Recently there have been a lot of updates to the new Virtual Families game. With these many updates I have had a hard time finding out what the newest version is. Is it possible that we could start a thread that when a new update comes out somebody posts it? I believe this would simplify the process a lot. Thank you.

We will do that when the game is ready for general release, but not until them.

so, wait, I don't understand... The game is already being sold, but it isn't ready for general release? Does that mean we are beta testing?

i was also coming here to make the same thread - since it is apparently already up to version 4, but i wouldn't have known that if not for seeing it in passing in ONE thread i read. I mean, we paid for a product - shouldn't we be alerted in some fashion {in this case, via the forums} when said product is updated to remove glitches that may or may hinder our gameplay?

VF is soft launch right now, which means it's available exclusively through LDW right now. General release means when it goes out to the game portals like BFG, Playfirst, etc. While in soft launch, any extra bugs are worked out so that when it's hard launched (general release) it's good to go.

Yes, you've paid for a product, just like we all have, and just like the rest of us, you will be able to download the final version (at no extra cost) once the game is out for general release. I have every reason to believe that once the final version is ready, everyone will know about it in short order.

No, Pixistix, you are not beta testing the game. Our games are always released on one game site exclusively for about 2 weeks before they are available on other game sites. That's common practice in the casual games market. It does not mean that the game has not been tested, nor does it indicate that we are selling a 'beta version' of Virtual Families. We have already gone through an extensive beta test, and the game has been officially released. It doesn't mean that the game is perfect, though.

One of the things that we do during the soft launch period, as we have always done (even when our soft launches took place on Big Fish Games), is evaluate the feedback that players provide about what they like and don't like about the game, to see if we need to make adjustments during the soft launch. Since we really care about the opinions of our most loyal fans, you all have an opportunity to influence the game in ways that don't exist outside of the soft launch period. And, as always happens, despite exhaustive testing, you all find bugs that did not come to light during testing. We fix as many of those as possible, too.

We really appreciate all of you, our wonderful fans who come here to buy the game as soon as it's available. You give us great feedback and are always willing to share your very candid comments about the game - warts and all. We like to make the updates available as soon as we can, rather than make everyone wait for two weeks to get the final updated version of the game. Anyone who wants an update can certainly obtain it, but we make an announcement about a particular update only if there are fixes for serious bugs (like there were with the 1.00.01 hotfix, which Arthur announced within hours of the game's release).

General release simply means that the game will be going to every game site that wants to sell it. When that happens, we will let everyone here know that the game has gone into wide distribution, and you will all be able to download and install that update, too.

I think it's a small price to pay (i.e. downloading the game maybe once or twice more) to get the game early And from an 'official' source

I do think (like the original poster) that the updates should be announced though...how else would we know to re-download, it seems only to be "mentioned in passing" on certain threads of the forum.

Hi Lady CFII and all,
Has anyone else reported a problem with the pet after downloading version .04??? My pets look like there is one and a half dog/cat walking around. It's really wierd!

Also, I agree with the others that there should be an easier way for us to find out when there's been an update other than happening upon someone talking about it in the forum. It's really frustrating. It could be announced that it's not a final version if necessary.

OK. So how about just to help out each other on the forums if anybody finds out that there is a new updated version please post it here.

Please include the version number.

Lewanda, that's a symptom of old image files. The image files for the pets changed in 1.00.04, and are not compatible with earlier ones. Since you do mods, you probably restored an older set of images.

I think it is an even bigger problem that Mac users are not able to get any of the available updates until we get a response back to our support requests. So while everyone else is able to enjoy the fixes, we can't even test them or see what other problems may have been introduced.

I have been a very loyal LDW software user, with Plant Tycoon and VV 1-3 on both Mac and Palm platforms, and while we have sometimes had to wait for a Mac version to come out, I have never noticed so many fixes that were not available to us.