So is this it!
 

Hi,

New here so a big HELLO to all. I have been playing silent hunter since the old days. It is great game. However, is this really where UBIsoft are going with it!

I am sure that as online game it will be fun. But, i am guessing that most of us play that game because we enjoy simulation. It does seem to me that when UBIsoft get there hands on games there focus is on the bottom line. Where the bottom line would come when they offer the customer what they really want.

Rant over! LOL - But is this the end of the Silent Hunter Series as we know it?

I don't understand who this game's market is. It's too hardcore for a casual player and too casual for a hardcore player.

It's like Ubi hates money.

Yep. Microsoft Flight had the same problem.

An online option of the Silent Hunter series wouldn't be that bad if only it wasn't a browser game...kind of like a slap in the face if you ask me.:doh:

Browser or not, it doesn't really matters.

They already killed the series with SH5, now they just want to put the final nail to the coffin.

Thank you, Ubi.

It's not only Ubi, it's all over the place (I mean in the gaming market).
The producers want to earn more and more money and in the same time, invest less and less.

Why bother producing games that would please a little comunity of hardcore players when we can achieve bigger sales with the casual gamers ?

Gaming is dying.

I think they started killing it with SH4. When the suits showed us that they are just interested in the money they can make by releasing an unfinished game and then stopped patching. The add-on we thought will fix the issues was just another money-making trick of them. I might be willing to say they did a better job with SH5...

SHV I think was a victim of poor project planning, the decision to completely overhaul the interface was the first major error. Imposing a linear path RPG elements in a supposedly dynamic game the second. Then either the project ran out of time to develop the full war timescale or they planned an addon which never materialised. The final nail in the coffin was of course the horrible always on DRM system which should never have been imposed on what is essentially a single player offline experience.

SHO also seems ill conceived but at least it is an evolution and it certainly is something that has not been done before, in gameplay terms it reminds me more of the ancient Novalogic "Wolfpack" title than any SH game. I am prepared to give it a chance. For a supposedly dead niche genre Ubi seem intent on making another attempt when most of us had completely given up hope of seeing anything from them again. I just wish they would ask what their community want before starting work rather than when the project is virtually complete.

Gotta disagree partially that it's all about the bottom line, sure Ubi is a business and they have to make money but why in the name of hell would they sink their money into something as niche and risky as a subsim supposedly is? It's not that they hate their customers it's that they think they know best and do not listen enough to their own communities. What they need is a brand manager/consultant from the community (someone like Neal) who can play an important part in each stage of the development process, shaping their products based upon the majority of community's wishes.

Frankly, we heard phrases like "hardcore players would notice that!" or "doing X that way, would upset the community" quite often during the development of SHO. I guess it's safe to say that people here are very much aware about what is wanted by whom.

However, pleasing everybody is hard. Especially people who face a browser game for the first time after having played "ordinary" SH titles for years and having according expectations. Why don't you give it a try, accept it as it is and try it out unbiased? Nobody claims that it's a full-scale successor of an existing title - being a browser game, it certainly has limitations but also offers a whole lot of fancy new stuff that's worth checking out!

Yesterday I saw a beta tester stating that he "played it again for five hours in a row" and that it's "potentially addictive".
Apparently we did _something_ right then ;)

Hi Dau & Welcome aboard!

I am ready to give the game a try as I indicated above. To me the new direction is interesting and somewhat unique, I think the main problem the game currently faces here is that most players expect a Silent Hunter title to be a first person "you are there" kind of experience whereas SHO is really functioning at a more detached higher level of command, not necessarily a bad thing, just a different experience, a "bit of a shock to the system". But to quote Captain Ramius from the Hunt for Red October "A little revolution once in a while is a good thing... don't you think?"

Bluebyte has a great track record as far as strategy titles go and I certainly hope that the game will be a success for you and in turn encourage Ubi to develop SHO further, hopefully adding playable surface units from the allied side at some point along perhaps with a more traditional first person simulation Silent Hunter Experience as a parallel development.

Thats called "TurboCapitalism"

Regards

Maddy

Much to casual :wah:

You don't have to play it.

No, gaming is a more lucrative industry than ever. It's simulations that appear to be on life support. And the problem that UBI ran into with SH5 was that the product didn't appeal to either the hardcore fan nor the casual gamer that generally does not have an interest in naval warfare. Slap on that the ridiculous DRM and there is hardly a reason to wonder why it was a failure.

It was true what was said about the Silent Hunter series in that the end began with SH4. Once the business end started getting heavy handed with the devolpment end, the vision that the dev team had for their series stood no chance. SHO is simply the end product.