Todd and DT playing dirty, eh?

it's todd's fault. he gave me 5k and then took it away. so of course i hadta take it back.

oh god, ,now everyone's going to go and delete posts earlier in the thread in their effort to be the TRUE 5K poster.

I think the Dark Jedi used his powers of resurrection for good to restore the timeline of the thread. Let the lesson be learned: Don't mess with the Maximum Football thread.

I was totally being a prick by shitcanning my own post to get 5,000, but at least I didn't just post nonsense to move the thread along....

/reads any random page in the thread

um, nevermind...

/walks away whistling

Quick! Off the top of your head - no cheating! - what is the second-most popular thread in terms of replies in the Off-Topic board?

Hint: There's a connection.

Gmac'ing going on?

god I loved that thread.

The next milestone in our reach is 200 pages and 10,000 posts.

Come on guys, we can do it!

I have been watching this thread for about a year. As I have been reading it, I have noted that most of it is spam; some of it is valid criticism; some of it is invalid criticism; some of it is fair enough, and some of it unfair distortion of the facts.

I have followed Maximum-Football for about four years on it old message boards and the new board at Matrix Games. I have given a lot of feedback to David and the Matrix coordinators, and I joined the beta program right as it was going gold (the first time :)). I have quite a bit of insight about the development of the game.

Some of you may note that I am now a moderator for the Maximum-Football forum on the Matrix Games board. It is a volunteer position that I took on to help keep the board clean and up to date.

I have talked with some of you in PM's and email, so you know that I believe there is plenty of room for both FOF and Maximum-Football in the PC football games market. I also believe in trying to remain positive and fair in posting criticism, but I do not frown on evaluations that examine issues and expose flaws.

If you have any questions about Maximum-Football that I may be able to answer, post them here or on the Matrix Games board, and I'll try to answer them. I may also take an opportunity to dispell some myths presented here or reinforce some valid criticisms.

Now that this thread has reached 100 pages and 5000 posts, it may as well be put to productive use.

Not until you show your limerick skills.

uh, yeah.

oh boy

loooovvvvvvveeeeee it!

*snerks*

Run into any first and halfway in the endzone plays lately?

Let me have a demo and I'll come up with some productive questions.

all been taken care of in version 362.5

now they are working on including an expanded selection of beverages in the beer tent for the next patch

*snickers*

This should be good to get us to 6000.

I know that most answers to you will be complete jokes. So, I'm going to try and jump in early with a serious answer.

Despite what Daivd or folks over at Matrix may believe, this board is ready and willing to embrace new games - particularly from independent developers.

However, we will also be very honest about games and tend to lash out when we are insulted, blocked from giving the legitimate criticism, avoided, etc - which all happened with M-F.

Let's face facts. M-F is far from a complete game that is worth paying what is being charged for it. It produces highly unrealistic stats, has major animation bugs, and many other problems with the engine itself. On top of that you have a developer (and his wife) that are very confrontational if you try to point out these flaws.

The end game seems to be that the folks at M-F and Matrix claim that if you don't buy the game, you're not allowed to critique or criticize anything about it. I'm not throwing money away to be able to say that a game is not good. The various screenshots, stats, etc. posted by folks that are supporting the game are plenty enough to get an understanding that the game is far from being "ready for prime time".

If something has changed in the last month or two since I checked the M-F forums, feel free to try and enlighten me, but I have not seen any evidence that this game is ready to be freeware, let alone something that has a relatively hefty price.

nice work

I actually believe that spelling is corrected by the FOFC-spellcheck.. it's not really Wade's fault :(

If MF's next announcement over here is anything but "here is a demo" or "MF is now freeware" they are wasting their time.

I removed Maximum Football from my computer last night.
Isn't ironic?
Don't ya think?

(BTW, I rigged the play-off set up and Los Angeles won! Go Comets!)

My biggest issues with the game as I understand it are:

1) A sim engine that produces impossible/unrealistic stats
2) Completely different statistical possibilities from playing out games vs. simmed games
3) The odd "draft" which is really just releasing all of your players every year and making you redraft them

Have these issues been fixed/addressed?

Oh, and by the way, Marauders, if the game had delivered on what it set out to do, this community would have flipped out for it. We are dying to have a game like that - one that mixes the roster management and statistical accuracy of FOF with a play editor and graphical representation of the game. That would be football heaven for most of us.

The venom/jokes/etc. that you see in this thread are because of 2 things - disappointment that the game was less than advertised and the developer's attitude in belittling a game and genre that most of us really enjoy.

Marauders: A real question that will either impress us or confirm that the game is still far from playable. What do season stats look like? Can you show us a few examples of team stats for an American pro sixteen game season, both simmed and played out? If those numbers look good I bet a lot of us will take a serious second look at the game.

Agreed. With it almost being a year since this game was released, is there still a valid reason why this game doesn't have a demo. Before, the reason that was given was that he needed to spend more time on the game for the people who had purchased the game and less on the demo. Now if is has been concluded that the game is in a much more stable state, what is the hold up?

I had actually kept up with that game until about 2 months ago when I saw someone post more screenshots of screwy stats and that should not be happening 9 months after a game was released. Especially since these problems occur when you fast sim a game.

On top of that, is it still true that you have to play with certain playbooks in order to get the most realistic stats. In other words, while you can create any play you want with the new PDS, you are still confined to what type of plays you can create because the AI can easily be exploited.

And my last question is just something that has puzzled me since I saw a sub forum created for it, but why is there a multiplayer league. From what I understand, there are no front office functions within the game and you can't rely on fast sim, yet all the leagues I see are trying to emulate other multiplayer text sims. Did the game include basic mulitplayer functionality or people are just trying to make something out of the game which it is not? The reason why I ask is that I can't understand why anyone would want to join a league if all you do is draft players every year and that is it. Since the community were so averse to most of our comments regarding free agency/drafting/financials, I don't understand why people are bothering with trying to do it outside of the game since it wasn't that important to them.

Is there still no way to design option plays for college, and are the hashmarks for both American pro and amature still in the same location on the field?

Your computer just isn't fast enough then, or you do not have the most up-to-date version of Excel installed.

Good golly Miss Molly.

What sort of thought process would have to be behind someone reviving this thread in hopes of helping Daivd Wntier?

This has to be a parody, it just has to be. Either that or his wife has taken on a new screen name.

february fools!

No....it's not a parody....and that is what makes this the best thread ever!

Perhaps a new favorite quote from Daivd. In response to a thread about four punt return TDs in one game he said,

The facts of this thread may distort due to screen resolution issues. Its a known bug that will be fixed when this thread is out of beta.

Oh man. I didn't realize that somebody from MF bumped this thread back up.:eek::D

There was a lad named Galt,
who ask Marauders if he was worth his salt,

The answer Galt got,
was not what he thought,

and that caused Galt's questions to halt.

:p

Maybe it would be easier, if you don't want to be a mod over there anymore, to just ask.

no, the meter is all wrong

It would be nice to have a demo.

David is a one man programming team. The reality of the situation is that he either has to program code for the game or reprogram the code for a demo. It is more productive for him to program code for features that community members have been asking for.

I'll give an example. Recently, adjustable zones have been added to the game. This was a feature on many wish lists, and David worked over the holiday break to add this, sortable stat lists, and a few other things.

He could have created a demo instead, but what good would that have done for people who have already purchased the game? Should he have loyalty to them or to people who ask for a demo? It is a zero sum game, and a choice had to be made.


The game actually started out as a small project that allowed a player to tinker with rules and have fun playing generic football games. It had no career mode, and it wasn't something that pretended to be the end all in computer football gaming. It did have 3D graphics and play creation, and those were highlights of what it could do.

I don't know if any of you were on the old boards, but this project grew from what it once was mostly because of feedback from old FBPo players that wanted it to be more like an advanced version of that game.

Glenn and I asked David to consider having a career mode, and David resisted that because of the time needed to rewrite much of the player and team code and because he didn't want feature creep to cut down on the time needed to make sure the rules and stats were coded correctly.

It wasn't until he joined up with Matrix Games as a distributor that the change was made to include a career mode. The information at the Maximum-football website has always downplayed career mode features, because the game was not originally supposed to be competition for career mode games.

Nevertheless, the game does have career mode, but it will not likely have advanced salary features until Maximum-Football II is released.

On a side note, one must understand that David is not being paid much for programming this title. Any time a developer signs with a distribution company, the distribution company often gets the larger share of any revenue on a title.


Yeah, I read what he said. So what? Programming a 3D physics based game is much more difficult than programming a spreadsheet based text game. It takes more time to code, and it takes more time to debug.

Maximum-Football and Front Office Football are very different games. Emphasis in the former is on 3D football play, while emphasis in the latter is on the GM and front office aspects of football. Neither is better nor worse. David was just saying that he has done spreadsheet and array programming before, and 3D programming has difficulties not presented in the other code.

David Winter has stated many times that no game type is better or worse, and that he doesn't want to get into futile arguments about it, but he certainly doesn't want to read dozens of negative emails about his game either.

David sometimes comes off brash or harsh, and I have been in heated exchanges with him on the boards and in emails, but he works hard to add game features that the community wants. He has little time to regard negative and unconstructive posts and emails.

David has received some pretty bad emails and even death threats to him and his family. Some of you think this is a funny game, but it is serious.

I am no apologist for David, and one can see that in my posts on the public boards, but I expect logical and constructive criticism, and I have stated so. I suspect David does as well, and I suspect most of you would too if you were is his position.

No; at this point it is ESSENTIAL to have a demo.


So? It doesn't make a difference to my wallet how much work goes into something. It only matters what the quality is.

death threats? death threats?

anyone that sends anyone death threats over a computer game needs a serious reality check

So wait...your telling me that any of these indies that are one man development teams have risen above and beyond pure mortal powers and become TITANS of programming?

Get real, it's not hard to crank out a demo, this is a piss poor excuse for someone who doesn't want to, pure and simple.

Honestly, don't pee on our leg and tell us it's raining!

The FOF 6.0d bug thread has 80 posts. How long has FOF been out?

I often see bugs listed in this thread that were add on bugs from a specific release build. Those type of things sneak into the code - especially because the beta guys, myself included, complain and whine about little things that we want better. Most of the bugs are fixed before they are even listed as bugs on the public board.

Does that mean the code is clean and straight? No ... the game should have features locked down so that the public release is clean. That stated, leagues have been running the game, even with the old playbooks, and I would have to say that the code is pretty solid right now.

Of course, that could change again as features are added. That is why the game will always be in some sort of beta, as is FOF and Madden.


Well, not for the Chicago Bears. :)

Nevertheless, that has long since changed, as the beta team helped find what the problem was.

Marauders:

I appreciate you trying to come into the Lion's Den to try to kickstart interest in David's game.

But you've got a snowball's chance in hell of convincing any one to listen.

There's been too many absolutely STUPID things, in game and from the mouth of the developer, to have any chance in rehabilitating the image of either the developer or the game.

The Game Has not, does not and almost certainly WILL not play an accurate game of football, to the standards that are expected. You might as well call it Calvinball.

A Draft mode that isn't.
A Playoffs Mode that isn't.
The underlying game is broken. No matter how much you gussy it up, you can't get away from that fact. (the framerate affecting passing completion. The horrible stats from simming).

"But.. But.. But.. that's in the past", you and David exclaim. "If you buy it now.. it's really much better"

sorry... if we bought it now, we'd be the biggest fools on God's Green Earth. There's just too much evidence against it.

Really, you have to stop with the excuses. How many independent 3D games am I going to have to show you that has a demo and didn't take the length of time that this game took that currently have demos?



So in one hand you are extending an olive branch talking about how you want to remain positive and stay away from criticism that is not constructive, yet you talk about how it is much more difficult to program a 3D game as comparted to a spreadsheet.

That's interesting, because if it were all that easy to create realistic stats and have a financial system in place, it would have already been perfected by people who have teams of people programming sports games. Not to say that Front Office Football is the most perfect, but it is way more closer than most football games out there and the financial aspect is deeper than most as well. It still amazes me that people downplay the difficultly of coming up with a realistic AI.

I think you have the idea wrong. Creating a 3D game with realistic physics is actually the easier part of programming. The difficulty comes when trying to create a realistic AI.

So while FOF has basic graphics and a simple interface, the AI is very advanced and that is why people keep buying the game. Graphics and usability are ways to enhance a game, but if the AI is weak, you won't find repeat customers.

First of all, that is pretty sick if there were actually death threats, but I really hope you are not insinuating it is someone here from this message board just because of this thread. Because the fact that you say "Some of you think this is a funny game..." didn't sit too well with me since anyone could have been sending the threats (from actual buyers of the game, to just stupid griefers).

Re: demo


Cronin, maybe I'm old school, but I do not believe this is a valid statement. If you need to have a demo, then that is your choice of evaluation methods prior to making a purchase.


MG, no, I stated there are opportunity costs of doing so.


Really, what should David had not worked on to give you a demo?

It isn't just doing the demo, but it is debugging the demo and making sure that the code cannot be used to create a pirated game with patches.


Why, because you say so? I suspect you have little authority in this area.

If you were in the trenches, you'd have a better perspective of what the gameplan is.

Because we're not stupid enough to pay $50 sight unseen for a game we have had reports of more bugs then working software?

If the game plan is to be a pariah of the game industry, a cautionary example of what NOT to do with a software release? MF is executing that gameplan to perfection.

It might be simpler to retreat at this point, Marauders.. you've done your best sales job.

We're not buying.

A piece of crap with a pretty dress on and lipstick is still a piece of crap.

DT, I agree. While people were emailing me about how rude David was, they had no idea what kind of emails David had been getting.

I tried to keep emails positive and constructive, but it was really too late to change many attitudes.

Why is there all this fear in a demo? You are really confusing me. On one hand, you are saying that David is listening to the customers who have purchased the game by adding a number of features that weren't in the game. But on the other hand, you don't believe he should listen to any of the potential customers who are hesistant in buying the game. That seems to be a poor way to handle business.

I thought the whole point of why you came here was to attract new customers and by getting feedback.

Honestly look before you leap.....

For doing a Demo, yea sure, Matrix might make it hard on him to turn features on or off, but most of US (yes, I am an Indie Developer) have the ability to create a demo pretty fast and without detraction from our game development, most of the time, because we lock it out after X amount of days, a season or such. For David to do this, would not be to hard, if it is a matter of not knowing how to do it, fine then by all means state as such.

Without a Demo, and reading ANY board post at Matrix that show the inconsistincies, you are not going to get a ton of sales. A lot of us like to ensure the game is what we are looking for, we go the demo route, then purchase the game.

Granted, I am not in David's trenches, but truly, to sit here and espouse as to why there is no demo with dribble such as this, honestly it reeks.