Even I'm annoyed.

I'm not one to jump in and post knee jerk reactions, and I'm not one to overeact. On top of this, anyone who knows my post history will know that I'm normally a fierce defender of both SI and the FM games. But despite all that I'm now very annoyed.

I've spent much of today at work reading about peoples activation problems and thinking that they must be over-reacting. But having spent the last 2 and a half hours trying to install and activate this game I'm now at the end of my patience.

Firstly it took almost 2 hours to install and update my game. In that time I had the well known problem of trying to type in the correct activation code. Luckily I only had two 0's and one I to contend with so it didn't take too long. But after that my update said it was finished but actually wasn't and started all over again. So after a couple of hours I was relieved to see my 'Play Game' option, but the relief was short lived once the SoftAnchor screen appeared. I've since been told on numerous occasions that it cant connect to the internet and also that my code is no longer valid and that I need a new one.

All this has forced me to break two of my own posting rules, one being not to post a new thread about something that already has tons of threads about it and the other to search for answers myself before posting. Unfortunately these forums are also running painfully slowly so it would take an age for me to look around to answers to the following questions:

1 - Why do I need to enter my CD code twice, once during install and again for this SoftAnchor thing?

2 - I've had an 'error 701' saying my CD key is not valid. Will I need a new code?

3 - Why do I need Steam running at all once I've activated my game? Why can it not just be used for activation and then no longer be needed at all for running the game?

Safe to say that I'm bitterly disappointed with this and hope SI learn from it and scrap such activation methods in the future, it harms no-one other than paying customers.

whole heartedly agree with your final statement. suffice to say some won't be renewing interest on the FM series following this

I checked the forums and saw people moaning earlier and thought it was the usual release day whinge. I've been home for 3 hours now and keep being told i'm not connected to the internet

I should've gone to the pub