Should the devs be blamed ?

[AVGWarhawk]

Thanks for opening it back up but am at a loss as to why you closed it, or indeed what it is you want me to reply to. Perhaps you could send me a PM ?

Cheers, UG

Neal shut it because of another member. Not what you were doing. Member subsequently excommunicated from SS. Thread reopened. Carry on!

[Threesixtyci]

Originally Posted by jdkbph

Tell me.... what other entertainment products have you seen go through such a dramtic transformation (mostly positive) while holding the same price point for 30 years?

Well, how many games *sold* 30 years ago compared to today? And what percentage of them want 100% realism in their games compared to 20 years ago? Need to also factor in that gaming companies want to attract the largest of that percentage. Which ends up catering to the mainstream audience.

Which is not going to be *us*; hardcore gamers who prefer realistic gameplay rather than being given a barrel full of fish to shoot with a shotgun.

Originally Posted by elanaiba

2) Please stop trying to create a war / antagonism between modders and devs, we need each other.

With the small exception that modders don't get paid, and have to *pay* for their game just like everyone else. Regardless seem very odd to me that a dev know what the hardcore crowd wants, but won't add the mod/features, themselves.

I mean, why not just add it in via a difficulty toggles or something? Or at the very least, add in your own module support, such as that indi game, Mount and Blades did, and what Bethesda does with their games, since Morrowind.

Not to mention this DRM thing that was added, which pretty much goes against everything a modder believes in. Ehem, Need each other? Sorry, but it feels like something else to me.

[Onkel Neal]

I've heard a lot of fellows in life say "We were only doing what we were ordered to do." - unfortunately with mostly dire consequences. I suppose it depends on how you view your contribution to life...

Yes, I imagine in real life you are a pillar of individuality. You own your own business, right? No one tells you what job you should do. No wife to compromise with either?

I think Dan made it pretty clear to most of us that the Devs accept the blame for missing milestones and not having the game ready at the projected release date. What do you expect, a handwritten apology for every anonymous schmoo who calls them out in a public forum?

This is why developers very rarely interact with a community forum, they can never satisfy all the demands and questions and whining.

Whatever caused it: overambitious game design, bad time management, sneaking off to the taco truck too often, attending a meeting in Copenhagen to demo the game before a group of players, mistakes, oversights, etc. who knows? I'm going to say I doubt it was lack of ability, they have nothing to prove. SH3 and SH4 are fantastic subsims.

You have a choice, buy the game or not. Make it and move on, we're running a forum here for submarine sim enthusiasts.

Neal shut it because of another member. Not what you were doing. Member subsequently excommunicated from SS. Thread reopened. Carry on!

Thanks, I was not aware of this. I suspected some kind of controversy.

@CCIP
I have to say I agree with you as a rule. But after the failings of SH2, the initial state of SH3 at release, the disaster of SH4 reflected by it's sales figures...well you have to ask yourself if the right people are doing the right jobs. I can accept a certain level of buggyness, hell everything I release has bugs, but after SH2, SH3, SH4 and now SH5, you start to ask big questions.

Yes, I imagine in real life you are a pillar of individuality. You own your own business, right? No one tells you what job you should do. No wife to compromise with either?

I'm not really sure why you wrote that.

they have nothing to prove. SH3 and SH4 are fantastic subsims.

Well I suppose thats where we differ. I do not think they were fantastic subsims. If mods didn't exist then I wonder how many of us would be playing SH3 or SH4 .

I really fail to see why you are so adamantly defensive here. I can only conclude it is because you met the devs and bonded, well thats understandable, even honourable. But surely questions must be raised if we (oh, sorry)..one is to aspire for the return of quality rather than simply bending over and bathing the head in sand ?

[HundertzehnGustav]

but gruber, does "one" open a "BLAME" thread to make things better and bring forth the best in someone?

BLAME is very destructive... and not motivating at all.

[Nimmo55]

Neal, don't you think you're being just a little hard on those who are expressing dissappointment with this game? (Granted...some are labouring the point for sure...but hey..that's ok, isn't it??) This "get over it and move on!" dictum; perhaps just a little severe?

I for one have bought every SH game that has come out, but not this one...I accept that the publishers have made a business decision to target the mass audience...I get it and have "moved on"....doesn't mean I'm happy about that...or that I am not going to express my dissapointment a little in the process. That's the fantastic thing about your forum; it is the place where I can do that..and have intelligent posts on the subject. The best place in the world to discuss sub-sims!

I'm curious though, Neal...there really DOES seem to be a genuine disconnect between expectations of the hard-core community and what Ubisoft have produced this time...probably more than when SH3/4 came out (questionable?) You interviewed the deveopers in the lead up to this game's release...was there any sign that they had seen or even registered the mounting concern that manifested itself on your very forum when you interviewed them? Or was it more about sticking to a line in order to build profile for the upcoming release? Did you feel yourself able to talk about these issues? I'd be curious from an interest point of view; I was a journalist here in Australia and I know what it's like to have a canned interview...and feel constrained in my questioning line...but I've never done an interview with a games studio. Grateful your point of view... Thanks.

Nimmo55 out!

[Onkel Neal]

Yes, I have been very open about that "bonding with the devs". I tend to bond quite easily to people I find intelligent, inspiring, thoughtful, honest, and hard-working. I think I have bonded with a lot of people in these forums, players and devs. The mission statement here is to enhance the submarine simulation experience for all players and create a community where the game developers and players can share the fun of playing good games, study naval history, and interact globally in person and online.

Sure, I understand what you mean about "bending over", that's a very crude slight against people who accept a game like SH5 or SH2 as someone who is weak, and easily manipulated. You want these people, of which I am one, to accept your label. Whatever. But how often are you going to keep repeating that insult?

We do not have our head in the sand. I am fully aware that SH2 was a finished but fundamentally flawed game. *Shrug* I still got some enjoyment out of it. SH3 was a fantastic game, nothing to say there. SH4 was unfinished and buggy, but after 4 patches, was a good game. SH5 is unfinished, of questionable design, and buggy. I know that, but I do like the game in some ways. And I will be clear about areas where the game fails, where it is dismal, as well as what things it does right and where it shines. If the scales tip in favor of the flaws, so be it. Sorry if my lack of hysteria over that disturbs you.

cheers
Neal

[JScones]

I think Dan answered this well before:

1) Ubisoft is a company, of which Ubisoft Romania is a part. Please stop separating the two. Not everything that is good is our merit, not everything that is bad is "the suits" fault. I, of all people, have my parts in the failures of SH5. The people "high up" could have simply decided not to do another SH, just as you guys can choose not to buy.

Now people can ignore the words from the Lead Designer himself and continue to "blame" the suits exclusively, or the devs exclusively, but by Dan's own words they would be wrong. Ubisoft as a whole screwed the pooch. Simple. No need for us to continue to look for someone to blame; it's been acknowledged.

IMHO we should leave the blamestorming for the Ubisoft Boardroom - I think there'll be some finger pointing in there over the next few months!

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Nimmo55

Neal, don't you think you're being just a little hard on those who are expressing dissappointment with this game? (Granted...some are labouring the point for sure...but hey..that's ok, isn't it??) This "get over it and move on!" dictum; perhaps just a little severe?

I for one have bought every SH game that has come out, but not this one...I accept that the publishers have made a business decision to target the mass audience...I get it and have "moved on"....doesn't mean I'm happy about that...or that I am not going to express my dissapointment a little in the process. That's the fantastic thing about your forum; it is the place where I can do that..and have intelligent posts on the subject. The best place in the world to discuss sub-sims!

Hi Nimmo,

I hope I am not being hard over anyone expressing disappointment in the game, I'm certainly one of those people! You may find me unable to identify with people who just lose their minds over a game, though. Of course, people should be free to say, "I don't think I want to buy SH5" but after a few repeats of that message, there's not much else to say to them but "don't buy it, move on" because this is a discussion forum for SH5. I'm not sure how much someone can contribute to a discussion about a game they don't have or intend to get. They should feel 100% welcome to discuss SH3 or Dangerous Waters in those forums, and general topics, General Games, etc. Am I off the mark here? We want to keep this forum The best place in the world to discuss sub-sims! (I'm going to run that quote in my future PR), so I am open to level-headed opinions, thanks.

And yes, you have the right to pass on this title, Ubisoft did not achieve the level of quality necessary for me to disagree with you there. Strategically, we probably disagree about the whole "support the only game company that makes a decent subsim by purchasing them, great, good, and bad, US subs, German subs". I've had debates about this for a long time, whether buying no matter what empowers the game company to crank out whatever crappy game they want to screw the customers out of their (here it comes...) hard earned money. I cannot say that line of thinking is empirically wrong.... but I do feel confident that sales = more subs games, and SH2 (bad game, sold well) led to SH3 (great game, sold well) lends strength to that argument. But, I could be wrong.

With SH5, as with the occasional PC game, the development just did not keep pace with the schedule. It was harder than they thought, to add the full sub and interactive crew. Mookie would say resources were better spent just making an SH3 2.0 and a lot would agree with him. That has to be the basis for a subsim before any enhancements like full boat access. Then again, to be fair, after SH3, a lot of people were asking for full boat access....

I'm curious though, Neal...there really DOES seem to be a genuine disconnect between expectations of the hard-core community and what Ubisoft have produced this time...probably more than when SH3/4 came out (questionable?) You interviewed the deveopers in the lead up to this game's release...was there any sign that they had seen or even registered the mounting concern that manifested itself on your very forum when you interviewed them? Or was it more about sticking to a line in order to build profile for the upcoming release? Did you feel yourself able to talk about these issues? I'd be curious from an interest point of view; I was a journalist here in Australia and I know what it's like to have a canned interview...and feel constrained in my questioning line...but I've never done an interview with a games studio. Grateful your point of view...

I saw the demo in Denmark and spent 4 days with the dev team, but I did not hound them for details because I wanted those guys to relax and enjoy the meet and the activities. I had some concerns then, with the health bars and ship detection ranges in the demo, but as I was assured they are optional and don't really impact the simulation when turned off. As for the RPG elements and the state of completeness, that was in Sept, so as far as anyone knew, dev team included, the game could very well be finished in time for release. I guess that is like asking the football team in the 1st half if they will score 4 goals in a game. Well, maybe, that's the plan, we sure will try. With game development, sometimes it just doesn't work out according to the plan. I say to people, there's no reason to hate. Just don't buy.

As you know, many "interviews" are done via email. You send the questions, the game studio sends back answers. One reason it took so long for me to get an interview is I insisted on a phone interview--I wanted it to be spontaneous, not scripted in advance by email. You may have noticed I asked several times about the DRM but they were not able to divulge that info. I think we all knew that meant Uplay/OSP DRM (I did my homework).

As far as the design decisions, I wasn't clear that it was going in the direction it ended up until the phone interview, and they said Type VII only. Unlike previous Silent Hunter games, Ubisoft elected not to let me play test the game in the early beta. Well, it's their game.

I hope that answered your questions, very sorry it's so long.

best regards,
Neal

[Frederf]

In short: Partially.

The developers have a lot of understandable obstacles to making a good game: suits making poor high level decisions, market pressure, time constraints, coding complexities, hardcore zealots, design branches, etc. I can't blame the game level developers for everything. On the other hand there are noticeable failings that cannot be traced back to any excusable source.


The New Casual Direction

I understand that a word from above saying "the next Silent Hunter will appeal to a mass audience" is something the developers have to obey. However many of SH5's failings have no source in this directive. The casual audience wants generally much reward for very little effort, in a nut shell. Things like the deck watch not having binoculars can hardly be caused by this. The casual audience is not upset by historical accuracy directly. There is rarely any discernible value in things being wrong or broken


Design Decisions

This is level where most of my dev-blame is directed. At an early point in the design process the entirety of the gameplay experience is traced out on paper. In a very general sense the user experience is anticipated, engineered so that the final product will correspond to the marketing goal. So many parts of SH5 make my mind scream WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

You wanted to appeal to a mass audience and yet you tied necessary gameplay functions to morale? Don't you realize that the casual audience hates being "artificially" limited by practical constraints? "Sorry sir, we can't shoot back. I'm feeling blue today." Don't you realize that hardcore audience is going to hate this because it makes no sense from a simulation point of view and the casual audience is going to hate this because it keeps them from their quick sugar fix? Who exactly were you pleasing with that?

I have plenty of similar examples where the paper outline planning process should have thrown big red flags but yet these core design problems leaked through.


Community Interaction and Fear

Ideally the developers should be able to have an open, constructive dialog with the community to best gauge their wants and interest. Unfortunately there have been problems with such things as a "suggestion thread" and thus it is avoided. Why? Because the developing company is fearful of the PR landmine that is customer interaction.

Developer: "Looking for ideas guys."
Person A: "Hey why not model the crew without hats, very rarely worn in a real submarine."
Developer: "Hey, that's a good idea. It isn't massive amounts of work, appeals to casual and hardcore audiences equally, and doesn't redirect the design direction."
Person B: "i wan all ships in war model. u shud play as any airplane and sume birds."
Person C: "Please model 27 types of radar and ASW equipment in excruciating detail while researching every sailors ever afloat."
Developer: "Those ideas are stupid and impractical respectively. No way-Jose."
*** FECES STORM LEVEL FIVE BREAKS OUT ***
Publisher: "Developer, your idea of interacting with the community has failed miserably. You're fired and we're never doing that again."

As a community/media entity we rarely make reasoned, responsible contributions. The developer is either afraid or forbidden (because PR is afraid) to talk to us for fear that we will be offended or the developer will be distracted from the practically-narrow design guidelines. In this way we are to blame as a community. Imagine yourself as a developer responding to one of those 127 page suggestion threads... without upsetting anyone, making a 20 year development cycle, or ending up with a weird "design by committee" game without a clear design focus.


Technical Problems

I fully sympathize with technical problems being of a high importance. Subsim only sees really the design flaws that are second priority to the technical stuff like "will the exe run." I understand these can be a headache and take lots of time to sort out. At no point do I blame the devs for encountering these problems or struggling to fix them. The "you fools have no clue what real software development is like" people like to espouse this point in their usual crass, ham-fisted verbiage. My sympathy is compartmentalized since no matter what the state of software design process is, when you make 20 gauges in the 3D submarine and only 7 work correctly... that's just incompetence.

[karamazovnew]

Originally Posted by Frederf

In short: Partially.
My sympathy is compartmentalized since no matter what the state of software design process is, when you make 20 gauges in the 3D submarine and only 7 work correctly... that's just incompetence.

True. Sad to say that the game in its current state is by far the most buggy game I've ever played. I remember the days of Falcon 4 which crashed all the time because of the immensity of it all. But Morale resetting at each load? Have they actually PLAYED the game?! It's clear to me that the game was rushed ahead by the mother company just to see the effect of OSP and if it can be cracked.

Originally Posted by karamazovnew

Sad to say that the game in its current state is by far the most buggy game I've ever played.

Maybe it will enter in Guiness Book of Records because of that, it does have the required potential ...

[makman94]

ok...i played the game and here is my review :

'' does anybody knows if ''Jane's simulations'' or ''Sonalysts'' are still active companies ??? ''


you see , hope ....dies last.....

[Reece]

The fact remains that the developers of the game are 100% to blame for the game in it's current state, unfinished and yes the buggiest version so far, they made it!
At the very beginning we were told "All new code" and that Ubisoft was moving towards quality games, they failed!! And before everyone starts to say "when did they say that", I think Neal would vouch for this, if it was "All new code" then why are the same bugs repeated from earlier versions?
There is no excuse for releasing a game in this appalling condition! they may patch it and modders may fix some, but certainly not all the problems will be fixed and should not have been released this way in the first place. SH4 still has a lot of hard coded errors that only the devs could fix, and that isn't going to happen, I would like to know "who beta tested this", or why were they ignored!!

[DeadlyWolf]

Originally Posted by JScones

IMHO we should leave the blamestorming for the Ubisoft Boardroom - I think there'll be some finger pointing in there over the next few months!

Oh yes, you can bet it.
I don't know if you meant this, but God only knows the TONS and TONS of release sales they lost thanks to their ingenious DRM, broken in 12 hours. Twelve.

The current state of the game? Yes, Ubisoft as a whole can be blamed for that, *but* it's something that can be repaired. On the other hand no one is going to refund for the lost potential moneys\market share(\sequel?).