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scalelokt · 04-13-07, 05:43 PM

Lots of good rants, support, opinions, etc. in this thread.

For my two cents:

The Good
1. Graphics are amazing. I'm no graphics whore, gameplay is everything to me. But you have to admit, watching the sub sail by in free cam mode makes for a beautiful sight, and to me it adds a lot of immersion.
2. Crew management is pretty easy. They do their rotation, if I call battlestations they all do what they are supposed to pretty much.
3. Ship models and details are amazing, really lifelike and very immersive
4. Even though there is some occasional slow down, the game runs very smoothly on my machine, which is pretty "middle of the road". I'm impressed with what this game can do on a mid to low end machine, didnt think it was possible.
5. Seems pretty easy to mod so far, thats a HUGE bonus since our mod community is the best of the best.

The Bad
1. Hardly worth saying since its been said a million times already, but the number of bugs is pretty overwhelming
2. Some of the game didnt seem too well thought out. Especially things like damage reports, crew voices, repairs, etc.
3. The graphics options are too few. The Environmental Effects especially is too "all encompassing". You either have transparent water, fog, etc etc or you dont get any of it. My machine runs with the transparent water pretty good, but the fog kills it so I have to do without both. Sounds like 1.2 will address this however.
4. The game in its release state doesnt make Ubi look too good, and honestly in the future I'll be likely to avoid buying games on the release date from them until I've read some reviews to see if the game was finished before it was shipped.

One word on all the bugs in the game. I see a lot of people post saying things like "how could the devs have missed this???" or "the devs must not have tested the game at all".

I'm no expert on the software industry, not even close. But to me it is obvious the Devs didnt have a thing to do with all these bugs. It was Ubi forcing its release before they had a chance to finish. My question is what do we do as the buyer to discourage companies like Ubi doing this?? Hell if I know... You could refuse to buy the game, but that would probably backfire. Sales would be low, they would interpret it as a loss of interest in sim games and just not make anymore, plus they wouldnt use the resources to get the game patched up to standards. You can be optimistic about the bugs being fixed and buy it, but then you encourage this business practice and sit on a game that is all but broken for a few months before its finally patched up. Kind of a catch 22 I guess.

My personal opinion is next time I wont be buying right away like I did this time. I cant encourage companies like Ubi to force the game devs to release an unfinished product. Not only that but you all know what its like to be really excited about a game and then it comes out unfinished like this, its a bit of a let down to be sure. Last point: another reason I feel I have to take some kind of a stand against the business practice of releasing games before they are done is this: I'm a big time believer in PC games (as are most of you obviously). Consoles are cool but PC is my thing. The problem is that PC games can be patched and consoles (unless this has changed without my knowing) cant be. You release a game for XBox and it either works or it doesnt, no fixing it after that. On PC it can always be fixed later so what the hell, release it whenever we want, fix it later. By the time the customers realize its unfinished it will be too late, they will have already bought it. Thats the only real blemish in the PC game industry, I hope someday companies like Ubi decide to stop that kind of practice. But if they get the same money either way I doubt it will change anytime soon.....

04-13-07, 05:43 PM	#423
scalelokt Machinist's Mate Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: 400 meters to your right, calculating your speed Posts: 126 Downloads: 35 Uploads: 0	Lots of good rants, support, opinions, etc. in this thread. For my two cents: The Good 1. Graphics are amazing. I'm no graphics whore, gameplay is everything to me. But you have to admit, watching the sub sail by in free cam mode makes for a beautiful sight, and to me it adds a lot of immersion. 2. Crew management is pretty easy. They do their rotation, if I call battlestations they all do what they are supposed to pretty much. 3. Ship models and details are amazing, really lifelike and very immersive 4. Even though there is some occasional slow down, the game runs very smoothly on my machine, which is pretty "middle of the road". I'm impressed with what this game can do on a mid to low end machine, didnt think it was possible. 5. Seems pretty easy to mod so far, thats a HUGE bonus since our mod community is the best of the best. The Bad 1. Hardly worth saying since its been said a million times already, but the number of bugs is pretty overwhelming 2. Some of the game didnt seem too well thought out. Especially things like damage reports, crew voices, repairs, etc. 3. The graphics options are too few. The Environmental Effects especially is too "all encompassing". You either have transparent water, fog, etc etc or you dont get any of it. My machine runs with the transparent water pretty good, but the fog kills it so I have to do without both. Sounds like 1.2 will address this however. 4. The game in its release state doesnt make Ubi look too good, and honestly in the future I'll be likely to avoid buying games on the release date from them until I've read some reviews to see if the game was finished before it was shipped. One word on all the bugs in the game. I see a lot of people post saying things like "how could the devs have missed this???" or "the devs must not have tested the game at all". I'm no expert on the software industry, not even close. But to me it is obvious the Devs didnt have a thing to do with all these bugs. It was Ubi forcing its release before they had a chance to finish. My question is what do we do as the buyer to discourage companies like Ubi doing this?? Hell if I know... You could refuse to buy the game, but that would probably backfire. Sales would be low, they would interpret it as a loss of interest in sim games and just not make anymore, plus they wouldnt use the resources to get the game patched up to standards. You can be optimistic about the bugs being fixed and buy it, but then you encourage this business practice and sit on a game that is all but broken for a few months before its finally patched up. Kind of a catch 22 I guess. My personal opinion is next time I wont be buying right away like I did this time. I cant encourage companies like Ubi to force the game devs to release an unfinished product. Not only that but you all know what its like to be really excited about a game and then it comes out unfinished like this, its a bit of a let down to be sure. Last point: another reason I feel I have to take some kind of a stand against the business practice of releasing games before they are done is this: I'm a big time believer in PC games (as are most of you obviously). Consoles are cool but PC is my thing. The problem is that PC games can be patched and consoles (unless this has changed without my knowing) cant be. You release a game for XBox and it either works or it doesnt, no fixing it after that. On PC it can always be fixed later so what the hell, release it whenever we want, fix it later. By the time the customers realize its unfinished it will be too late, they will have already bought it. Thats the only real blemish in the PC game industry, I hope someday companies like Ubi decide to stop that kind of practice. But if they get the same money either way I doubt it will change anytime soon.....