Silent Hunter 5 announced

[Neil]

On the upside this has me thinking of re-installing SH3 and GWX but I can't be bothered with online connecty DRM etc so unless that changes this one is unfortunately a no go for me.

[wildfire]

LOL well temptation got the best of me and I caved in and bought this from D2D cause can't be bothered waiting another week for it to Release here took me about 8 hours to download it on my terrible broadband connection... 3.92gb was the download size.

First impressions weren't good the UI and the crew problems bothering me the most no compass which was just laughable but someone already modded that in, Tell someone to man the Deck gun seems to be a waste of time and you have to go and man it yourself, Started the Campaign and I have to sink 50,000 tons of British shipping only sunk about 16,000 so far, Already downloaded a handful of Mods which are starting to fix some of the glaring issues, There is a good Audio mod out that adds nice Creaking sounds and makes the Engines sound a lot better, Destroyer AI can be fixed easily with some tweaks to the sim.cfg. Oh also crew on the ships still walk around when it's sinking like nothing is happening which is disappointing to see still there.

Been disconnected from UBI's servers about 6 times so far which I am not very impressed with, DRM needs to go and go fast IMHO took some screenshots, Running it on a Athlon II 2.6ghz quad core, 6 gig of ram and a 1 gig 9800GT video card, Getting pretty low FPS under water with anti-aliasing turned right up where as I had much smoother FPS under water on SH4... Do have to say the Graphics are very nice though.

anyway here are some screenshots I took

[Agent X20]

So wildfire, have you been caught up in the recent Ubi server outages?

[wildfire]

Yeah Agent X20 I have been, I can't really be bothered with all the hassle of this game right now, last night I was stuck on Synchronizing Saves from the Server menu before the main screen not once but 3 times no matter what I done I couldn't get past it. I've also had problems after exiting the game and logging out of Ubi's Server and it said Failed to Synchronize Saved Files and when I've gone back into the Game I am reverted back to Save Game Files that are a day behind. I expected better than this from Ubisoft.

Before I logged out I had sunk around 80,000 tons of shipping and I was heading back to base so I lost all that progress... in the older save I only sunk 4600 tons, This whole System has been a failure from the outset, Ubisoft seem to be unresponsive on their Forums to their Customers complaints of the Server Outages and about the game being unfinished but I guess thats not really surprising from them.

Thinking of throwing in the towel with this Game until they get rid of DRM if they do that is, until that happens think I'll stick with playing SH3.

[Agent X20]

That sounds dreadful. Horrendous in fact.

I cannot imagine what this is going to do to their sales. Actually we know - it's going to kill the Silent Hunter franchise stone dead. Sunk even.

[The Bursar]

My copy is on its way from Mighty Ape, so most likely get it tomorrow. Will let you all know how it goes.

[MonkeyPilot]

What would happen if Ubi went bust ? Would you be ably to play the game?

[Neil]

I expected better than this from Ubisoft.

Why did you expect better than this from Ubi? They hardly have a good track record. In saying that though this is starting to really push the boundary of what's a bug and what's just a steaming pile of dung rather than a game. At what point does one get their money back on this "non-refundable" purchase? Under the consumer guarantees act anything you buy must be fit for purpose as understood by a reasonable person, A game that can't be played or reverts back to yesterdays save hardly meets that expectation to me.

[Neil]

What would happen if Ubi went bust ? Would you be ably to play the game?

They are saying they would make the non-included content available so you can play online with a special patch. If they go bust I bet my left bollock that doesn't happen.

[wildfire]

Ah I worked out you can turn off the Save Synchronizing, that goes a long way in fixing that problem but thats still beside the point, If the Synchronizing system wasn't so flawed in the first place you wouldn't have to do that + all the other issues with this draconian DRM are too much for me to bare with.

The reviews of the game that are on Amazon are a sad sight to see too, last time I looked there was only 1 4 star rating lol most were 1 star. Neil you're probably right about Ubisoft's track record but with SH3 even the stock version didn't have some of the serious issues SH5 has, I think this game realistically needed about another 3 - 4 months in Development cause the state it was released in is really unacceptable, I dunno about you other guys but I'll take good Gameplay over shiney Graphics any day.

I remember seeing a post from Dan Dimitrescu the lead Designer over at Subsim and he said he wasn't happy the game was released in the State it was in but that the Modders can fix a lot of issues, It shouldn't have to come down to Modders fixing these problems though. The likleyhood of there being a GWX like super mod for SH5 doesn't look good right now either, Now if I can just get my $75 back I'll be happier.

[oniellnz]

That sounds dreadful. Horrendous in fact.

I cannot imagine what this is going to do to their sales. Actually we know - it's going to kill the Silent Hunter franchise stone deal. Sunk even.

I know what it has done to sales. I won't get it.

I have always got sub sims when they came out. I'm a bit of a nut on subs. Red Storm Rising, Silent Hunter 2, Aces of the Deep (still have the cool map!); I have them all. But I think I have dodged a bullet not getting this one.

It is a very sad day for gaming when EVERYONE is relying on the modders to fix the game. There will be things that the modder won't be able to fix. Maybe down the track the source code will be released and then we will be able to make a decent sub sim.

Imagine what the car industry would be like if they did this kind of thing. You couldn’t drive your car unless you were in contact with the factory! No gauges on the dash. Things braking all the time as soon as you bought it (oh hang on; this is happening a bit at the moment).

I'm sticking with SH3.

[Agent X20]

I'm sticking with SH3.

Yes well, as a dyed in the wool sim collector - I've done the unthinkable and picked SupCom 2 over Silent Hunter 5.

[Neil]

Wildfire I think in the past Ubi have let the developers work on the game longer than they do now (or maybe the devs just keep working on it for no extra money from ubi?) look at IL-2 all those extra patches etc were driven by 1C not Ubi I'm sure.

SH3 had a whole lot of extra dev time put into a dynamic campaign before release and did end up complete enough by the end of the official patches. Sounds like this one is a whole nother story which is sad.

I'm in the same (U-)boat as oneillnz and Agent I'd normally buy this in a flash but it sounds too much like a PITA to be bothered with.

[wildfire]

Yup Neil that is right this game is a whole other Story unfortunately Some of you guys have done the right thing in the end by choosing not to buy it and wish I went down that path too, It looks like I am stuck with it cause I can't get a refund I'll probably keep it on my HDD and 6 months down the road give it another shot when Ubi have brought out more patches (probably only get another 3 though) and the great Modding community turn it into more of the Sim that it should be got to keep the faith, I'm Interested to know what The Bursar's opinion of it is when he gets it.

Look at SH4 with Mods like Real Fleet Boats or Trigger Maru it's a pretty decent game now it's a good example how the Modding community keeps coming to the rescue with this Series, Lately I've been playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 on PS3 and when I look at this game and compare it with SH5 I know you can't compare the 2 though cause they are 2 different types of games but all I can say is I have a lot more enthusiasm to play BFBC2 cause unlike SH5 in it's current state it's a pretty decent game and I feel like I got my money's worth with buying it.

[The Bursar]

Well I have been playing it for the past couple of hours, so time to give you my experiences and thoughts before I grab something to eat.

I have tried very hard to approach this game with an open mind, which is hard to do when you are a week behind the rest of the world.

To start of with I got the game a day early - kidos to Mighty Ape for shipping it as soon as they got it.

Game came in a monster DVD case - only has one DVD and a 35 page manual in it - not sure what the rest of the space was for. The spindle to hold the DVD is big enough to get atleast eight DVD's on there I recoken - tricky operation getting my one off - two hands and bit of verbal persausion involved Manual has the Keycode on it, so that is an improvement over SH 3, which had it on the DVD itself. The manual itself gives a brief overview of everything, but not really explains anything. About normal for todays manuals.

Installation size was about 6.5 gig - could only install english or german voices (not both). Progress bar maxxed out well before the game had finished installing - makes you wonder about its usefulness Once installtion was complete the game took me directly to Uplay to log in/ register plus opening up another page to the Sh5 home page. Why???? Registration involved answering six pages of questions - only the first one compulsary. I think they confused registration with survey.

That done it was time to launch the game. Haraah. Now since I had been reading the forums I thought I would be a clever bunny and disable the synching with Ubisoft. Click of a button and we are done. Er no. Ubi launcher needs to be restarted for this setting to take effect. Unfortunalety there is no 'x' to close the thing down and SH5 itself is now loading. Sit through the intro - same the one on the web, and then shut the thing down and restart Ubi launcher and away we go. Except once in, SH5 tells me the saves are synched. But I disabled that. Didn't I? Hey at least I was able to log in hassel free. Off to the options screen - graphics middle of the road please - my 8800GT is not quite the envy of the street any more, and game difficulty to max (minus free camera and map contacts). Are we mice or men? (squeak).

And now the game itself. Like all new games, I find myself battleing the UI. Not becasue it is bad, but because it is different. Taking a breath and taking my time to follow the tutorial (which does show you some of the controls) I manage to sink some stationary ships and navigate back to port. And that is where I am up to - about to start the grand campaign for real.

I will post some more once I have played some more (must be an Ok game?) and found my feet in the game. Hopefully what i have typed is somewhat coherrant.

Robert