I lied.

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http://tanksim.com/reviews/panz_elite.htm

I don't think SHO should surprise you, or anyone. It will have its own unique strengths and weaknesses, like every game, and you will be able to examine them at your leisure, at no cost. One of those strengths will be, since it is a service, not a "buy it and it's yours" product, the devs will be continually upgrading and improving it as it goes along.

I always try to be very careful not to form an opinion until I have a firm grasp of the matter. I mean, who knows how this will end up. SHO could evolve into a stimulating, interesting U-boat sim like we've never seen before... :hmm2:

Congrats to adejb1, you sir, are a very sharp lookout. I am recommending you for promotion to BdU. :rock:

Aaah, missed that. :doh:

Good catch, adejb1! :up:

http://www.funflashgames.com/Submarines-Attack.html

No comment. :haha:

I made it to level 5. The immersion was wonderful. I could feel the salt spray in my face. :D

Very nice sim :har:

I'm a casual player, so I don't do the manual TDC. What's important to me is that you feel like you are there...

I think the mod vs not-moddable discussion will be around the same issue as the iphone vs android phone.
Some like that everything works in a certain way, but its always the same.
Some like that you can tailor it to what you want.

SHO will be an iphone experience....

Thanks, now, back to work!

Well if these are the same makers of Settlers Online then i hope it doesn't lean too much in that direction. Settlers online was terrible imo, it started out good but then it slows right down where the only way you can advance is through patience meaning days of waiting or go straight to the online shop and buy the materials needed to move forward. I've played Settlers single player 6 and 7 that are brillant building games i still play S6 today. But as a online game its a flop imo.

With Silent Hunter online it wont matter all that much if those who choose to do it the old fashion way and not spend a cent compare to those that do. Seriously? I think it would make a huge difference where like most of these games unless you don't mind being left behind and just play otherwise you will be playing catch up unless you hit the shop.

At least with pure MMO's where a monthly fee is required every one starts equal there is no shop to help you advanced with better gear etc the only players that do well are those with skill. Skill is not required for these browser games.

Pity they didn't go the whole hog and make SH a pure mmo or just go back to single player.

Don't take this the wrong way m8, but I think that's exactly what they want you to think. I enjoy free MMO's no problem. I feel no need what-so-ever to spend money to keep up with something or someone. That's their bait. I stand my ground ok, so I'll get there eventually. If it stays with me, and I like it enough, I will spend max what I would have if it was laying in the shop.

I hate a monthly subscription fee. Take EVE. I would gladly play it, and I'm sure I'll like it enough, to also give them real money for their trouble. After all, if I would buy it, I'd spent 40-60 euro's anyway. But a standard fee every month just so I can play 'my' game? Never, ever.

I'm ready to go into this with an open mind. Cloud-based games are going to be absolutely necessary to take us out of the era of the drink coaster game market. Every time a new game is published, we have a new dev crew who doesn't understand the previous release so they have no choice but to spend most of their effort reinventing problems long solved by others.

They fix some past problems but introduce more of their own. The result is no progress. SH4 was no real progress over SH3. They fixed as much as they broke. SH5, same deal. Break even at best. We are at the end of what a team of generic game devs can accomplish for us.

Only continuous and continuously financed evolving projects can take us any farther than we are. That will necessarily mean some kind of subscription or value-added payment by players. Sorry. Everything has to be paid for somehow.

So I don't expect Silent Hunter Online to be anything more than interesting. This is new ground and it will change. Hopefully they can generate an income stream that will keep a single dev team employed for years evolving and optimizing the product.

Sure, we're going to give up some things in the transition, just as we gave up things in the transition between board games and computer games. But we enthusiastically adopted deeply flawed sims before. We shouldn't hesitate to take this one for a spin either.

Well said Rockin Robbins.

I never thought of the situations you presented, but they clearly are the way the market is shaping up.

Look how popular DLC is for many franchises now. You can clearly see all of your points hit right there.

I prefer thinking that a semi-pro, niche market, is very different from mainstream. And you can have general purpose stuff (think, google docs) which can do easy tasks, but for a more complex task you'd need a full office suite.

If you can, or want to, tell the difference between a simulator, and an arcade with some strategy game, fine. But those are (and probably will, for quite a long time) be different things. I just still hope we won't run out of sims!

There was a good article on Kotaku today, it would do Blue-Byte no harm to follow thier advice which can be summarised as follows :

"Here are some suggestions, game makers. Some tips to get the fans back on your side. Free of charge.

• Answer questions. As many as you can. Questions are not your enemy. We're all here because we all love video games.
• We know it can sometimes feel like we complain about everything. It's not easy to please everyone. And there will always be complaints on social media and message boards, no matter how candid you are, no matter how many questions you answer. But people complain because they care. And if you show that you care back? Maybe there'll be a little less to complain about.
• Don't be afraid to tease games that are coming in the far future. We love teases. And we won't even mind if those games get cancelled, as long as you don't lie or pretend they're not.
• It's okay to throw around the "We don't comment on rumors and speculation" line, but try not to make it your default response to everything that crosses your desks. You don't have to tell us about the next Xbox, but it's okay to shed a little light on your plans for a new HD collection bundle. Nobody's going to die if you have to make your official announcement a few days early. We'll all still be talking about it.
• If you don't have plans to do something that fans want, at least tell us why. We want to understand what you're thinking. If you logically explain why it wouldn't be financially or legally viable to translate Valkyria Chronicles 3 or bring Earthbound to Virtual Console, we'll be a lot more sympathetic than if you just spout the same old "We have no plans" nonsense over and over again.
• Just talk to us. Explain the logic behind your decisions. Help us understand you. Help us relate. Help us empathize.

When a relationship is in trouble, the only way to fix it is communication. The relationship between video game fans and video game makers is in trouble. Let's fix it. Let's talk."

I think the 2nd to last point is particularly relevent here, but that is just my opinion.

BBT, I agree with most of those points, straight-forward, sincere, and unscripted communication is a legit dev team/game producer's best friend. :up: If you want people to like the game, make the game people like. And if you do that, there's no reason to stifle conversation, discussion, questions and debates about the game.

I do disagree in part with But people complain because they care; not always, quite often people disagree because they have a desire to be contentious and it makes them feel special. :O: That's why you will see the usual suspects in the SHO forum complaining and being snarky many times after they have firmly stated they have no desire to play the game.