SUBSIM: The Web's #1 resource for all submarine & naval simulations since 1997 |
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02-28-13, 12:32 PM | #1 |
Eternal Patrol
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Nothing.
Nothing concerns me about it. If I try it and it's as un-simlike as it looks like it's going to be, then I haven't lost anything except an hour of two of my time. If it's fun enough to play, I'll play it. It doesn't look like it's going to be anything like Rise Of Flight, which looks like a dedicated simulator. For that I'll gladly pay money for more well-simulated planes. If it was as much a simulator as SH3, with pay-do-download new stuff, I'd go for it. It doesn't look like that's going to be the case, but I'll give it a shot, just in case. No concerns at all.
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02-28-13, 03:00 PM | #2 |
Navy Dude
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Made in Vermont
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That was a really well written post, it really does reflect many of my feelings on the subject, I think the Microsoft flight reference is apt and I compare SHO and MS Flight often because they share many (rather unfortunate) qualities.
My concern is that this is just Ubisoft's way of saying "This is the way it is going to be from here on out!" I mean, it is not hard to see that they have taken many steps away from the simulator genre and one only needs to look at how they handled the release of IL-2 Cliffs of Dover and pretty much any Silent Hunter since SHIII to see how little they actually care about the simulator audience. I have had many discussions with folks I know about why simulators went from being one of the sure bets in the PC gaming market to something of a extreme fringe genre where only the most dedicated stick around and we only get a slow trickle of new blood. The answer is simple, we as simmers are much more aware of our wants and needs than the average gamer, we have years of reading books, looking at data and playing prior simulators so we already know what we want and what we expect, companies like Ubisoft don't want to deal with those kinds of expectations because they require a investment of time and money that they are simply not willing to put forth. Now, the interesting question is how did it get that way? How did sims go from one of the more popular gaming genre's to one of the least in such a short time? (compare sim production from 1997 to about 2001 and you will see what I mean.) The answer lies with the publishers, guys like EA (who once controlled the mighty Jane's combat simulation's), Activision and Ubisoft (who owns Silent Hunter, the Lock-on name and a few others) have worked very hard to convince the public that specific genre's are dead (sims being one of them) and they do that because they want two things. 1.) Customers that are younger and more receptive to newer practices like DLC, the free to play concept, MMO social features and invasive DRM practices, us older gamers are not as keen to jump on those particular industry buzzword wagon. 2.) Genre's like the tactical shooter (the original Rainbow six, Ghost recon), the simulator and others have reached a very high level of sophistication and did so rather early, these publishers don't want to invest that much money and time into pleasing the fans of those early games because they can't exploit them like they do with more modern properties or even modern interpretations of games like Rainbow six or Ghost recon (both pale shadows of what they once were.) Big publishers don't want us around anymore, they tell us "not everyone has time for those sims, we need to try and grab a wider audience that might not care about historical or technical accuracy) without even looking at the fact that simulators are very much a "if you build it, they will come" kind of thing. Simulators are not dying because nobody wants them, they are dying because these big publishers don't want to make them, not because they are too expensive but because the market already knows what it wants, we know what kind of quality we expect and many of us won't settle for anything less than that. Many call us stubborn but in reality, we are some of the best consumers in the gaming industry, we don't just buy everything just because, we actually think about our purchases and tend to stick with them longer (which brings me to my final point.) Guys like EA, Activision and Ubisoft hate the idea of a title that lasts more than a fiscal year, they want to put out sequel after sequel and only add small additions to each, it is good business but bad for the overall gaming market because games are no longer designed to have any sort of longevity, sims tend to gather loyal fanbases that are hesitant to move on to something new if they feel the current version works just fine. It is a sad state of affairs that is only made worse when companies like Ubisoft sit on properties like Silent Hunter and don't just auction them to whoever might be willing to give it a fair shake, they did the same with Lock-on and yet Eagle Dynamics still said what essentially amounts to a "screw you!" and released a followup called Flaming cliffs (though you still need the original Lock-on disc, thanks Ubisoft...) Companies like 777 (and the new 777/1C merger), Eagle Dynamics, Laminar research, Chris Roberts with his Star Citizen project and even Fingers crossed interactive (Scott Juliano) with his Rogue system project are proving that the demand for simulators of all types is still high, not in the way the demand for the next Call of duty is high but still enough for publishers to take notice. In a way, I am glad that big publishers leave sims to smaller, more talented, dedicated and more ethical privately owned developers, they have proved that customer satisfaction is not as important to them as their overall sales. Still, it would be nice if we could have a larger audience for sims, at least enough to lower prices on peripherals and bolster the sizes of the teams working on sims currently. Silent Hunter online is simply a symptom of a larger disease and other great franchises have been tainted by it also, just take a look at Mechwarrior online and Microsoft Flight (thankfully a failure).
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02-28-13, 05:13 PM | #3 | |||||
Subsim Aviator
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But what if you play it and you find it somewhat enjoyable? enjoyable enough to pay the umpteen dollars a month to play it. Assume now that you play it with the longevity by which you have enjoyed Silent Hunter III for example does the gaming experience you had with Silent Hunter Online warrant paying for a modded SH3 5 times over? 10 times over? so on? obviously a question that cannot be answered at this point but one statement i can make for sure... in order to be worth the $150- $200 a year minimum it could potentially cost to play this title at any really enjoyable and immerse level - it better be the best silent hunter in the entire series. Im sure as with other online games... you can pay for 3 - 6 month blocks for a lower rate... but then again, in 2012 i didnt spend more than $100 on video games all year long seems like a tall order - it appears that the free is the hook, but to be very enjoyable or competitive with other players - there lies the line and sinker... the very reason i sunk a whole 10 minutes game time into World of Tanks and never looked back. thank you Quote:
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video games as a whole (sims included) allow us to go out and do things we wouldnt ordinarily be able to do. Liberate Europe, Invade another planet, fly a 747 from New York to London, build a roman empire. Simulators require a lot of imagination and patience when compared to a more "arcade" experience and i think a lot of this has to do with the instant gratification generation. we as a society very abruptly moved from one generation who very recently had to mail a letter hand written on actual paper and wait sometimes a week for a response and moved to a generation who has probably never written a letter and instead sends instantaneous communication from one side of the planet to the other. And thats no fault of theirs... they have that stuff now because WE got tired of waiting 14 days for a response from grandpa in Florida. as people become more accustomed to instant gratification, the patience and imagination required to complete a real time 14 hour flight in Microsoft Flight Simulator diminishes in the players... as does the attention span (if you will) to sit and actually run the numbers, calculate your next move and put the time and effort into plotting an attack against a convoy for example. Quote:
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if every member here donated $20 we would have about $1.7M invested in development of a title created entirely within the community.
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02-28-13, 10:04 PM | #4 | |
Silent Hunter
Join Date: Sep 2010
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Good OP! Quote:
What concerns me about it, or maybe I should say disturbs me, is that it shows Ubisoft is stubbornly determined to pursue their fast buck strategy even now. They seem to have learned nothing from their past escapades, and show little desire to. |
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02-28-13, 10:38 PM | #5 |
Subsim Aviator
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a lot more than i have in my checking account
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02-28-13, 11:15 PM | #6 | |||
Eternal Patrol
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All that said, just from what I've seen I'm already fairly well convinced that it's not the kind of game that will hold my interest for long. Quote:
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03-01-13, 12:19 AM | #7 |
Navy Seal
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Valhalla
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Nothing concerns me about SHO. Why? Because i won't play it.
Too simplistic and restricted in development for my tastes. Looks like a game made for 10-year-olds tbh. Also, there seems to be a general consensus here perhaps that Ubisoft has deemed sub sims dead under the water, we can see that with this latest installment, then why the hell do they persist in producing SHO? I mean really, if there is no dollars to be made in sub sims then why bother? It's a niche market for one, and two, well, we all know what sort of release states the silent hunter series of games has had. Why waste precious resources producing more sub sims when we and they know that it ain't gonna make them rich and no way in hell will there be ongoing support for it with upgrades/updates because.........sub sims are no money-makers for developers. The key to it is if you want to produce sub sims, then you have to have passion! Not a view to milking the cow for all it's worth(making money). Passion! Let's face it, Ubi has bigger fish to fry then stuffing around with a browser game which is marketed towards god-knows-who. Can't be sub simmers, surely! Adolescent, puberty blue, pimply-faced teens who have a penchant for raising more than just a periscope. Who knows. As for bigger fish, FarCry series, AC Series, to name 2. Yea i realize also that game devs have seperate teams for seperate games being developed in-house. Still, why oh why bother Ubisoft? |
03-01-13, 04:11 AM | #8 |
Officer
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: British Waters
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The art of a good sim franchise imho is to strive closer to perfection and realism with each itteration. What concerns me is that instead of building on and improving SH we've got something that just completely ignores all that, and thus raises the question will we ever see the light?
You might as well covert Halo into a browser based FPS and release it on xbox as a new a fresh look to the series. It will probably get a solid 3/5 in xbox reviews too as the gaming press is largely bent as hell. I think part of the problem here is that SHO is being marketed completely wrong, this is not PC gaming this should be marketed towards Android & iOS. Silent Hunter Online (for tablets) and when you look at it in that context actually there is some merit and good work going on. I think they should use the gyro sensors to move the periscope that would be ace |
03-01-13, 08:07 AM | #9 |
Admiral
Join Date: Jun 2005
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Warp
Lack of 3D Browser based game play If I was at my old job it would do to pass time......but |
05-08-13, 04:53 PM | #10 | |
Rear Admiral
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Pretty much how I feel about SHO, with one added reason. Being an online only title, there's going to be a problem: Ubisoft's QA sucks. Unlike SH3, SH4, and SH5, there will be no way for the player community to fix or find work arounds for the many bugs and broken features that Ubisoft will inevitably leave in the game after they abandon it for other projects. |
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05-08-13, 10:21 PM | #11 |
Airplane Nerd
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The fact that it's an online only title....
That is annoying. Ubi doesn't care anymore. It's as simple as that for me.
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05-09-13, 01:41 AM | #12 | |
Engineer
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Netherlands
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Last edited by Vince82; 05-09-13 at 03:41 PM. |
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