Not happy with SH4? Write your own!

[brieder]

Well ok, it's not that management doesn't care. But they are focusing on other things. Schedules, budgets, etc. At some point, everyone has to comprimise. But things are getting a bit out of hand. I know there is so much we want to do on projects but there's only so much money allocated.

[Drokkon]

Breider I know where you are coming from. The people signing checks want results. Pretty screen shots please them, so games tend to look great ,but play buggy. It's hard to show them substandard graphics , but smooth gameplay and have them be impressed. Thats why things look shiny on the outside but broke on the inside.

[brieder]

Originally Posted by Drokkon

Breider I know where you are coming from. The people signing checks want results. Pretty screen shots please them, so games tend to look great ,but play buggy. It's hard to show them substandard graphics , but smooth gameplay and have them be impressed. Thats why things look shiny on the outside but broke on the inside.

Very, they aren't impressed with correct torpedo phsysics...but shiny stuff is just amazing.

[JSF]

Originally Posted by brieder

I'm not saying you can't complain. But from the projects I've worked on, the developers/artists care...management doesn't.

Management cares.......But cost overuns which negatively impact the capitalized budget for any project causes the shareholders to go into a tailspin....It's all about the money....Period!

[brieder]

Originally Posted by JSF

It's all about the money....Period!

As is any well run company.

[Iron Budokan]

So the next time I purchase a brand new car and the engine catches fire and kills my wife and three children because their safety belts fail to unbuckle I should hitch up my pants, take a deep breath, put it down to a lesson learned, and go build my own car.

Right.

[Onkel Neal]

Hey, if building bug-free code that makes every player happy and turns a big profit was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Building cars and building software are apples and oranges. When was the last time a game killed your family

[Psycluded]

You know, I'm about to finish up my 4th semester of work towards a "game programming" degree at a reputable college (I already have a software engineering degree, just getting the extra coursework in), and watching the topics in this forum almost make me want to throw my hands up and walk away. Maybe I should just stick to retro games and mobile game development. Sure as hell there's a lot of ingrates in the simming world.

It's been said elsewhere in this forum. Any game released today -will- have bugs. About the time the game becomes remotely playable, the publishers are getting ansy about the money they're spending on development, wanting to just "get it out there" and see what kind of reception it gets, then gauge how much additional development to pay for based on that. "We can always patch," is an oft-heard mantra, even in business application development, which is where I've been for years.

Silent Hunter 4 is no more or less buggy than any other game I've purchased in the last year or so, and is far more playable than some. To be fair, I've been looking forward to SH4 for some time, so it would take a lot to disappoint me. I love the new interface, now that I'm used to it, and I've been enjoying the interactivity of the world, from contact report responses to the news items fed down by radio. About my only complaint thus far is the lack of historicity of the major pacific naval battles. I searched 30-32N/179-180W(and E) before and during June 4th, 1942, and never once saw a Japanese carrier.

[corvette k225]

I was hopeing that the dev team learned something from SHIII and seen what the folks that made GWX+1.02 could do with a small or no budget in Fixing the game and making one hell of subsim, Maybe the GWX group or guys or what ever, should go and see a banker and stratup a new game software company and make some millions, and put out a good Subsim. Good work GWX team? maybe some game site should give those guys a good review!

one needs to ask, do you enjoy playing a game or fixing a game!

[Onkel Neal]

Glad to hear from someone who actually knows how challenging it is to create a game of the magnitude of the Silent Hunter series.

To all new to this forum, take a second and read the Subsim Memo.

SUBSIM Memo
Ahoy fellow Subsim skippers!
A quick reminder: as we did when SH2 and SH3 were released, I would like to request your cooperation in keeping Subsim a positive and productive discussion forum for Silent Hunter 4. I know the dev team have worked really long and hard to make a great US Pacific sub simulation. Just like every computer game made since Duke Nukem wore short pants, there will likely be some glitches and bugs. All games get patches, none of this is news to long time gamers. Let's list anything we see amiss in the Bug Thread. Silent Hunter is the only show in town and Subsim is here for the long run. Feel free to criticise and complain but please, do so with some respect, and courtesy. Even though this is the Internet, we should try to be professional.

Good hunting!
Neal
Subsim

I'll have to post a few reminders, I guess. We have ton of new guys here.

[Psycluded]

Originally Posted by corvette k225

I was hopeing that the dev team learned something from SHIII and seen what the folks that made GWX+1.02 could do with a small or no budget in Fixing the game and making one hell of subsim, Maybe the GWX group or guys or what ever, should go and see a banker and stratup a new game software company and make some millions, and put out a good Subsim. Good work GWX team? maybe some game site should give those guys a good review!

With the kind of vitriol being slung at Ubisoft over the bugs in SH4, why in God's name would anyone with a brain want to rush off and form a company dedicated to creating submarine simulations? I'd rather write preschooler educational programs. They have yet to learn most of the words being tossed at Ubisoft.

[corvette k225]

Maybe thay would just enjoy making subsim, or combat games,you see the GWX was done for free!!

[Sgian Dubh]

Originally Posted by Drokkon

. Thats why things look shiny on the outside but broke on the inside.

Wow. That pretty much sums up a lot about modern society right there. I'm gonna jot that one down in the old journal.

[Sgian Dubh]

Originally Posted by Psycluded

You know, I'm about to finish up my 4th semester of work towards a "game programming" degree at a reputable college (I already have a software engineering degree, just getting the extra coursework in), and watching the topics in this forum almost make me want to throw my hands up and walk away. Maybe I should just stick to retro games and mobile game development. Sure as hell there's a lot of ingrates in the simming world.

It's been said elsewhere in this forum. Any game released today -will- have bugs. About the time the game becomes remotely playable, the publishers are getting ansy about the money they're spending on development, wanting to just "get it out there" and see what kind of reception it gets, then gauge how much additional development to pay for based on that. "We can always patch," is an oft-heard mantra, even in business application development, which is where I've been for years.

Silent Hunter 4 is no more or less buggy than any other game I've purchased in the last year or so, and is far more playable than some. To be fair, I've been looking forward to SH4 for some time, so it would take a lot to disappoint me. I love the new interface, now that I'm used to it, and I've been enjoying the interactivity of the world, from contact report responses to the news items fed down by radio. About my only complaint thus far is the lack of historicity of the major pacific naval battles. I searched 30-32N/179-180W(and E) before and during June 4th, 1942, and never once saw a Japanese carrier.

So what I wonder about all of this is why it wasn't always like that.

Used to be that Microprose, SSI and Janes were companies that when they put something out you didn't need to check the reviews. They put out quality stuff, period.

Many aren't aorund any more, but not because (from my understanding) they weren't successful companies, but that they were purchased because of their success. But the purchasing companies weren't after the quality, they were after the quantity.

Someone on here said that its all about the money and someone else said that all good businesses are run that way. Well I don't buy that, and I never will.

I am in sales, which is about as focused greed as you can get. But I don't operate on that principle at all. My goal is to never have a customer that won't buy from me again and again. I tell it just as it is, every time, all of the time. I am brutally honest with the customer and they buy from me because I don't mislead them - ever. I make a pretty good living that way. There are some who make more than I do by using the more "only the money matters" tactic - and they fall off after a few years once the word gets around that they will say whatever it takes to 'close the deal'.

If you have people who are raving fans about your product and/or about you - the money will come. The other way around and you have to keep hoping that there is another sucker just around the corner, every day.

In my previous company we had the best service in the industry, and it was my team that created that level of service. We were bought out and the bean-counters tore it all apart. Now long time customers from that company are glad to see and talk to me, but they don't buy products from that compnay any more.

"Only the money matters" is a bunch of bunk shoved down our throats by Wall Street who feels that because they choose to gamble by buying stock rather than going to Vegas that they are entitled to a sure 'win'.

Any, I'm getting off my soap box now. Sorry for getting carried away....

Oh, and I am really enjoying SH4, when I can squeak out the time to play it.

[OneTinSoldier]

I'm sure most games are big hairy complex monsters. Is it possible to make one such that it's fairly bug-free on release? Perhaps needing only 1 patch 4-6 weeks or so after release? Or is that just not possible!?!?

If it is possible, I'm kind of surprised there aren't more companies willing to do (almost)WHATEVER it takes to achieve such an endeavor, as it seems to me there is a market for such titles. I've been to a number of forums concerning the release of new titles recently and I've seen a phenomenal slew of complaints about buggy releases and get the idea people are getting a little fed up with being let down at release time(SH4 is not alone). I could be wrong, but I almost see the biggest concern and #1 question that will be asked of a publisher/developer in the future is... "Yeah, sounds and looks great, but how buggy will it be?" There are of course a lot of people that hold off on buying a new title until other guinea pigs have tried it out and then have their say on forums, and I wonder if that number is growing. Sure, we all know that games can be expected to have some problems and require some patching after release in this day and age, but just how shoddy should a release be allowed to be before it takes a heck of a beating from customers and reviewers? It seems to me that pretty soon we will all being expecting alpha software as the 'it's gone gold' product. Because, again, it seems to me that we are now getting what a few years ago would have been considered beta software. And although I'm not going to rattle off the names of a bunch of recent titles at the moment, I'm not just talking about SH4! How low can companies go? Of course, only time will tell.

Perhaps the only way a company can achieve the goal of a well polished release nowadays is if it's a privately held company with no shareholders breathing down it's back and it's willing to take somewhat of a risk. I'm not blind to the fact that games are big hairy complex monsters requiring big budgets, so I imagine it'd have to be a company with pretty big privately held pockets.