Airline Tycoon (Full version) "30-Day Trial Up" Message.

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

I payed $20 on Amazon.com for Airline Tycoon Evolution. I have both the
manual that came in the box, and the slightly different Adobe Acrobat
Reader manual that is in the installation directory printed out. After
day 30 in-game, it asks for "Page ##, Paragraph ##, Word #". I enter it
from the original manual, comes back up. I enter it from the printed
out manual, comes back up. The third time I just pick one of the 2
manuals randomly, and it fast forwards to the next day in the airport
manager's office, and you see "Your 30-day trial is up." although the
voice says "100 day trial" for some reason... But my point is, I am
entering the correct word atleast once, and I payed real money for what
I THOUGHT was the real game, but after 30 in-game days I can't play
it!?

Note: This is Airline Tycoon Evolution, I have never played First Class
or the original.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

It is pretty freakin annoying. The solution isn't simple either -
there are at least 3 downloadable manuals from various distributors of
the game - and none of them worked for me 🙁 I eventually forced the
US version manual patch to install, then I could use the US manual
available from strategyfirst.com on the same page as the patch
(although it's *really* ambiguous in terms of "what is a paragraph" and
exactly what counts as a "word". Still, I can usually get it within 3
tries.)

The spellbound.de site has some discussion:
http://forum.spellbound.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2358
including the stupid registry key I had to insert to get the US patch
to install. That topic is in English, most of the rest of the site is
German, I used google language tools to translate the stuff. The
manual patch only replaces the file "names.csv" - I have left this in
for normal play without noticably more frequent crashes, but I think it
also worked to alt-tab out and replace the file just for the manual
check. In another piece of brilliant game design, the game clock keeps
running while the man-check is up, so be aware when it is coming up -
hope you don't have time aceelerated when it pops up 😛

Also there's a German word list here:
http://forum.spellbound.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2051
Said to work on a lot of the Europoean versions, and easier than
mucking with the registry. Didn't work for me though.
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 22:07:12 -0800, fragzillaa wrote:

> I payed $20 on Amazon.com for Airline Tycoon Evolution. I have both the
> manual that came in the box, and the slightly different Adobe Acrobat
> Reader manual that is in the installation directory printed out. After
> day 30 in-game, it asks for "Page ##, Paragraph ##, Word #". I enter it
> from the original manual, comes back up. I enter it from the printed out
> manual, comes back up. The third time I just pick one of the 2 manuals
> randomly, and it fast forwards to the next day in the airport manager's
> office, and you see "Your 30-day trial is up." although the voice says
> "100 day trial" for some reason... But my point is, I am entering the
> correct word atleast once, and I payed real money for what I THOUGHT was
> the real game, but after 30 in-game days I can't play it!?
>
>

I've suffered exactly the same problem with my version of the game too.
Did anybody managed to get around the manual check on the EU version of
the game. None of the patches available solve the problem. I'm kinda
annoyed that the company should be allowed to get away with robbing people
like this.

Regards,

Pan
 
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 17:03:43 -0700, jeff wrote:

> It is pretty freakin annoying. The solution isn't simple either - there
> are at least 3 downloadable manuals from various distributors of the
> game - and none of them worked for me 🙁 I eventually forced the US
> version manual patch to install, then I could use the US manual
> available from strategyfirst.com on the same page as the patch (although
> it's *really* ambiguous in terms of "what is a paragraph" and exactly
> what counts as a "word". Still, I can usually get it within 3 tries.)

It's pretty disgusting that they released this game without properly
testing the manual check and then providing a fix for European versions
when it was finally detected. Then again, Evolution was a very poor
improvement to the First Class version released previously, most notably
with the terrible mix of voice-overs from both the former and latter
versions.

> The spellbound.de site has some discussion:
> http://forum.spellbound.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2358 including the
> stupid registry key I had to insert to get the US patch to install. That
> topic is in English, most of the rest of the site is German, I used
> google language tools to translate the stuff. The manual patch only
> replaces the file "names.csv" - I have left this in for normal play
> without noticably more frequent crashes, but I think it also worked to
> alt-tab out and replace the file just for the manual check. In another
> piece of brilliant game design, the game clock keeps running while the
> man-check is up, so be aware when it is coming up - hope you don't have
> time aceelerated when it pops up 😛
>
> Also there's a German word list here:
> http://forum.spellbound.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2051 Said to work on a
> lot of the Europoean versions, and easier than mucking with the
> registry. Didn't work for me though.

Ah, that's very useful. Thanks a lot for the information. I can't try it
at the moment as my PC isn't working, but I'll give it a go when I
get it back :)

Regards,

Pan
 
I know not so many people play this game any more but I just started. Can anyone send me the replace name.csv so I can use the manual to pass this %$#&*#^#&^#% 30 days period!! email stabber911@yahoo.com, thanks
 


Probably not so many playing but I just picked it up the other day in boredom and am now addicted...again! If you wait for the day to finish, the word request disappears and if you press "+++" time will speed up so you aren't waiting for too long 😉

Enjoy