Exactly as the title suggests; what a rip off this game is. I downloaded it 2 days ago and already I have found more bugs in it than in an established ant farm!
Here are a few I have found;
1. On Pilot Needed (Solent) misson; I reach the first waypoint, get transferred to the next environment, and the pilot boat I am steering starts spinning round making it impossible to control.
2. The P&O ferry mission from San Fransisco to Phi Phi Islands: Reach the first waypoint beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, transferred to the Phi Phi environment, and the ferry immediately sinks.
3. Rotterdam-Hull Mission: I was sailing up the port when a supertanker passing me just suddenly stood on its nose and sank.
4. Same mission: Twice in a row when I statted the mission the ferry immediately sank. I had to close down the game altogether and restart it again for it to be fixed.
5. Same mission as above (again) : I came to the end of the environment and had a window pop up asking me to choose another destination. I hovered my mouse over the white circles indicating other environments, and sure enough a little description pops up in the window. However, when I move the mouse away to click on OK, the description of the environment disappears from the window and I am unable to click on go. I was unable to click on any environment, and had to abandon the game.
I notice on the webpage it gives a list of upcoming functions in the expected update patch, functions such as saving halfway through a mission. Surely this should have been included in the first release game?
It strikes me that this game was release before it was completed, and certainly appears that nobody tested it before releasing it. This game is a joke! If anybody is considering getting it then STOP! Spend your money on something else - anything else, just not this poor excuse for an unfinished game!! ![Angry >:(](http://forum.shipsim.com/Smileys/default/angry.gif)
Great post.
There is no excuse for these errors all of which I can verify.
Missions make up the majority of the gameplay. For so many to have such glaring flaws is utterly inexcusable.
I can't even select custom missions.
I'm a transport sim Beta Tester myself (fortunately not of this). I cannot understand how this got through not only the "outside" volunteer testers but also internal Beta testers.
I can only assume that cash generation was urgently needed and release was therefore rushed way before it should have been.
Ship Sim 2006 was a far more stable product even before patches (or the add-on).
Like another member I also cannot understand the omission of the bridge audio it did add a touch of realism.
I can't understand why the scrolling in/out of mouse for internal/external view was changed? I liked this
Yes there have been some graphical improvements in 2008 but in some ways even if everything was working perfectly in this release there still seems something "missing" I can't quite put my finger on it.
But I don't even agree that graphically everything is better. Externally ships are very nice. But take the walkaround option. It's so bland I don't really see the point. Hardly a good ad for P&O that nobody wan't to ride on their ship. However perhaps they all fell through that hole on the lower deck near the lifeboats??!!
Sticking on graphics in mission 1 look at the deck of the boat you are rescuing the guy from. It's appalling and I have a high spec PC. I haven't seen creations this bad on a PC since the days of a 386/486.
Yes you can change wave height but it still seems that something is amiss when it is exactly the same wave type (rolling) just bigger.
Crane loading - what is the point? Wouldn't the time spent on creating such a mundane task been better spent elsewhere. But even that doesn't work 2 of my 4 containers just plunged straight through the cargo vessell making yet another mission unusable.
Who the heck tested these missions and passed them for the release candidate? Small errors in 1 or 2 may be excusable but this is a mess. I paid £24.99 for this and I feel ripped off - I feel sorry for those who paid £34.99
The marketing email was interesting though with the promise of great things being added in the patch later this year - completely free of course. Reading behind the lines I read "look you're not going to like this product but we're taking your money now so we can make it worth owning later on."
I'm a big console fan too and if games developers want PC owners to stop defecting to consoles they have got to do better than this - much better.
Dave