I'm sorry but .. is this game completely busted, broken and N/A?

[Stain]

As you may notice, I am a long, long time member here but I don't ever speak. I just read and keep my mouth shut.

But, a situation has arose in my sports gaming experience that I felt I had no choice but to turn to the experts here ( .. and trust me, I've looked .. YOU guys on THIS forum are BY FAR more intelligent than any other forum out there on sports gaming. No contest.).

So, I have a great favor to ask of some of the leaders of this forum that have the capability to separate "fanboys" from "incessant b!tching about all things in every sports game" to the common, mature quiet gamer trying to relieve some stress of career and kids with a game.

Is NFL Head Coach this year entirely BUSTED? I mean, broke, messed up, doesn't work, programmed wrong, worthless, etc.? I ask this in true seriousness and with no bias.

I have been playing this game as the Browns and started my career, chose my coach and all that jazz and made it through FA and the draft and now .. 9 days before the preseason starts .. it has just has stopped. Ceased. Won't advance. I have tried everything. Simming to the preseason, simming to the regular season, it just sits there on July 29th and the three dots keep expanding out and it never moves off that date. EVER. Leave it sit for hours and it won't move. And there is no other option to do, to choose, to move it forward.

Now, before turning to this forum, I have tried six (real) days of every possible option there is to get it to advance. Nothing. There is no "Autosave" that I could load that is even close to the date I was at. I don't even think that Autosave feature works right.

So, my main question to the leaders and intelligent people of this forum is twofold:

Is there anything I can do?

and

Am I wasting my time attempting to play this game?

Is it just generally accepted here that the game is broke? Being an experienced gamer (back to Intellivision Football), I know that you may well help me here, at this point, and I would be eternally grateful for that .. but I also know from experience that if there is one MAJOR, SHOW STOPPING problem you run in to, there is a very, very good chance there are many, many more lurking in future programming for me to curse at in loud tones.

I didn't really .. *really* .. like this game all that much because of my previous experience with Front Page Sports Football Pro and the amazing, before-it's-time, capabilities in the play creation area. -This- game's play creation is like a children's book compared to a great novel when laid next to FPS:FB Pro capabilities. But, it won by default. There is no other game that really let's you do this so I was willing to compromise and that is why I wanted, and continue to desire, to play this game. However, it would seem that this is just .. a ... "broke" game, for the lack of a better term.

Am I entirely wrong? Should I keep attempting to play this game or move on to something else?

It patched itself some time ago. It doesn't patch itself any more, I can say that definitively, so I would trust that it is patched to the latest version. And, I can also add that I've done nothing truly bizarre that would create some "one in a million" scenario where the game might find an endless loop in the programming. I just played it quite regularly. I'm not smart enough, savvy enough with game exploitation to put myself in a bizarre situation that nobody else would ever find themselves in.

Is NFL Head Coach for 2009 a malfunctioned, non-applicable game in the sports gaming world? If not, what may be the work-arounds, the always avoids, the map to some form of enjoyment from my significant investment of time and thought and the cash I paid?

If there is no answer, my belief is we have a class-action lawsuit that is open and shut. That could avoided if EA offers complete financial relief of our price of admission to this house of jokes and farces. The chance of that happening, I have found in the past, is simply non-applicable. Maybe it's time to change the rules under their feet and put a boot on their neck, especially in these financial times, and let them know that they simply cannot get away with this. The ideal outcome would be a legal argument that their monopoly of the license allows this type of product to pass as a viable, marketable product and they can ram it down our throats, no matter the state of it. Portray them as a huge corporation that does not care if their product is faulty and force them to forfeit the exclusivity and, therefore, open back up the NFL license to all companies that can pay a licensing fee. A viable, undeniable argument that their monopoly on this license has caused irreparable damage to the culture of football gaming that simply must be stopped.

The mood against large corporations in this country is extremely volatile right now and we may be able to make that argument and end up, in a couple years, with some actual competition for the right of being the best selling football game. Through the more outstanding, better entertaining product that works. Not through the default of saying "NFL" on the box.

Thank you for any information or light you could shed in your opinions, and I am looking for opinions, to go with facts that EA just screwed me out of $50.

Waiting patiently to read responses,

Stain

[Mauler97]

I have played about 5 hours a day on average since August 12th, one time I had a freeze issue back in the 1st week i had the game and since then I have had zero issues.

I also am in year 2019 with one of my franchises and it runs just as good as in year 2008.

I'm sorry you are having issues, I have no idea if it's the disc or your system but for me the game runs nearly perfect.

This game IMO is the best football game I've ever played, and I am a die-hard
NFL 2K5 fan. I think with some new enhancements and tweeks HC 2010 will offically make me a hermit.

NOTE: This make me sound really bad, I'm not a loser. I've still done a million in sales and had another baby in that time frame too, I just don't sleep.

[HitDoctor]

It is broke for some. Freezes still occur after the latest patch. There will be no more patch. If you start the class action suit, I'm sure there will be others to join. Me, I'd rather volunteer at a food bank, read to pre-schoolers, and do laundry. These things are more fulfilling. These games aren't real life and in the future, check the boards before you buy or buy used (either way, you will be sure to not get as angry as you are now).

[bkrich83]

Seems like the PS3 version is more vulnerable to the freezing problem. What are you playing on?

[DougSupreme]

Quote: Originally Posted by Stain

The ideal outcome would be a legal argument that their monopoly of the license

This has been beaten to death in the Madden forum.

There is no monopoly

The NFL has the right to sell licensing rights to whomever they want. They chose to sell the license to ONE company. Unfortunately, it was EA.


OTOH, Head Coach is an extremely fun game to play, even with it's shortcomings.

[Stain]

Well, it matters not whether it is, by definition, a monopoly. Your taking issue with the wording of the statement misses the big picture of the legal argument that consumers have been damaged because of lack of competition. That's an area that gets politicians ears to perk up and a candidate, or office holder, that is personally responsible for shredding Electronic Arts' unprecedented control of any form of football gaming in to a wide open competition that again produces products like NFL2K5 would be one vote getting machine from sports gamers. I mean, honestly, a judge, who knows nothing of gaming, could look upon this and say "Not only has the consumer been damaged in this agreement but it is quite ludicrous to say that Dreamworks can be the only studio that can make movies about comedy is insane".

A complete redress of the situation because of EA's failure here. And, anything that has a chance to set precedent can be appealed quite liberally. In fact, we could end up with a legal landscape that no longer allows large companies to enter in to agreements that cuts off all competition in a marketplace. I mean, High Heat might be back on the playing field should something like this work. Just a stay or injunction might be interesting in its ramifications.

With the demonizing of Big Business and the discussion at the highest levels of the need for regulation or deregulation of industries, the playing field has shifted, big time. We might be able to wedge in our case as gamers and cause exclusivity to be argued as damaging to consumers. And we use a broken game like NFL Head Coach as Exhibit A of what big business does to the little guy when left to their own devices of greed.

And I'd love to play the game and see if it is fun or not. Played in the vein that it is meant to be, with all of the control and decision making of a front office of a professional football franchise and the investment of the time therein, THEN coaching the game. That is a level I would like to be able to try and see if it is fun.

BTW, playing on the 360.

I don't think it could be the disc because it is not "freezing" in the classic sense of everything stops motion. The camera still scans around Cleveland and all that. And the dots keep moving as it says "Simming to Preseason".

It just never does anything after that.

As for checking out the boards before hand, I am guilty there. I simply assumed that when a game is released for a console that there is intense scrutiny it goes through before Microsoft allows it to be put on the shelves of Wal-Mart. Scrutiny in as much that the game may be absolutely terrible, like one of any games named after a movie, BUT it does WORK. My understanding was this is a major, major thing with developers with consoles where PC games can be released and a big patch is released the same day as it starts selling to the public so that the game works properlu. Or, at least, you can actually do something with it instead of i just sitting there in the game, frozen in time and you are powerless to do anything about it.

I would actually LOVE to get to the part of the game where I am coaching. I tryst Mauler's opinion of "this is the best football game I have ever played". It's just it never let me get to the point of being a coach. I can SEE the potential of how Mauler's opinion could be entirely true as I have a great personal investment in a variety of areas with this team and success or failure could be much, much more satisfying/exacerbating than for those that just pick up a controller and play Madden. That's, generally, one of the more exciting marketing concepts behind NFL Coach. From play designs, to personal playbooks, to personnel decisions of every type to even Assistant Coaches you choose and their control level ... it's all there to validate Mauler's opinion because of this circumstance YOU, personally, have created and your success is truly the result of your series of decisions that all add up to victory. The kind of level of victory a casual Madden player could never achieve.

IF .. IF ..

.. it would only work right.

Stain

[nZane]

Stain, is it possible that you started this particular franchise before you patched your game? If I'm not mistaken, the devs said that one of the pre-patched bugs could permanently damage your franchise after the patch. The timing of your freeze sounds about right, too.

[morieeel]

I haven't had any issues on PS3. A couple of sound issues and one freeze, but I attribute that to a PS3 that was running for whole day.
I know there was some issues pre patch, so I made sure to erase everything Head coach on my system before downloading new patch.
I know its frustrating, and if you love FOF, then this game will probably not be within your standards. I liked FOF but I couldn't stand watching text scroll across my screen gameday. I like seeing the players I signed out there on the field even if there are some issues with gameplay.

One thing I do is save three different files on Wed, pregame and postgame, just in case.

I hope you can get it working cause it is an enjoyable game.