SS Extreme is not what it was made out to be

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[cptdave1958]

SS 2008 is a lot better than this SIM....
I have been playing it for a week now and I am not impressed. It looks like that they went backwards when they put this together. No sound in the pilot house, Some of the controls don't work, can't see the piers or docks on the map. I like the radar but it only picks up anything up to the 3 mile limit, and what is it this distance in meters, why not Nautical Miles? VERY DISAPPOINTED. Thought that it was going to be better BUT NOT!

[Markus97]

SS 2008 is a lot better than this SIM....
I have been playing it for a week now and I am not impressed. It looks like that they went backwards when they put this together. No sound in the pilot house, Some of the controls don't work, can't see the piers or docks on the map. I like the radar but it only picks up anything up to the 3 mile limit, and what is it this distance in meters, why not Nautical Miles? VERY DISAPPOINTED. Thought that it was going to be better BUT NOT!

No, I must say that SS08 is better than SSE...


/Markus

[marcstrat]

I also think that your memory has been gone of the 2008 version in the very beginning.We had also very much errors and bugs.They needed to repair them to,in serveral patches.
Unless you purchased the game when it was already passed this period.
I come from the very first beginning 2006,and i can see much improvements.
Regards
Marc

[Kevinmcg_ships]

SS 2008 is a lot better than this SIM....
I have been playing it for a week now and I am not impressed. It looks like that they went backwards when they put this together. No sound in the pilot house, Some of the controls don't work, can't see the piers or docks on the map. I like the radar but it only picks up anything up to the 3 mile limit, and what is it this distance in meters, why not Nautical Miles? VERY DISAPPOINTED. Thought that it was going to be better BUT NOT!

I see from your previous postings that your PC is a P4 3.4 Ghz with 2Gb RAM. Is that still the case? If so, I suspect the amount of RAM on your PC might be an issue.

Also, can I ask, what is the make/model of your graphic card?

[Chitch]

Well...it's a little early to be passing a heavy judgment on it.  SS08 didn't spring into being immediately to what it is now.  I like the ship handling, the new textures for the sea, the fact that I have control over the lights depending on what is going on....and radar beyond 3 miles would be pretty unnecessary at the speeds we're moving at....I can see 10-25 miles if you're flying, but just chugging along at anything from 2-20 kts...3 miles is plenty of warning time.

Heck, I had SS08 since it first came out and just lately gotten a set of sounds for the bridge that are decent.  Most radar sets on the ships I've been on are in miles...a few are NM, but not many.  Meters would work except that most of the world uses miles when determining transiting distances (although Nautical Miles are becoming more standard over time I've noticed).

Heck, I remember seeing charts where the depth was given in fathoms and not meters.

I'm willing to give it the time it needs to develop...it's not an emergency situation or anything.  I'd rather that the crew at VSTEP take their time in writing up the patches so they can error check them before releasing them to us than to just slap something together just to get it done.  A fix for one thing can cause a problem in another, and then they'd have to fix that one too...better to do it right and then release the patch.

Jim

[Traddles]

I never saw a radar set that was not callibrated in distances of nautical miles when I was at sea. Charts were graduted in degrees and minutes of latitude and longitude and the latitude scale was used abreast of the ships position to measure nautical miles (1 minute of latitude = 1 nautical mile). I do find the mixture of knots and metres very unseamanlike.

Traddles.

[Chitch]

I do find the mixture of knots and metres very unseamanlike.

Traddles.

Well, I was trying not to 'nitpick' the subject 

Jim

[Traddles]

I really do not think that is "nitpicking", merely a statement of fact.

[jfail]

SS 2008 is a lot better than this SIM....
I have been playing it for a week now and I am not impressed. It looks like that they went backwards when they put this together. No sound in the pilot house, Some of the controls don't work, can't see the piers or docks on the map. I like the radar but it only picks up anything up to the 3 mile limit, and what is it this distance in meters, why not Nautical Miles? VERY DISAPPOINTED. Thought that it was going to be better BUT NOT!

I agree completely.  All of the pre-release hype of SSE made me think this was going to be a well tested, polished and basically completed simulator.  I believe it is far from it.  Obviously some minor and maybe one or two major problems would be discovered in a final product of any software.  If you look over the forum carefully one can observe a lot of problems that certainly should have been detected and corrected prior to release.  I have observed a number of problems myself such as a Green Peace vessel floating 50 feet in the air passing me in the Rotterdam Harbor.  I have posted most of the problems that I have observed.

I also think the manual is not so good.  It also could be a lot better.

I think it is invalid to look back on the problems that 08 had and how they were corrected through several patches and use that as a basis to compare to SSE.  Vstep should have much more experience by now having been all through the 08 product, growing pains etc. and released a much more polished and tested product in SSE.

[chrish]

I agree.

You'd think that after 2008 this would be at least as good, it seems it's been put together rushed and not checked. I assume most of the team are too busy working on all their other corporate software (Nautis, etc) to bother with this.

Poor show guys, we shouldn't have to wait for patches to fix so many obvious (and previously fixed) bugs and a proper manual to be written AFTER the launch. 

Still, the community is strong here so they won't lose many followers. What they will lose though is new people to the game as the reviewers are no doubt having a field day out of all these bugs.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ship-Simulator-Extreme-PC-DVD/dp/B002RL9RKO - Amazon, 1 out of 5 stars

http://www.examiner.com/pc-game-in-national/ship-simulator-extremes-review - 'buggy'

http://www.gamereactor.eu/reviews/4759/Ship+Simulator+Extremes/ - 'clipping and physics problems'

Cant find it on Eurogamer or Gamespot yet, but I dread to think how they will rip it apart.

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of this game but I think vStep very unwisely didn't put enough manpower behind the testing of it before launch, some of these bugs should not be in the game from what is meant to be a well established software company now..

[Esprit350]

I agree with most of the above.  After using SS08 for some time the hype had me eagerly awainting SSE.  Very disappointing.
Poor controls, poor instrumentation, etc, etc, compared to SS08.  I just ran a tug aground because depth sounder never seems to display.  I them left all the controls at 0 rpm and the tug shot backwards at 28 knots, hit Padstow outer harbour, then shot forwards at 28 knots and sank a short while later.
Pity this doesn't seem to have been tested fully before release and that so much good stuff from SS08 was dropped.
You have to wait for missions and jst have the campaigns to start with.  Pity they seem a bit wooly in places as well!

[Kevinmcg_ships]

I assume most of the team are too busy working on all their other corporate software (Nautis, etc) to bother with this.

Really? So why did they went to the trouble of releasing patch v1.1 only a few days after SSE was released?

If the Vstep team were too busy, they would have not bothered with a patch v1.1 (I believe another patch is due out soon). So let's give Vstep credit where it's due.


As for the poor Amazon reviews, I notice there was no information about system requirements for SSE on the Amazon website, which made me wonder how many people who have bought the game and gave it bad reviews actually checked beforehand if their PC meets the minimum system requirements?

[Ballast]

You'd think that after 2008 this would be at least as good, it seems it's been put together rushed and not checked. I assume most of the team are too busy working on all their other corporate software (Nautis, etc) to bother with this.

VSTEP has a dedicated team of dev's working on the shipsim series. Most people forget we had alot of struggle with SS08 when it just came out. After every patch it became better and better. By the time version 1.4.2 was out, there was a huge leap forward.

Still, the community is strong here so they won't lose many followers. What they will lose though is new people to the game as the reviewers are no doubt having a field day out of all these bugs.

That seperates the sim players from the arcarde players. Most people here spend hours and hours practising their maneuvering skills and sailing with the large variety of vessels that are in the game. Same like the people from Flight Sim did to conquer the art of flying and all other things involved. After spending an enormous amount of time in something, you just don't drop it.

[REXXX]

SS 2008 is a lot better than this SIM....
I have been playing it for a week now and I am not impressed. It looks like that they went backwards when they put this together. No sound in the pilot house, Some of the controls don't work, can't see the piers or docks on the map. I like the radar but it only picks up anything up to the 3 mile limit, and what is it this distance in meters, why not Nautical Miles? VERY DISAPPOINTED. Thought that it was going to be better BUT NOT!

am man... am man

[chrish]

I think you are both (the last two posts) missing my point.

The game is great, but it seems to be have been rushed out - with obvious BUGS in it and lots of things missing, how many posts are there saying 'this is coming soon' 'we'll add this shortly' - in a word, it's unfinished. Pretty much all games have updates to fix bugs, I don't deny that and it's great they've released one already - however, I think the state they released the game in is shocking for what is meant to be an experienced ship simulator company.

I assume the Nautis customers don't get a product with glaringly obvious bugs in it when they pay their 000's :/

[jfail]

I think you are both (the last two posts) missing my point.

The game is great, but it seems to be have been rushed out - with obvious BUGS in it and lots of things missing, how many posts are there saying 'this is coming soon' 'we'll add this shortly' - in a word, it's unfinished. Pretty much all games have updates to fix bugs, I don't deny that and it's great they've released one already - however, I think the state they released the game in is shocking for what is meant to be an experienced ship simulator company.

I assume the Nautis customers don't get a product with glaringly obvious bugs in it when they pay their 000's :/

Totally agree.  If Vstep had tested the product properly they would not need all of the patches.

[Markus97]

Totally agree.  If Vstep had tested the product properly they would not need all of the patches.

No, V-STEP provides only the unnecessary job to their own staff! If they had tested the game a bit more, so they had escaped all the patches!

/Markus

[wiqvist]

Agree, with that this game is not ready, and is deffenetly not a simulator, but it may will be when more patches and updates.

I got Ship Simulator 2008 about a year ago, so I dont know which problems that version had when it came. But using that as an excuse for the problems with this new game, is not a good thing to do in my opinion. Cause what you in the same time are saying is that Vstep have not learn anything sinse last game release. It is not so good advertising for that company, to say that they are just only repeating the same misstakes they did with the other games.

And the patch did not came out some days after the release(as someone said above), it came the same day, so I got the patch one day before I got the game, and that say something about that the game was not ready on the release day.

[saltydog]

Extremes looks much better than SS2008..The patches will make it even better..

[wiqvist]

Agree with that it looks much better, but when you will do something more than just looking there is not much to do, this game is now missing a lot. And yes, hopefully it will become much better.

One positive thing with this not so good ship game, is that it will last for much longer. With new patches and adds it will turn in to a new game many times. My conclusions for now is that, at the moment so is SSE boring to play, there is nothing to do, but this will change and in the future this can became a good simulator game.

[PoRL]

I think that my biggest issue with SSE is that (as has been made clear in other threads about bouys, etc) the developers have tried to enforce a differential between the "game" and their "professional product".

IMHO, this is an error in attitude. I come from a background of playing Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS), where the tagline is "As real as it gets". Everything is modelled superbly, from the clouds to the aircraft to the ground textures. You can (you have to, in fact) even programme the flight computer accurately for certain aircraft. Nobody, however, would claim that this could replace a real, "professional" flight simulator.

Maybe that's the point? We're looking for a "home simulator" - after all, it says "simulator" in the product name - yet vstep want to sell us a "game"! I am never going to spend £4000 for a "professional product".

MFSM continues to thrive, even after development has stopped on the product, due to the third party involvement in additional aircraft, sceneries and peripherals. If vstep had worked out a licensing model (In a similar way that Apple oversees Apps for the iPhone and iPad) for access to a SDK, they could have had a nice little earner, and we could have looked forward to all sorts of unexpected goodies on the way.

Comments about the lack of AI traffic, bouys, etc being too "processor intensive" are also confusing to me. These are issues that were addressed by the flight sim community many years ago! In MSFS, you have sliders to adjust AI density, cloud textures, graphics qualities, etc etc. You simply adjust these for what you're after (Want lots of AI traffic in the channel? Simply reduce the boat or sea texture quality a bit! We want "as real as it gets", but let us make the decision about what sacrifices to make to enhance the particular aspects we're looking for!

One last comment: I've seen a few replies from the developers that have been extremely defensive in nature (almost to the point of insult in one thread I read about the lack of bouys). This is wrong, wrong, wrong!! Without customer feedback, your product cannot improve, and that's a long-term recipe for going out of business. If you hadn't thought of something, fair enough; admit it and add it on later (either as a patch or maybe even an "expansion pack" (Make some more money! It works for MSFS!)). Listen to what your customers are saying!!



Oh, and can we have some bouys, please??? 

[chrish]

Great post, I agree 100%.

It's unfortunate poor SSE is. I had massive expectations, but a prettier sea and some lights isn't really doing the 'wow' factor for me currently. Hopefully with new patches and addons it'll be what they wished it was.

I too have seen some rather defensive posts from the developers and it's not pretty, another gaming company a few years ago had the same issues and everyone (excuse the pun here..) 'jumped ship' - that was Novalogic.. released buggy products each time, people hung around for patches, eventually it got better.. but then the final release they did had really lacklustre sales when it launched (as everyone knew it'd be horribly buggy) and it didn't sell well - in turn, they didnt bother supporting it and that was it; end of line for that series of games.

I've been a customer since 2006 when the first one came out and I would have thought by now we'd see a lot more polished product from them. Like I say, I think the majority of resources with vStep appear to go into the corporate side - they don't just do ship sims, but allsorts of emergency/rescue sims too. I guess the consumer product is small change compared to the corporate merchant shipping business/military business they have.

 


ps. A good example of this - how come SSE isn't integrated in the forums with the scoreboards, etc, like 2006, 2008? Lack of manpower to code it in? 

[marcstrat]

Hoy,
I will repeat it again.I think most of you dont recall the release of the 2008 version anymore.It was also with some bugs and errors.Flying and jumping ships,and many more of that kinds of trouble.V-step released many different patches to stop all the problems,and on the end the 2008 version became a very good game.
Now here is what happens when a game comes out.
First thing they need a release date,most of it its the publishers who need a date of release,because of the commercials they have to make,some posters,flyers and on the internet.
The faster that the publishers can release the game the sooner they make money,and ones they made a date of release,it is very hard to delay it again(here V-step did it ones for the Extreme version).Most of the problems of delaying come from some members,they start to complaint about this delay.We had it all in the past,i can insure you about that.
I a few months this game becomes even better than the 2008 version because patches will be released a.s.a.p.
Than we dont hear from the complaintifs again.So it happen with the 2008 version,so it will be with the Extreme version.
Regards
Marc

[TJK]

I All complainers  

i can not relay say watt to come in the new patch, well i'm  a beta tester and therefor i can't, but i think i can say this V-Step are listen to you all and still do and the , And watt marc  say, cud not say it better my self, seems wee all have a short memory. i will not say anymore cos i cud ardently tell thing i do not have loved to tell, and do not send me pm and ask, you will not get anny answer about upcoming patch or anything  about SSE
The game has been out 1 week so be patient
Tore

[Stuart2007]

I agree totally with PORL over this! "Enforced differential"...

If it is necessary to downgrade SSE to make a differential with nautis, then just how 'good' is nautis as a professional system?

Personally, I think vstep's business model is fundamentally flawed. As PORL says, a form of 3rd party licensing would have allowed this to grow- pleasing customers- and licensing fees from 3rd parties would have pleased vstep's bank manager.

Is it an arcade game, a hobby simulator or a professional simulator? Well, none of those apply, do they?