Should the devs be blamed ?

The subsim members who met the devs were told of the excellent SH5 in development. Surely that version of SH5 must still be in development because the monkey UBI released last week is, well, anything but.

Should we now conclude that the integrity of the devs has been compromised ? If not then perhaps the devs would like to present their case here in this topic ?

As a life long developer myself (no pun intended) I sympathise greatly with the often illogical demands placed on developers by management. But I find it increasingly difficult to defend them based on their pro-SH5 postings to date.

So devs, please feel free to explain to this small floppy community why you should not have a slice of blame for this distasterous iteration of the sinking SH series ? Please help us to maintain subsims unequivical support of you and your work.

Thanks

[TDK1044]

I think Ubisoft the Publisher made a decision to change the demographic that the game would be targeted at. The Devs are employed by Ubisoft and they have to do as they are told.

Also, In their defence, I think the game is only as modable as it is because the Devs knew that subsimmers would need an increased level of modability in order to make the game playable as a sim.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by TDK1044

I think Ubisoft the Publisher made a decision to change the demographic that the game would be targeted at. The Devs are employed by Ubisoft and they have to do as they are told.

Spot on. If blame there is, it must be layed on Ubisofts feet.
Have at look at what happened to the top 2 executives of Infinity Ward for disagreeing against the wishes of their publisher Activision (and this is after they developed the most succesful episode of MW ever, 2-3 billion $ for Activision).

Also, In their defence, I think the game is only as modable as it is because the Devs knew that subsimmers would need an increased level of modability in order to make the game playable as a sim.

Yeah, at least they gave the community an exit to mod the game. Not that this should be an excuse, but at least its better than having everything taken away from players control such as in the MW2 case.

[malkuth74]

You got to connect the dots... Yeah maybe UBI rushed them a little bit.. And thats why we have this.

But the fact that simple things Like the PDF manual have no useful information in the game at all... A PDF manual.. You use PDF manual to save money and to make it a bigger more information packed manual... But not in this case.

In game information NONE. You don't know whats going on, you don't know when they switch you base around. You don't know when you get medals, you don't know when your crew gets upgrade points. You don't know anytghing.

And the lack of response from them tells me that they might either be ashamed of this fact... Or hopefully hard at work trying to fix it.

Some of you already know my opinion about this matter, so I won't state it again, especially considering that I've decided not to fire direct and specific poisoned arrows against them anymore, even if they fully deserve that.

[cherbert]

Originally Posted by malkuth74

And the lack of response from them tells me that they might either be ashamed of this fact... Or hopefully hard at work trying to fix it.

They have responded.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...1&postcount=20

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Uber Gruber

The subsim members who met the devs were told of the excellent SH5 in development. Surely that version of SH5 must still be in development because the monkey UBI released last week is, well, anything but.

Should we now conclude that the integrity of the devs has been compromised ? If not then perhaps the devs would like to present their case here in this topic ?

As a life long developer myself (no pun intended) I sympathise greatly with the often illogical demands placed on developers by management. But I find it increasingly difficult to defend them based on their pro-SH5 postings to date.

So devs, please feel free to explain to this small floppy community why you should not have a slice of blame for this distasterous iteration of the sinking SH series ? Please help us to maintain subsims unequivical support of you and your work.

Thanks

Sorry, man, but you loaded your post with a lot of assumptions and misleading statements. First, you are wrong about The subsim members who met the devs were told of the excellent SH5 in development. No, we were not told of the excellent development, we were shown a demo. There were no proclamations of "excellent development", that is your phrase, and you weren't there.

Next, you have a lovely "When did you stop beating your wife?" bit about their integrity. Please, man, what's wrong with you? Integrity? Are these guys attorneys or accounting auditors? That's completely out of line. Now they must respond or their integrity is in question?

Look, maybe you are umaware but the dev team for SH (as many other industry dev teams) are not supposed to jump on every forum and reply to every critic. Maybe you want to post this type of question on the corporate forum.

Neal

[Onkel Neal]

I'm opening this thread back up in case you want to reply, call me an appeaser, etc.

[Jeevz]

It looks to me like their ambitions were more than a little outside their deadline or budget or both. Do I blame them for trying to make an innovative new iteration in the SH series? No, I'm happy some developer is out there still making sub sims and at least trying to go bigger and better with each new entry, however, I do wish that they had spent some of the available time/budget in different areas. I also can't understand how the morale bug didn't get fixed in the 0 day patch, that's got to be the most game breaking bug in SH5 right now.

The previous games got a pretty good number of patches (more than most on the market these days) so I'm hopeful that most of the major problems will get solved and I'm sure the community will make alterations and mods that turn it into a completely new game just like the last 2.

[TDK1044]

The history of the Silent Hunter franchise has taught me that buying a game in the Silent Hunter series is actually an investment. If you pay your $49 up front prior to the release of the game, then you must realize that you won't see a pay off for at least 6 to 12 months.

People are always pulled in by the allure of the new game, screenshots, videos etc. Been there, done that. This time I wised up.

I'll wait for this buggy arcade game to be fully patched and heavily modded.

[jdkbph]

I'm not one to defend publishers or developers (I'm an IT change, release and configuration manager... and if you know what that is you can probably guess what my opinion of a typical application developer might be ), but as I said in another thread, what we're looking at here is the result of prioritizing against a deadline. For all we know, the devs were working right up until the 11th hour squashing crash bugs and the like... things that would have rendered the game literally unplayable (as opposed to the complaints I've read here that have been so characterized). What's left was probably categorized as manageable "post deployment".

I've also mentioned here before that, IMHO, we - the type of sub sim enthusiasts that hang out in forums like this and discuss things like conning tower railing placement and contour - obviously are not the target audience for this game. A strategic decision made far above the level of the developers, I'm sure.

Once we're willing to accept that, I think it will be a lot easier for us to swallow some of the "questionable" design decisions that were made here and move on.

As someone pointed out up-thread, I think we should be at least somewhat grateful that UBI left us an out... the ability to mod the game. They did NOT have to do that. The ability to mod a game is not a given, or some kind of right.

Anyone who has played Oblivion or Fallout 3, and enjoyed the mods avalable for those games, was probably very disappointed, like I was, to find that Mass Effect 1 and 2 were not at all mod-able.

Another example of a game system that would benefit greatly through modding is Distant Guns and Jutland. However, the developer/publisher of those games, through either greed, ignorance or obstinancy (I suspect all three) chose to take active measures to prevent this.

That could very well have happened here, with SH5, as well. I'm sure the suits at UBI must have realized that at least some of what will be modded into SH5 (as with previous iterations in the series) could be easily produced in house, then bundled and sold through their U-Pay system. It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that they had to be talked out of it. Now who could have done that, and why?

All speculation, sure, but I think it's far more likely than the alternative some of us tend to jump to directly - that the devs are evil, stupid or incompetent.

For myself, I would be all over this game - warts, arcade elements and all - if it weren't for the DRM. Now THAT is evil and stupid!

JD

[BigBANGtheory]

I think the devs should look at how Egosoft handle these types of issues, basically involving and communicating effectively with their community.

They should also learn for GSC on how not to do it, which is basically release a patch without notice and leaving its community wondering where they stand and what they can expect.

[AVGWarhawk]

In the days of nintendo, every game worked.

I understand what you are saying Bishop. However, Donkey Kong is a bit different then what we are playing these days. That does not make it any better though. Take a deep breath. You seem very hot under the collar. You keep harping on SH4 multiplay. IMO multiply in SH series is drab at best. I played it a few times. It turned into craziness. Mutliplay for me is flight sims and Call of Duty. Submarines? Not so much.

[gamingdave]

The Devs really didnt promise what some people here think they did.

If the devs produced the game some people want, it would have only sold a handful of copies.

Despite what a lot of you may think, a lot of the things that make it an accurate sim, also make it a dull "game". Ubisoft make games, they have to be fun, and like it or not, they have to appeal to more than a very small group of people. One of the most succesfull franchises of all time, Gran Turismo, claims to be "The Real Driving Simulator". Clearly it is not though, if it was nearly every player would get in their F50, and spin off on the first corner. It has its routes in simulation, but has to bend things a bit to make them fun.

I have to admit, as much as I love the SH series, I have always been a fairweather player, always playing on easier rather than harder settings. What I love is that there is the posibility to do this still. Sure the interface has changed quite dramaticly, but for the vast majority of people who will buy and play SHV (who will never ever come to this site) it has improved for the better, giving them a better gameplay experience.

The devs will have known full well about the hardcore over here, and have built the game so it can be modded. In only a couple of days we already have most of the SH4 interface back in!

As shocking as it may seem to some people, the average long time (high post count) member here ISNT the target audience as far as Ubisoft is concerned. You should be very thankfull that whilst the publisher moves the game in one direction, the developers make it so easy for the very small, but very passionate few, to have the game they want. Therefore to knock the actuall devs is IMO disgracefull, if it wasnt for them, you would have a SHV that was a lot harder to turn into a "full" sim.

Of course bugs are a problem, but they will be fixed, or at least reduced over time. But that is down to the publishers say not the devs. Obviously, the DRM has nothing at all to do with the devs.

[AVGWarhawk]

I have not played COD online in a while. I actually played with two retired gentlemen and one women who was the wife of the retires. Anyone else who wanted to join in. But that is neither here nor there. I do not have hours to sit and play sub games online. I enjoy single player. However, look at this way. Find another sub game you can play at all let alone multiplayer that you like? I think you have SH1 or something like that? So far your only gripe would be mutiplayer. I would venture to guess the demand to fix multiplayer is not out there. At any rate, if you are playing online many hours, what game are you playing? SH4?