you do realize they never had you pay to reload your ammo stock right? EA has been one of the better companies if you ask me. loyal to the customer and cares quite a bit about their products.

as to what companies will come up with next well i am pretty sure there are only so many ways to take advantage of the consumer and get away with it. the most common being repackaging the same game with upgraded graphics upgraded this and that with minor differences here and there with something brand new. perfect example being call of duty and battlefield. heck everything we in subsim have joked and discussed about how SHO will make money are how other games do it and succeed at it but if what himmel said is true they are going with a facebook strategy/sim style where you pay to speed this or that up and you pay and get some moderate perks

Of course they are making this game for income. That's what we all do for our living. As for "you are still going to have to shell out money repeatedly if you want to get very far in SHO"; if what the devs tell is in fact the case, you can go just as far in SHO playing free as if you buy credits, it just takes longer.

In the previous beta-phase, I reached the level cap (35) only with earned prestige points, had build four VII subs, lost three of them by depthcharges and all my credits stayed untouched. I never needed credits for better technology or better torpedos, the old torpedoes for prestige points made the same job.

Now for the current beta-phase, BlueByte gave me 150.000.000 credits for the success in the previous beta-phase, so I can test the shop-system extensively and buy me the most expensive torpedoes ...the game is now almost too easy ... lost a sub now, no matter I can buy several new ones.:haha:

interesting dare i ask about type XIs or is ubi leaving us with only Type VIIs again:/\\!!? or is that their ace in the hole for money...:nope:

Last week was a live video chat with the developers and they said that they include Type IX, Type XIV and Type XXI but not in the beta phase

At this stage, I am yet to see anything that will make me even want to try SHO, aside from the rather glaring realism and immersion issues, I just don't like the sleazy nature of almost every F2P system I have ever tried and I don't ever intend to back off from that position despite how many times people say "it is the way things are going to be".

When I look at SHO, I see Microsoft flight, I see Mechwarrior online, I see every other F2P followup to a prestigious (and traditionally single player) franchise, Flight failed due to a sad attempt to retarget it's market, Mechwarrior online is but a hollow shell of what it once was and SHO (from what i Have been hearing from those who play it and footage and interviews) is again nothing but a hollow shell, it is Silent hunter but in name only.

I would rather pay $60 for a complete game experience with a single player mode and other non-online only features, making a game F2P will always mean compromises in gameplay so that the microtransaction and MMO elements fit.

Finally, I think it is important to note that there are few (if any) F2P games that really let you enjoy the same level of fun throughout the whole game while paying no real money into it (there are but a few exceptions), often the highest priced games I have played are F2P and if you don't pay, you get less and less of a experience in the end.

In the end it's still software and a client end has to be installed on the end users system. That means it can still be hacked to do whatever you want it to do. I find it very tempting just to 'play' with it to remove the micro-transactions crap and make them free just to see if I could do it :hmmm: That's my only interest in SHO.

Compared to WoT or other F2P games, SHO has no client to install. It's Action Script 3.0 code and runs through a Flash 9 browser plugin within the ActionScript Virtual Machine 2 on your computer. Basically it's a bunch of images, xml files and a compiled SHO.swf file stored in your browser cache. If you have the knowledge to use a swf decompiler you can investigate the SHO sourcecode from your cache ;)

Thanks for the info :up: Time to hit up Amazon.com to see what I can find on the subjects :03:

Despite some ignorance in the forum to the contrary, f2p will continue to grow; f2p games are becoming the fastest growing sector of the market. Even once failing mmo's such as AOC, SWTOR, and lotro have seen revenues and their player base increase by as much as three fold after switching to f2p. Love it or loathe it, there is a very serious market for these games and a large proportion of gamers willing to invest serious money into those games that capture their attention.

EVERYONE in this forum should be hoping that SHO does well, with it potentially comes a new generation of gamers exposed to naval combat, it may well be naval combat lite, but it’s a start. This is a niche sector of the market, and has been since Gato, and sub hunt first appeared in the early 80’s. If there is to be continued interest in developing sub sims, we need games like SHO to help bring new generations of gamers into the fold, and with it an increased likely hood of something more serious being developed and released in future.

I think we all hope it does well we just know Ubi to well to expect anything good from them. We just have to adopt a wait and see attitude but overall some of the videos leave many of us scratching our heads.

As to our individual criticisms of F2P they are based in facts and many F2P players know of them. the micro transactions to get In Game Currency or pay to advance or pay to win models do turn away those that love the game but cant afford to pay.

Depends upon the F2P model really, in SWTOR it is possible to reach the highest level cap and obtain the best gear possible only paying 10 dollar just to to buy the expansion. So really. it is a F2P model where you dont have to buy anything.

The cash shop on that game is almost totally used for cosmetic items, its pay to look pretty, and that I approve of.

its accually 20 if you are not a subscriber. but even in SWTOR you find that you level slowly without paying the subscription. and all F2P games are you don't have to pay anything to play it just makes your life easier if you do pay.