Happy Birthday to...

CCIP · 03-16-08, 11:05 PM

Happy 3rd birthday to Silent Hunter III!

For those of you who haven't noticed, this week marks the 3rd anniversary of the game's release. Now, in game years, that's a long time already! But the game has aged well, just as the community surrounding it. So this is a good moment to reflect on 3 good years!

So, going back in time...
SHIII was released in late March 2005. The first couple of weeks it was met with a flurry of feedback - there was quite a hype building up around the game, and when it came in, there was as much "ooh"s and "aah"s as there was cursing over unmatched expectations and a hefty helping of bugs. It should be said to the developers' credit that a first patch - essentially a hotfix for a couple of naughty issues - was released within days. A second followed within a month.

Very soon modders reared their heads. Already by the end of April, Beery was putting together the first Real U-boat releases. Patches kept up - 1.3 was a notable improvement over the previous versions, and would've been already quite good if it hadn't broken the sonarman!

By summer it became clear that the official support for SHIII was ending (on a high note - 1.4b was released in a good state, fixing the most glaring bugs). It was here that SHIII started getting a substantial boost from modders that helped it retain its community. The first year of SHIII saw Real Uboat and its graphics-enhanced cousin Improved Uboat rule the waves. SH3 Commander, first released along with RUb, set an unbeatable benchmark for a game-manager program. By the end of the year both had all but ended development, only to be replaced by a new onslaught of bigger, better mods. Not Your Grandmothers' Tonnage War (NYGM) and Grey Wolves (GW) materialized by 2006. Lesser-known mods such as Living SH3 and War Ace Campaign also date back to this era. At the same time, online players were already enjoying cooperative matches; big online campaigns, most notably Wolves at War, were entering a golden age.

The big stories for the community in 2007 were the expanded version of Grey Wolves (GWX) and the release of SHIII's successor, SHIV. For some, this was a time of divided loyalties - some even staunchly rejected SHIV, claiming the superiority of GWX-modded SHIII. For others, this was a great time since they both had the much better-looking SHIV and the much more developed SHIII to enjoy. Although the initially-problematic state of SHIV didn't help at first, it has grown to be a worthy successor in every respect. In 2008, of course, Ubisoft followed with an official add-on that introduced U-boats into the SHIV world, obviously in efforts to draw some of the SHIII's staunch supporters to the new title.

Meanwhile 2008 still promises to be an exciting year for SHIII. The community, equipped with better tools than ever before, is churning out new improvements to the game at lightning speed. GWX and SH3 Commander are getting shiny new updates. Some extremely creative additions like the S-boot mod are already showing big promise. Some long, long, LONG, awaited mods - especially the Merchant Fleet Mod - are due to be released this year.

So, while SHIV enters its own golden age, having greatly matured as a game thanks to the community, its predecessor still has a lot of mileage left on it. SHIII's community hasn't gotten any less creative or active in the past year!
And while we don't know what's in the future for us in terms of official development, we can definitely look back to a great 3 years and hope for more.

Cheers to 3 years!
Cheers to SHIII!
Cheers to Ubisoft Romania!
Cheers to the modders!
Cheers to the community!

I think we can all agree that SHIII was a very unusual game to be released when it was released. And whatever its teething problems, it was a great thing. It truly gave a new birth to the historical subsim community which had been in decline since the late 1990s. It brought the excitement of WWII undersea warfare to many new players, gave new features for the die-hard subsimmers to grind their teeth on and of course, it brought all of us here to this forum. So, cheers to that!

03-16-08, 11:05 PM	#1
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Happy Birthday to... Happy 3rd birthday to Silent Hunter III! For those of you who haven't noticed, this week marks the 3rd anniversary of the game's release. Now, in game years, that's a long time already! But the game has aged well, just as the community surrounding it. So this is a good moment to reflect on 3 good years! So, going back in time... SHIII was released in late March 2005. The first couple of weeks it was met with a flurry of feedback - there was quite a hype building up around the game, and when it came in, there was as much "ooh"s and "aah"s as there was cursing over unmatched expectations and a hefty helping of bugs. It should be said to the developers' credit that a first patch - essentially a hotfix for a couple of naughty issues - was released within days. A second followed within a month. Very soon modders reared their heads. Already by the end of April, Beery was putting together the first Real U-boat releases. Patches kept up - 1.3 was a notable improvement over the previous versions, and would've been already quite good if it hadn't broken the sonarman! By summer it became clear that the official support for SHIII was ending (on a high note - 1.4b was released in a good state, fixing the most glaring bugs). It was here that SHIII started getting a substantial boost from modders that helped it retain its community. The first year of SHIII saw Real Uboat and its graphics-enhanced cousin Improved Uboat rule the waves. SH3 Commander, first released along with RUb, set an unbeatable benchmark for a game-manager program. By the end of the year both had all but ended development, only to be replaced by a new onslaught of bigger, better mods. Not Your Grandmothers' Tonnage War (NYGM) and Grey Wolves (GW) materialized by 2006. Lesser-known mods such as Living SH3 and War Ace Campaign also date back to this era. At the same time, online players were already enjoying cooperative matches; big online campaigns, most notably Wolves at War, were entering a golden age. The big stories for the community in 2007 were the expanded version of Grey Wolves (GWX) and the release of SHIII's successor, SHIV. For some, this was a time of divided loyalties - some even staunchly rejected SHIV, claiming the superiority of GWX-modded SHIII. For others, this was a great time since they both had the much better-looking SHIV and the much more developed SHIII to enjoy. Although the initially-problematic state of SHIV didn't help at first, it has grown to be a worthy successor in every respect. In 2008, of course, Ubisoft followed with an official add-on that introduced U-boats into the SHIV world, obviously in efforts to draw some of the SHIII's staunch supporters to the new title. Meanwhile 2008 still promises to be an exciting year for SHIII. The community, equipped with better tools than ever before, is churning out new improvements to the game at lightning speed. GWX and SH3 Commander are getting shiny new updates. Some extremely creative additions like the S-boot mod are already showing big promise. Some long, long, LONG, awaited mods - especially the Merchant Fleet Mod - are due to be released this year. So, while SHIV enters its own golden age, having greatly matured as a game thanks to the community, its predecessor still has a lot of mileage left on it. SHIII's community hasn't gotten any less creative or active in the past year! And while we don't know what's in the future for us in terms of official development, we can definitely look back to a great 3 years and hope for more. Cheers to 3 years! Cheers to SHIII! Cheers to Ubisoft Romania! Cheers to the modders! Cheers to the community! I think we can all agree that SHIII was a very unusual game to be released when it was released. And whatever its teething problems, it was a great thing. It truly gave a new birth to the historical subsim community which had been in decline since the late 1990s. It brought the excitement of WWII undersea warfare to many new players, gave new features for the die-hard subsimmers to grind their teeth on and of course, it brought all of us here to this forum. So, cheers to that! __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) Last edited by CCIP; 03-17-08 at 11:47 AM.