Wait For It.....Wait For It............No Update

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by Penfold75

Having one locked dedicated update thread would not take hours to update every couple of weeks. That's right there is one it just isn't updated that often or the updates are waffle.
.

They already have that. The last update was 32 days ago and prior to that it was either monthly, many times weekly or bi-weekly. I don't know many companies where a fanbase comes out demanding an update after 32 days.

I've told this story before but I will do it again for you, there was a time in my life when I was thrown into Accounts payable with an employee leaving. We were quite far behind at that point in paying people and I was working about 55-60 hour weeks trying to catch up. It got to a point where people were calling and looking for cheques constantly and I just stopped answering. The reason was not because I was ignoring them. I just couldn't waste that time when the important thing would be to call them to say their cheque was ready.

The point being is that you know this game has come along ways since the beta because I think you were here at that time. These guys are working away in the background and just because you don't see regular daily or weekly updates doesn't mean they aren't looking at what people are saying on a regular basis. Again, it's only been 32 days since they announced an official update but they still have been present here and posting as well. If it was 2 months and they had not posted a thing I would be with you, but that is not the case.

[Penfold75]

It is quite clear that there are differing views on the communication in the forum. I and others don't think the communication or the quality of the communication is good enough. Other people disagree that is life. Everyone has their own opinion and are entitled to it.

The initial promise of 4-5 updates a week was unrealistic and I knew that at the time and didn't expect it. I don't think one post every couple of weeks whether it is 5 lines or 500 updating the community on the progress of patches, updates etc is much to ask for.

I was here at the Beta stage and I had the feeling that there were too many features being added to appease the community rather than building a robust simpler game for the first release. Progress has been made but some of the issues (not bugs) like how trading and free agency works have not really improved and there has been I believe no real communication on how these issues are being fixed only plenty of stuff on bugs fixes or changing things like how scouting and player development worked. These issues are key to the game ever being a good simulation of Hockey Management so there should be some update on how they are being addressed.

[BradC]

The problem with 4-5 updates a week is that there would be a lot of posts along the lines of, "Still working on it," which becomes pointless after a while. Yes, I agree that promising 4-5 posts a week at the beginning of the thread wasn't the best idea, so, yes, that's another lesson learned for the FHM team.

During our recent meetings in Germany, I could see how hard everyone is working. Jeff and Sebastian pulled an all-nighter their last night there, since Jeff had to leave for the airport at 4 AM the next day.

It's tough, and it's stressful, and as Markus said, to then spend time on the forums fending off people complaining left and right, that doesn't help.

In the end, I think everyone's criticisms of the game have been heard loud and clear, and the goal now is to take the lessons learned and apply them to FHM 2015 (and to BTS Football, in fact). Everyone at the company acknowledges that FHM's launch wasn't what it should have been, and that we've been on a rocky road since then, but we are determined to keep going with the game and eventually make people forget about these issues.

[G-Nuke]

Originally Posted by BradC

The problem with 4-5 updates a week is that there would be a lot of posts along the lines of, "Still working on it," which becomes pointless after a while. Yes, I agree that promising 4-5 posts a week at the beginning of the thread wasn't the best idea, so, yes, that's another lesson learned for the FHM team.

During our recent meetings in Germany, I could see how hard everyone is working. Jeff and Sebastian pulled an all-nighter their last night there, since Jeff had to leave for the airport at 4 AM the next day.

It's tough, and it's stressful, and as Markus said, to then spend time on the forums fending off people complaining left and right, that doesn't help.

In the end, I think everyone's criticisms of the game have been heard loud and clear, and the goal now is to take the lessons learned and apply them to FHM 2015 (and to BTS Football, in fact). Everyone at the company acknowledges that FHM's launch wasn't what it should have been, and that we've been on a rocky road since then, but we are determined to keep going with the game and eventually make people forget about these issues.

As a pretty harsh critic of FHM myself, I think that your comments are very well said, but we've heard this before.


I think what we need right now are a few firm commitments such as;


1) Confirmation of what will actually be in the final patch
2) A commitment to some kind of frequency of updates that will actually be kept (1 post per week on a Friday would be plenty if it was posted without fail)


That would do it to put a knot on 2014. For 2015, it's up to the FHM team to convince us to plop down cash again, but I think the biggest lesson should be not to throw a bunch of new features at us, but rather get all the existing features working. I for one will not buy 2015 if I hear that historical play is being pushed back to 1917, since I know that the current game is still a mess.

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by G-Nuke

1) Confirmation of what will actually be in the final patch
2) A commitment to some kind of frequency of updates that will actually be kept (1 post per week on a Friday would be plenty if it was posted without fail)
.

1. This will come but when they are ready to tell us - they are still working on it.


2. Starting to feel we are just beating a dead horse, but this will never happen and asking for that is unreasonable if you see it that way or not. Like it was said 1 post a week to say "still working on it" doesn't help anyone. Not only that but it would be a huge burden for the dev team to commit to such nonsense when we all see how the community throws things back at the developers and that's the first thing that will happen when that 1 Friday was missed. It is good business practice to keep the customers informed and updated but a weekly and constant up date to the extent you are asking for, customers are not entitled to that nor are the developers inclined to do so. We live in a generation where we get updates on updates and this is something that FHM cannot afford to do as it is simply counter productive. You would be hard pressed to find any game company that gives that many updates. Why all of a sudden do you expect something differently from FHM? They have a great community but that is simply asking for too much that they can't even provide.


It has been alittle over a month since an official update. Still within that time period they are still active on the forums answering some questions as well. The attention from Jeff, Markus and Brad has all been made clear here. So in essence the "Update" has already been given in this thread. It's just not the answer you were looking for.

Originally Posted by G-Nuke

That would do it to put a knot on 2014. For 2015, it's up to the FHM team to convince us to plop down cash again, but I think the biggest lesson should be not to throw a bunch of new features at us, but rather get all the existing features working.

That we all can agree to.

[G-Nuke]

Originally Posted by dave1927p

1. This will come but when they are ready to tell us - they are still working on it.

They opened pandoras box by promising a bunch of features on the onset, not delivering, then promising said features in updates, and not delivering again.


The update is way late already... time to come clean with what will actually be updated this year, and what is going into next years game.


It's all about setting expectations... which the FHM team has been uniformly awful at.

Originally Posted by dave1927p

2. Starting to feel we are just beating a dead horse, but this will never happen and asking for that is unreasonable if you see it that way or not. Like it was said 1 post a week to say "still working on it" doesn't help anyone. Not only that but it would be a huge burden for the dev team to commit to such nonsense when we all see how the community throws things back at the developers and that's the first thing that will happen when that 1 Friday was missed. It is good business practice to keep the customers informed and updated but a weekly and constant up date to the extent you are asking for, customers are not entitled to that nor are the developers inclined to do so. We live in a generation where we get updates on updates and this is something that FHM cannot afford to do as it is simply counter productive. You would be hard pressed to find any game company that gives that many updates. Why all of a sudden do you expect something differently from FHM? They have a great community but that is simply asking for too much that they can't even provide.

It has been alittle over a month since an official update. Still within that time period they are still active on the forums answering some questions as well. The attention from Jeff, Markus and Brad has all been made clear here. So in essence the "Update" has already been given in this thread. It's just not the answer you were looking for.

Random posts in random threads doesn't help unless you're trolling the boards every day stalking Jeff and Sebastien's every post. Hell, just have someone copy and paste their posts digest style once a week into the stickied thread... voila, everyone is happy...

[Penfold75]

Just to clarify a couple of points for those who are clearly not actually reading what I have been suggesting.

From G-Nuke - '2) A commitment to some kind of frequency of updates that will actually be kept (1 post per week on a Friday would be plenty if it was posted without fail)'

From BradC - 'The problem with 4-5 updates a week is that there would be a lot of posts along the lines of, "Still working on it," which becomes pointless after a while'

I am not looking for either of these as I agree both would end up with a load of mundane posts like 'hey folks still working on this' or 'hey guys I pressed a few buttons on my keyboard today'.

I suggested one post every couple of weeks or at least a couple a month in some fashion.

If I was going to my work every day doing the hours I do in the office 8 until 6 usually and then the extra stuff I do at home when everyone else in my house is sleeping or at weekends plus the hours the two other guys on my team do as well and I didn't have anything worthwhile to tell my user group after two weeks I would be pretty embarrassed to be honest.

Answering loads of posts in the forum could probably be reduced by having one really good update post because a lot of the posts are about what is happening next with the game.

[beezer2434]

Soon...all these people will come crawling back when the new release or updates are out.

I praise the work that jeff, sebastian and their team has done. Especially when they have to put up with the harsh criticism and continue to deliver patches based on feedback. The biggest thing that people seem to forget is the fact that this is the only company that listens to its community and implements their ideas.

EHM is no longer around so deal with it...FHM is here and will blow EHM out of the water in time. I cant wait to see the next patch...and cant wait to pre-order FHM 15 once available to pre-order.

Originally Posted by beezer2434

EHM is no longer around so deal with it...FHM is here and will blow EHM out of the water in time. I cant wait to see the next patch...and cant wait to pre-order FHM 15 once available to pre-order.

Whenever I get mad with the game or find some random buy/crash whatever, this is how I deal with it. Sometimes I'll even load EHM07 shouting to myself 'IT'S THE BEST EVER I'M JUST GONNA PLAY IT AGAIN NOW!' then realise just how out of date it is, in terms of database work! At least OOTPD have answer our prayers and decided to make a brand new shiny Hockey Sim for us all, as bad as the launch of Version 1 might have been nobody else is trying to feed our addiction!

[Teloch]

Originally Posted by beezer2434

Soon...all these people will come crawling back when the new release or updates are out.

A bold statement. Why do you think people would crawl back when they feel their expectations have been betrayed? Just because "OMGHOCKEYSIM"? That boat sailed with FHM2014.

Originally Posted by beezer2434

The biggest thing that people seem to forget is the fact that this is the only company that listens to its community and implements their ideas.

Of course it is. Goldhawk didn't listen to anyone or, god forbid, implement any of the community's ideas to Xenonauts. Larian never listened to anyone when slapping together Divinity:Original Sin. I do admire your enthusiasm for kissing OOTP's ass, but saying that is just ridiculous. Have fun pre-ordering FHM2015 and praying for higher powers that it isn't such a train wreck that the first attempt on it was. I'll see about crawling back to FHM with the next game, if it holds some quality to the money that I need to pay for it.

[beezer2434]

Originally Posted by Teloch

A bold statement. Why do you think people would crawl back when they feel their expectations have been betrayed? Just because "OMGHOCKEYSIM"? That boat sailed with FHM2014.


Of course it is. Goldhawk didn't listen to anyone or, god forbid, implement any of the community's ideas to Xenonauts. Larian never listened to anyone when slapping together Divinity:Original Sin. I do admire your enthusiasm for kissing OOTP's ass, but saying that is just ridiculous. Have fun pre-ordering FHM2015 and praying for higher powers that it isn't such a train wreck that the first attempt on it was. I'll see about crawling back to FHM with the next game, if it holds some quality to the money that I need to pay for it.

if that ship has sailed then why are you still here on the forums...checking to see when an update will be released to start playing again?

[Teloch]

Well, obviously everyone disappointed in the game should just stop coming here and leave the fanboys to their circlejerk. We can't possibly have any interest in the product or it's future anymore.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Teloch

Well, obviously everyone disappointed in the game should just stop coming here and leave the fanboys to their circlejerk. We can't possibly have any interest in the product or it's future anymore.

Everyone disappointed about the game should give constructive criticism and then be patient, because the FHM team is working as hard as possible, simple as that. And bitching around won't make anything better. Period.

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

give constructive criticism and then be patient

I think the second part is even more important (at current situation) than first.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by dmytron

I think the second part is even more important (at current situation) than first.

Well, we all wish the day had 36 hours, but that is not really the case unfortunately. So yes, patience is needed, but FHM 2014 will be updated (heck, how many other companies do that a year after release, just months prior to the next one?) and FHM 2015 will be improved. And from then on, the game will improve constantly over the years, based on feedback from the community. It'll be the same story as OOTP, and we all know that that one ended up being quite alright

[Duranium]

Originally Posted by beezer2434

if that ship has sailed then why are you still here on the forums...checking to see when an update will be released to start playing again?

was about to ask the same.....ppl nowadays behave as if they own the company - this is a computer game....if you like the effort the guys put into this after admitting that the premier release was...hmm...sup-optimal, fine, keep on supporting them, if not, just save your money and leave it behind.
But, please, for god´s sake, stop posting things we all already know (incl. the devs) and behave like this game takes thousands of dollars to purchase.

[Penfold75]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Everyone disappointed about the game should give constructive criticism and then be patient, because the FHM team is working as hard as possible, simple as that. And bitching around won't make anything better. Period.

Markus I don't think what I am doing constitutes bitching. I have raised concerns about the communication on the forum and the quality of the communication. I suggested a possible way ahead with short updates every couple of weeks and even volunteered to help with these if the team was swamped.

I believe that FHM will be a great game and having recently purchased OOTP Baseball 15 I can see potentially the type of game it may well be in 3-4 years.

I do have concerns that some major features of a hockey game don't work properly like trading and free agency. The game is patched and updated regularly and it takes a lot of work to produce the patches, fixes and database updates and I appreciate that. The key areas of the game that I mentioned don't seem to be improved by the patches and I have just asked for some sort of update or plan on how they might be addressed.

If this is bitching or deemed being negative towards the Dev Team then I apologise but I think my concerns, issues and comments are actually quite fair.

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by Penfold75

Markus I don't think what I am doing constitutes bitching. I have raised concerns about the communication on the forum and the quality of the communication. I suggested a possible way ahead with short updates every couple of weeks and even volunteered to help with these if the team was swamped.

I believe that FHM will be a great game and having recently purchased OOTP Baseball 15 I can see potentially the type of game it may well be in 3-4 years.

I do have concerns that some major features of a hockey game don't work properly like trading and free agency. The game is patched and updated regularly and it takes a lot of work to produce the patches, fixes and database updates and I appreciate that. The key areas of the game that I mentioned don't seem to be improved by the patches and I have just asked for some sort of update or plan on how they might be addressed.

If this is bitching or deemed being negative towards the Dev Team then I apologise but I think my concerns, issues and comments are actually quite fair.

Penfold, would you like to PM some of your major concerns about the trading and free agency and anything else on your mind regarding the game? That way I can post it in the testers/dev area.

[Orioles1966]

I take it that the editing won't be improved on the last patch?

[Oren Djoos]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Everyone disappointed about the game should give constructive criticism and then be patient, because the FHM team is working as hard as possible, simple as that. And bitching around won't make anything better. Period.

I think people have been very patient. There are issues with the game that have remained essentially broken since the beta.

Personally, I'm just waiting to see if the last patch fixes the bug with player budgets (actually fixes it, not giving a lame workaround) and lets me start the game without a bunch of teams stuffing their best players in the minors or trading them for peanuts due to cap issues. If those issues get fixed without introducing any new bugs, then maybe I'll try playing the game again. Otherwise, there's zero chance that I'll pay any attention to FHM15, besides urging anyone who asks about it not to buy it.