific Storm when it was released. That game was called unplayable due to stability problems, and in my opinion it was. SH4 can be played at the moment. Yes, perhaps you have to make some adjustments and cannot score 150,000 tons on each patrol, but neither could the submariners who actually did it. Cars, computer batteries, and almost everything else face recalls, updates or upgrades to repair unforseen problems. Let's just all keep that in mind.

[jtm55]

Hi All,

I've read most if not all of the post in this thread, & while being one of the most junior members here, I feel some folk are being too harsh in their critisizm of SHIV.

While I understand Folk are frustrated about "Bugs" they're having on their Systems, a couple of things need to be remembered.

One, This Sim has to run on a vast array of machines, all with different code running on them. Maybe said machine has all of the latest updates to the Operating System, maybe it doesn't. Viruses, Trojans or Spyware? Who Knows. Latest Drivers? Again, who knows. Personally haven't had any problems with SHIV. My point being that we as a Community need to Temper our complaints & concerns. As Neal stated there aren't a bunch of Developers knocking down the door to create Subsims for us.

Two, The Developers are Human, They have Feelings. Put Yourself in Their place. How would You feel, reading some of the post here, not to mention some of the post on the Ubisoft Forums. Not to good I'd wager.

Look I've been a Huge fan of Subsims since I first played Silent Service on the NES System back in the early 90s. When Silent Hunter hit I was seriously hooked, & have been hooked every since. I personally think the Developers have done a Great Job on this Sim. So please Guys lighten up.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

omg...... stop whining..... FFS every game that is released on this planet has bugs.....especially pc games.... suck it up stop complaining week and half after it came out and...... just please all the whiners shut it.. you guys keep whining more pressure on the devs to release the patch.. pressure = mistakes = bugs not fixed.. so relax stop creating useless whiner threads like these. if u whine about the bugs stop playing sh4 and go back to sh3 until the last patch comes out, and keep it to yourself dont go telling the whole world saying OMG sh4 bugs OMG!! im goin back to sh3 waaa waa waa... basically shut it and go back, dont go creating useless threads, and the point of this thread is if u complain then make ur own dame submarin simulator... if u cant shut it..:up:

[John Channing]

90% of the cases its the publischers fault for rushing out a unfinished game.

Did you actually read anything that Neal posted above, or did you just feel the need to pound out a completely uninformed statement?

Perhaps a more appropriate name might be Lord Blame?

JCC

Forum powertrippers crack me up:lol: :rotfl:

Nah.

I do it for the money.

JCC

[Antrodemus]

dont go creating useless threads

Yeah, you're right. Everyone should instead make really constructive, uplifting threads like this one. Tell me, how on Earth did you get to 700+ posts without intervention here, with this kind of attitude? :

if u complain then make ur own dame submarin simulator... if u cant shut it..

I came here with the (apparently mistaken) impression that I'd see no more of this juvenile, chat-room level, sniping nonsense that is so prevalent at UBI, and yet I get exactly the same thing here, and again, from some very surprising sources.

Again... :down:

[Takeda Shingen]

So the next time I purchase a brand new car and the engine catches fire and kills my wife and three children because their safety belts fail to unbuckle I should hitch up my pants, take a deep breath, put it down to a lesson learned, and go build my own car.

Right. :roll:

A CTD in SHIV is not going to kill your family. It's all about priority. Although I love submarine simulations, they are relatively low on my list of potential aggravation. Frankly it is not all that important compared to whether or not aesbestos is in my walls.

[Drokkon]

I don't think anyone is saying the game is horrible. The graphics are beautiful. There are issues with the game play and the research involved. The correct medals and uniforms could have been solved by just purchasing a Blue Jackets Manual from the forties off EBay for $10. When these points are brought up we start hearing stories that sound like the whole team is chained to their desks, can't see their families, and are beaten by Ubi to speed up.

Sony is paying for putting defective products out. Look at the PS3s that are sitting on shelves as the Wii can't be stocked. Sony's Station Access also is taking a hit do to people not wanting to pay extra for games that are broken. I think the consumers are starting to speak.

[macky]

what did this post achieve:hmm:

we cannot programme, so accept anything we pay our hard earned money for. Doesnt have to work, we should just be grateful its here.

OK, positive from now on :up:

[minsc_tdp]

Bug #81 added (http://sh4bugs.com/show_bug.cgi?id=81)

[Drokkon]

Minsc that is priceless

[Helen Keller]

I'm not saying you can't complain. :) But from the projects I've worked on, the developers/artists care...management doesn't.

As management, (in an WAY different field...) it's not that Managers don't care, it's that they're not developers, and they're worried about staying on deadline, and staying in the black. It's using the people you manage to get goals accomplished, and keeping people motivated and enthused, although the motivation part most management just totally messes up with...

Believe me no matter what position I've held I've always wanted high quality, but money comes into it. You know the triangle, good, fast, cheap, you can pick two.


But the faster you go to market with a product the more momentum you can have, the cold hard mart of competitive commerce is what drives the shareholders, which is what directs the directors, who appoint the department heads, who yell at the managers.


So where /does/ the buck really stop?