This time I'll wait......

[Rockin Robbins]

Hooray for TDK! I'll take door #2 as well. We have all sorts of questions to answer before game purchase is in order for me:

• What is the copy protection scheme? Is it a "service" which runs 24 hours a day sucking resources from my computer? Is it something that will use me as a pawn to carry on a personal grudge against another programmer who just happened to catch them in a previous criminal act? Will it interfere with the operation of unrelated aspects of my computer? I won't accept unreasonable copy protection.

• What are the equipment requirements? I don't mean "what does the box say." I mean what does it really need. Others can be the pioneers and collect the arrows this time.

• Wolfpacks? No wolfpacks, no sale. SH5 without wolfpacks will be as realistic as SH4 without water.

• I'm looking for meaningful improvements in gameplay. Sub walkthroughs with natural looking crewmember movements and "interactive" speech don't count. They're eyecandy and earcandy. As such they're nice, but are meaningless to gameplay. I want gameplay first, candy second.

• The trailer's emphasis on surprise attack by forces that should have been easily detected before, with a captain who is touring his boat when he should have been attending to his responsibilities on the surface, plus the absurd artwork depicting the sub surfaced within a hundred meters of exploding merchies and attacking escorts make me wonder about the overall design philosophy of the game. Do we have an arcade game here? Does Ubi understand the buyer of a simulation? Or are they selling to FPS fans only now?

• And of course I want to know how it plays. It's not like I'm not having fun with SH4 and have SH3 as well. Many think SH3 is even more fun than SH4. I'm perfectly happy with the status quo and would consider buying a proven, realistic, smooth-running Silent Hunter 5 in several months.

[Sonarman]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

What is the copy protection scheme? Is it a "service" which runs 24 hours a day sucking resources from my computer? Is it something that will use me as a pawn to carry on a personal grudge against another programmer who just happened to catch them in a previous criminal act? Will it interfere with the operation of unrelated aspects of my computer? I won't accept unreasonable copy protection.

That one seems to be giving Ubisoft some sleepless nights at the moment. Looks like they are working on a new tool lets hope it's not too intrusive.
Though I think Eidos may have hit upon the best piracy prevention of all here let's hope it works for them as it may signal a new dawn for software retail.

[Rockin Robbins]

I believe the ideal copy protection scheme should encourage people to copy the game with reckless abandon, minimizing distribution costs, while requiring them to pay for registration in order to play the game. Keeping the installation disks from being copied only adds to game company expenses.

A little imagination needs to be applied to the copy protection arena. If Jutland came up with something new, Ubi can.

[AVGWarhawk]

Bugs or not.....I'm buying The game is afoot as they say! UBI will deliver a 99.9% completed game! Keeping the faith men!

[TDK1044]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Bugs or not.....I'm buying The game is afoot as they say! UBI will deliver a 99.9% completed game! Keeping the faith men!

I genuinely admire your loyalty and your optimism, AVG, but what makes you think they'll deliver SH5 in a 99.9% state when neither SH3 or SH4 were anywhere near that?

The game is certainly afoot though. May cool heads prevail.

[SteamWake]

LOL ironic thread is ironic.

I'm pretty sure were all going to have to wait...

[Sonarman]

@RockinRobbins
Yes, I like your idea, alternatively make games so cheap no one would bother to pirate them. They diid this in Russia and piracy rates dropped by 78%.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

@RockinRobbins
Yes, I like your idea, alternatively make games so cheap no one would bother to pirate them. They diid this in Russia and piracy rates dropped by 78%.

Lower price, then have add-ons (already in the can, or nearly so, ideally) that similarly cost a little.

I'll likely wait, too, as I have no use for u-boats. I'd be interested in escort duty, though... or maybe RN subs.

[Rockin Robbins]

Regardless of what we get, this is going to be very interesting and entertaining. Hope they blow my socks off and kill all my doubts.

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

@RockinRobbins
Yes, I like your idea, alternatively make games so cheap no one would bother to pirate them. They diid this in Russia and piracy rates dropped by 78%.

My personal attitude is to:

- download the game from some torrents
- install & play it hopeing it works

if it works:
1. if i consider the product worthy:
- the producer gains my respect
- i buy the game no matter the price (below 200$ is ok)

2. if i consider the pruduct BS:
- i uninstall the pirated game.
- no buy.

Even at work I see to much squanded money on crappy software. That's fraud to me.

Best protection to make me buy the game:
- the protection that allows you to go multiplayer over some server (applyed for BF1942, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and others)

I am no longer going to spend (a lot) of money when with the same money i can buy four books witch will enrichen me and maybe my children.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Nexus7

My personal attitude is to:

- download the game from some torrents
- install & play it hopeing it works

BRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! Warning buzzer goes off. I don't think it's proper to suggest that here. Either pay and play or don't pay and don't play. Those are your only two choices unless there's a demo coming out.

Not sure if this warrants ringing up the mods or not. They'll see it I'm sure. I feel merciful tonight.

@mookie That IS pretty disgusting isn't it? At least they got it better for the UBM badge. SH3 box was pretty ok too.

[longam]

MSRP $49.99 USD - why not....

http://pc.ign.com/objects/026/026623.html

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

BRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! Warning buzzer goes off. I don't think it's proper to suggest that here. Either pay and play or don't pay and don't play.
Those are your only two choices unless there's a demo coming out.

What is wrong in testing a product before you buy it ?
At work, I just bought a 50$ software (the company pays), it promises to allow you to split and merge multipage TIFF images.
Problem: The demo allows you to work with multitiff images up to 5 pages, while i work with multitiff images up to 50 pages.

I bought the software (my company paid).
Result: with more than 10 pages, the conversion becomes
1. slow
2. crappy (images get distorted and unusable)

Should I trust the demo again ?? I donnnnnnnnnnn't like to get robbed

Second example -> Dangerous Waters:
The general expectations and excitement got me totally about the improvement of Sub Command into a new level.
At game release i spent my 75$ (current exchange) and bought the sim right away. It's not really about the money you know...

The sim (and this will ring up the DW MOD community for the 100'th time) was very playable with official patch 1.00 witch then evolved to patch 1.04.

Problem: the community was not happy and wanted faster corrections (while the same community was pushing to release the sim as soon as possible). MODders activity started. In a complex simulator like Dangerous Waters, to touch little parameters results in a totally new gaming experience. To keep in touch, I would have had to keep in touch to the fast releasing MOD's updates (lots of changements), maybe 10 changes in onme week.

While I was relatively good with Sub Command and Dangerous Waters patched Officially, I totally lost the feeling to the simulator after it started getting Modified (the majority played with the MOD installed).

Result: I pushed to stay with the official patches -> the developer shut the doors and the sim went dead, YES DEAD.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Not sure if this warrants ringing up the mods or not. They'll see it I'm sure. I feel merciful tonight.

That one about DW is a little an extreme situation i recognize it, as Sonalyst's primary concern is not the gaming industry.
On the other hand, before I buy something, I want to be sure it is not just worth the trashcan.

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by Nexus7

My personal attitude is to:

- download the game from some torrents
- install & play it hopeing it works

if it works:
1. if i consider the product worthy:
- the producer gains my respect
- i buy the game no matter the price (below 200$ is ok)

2. if i consider the pruduct BS:
- i uninstall the pirated game.
- no buy.

Even at work I see to much squanded money on crappy software. That's fraud to me.

Best protection to make me buy the game:
- the protection that allows you to go multiplayer over some server (applyed for BF1942, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and others)

I am no longer going to spend (a lot) of money when with the same money i can buy four books witch will enrichen me and maybe my children.

If you read anything. I would recomend the SubSim rules about this subject. Big No No

[ccruner13]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

That one seems to be giving Ubisoft some sleepless nights at the moment. Looks like they are working on a new tool lets hope it's not too intrusive.
Though I think Eidos may have hit upon the best piracy prevention of all here let's hope it works for them as it may signal a new dawn for software retail.

i dont have exact figures but i know steam does bargain things on a weekly basis and the discounts vary but they reduce prices and that induces buying by people who might overlook it at full price and doing this actually increased profits. enough extra people bought it at the discounted price to offset the loss from the discount. itll be interesting to see what happens with the 'pay what you want' experiment.

for example...

18th August 2009 11:51PM, posted by JWhittaker
I just purchased this with no problems, so it would seem that if they were having trouble with the website, they have it sorted out now. Maybe it just got overloaded with everyone trying to buy it at once. Anyway, £2.51, a great price for any game. I wouldn't normally buy a game like this, but at that price, who wouldn't???