Will Not Buy FOF 2004
 

I have been a fan of Jim's games since the very first one came out. However, I will not buy this one. Nothing against Jim. Hear me out please before any slams towards me..LOL..

Just my thoughts on software. If I pay my hard earned money for a game, I would like to be able to play it 5 years or 3yrs, or 2yrs down the road and not worry about the license issue. How many of us bought and paid for FOF 2 and 2003 and tried to get it re-licensed and could not because of the middle company said we could not. That is just money down the tubes. If I buy something I expect to be able to load it and play it at any time, whether I get a new computer down the road or reload my computer etc.

I personally do not like the concept anymore of the license software issue, well maybe this is a thing of the future and that is fine, but all software companies that do this will lose my business. I know it helps some of you who can not buy the game because your not in the states and that is great that you can get it now.

Im not whining or complaining like it may sound, but just stating my oppinion. I will not even purchase the new one that .400 studios is coming out with, if they ever do.

Not asking for any comments or slams, just had to get that off of my chest.


Thanks for reading me whine...LOL

all the way from the big penaltybox in the sky...

wigSLAM

Sad to hear for you. Your losing out on some great games.

i got a new computer earlier this year, and with a little guidance from jim on the exact people to talk to, had no problem re-licensing fof2. just fyi.

I would echo this as well, in the past (a few years ago) this may have been a concern...now it just isn't hard to get relicensing taken care of. I've had to do it several times and it has never taken more than 30 minutes to be back playing again.

I don't mean to sound like a slobbering fanboy, but I've fucked pigs that had more sense than you.

Did I say pigs? I meant supermodels.

pansy!

to each his own.

personally, if I could choose between buying a DL license version, and a CD version, I'd take the DL every time. I've got enough CD's cluttering up my desk as it is.

Guys, is it possible to store the license #, say in notepad and then burn the game onto a disk? That way you can have everyhting you need if for some reason you can no longer get it online. Can this be done?

While I don't think the download factor would ever stop me from buying a game I really wanted, if I was on the fence about purchasing a game, it might sway me away from it. I think in the end, it may cost Jim some sales. But perhaps the reduction in piracy offsets that...

I definitely see you point though. What if two year from now the e-license company goes out of business, and you get a new computer? You're SOL. Or what happens if 15 years from now you start feeling nostalgic, and decide to fire up FOF 2004?

Ditto

Re: Will Not Buy FOF 2004
 

didn't actually read it, just the first sentence and then I skipped down to the last one, but you're welcome anyway.

that's exactly what I do. I have all the licenses for all my various ViaTech games stored in on notepad file, that's archived in any number of places.

there's a 95% chance it wont run on whatever OS you are running anyway, whether you have a license, the CD, or Jim's original source code.

Thanks Draft Dodger.

Draft Dodger writes down the codes but still needs to connect to the viatech servers in order to relicense the game when he reinstalls them. There isn't a manual method of backing up your registration and then restoring it. Any such method would likely defeat the anti-piracy protection. Say the game stored your registration in a file when you removed it...what would stop someone from sending that file to all of their friends? There has to be some way of tracking the license usage that cannot be manipulated by pirates. That is why viatech has to store everything on their servers.

Even if I can only play FOF2K4 two years and then the elicense dies, isn't that better than not playing at all? (assuming its worth playing of course)

There is a method of "off-line" licensing that they use as well.

I've personally never had a bad experience w/ e-licensing, but I can understand this guys feelings...It's nice to hold that physical copy of the game, and know that if you ever want to throw it on your laptop...or a computer at the place your house-sitting, you can do it w/o an internet connection.

When a game is done as e-license only, the price should be marked down accordingly.

FBpro explain please. I am a bit concerned with this license stuff. I would rather have a hard copy of the game but I truly thought that one could burn the sim onto a CD and then copy/paste the license number into notepad and do it that way.

I may not buy the game either, but not because of licensing. That's easy to fix. I am waiting to see if we can export FOF4 files into it. If not, I'm out. OOTP does it right when it enables you to maintain continuity on long term dynasties. OOTP does it so that it enhances your overall experience. FOF tries to act like it's an entirely new experience each time, but it's really just a modified version of the same game. Jim should treat it this way and find a way to allow us to maintain our games. If not, then I may look at that other game everyone is so anxiously waiting for from the .400 guys.

I think the Q&A said no (at least for exporting 2004 to xxxx, at least at this time.)

Easy Mac is right. You cannot export any files form this version or any other into future versions. None are compatable with each other.

Leonidas, you said the following "I may not buy the game either, but not because of licensing. That's easy to fix." What fix do you know of that you can share? I want to know because this is a concern for me. Thanks for your input.

I think, just based on the expanded stats in the new version, you wouldn't want to convert from FOF4 to FOF2K4. I personally would rather have the expanded stats, but that's just me.

I'm not Leonidas, but he could mean the fact that problems are few with eLicense, but the few people that have had problems get these problems fixed easily.

Burning the game on a CD with the license on a text file works great and gives you the CD backup that fanuvsports does not seem to realize is possible. I think the whole eLicense panic of 2 years + ago has pretty much vanished among followers of software products that use eLicense - the issue rarely even comes up anymore. The benefits of the technology far outweigh any advantages of a boxed game.

Being a long term supporter of Jim (at least monetarily) buying every iteration of FOF (and TCY), I can tell you that I would prefer having a CD as well...however, when the first iteration of FOF came out via download only (FOF2?) in 1999 and I was in Saudi Arabia on a deployment, I was able to elicense it without an internet connection. My laptop wasn't able to hook up to the LAN, WAN, whatever the Air Force used over there, but I was able to download the executable file one night (a breach of the internet agreement not to download files, but hey, it was FOF!).

I still didn't have the internet connection to license the game, but I emailed some dude (can't even remember this guy) and he wrote instructions on how to license it without the internet. I had to hit some combo of CTRL-SHIFT-F1 or something and a window would pop up asking for the order ID# and another number (which the tech guy provided). I entered it, and voila, it worked.

Thats sounds cool. I wish you remembered the instructions. :) Thanks for the input though. I'll do some more checking into that.

I had the instructions on my laptop, which is far gone from my ownership. Since then, I've gone through 3 desktops and 2 other laptops :) . I believe, however, that you need some overriding reason to elicense without an internet connection (being deployed protecting the interests of your country counts :) )

"What if two year from now the e-license company goes out of business, and you get a new computer?"

What if two years from now you lose your CD? Or the case or manual that has the CD-KEY? A short email to the company won't fix either of these problems.

The point is with both ways, there are risks. No system is perfect. In fact, IMO, e-licensing is the most safe way to do it. (Only because personally, I tend to lose things easily. :) )

sorry if I led you in the wrong direction.

when you make a purchase of a game that uses the ViaTech licensing, you get a long-ass order number.
when you first try to play the game...you are prompted to for that number to "activate" the game; it takes 5 seconds (and an internet connection) to do. After that, you don't have to do anything again (including access the net) unless you install onto a new/different machine.

I like to keep all my licenses in one place for reference, hence the text file. You can't burn an "activated" copy of the game - you can burn a copy of the game, but you'd still need to activate it when you want to play it. That would defeat the purpose of the whole deal.

I gottcha DraftDodger. I have used this license deal when I bought TCY and I havne't had any issues yet but just in case I though maybe...just maybe there might be a way around it. Thanks again.

Means if you have a PC "without" internet access you can contact Via-Tech and they will walk you through a process to license the game "manually" so to speak.

Thanks.

This is why im mainly a reader and not a poster. I did not slam anyone, I just stated my opionion non how I felt then someone can not post a comment without foul language. From this point on I will just read.

Thanks all others for the comments you made, was not looking for any but a lot of you brought up some good points.

Thank you Subby!

No problem. Good luck on being mainly a reader and not a poster.

I PMed my paypal account number to you in case you want to send me a small thank you gift or something. You don't have to of course, but it would be the polite thing to do. Since you aren't buying FOF2K4 I figure you can afford something nice - like benwa balls (new) or a box of nutty buddies.

Anyway, thanks in advance for the small thank-you gift. Remind me to give you a hard time more often (you can PM the reminder.)

there.

Hehehehehe. You so crazy!

His name was Dan Wassen, EA-FOF's producer and EA's representative of the time. A number of people managed to get their game working only because of him (given the level of suck that Digital River managed to ascend to). Of course, a number of people forgot about his contribution after he made a jerk of himself (without actually having taken the time to find out the whole story) after the next title's FUBAR'ed release ("it's available!", "it's not!", "you thieves!", "jerk!", etc.).

Er, the end of that particular chapter's of FOFC's history. :)

You have to admit you were pretty uncool to the dude, even if I also disagreed with his point.

Mind you, you did managed to held back "fucksnort" THIS time. So, uhh, kudos. :D

Yeah - I need to remember to use the smileys when I post. That would make them friendlier and more accessible.

For example:

Stop being such a dumb-fucking orangutan! :)

Hey....you goat-heading cuntdwarf... ;)

Fritz is insanely hairy and fresh. :cool:

I'm glad it's going to be via download this time. That way I don't have to wait for the CD to arrive. I just re-installed TCY, emailed Viatech and had my order ID within hours.

I know some of you get upset with this method, but I applaud Jim. Knock on wood, but Viatech has always been easy to work with.


Todd

of course if e-license does eventually die, jim and other programmers that have elicense games could always write patches to disable the protection if they still have the source code.

Im personally surprised that jim hasnt released a patch for fof2 to do this, and just give the game away. Its a good way to increase your sales

Of course, Jim can't give away FOF2 because he doesn't own it, EA does.

From what I understand FOF2 is owned by EA and Jim really doesn't have anything to do with it anymore...

Grrr...beaten by a Bad-Example....

You seem to be beaten a lot Jeeb. Are you a red-headed step child by chance?

No, but when I was growing up my older brother and sister always told me that I was an adopted vietnamese baby whose real name was Home-Lee...