Silent Hunter 4 Patch 1.1

[Iron Budokan]

Originally Posted by Immacolata

To be honest. Do you care about the Lunchboxes? or the Housecoats? No? I thought so. Nor do I. Thats just putting up an argument for arguments sake isnt it?

You probably didn't have half the expectations for SH3 that you do for this game. You expect this game to outdo SH3 by a 100%. And it just cant!

Hmm, AFAIK neal gave SH3 a 100%. Was it THAT good? Not in my opinion. But it WAS good.

No, I really do care about the Lunchboxes and Housecoats because I knew zilch about sub sims when I picked up Silent Service II a long time a go in a galaxy far away. I've been hooked on sub sims ever since. So, yeah, it does make a difference in whether you put out a good product that keeps people coming back for me. I know it did for me and sub sims.

And I do trust Neal to give a good, honest review. And, yes, with all its faults SH3 was 100% because of all the new benchmarks it set in sub sims. That's just a fact.

And, finally, I catagorically do not expect SH4 to outshine SH3. I expect it to stand on its own, one way or the other.

[Ark]

Originally Posted by hyperion2206

You're right and it doesn't surprise me that they're that fast. SH devs always seemed very dedicated and caring about their product. I wish some of the 'fans' would give the game a chance before thy start slamming it.

They know the product is coming out incomplete, so they start preparing for a patch ahead of time. Dev teams always do it. Don't kid yourself into thinking it's all about "dedication". It's all about "the bottom line".


On a side note, as much as I appreciate the new patch....they need to deal with this locked resolution issue as well. The product looks like ass, and despite the feelings of some people here....graphics do matter to a LOT of people, just like gameplay...and so far, this game looks sub-par and underwhelming at best (comparatively speaking).

[hyperion2206]

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

Good news. But one wonders what the casual gamer who normally doesn't hang around bubblehead forums will do when he buys the game and doesn't know there's a patch available? I don't guess there's any way these people can be contacted and informed of these fixes...? Reminds me of the olden days when I had AOD and didn't know anything about a "community".

So Joe Lunchbox (or Sally Housecoat) buys this game, tries to play it and gets turned off from sub sims forever because of the unfinished feel. Kind of a bummer.

Sure, SH3 had problems, but I don't remember stock SH3 having this much furor over the rawness of the product. Didn't UBI make more money from the casual gamer buying SH3, not hardcore sub simmers like me and others who frequently inhabit these forums? Dunno. But again while I remember complaining about SH3 being "unfinished" when it came out, I don't remember it being this negative.

Then again I have trouble remembering what happened yesterday....

I'm really looking forward to Neal's review. I think that's going to tell us a lot and answer some currently unanswered questions and fears we all have regarding this game. Therefore, I am waiting patiently...but with my wittle heart going pitter patter.

If they're smart they'll search google for 'SH4 patch', that's what I always do. That's how I got here, I was searching for patches for DW and found this wonderful place.

[geetrue]

Originally Posted by Biggles

..............they're watching us....

UK is famous for that ... I hear you can't even pick someones pocket
in London anymore

[Spike]

You're right and it doesn't surprise me that they're that fast. SH devs always seemed very dedicated and caring about their product. I wish some of the 'fans' would give the game a chance before thy start slamming it. You must not have played SH2.

[Mr.Elendig]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

to you. While alot were whineing you were out looking. Btw whats the deal about this concern abuot HD space? I have two 300 gig hds. I don't use 25% of it.

Heh, I got about 1TB in total and atm i got less than 1GB free. Good thing discspace is cheap these days.

Anyway, with the patch out, all that's left to wait for, is the modding community to fix the rest

[Ostfriese]

Originally Posted by Henric Edwards

I wonder what that means. Looking at that list it becomes quite obvious SH4 hit the market a wee bit earlier than it should have.

Well, look at the date. This procedure ensured that SH IV hit the shelves before the end of the first quarter. This way UBI can polish up the quarterly balance. ******* the customers, you can feed them an early patch, and they'll even thank you on their knees for being ripped off. It's all about money

[Ark]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

Well, look at the date. This procedure ensured that SH IV hit the shelves before the end of the first quarter. This way UBI can polish up the quarterly balance. ******* the customers, you can feed them an early patch, and they'll even thank you on their knees for being ripped off. It's all about money

Sad but true.

It always amazes me how a company can release a blatantly unfinished product, and then release a patch right afterwards and have all the fans attribute this patch release to "the development teams dedication to the fans".

I'm not trying to be cynical here, but lets be serious. The game in it's present state is borderline garbage. The dev team MUST do something fast or all of the reviews will see this game for exactly what it currently is; A buggy game the sounds bad and looks worse.

[gnirtS]

Given there hasn't been any time to collate bugs yet alone fix, alpha test, beta test and so on i think its safe to assume this patch has been weeks in the making already.

In otherwords an imposed deadline forced the release of a game they knew was broken and unfinished and they started playing catchup as soon as it went gold, if not before.

Unless the readme has bits missing quite a lot of the bugs dont appear to be mentioned in it which is a little worrying.

[unruhly]

A patch? This isn't a patch, it's a feature/enhancement pack.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
This is why the console has taken over gaming! You've for the most part got one chance at getting it right when the game is released. Period!

I'm not even a casual gamer anymore cause of this.
I'm an IT manager that plugs away on this crap all day long. I want/need a game where I can get away from having to mod, patch, mess with resolution settings, AA, driver incompatibilites, downloading multiple patches, etc. I don't want to have to do that after a day on the job!

I just don't understand the mentality of releasing a game and expecting a community to help perfect it. I'm not talking about bugs, they are another thing entirely. A bug is something that is overlooked in programming and is to be expected. We all make mistakes. But to expect someone to have to put up with this type of programming deficiency and unfinished work is wrong, plain and simple.

[gnirtS]

Usually in these cases the publisher forces a date on the developer. The result then is unfinished/untested or buggy releases forced by an artificial timetable.

[Ostfriese]

Originally Posted by unruhly

I just don't understand the mentality of releasing a game and expecting a community to help perfect it.

What's so difficult to understand about it? It works, the publishers can do this crap over and over (and they have been doing so for quite some time already), and it still works, no one really complains, everyone just marches into the next shop and buys the bug ridden games.

[gnirtS]

Any game that the community can alter/tinker with has a massively increased lifespan over one that doesn't.

Think of SH3, Falcon 4, MS Flight sim series - all of which are kept alive years after their shelf life due to community improvements.

[AG124]

Added the S-42 class to the game,

First patch, only a couple of days after release, and they are already adding another US sub variant. There was a discussion earlier about which variants of the S-Class would be included- it looks like we will get two of them (as I suspected).

[Ark]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

What's so difficult to understand about it? It works, the publishers can do this crap over and over (and they have been doing so for quite some time already), and it still works, no one really complains, everyone just marches into the next shop and buys the bug ridden games.

No, people do complain..

But the morons call those who are complaining, "whiners". So, the people complaining get fed up and leave. The community gets smaller, the market for the product shrinks, and less games from that genre are released. Then, the ones who called the complainers "whiners", in fact become the complainers.

It's a vicious circle of nonsense.