I do solemnly swear ...

[Friedl9te]

I do solemnly swear that never ever again in the rest of my live I will buy a game developed by UBI unless they give the community the SDK and the source code for SHIII.

I bet if every SH user will send a message like this to UBI and act so, they would start to seriously rethink this issue.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Friedl9te

I bet if every SH user will send a message like this to UBI and act so, they would start to seriously rethink this issue.

I doubt it.

[Venatore]

Yep, I agree with Dowly, because UBISOFT know what we say and what we do are two different things.

[Koondawg]

I bet if every SH user will send a message like this to UBI and act so, they would start to seriously rethink this issue.

[dcb]

Several issues here:

1. I don't know how many game developing companies actually release the SDK, but I'd bet not that many.

2. As experienced modders already said in the "release the SDK" sticky thread, the modding community is now at a point where the said SDK wouldn't have such a big impact. Contrarily to popular belief, a SDK isn't the holy grail of modding, but only a collection of tools and procedures about how to easily change and fix certain things in the game. And there already are at least two forms of publicly-available quasi SDKs developed by modders, plus the private tools made by the GWX team.
Instead of the SDK, what would be needed now is the source code - which no company will make available. Even the old games of the '90s did not see their source code released on the net.

3. What if, in return to a widespread "I will never buy a game developed by UBI"-attitude among subsimmers, UBI answers with "Then we'll never again develop a subsim, because we've run out of potential customers"?

Not a constructive stance, IMO.

[Jimbuna]

I doubt it also.

I think in modding terms, without the release of the SDK we can safely say we have become victims of our own success.

[Woof1701]

Originally Posted by dcb

Several issues here:

1. I don't know how many game developing companies actually release the SDK, but I'd bet not that many.

2. As experienced modders already said in the "release the SDK" sticky thread, the modding community is now at a point where the said SDK wouldn't have such a big impact. Contrarily to popular belief, a SDK isn't the holy grail of modding, but only a collection of tools and procedures about how to easily change and fix certain things in the game. And there already are at least two forms of publicly-available quasi SDKs developed by modders, plus the private tools made by the GWX team.
Instead of the SDK, what would be needed now is the source code - which no company will make available. Even the old games of the '90s did not see their source code released on the net.

3. What if, in return to a widespread "I will never buy a game developed by UBI"-attitude among subsimmers, UBI answers with "Then we'll never again develop a subsim, because we've run out of potential customers"?

Not a constructive stance, IMO.

Excactly. And face it: no matter whether it's UBI, EA, MS or any other software developer. They all have the same time and money constraints in development and want to simply maximize the money they make with it. And at the moment it's cheaper to make a half finished product that's bought by less people than the other way round. AND in addition a product like SH3 that was unfinished has - due to this modding community - a longer life than most "finished" products. SH3 is approaching 3 years of age next spring. That's ancient for a computer game. I guess SH3 will still be around if and when SH5 is released

[Friedl9te]

Nobody would ever had seriously thought, that the iron curtain in Europe and the wall in Germany will fall before the End of the last century.

Everything is possible, when enough people believe that it can be achieved one day.

UBI did not create a SubSim because they love us so much, but they did it because their analysts calculated good returns.
And as this was proved with SHIII they gave us, with a minimum of efforts, SH4, to make again good returns.

I dont care if we need the original tools or if the communities tools are good enough for a redesign of SH. Thats not the issue.

I dont care how many game publishers gave the sourcecode to the community.
Why not create an example to the best of both parties.

Look at the success of linux !

And lets keep the discussion boiling, at least at small flame.

Sometimes I feel like one who shouts in the sahara.

Ah, the days of Modding Quake!!!
They released the Quake Source and it was Grand!!!
We couldn't change the Game engine, but DLLs?
Yes Sir!!!
You wanted a boomarage throwing hatchet?
Write it up in Quake C and you had it!!!
Want a nice little device to toss into the water to
electrocute anyone hideing there?
Quake C!
Not to mention
The Throwing Halibut,
Laser Trip wires,
Sticky Mines,
Grappleing Hooks to reach those hidey spots!
Sigh.

LOL

[CCIP]

As much as I would like an SDK, I ask only one thing:

Why do you think they owe it to us?

Seriously, for an $50 commercial product, do you really believe that they find themselves obliged to provide you with their proprietary development technology, which they might just want to keep for further commercial development?

Asking them nicely, petitioning them and showing ourselves as the modders as the source of support for the game is a good thing to do and should be done. Threatening them and waving our little $50 receipt in front of them, while potentially taking away work from Devs which - whether you like it or not - made this game and continue making commercial naval sims to this day, assuring us future-proof basis for further modding like this... well, I'm sorry, but call this childish and pathetic.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

To be honest... for a great many people, releasing an SDK for SH3 now would likely cause a great deal of problems.

Modders have fixed a whole PILE of stuff... and using an SDK could potentially... and quietly, reintroduce many problems.

Had it come earlier... it might have been great. If it came today... it would likely result in "mod-soup" and all sorts of unforseen madness.

Its definitely one of those "be careful what you wish for" thingies.

[CCIP]

Good point Kpt

In that case I'd also point out that it'd make more sense to release an SDK for SH4 more than anything, which might just make it easier to fix it and port the better parts of SH3 to it wholesale. But again, that's not likely to happen - the engine (which is the same engine as SH3, just with new additions) is used by Ubisoft in continued commercial development. By the way, it's been used for other Ubi games before as well and it's not unlikely that it will be used as such in the future.

The only way the community will ever be 100% entitled to code development is when open-source sims finally make a real showing. And that, in my estimation, is still years away.

@CCIP

I agree.
UBI owes us nothing.
I own my own business and if some one asked for my tools so they
could do thier job themselves?
I'd have to take a day off because my ribs were hurting so bad from
laughing at them just after I said no!!!

The Dev's do thier jobs.
Just like anyone who works for another,
They must do what they are told.
What they are allowed to do comes from above I'm pretty sure.
I doubt any one of them wants to leave things alone.
Programmers are just that way!
"It can always be better if I have just a few more days!!!"

Perhaps, when they move to a new game engine?
It would be nice but by then?
Meh

[CCIP]

Well, it's Ubi's (i.e. the higher management, the guys in France presumably) decision really. The guys at Ubisoft Romania are just hired workers, and they don't own neither the game, nor the engine, nor the tools that both were made with.

By the time the game is out of date I doubt the greater Ubi will bother. In fact from their point of view, SHIII's commercial lifetime has long passed.

Really, I think we should just do our best with what's available.
Meanwhile if someone wants the tools or the engine, they can probably buy/license it or a similar product. Noone's stopping anyone there. But not for $50. Add three zeroes to the end, and then you'd stand a better chance perhaps.

Again, I'd love the game to have a more open structure. But it's apparent that it was never designed with one in mind, and changing it at this point down the road is really, really unlikely. Let's not use that as an excuse to stifle commercial subsim development however, we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot.


Look on the bright side - GWX 2.0 is almost out. Sure they didn't have an SDK, but have you even dreamed of something of this magnitude 2.5 years ago when SHIII went on the market?

[Wolfehunter]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Well, it's Ubi's (i.e. the higher management, the guys in France presumably) decision really. The guys at Ubisoft Romania are just hired workers, and they don't own neither the game, nor the engine, nor the tools that both were made with.

By the time the game is out of date I doubt the greater Ubi will bother. In fact from their point of view, SHIII's commercial lifetime has long passed.

Really, I think we should just do our best with what's available.
Meanwhile if someone wants the tools or the engine, they can probably buy/license it or a similar product. Noone's stopping anyone there. But not for $50. Add three zeroes to the end, and then you'd stand a better chance perhaps.

Again, I'd love the game to have a more open structure. But it's apparent that it was never designed with one in mind, and changing it at this point down the road is really, really unlikely. Let's not use that as an excuse to stifle commercial subsim development however, we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot.


Look on the bright side - GWX 2.0 is almost out. Sure they didn't have an SDK, but have you even dreamed of something of this magnitude 2.5 years ago when SHIII went on the market?

CCIP you speak the truth. But should we ever get the SDK tool kit there is alot we still can do.