[Tiger Fan]

Unfortunately, this looks like the end of the FHM portion and hockey as an online league in the Figment sporting universe. The game might work well for solo modern play but as a fictional online league it has been a nightmare and a constant source of frustration for our commissioner and GM's. He is no novice as he has been running online leagues with many different games for well over a decade, maybe even two, but says nothing has ever caused him the headaches as a commissioner that FHM does. And we are a six-team league. No idea how anyone could handle running a league with 18-30 teams and not pull all their hair out because of this game.

It is a shame because I enjoy playing the game in solo mode as a historical sim (although more as a hands-off commissioner and not running a specific team). Fictional-historical, which we do here, is doable as a solo sim too but with its headaches. Throw in online, which I admit I have no experience with outside of running a team in this league, and it seems like it is a complete mess.

We had to restart completely once. We get regular import errors, most around roster violations, but I am told that FHM does not tell the commissioner what team is causing the error in most cases or why it is in violation, so it becomes a terrible struggle for him to import teams one-by-one in an effort to identify the team that is causing the issue and then trying to figure what was wrong in the import.

It is too bad because although it sounds like I am completely crapping on FHM here (and on the handling of online play I fully am) but there are some real positives that make me want to love the game. It just gets frustrating that version after version of FHM it feels like online and completely fictional play are ignored. But the stats the game generates for our little late 1940s league felt very realistic. Heading into our 3rd season as an online league I think most GMs were feeling an attachment to a lot of their players and we are all learning the league. It has more warts than OOTP for sure, but in those respects, it is starting to feel like the players and teams in the NAHC are as real to us as the great OOTP FABL online league we have been playing for more than two decades of game seasons. But that is over now because of the constant hassle of trying to get the game to actually work without team import problems.

For a game marketed by OOTP it is amazing how little attention the hockey guys seemed to put into two of the things that made OOTP great - customization and online play. So as attached to my Detroit Motors as I became, and as disappointed as I am to see this league fail because the game makes it nearly impossible to play without a commissioner able to spend hours troubleshooting every couple of weeks when a crash or import error occurs, it is a bit of a relief too because we just knew the next error was coming, just weren't sure when that day would come.

Today is apparently the day and if nothing else, the mess that is FHM online play, has given me an even greater appreciation for what a special game we have in OOTP. If only FHM had followed the OOTP design plan than the NAHC might be as fun a league to play in as the other sports in the Figment online universe.