Excellent Sim - but where is multiplayer?

[Frobisher]

I've had SS5 for a few days now and overall I'm impressed. It has a good feel, plenty of variety in boats and locations and the sailing feels right, at least a lot more atmospheric and believable than the "other" sim.

However, what is the point of a multiplayer-only simulator when there are barely three matches available at any one time? Today there have been barely 3 to 8 online sailors and sometimes not even 2 on the WHOLE SS5 server!

This weekend there are just THREE available online matches, a laser only open, and two Bavaria matches. What is Stentec doing to encourage more online activity?Surely if you are relying on customers who are restricted to either a very lonely practice session or finding a frankly pathetically small number of online players, you are not helping your own product to thrive and grow.

How come that Virtual Skipper, in my view a far inferior sim in terms of proper sailing physics, has a relatively busy server. The racing on SS5 is my view FAR better in terms of atmosphere, so why is it so poorly supported? Is there another server I don't know about where there are hundreds of online enthusiasts? What is the point of selling this simulator if there is virtually no online play....that's the whole point of SS5 I assume.

[TiGER]

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[Admiral]

Random races either in VSK or Sail Simulator require quite some tollerance toward "non-sailors" .. though IMHO the number of those are way higher in VSK.

Due to aut-trim equalising boat speed in VSK long legs are needed to seperate fleets needed to avoid clusterf* ups at marks.

Vsk has an umpire however that umpire can only consider 2 boats in any incident. The average players computer system can barely manage races with 20 boats graphically in any 3D sailing game , an umpire that can consider all boats in any situation in reasonable intervals requires (still) more resources than players have available.

In real life there is no umpire in fleet races, you all meet at the yacht club to buy a round of beer and amend differences you had on the water, or a jury is provided to settle disputes.

For serious racing be it with VSK or Sail Simulator you best go looking for a community or group of friends like minded 'sailors' that can agree to meet on a regular basis. Just follow the "fan sites" link on the sail simulator website.

Active in VSK 10+ years AND Sail Simulator 1+ years (so far rather successfull trying to avoid "non-sailors" )

[Frobisher]

Thanks for the replies. I have looked at some "fan" sites but the fact is that a company promoting an online simulator with no artificial intelligence surely needs to have its own thriving online community. As for ""non-sailors", we all had to start somewhere and most online manners I've seen so far are ok. Controlling a new sim is almost like sailing from scratch again...orienting yourself to somewhat sensitive controls, on-screen charts and game procedures is quite daunting at first. So tolerance is I would have thought desirable, if only to encourage the very thing I am referring to....the increase in online sailing simmers!

[Istvan]

Dear All,

I would suggest SailSimulator to make a contract with Steam who provides an extremly huge online comminity, gamers and customers at the same time.

Multiplayer is the exciting part of this but is not working to me, can not connect for some reason. At least AI robot players shall be available if the human multiplayer function/service has issues.

Istvan

[TiGER]

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[Admiral]

You can set up a private server. Its not unlike setting up a server for other p2p on-line games.

HowTo: http://vivarace.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=92&t=2390

This could be done more comfortable but needs a drastic change in and or an alternative session management so don't expect anything overnight.

[Salty Dog]

@ Istvan – I use Steam for a few games. And honestly, I prefer that this simulator not be a part of that mess. While Steam provides some amount of positive benefit, overall it is probably not a great fit for this simulator as it is different than a game in the normal sense. I do appreciate your suggestion though, and it is a nice thought towards building a larger fan-base.

@ Admiral – Yes, as a Simulator, this software experience is best suited to real-life sailors or those that have an interest in learning rather that the average “gamer” sort. One of the things that I find refreshing about SS5 is that it is Not a game. E.g. There are no “missions”, there are no levels of play or gear upgrades. You start out with one-design equipment and your success relies on skill rather than grinding for gear as in most MMO games.

And much like in real-life sailing, it is not always about where you are going, but the journey itself, enjoying the briny deeps and the air in your hair, so to speak.

Yes, maybe it would be nice to have a larger user-base. And even then it would be best if the users were spilt up across multiple servers so as not to overload any given course or race. More is good, but only up to a certain degree. After that it becomes a cumbersome mess.

Does anyone have suggestions on ways to build user-base while still keeping that base sailor oriented rather than turning it into an MMO?

Bring-a-friend seems obvious, but honestly this is not just everyone’s cup of tea, even counting sailors, there is limited percentage of folks that are interested. Most online players want an MMO type experience.

Thanks,
- Salty Dog

[Admiral]

Does anyone have suggestions on ways to build user-base while still keeping that base sailor oriented rather than turning it into an MMO?

Set up a competition: ?

http://www.vivarace.de/nl/virtualsailin ... eague.html

Horizontal planning:

Always set up races at the same time at the same day of the week.
After a while some will have get used to always meet at the same time at the same place.
AKA
Bavaria League every monday at 19:00 UTC
Team Racing in 420 every thursday at 19:00 UTC

See here: http://www.vivarace.de/virtualsailing/racing.html

Once you have stable group of sailors that comfortably can fill a racing session you could
take racing private:
Private server in private virtual networks, if security is a major issue you can try Hamachi.
else set up plain public server: (publicise server adress to the public)
See: http://vivarace.de/randr/sailsimhost.php