The last straw

[TDK1044]

For me, the online DRM issue with Silent Hunter V was the last straw.

For years, I, like many here, have strongly supported the Silent Hunter franchise because Ubisoft was the only Publisher making a sub sim and you don't want to bite the hand that feeds you.

Even though Dan has always put on his PR hat and stated that we (Devs) and Ubisoft are the same thing, I have always disagreed with him regarding that premise. Ubisoft is a publisher based in France, and it has production development studios in various countries, including Romania.

The fact of the matter is that the Romanian Devs are a great group of people who have a very strong work ethic, and who have gone above and beyond for this franchise time after time. Huge thanks for that, Dan.

Ubisoft the Publisher on the other hand is a publisher that was forced to admit publically in 2009 that they were guilty of pushing unfinished games onto the market. They promised to do better.

Let's call it like it is; Ubisoft continued to make the Silent Hunter series for one reason only....because it made money for them. It was certainly not a top earner by any means, but it was profitable.

When Silent Hunter III was released, it had great potential to become a really good sub sim, but is was one hell of a buggy mess when they released it. It needed significant patching in the initial nine months after release to get it to where it should have been on its release date. Then we heard that a Pacific based version of the series was in development. Great we thought. Ubisoft must have learned some lessons from Silent Hunter III. Sure they did. They learned that you can throw unfinished games onto the market and get away with it. And so, along came Silent Hunter IV....a game that has less than 12 months development time. So, for $100 and a shot at the wide screen TV, can anyone guess what happened with Silent Hunter IV? You are correct. It too was a buggy mess and it too required nine months of significant patching.

Once Silent Hunter IV was patched to 1.5, we were told that Silent Hunter V was in development. This would be a brand new game with brand new code, and it would take us back to the Atlantic for the U Boat war. My initial reaction on hearing the news was "please don't let it be released until 2011". If it's released in March of 2010 it will surely be another train wreck requiring significant patching after release.

Over the last couple of days, I've seen German Reviewers of Silent Hunter V complaining that their review copy of the game is full of bugs and glitches, and stating that the game crashes a lot. And these people are supposed to be promoting sales of the game.

Folks, I have supported this franchise since 2005. I've supported the Devs and tolerated an arrogant publisher throwing unfinished games onto the market. But enough is enough. There comes a time when you have to tell the school yard bully that you won't give him your lunch money any more.

The thought of having to spend another nine months patching this game, and having to log onto Ubisoft servers in order to play the game means that this is where I get off. If they ever offer a patch that enables me to play the game without having to rely on a totally unreliable company then I'll buy it, because by that time it will be patched to 1.4 anyway.

This post is not intended to inspire any ranting, but it's high time that Ubisoft was called out. I really hope that the game is successful despite everything I've stated in this post. I just won't be wasting my money on it if I have to use Ubisoft servers in order to play it.

[danlisa]

+1

Short Version:

Dev's have passion and a genuine interest in creating a workable and realistic title.

Ubi come along and fu*k it all up.

[tonyj]

just wondering where it says they were complaining about the number of bugs in the preview copy? certainly when we release a demo copy of our stuff it always contains bugs and small changes to be made. its a fact of development life...

I guess what i'm trying to say is should we really worry about it?

[danlisa]

Originally Posted by tonyj

.....its a fact of development life...

Why is it?

What happened to the radical idea that someone creates something that works 100% out the box? These days nobody cares much for quality assurance and just assumes that the end user will be tolerant enough to see through all the failings and patiently wait for it to be fixed.

But on the flip side, why should developers care? They get their sales and it doesn't matter after the user parts with his/her money.....does it?

Wrong attitude.

[Reece]

Originally Posted by danlisa

+1

Short Version:

Dev's have passion and a genuine interest in creating a workable and realistic title.

Ubi come along and fu*k it all up.

What you have to realize is that the Developers are in fact UBISOFT Romania!!

[tonyj]

i think you misread what i said. for a demo (in other words not 100% dev complete) there will be known bugs and issues that will be fixed before release. that is part of development life.

[danlisa]

Haha, no I didn't.

A Demo is a reduced or limited section of the final release code.

An Alpha or Beta is the buggy bit they release early for review.

Although I do see where you are coming from.

[danlisa]

Originally Posted by Reece

What you have to realize is that the Developers are in fact UBISOFT Romania!!

So it's messed up from source then?

[tonyj]

hold on, lets define some terms here. demo in my line of work is a preview/beta. I referred to it as a demo - very confusing on my part. a true demo, which we get on a cover disk should work, as you say.

we release beta's with known issues and bugs because all the business care about is the useablility, they know that problems will be fixed.

for a preview to a magazine i would say that this is the same. its not an official demo, as we would think of it, on the front of a magazine/available for download, but a version that gives them the gist of what the apps all about.

i guess my long winded point is that the preview copy is a beta, and i would imagine chock full of problems but the core game still works.

[TDK1044]

Originally Posted by tonyj

just wondering where it says they were complaining about the number of bugs in the preview copy? certainly when we release a demo copy of our stuff it always contains bugs and small changes to be made. its a fact of development life...

I guess what i'm trying to say is should we really worry about it?

Here's part of the quote....


'we still have to fight with crashes, control issues, graphic glitches and AI errors in this demo version'.

[tonyj]

cheers, i thought that was the quote, just wasn't sure. by the sounds of this the preview version was a beta and so will have these problems, it doesn't mean that the final version will. its bug squashing and tweaking at this stage, to address things like these.

[Reece]

Originally Posted by danlisa

So it's messed up from source then?

Yes well most developers are an independent company who sells the rights to a publisher, however SH5 is developed "in-house", the devs work for UBI!

[TDK1044]

In a nutshell, I think Ubisoft has been arrogant in its attitude and unprofessional in terms of delivering an acceptable end product.

I never expected perfection. Any game will need a patch or two to fix and tweak a few things. But I don't believe this publisher ever cared about its end users.

[TDK1044]

Originally Posted by tonyj

cheers, i thought that was the quote, just wasn't sure. by the sounds of this the preview version was a beta and so will have these problems, it doesn't mean that the final version will. its bug squashing and tweaking at this stage, to address things like these.

But that's the point, Tony. Because of insufficient development time, these bugs and glitches are not addressed until Ubisoft assigns a patch team after release.

[Hartmann]

Ubi.. people want submarine games , but not at all costs

there is a "crush Deep " limit and shV is near to the fatal line or beyond in my case .