Valiant Streaming

[Suanne Forte]

Sothe $150 per week 'premium' wifi is only twice as fast as the free wifi but my 3yo cell phone is over 100X faster as a hotspot than Virgin's server. My cell phone could provide wifi service to over 100 people at a cost of $1 each per month.

We had no problem doing everything we wanted to, including streaming, on Valiant with premium wifi. No problems with lag or unstable connections. This included the April TA crossing....worked well all the way across.

Any data intensive needs I use my cell phone as a hot spot in the ports. The TV selections are extremely limited and the signal drops in and out. The Virgin App crashes repeatedly. VV needs to upgrade their wifi and recode the app. Everyone complains about the app crashing repeatedly.

$30 per day?? It's always been $10 per day and if you have status, it's free. Maybe they increased the price to $15 recently. I'm not really sure why you are comparing land based and satellite based data. There's just no comparison. The speeds on Virgin have improved significantly with the introduction of Starlink, and I'm sure Elon Musk is charging Sir Richard more than $1 per passenger for the service!

I don't think anyone here is defending the app. I think it's one of the biggest complaints from regular sailors. I didn't have too many issues with it on my 2 Resilient sailings this year, but it still gets low grades from me when I fill out the survey.

1000% this. And note that internet speeds vary wildly throughout the cruise and even throughout the day depending on a number of factors. That's for any cruise ship. As for the pricing, it's been $10/day for the streaming upgrade, though with the Deep Blue Extras we get one upgrade for free on each cruise.

As above, the price of the Premium upgrade has always been $10 per day. We got a 2 device upgrade with DBE. Yes, I know the purchased upgrade is 3 devices, but Sailor Services clearly told us 2 which was fine. Had we desired, we could have logged out of one device and onto another--it was 2 at the same time. We didn't do this--we put the computers on the premium and kept the phones on the standard.

Yes, the app is a pain. It worked a lot better on the ship than on land, but still crashed at times. It was especially bad when the crew app crashed!

I agree that the TV selections are not extensive, but we had no problem with signal loss. The crew in the Social Club were very amenable to running sailor requests on the large screens there.

Have you cruised before? We previously sailed Disney almost exclusively. Tried Royal twice. Virgin is down right cheap compared to those two lines. Disney won't let you stream no matter how much you pay!

It's silly to compare land based cellular on a single personal device to thousands of people sharing a satellite connection at sea. Is it expensive? Absolutely. Do they mark it up over their cost? Absolutely. Are they aligned with the industry? Not even close, way better deal.

Valiant Lady improved greatly when they got the Starlink set up. It was quite awful in October 2022, MUCH improved in April 2023. We may have been satisfied with regular, but since we had premium as a perk, we enjoyed it.

When I was on Scarlet back in December of 2021 the internet wasn't the fastest but I was able to do my payroll without any issues. I could keep up with work emails and any of the other things that I had to do.

Fast forward to two cruises I did on Princess. Once with their paid internet and this last time with what was included in their package and neither time could I stay on long enough to get through doing payroll. And their internet isn't cheap. I went into port and found a Starbucks in order to at least get payroll done. It was a nightmare and then having to deal with emails from work as to why aren't you replying.

I have Starlink at my home and it is amazing. Way better then the previous satellite internet I had. But my home isn't bouncing around like a cork in a bucket of water. The thing is, that with the number of Starlink satellites that are up there in low orbit you may encounter a short lag between pick up but it isn't by very much and since they are in low orbit the speed up and back isn't even noticeable.

I remember when I first cruised and OMG the cost was prohibitive for WiFi on a ship. Kind of like the package of 70 minutes for $150 for my first cell phone. So times change and things improve. If you like waiting till you are in a port to use your hotspot great. I don't.

As the entertainment industry gears up for an onslaught of deep pocketed conglomerates looking to stockpile their content streaming services, Hollywood is frantically searching for the newest IP franchise to fill both movie screens and streaming coffers. Packed with a stable of global comic book characters, could Valiant Entertainment, the award-winning comic book publisher, be the next Marvel and DC?

Younger and, in many ways, more global than its Marvel and DC competitors, Valiant has been in existence for thirty years, having been founded in 1989 by former Marvel Comics editor Jim Shooter and businessman Steven Massarsky. In early 2018, DMG Entertainment acquired full ownership of Valiant Entertainment after already owning 57% of the company. DMG is a global media and entertainment company with diverse holdings and operations across motion pictures, television, comic book publishing, gaming, next-gen technology and location-based entertainment and Valiant fit seamlessly into that landscape.

DMG sees the coming cavalcade of streaming services as a boon for their Valiant comic book heroes. Three of the six major streamers that will be playing in the space, Disney, WB/ATT and Comcast , produce their own content but three of the six ( Apple , Amazon and Netflix ) focus on purchasing content from third party producers, opening up a wealth of opportunities for new franchises.

The increased drama and backstage access makes a sporting docuseries a more organic and effective promotional strategy than traditional forms of marketing. Sports docuseries may prove to be useful for sporting associations in future as an effective tool to generate a passive income stream, increase fan engagement and become a means of entry and exposure to new geographical and demographical markets.

As streaming services are increasingly being used for consumption of content and sporting entertainment, the docuseries format is a highly effective and lucrative promotional strategy, and businesses should be mindful of the above considerations.

Valiant Hearts: Coming Home and Valiant Hearts: The Collection, which includes Valiant Hearts: The Great War and Valiant Hearts: Coming Home, is now available on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and PC through Ubisoft Connect. Valiant Hearts: The Great War, the first installment of the duology, interweaves the stories of five characters as they experience the horrors of World War I. Karl, who was expelled from France and drafted to the German army; his father-in-law Emile, who has been drafted into the French army; Freddie, an American volunteer in the French Foreign Legion; Anna, a French combat nurse; and Walt, a medic's casualty dog - who also helps players sneak into areas inaccessible to humans.

Valiant Hearts: Coming Home, previously an exclusive Netflix mobile game developed by Ubisoft Montpellier in partnership with Old Skull Games, continues a dramatic narrative during World War I, once again focusing on four interconnected stories. James is a member of the historic Harlem Hellfighters looking for his older brother Freddie; the nurse Anna's returns to her work tending the wounded; Ernst is a German diver; and George is a British aviator. And, of course, the good dog Walt returns to help players with puzzles and exploration. Music plays an important role in the game as well, as the Harlem Hellfighters played a key role in introducing jazz music to Europe, and players can listen to the game's jazz soundtrack by Jason Moran on music streaming platforms.

Ubisoft Da Nang worked on bringing Valiant Hearts: Coming Home to PC and consoles, a decision that was made for multiple reasons: one, for the dedicated community of players who had long been requesting the additional platforms; two, to bring the stories to even more players; and three, to create the Valiant Hearts: The Collection bundle, which would allow players to dive into both stories. Ubisoft Da Nang first opened its doors in 2020 and primarily works on mobile titles, but developers enjoyed the opportunity to be one of the first studios in Vietnam to release a game on console.

"We had to forge our own path, navigating uncharted territory," says Nhi Ho, associate producer at Ubisoft Da Nang. "On the quality assurance side, this involved meticulous testing and adaptation to meet the specific requirements of each console."

"One of my favorite parts of the project was working with the diverse cast of characters with various cultural backgrounds," adds Van Nguyen, QC tester at Ubisoft Da Nang. "Ensuring their portrayal aligns with their historical context was a thought-provoking aspect of the testing process that involved research, sensitivity, and attention to detail to guarantee respectful and accurate representation."

Valiant Hearts: Coming Home and Valiant Hearts: The Collection are available for purchase on the Ubisoft Store for Xbox Series XS, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC through Ubisoft Connect. Both titles are also included as separate entities in a Ubisoft+ Premium subscription. For more on Valiant Hearts: Coming Home, check out how the game honors the history of the Harlem Hellfighters.

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