Release on Steam or similar service?

[RobotDinosaur]

Wondering if there's any plan to release the game on Steam or some other game download service (GOG.com, Green Man Gaming, etc.) I like the demo and the idea of a football manager game, but haven't convinced myself to buy it yet. Between the inconvenience of not being on a download service with all my other games, the fact that it's not on a mobile platform, and the price being very high for an indie game, I'm finding myself putting off the purchase, possibly indefinitely.

[Subby]

I know Jim has talked about it, but my guess is it won't happen.

The price is beyond fair. The replayability of this game is off the charts, particularly if you are in a league with other players. The last release was six years ago and you still have players opening the game every other day for mp or sp. Take the plunge! You won't regret it.

[MizzouRah]

The series has been around for many, many years. Most of us buy anything from Jim Gindin without batting an eye... ymmv.. :)

[Julio Riddols]

I'd pay 100 dollars for this game if I absolutely had to. Been playing FOF since 1998, will probably play it until I can't physically do it anymore. It is an indie game from an indie developer, but the substance is incredible. It makes me forget about any graphical qualms I may have. Jim also supports his games better than most and they are always incredibly stable. Never have I had a game that crashes as little as FOF. I could probably count all the crashes I have seen in 13 years on both hands, and that's with me playing the game nearly every day of that period.

I sound like a shill here, but when a guy doesn't have to pay you to say good things about his game I think it says a lot about the overall quality of it.

[A-Husker-4-Life]

I'd pay 100 dollars for this game if I absolutely had to. Been playing FOF since 1998, will probably play it until I can't physically do it anymore. It is an indie game from an indie developer, but the substance is incredible. It makes me forget about any graphical qualms I may have. Jim also supports his games better than most and they are always incredibly stable. Never have I had a game that crashes as little as FOF. I could probably count all the crashes I have seen in 13 years on both hands, and that's with me playing the game nearly every day of that period.

I sound like a shill here, but when a guy doesn't have to pay you to say good things about his game I think it says a lot about the overall quality of it.

I feel the same way, now can I get my TCY2.. I'd give $100.00 for that any day.

[mckerney]

Doesn't have to be Steam necessarily, but i hope there's some other release. I'm not really interested in dealing with elicense again.

[OttoGott]

Doesn't have to be Steam necessarily, but i hope there's some other release. I'm not really interested in dealing with elicense again.

mckerney -

Here is my experience (and two other users' experiences) so far in relation to FOF and ViaTech (i.e., eLicense):

Unable to Launch, but was Fine For the Last Day?? - Front Office Football Central (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=88034)

I am not trying to pile on here, but maybe the more potential users are made aware of this issue, then maybe the relevant parties will consider this potential issue a serious one.

Fingers-crossed.

[jopulcini]

I'm with Otto. I had problems with ViaTech in the last go around. No matter how great the game is, the audience will get smaller as the launch and compatibility issues are not addressed. It's like a wonderful florist that refuses to use anything but a horse and buggy to deliver the product while everyone else is using automobiles.

[BYU 14]

I feel the same way, now can I get my TCY2.. I'd give $100.00 for that any day.

I will double the price!! (Kickstarter anyone?)

[Solecismic]

mckerney -

Here is my experience (and two other users' experiences) so far in relation to FOF and ViaTech (i.e., eLicense):

Unable to Launch, but was Fine For the Last Day?? - Front Office Football Central (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=88034)

I am not trying to pile on here, but maybe the more potential users are made aware of this issue, then maybe the relevant parties will consider this potential issue a serious one.

Fingers-crossed.

This relevant party is quite frustrated, and gives everyone running into this issue sincere apologies.

I was given two assurances: 1) the hanging wrapper issue was solved with the new library and 2) customer service response would be timely.

I'm not even hearing back from them on this. I know they are small and in the past have taken Christmas week off, but I'd like to enjoy Christmas myself and I'd like my customers to enjoy Christmas.

In the meantime, it still seems that having certain anti-virus programs even installed on a computer may interfere with their library.

[dubb93]

This relevant party is quite frustrated, and gives everyone running into this issue sincere apologies.

I was given two assurances: 1) the hanging wrapper issue was solved with the new library and 2) customer service response would be timely.

I'm not even hearing back from them on this. I know they are small and in the past have taken Christmas week off, but I'd like to enjoy Christmas myself and I'd like my customers to enjoy Christmas.

In the meantime, it still seems that having certain anti-virus programs even installed on a computer may interfere with their library.

The one and only time I contacted Viatech for an issue involving FOF 2K7 I never heard back from them. I had to spend time in the depths of the internet to figure out how to get my license back.

[CraigSca]

I will double the price!! (Kickstarter anyone?)

Would easily contribute $200 myself.

[chelm123456789]

Haven't visited the forums in some time. I look every year or so to see whats going on with the game and see where it's at. Thought maybe with some of the user created mods for the UI and the contest for the UI mod that maybe I'll finally give this a go. Not a huge fan of complete text driven games since my imagination is very lacking. But it looks like others are having elicense problems and that's enough to scare me off.

[OttoGott]

This relevant party is quite frustrated, and gives everyone running into this issue sincere apologies.

I was given two assurances: 1) the hanging wrapper issue was solved with the new library and 2) customer service response would be timely.

I'm not even hearing back from them on this. I know they are small and in the past have taken Christmas week off, but I'd like to enjoy Christmas myself and I'd like my customers to enjoy Christmas.

In the meantime, it still seems that having certain anti-virus programs even installed on a computer may interfere with their library.

Thank you very much Jim for the update; much appreciated. Here's to a speedy solution.

[Solecismic]

For those who are reporting a slow response time from ViaTech... did you receive the auto-reply with a ticket number when you first emailed ViaTech?

They are still telling me there are no delays in responding to customers.

I'm still waiting for a response on the issue with nothing happening when trying to start the game. Last I heard, they were waiting for a response from someone running test code for them.

With regard to the strange crashes due to corrupted data (everyone showing on one team, or having a low weight, or the game moves to an earlier year)... this is due to what I think is a bug in the code ViaTech has implemented to stop the game from running when the demo has expired. That problem should end when the game is licensed, though saved games with the corrupted data won't work.

[OttoGott]

For those who are reporting a slow response time from ViaTech... did you receive the auto-reply with a ticket number when you first emailed ViaTech?

They are still telling me there are no delays in responding to customers.

I'm still waiting for a response on the issue with nothing happening when trying to start the game. Last I heard, they were waiting for a response from someone running test code for them.

With regard to the strange crashes due to corrupted data (everyone showing on one team, or having a low weight, or the game moves to an earlier year)... this is due to what I think is a bug in the code ViaTech has implemented to stop the game from running when the demo has expired. That problem should end when the game is licensed, though saved games with the corrupted data won't work.

Hello Jim -

Thanks for following-up. I received no automated email with a ticket number when I submitted my request for help via the web form or email.

Though, I did receive an email from ViaTech on 12/24 in response to my 12/20 email, and this did have a ticket number. They sent a diagnostic .exe file that checked my system specs in relation to the game, and it creates a .dat file with this information. They asked that I send this back to them, and I did yesterday.

Heard back from them today with the following guidance concerning my situation:

"From the vtdebug.dat file we see that your eLicense Control Service is not running.

Please make sure that the "LicCtrl" service is set to "Automatic" and has a status of "Started".

The Services options are under the Administrative Tools.
To access the Administrative Tools:
Start->Control Panel->Administrative Tools
From there open "Services"."

I performed these steps just now and I was able to launch FOF! Happy New Year to me!

Now the true test will be to see if it sticks...there may be something with my system that turned off this service thinking it was unnecessary at startup, and my System Mechanic Pro has this feature. I will not alter anything to see if this service gets turned off again. If so, then white-listing this service within such system optimization software may do the trick for some people. I will let you know the outcome.

Thanks again for bugging ViaTech!