Maybe its a generational thing. WWII is becoming farther and farther away in history and modern submarines don't have the mystique of cold-war warriors they once have. How's a up and coming young gamer community even exposed to the concept of submarine warfare nowadays? Outside of Ubisoft, who else is making anything of quality?

lb

If it's good, probably a whole lot less than Flight Simulator fans pay for addons and peripherals.

if SHO can redeem the fanchise after the SH5 fiasco, its not impossible that SH might see another reboot in years to come.
whether or not that would be 'good thing' depends entirely on Ubi recognising their past mistakes and learning from them. namley not trying to push the wrong genre at the wrong market and loosen up the DRM noose.

And likewise subsimmers who feel they've been burned by Ubi would have to be prepared to wipe the slate clean and give them another chance (abeit with realistic expectations), we are masters of our own destiny in that respect.

Ubis approach with the SH franchise has not been very smart,
3 titles in 5 years (none of which ever reached their full potential at Ubis hands) and now SHO, which is just seems like an attempt to squeeze some cash by recycling a knackered franchise by throwing on it the F2P bandwagon at low cost. If you ask me SHO seems like a marketing experiment on Ubis part.

I really, really believe SH could still do well if it perhaps adopted the railsim model of a progressive sim, start with a basic but solid foundation and build it up with DLC over time. You could even end up with playable destoyers and aircraft eventually.
Even if you think DLC is scandoulsly over priced, i think its sometimes a neccesary evil -and in the case of an open world sim like SH its seems to be the only way to deliver everything to the fans in financially viable way for the publishers.
Getting a near perfect subsim out of the box with all the bells and whistles for a one off payment of $50 is just not going to happen, its pure fantasy in this day and age.
Im sure the perfect subsim is possible with out a huge dependency on modders.... but y'all gotta pay!

I would pay $100 for the perfect subsim maybe even 200 :D

Quality arcade games like WOW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0x-yMXGUSo

Documentaries (and youtube in general):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JP-ytvCRuk

That's not World of Warships. It looks like Battlestations Pacific.

Yes you're right it's Battlestations Pacific. And not WoW. :salute:

I agree with 98% of what you say except the above!:yep:

I agree, WoT is not moddable and look what a success. I play it since two years but have'nt spend one single cent on it yet. If there are advertisements around i practically never noticed any. It's sort of funny but it's possible or even probable that people that don't like it so much will spend more (don't know).

Anyway, modding a single player game is one thing, modding a multiplayer game is another! Assume there are 10 mods available for a multiplayer game: you will have the players distributed into those 10 mods, reducing everyone's chance to get a game!!!

The smaller the number of players, the sharper the consequences (ppl quit playing).

Good to see this getting some discussion. Let me chime in ..

First, I think UBIs simulation branch is a thing of the past. Stupid decisions, bad software quality and support, and also astronomic expecations from the users have killed not only Silent Hunter, but IL2, and LOMAC long before.

Worst of all, while the flightsims have survived somehow, the people that brought us Silent Hunter are scattered into the winds.

But perhaps not all is lost. Flightsims are as strong as ever and live on through dedicated companies like DCS and 777 Studios. There are even new games in development like Battle of Stalingrad. The same with racing sims, there are companies who have specialized in that field as well. This self published model works much better for simulations than the big publisher / small developer relationship that never really exploited the potential.

What we need is only 1 developer who takes up the naval sim field. I think one day we'll see it happen but it could take some years. As to the kickstarter approach, I have not seen anything interesting happen in the simulation field, but it could happen.

Such things simply take time, often a decade until someone sees the opportunity. Old hands will remember that there was a completely bleak period between 1995 and 2005, and how did that change with SH3. There was a similar drought in WW1 combat sims, there was practically nothing decent available for a decade between RB2, and now there is practically too much choice with Rise of Flight, Over Flanders Fields, First Eagles, etc.

That the users tend to have astronomical expectations is a real problem - Remember the original announcement of Battle of Stalingrad where there was a HUGE ****storm about how they went back to 'only IL-2 levels of fidelity' because essentially CLOD fidelity was not financially feasible? Look at DCS - how many modules have been released so far? And still the same Black Sea terrain since 1996.

One great thing with the current crop of WW1 sims is that they are all very different games. RoF focuses on accurate physics and multiplayer, FE is a lite-sim singleplayer game and OFF is the very deep, immersive singleplayer experience.

Personally I would love to have the choice between Silent Service-type lite sim and Silent Hunter-type deep immersion and SHO-style online-focused game.

I agree. Today drones cover the news.

On the other hand, the other day I toke a look at the US budget on submarines for the next years and it looks like they are going spend even more !

Subsims were always a niche of their own to begin with, produced mainly for a small dedicated group of people, less than half the size of flightsim fans.

I honestly think that the Silent Hunters we have now, will be all we have for the foreseeable future. Kickstart campaign though could work. A good example of a successful kickstart campaign started by a community, is getting 3 real truck brands into ETS 2. It's not exactly comparable, but it does show that even smaller community than Subsim can get results with relatively little effort.

There's no telling what a well organized, dedicated and talented community like Subsim would get done with a real concentrated effort.

I agree on that :up:

From may 2012 (DCS: W) release to today (Jul 2013) 6 modules:
ED:
- P-51 Mustang
- Combined Arms
- Flamming Clifft 3
3rd Party:
- Belsimtek: UH-1H
2 previous ED titles integrate on DCS:W:
- Black Shark 2
- A-10C

On Develop (Today) 12 modules:
ED:
- F/A-18C Hornet
- Fw-190D-9
- F-15C
- Su-27S
3rd Party:
- Studio Beczl: Mig-21Bis
- Belsimtek: Mil Mi-8MTv2
- Albatros Team: L-39ZA/ZO.
- Coretex: F/A-18E Super Hornet
- Virtual European Air Operations (VEAO): Hawk
- RAZBAM: T-2 BuckEye
- Mil-Sim Projects: F-104G StarFighter
- Kinney Interactive: F-35A

Planned:
- ED: Future theatres and modules (and continuous update DCS:W)
- Studio Beczl: Mig-23
- Belsimteck: AH-1G Cobra / Mil Mi-24 Hind
- Coretex: F-5 Tiger II.
- VEAO: Eurofighter
- RAZBAM: AV8B Harrier II, F-15E Strike Eagle, A-7 Corsair II
- IRIS: DB-5J Microjet, T-38A Talon, F-15E Strike Eagle, F-14 Tomcat, F-22 Raptor
- Mil-Sim Projects: MB.339, SF.260, AMX, G.91
- Kinney Interactive: F-35B/F-35C/F-4U Corsair/AM6 Zero.

And more planned but indeterminate if make ED or a 3rd Parties:
- F-86F
- Mig-15Bis
- OH-58D
- F-16C
- Mig-29STM
- L-29

Old low fidelity Flamming Clifft planes (F-15C / Su-27S / Mig-29A/S/G / A-10A / Su-25 / Su-33) move to Med-High Fidelity DCS:W level on the future.

Nevada theatre has complete (no the theatre show on A-10C Beta 2, a new build from scratch), but wait to the new EDGE graphic flight / ground / sea simulator engine for release (and making 3rd Parties a SDK to build new theater:
* ED has working on a new indeterminate theater and plan a WW2 europe Theater.
* Kinney Interactive plan a Taiwan / China and a WW2 Pacific Theater.
* Other two teathers are on hold status (Afghanistan / Vladivostok) waiting EDGE release
Future EDGE version plan a whole earth capability.