True, it IS an unfair comparison... how could they possibly compete? They're trying to feed their families and make their motorcycle payments, after all. :salute: I believe we're on the same page, sir!

:haha: Now that is a great comparison. People get all up in arms about the price of the game, yet will drop he same amount of cash at a bar, or going to a baseball game, or even filling their car up with a tank of gas without blinking an eye.

fair...
 

It is funny -- a fair or an unfair comparison.... Now I guess for most customers it doesn't matter where his/her product comes from, as long as it is up to desired qualities.

To me it seems that the trend in the past decade to moddable games has actually put much heavier pressure on the computer game industry. Now they not only compete with rival companies and other industries etc. for customers money, but also with modders... Sure makes it much harder for them. I guess modders are the next pirates... ;-)

PS. I agree that it appears as if SHV may have the potential to replace SHIII+GWX from its throne once major mods have taken the simulation part to the next level. And as long as that is possible, I have no problem that it is geared to a broader customer basis. Though I feel that it shouldn't have been too much effort for the devs to put in stuff that they had already developed in SHIII, such as the nice analogue interface, map frame, fully manual TDC etc. -- and then add a selection box for that to the configuration menu. Then everyone could have "his SHV".
The only thing that keeps me from buying remains the DRM. Too sad, but I have enough patience -- and other things to "waste" may free time with...

Modders offer no threat to the games companies, infact they prob help the games companies sell more games.

Modders cannot sell mods (without publishers approval as modders dont own the software). thats why most mods are FREE.

But in a sense they are doing a good job of competing (although maybe that's not the right word) with modders. Or rather what they're doing is staying off their turf and instead focusing their updates on stuff modders can't quite get at while also catering to a fundamentally different (or just wider) range of audiences. There's no question that as far as the hardcore market, it's hard for them to compete with modded versions of their earlier games. That's why they focus on platform updates. What they offer is certainly stuff that modders can't get at - otherwise, who'd need commercial development?

Let's face it, as much as we like to praise the great modding community, we still can't live without a commercially-developed platform under our feet.

Im guessing that if software companies didnt like you modding their games they would be within their rights to get you to remove your mods from download sites. As they own the software code that you used to make the mod. and if you refused the im guessing they could sue for Copyright Infringment.

.
 

I am pretty positive that once modding a prequel of a new product becomes a serious competition for the companies own new releases, they'd soon start cranking down on modding capabilities.

Think about it the other way around. If modding would guarantee sales and customer basis, why not provide the source code right away instead of - say - a scripting language with limited capabilities? It is better for them to keep a few things closed, otherwise there may not be a need for a new commercial platform...

For me SHIII+GWX as it stands competes favorably with SHV vanilla and thus (besides DRM) there is little reason for me to buy SHV. Without GWX, that would be a less clear-cut decision. So, wait and see what the future brings.

I bet you, if you had pointed out 10 years ago that a company would introduce a full OSP DRM scheme for single player games, few people would have believed you. Maybe modding will be "identified" by the decision makers in companies and advisors as a "problem" sometime? A possibility, isn't it?

[QUOTE=janh;1289308]I am pretty positive that once modding a prequel of a new product becomes a serious competition for the companies own new releases, they'd soon start cranking down on modding capabilities. [quote]

I don't think that will ever happen to be honest. Again, you need to keep in mind the distinction between a hardcore niche and a wider market. That would be an issue for a small-time game/publication, but SH games are firmly mid-level as far as game releases go. That means most of their sales are not in fact in the niche, hardcore market.

In some cases this happens. See for example something like Distant Guns/Jutland, where the devs have the game's content firmly under control - something I don't, by the way, hold against them. It's just that when your sales are firmly in the niche, if your content was in direct competition with mods, you would go bankrupt shortly after your first release and the game platform would never be updated again. In the end that might not be such a good thing.

WELL SAID!

Couldn't agree more. :up:

:o

Agreed, if only to stop the paranoia...:shifty:

I disagree with this. The fact is the developers have had ample opportunity to study GWX and NYGM to see what those mega-mods did to make SH3 a far better simulation of the war in the Atlantic.

I can see no reason why they should not take those achievements as the start point for SH5. By all means simplify some of it for less "hard core" players, but that doesn't justify ignoring the current state of those mods.

With what will most people here compare SH5? SH3 vanilla, or the modded SH3 they've been playing for years? The latter, of course. They might just as well release a DC-10 and say how much better it is compared with a 707, ignoring the fact that 707 morphed into 747 in the meantime (I'm sure you get the gist - please don't get obsessed over arguing the merits of aircraft).

If all they're done is spruced up the graphics and stuck some cheesy "RPG" elements in it, why should I applaud - let alone buy - that compared with modded SH3 as the benchmark?

For me, if SH5 is a retrograde step compared with modded SH3, then it is inferior. Period. I find any other comparison largely irrelevent, and almost 'apologist' in its approach.

Everyone's free to have their own view, of course, so I'm not about saying "you're wrong and I'm right and you're an idiot". I simply have a different opinion.

I don't know. I think they did see them, but it's one thing to see and another thing to implement - it's not like it's possible to flat-out take work by the GWX team or anyone else and make it part of SHV by default. It took the GWX team more than 3 years, building on another year of work by other modders, to get where they are. SHV had a development time of just over a year, as far as we know. How could they implement things that took a very large modding community 4 years to build, AND write new features that would actually be marketable? Why would anyone buy an "official GWX-equivalent" without a substantial graphics update or some unique new gimmick like the first-person mode, anyway? It wouldn't make commercial sense. And well, sad but true - if it doesn't sell, it's as good as not being made at all.

Likewise, exactly what features do you have in mind which this should have but doesn't? And not to mention the question of whether some of those features were wanted by the public that ubi is aiming for...

I should say, I don't want to sound like an apologist so much as I want this thing to not ONLY be seen in a negative light. There are some good things worth defending here, and there are fairly logical reasons why some things just couldn't make it in.

On the other hand I'm starting to have some doubts myself, to be perfectly honest, on day 3 of owning this game. I try to keep optimistic, but change better be forthcoming. A bit of disappointment is creeping in even to me, even just because of a couple of really, really basic snafus with crew morale and crew AI that should've never made it out of beta, let alone first patch... I am still mostly positive about this game, but the clock is ticking.

I'm really struggeling at the moment weather to buy the game. I don't expect a prestine brick of excellence in coding arts, i know I'm buying an Ubi-Game after all, but what's really important to me is Vanilla playability. With SH4 the problem wasn't the bugs, at least not them alone, but the fact that even after the last patch I still couldn't play a decent streak of time without something messing up severely. To me it just wasn't any fun at all to wish and pray for mission updates. Thats why it's been dust hunting on my shelves ever since, while SH3 prospers.

My question to the fine folks that got the game early is: Is it playable? Can you play it without something breaking the game? Im fine with some bugs, mod's will come, but until then, theres time to be skipped.

There are a few issues that need to be urgently addressed by a patch, as of 1.01. Not completely game-breaking for me, but enough to really irk me already. I don't think that warrants a no-buy, but I think the mileage here is also heavily dependent on prompt patching of these issues.

Stability-wise, it's very good. The problems are in a couple of broken play mechanics (morale system, some problems with detection both by crew and enemy AI) and a plethora of silly glitches that don't actually affect gameplay. All of these are theoretically fixable and should be fixed soon; the game is oh-so-close to working as advertised, but there's a thing or two preventing it from really getting there.

Thank you for an honest opinion,

I was (still am, but only just) desprate to buy this game. SH3 is seeming abit dated now, although i still enjoy playing it. i wanted sh3 (GWX) to elvolve into sh5 with some of the new features, but atm it hasn't.

I dont think its unreasonable to expect a game to be finished before release.
There must be a good reason why 4 & 5 were released unfinished.
Money, time, Ubisoft Entertainment, or dare i say it --- lazyness? but i guess we'll never know for sure. I doubt the Devs would ever say why.

And what will happen with SH6, will that even ever get made. Damn i hope so.

I never bought SH4 because it was not finished. Shame because from what I hear (read) it's not perfect but with patches and mods its surposed to be quite good now.

I truely hope that the patches and work from modders can save this game, i really do.

But I'm going to hold off buying this until this potential people are saying it has, is starting to surface.