Worst Silent Hunter game ever??

[The-PurpleOrange]

So I recently got this game expecting it to be fairly good since it has been a year since release and there should have been enough time to make patches to fix most of the problems I had heard about.

Instead I get a crap unfinished game,even after patches, that seems like it has been developed with the sole purpose of irritating anyone who tries to play it. For example it took me an hour to work out how to hit a ship with a torpedo with the auto-assist, where before on previous games when I asked the WO to get the solution he would get it and the torpedoes would hit the target I had selected.

I this game however I would get the solution with the TDC off and fire to find I had shot well behind the ship, I when on these forums to find for some reason Ubisoft had decided that it would be a good idea that you have to take the lock off the target before firing otherwise the torpedo will miss, which is different to all the other SH games I have played, WITHOUT MENTIONING THIS ANYWHERE.

Also the external camera and scopes won't turn without me having to drag the mouse which is also different and worse. Why they decided to change it from the arrow keys to this is beyond me.

The explosions also look like something out of a 2001 arcade game from long range - there is a mod to improve this I think but it shouldn't be like that on the highest graphics settings.

It seems to me that they have filled the game with great graphics (except explosions) and ignored whether it works or not. I've seen comments on here saying it is a good game after they patch it or if you get lots of mods.
But to be honest I shouldn't have to install over ten mods to make the game playable it should work from the start and be enjoyable, it shouldn't be up to modders to fix the game. It just has so many bugs and other crap that it is to me unplayable, so much so that with all these mods it still has problems.

This pretty much describes it:

"Silent Hunter 5 has promise, but this buggy and unstable game needs to be sent back to the drydock for some serious refitting." - Gamespot

"As a game, Silent Hunter 5 fails because the bugs and UI render it a chore. As a simulation, it fails because the bugs and UI render it ridiculous and incomplete. As a product, it's just overwhelming disrespectful to this long running series' fans. And finally, as one of the first games to receive Ubisoft's new copy protection, it's an embarrassment" - Eurogamer

I'm back to playing SH3 it seems.

[Sailor Steve]

If you had bothered to read the 'SH5 Mods Workshop' forum you would have found that there are mods that fix every complaint you have, including making it look and work very much like SH3. All the things you're saying were said many months ago, and were answered. I know that you can't be expected to find and read all that, which is fine, but you might have considered that these complaints have probably been made before and addressed, and asked if there was any way around it.

But from your wording it seems you didn't come here asking for help, but rather just to vent. You might want to remember the old saying, "You'll attract a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar."

[Hartmann]

Worst game no, only incomplete and aimed to arcade and casual gamer.

But under this external appearance there is a good simulator with a huge potential , the problem is that ubi don´t give enough information about the game files and moders have to discover every thing with trial and error, like IA for example ,and this need a lot of time and other things like units or modelling needs avanced skills in hexadecimal or 3d modeling.

Now with the actual mods is a very good simulator and with the time could be the best in the sh series

[fromhell]

Worst game no, only incomplete and aimed to arcade and casual gamer.

But under this external appearance there is a good simulator with a huge potential , the problem is that ubi don´t give enough information about the game files and moders have to discover every thing with trial and error, like IA for example ,and this need a lot of time and other things like units or modelling needs avanced skills in hexadecimal or 3d modeling.

Now with the actual mods is a very good simulator and with the time could be the best in the sh series


very true:up:

[USS Drum]

Here's it's problems: Released to early, to many bugs, only type VII u-boat, no randomly assigned mission like 3 and 4.

[The-PurpleOrange]

If you had bothered to read the 'SH5 Mods Workshop' forum you would have found that there are mods that fix every complaint you have, including making it look and work very much like SH3. All the things you're saying were said many months ago, and were answered. I know that you can't be expected to find and read all that, which is fine, but you might have considered that these complaints have probably been made before and addressed, and asked if there was any way around it.

But from your wording it seems you didn't come here asking for help, but rather just to vent. You might want to remember the old saying, "You'll attract a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar."


I looked through the list of all the mods and could not find one to change the cam movement to the arrow keys, which although it seems small is the most irritating thing to me since I'm ocd with games :cool: I was sort of being overly controversial to get more of people opinions though.


Worst game no, only incomplete and aimed to arcade and casual gamer.

But under this external appearance there is a good simulator with a huge potential , the problem is that ubi don´t give enough information about the game files and moders have to discover every thing with trial and error, like IA for example ,and this need a lot of time and other things like units or modelling needs avanced skills in hexadecimal or 3d modeling.

Now with the actual mods is a very good simulator and with the time could be the best in the sh series

Here's it's problems: Released to early, to many bugs, only type VII u-boat, no randomly assigned mission like 3 and 4.


This is what I think to be honest. Games now days seem to be released to early now in just a shell form and then are fixed later by patches or mods whereas I think they should start off well even if it takes a year longer to make. But if all the things I had were fixed and there was more variety (and a better manual) it could of been a really great game. The same type of thing happened in the first six months of Empire: Total War's release but it was all fixed thankfully. I would get into modding SH but I mod the TW series already so there would be too much to do.

I also dislike how games are now aimed more at the "casual gamer" now rather concentrated on a specific type. I find it lowers the quality of the game experience all round.

[Sartoris]

Most of the complaints have been dealt with through very good mods, but I'm still having trouble enjoying the stock explosions. As has already been mentioned, they look very bad, and IMO are much worse than the ones in SH4. Is there a mod that fixes this and if so, are there screenshots that show the new modded explosions?

EDIT: That was silly of me, I forgot to google it. Here's the mod I found for anyone that's interested: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=164959&page=5

[JimmyS1985]

Before we call the game the worst SH game ever, I think we should give the modding community some due credit for turning an otherwise broken game into one that is immersive and can be played. I added the IRAI mod alone, and that one mod made the game a ton more immersive, the destroyers actually started pinging and using depth charges, before I could sink a capital ship next to them and they wouldn't even break course or be on the look out for my sub.

This is how I would chalk SH5 up. Ubisoft made about 80% of a game and then immediately released it. Then they expected the modding community to take care of all the things broken with the game, hence why it got really ****ty reviews initially. WIth mods the game is pretty fun.

[Sailor Steve]

And once more, please read the forum rules on language.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item_language

[jason210]

I absoluted hated SH5 when it came out. It was the most stupid thing to release a game like that.

But now after the patches and after adding some of the best mods, I find it very immersive and playable. In terms of actually feeling as if you are on a U-boat I think it is the best. And the coastline and harbour graphics actually look real in this version.

I wrote ****ty reviews about SH5 at Amazon and Gamepsot, but since the patches and great mods came out I've revised those reviews.

[TheDarkWraith]

This is what I think to be honest. Games now days seem to be released to early now in just a shell form and then are fixed later by patches or mods whereas I think they should start off well even if it takes a year longer to make.

It's a shame Blizzard doesn't get into the sim market. They could make a fabulous one based on their reputation of only releasing a game when it's complete. (I'm still waiting on Diablo III!)

[troopie]

Thank goodness for subsim and its modders eh?:salute:

It amazes me that you can go and buy an xbox, buy twenty games for it and not have a problem with any of them, yet, on your P.C. you can pretty much count on having to spend hours researching and tinkering just to get one game working:shifty:.

With consoles continually getting more and more popular isn't the PC software industry doing itself out of buisness with releases like this one?:hmmm:

[The Renegade]

Thank goodness for subsim and its modders eh?:salute:

It amazes me that you can go and buy an xbox, buy twenty games for it and not have a problem with any of them, yet, on your P.C. you can pretty much count on having to spend hours researching and tinkering just to get one game working:shifty:.

With consoles continually getting more and more popular isn't the PC software industry doing itself out of buisness with releases like this one?:hmmm:


I wanted to respond to this because HOLY bejeezus I couldn't have said it better myself. PC games are unique, you can't get the kinda games we get ANYwhere else, but the crap you've gotta muck through just to play them...wow.

My example. Friend gets Skyrim for Christmas, I've heard it's great and amazing and life-changing, YA know. MY new game to share is IL2-Sturmovik, a WWII flying simulator, one that I've always heard is the best around. And hey, it was on sale on Steam for like $3. ANYwho, I download the game and load it up, aaaand....instantly do this :damn:

Sturmovik and Steam hate each other. Sturmovik isn't patched all the way, you have to do it manually. 300mb of more patching. Then you have to edit the .cfg file to get the right resolutions and to manually set ALL the freakin graphics options. THEN you have to bind about 10 more keys to functions that are um, NECESSARY to even get your plane in the air. This is for the STOCK GAME. And it's still buggy.

It's NOT a bad game, in fact it looks great now and plays fine, but with all the HOOPS I had to jump through to play it, hell, I am burnt out on these PC games. Just once I'd like to get a game, put in the disc, and play it without any major problems. That's a HUGE appeal for me. Instead of digging away in files, you can relax and immerse yourself in the world of the game.

But eh. Who am I kidding, I'll still play PC games. But not the ones that make me wanna punt prairie dogs.

**BY THE WAY, Silent Hunter games have always been good to me. And THAT'S all thanks to Mister JScones and his JSGME. Good god that thing works wonders. Not to mention all the modders and teams here who put everything together in relatively simple packages with PLENTY of documentation. Anywho. I'm just frustrated with this damn plane game and I'm realizing I'm more of a sub guy :)

[JimmyS1985]

Hey for IL2 sturmovik to work, u need rudder pedals, a trackIR, a throttle and stick. Ive got an awesome flight sim setup for playing it, but since multiplayer has no time compression, I found there are tons of lulls in the fighting before you get to any action.

Ive got an awesome flight sim setup, $1500 in flight sim hardware and a 1 of 2 in the world flight console.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c360/sirscrotum/DSCN0018.jpg

On the contrary I think being able to custome PC games and mod them is a great trait that PC games have that xbox games do not. I like being able to install new skins and stuff on my PC games, cant really do it on xbox, I like having real cars when I play GT4.

[Sartoris]

Wow, that's some setup you've got!:up:

What's the monitor you're using and are you pleased with it? And what's that flight console you've got?

[JimmyS1985]

Well it took $1500 in equipment for me to figure out that I don't like flight sims. I played multiplayer for several hours, IL2 sturmovik, Cliffs of Dover to find out that number1, even with top notch equipment, I still suck (Haven't shot down a human or AI fighter plane to date, despite myself being shot down atleast 30x) the flying can get boring, its pretty much looking all around for planes since I leave it on realism and 99% of the time, seeing nothing but blue sky, ground and sea below you. The game isn't too popular, just because you can fit 128 planes into a map, usually the maximum is around 20, you might see some action if it gets up to 30 or 40 but usually its well below 20 so you can only play during peak hours.

Without time compression the game is super slow with multiplayer, the only advantage being that planes are much faster than submarines so its no where near as bad as 1x time compression on a submarine, but the submarine game seems much faster paced with the time compression, or there needs to be more planes in the server to see any action.

As for the setup I got a Track IR5, a custom made Flight Console that was made in Greece, I laid $750 down for a greek mechanical engineer to make it for me, and trust me for the time labor and materials involved, he didn't make anything off of me. The throttle and stick are the Cougar HOTAS, and you can't see the rudder pedals but they are the same brand as my HOTAS, they are Thrustmaster, rudder control system pedals, so old that they use a gameport instead of a USB.

Flying may be for you, I got into it thinking I was going to shoot down planes, but when I realized that even on an almost brand new game, as a new player I still couldn't shoot down an enemy plane except in rare circumstances, I shelved it. I may get back into it, Ive considered selling the equipment, but there needs to be alot more players, more popular servers, maybe even smaller maps so less planes seems like more.

For me it got boring, spending 6 hours flying and only getting shot down, not getting so much as a single round off or hitting an enemy plane, thats about when I shelved it, I put in a good 30 hours and didn't shoot down a single Human enemy plane.

The monitor is a 28" Hanns-G, I got it for $300, I may go up to a 32" in the future.

[Hylander_1314]

Jimmy, you might want to give Battle of Britain II Wings Of Valor a try. Although not an online flight sim (yet), it has a dedicated modding group, that has been busy working on it for it the last 5 or 6 years.

Squadrons have individual markings, (Bf-109 squadrons have over 300 different markings alone) and you can have litterally hundreds of planes in the air battling it out over southeast England at one time. The AI is some of the best from the novice who will momentarily freeze up to the veteran who won't give you a target to shoot at no matter how good you get.

Bombers that get damaged will fall out of formation and head for France, and lots of other cool stuff.

The downside, is that some of the graphics look older, like the terrain and water in some areas, but there are folks even working on that.

Oh yes, and even us veterans of that one get out share of being shot down. The furballs are almost impossible to get out of without bailing out, or landing a shot up plane.

[Jaydice]

So I recently got this game expecting it to be fairly good since it has been a year since release and there should have been enough time to make patches to fix most of the problems I had heard about.

Instead I get a crap unfinished game,even after patches, that seems like it has been developed with the sole purpose of irritating anyone who tries to play it. For example it took me an hour to work out how to hit a ship with a torpedo with the auto-assist, where before on previous games when I asked the WO to get the solution he would get it and the torpedoes would hit the target I had selected.

I this game however I would get the solution with the TDC off and fire to find I had shot well behind the ship, I when on these forums to find for some reason Ubisoft had decided that it would be a good idea that you have to take the lock off the target before firing otherwise the torpedo will miss, which is different to all the other SH games I have played, WITHOUT MENTIONING THIS ANYWHERE.

Also the external camera and scopes won't turn without me having to drag the mouse which is also different and worse. Why they decided to change it from the arrow keys to this is beyond me.

The explosions also look like something out of a 2001 arcade game from long range - there is a mod to improve this I think but it shouldn't be like that on the highest graphics settings.

It seems to me that they have filled the game with great graphics (except explosions) and ignored whether it works or not. I've seen comments on here saying it is a good game after they patch it or if you get lots of mods.
But to be honest I shouldn't have to install over ten mods to make the game playable it should work from the start and be enjoyable, it shouldn't be up to modders to fix the game. It just has so many bugs and other crap that it is to me unplayable, so much so that with all these mods it still has problems.

This pretty much describes it:

"Silent Hunter 5 has promise, but this buggy and unstable game needs to be sent back to the drydock for some serious refitting." - Gamespot

"As a game, Silent Hunter 5 fails because the bugs and UI render it a chore. As a simulation, it fails because the bugs and UI render it ridiculous and incomplete. As a product, it's just overwhelming disrespectful to this long running series' fans. And finally, as one of the first games to receive Ubisoft's new copy protection, it's an embarrassment" - Eurogamer

I'm back to playing SH3 it seems.

SH3 had both more time in development, probably more budget, and has had the better part of a decade for mod development. SH3 was also more ambitious in terms of scope. SH5 only got 2 patches from Ubi and their the development ended. The reason development ended is because Ubi essentially killed their own revenue stream for continued development selling an inferior product with some features not desirable in the finished product i.e. aggressive DRM that screwed legitimate users while those who :arrgh!: the game were able to evaluate its flaws and had a less challenging setup experience.

Reading the research you noted in your post, I'm curious why you chose to buy the program when you were forewarned by accurate assessments of what the product was. Certainly the forums here have not steered you wrong.

Any who, here we are a year later. In order to get more out of SH5 I would recommend this thread http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=190656 to help you stand SH5 up to be the best it can be. It is graphically superior to SH3 if you prefer deeper gameplay maybe SH3 remains the better choice.

[Kongo Otto]

Well it took $1500 in equipment for me to figure out that I don't like flight sims. I played multiplayer for several hours, IL2 sturmovik, Cliffs of Dover to find out that number1, even with top notch equipment, I still suck (Haven't shot down a human or AI fighter plane to date, despite myself being shot down atleast 30x) the flying can get boring, its pretty much looking all around for planes since I leave it on realism and 99% of the time, seeing nothing but blue sky, ground and sea below you. The game isn't too popular, just because you can fit 128 planes into a map, usually the maximum is around 20, you might see some action if it gets up to 30 or 40 but usually its well below 20 so you can only play during peak hours.

Without time compression the game is super slow with multiplayer, the only advantage being that planes are much faster than submarines so its no where near as bad as 1x time compression on a submarine, but the submarine game seems much faster paced with the time compression, or there needs to be more planes in the server to see any action.

As for the setup I got a Track IR5, a custom made Flight Console that was made in Greece, I laid $750 down for a greek mechanical engineer to make it for me, and trust me for the time labor and materials involved, he didn't make anything off of me. The throttle and stick are the Cougar HOTAS, and you can't see the rudder pedals but they are the same brand as my HOTAS, they are Thrustmaster, rudder control system pedals, so old that they use a gameport instead of a USB.

Flying may be for you, I got into it thinking I was going to shoot down planes, but when I realized that even on an almost brand new game, as a new player I still couldn't shoot down an enemy plane except in rare circumstances, I shelved it. I may get back into it, Ive considered selling the equipment, but there needs to be alot more players, more popular servers, maybe even smaller maps so less planes seems like more.

For me it got boring, spending 6 hours flying and only getting shot down, not getting so much as a single round off or hitting an enemy plane, thats about when I shelved it, I put in a good 30 hours and didn't shoot down a single Human enemy plane.

The monitor is a 28" Hanns-G, I got it for $300, I may go up to a 32" in the future.

Try Rise of Flight, there is a free demo, so you can take a look at it.
http://riseofflight.com/tryrof/en
I will do training with you, if you want, there is also a newbie server available where you can do first steps.

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

As for the SH series, all of them took time to "fix" and complete work being done mostly by the amazing and dedicated mod community. Ditto for the flight sims, almost without exception: the Combat Flight series 1, 2, 3, Flight Simulator, Battle of Britian, IL series, and so forth. It is a fact of life that developers rarely have the budget, historical knowledge or time to do a complete sim. Rise of Flight looks to be one of the most complete and detailed, but it is limited to a small area of France at this point and complex flight and control systems. It is worth the effort but be warned that the scale is small at this point ..they are adding to it bit by bit, and if they keep going it will equal the SH series for air combat. SH all of them remain the Gold standard for naval combat, nothing comes close yet. Esp with the mods that have been made for all of them.

[triumph]

sh5 yes early problems. the modders have done a fantastic job of rescuing sh5.
ubisoft probably, relied on that happening. and the modders have once again risen to the challenge.

my first subsim was silent service on the c64. with a keyboard overlay. my brother and i took turns to be captain and issue orders. the other operating the key presses.

since those days, i now build my own systems, and run various sims. with full control devices, rudder pedals,trakir,etc etc..ive spent quite a bit of effort building addons for fsx/acc. so i am aware of the blood sweat and tears, that is involved in modding..it bothers me when people compare simulations to games.sims have special requirements that cannot be satisfied by underpowered out of date loss making consoles.

simulations are for people who require more than instant gratification..many who use sims have real world expriance.Maybe cloud based sims will change the need for powerfull desktops,and the knowledge to use them, but not yet..i like the simulations demands of the end user, for something more than plug and play..triumph

[troopie]

simulations are for people who require more than instant gratification..many who use sims have real world expriance.Maybe cloud based sims will change the need for powerfull desktops,and the knowledge to use them, but not yet..i like the simulations demands of the end user, for something more than plug and play..triumph


God point triumph I fully agree.....but, is it sustainable? I mean, SH5 is not even two years old yet and it now retails for something like $5.

[TheDarkWraith]

God point triumph I fully agree.....but, is it sustainable? I mean, SH5 is not even two years old yet and it now retails for something like $5.

That's only because of the business model that Ubisoft's upper management decided to take on it's release. They killed themselves with the DRM crap and an unfinished game. The reviews it received on release speak volumes of the poor decisions Ubi's upper management made. Quite frankly they all should be fired but that never happens. Those 'upper' people never do anything wrong :nope: Worse yet they can cause global financial crisis and still receive bonuses for their 'good' job...

[Jaydice]

That's only because of the business model that Ubisoft's upper management decided to take on it's release. They killed themselves with the DRM crap and an unfinished game. The reviews it received on release speak volumes of the poor decisions Ubi's upper management made. Quite frankly they all should be fired but that never happens. Those 'upper' people never do anything wrong :nope: Worse yet they can cause global financial crisis and still receive bonuses for their 'good' job...

Fully agree. Further on point software makers in general should take note, release buggy products and nobody will rush out to buy regardless of mixed reviews. Slap annoying DRM on the product and all you do is lower the value to the consumer willing to actually buy the product. You also effectively price your product out because there is a segment of the market who simply will not buy products with DRM because they do not support the concept, and another segment of the market who doesn't want to deal with the hoop/hurdle jumping it entails.

Today DRM vs piracy, largely applies to PC however with tablets/smart phones and cloud computing taking hold, consoles will be just as susceptible to piracy as the PC within 5 years. DVD discs will be too small to hold data for next gen consoles, and realistically blu-ray too expensive compared to flash long term.

DRM sucks but releasing a broken/unfinished game with DRM is financially and business wise disastrous.

[triumph]

sadly sims are a small part of the market..and consoles have always made a loss. its the games that cover the cost of the consoles.the two consoles on the market are out of date.the pc can be upgraded, the console has to be replaced by a new machine, which quickly becomes out of date.

the real money is in handhelds, phones etc. and possibly the cloud, which points to the end of consoles, with just one device. a large tv connected to the cloud, and pay per play..and lots of small hand held devices.
thats where the money is.

i cant see ubi building sh6, they should give sh5 to the community of modders. the only people with talent to do a decent job.
money drives the market, and the end user gets what the market wants to sell...we may be living in the best of times, for sim users.
microsofts new flight will come with chains and locks. third party devs will be controlled by microsoft..if it makes money they will, if it doesnt they wont. its a race to the bottom, where the most cash can be made from the most people. thats progress?..triumph

[Seeadler]

Slap annoying DRM on the product and all you do is lower the value to the consumer willing to actually buy the product.

Maybe not from the perspective of the Ubisoft management:D

Here are the European sales of the first few weeks after release, collected by VGChartz.
Compared to its predecessors with no DRM, SH5 sold better in the first weeks.
One can interpret it that way: illegal copies were not so fast available:know:

http://s14.directupload.net/images/120101/henv79m5.png
http://s14.directupload.net/images/120101/u3e8esgt.png
http://s14.directupload.net/images/120101/xf5l2iso.png

[Trevally.]

:o Wow

[Kongo Otto]

Compared to its predecessors with no DRM, SH5 sold better in the first weeks.
One can interpret it that way: illegal copies were not so fast available:know:


The following statement is not a support for Warez of anykind of Product, neither do i support those actions!
It was just made to keep the facts straight.

Just for the Records: The first cracked Version of SH5 was available on different Warezsites at 3rd march 2010, German release date from the original game was 4th March 2010 and from the collectors editon release date was 15th march 2010 IIRC.
After Patch 1.1 a new cracked Version was available just 1 day after the Patch.

[Arlo]

Jimmy, you might want to give Battle of Britain II Wings Of Valor a try. Although not an online flight sim (yet), it has a dedicated modding group, that has been busy working on it for it the last 5 or 6 years.

Squadrons have individual markings, (Bf-109 squadrons have over 300 different markings alone) and you can have litterally hundreds of planes in the air battling it out over southeast England at one time. The AI is some of the best from the novice who will momentarily freeze up to the veteran who won't give you a target to shoot at no matter how good you get.

Bombers that get damaged will fall out of formation and head for France, and lots of other cool stuff.

The downside, is that some of the graphics look older, like the terrain and water in some areas, but there are folks even working on that.

Oh yes, and even us veterans of that one get out share of being shot down. The furballs are almost impossible to get out of without bailing out, or landing a shot up plane.

http://www.hitechcreations.com/

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh204/arlogu3/VF17RTB04.jpg

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh204/arlogu3/VF17back2roost.jpg

http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh204/arlogu3/GuthKIhits.jpg

[Trevally.]

The following statement is not a support for Warez of anykind of Product, neither do i support those actions!
It was just made to keep the facts straight.

Just for the Records: The first cracked Version of SH5 was available on different Warezsites at 3rd march 2010, German release date from the original game was 4th March 2010 and from the collectors editon release date was 15th march 2010 IIRC.
After Patch 1.1 a new cracked Version was available just 1 day after the Patch.

Yes - but they don't work

Quote "my campaign bar does not fill when I sink ships"

[Kongo Otto]

Yes - but they don't work

Quote "my campaign bar does not fill when I sink ships"

I cant answer that, because if i would i would be banned.
So let us assume youre right. *cough* ;)

[Jaydice]

Looking at your sales data I'll point out sales of SH5 dropped like a rock after weeks 2 & 3 and this was after much heavier promotion of SH5 than SH3. SH4 got the weakest promotion of the modern SH3 programs. The sales figures for both SH3 & 4 grew after initial release. Those were also more complete and functional product at launch but the DRM of SH3 was not as bad as the DRM of SH5.

I basically had two points that I would make to any software developer. Know what who your market is and what they want, and deliver it. If you delivery a high value and compelling product financial pay off will be profitable. Deliver crap and it wont be.

Simmers want realism, simmers are typically older computer users who can afford to buy the game, and who want to support development, and simmers repay brand loyalty with loyalty. Ubisoft both undercut their credibility, brand and industry prestige releasing what they did with SH5 and they did not do themselves any favors layering more and more restrictive DRM ontop of the it making it harder to legitimate owners to enjoy the product.

If they put the efforts and resources into development instead of ineffective anti-piracy measures they'd have a product many more people would have payed for in the weeks following release, enabling a longer term update/support path which in turn would have been rewarded with much more positive long term sales.

This is what AAA wanna be software manufactures do wrong. They promote and advertise too much prior to release, securing pre-orders, and running collector editions, etc all non-essential BS. Put that money into development and QA, and when you have a stable, product with 90% of the features developed, then release, and release with a schedule to run 5-10 patches on the product, while promoting after the product is on the market. Don't build hype levels only rivaled on facebook and twitter for a papercup product that will implode under the pressure of the littoral waters. They do not build a solid product then promote. If they promoted once the product was "done" and supported fixing problems with a long term strategy of patching and post-release development the financial rewards would be much more profitable.

[vanjast]

Let me put it this way...
Companies 'LIE' about their stats... period.
Why... think carefully about it!

[Kongo Otto]

Hmm i dont know if this is a specific SH 5 thing, but i sometimes think that the most costumers today are not interested in content anymore, a nice shiny box is already enough for them.
Look at Movies like Pearl Harbor, Iron Man, Transformers, Sherlock Holmes etc. etc.
Big Kabooms all over the places, but no real content, no storyline, just Boom, even more Kaboom, lots of CGI and a few human actors to get the Teenies in.
Human society is dumbing down, you can see it all over this planet, they dont want "complex" games like SH3 or IL2 anymore, what they want is fast food on everything, not just with Burgers.

[TheDarkWraith]

Human society is dumbing down, you can see it all over this planet, they dont want "complex" games like SH3 or IL2 anymore, what they want is fast food on everything, not just with Burgers.

It's dumbing down because no-one is standing up and saying this is wrong. Look at schools. They are not the schools that I grew up in. We had to do everything by hand (mathematics). We had to graph by hand. We had to actually know theory and the whys so that we could do/make something. Nowadays schools are enforcing that students have this whammy dine calculator or even worse a laptop! They don't teach theory or the whys anymore - they teach how to be robots that respond with a given set of actions based on what's given. They don't want you to think. A society that's dumb is easily controlled. That's what 'they' are striving for :nope:

[Kongo Otto]

It's dumbing down because no-one is standing up and saying this is wrong. Look at schools. They are not the schools that I grew up in. We had to do everything by hand (mathematics). We had to graph by hand. We had to actually know theory and the whys so that we could do/make something. Nowadays schools are enforcing that students have this whammy dine calculator or even worse a laptop! They don't teach theory or the whys anymore - they teach how to be robots that respond with a given set of actions based on what's given. They don't want you to think. A society that's dumb is easily controlled. That's what 'they' are striving for :nope:

Remember the 1975 Movie Rollerball with James Caan?

[j671hitman]

Not pollished enough.

[Kongo Otto]

Welcome aboard j671hitman :salute:

[reaper7]

Well it took $1500 in equipment for me to figure out that I don't like flight sims. I played multiplayer for several hours, IL2 sturmovik, Cliffs of Dover to find out that number1, even with top notch equipment, I still suck (Haven't shot down a human or AI fighter plane to date, despite myself being shot down atleast 30x) the flying can get boring, its pretty much looking all around for planes since I leave it on realism and 99% of the time, seeing nothing but blue sky, ground and sea below you. The game isn't too popular, just because you can fit 128 planes into a map, usually the maximum is around 20, you might see some action if it gets up to 30 or 40 but usually its well below 20 so you can only play during peak hours.

Without time compression the game is super slow with multiplayer, the only advantage being that planes are much faster than submarines so its no where near as bad as 1x time compression on a submarine, but the submarine game seems much faster paced with the time compression, or there needs to be more planes in the server to see any action.

As for the setup I got a Track IR5, a custom made Flight Console that was made in Greece, I laid $750 down for a greek mechanical engineer to make it for me, and trust me for the time labor and materials involved, he didn't make anything off of me. The throttle and stick are the Cougar HOTAS, and you can't see the rudder pedals but they are the same brand as my HOTAS, they are Thrustmaster, rudder control system pedals, so old that they use a gameport instead of a USB.

Flying may be for you, I got into it thinking I was going to shoot down planes, but when I realized that even on an almost brand new game, as a new player I still couldn't shoot down an enemy plane except in rare circumstances, I shelved it. I may get back into it, Ive considered selling the equipment, but there needs to be alot more players, more popular servers, maybe even smaller maps so less planes seems like more.

For me it got boring, spending 6 hours flying and only getting shot down, not getting so much as a single round off or hitting an enemy plane, thats about when I shelved it, I put in a good 30 hours and didn't shoot down a single Human enemy plane.

The monitor is a 28" Hanns-G, I got it for $300, I may go up to a 32" in the future.


You should check out Falcon BMS 4.32 for the best Mod ever made for a simulator.
They completely rewrote the sim to become the most realistic flight simulator for the standard consumer available.

Check out http://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/

They changed the Sim from this (Original Falcon 4)

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/games/Falcon4Pics/Falcon4Glide.JPG

http://www.laneros.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=68668&stc=1&d=1162424763

To this:



http://i334.photobucket.com/albums/m402/Ric_9thWTAC/BMS/Griffons/2011-09-10_231840.jpg

http://i334.photobucket.com/albums/m402/Ric_9thWTAC/BMS/Griffons/2011-09-11_232857.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c14/cr4ck3d/BMS4.jpg

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/5233/20110906011337.jpg


Whats more its now a complete game from the original Micropose code.
Install only requires that you point it at the original exe (Can be got very cheap on the web these days) to confirm that you own the game.


Its a huge learning curve, but worth it and you already have the Cougar Hotas and TrackIR which are the perfect companion :up:

Oh and Multiplayer works perfectly too :yeah:
Check it out, you won't regret it :yep:

[Bis71]

Let me ask this:

Between SH3 patched and modded and SH5 patched and modded, which would you prefer?

[von Kinderei]

Let me ask this:

Between SH3 patched and modded and SH5 patched and modded, which would you prefer?


SH III for me ... :up:

[Bis71]

May I ask why?

[Sailor Steve]

I can't answer for him, but until SH5 has a fully functioning crew and all types of u-boats and over 100 merchant types with cargo and names, it will take second place.

[Bis71]

Sounds immensely reasonable

[Dowly]

The easy way would be just to say: "Well, flightsims aren't for you", but I'm
quite bored atm so. :O:

Well it took $1500 in equipment for me to figure out that I don't like flight sims.

That's your loss. It's not very wise to go into a new genre and spend money
on it like that without knowing anything about it. :DL

I played multiplayer for several hours, IL2 sturmovik, Cliffs of Dover to find out that number1, even with top notch equipment, I still suck (Haven't shot down a human or AI fighter plane to date, despite myself being shot down atleast 30x)Having "top notch" equipment means nothing if you don't have the basic knowledge
how to use it. How different planes handle, what kind of maneuvers each plane
are capable of executing, what kind of weaponry they have, against which
type of opponent they should be used and what tactics to use.

the flying can get boring, its pretty much looking all around for planes since I leave it on realism and 99% of the time, seeing nothing but blue sky, ground and sea below you.Looking around is one of the most important things to do in a combat flight
simulator, it's called situational awareness. ;) If you are looking for constant
action, then I'd say try some of the more casual flying games, like HAWX.

The game isn't too popular, just because you can fit 128 planes into a map, usually the maximum is around 20, you might see some action if it gets up to 30 or 40 but usually its well below 20 so you can only play during peak hours.Which game would that be? You mention IL2, which is more or less the most
popular WWII online flightsim still (IL2 1946, that is). Also, there are servers
that have objectives for both sides, which means you can pretty much guess
where the enemy players will be.

If we are talking about IL2:CloD, then yes, it's not very popular because the
game has quite a few issues still.

Without time compression the game is super slow with multiplayer, the only advantage being that planes are much faster than submarines so its no where near as bad as 1x time compression on a submarine, but the submarine game seems much faster paced with the time compression, or there needs to be more planes in the server to see any action.Yes, they tend to be somewhat slow paced at times, depends of the server
and the type of mission it's running. But there's something you are missing here,
that extra time is good to have so you can climb and get enough altitude.
If you have the altitude advantage to your enemy, you dictate how the fight
goes. That's one of the basic things to know about combat flight sims. :up:

As for the setup I got a Track IR5, a custom made Flight Console that was made in Greece, I laid $750 down for a greek mechanical engineer to make it for me, and trust me for the time labor and materials involved, he didn't make anything off of me. The throttle and stick are the Cougar HOTAS, and you can't see the rudder pedals but they are the same brand as my HOTAS, they are Thrustmaster, rudder control system pedals, so old that they use a gameport instead of a USB.Again, like I already said, your loss. But it does make wonder how you are
doing so badly, especially if you have TrackIR. With TIR, you can keep scanning
your surroundings constantly and so can only really be surprised from a blind spot.

Flying may be for you, I got into it thinking I was going to shoot down planes, but when I realized that even on an almost brand new game, as a new player I still couldn't shoot down an enemy plane except in rare circumstances, I shelved it. I may get back into it, Ive considered selling the equipment, but there needs to be alot more players, more popular servers, maybe even smaller maps so less planes seems like more.

For me it got boring, spending 6 hours flying and only getting shot down, not getting so much as a single round off or hitting an enemy plane, thats about when I shelved it, I put in a good 30 hours and didn't shoot down a single Human enemy plane.They are called flight simulators for a reason, you can't just pick them up
and expect to rule the virtual skies immediately. Like I mentioned already,
study the planes so you know how to use them and what to do if plane type
X attacks you. There are tons of guides around the internet on different tactics,
do's and don't do's, maneuvers etc. I'd advice to check them out. :03:

[Trevally.]

There sure are some things that SH3 has and SH5 doesn't:yep:

But does SH5 have anything that SH3 does not:06:

[TheDarkWraith]

There sure are some things that SH3 has and SH5 doesn't:yep:

But does SH5 have anything that SH3 does not:06:

Modded or unmodded? Modded we have many things that they can only dream about :yep: Same goes with SH4.

[Madox58]

It's dumbing down because no-one is standing up and saying this is wrong. Look at schools. They are not the schools that I grew up in. We had to do everything by hand (mathematics). We had to graph by hand. We had to actually know theory and the whys so that we could do/make something. Nowadays schools are enforcing that students have this whammy dine calculator or even worse a laptop! They don't teach theory or the whys anymore - they teach how to be robots that respond with a given set of actions based on what's given. They don't want you to think. A society that's dumb is easily controlled. That's what 'they' are striving for :nope:

Working the Construction business most of my life?
I see this everyday!
We calculate simple things like how to check that snap lines are square on a floor in our heads.
Newer Guys have no idea how this is done without a calculator!
We call it 3 4 5 and thats exactly how it works!
Pythagorean trigonometric identity is the proper term I think.
:hmmm:

[von Kinderei]

I can't answer for him, but until SH5 has a fully functioning crew and all types of u-boats and over 100 merchant types with cargo and names, it will take second place.

:sign_yeah:

Plus I just like the game play and feel alot better