Franchise Hockey Manager 8 Review - Only Hockey Super Fans Need Apply

[ChaseB]

Franchise Hockey Manager 8 scratches a very specific itch. It's a game for hardcore hockey fans...

Written By: Matthew Ederer

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[Cod]

Nice write-up. How would you compare the game to Eastside Hockey Manager? EHM is still the gold standard in my opinion, especially once you get beyond the UI.

[Nickflyers]

Quote: Originally Posted by Cod

Nice write-up. How would you compare the game to Eastside Hockey Manager? EHM is still the gold standard in my opinion, especially once you get beyond the UI.

They each do their own things well and this has been argued quite often on their respective forums.


FHM is like OOTP lite but has improved every iteration. EHM's 2D Engine is still better than FHM, but FHM has only attempted it 2x. FHM does have the NHL licenses and that enables them to have a LEGIT historic mode as well as challenges for the NHL from 1917 till Today along with the WHA. FHM is very customizable compared to EHM.

[Money99]

It's a great single-player experience.
But its online functionality is still basically unusable.
Unlike in OOTP where you can import/export the league file easily and thru the UI, in FHM the commish has to bundle the league files, make available via FTP and then the individual GMs have to download and import.
Hiring staff also has to be done manually by the commish.

This has been the case for years now.
I'd love to know when the devs are planning on fixing these things.

Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

[Jeffrey99]

Quote: Originally Posted by Money99

It's a great single-player experience. But its online functionality is still basically unusable. Unlike in OOTP where you can import/export the league file easily and thru the UI, in FHM the commish has to bundle the league files, make available via FTP and then the individual GMs have to download and import. Hiring staff also has to be done manually by the commish. This has been the case for years now. I'd love to know when the devs are planning on fixing these things. Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

They still haven't fixed that in FHM 8 yet? That killed the leagues for me in previous versions.

Still amazes me how hard it is for them to make a OOTP with hockey. LOL For example, no box score writeups like OOTP. They finally added player cards but they can't be created at any time with player face on one side and stats on the other. Nope they are only seen in pre game and post game where it shows both goalies and 1 star player for each team. No A or C on facegen jerseys. Default facegens for some players look horrendous. No minor league jerseys/logo by default. For the default $40 price tag I'd expect a much more complete game out of the box.

Can't really complain too much I got it on sale on Epic for $30 plus a $10 off coupon. For $20 I'm pleased.

EDIT: And then you crap like this that you just have to shake your head at "The drag-and-drop in the lineup only works in the Steam version. For the Standalone version, you need to click on the player, then click on the spot you want to move him to. It's an unfortunate limitation of using Fastspring for the standalone; for some reason, when we build their version of the game, leaving drag-and-drop enabled crashes the game. We haven't been able to find the cause, and Fastspring's support has been something less than helpful. But we're stuck with them, so disabling it in that version of the game was the only option. "

Wow..just wow..

[Jeffrey99]

Nice to see after 3 years the facegen bug is still in the game. Their anwer, just delete the picture and restart. It should fix it. Unacceptable.

[KnightAttack]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jeffrey99

EDIT: And then you crap like this that you just have to shake your head at "The drag-and-drop in the lineup only works in the Steam version. For the Standalone version, you need to click on the player, then click on the spot you want to move him to. It's an unfortunate limitation of using Fastspring for the standalone; for some reason, when we build their version of the game, leaving drag-and-drop enabled crashes the game. We haven't been able to find the cause, and Fastspring's support has been something less than helpful. But we're stuck with them, so disabling it in that version of the game was the only option. " Wow..just wow..

We've looked and look and looked for the reason, but and there's no given reason why it interacts differently. Literally the only difference is Fastspring. The Epic store version may get adjusted though.

Quote: Originally Posted by Jeffrey99

Nice to see after 3 years the facegen bug is still in the game. Their anwer, just delete the picture and restart. It should fix it. Unacceptable.

If we could track it, we could fix it. You claim to have played, so you should know that there is nothing consistent about this particular bug. It's one thing when a bug is repeatable under the same set of circumstances. This bug though has no rhyme or reason. It appears and then disappears. We've traced it to no success. We (and the OOTP guys - as it is two different teams) have studied the code and founding to point out to why it's happening.

So until we find a situation where it's constantly repeating, it's pretty hard to fix. It's not ideal to delete player photos, but it's a quick way to reset everyone.


We did make adjustments for 8 though so that import/export feature for online in 8 though as some leagues were having issues that were resolved now.

However, FHM is only licensed by the NHL, not by other leagues. We can claim some things like player and team names, however logos are an entirely different story. Luckily, we have great community members who continually work and put out Facegen, Jersey, and Logo packs to your hearts content that satisfy the vast majority of our customers - as well as you if you choose to use them.

[Jeffrey99]

Quote: Originally Posted by KnightAttack

If we could track it, we could fix it. You claim to have played, so you should know that there is nothing consistent about this particular bug. It's one thing when a bug is repeatable under the same set of circumstances. This bug though has no rhyme or reason. It appears and then disappears. We've traced it to no success. We (and the OOTP guys - as it is two different teams) have studied the code and founding to point out to why it's happening. So until we find a situation where it's constantly repeating, it's pretty hard to fix. It's not ideal to delete player photos, but it's a quick way to reset everyone. However, FHM is only licensed by the NHL, not by other leagues. We can claim some things like player and team names, however logos are an entirely different story. Luckily, we have great community members who continually work and put out Facegen, Jersey, and Logo packs to your hearts content that satisfy the vast majority of our customers - as well as you if you choose to use them.

Yes I've played FHM 6,7 & now 8, along with OOTP 18,19,20,21&22. I guess I just expect too much from the same company that makes a fully licensed OOTP with no facegen issues for the same $40.