[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by B_O_L_T

All the negativity and ignorance on f2p is a sad indictment of this community; it is the largest growing sector of the gaming market along with the increase in games for portable devices.

I have to disagree. I don't think it reflects badly on this community at all. For the most part the Subsim community are just that - people who want a decent submarine simulator. We disagree on what that is, but we pretty much agree on what we don't want, which is a pretty game that tries to be everything to everybody. That F2P is the "largest growing sector of the gaming market" reflects not on simulation buffs, but on the kids who don't want to think about simulations or history, or to think at all, but just want to blow stuff up and be dazzled by pretty pictures.

I have also actively played a number of free to play titles and invested money in those I found interesting, and realise the value and exposure these sorts of titles bring to the table.

There is nothing wrong with that, just as there is nothing wrong with any kind of gaming. A great many members here play a great many different types of games. A testimonial to that is the General Games forum. Part of the problem is that some of us just want a good simulation. First, F2P doesn't seem to lend itself to that, and second, as has been pointed out, Ubisoft has a steadily declining reputation where the subsim is concerned. I'm looking forward to having a computer that will play Rise Of Flight, but single in-the-cockpit flight sims lend themselves well to multiplayer, whereas being the captain of a submarine does not.

As I said in another thread, every sub simmer should be hoping SHO does well; without games like SHO increasing exposure of the genre to new generations of gamers, no developer will be willing to invest time or money into more serious titles.

I am hoping it does well. That doesn't mean what they are offering holds any attraction for me. As I said, I will give it a shot, but their chances of getting any money from me are nil.

For good and bad, UBI has been the only developer willing to invest and take a risk on the genre for a very long time. Without continued interest, the efforts of communities like subsim will be for naught, and the genre could well disappear altogether.

That's the problem: It has been increasingly "for bad". Ubi tries, insisting on what they think we want, but not listening when we tell them what we want and what we don't want, and then when it fails they blame us or they blame "the market". We'll see how it goes this time.

Even if you have no interest in SHO at all; if you have any interest in the continued presence of sub sims in the market the last thing you should be doing is posting negative comments about the game. As they used to say, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all; and it happens to be sound advice.

Not in this case. The whole purpose of a forum is for people to say what they think. Ubi didn't listen to us before; what makes you think they care what we think now.

I puchased SH3 before I had a computer that would run it. When SH4 was released some said they would wait and read the reviews before they would give Ubi their money. I bought it sight unseen (I was homeless at the time and couldn't play anything at all) and said "We owe it to the community to support subsims." When SH5 came out I said the same thing, but when they announced the "online only" DRM scheme I refused to give them my money until I could play it offline. Otherwise I would have supported it sight unseen, just like before.

Now I've finally joined the naysayers. Ubisoft gets nothing from me until they prove themselves. This doesn't reflect badly on me, or on the community. It reflects badly on a company that has steadfastly refused to listen to what this community says, and continuously blames us for their failures. As for SHO? We'll see.