Announcement: Franchise Hockey Manager Release Date, Preordering, and Beta

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

So just the one option then?

If so, any chance we may see more further down the road? Sort of like OOTP, giving the user a choice.

personally i prefer 1-99.

[OpusTheFowl]

A little shocked at the official release date all things considered but the March 4th BETA-Pre-Purchase works for me.

Thanks for the news, understanding and the flexibility in your release strategy...

[discodude5]

I imagine most of us will be heavily into OOTP during the summer anyways so to be honest I would rather have FHM released in the fall around when NHL starts.
It will be nice to have the beta to check things out.

[tward13]

Not bad at all.

March 4 I get a game I can play around with, using this year's roster for a $10 discount, then on Sept 3 I get a free game with the opening roster for 2013-2014?

I'm not sure I see a problem.

Anyway part of my job is user testing business applications. So I've dealt with beta releases before.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

So just the one option then?

If so, any chance we may see more further down the road? Sort of like OOTP, giving the user a choice.

Just the one for now, yeah. But I don't remember different scales being a big problem to implement in EHM, so I suspect it wouldn't give us that much difficulty here. Probably something for the "if there's time" list.

[jayze302]

1st, so happy I now know I only need to wait another month.

2nd, can I pre-order the pre-order and be first in line for the beta download?

[dave1927p]

of the screenshots i've seen all seem to be in windowed mode. What does it look like in 1920 x 1080 full screen? Are we just going to have alot of wasted space? With all that extra space i'm hopeing in the second version it can be taken advantage of for more stats on the pages, and using full names instead of first letter then last, etc.

[Jabez54]

GOOD question, Dave ...

[BTerran]

Sounds great. I'm looking forward to playing the beta

[tcblcommish]

Personally, I think this move is great. They give us the release date that we wanted to know and even though it's a long way off, using the prerelease as an open beta is a great idea to reward te people who have been talking about this game religiously.

I am looking forward to the prerelease and will be playing the hell out of the game when march 4 rolls around. I was a tester for ootp for 3 seasons and know how that goes so I know what to expect. Ootp puts out a great product each season and with some of the ground work like the GUI already in place, this should be at least a decent release.

Glad to see you here Jeff and this release answered so many questions about the state of the game and made a lot of people happy. Just looking at the screens from the ones that Sebastian put out before and these ones, you can already see the work being done. Great job guys, you will have my money for sure in march!

[Stat]

I'm sorry if I may have missed it, but will the beta be available on Mac platforms?

And this is killer! September will be FHM, GTAV, and NHL 14! Insane!

I'm glad they were upfront and honest. A good game is good forever, a bad game isn't. Better to get the foundations awesome, then not.

[ElQuapo]

Does this mean we might get international play in the release version?

If so then please take my money (and my first born daughter) now! :-)

[Methodz]

Ah well

The only 2 games I was looking forward this year just got delayed to September 2013 (This and GTA5) , The month I finally move out into my new house. My future wife to be will hate my guts early on.

Oh well...

[Markus Heinsohn]

Thanks for the support and patience, guys! Sebastian, Malte and Jeff are really working hard to create the best possible version 1.0 of our new hockey franchise, I'm very proud of them.

For me personally this is very exciting as well, it's the first time we as a company will release a new game for a major team sport other than baseball. We have collected lots of experience by producing OOTP for 15 years now, and I'm certain some of that experience will help to create a hockey game that you guys will love and support.

[mavericktango]

Now I know why I took early retirement !! So I can pre-order OOTP & FHM and actually have time to play them

[jayc4life]

I've not seen it being mentioned anywhere here Jeff, but will the Beta for pre-ordering customers also be available for Mac? I can understand if there isn't, what with having such a small team, making porting not necessarily a priority in the early stages, but figured it might be worth clarifying nonetheless.

Count me in though, I can't wait for this.

[Orioles1966]

Will it be possible to block a newer beta version incase you have a league going and you want to prevent from losing it?

[sizzlingpopcorn]

No, there won't be a beta for Mac as posted on Twitter.

[Walsh06]

This is a very smart move I think. Rather than half a game coming out in a month or two and with a weird release schedule (going into the offseason) we can get the full game at the start of the next nhl season which makes a lot of sense. It also means more time to get it ready and make a better first version. And the beta will assist in the improvements and allow people to get their hockey fix. Well done guys

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Walsh06

This is a very smart move I think. Rather than half a game coming out in a month or two and with a weird release schedule (going into the offseason) we can get the full game at the start of the next nhl season which makes a lot of sense.

And hopefully by then the bad taste left in some people's mouths due to the lockout will have subsided, which in turn will hopefully mean more potential customers.