Maybe take an approach similar to the DCS series: make a mudule that contains the engine, 1 playable boat and a campaign. Then develop more modules, adding in more and more playable models while refining and updating the engine. And perhaps make every module stand-alone so people who are only interested in 1 boat can have just that, while others will purchase each and every one.

Though it would need to have very high detail in each module to convince people it's worth it. :hmmm:

This is not the only possible result IMO.
Should SH5 not sell well enought, this *could* result in Ubisoft revolutioning the series, maybe stepping forward to cold war era ? Who knows...

This is the worst scenario to me. That has already happened... for example with Dangerous Waters!!!

The detailed likings of us, are most certainly to be seen as very fragmented... to make everyone happy there should be maybe 20 versions of SH5 ?

Btw, the theory where "if you don't support the producer doing an early buy the producer will go away" is true, but the power to change that is not in our hands. The enjoyability of the game will make it a success or a failure, not us "fanatics" do a pre-order. A game well done will publicize itself automatically (and the price won't lower that fast)
I did a pre order on Dangerous Waters in good part to substain the producer, and what did I get ? An unfinished game and the producer closing the door. Anyway, this is quite a different simulator, with a smaller size of potential buyers.

I want this to be a worthy SH3 sequel.
I want ubi/devteam to make money on this.
I want to feel that ubi/devteam support the product, post launch.
I want to look forward to content addons and patches.
I am willing to pay for content addons, like more subs, ships and features.

If they plan to release a content/feature addon by the end of 2010 I think it would benefit the sub community as we might help them fix and add more features to the game while the have a team still working on the simulation.

For a great product I would be happy to pay $10-20 more if that's what it need to get 3-6 more months of development/testing. But I think a release with a planed addon probably works best, at least for the community to have a chance for giving feedback to the devteam (if they want it).

Sometimes I get the feeling some want games to be half as expensive and done in half the time and work on hardware half as good as the previous game and have double the content as the previous product.

Gaming is a hobby, hobbies are fun, I don't mind spending $$ on my hobby.
But thats me, and I am probably a bit insane and brainwashed by 12 years of MMORPG's :D

Looking forward to Silent Hunter V and playing SH3+GWX3 until then. :)

You sir are clearly brainwashed by MMO's. I was a MMO player myself until I realized I was paying $15 a month for crap. Which is probably why you are so willing to pay $70-$80 for a game. Quit playing MMO's, you will find life much more enjoyable, and you'll have more money to spend on important things...like beer.

I did spend more on beer, quit it for MMO's.
It's what you make out of it, $80 for a game you play for many hours sure has more value then a ****load of beer twice a weekend and you don't remember what you did anyway.

I apologize for coming off as so...stern. Since I gave up MMO' I've seen them for what they really are and can be rather vocal about them. But you are right about that beer part, that's why you bring your friends along to remind you of how silly you were while drunk! :haha: But I still say $80 for a game is too much. Hell at times I think $60 is price gouging. $50 would be nice, especially when the value of the games depreciates so quickly.

No worries :)
Sometimes I do find the way to time consuming, that's for sure.
Well perhaps a bit much with $80 but if they released like new theaters, campaigns from time to time with small tweaks to the game engine I wouldn't mind put some $$ into it. Keep the game running for some time when this type of games takes a lot of time and resources to develop :)

Here we go again
 

I'll sign a contract about whining even through I'm not going to be purchasing the game (I can't even get SHIV to run on my computer without potentially melting it. SHIII is as good as I can go and even with that, I have to run it in a smaller window).
I won't whine, but i WILL say that software should NEVER be released in an "unfinished" state. Unfortunately, now, it's the status quo.

While this may be the fact, I am still in disgust by the fact that some companies release and sell unfinished games as retail.
It's a bad practice that wander in the grey zones of being legal.

Silence is the same agreeing, so I state my opinion about it now, once, and get over it.

If SH5 get's released in an unfinished "alpha/beta" state like previous versions, then SHAME on Ubisoft.
I really mean that, and believe the reasons are obvious and clear so I don't feel the need to argue about it any more.

Done whining, /signed
Brewtality.


PS. I still believe that SH3 was made possible by Ubi, but the community made the game enjoyable. Mods should not be an essential part of any game that's great from the beginning. What I'm saying is basically that Ubi did a poor job on SHII/SHIII (I skipped SH IV) and only the modders made those games great. It's a bad practice to relyon the community to finish your work.

Don't worry about that, I would be surprised if this wasn't Ubi #1 wish. They'll care for that :O:

From my past experience, the darn tendence to MOD the games, results in the producer having it easier to wash his hands aftwerward.
I personally am very reluctant in installing MOD's on complex software as simulators, as IMHO there will always be a decrease in overall quality.

After modding starts, noone will complain with Ubi anymore, rather they'll address the complains to the modding community that is much more receptive... Bad practice indeed.

As for SH5, it has already been said that modding will be encouraged. I hope this doesn't have to be a reason to be a little worried (!)


That being said, I guess that even with SH5, after the hurray and all positive athmosfere and hope prior the release, this will switch to a good percentage of posts with negative character (complaints) after the release as it usually happens with any game (poor devs!).
I'd like to be wrong on that.

Sorry if I am negative, but I've seen it happen elsewhere. Modding frenzy killing a promising game.

Yeap Nexus, modding should be about adding things and or customizing them, not fixing the game. But you must agree that modding SH3 and 4 went well beyond all those things. We went beyond what the devs imagined the game to be. And they've picked up the pace and SH5 will be a whole new thing. Ofc we'll mod the game, not because it's broken, but because we CAN :haha:. Mods do tend to decrease the quality of a game, but can you seriously say that about GWX 3 or OLC's gui? Can you say that TMO doesn't feel professional?

Take for example the double split prism stadimeter that the germans had. Now, I'll bet my hat off that not only will the devs NOT include that, but they'll even impose the Lock status on a ship for the thing to work, as they did in SH3 and 4. It's not really a bug but it will be the very first thing I would try to "fix". I'm sure the stadimeter is a simple X/Y camera effect with X=0 and Y=1 to move vertically, nested into an "if(PeriscopeOverTarget=TRUE)" condition. If it weren't for hard-coded limitations we would've had it by now :wah:. Any modding that would allow me to work at that level, creating clickable items, showing and hiding objects by conditions, creating new dials, would be good news indeed, regardless how few bugs and many features the game has when it's launched.

Great thread. Thanks everyone. My plan is to purchase SH5 when it becomes available here at Subsim.

My expectation is that SH5 have some bugs, but I hope Ubi will not release the game until it is ready to go.

Modders shouldn't have to "fix" the game to make them playable. Modders enhance the game experience. They make a great game into a fantastic game!

I agree that the ubi executives need to understand that this SH5 game is a make or break for silent hunter series .

I think the opposite , I agree with the thin cook , I only eat where the cook is thin :DL , UBISOFT please the cook must be thin

Having done some research in the weeks since my initial post, I have come to believe with some confidence that SHV is going to be in a much healthier state when it's released than either SHIII or SHIV was.

With Ubisoft making the statement last year that the company accepted that it needed to improve the quality control of its games so that they were less buggy at release, I believe that internal changes were made in order to deliver on that promise.

I think we have to understand though that the game can't be all things to all people. It will undoubtedly pander to the casual gamer to a greater degree than many here would like, but at the same time it's also very obvious that the Devs have really taken the observations and criticism of SHIV to heart, and I believe that SHV will be the most impressive subsim to date.

I guess the overall point of my initial post was for us to keep the glass half full rather than half empty and invest in what the game will ultimately become. I'm now more hopeful that Ubisoft will surprise us with a game that will really impress us at release.

So with many thanks to Dan, Mihai and the other team members of SHV, I wait with confidence for the release of SHV. :)

Half full? My glass is overflowing. :D

I get the same impression, and even if it's less polished than expected, I'm sure it will be whipped into shape, like both SH3 and SH4 have over time. :yeah:

No, I don't want to be a guinea pig, testing something that isn't finished. But I also don't want SH to go away. No buy = no more SH, so the choice, at least for me, is obvious. :salute:

:haha: :har: Your joking right?? I still find SH4 an abboration IMHO. So much so that after having played SH4 for only a month or so after the last patch, I went back to SH3 with GWX and let SH4 collect dust on my shelf.

I mean the list of obvious bugs never got fixed by Ubi (i.e. my main gripe...getting the same patrol assigned over and over and over... ad nauseum.)

But I will pre-order SH5 anyways, only because I want to support the sub-sim genre and Ubi is the only game in town. And I DO recognized the Devs do the best they can given the pressure from the suits.

I keep hoping the next release of the SH franchise will be near major bug free or patch to a near usable state. But again obvious bugs that never get fixed gets old. And Im not picky.... I dont whine about details missing (I could have excused SH4's "Sub on a rail" behavior if the patrols worked for example).

What kills me is when companies like EASports release 3 or 4 versions of a game/sim (Madden football series and Head coach) that are so bug ridden the sales fall of quickly. Then the suits turn around and blame the users for not supporting the franchise and then either cancel the series or just make console versions (Madden 08 was the last of the series for PC... but Madden 10 is on the books now for console only ). I dont want to see that happen to the Silent Hunter series.... but like others have said...I think this is the make or break release for Ubi.

With that said....again I will pre-order. Hopefully if enough of us PRE order the suits in Ubi HQ will wet themselves and tell UBI Romania to take extra special time to make a quality product out of the chute due to the big bank account this game has even before release!!

This would help lower the system specs, while giving us a much higher tech sim.

AND will this support SLI/CROSSFIRE for the same reason above (and widescreen...)