SH3, SH4 and Lead Pursuit

[scrapser]

Has anyone thought of contacting Lead Pursuit to see if they might be interested in talking with UBISoft to buy these titles and do with them what they did with the Falcon franchise? It seems to me a solution like this is the only way a "finished" product will ever be realized. I know they did a lot with the modding community to make Falcon what it is today. It would be wonderful if they would be interested in doing submarine simulation as well.

[fatty]

Seems like a lot of money to risk (I bet UBI has very deep pockets and is not going to let the SH brand go for a song and a dance) for a project that may not even turn a profit. Any projects would be better of just starting their own simulator label. It would also suggest to gamers that have had disappointment with the SH series that this new hypothetical label is more than just a rehash of the same old.

[Letum]

I doubt UBI is finished with SH4

[PeriscopeDepth]

Not going to happen. Nice thought, but not going to happen.

PD

[SmithN23]

I rather see them take over some of the old Janes titles, mainly F/A-18

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Would someone care to explain this to me? I'm not well versed with Falcon :-?

[scrapser]

Would someone care to explain this to me? I'm not well versed with Falcon :-?

It's a long story but here are the high points....

Falcon 4.0 (F-16 simulation branded as a Microprose product with Hasbro as the parent company) was released and suffered major bugs. The devs were able to release one major patch 1.0 and a second, smaller patch just before Christmas of 1997. Then, Hasbro laid off the entire staff just before Christmas (nice company).

Meanwhile, another company that mainly did code management (I think) began modifying what they could and releasing it for free under a tacit agreement with Hasbro. This is a little foggy but the gist of it is correct. That went on for several months. Then, mysteriously the source code for Falcon got leaked to the Internet (if we could only be so lucky with Silent Hunter).

After a few weeks, someone named "eRazor" started releasing new executables with major tweaks to the program code. He also discovered that although Falcon was released as a 16-bit product, it was in fact written to support 32-bit with many 32-bit features turned off. He started turning them back on.

At some point, through gradual and careful trust, he was contacted by some other modders and together they started releasing periodic patches to Falcon. At some point after that, Hasbro began searching for these folks and had some legal warnings flying about as to the consequences of what was going on.

In the end (and I don't know the facts here) a group of people approached Hasbro to buy Falcon and the illegal patching halted prior to negotiations for the sale. Once it was a done deal, all the work that modders both legal and illegal had done was reviewed and incorporated into a re-release of Falcon which is now known as Falcon 4.0/Allied Force and owned and maintained by Lead Pursuit.

I'm sure some of my information is not exactly correct but that's the general story.

So you can see at least some similarities here. Many of us take SH much more seriously than the average gamer and would like to see it honed to a higher degree of realism with all the bugs fixed. But the company will only invest so much to this end which is short of what we want. So it would be great if a company was able to take it over (buy it) and give it the polish it deserves.

[PeriscopeDepth]

The illegal patchings still continue. And are better than AF in many respects. It would be great if they (LP) took up the old Jane's titles. But I don't think that's going to happen. LP will continue using the F4 code as a base, IMO. And all the legal warnings that fly about are BS IMO. LP lacks the financial resources and the will to prosecute, while Atari/Hasbro just don't have the interest. Both parties will threaten to the end, but I seriously doubt either will take the F4 code to court. It would have happened by now.

PD

[scrapser]

The illegal patchings still continue. And are better than AF in many respects. It would be great if they (LP) took up the old Jane's titles. But I don't think that's going to happen. LP will continue using the F4 code as a base, IMO. And all the legal warnings that fly about are BS IMO. LP lacks the financial resources and the will to prosecute, while Atari/Hasbro just don't have the interest. Both parties will threaten to the end, but I seriously doubt either will take the F4 code to court. It would have happened by now.

PD

I wasn't aware there were other patches still ongoing. Is there a link to these that's no secret as I have lost track of any links since I bought the Lead Pursuit version? I still have several of eRazor's early stuff.

[Janus]

The illegal patchings still continue. And are better than AF in many respects. It would be great if they (LP) took up the old Jane's titles. But I don't think that's going to happen. LP will continue using the F4 code as a base, IMO. And all the legal warnings that fly about are BS IMO. LP lacks the financial resources and the will to prosecute, while Atari/Hasbro just don't have the interest. Both parties will threaten to the end, but I seriously doubt either will take the F4 code to court. It would have happened by now.

PD
I wasn't aware there were other patches still ongoing. Is there a link to these that's no secret as I have lost track of any links since I bought the Lead Pursuit version? I still have several of eRazor's early stuff. OpenFalcon and Red Viper are the two I know of. Which one of the three (Allied Force, Open Falcon, Red Viper) is the "best" is always a big and ongoing discussion inside the community in my experience. You could also say they bash each other.

I bet the membes who are deeper into the subject will lead this discussion now. PeriscopeDepth already made his point of view clear and I bet he was referring to Open Falcon.

[PeriscopeDepth]

I actually prefer RV, I've tried all of them (AF, OF, RV). But that's all from me, if you want to hear endless bickering of the Falcon versions you can head to that unnamed F4 forum. :)

PD

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Thanks for the explanation :hmm: But as was already said, its highly doubtful Ubi is ready to drop the series yet, and they dont exactly have a history of giving other kids a bite of their cookie. It would be interesting to see what would be possible, though, considering Falcon 4 is pretty much the combat flightsim.

[elanaiba]

LOL! Falcon 4 AF happened because some people who liked modding F4 wanted to do more about it, turn it at least partly into a business, etc. Not because they wanted a business and just turned to F4 by accident. They were very familiar with it and active within that game's modding scene.

I don't think there's anyone in Lead Pursuit interested/familiar with SH modding, but I could be wrong. But that's a big step to take, and of course SH is different in that it is an active product, unlike F4 was at that time.

As far as I know Red Viper / Open Falcon offer some significant advances (6DOF cockpits, for one) over Allied Force, probably at the expense of some stability.

You're probably much more likely to see GW team or a SH4 modding group try something similar to LP, but its hardly going to happen.

[Sonarman]

It's more likely that some guys in oh i don't know say...Bucharest, Romaina frustrated with the tight project times and lack of creative vision of their masters would setup their own independent studio and develop a new sub game selling it to Sid Meier's Firaxis, by then owned by EA or the new Microprose under the title "Silent Service 3" Hypothetically speaking of course!

"A little revolution once in a while is a good thing.. don't you think Mr Ryan?"
Marco Ramius ..Mutiny Rocks!

[elanaiba]

Most of the time, people that want to do stuff don't really want to do business ;)

And people that want to do business look at it as an opportunity ... for business.

[Sonarman]

Yes, its a shame when the artist and the customer are in tune "the machine in the middle" can't just allow them to acheive their full creative potential and stand back a bit and reap the rewards.

[scrapser]

Well from the last three posts, it's at least good to hear others are aware of the frustrating circumstances that exist with sims today.

1. The entity with the resources to make a decent simulation possible, doesn't have that as a goal (in fact, they could care less).

2. The entity that develops the simulation wants to see it achieve full maturity (as does the customer).

3. The gaming market (which has nothing to do with simulations) is the driving force behind this problem because that's where the money is.

4. The moving target in all this is hardware technologies that make everything so expensive to develop.

[Sonarman]

Very well put, in the case of Ubisoft management to their credit they did see fit to ressurrect the series in the first place which is a good thing in these "casual games are all" days. Plus I think they did try and make the best subsim possible with SH3 even holding it back for a considerable period to put in a dynamic campaign, also commendable.

Their commitment started to wain a bit with SH4 with tighter budgets and timescales, let's hope they have learned a lesson from SH4 and future games are given the time and resources they deserve to become a quality product. It seems to be a trend for Ubi to reuse the same engine for a couple of titles, i think the same thing happened with "Brothers in Arms". In some ways this is a good thing as SH4 is a solid base to build on and to throw everything away and start again from scratch would be a tremendous waste of resources.

Let's hope the Ubi management feel that way about personnel too as it would be tragic if our committed, passionate devteam were reassigned to something else or not allowed to continue to fulfill our dreams and I think theirs, of the perfect naval simulation.

[Rockin Robbins]

I just don't understand the painting of UBI as evil. They make any of this possible, and UBI has maintained a commitment to a game which can't be called a cash cow by any means. My brother is a NASCAR 2003 wizard. He took one look at SH4 and said that nothing that complicated could be fun.

Uh, folks, NASCAR 2003 was too real for the market. Obviously we're several steps up the ladder of complexity from that. This adds up to a game with only marginal commercial possibilities.

I'm glad UBI is the one who did the Silent Hunter Series. They've showed commitment to their developers and commitment to us. The game hasn't been perfect, but no similar game has ever been nor will one ever be. The first rule of business and war is a good plan today beats a perfect plan tomorrow. Business, imperfect as it is, works best at getting us what we want. Complaining about it suggests that someone knows a viable alternative. Out with it!

[peabody]

Has anyone thought of contacting Lead Pursuit to see if they might be interested in talking with UBISoft to buy these titles and do with them what they did with the Falcon franchise? It seems to me a solution like this is the only way a "finished" product will ever be realized. I know they did a lot with the modding community to make Falcon what it is today. It would be wonderful if they would be interested in doing submarine simulation as well.
You might want to rethink that idea. When was the last Lead Pursuit patch? And I don't count the newest just because the display didn't work with Vista, I mean improvements to the game or bug fixes. There are many, many bugs in F4:AF and they are doing nothing about it. We have tested and tested many items. For example the CCRP bombing isn't even close. Bomb ripple now is changed so if you attack a column, it drops the bombs behind and in front of your ripple point. The aimpoint becomes the center of the ripple. So if you want to hit the beginning you have to GUESS where to aim. If you drop 5 MK82s with a 100 ft spacing going 500knots 100 ft altitude the first bomb will hit 200 ft behind you and the third one will hit what you aimed at, and you want Lead Pursuit to fix SH4, it isn't broke that bad!! And we show them with pics and video and they don't care. It is the most stable on multiplayer is the only answer. That's because they won't allow modding so everyone is playing the same version. They didn't make any great leap forward, they just made a sim that is the same for everyone, instead of 5 different versions, like was on the internet. And Atari only allowed 'eye candy' improvements the modders were not allowed to touch the basic campaign engine or executable and Leap Pursuit didn't do much with it either so it is still the same as it was years ago. Take up a Raptor, full afterburner, stand it on edge and pull a high G turn, you'll be doing 150knots before you can blink twice. SH4 needs a "little" fixing not breaking.

Yes, we have noticed some 'bugs' in SH4 but don't be so quick to think Lead Pursuit is going to fix them because they will ignore them. At least Ubi allows modding. Lead Pursuit only allows certain modders, officially. I have had Falcon since Spectrum Holobyte owned it and I had an Amiga so I do know a bit about this. And don't get me wrong, I love Falcon, it's the only other game I play but it isn't because of Lead Pursuit. It was the same as it is now long before Lead Pursuit got their hands on it. A few minor improvements but nothing great. In fact they took some weapons out of the game. And they didn't 'work with the modders' they took what the modders had done without even giving credit and then said "Hand's off!!!"

Anyway enough about Falcon, Hey Ubisoft, the faucet is broken in the head, could you get you devs on it?

Peabody

[Fincuan]

For example the CCRP bombing isn't even close. Bomb ripple now is changed so if you attack a column, it drops the bombs behind and in front of your ripple point. The aimpoint becomes the center of the ripple. So if you want to hit the beginning you have to GUESS where to aim. If you drop 5 MK82s with a 100 ft spacing going 500knots 100 ft altitude the first bomb will hit 200 ft behind you and the third one will hit what you aimed at,

If I remember correctly that's not a bug, it's a feature. Really, I remember there being a huge outcry at Frugal's when they changed that, and some LP representative, maybe Ed1, said they did it because it's like that in the real thing. I don't know if they're right about the real thing, but that's how it went.

[peabody]

For example the CCRP bombing isn't even close. Bomb ripple now is changed so if you attack a column, it drops the bombs behind and in front of your ripple point. The aimpoint becomes the center of the ripple. So if you want to hit the beginning you have to GUESS where to aim. If you drop 5 MK82s with a 100 ft spacing going 500knots 100 ft altitude the first bomb will hit 200 ft behind you and the third one will hit what you aimed at,
If I remember correctly that's not a bug, it's a feature. Really, I remember there being a huge outcry at Frugal's when they changed that, and some LP representative, maybe Ed1, said they did it because it's like that in the real thing. I don't know if they're right about the real thing, but that's how it went.
You're absolutely right they did call it a "feature", that's why I worded it as "changed".
And it can't be real, if you drop an even number of bombs, you can't hit your target. Say you drop 4, 2 drop before and 2 drop after the target. And in CCIP it would be impossible for one to drop 200 feet behind you, it would have to drop before you pickle the target, at that altitude they will come off the rails almost immediately.

Peabody