NEWS regarding 1.3

[Camaero]

If they don't finish the game, something really should be done. I am quite pissed off now. I knew they would leave us a game that needed to be heavily modded, but I was sure they would at least fix the hard code bugs! Without that, the game is just ruined.

[daft]

This is quite depressing. Ubi actually want us to BEG in order to get a patch. Surely the're is a joke in there somewhere.

[mookiemookie]

If this is true, then I'm really sad to see the end of not just Silent Hunter 4, but the end of the Silent Hunter franchise. And with it, the end of sub sims in general. It looks like our hobby is breathing it's last breaths. And no amount of lawsuits are going to save it...they'll only hasten its death

[melin71]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

If this is true, then I'm really sad to see the end of not just Silent Hunter 4, but the end of the Silent Hunter franchise. And with it, the end of sub sims in general. It looks like our hobby is breathing it's last breaths. And no amount of lawsuits are going to save it...they'll only hasten its death

i think you have wrong. I do think that some day a other subsim game will come. and hoppfully from a other company.there will allways be subgames out there so long people play them. sure..it may take a while before next one show up. but im dead sure it will come.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by melin71

i think you have wrong. I do think that some day a other subsim game will come. and hoppfully from a other company.there will allways be subgames out there so long people play them. sure..it may take a while before next one show up. but im dead sure it will come.

I hope you're right, my friend!

[RedHammer]

Originally Posted by MONOLITH

EDIT: What we as a community should do, is send our next $49 directly to the devs, to give us a downloadable game, and bypass UBI all together. And it could be done. Do you hear me Subsim? Do you hear me Romania? That should be our next petition.

I hear you Problem is, I read SSI (The makers of SH series.) Were bought up by Ubisoft, hence, sending money to SSI, is either illegall, or ubisoft will give us the same walk again im afraid. But a good thought indeed

Other then that, regardless, I gave my vote, I don`t know whether or not "IT"`s true or fake. So I will save my opinion until the facts has been revealed.

[TopCat]

I think that's definitely the end of the series. If they stop support now they will hardly be able to sell a sh5. At least I won't buy it and many users of this forum won't either.

So either Ubisoft has a terrible management or they already know they won't continue sh, because without removing at least the worst bugs they do a lot of harm to their reputation ...

[minsc_tdp]

Ubi,

The last issue of GameInformer had a great comment by the Editor in Chief regarding the importance of developer reputation in this business. Regarding COD4, he said "Take this month's cover story. Another COD from anyone other than Infinity Ward simply wouldn't have made it on our cover."

Think about that. COD is such a huge, huge series, yet they wouldn't have even bothered with a cover article if the right developer wasn't used.

Not only are you tanking the reputation of your Romanian development studio, it is obviously hurting UBIs reputation by extension. Gamers have long memories, and we avoid titles coming from the disreputable publishers and development studios.

The small sim market, the smart mod community, and a disconnect with what creating quality games means has put this game in your rear-view mirror. You're itching to move on to the next project and just don't want to spend money on "enhancements" to satisfy the endlessly unhappy community. Therein lies the problem. When you discuss this amongst yourselves, you should not be thinking of patches as add-on content to a released title. You need to take a serious look at the title and decide how finished it really is. I'd say 75% is a pretty close approximation. We all know sub simmers can mod until the end of time and are never satisfied. But that's not the issue here, we are not begging for petty patches to fix minor historical accuracy details or grammar mistakes. The game isn't finished, and nowhere near being the fully QA'd, polished, quality UBI product it should be. When basic functions like the chrono and TDC are so broken, enemy AI is a total joke and DDs can be sunk with the deck gun from 500 meters without firing back, many things are seriously wrong.

The moment you chose to release this title to the public, you committed to producing a quality product, at the risk of ruining your reputation if you fail. A small market, a smart mod community, and the PC platform are not excuses to release trash and hope it passes as an acceptable game. Do not think the sub sim community are aging gamers in a bubble that have no influence on other gamers, and buy no other types of games. I'm a perfect example myself - I spend thousands of dollars a year on games, I'm 31, yet I have a passion for sub sims. Yet I primarily play FPS, RTS, and everything else under the sun - your bread and butter - and this debacle has greatly influenced my desire to contribute any more bread and butter to your already very fat plate.

Some historical perspective is always useful. When WW2Online ran into a serious budget crisis, they were forced to release the game at around 60% complete. This was probably the most incomplete, buggy title in the history of gaming. There were two important differences in that situation.

First, they admitted openly the situation to everyone, acknowledging the game wasn't finished and explaining that it was either this or nothing. This was, in fact, a big part of the reason I bought that game when it came out. They were honest, so I thought I'd help out. This is not remotely the situation with SH4 - you are representing this as a finished product when it is not.

When the WW2Online folks realized their only option was to release an unfinished product, the only reason it was feasible was because the PC platform made patching possible (unlike the consoles of the era). The second difference between SH4 and WW2Online was that they actually leveraged the PC platform and patches, saw the project through to 100% and finished the product.

The mindset that you can release unfinished trash, say "we can always patch it", and then not patch it is ruining the PC game business and pushing the world toward consoles. Ubi, you've done console games, perhaps that should be a benchmark of the quality of this title. How do you think this would fare in its current state on the XBox360, especially if there were no way to patch it? Would it have been released at all? Would you even have committed to this title knowing what you know now - that you were unwilling to see your commitment through to the end?

Please finish the game. Your reputation as a publisher, your development studios reputation, PC gaming in general, the dying breed of sub sims, and the enjoyment of all of your players is riding on it.

[rls669]

Great post. After all the "we'll take whatever we can get because Ubi is the only game in town" pre-release fanboyism, it's nice to see people wanting Ubi to be held accountable.

[vindex]

I was just speechless after reading the initial post ... just speechless.

I am completely ready to hoist the Jolly Roger on this. Who's with me???

(Note: by "hosting the Jolly Roger" I do NOT mean using a pirated product. I mean going into open and defiant rebellion against this unacceptable outcome -- in a way that HURTS Ubi's bottom line if they really do abandon this product).

[Wolfar]

I have been away for some time. Just broke down and picked up SH IV yesterday.

They never patched SH III completly and dumped any further patches for SH IV. We ran petitions and such back then. We got no response what so ever then so why is everyone surprised now?

[vindex]

Because there we no consequences. There need to be consequences.

RTR (Rome Total Realism) and GWX proved that communities can MAKE a game. If Ubi tries to get away with this, we need to prove that they can also BREAK a game, and a publisher.

[akdavis]

Well, I'm about to walk away from this one. It is quite clear that even if another patch comes, time will not be dedicated to fixing the AI and there never be any new features added to the game. Can't believe I bought two copies. I had a lot of hope for this one.

[Steel_Tomb]

I think its sad that a company the size of Ubisoft can not understand the simple methods of getting customers and keeping them. There was a time where games came out, and were patched until a vast majority of bugs were eradicated. Unfortunately the growth of the games industry has led to the major publishers like EA and UBI to do the "patch on release day and make them put up with CTD's for a month", then they have the audasity to announce an expasion (think BF2 series, they were releasing Special Forces without fixing some of the major bugs in vanilla BF2). The only UBI game I've got my eye on is GR:AW2, mainly because from all the contact from GRiN it looks like its going to be a corker of a game (although I will hold off buying it until I've seen what my m8s have to say).

SHIV is currently on the shelf collecting dust, and will stay there until v1.3 or perhaps even v1.4 (which I'm doubtful will happen). Shame...the SH series has been a great success, UBI are fools to think that the customer will put up with this crap. I'm off to the atlantic, ALLLAAARRMMM!!!

[U-Bones]

There is a time to strike, and a time for quietly breaking off the engagement.

It is neither at the moment. It is time to improve and establish your position, but calmly and without threat or premature noise.

Once (and if) you get a posititve ID of an enemy, -then- do what you must.

Until UBI states there WILL be NO patch, you do not have the neccessary ID, so keep your scope low and outer doors closed for the moment.

All the legal threat posts are premature noise.

All the walkaway posts are pre-id breakoffs.
Be more agressive ! (By all means voice displeasure in any available venue)

Just my take.