Are people's objecting to an online subsim per se, or merely Ubi's "effort" here?

[StarTrekMike]

Originally Posted by tsotha

The problem with serving a niche community is it doesn't change the amount of effort you have to put into the game. A really good subsim is going to be just as much work as MW3, and the potential profit is tiny by comparison.

As to the people who are saying "Ubisoft only wants money", well... of course. It's not a charity. Of course the company is going to put its efforts into the most financially promising projects. The guy who wrote Minecraft is a billionaire now (no exaggeration), and nobody is going to make that kind of money serving the tiny community of hard core subsimmers. Personally I'm surprised SH5 got made at all, and it doesn't surprise me they cut corners.

There are only two ways I can see getting a next generation sim - either somebody with a lot of online charisma gets an open-source project going and keeps it alive until the first stable release, or a company like Ubi releases the code for an older game like SH3 or SH4. Come to think of it, it wouldn't hurt them financially to release the SH5 code, and that might be a better starting point.

SHO isn't going to be a hard core sim. It can't be. It might be a fun game of the more casual variety, but the people who haunt this forum aren't going to like it.

Nobody will debate that the subsim market is pretty small compared to something like Assassins creed or the Modern warfare franchise, those properties get millions invested in not only the production of the game but also the advertising and marketing required to compete with others and grab the attention of the target audiences (namely teenagers).

The simulation market is different, we don't value the same things as the teenagers who are the target demographic for most mega-popular franchises, we want quality first and foremost, we are critical and we will not hesitate to say when we feel wronged.

When you say that Ubisoft is a business and it's goal will always be money, that is true, but you must also take into account that the market exists for good simulations, granted they would not get the amazing return that they would get with something like assassins creed but they also would not need to invest millions upon millions into marketing either, we as simmers know what we want and we simply don't value a Mountain dew cross promotion or stuff like that.

In a way, it costs them less money to sell a simulation because the market is already so hungry for more and so savvy when it comes to knowing about upcoming content that it pretty much sells itself.

Is that enough for them to make another actual Silent Hunter game instead of just releasing Farmville the Atlantic edition? probably not but it has always been my belief that the degradation of the sim market is not due to lack of demand but because publishers want the path of least resistance at all times, as a result, we get boring and simple games and it just gets worse and worse the more we excuse it as good business.

So, sure, we can just give them a free pass and say that it is a business and that they are under no obligation to innovate or diversify their projects to meet a variety of different markets but that is simply allowing the current trend to continue, if we don't demand something now, it might be too late later while we are all playing Assassins creed XXII on our integrated targeted marketing devices implanted in our skulls or while we are sipping our Halo/Gears of War/Call of duty XXXXIIII tie in energy drinks.

A good business cares about it's customers and tries to bring them what they want, it does not always work out but the effort can build something that is more valuable than anything to a business, customer loyalty.

[Karl Heinrich]

Agree with what StarTrekMike is saying here. Trying to take niche product such as simulations and watering them down isn't really doing anyone any favours - the likes of Silent Hunter Online isn't probably going to be "interesting" enough for the general market, nor is it going to have the depth or detail that the likes of us want from it. So your customer base isn't likely to be much larger than if you'd just focused on the niche market in the first place. Which is basically what Mike already said in reference to FSX / Flight.

Yes, focusing on us niche lot that would take more work, but similarly (as has been said before) the simulation community is often prepared to pay more than a casual gamer. If someone pulled out the stops on Silent Hunter 6 or equivalent, I'd be happy to pay somewhere in the region of £80.

For the likes of Ubi, why not do the two in conjunction... spend the time developing a decent simulation and then do SHO from that (much as the current SHO utilises the SH5 engine). Not only do they then receive whatever revenue the online, simplified version gets from the more casual games - and use the online game as a marketing tool for the "main simulation" for those that may be looking for a bit more and maybe aren't familiar with the existing SH range.

So, in answer to the original question, the issue is with the effort, not the online part per se (multiplayer on one sub is the day I long for...)

Apologies for the waffle, hopefully some of that makes sense.

[TorpX]

I agree with everything you said, especially this part.

Originally Posted by StarTrekMike

A good business cares about it's customers and tries to bring them what they want, it does not always work out but the effort can build something that is more valuable than anything to a business, customer loyalty.

I would also add that Ubi's own actions is part of the reason that the subsim niche is small. If they had a less shortsighted view, they would be building on past successes, instead of trying to rely on the quick buck strategy. A really good subsim would require substantial investment, but it would have the benefit of attracting new people to the genre, and set the table for future releases. People who bought a good ATO subsim would likely be willing to buy a good PTO subsim, and maybe a good surface WWII sim, a dynamic campaign subsim add-on, etc., etc. But you can't do that if your only idea is to throw together a half-baked kiddie game, and dump it on the market, so you can move on to the next bit of nonsense. By punishing us, they are actually shrinking the potential market for their games.

[Julhelm]

The problem with contemporary sims is that they require far too much work over too much time to be profitable. The CloD team themselves have stated that a single cockpit took more than one year to make. Does that sound like a profitable business model to anyone? There's a reason the Stalingrad sim will revert back to Il-2:1946 level of detail cockpits.

[Karl Heinrich]

I suppose a line needs to be drawn on the level of simulation, but for everyone that's going to be different. I'm an avid FS2004/FSX fan and play on as high a realism as possible (and on VATSIM etc). But I also love IL-2 46 and think the level of detail in the cockpits was sufficient., they looked decent, the gauges worked, and you had pretty good control over relevant aircraft systems if you wanted it.

I've not attempted to play Cliffs of Dover yet and I didn't notice more detail in what I've seen of it, just shinier graphics... but as I've not played it, I don't know, so that's pure baseless waffle :P

Of course the level of simulation we all want is going to be different.

For myself at the moment, modded SH3 is great, but would like more detailed hydrodynamics, manual trimming etc. perhaps more detailed control of engines and certain systems, but not a whole lot more to be honest. What I really want to see is "one boat multiplayer" of some form... (but not a sim that can only be played online).

[StarTrekMike]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

The problem with contemporary sims is that they require far too much work over too much time to be profitable. The CloD team themselves have stated that a single cockpit took more than one year to make. Does that sound like a profitable business model to anyone? There's a reason the Stalingrad sim will revert back to Il-2:1946 level of detail cockpits.

The CloD team was horribly mismanaged (funny how Ubi was also involved in that) and work that should have taken far less time was dragged out by many poor choices.

If you actually follow the Stalingrad development, they are expanding on the original IL-2 1946 formula while not making promises they can't keep, add on to that the inclusion of 777 (a company that is noted for delivering a great product with Rise of flight) and you have a recipe for success that should have been done with CloD.

One need only look at Eagle Dynamics to see that a good cockpit need not take a year.

So, in short, CloD is a terrible example of the usual flight sim production but a fantastic example of how little Ubi cares for the simulation market.

[Julhelm]

Most ED titles are years in development and reuse much the same content over and over. Imagine how long A-10 would have taken if instead of mainly focusing on a single jet, they'd have to build a new map, all-new NPC units etc. Exacly why ED's solution to lack of content has been to open up the game to allow 3rd parties to develop new modules.

I have no doubts that 777 will put out a solid game, but a lot of people are going to be gravely disappointed because it will have less fidelity than CloD/A-10.

But it's the right way to go because they know they have a limited budget and there are physical limits to what x amount of money can get you.

For subsims the right way would be to go back to earlier designs like SH and AOD and iterate on their gameplay. On one hand because they were very playable designs and secondly because such a game would actually be within the realm of the possible for an indie team to handle on a small budget. There is no mid-tier dev like 777 to do subsims so it stands to reason any such effort would have to be smaller.