Sim HQ review Jutland

[Sonarman]

Sim HQ has posted it's massive 7 page review of Jutland check it out here (http://www.simhq.com/_naval/naval_033a.html)

[Sailor Steve]

And a good review it is. Fair and balanced, giving all of his likes and dislikes.

[Etienne]

And a good review it is. Fair and balanced, giving all of his likes and dislikes.

I agree, that's the sort of review we should get for every game. It convinced me I needed that game... Then it convinced me not to buy it. (Those times I go without internet access is when I need my SP games to work! :D)

But seriously, it looks great. I've half a mind to give the demo a whirl.

[Bullethead]

I agree, that's the sort of review we should get for every game. It convinced me I needed that game... Then it convinced me not to buy it. Those times I go without internet access is when I need my SP games to work!

I don't think the reviewer quite understands the way the 7-day thing works. So I'll try to clear that up.....

The game tries to phone home every time you start it. If it makes contact, then the game fires right up no problem, REGARDLESS of how long it's been since the last time you played. IOW, if you go on vacation for a month without the game, when you get home it'll start up as if you never left. There's no need to type in the license again.

Where the 7-day thing goes into play is if the game doesn't make contact when you start it up. At that point, it looks back to the last time it was in contact. If it's been less than 7 days, then it will work just fine. However, if it's been longer, then it will only work in demo mode. But that's not permanent--as soon as it regains contact, will will work fully featured again.

If you're travelling on business, unless you're job is being a missionary to the Congo or something, then you're almost certainly going to have at least weekly internet connection to check in with your boss and family. When you have this connection, just fire the game up and exit immediately, and you'll reset your 7-day counter. OTOH, if you're on extended vacaction in some internet-free wasteland, you're probably going to be drunk on a beach or doing whatever it is you went there for instead of playing the game anyway.

Now, sometimes there's a natural disaster that takes out your internet for more than a week. This happened to me during the game's development, with Hurricane Gustaf (I work from home). But in my experience, the lack of internet and thus Jutland is the least of your worries at such times. Besides the huge real life survival and clean-up issues that are consuming your time, you won't have electricity to even run the computer, let alone get online with it :).

So why didn't we make the period longer than 7 days? That's for when your computer fries. It takes the better part of a week at least to diagnose the problem, order the parts, wait for the parts to arrive, install the parts, and get everything up and running again. If you hadn't run the game in a few days before the computer fried, then you'll likely have gone over the 7 days by the time your computer is running again, and then all you have to do is type in your license and away you go. If you get running in less than 7 days, then you'll have to wait out the balance of the 7 days, but odds are it won't be more than a couple days.

The longer we make the internet-free period, the longer you'll have to wait if your computer fries. So we picked 7 days as a good compromise between the time you'll probably be down from a dead computer and the longest time you'll probably be without the internet short of hurricanes and being stranded on a desert island.

But seriously, it looks great. I've half a mind to give the demo a whirl.

Hope you like it ;).

[Etienne]

If you're travelling on business, unless your job is being a missionary to the Congo or something, then you're almost certainly going to have at least weekly internet connection to check in with your boss and family.

I work on merchant ships, where the internet is still a new-fangled thing that we get either via fancy satellite systems, cell phone (When we're in range, and usually out of the crewmember's pocket), or shortwave radio. What internet we get is usually limited to operational stuff, and maybe sometimes email from home. The thought of a crewmember connecting his personnal computer to the network would send IT in a fit, and it's not big stretch of imagination to think it might result in disciplinary action.

I've spent upward of five months without connecting my computer to the internet. Heck, I've spent month long periods without CALLING home.

Seriously, I understand why you have DRM, and it looks like a great game. But there's no point in buying it, for me, since once I ship out all I'll get is the demo anyway. Most of my gaming happens when I'm shipped out, so I was glad the review mentionned that, really.

And yes, it is possible to live without the internet. The withdrawal period's a bitch, tho :D

[Bullethead]

I work on merchant ships

Well, then I guess you're in the "Congo missionary" category. Sorry :(.

We do, however, have an excellent game of the Russo-Japanese War. It's very similar to Jutland (apart from the time period) but it's about 2.5 years old so doesn't have all the features of Jutland, Still, it's an excellent game. It's a very finished product (73 patches since release) so runs very, very well.

At present, this game doesn't have the 7-day thing in its DRM. Thus, it would work just fine for you at sea. But if you're interested, get it ASAP. We're about to update it to version 1.5, which will retrofit it with many Jutland features, including the 7-day thing.

You can try out the demo the same was as with Jutland, but I don't think you can look at so many scenarios.