Lets's learn something from SH3....
 

If history teaches us anything, then several things will happen when SH4 is released. There will be much anticipation from people waiting for the game to arrive in the mail, followed by the initial excitement as they install the game and read the user manual for the first time.

Then the fun starts. Once people check out the eye candy and the graphical and gameplay enhancements of SH4, most people will happily play and enjoy the new game, possibly spotting a game flaw here and there, but not really caring about that as the game is still very enjoyable and there will undoubtedly be a patch to fix the relevant flaws at some point anyway.

A few people though will make mountains out of mole hills, pointing out flaws that they have discovered, and dramatically asking why these flaws weren't spotted and corrected.

So, out of respect to Neal and the other Beta Testers, I'd like to point out a couple of things: Number one is that people testing games such as this are not always given the most current version of the game to test, and they can't test what they never had. Number two is that not all of the problems found by the Beta Testers in any game will necessarily be addressed in the initial release of the game. There are other factors in play.

In my opinion, Silent Hunter 4 will be the best WWII sub sim yet seen, and the game will be great to look at and a lot of fun to play. There will undoubtedly be a few bumps here and there, and the modders will make their usual awesome input to the game in the fruition of time.

This Forum has always been the best subsim Forum out there for my money, and one of the reasons for that is that, unlike other similar Forums, we tend to have a 'glass is half full' attitue here. We also have Moderators like Gizzmoe and John Channing who ride the line between spirited, constructive discussion and petulent nonsense very well. Both of them have taken me to task in the past and they were both correct when they did so.

So let's learn from SH3, folks, and give SH4 and the excellent Dev team a fair shake. Let's also be as quick to praise as we are to criticise, because it's so much easier to be negative than positive.

Enjoy the game and don't sweat the small stuff!

:D

excellent post sir. it takes in my question about future modding as well. this is the reason i folllow this forum as most of the time i get a mature read here. again a very good post. bwchaney:o

Hear, hear! :up:

Nice post, I like the refererence to the Moderators, they do a great job and keep things here relatively civilized:up:

I'll take a contrarian view. If the engine is largely unchanged why should we not expect a very high quality product out of the box? I mean the development team has had a lot of time, and a lot of feedback from people like us, they should get it right this time. I, however do not expect them do produce anything like a quality product out of the box, which is why I'll be waiting a long time before purchasing this product.

HB

I fully agree with TDK1044, we should remember that "the eyes of the world are upon us" i.e. many of the reviewers from the gaming press probably come here to look for "inspiration" for their articles, we should not be too damning on any small faults in SH4 and instead offer constructive criticism and praise on the merits of SH4 wherever possible.

I guess all of the bugs and broken features in SH3 would equal Mt. Everest. :shifty:



Well, I think your statement above is a little bit premature. You haven't even played the game yet, but make far out statements like this. Given Ubisoft's track record in the past, a lot of us are not getting our hopes up. We all want SH4 to be a great sim, but I have a feeling it's going to be a big letdown for a lot of players and modders alike... unless they release it so it is easily moddable so us modders can fix the bugs and other broken things. But I seriously doubt it will be much more moddable than SH3, which means a lot of important things will probably be hard-coded, and will be a major headache for modders to try to find work arounds to fix problems. We can pray that they will eventually fix most of the bigger bugs in a few later patches, but of course not everything will be fixed. We all hope for the best, but SH3 was released as a half-finished, buggy piece of $#%$"&, and only the modders saved it from a sure death. SH3 is now the way it should have been released in the first place, thanks to the modders. It's still not perfect, but a lot of us did all we could due to hard-coding restraints. So many important gameplay features and details were left out of SH3 due to too much focus on pretty graphics, I still can't understand what they were thinking. :nope: Anyways, if SH4 is released in the same horrible, half-finished, buggy condition like SH3 was, then you had better believe we will complain. But people here darn well better praise the heck out of SH4 if it really is released with great gameplay, detail, and few bugs.


Umm, we did learn from SH3, that is why a lot of us are skeptical. We all hope SH4 will be the best WW2 sub sim ever released, but don't you think it's a little unwise to blindly praise a game that none of us have even played yet? :shifty:



Lol. Are you serious? I wouldn't call the half-finished and totally buggy release of SH3 'small stuff'. :roll:

I think the best approach is in between fanboy and ranter. Nothing new in that.

Well said. Maybe I should have shortened my post above to say something like that. :D If SH4 is a really great (and finished) sim, it will get the praise it deserves. If it's really buggy and unfinished, it will get the criticism and complaints it deserves. ;)

Hear, hear! Far too many people are making statements regarding the quality of SH4, despite the fact that it isn't even released yet.

Oh, oh, wait a minute. "...have a feeling it's going to be a big letdown..."? "...so us modders can fix the bugs and other broken things."? Wow, have you played the game yet? Because if you haven't, then it appears that you're making some pretty far out statements yourself.

Likewise, don't you think it's a little unwise to blindly criticize a game that none of us have even played yet?

You see, these types of comments go both ways. If you want to praise or criticize SH4 based on how well it compares to SH3, at least wait until it's out and installed on your computer; before then, it's just unfounded guesses. Yet once the game is installed, then make all the positive and negative statements you want about it.

Yep, good graphics make people buy the game, good gameplay makes people keep playing the game.

However, beta testers for some odd reason either miss, or the devs dont fix some of the most obvious issues, you can see examples with games from EA... but as long as they patch it fast it isn't too much of an issue.

Well, what do you expect? I'm just going by Ubisoft's past track record. It's the only thing we have to go on. I think someone proclaiming that the still unreleased SH4 will be the best WW2 sub game ever is a total fanboy. And yes, there will be bugs in SH4, maybe major bugs. But maybe, just maybe the Ubisoft developers turned over a new leaf and will release SH4 almost bug free and totally finished with great gameplay. I really hope so. But I'm betting (not hoping) that SH4 will be released totally buggy and unfinished, because they will have once again focused too much on pretty graphics and not enough on gameplay and details. I really hope I'm wrong.

I agree. Good post!

I agree that SH3 was very buggy at the time of relaese, and it required 4 patches and some serious modding to make it a great game. I'm not making the same assumption relative to SH4 though.

I hope you're right. We need a great WW2 Pacific sub sim with realistic gameplay. Maybe Ubisoft can pull it off. I especially liked the screenshot where the sub was sitting on it's side on the sea floor, and inside the crew were laying on the floor. Too cool. I just hope the gameplay is as good as the screenshots.