I still play this game. :angry:

I agree. Welcome to the board, spcd.

While we do disagree on a number of conclusions, I might just nominate this as the definitive comment about MF in the entire thread. If it isn't THE quote, it's pretty darned close IMO.

go bruins

I'd bet you're off on the buggy part of the equation. There are over three pages of reported problems with the game already, and I would think that sales of the game are quite low at this point. I bet the reason we're not seeing hordes of bug reports is simply due to the fact that not many people have the game, and many of them appear to be stuck getting the game to work properly in the first place.

But I do agree completely that the design decisions involved with the game are boggling as they unfold. The design decision to create a game where frame-rate impacts play results is simply baffling. The implications of this are too much to bear. There is discussion that 30-32 frames per second (fps) is ideal, and that things work fairly well at 20+fps. Below 20fps and the results are unstable. But even if there is, say, a 10% difference in pass completion rates between a 32fps computer and a 24fps computer, that completely screws up the reliability of playbooks to produce realistic game results.

The offshoot of this is that the play that I create that works well on my computer at 32fps might work differently on your computer running at 23fps? If this is true, I simply don't see how you can possibly create playbooks for multiple users with any certainty. Do you label your playbooks with a frame-rate precursor: West Coast Offense (25-28fps ok)? Then you buy a new video card and redo everything?

Maybe I'm wrong and the differences in results aren't that great, but even a 5% difference in results in a game like this is significant.

/shakes head in wonder

lol

I wondered about the frame rate thing...

What I couldn't figure out is if it caused a problem when the human is controlling the qb (reasonable) or the AI is controlling the qb (out and out strange by my understanding of things).

I'll agree with Jon here. Even if this game worked perfectly as designed, I still would not want to play it. Part of that is just different strokes for different folks. I've never been able to get into FM, which most consider to be the best text sim in the world. That's because a futbol game will never appeal to me.

But some of these decisions, like the framerate decision, the database choice, the physics driven stats, seem like things to which any reasonable gamer would object.

Certainly, I have to suspect that, had Mr. Winters been more involved in seeking out and presenting his design ideas to an educated and critical audience--before he had reduced them to code, he may have made some choices differently. And that's a shame because it's a lost opportunity--kind of like being Irish and NOT naming your kid "Miles O'Smiles."

If anyone who knows anything about game design can comment on why the frame rate might impact the gameplay, please do so. I find it very strange and haven't heard of any other games where FR would have the kind of impact that is suggested here.

It makes no sense to me. Is there a reason why it would need to be coded this way?

I think it's not necessarily a direct "frame-rate impacts gameplay", but more that the physics engine determines the play results, but the intermediary step is that somehow the physics engine determines what happens on screen, and what happens on screen determines the play results. In all fairness, to say "There was a design decision to have frame-rates impact gameplay." is not accurate, but the end result of other design decisions results in the frame-rate affecting gameplay.

I might have this explanation all wrong though, and perhaps someone with more knowledge will step in a clear it up. It does seem clear that frame-rates impact play results in the game, though. The extent of the impact is unknown.

That is another thing that pisses me off. It shouldn't affect the physics of the game either way. A slower frame rate should just make it more choppier, but not affect if the ball goes farther or if a player fields the ball. In other words, the physic of the game shoud not be affected at all.

Right, but if a human is controlling the QB it could be a matter of bad timing, etc. because of the frame rate.. not that the physics are off, but because what you are seeing is not jiving with what you are hitting on your controller.

Just saw a thread where no one has seen a fumble yet. Do they have fumbles in Canada?

Ah...I see. This may make more sense. I may need to stand corrected on this, then.

I think they are called "whoopsies".

I guess fumbles break the AI.

Framerate can have an impact, but it should NEVER have a significant impact on the end result of the game. You make a conscious decision to go with a fixed-timestep sim/physics engine or a variable-rate one. With fixed timestep framerate has ZERO impact, but you have to handle interpolation between sim timesteps to keep the graphics moving. Variable-rate sims don't need interpolation, but the results can differ slightly. By "differ slightly" I mean the player may be a few inches off depending on framerate. But this should never be enough to mean that a ball wasn't caught, for example. It's just another factor to account for when writing the code.

That's a very simplified explanation. But framerate should not affect gameplay at all. It should affect visual quality, and its impact in a shooter can be noticable simply because a low framerate is annoying and difficult to control, but the results should not vary that much.

I always assumed that in most (all?) games the game engine was what determine what happened in-game and the screen was just a delivery tool used to display that to the gamer. So in effect, what happens in-game happens no matter what the FR is, but your FR just determines how much of it you get to see. (Basically just as you describe in the post I quoted).

Am I wrong in my general thoughts on how game code works in general?

There is a workaround. Anytime you think there is a fumble, simply keep taking a knee until the other team gets the ball.

I have not been following this issue, so my response is mearly just a general answer to this question for all games.

For one, frame rate would effect the game in that it slows down the game's response to input. The slower the frame rate, the slower the game receives input from the user and that in turn creates a slower handling of the input and on screen respresentation of the input's effect.

For instance, let's say I get 30 FPS on my game. That means 30 times per second, the game is taking reading my input, handling it and displaying the effect. If you get 20 FPS, that means it happens 20 times per second. (Now that the obvious is out of the way...)

Let's say a tenth into a second, something happens. I see it and respond accordingly, as you do as well. However, with your slower frame rate, you see the situation slightly later than I do, respond later, and the game reads you input in responcse to this later than it does for me. This split second difference could cause you to miss a receiver where as I wouldn't several times over a game since I saw an opening just before you would, giving me an advantage.

Also, it means sometimes I will see something that you wouldn't. Since I'm getting 10 frames more per second than you, I get that much more information than you.

As for this game specifically, people seem to be making reference to the frame rate effecting physics. As someone who has read a lot on graphics and game engine design and programming, I can honestly say that makes absolutely no sense to me. Physics and graphics are supposed to be completely seperate parts of the overall game engine. The only thing a graphics engine is supposed to do is desplay graphics. That's it. It shouldn't have anything to do with the physics.

Depends on if that is the issue. I don't know what the scenario is, I can't tell from the posts.

If they are in "coach only" mode (which it seems many are) then I'm with you, it makes no sense.

But if they are controlling the players, it's not that far-fetched imo based on some experience with things like FPS's when they have low frame rate and you just can't "do what you want to do"...

Found it. The following exchange is in a thread talking about play results using coach mode, which I'm guessing means that the player isn't controlling the quarterback.

Here's the comment by a gamer named Magnum:
Ok, I did what you suggested and just to let you know that my system is suppose to be under the system spec requirements, but I have been able to play the game overall. I'm only getting about a 15 Frame Per Second count which I do know is a bit slow. I find it a bit odd that the Frame Per Second would cause the problem of how the Physics work in the game. I thought the Physics of the game is handled with Math in the engine of the game?


And here is Eriks' response:
It's a combination of the two, this is why the game caps FPS at 32 and we've found that the 25-32 range is ideal though based on some testing 20-32 is the extended "everything's ok range". The minimum specs on the game were set to guarantee thatit would run in that 20-32 fps range. If you are getting 15 fps and are below the minimum listed spec, that may well be the problem.

Interesting. I'm not sure I follow exactly what you mean by fixed-timestep sim/physics engine versus a variable-rate one. But it sounded like you were saying that if a programmer uses the variable-rate engine the code must be written in a way that takes framrate into account and manipulates the resulting in-game event enough so that gameplay between 15 fps and 40 fps (for example) has the same gameplay experience. Obviously one will look much choppier, but the actual gameplay wouldn't be affected. Is that what you are saying?

I will have to go look into those posts, but I remember that it was an issue for both coach mode and arcade.

Since I've been a bit of a nayser...

RE: Short list of items I'm addressing. (March 4) - 3/6/2006 3:25:29 PM
Erik Rutins Administrator Posts: 7063 Joined: 3/28/2000 From: Vermont, USA Status: online	We've had a busy weekend and I thought I'd post the current list of fixes in the v1.088 beta that we're currently testing internally. Change History: v1.088 – March 6th, 2006 (First Update) Below is a list of the changes in v1.088. Fixed: 1. Fixed RTE when you create a team with missing values. 2. Fixed a hanging situation with new teams. If you created a new team, then tried to directly play a quick play game with that new team (before generating rosters for it) the game would hang. Now, if you attempt to use a brand new team for the first time with no roster, a simple roster will be generated and a basic depth chart setup. 3. Corrected several problems with the penalties. Penalties should no longer be able to cause players to line up in the end zone. 4. Reworked the random name generator so it's much faster and more random. 5. Clock properly stops on 3rd down incomplete passes. 6. Quick play games have been restricted to force the players on the field to match the chosen playbook. This should eliminate a number of errors caused by quick play settings not matching the chosen league and playbook. 7. Free agent generation for new leagues is based on position now. 8. The default draft for the 65 man roster was including far too many QBs. This could cause problems in draft mode and training camp. The 65 man default draft has been corrected to prevent this. 9. Forced penalties now properly show where the ball will be placed. 10. Fixed a bug that would see defunct teams actually take part in a draft. This could cause a valid team to not take place in the drafe (even though listed) and allow the valid team to get to training camp with no players as a result. 11. Increased the interception chance slightly 12. Changed the Play Development System (PDS) so that when practicing, only leagues/teams that match the MaxPlayers for the play you are building are displayed. For example, if you are designing a 12 man play, only leagues/teams designed for 12 men will be available. _____________________________ Erik Rutins Director of Product Development and Business Relations (in reply to Erik Rutins)
Report | Post #: 3

Looks like, if nothing else, they are working on patching. We can question their prioritizing, speed, etc.. .but it looks like they are working on it...

I understand how framerate would effect user input. I get that 100%.

That was my thinking too. And yes, from the posts over at Matrix it does appear that FR is affecting the physics - even when no user input is made nor any needed.

Wow, it just gets better and better...things like punts going out of bounds and brought out to the 20 instead of spotting where it went out of bounds...Sometimes there's not a second half kickoff, you just start where the ball was spotted last. How desperate do you have to be for a graphical football game for this to be acceptable to you?

It seems to me, that the game has novelly re-introduced 1997-era multiplay game lag....into a single player game. A fairly remarkable achievement, almost like accidently discovering an alchemist stone for turning gold into lead.

As the problem was reported by someone trying out the PDS, I'm assuming this has nothing to do with controlling players, especially as Winter said he designed the secondary sim engine because the primary couldn't handle being sped up.

As it appears both the PDS, and Game have memory leaks, then it almost guarantees that game results will vary for a user within a particular game. I'm surprised they managed to get this out the door with any results at all, given that balancing must be almost impossible due to performance variance. Perhaps that's another clue why all the teams need superstars to play: they just couldn't balance it all.

Possibly, though I have been eliminating anything which looks to be consequential to the design, and the success they appear to have had in diagnosing and fixing display issues. Even a small audience would have problems if it was an unmitigated buggy mess.

I'm beginning to see why even small build changes resulted in so much testing the last few weeks, with the number of variables, and a variable result-engine, they've probably been wasting man-weeks trying to figure out what's wrong.

----

JonInMiddleGA
Just to add, this is the type of game which would be too expensive in wasted time if they gave it away for free. It's a damn shame, as some of the concepts could have resulted in the successor to Front Page.

Oh geez....

Even David talks about frame rate affecting the physics of the game.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=868601 :eek:


"The only reason I've not released a video is that no video software I've tried (from FRAPS all the way up to the $1000 video editing tools) captures the game at a quality video rate. The game runs at about 60FPS (completely system dependent obviously) but as soon as I run FRAPS or some other video capture software the frame rate drops to about 10 or 12. This really impacts the quality of the animation (it' becomes very choppy). If the frame rate drops too low (under 10) even the physics engine is effected. So rather than release a video of a game running at a poor video rate, I've not released any at all.

As was mentioned, many people saw it at a pro football game last year (long before some of the new features were added) and nobody had any complaints with the animations (at least no one mentioned them to me anyway)."

dola....

And that was just talking about showing a video clip of the game.

Another gem from Daivd...

"Actually I'm using exactly the same technology other developers are using. DirectX is DirectX is DirectX..."

See, he's using DirectX. That means it's Microsoft's fault and not his engine design.

This game would have to come with a free computer for me to consider it.

:D

It depends on the computer for me.

This thread used to be so fun, but it has evolved once again into a serious discussion about game design, business practices and questionable code. What is the next thing that this thread will morph into?

The 1280-players-per-position player database at league creation and the 40-60 rounds per annual rookie draft default settings really jumped out at me in flashing red letters. I mean, those aren't things you do by accident. It would appear now that they are designed to completely mask a dysfunctional player rating system.

The proof will be when reports come in as gamers try to play games with non-superstar teams, or as they try to modify the player-generation parameters to create leagues with more balanced player ratings (in effect, as gamers try to "customize the game"). As it stands, it doesn't seem like this is easy accomplished in the game's current state. Randomly created players have the same ratings (in the 30's) and you must manually edit each one to change the ratings. There are league creation figures that can globally modify the number of rounds and players ratings, but the only person who seems to have tried that couldn't get it to work correctly.

A werewolf game?

But, see. That's what makes this thread fun. The fact that the vast majority of us are actually rooting for the guy and want him to make a good game. This would have just been some sophmoric episode on the internet if we were simply engaged in schadenfreude or even actively trying to hurt the game's chances of succeeding. Anyone can be a nay-sayer or a critic.

We, however, actually LOVE games like this, and we can't help ourselves from seeing what neat things exist in at least the idea of the game. And we can't help ourselves from going into constructive criticism mode. That's just who we are. We want this game to work and we want to do what we can to help make it work. That's what makes this thread great.

Anyone can make jokes. True comedy comes from the seriousness underlying the jokes.

Unfortunately, I get the sense that we came off to Davied as simple nay-sayers and hucksters. And he didn't think to ask what we were really laughing at until it was too late.

I assumed initially, that this was to make up for a poor (or missing) draft/depth-chart/training/substitution/management AI. If there was any difficulty in those areas, which tend to be difficult challenges for experienced sim engines, then having parity on any level: star-average-awful, would at least ensure that the AI stuck the right players out there. But, it could definately be affected by the results testers were seeing with the engine fluctuation. Combine that with multiple-builds, regressive bugs, and new features, and you can imagine how futile and time wasting the process has been

Tester 1 "my quarterback never hits the WR"
Tester 2 "my quarterback never throws an incompletion"
Winter "let's change the ratings"
Tester 1/Tester 2 "it works now"

when the symptom could have simply been variable frame rate and the "resolution" being confirmed solely by the chance confluence of both testers machines during a particular series of tests. They do seem aware of the problem, the 22-30 FPS being reported "ok," but I really don't see how anyone could have that level of confidence, especially in a genre where the smallest offsets and balancing issues are usually what makes or breaks a game.

If I had to guess, because parity seems to work, regardless of where on the curve that parity is. You're right, it will be interesting to see what happens when the skill levels vary significantly between players. Might be another clue as to why there seem to be so many things which break the AI.

I like this quote from Daivd:
Ooooh, secret plans! And coaches on the beta team! If you don't like the game, it's the coaches fault.

Pretty much doing everything they expected

is very different from

Pretty much doing everything they wanted

I've probably spent 10 hours or more following this release over the past week, and most of it has been with the same kind of curiosity that I have as I look at a bad car accident. At one point, I suppose I had hope that everyone in the accident would turn out well, but that hope faded a few hours after release. Even when I knew that things weren't going to turn out well in my eyes, I kept watching though. Car accidents are so amazing.

At some point today, though, my fascination has morphed into the feeling that well, perhaps there is something wrong for me stopping and watching a car accident for so long and with such fascination. I feel like I'm just kicking the victims at this point, when in reality I wish them good luck in getting things on track. I doubt I have the self-discipline not to read this thread, so I'm sure I'll read everything anyone writes, but work has piled up and there is life to be lived.

It's strange, though. In some bizarre manner, this thread has inspired me. I started to learn to program about a year and half ago, and started to try my hand at creating a simple text-sim. After a while I sort of stopped working on it, and the plan fizzled into nothing productive. I have no idea how this has happened, but for some strange reason, after following this release I have a stronge urge to get back to work on that. Go figure.

never heard of them personally. But we did have some funballs, or at least that's how a guy on my senior football team called them :D

FM

Actually, you can get them both to look about the same.

In a fixed-timestep sim engine, every update on the sim loop assumes the exact same amount of time has passed (say, 1/30th of a second). So, if you are running at 60FPS, you only update the sim every other frame. Then the graphics code takes positions and velocities from the sim and figures out where everyone is on the screen this particular frame. It sounds like things would be choppy, but the reality is the AIs aren't going to completely change what they are doing all that often, so it works fine. If your update rate is slow enough, you can get things going through walls, etc, but at 1/30th of a second update time you're not likely to notice.

In a variable timestep engine, you figure out how much time has passed since the last update and use that. So, at 60FPS, your frame time is 1/60th of a second. But on another machine someone might be running at 72FPS, so the sim has frame times of 1/72nd of a second. The sim updates itself accordingly.

Where these differ is in the results of the physics. Say you are throwing a ball in a 3D world. Curves are too expensive to compute (or more importantly do collision detection on), so you use line segments to simulate. You figure out how far it would move this frame, add in gravity, and see where it ends up. If your frame times differ, you'll end up with slightly different paths for the grenade. You're doing a piecewise approximation of the path, where your pieces will have varying lengths, so the path is slightly off.

In an FPS, this could mean the grenade hits on one box where it would just barely clear the wall on another, but not enough for anyone to truly notice. But where it HAS been noticed in the past is in something like say jump distance. You get your framerate down low enough in some early shooters and you could jump farther, clear taller obstacles, etc. So you need to do something to deal with the issue.

One way is to break up long pieces into multiple smaller ones. So, if your frame rate is only 10 FPS, you might update your sim twice for an effective 20FPS. Or just break up the small tasks where needed: if your movement piece is longer than 1 meter, simulate it in 2 0.5 meter chunks. Another is to put a min cap: if your frame rate dips too low, you can slow time down a bit. If someone is running at 8 FPS, they aren't going to notice that time is moving slower than normal thanks to the low frame rate.

You usually have to do something in either case, as you need to deal with high velocities. This is called the "bullet through paper" problem: the bullet moves so far in one frame that you never see a collision with the thin obstacle in the middle of its path. So you need to do some sort of intermediate collision steps or breakdown of the path. You end up with a hybrid of the two: most variable-rate engines will have some sort of fixed-step algorithms in them to deal with high velocities. And even a fixed-step engine needs to deal with this for high-velocity objects.

As with anything in game design, there are tradeoffs and issues to deal with either way. Variable-rate engines mean the rendering engine doesn't need to have interpolation as the sim is up-to-date, while fixed-rate engines tend to have more stable math. But you have to pay attention to both to make sure the physics work.

Masochism?

gstelmack:

Thanks for taking the time to reply. That makes a lot of sense and is pretty fascinating to me. I've never really understood how game engines work and this is shedding some light on that.

So to follow up, it seems that this is a key statement you made that may explain what it looks like is happening in MF:

Let's see if I've got this right. In a variable time-step engine, due to the length of time between frames, certain logic (like gravity to use your example from above) will execute more often on a machine with a higher frame rate. So it's possible that the same pass play downloaded on two different computers could result in very different outcomes when run in the game. Even though the play might be exactly the same, gravity might make the pass fall to the ground at a shorter distance in-game on one versus the other because of their frame rates and how often certain logic is run. Right?

Because of the nature of the Play Development System in MF and the desire to share playbooks online, this seems like it could cause pretty significant problems. I saw that one thing Daivd has done to try to alleviate this is to put a FR cap on the game at 32 fps. I would imagine that there are other things that could be done to the code to tighten things up further. I would imagine that results could be quite different between gamers that can run the game at 32fps and those that can run it at 20fps. Do developers typically try to account for this type of discrepancy as well? Is that something that should be expected of a developer who uses a variable time-step engine?

I'm not trying to be nit-picky here and bash MF. I ask because I have never heard of a situation where frame rate affects the actual gameplay, so there must be something that developers do to account for varying framerates, right?

It can, certainly, but I'd consider that a bug in my engine. The key is that if you discover that a player can jump much farther at 10 FPS vs 60 FPS, you go back and change the jump movement code to simulate multiple shorter segments to bring it all back in line.

In other words, there are ways to mitigate the effects. The reality is every engine has a bit of both, with variable-rate engines doing some fixed-rate bits to reduce these issues, and a fixed-rate engine moving some variable rate code (interpolation) into the rendering bits.

Okay. I think most of us raised our eyebrows when Matrix/Daivd mentioned that the physics were affected by the frame rate. It sounds like that is explainable from a programming point of view, but it is something that should have been accounted for in the game code (in other words: a bug).

FPS talk finally kills this thread?

No the thread is waiting for its next mutation.

song pls k thx

Well, I think it is always a good idea to ask coaches and players for feedback about a game concerning their sport, but probably more in the game design stage than at the moment of BETA testing.

Now, for secret plans. I have no idea what he's thinking, but I seriously doubt that NFL coaches would be interested in this PDS and then tell their players to walk around like zombies, who for no reason fall over. "Sorry coach, I never learned to teleport tackle in college."

Using 'Big plans' is just a nice way of giving customers who purchased your inferior product some false hope that the developer is going to fix said inferior product.

By the time you've milked all these false claims to death, you chalk it up to meaning 'big plans' for the sequel they can purchase coming out at X time for another $40.

I can tell you from experience... NOTHING beats having a secret plan.

Obviously, if you are only a quarter back, or are very football savey (as in gravy?) then your expectations aren't worth shit. Ergo, Maximum Football.

What about an EVIL PLAN?

surely any GOOD evil plan would be considered a subset of a secret plan?

That reminds me of the "evil plan" threads we used to have. I think Fritz started them.

And you think this was unintentional?

Speaking of which ... has head-to-head play made it in OOTP yet?

Mostly kidding. I don't think OOTP is anywhere close to Max Football, but it's another feature that was promised by a game and never made it in. Arlie did the same thing with CAD -- promised features that he never made it into the game but did make it into his next version.

But, I would kill for a Max Football 2k7 if it's anywhere near as entertaining as Max Footballl 2001.

Are we talking about the thread or the game? If you are talking about the game (because you purchased it), then you are one sick man. If you are talking about the thread, then I am eagly awaiting the next version as well. :D

I wonder how bad the relationship is between Matrixgames and Daivd. Just look at this exchange. The message had already been up for two hours when he responded. Why not contact someone at Matrixgames to be sure (it took a whopping 48 more minutes) as opposed to continuing to create the impression that the two entities are not communicating??? :confused:

Fixes/Patches - 3/5/2006 11:31:40 AM
football man Matrix Recruit Posts: 13 Joined: 2/19/2006 Status: offline	I'm wondering if one of the mods can tell me if the fixes David works on will be built into the game on disc for physical shipment or if they will have to be downloaded seperately from the web?
Report | Post #: 1

RE: Fixes/Patches - 3/5/2006 1:23:30 PM David Winter Matrix Elite Guard Posts: 666 Joined: 11/23/2004 From: Vancouver, BC Status: offline All fixes and patches will be done via download. I will have to defer to Matrix to tell you what/when updated versions get on to the physical CD. I don't know how often they produce new disks.. David (in reply to football man) Report | Post #: 2

RE: Fixes/Patches - 3/5/2006 2:11:27 PM
Erik Rutins Administrator Posts: 7072 Joined: 3/28/2000 From: Vermont, USA Status: offline	football man, The updates will all be available here for download. The initial physical copies will be the same as the release version. In general, whenever we update the full version available through the store, the physical copies are updated within a week or two after that to the same version. Regards, - Erik _____________________________ Erik Rutins Director of Product Development and Business Relations (in reply to David Winter)
Report | Post #: 3

Actually, that's a quite reasonable response. He's not burning the CDs. Frankly, the original question was stupid: the game went Gold, they're already pressing CDs. Any updates from here on out are going up for download. Now, you tend to do runs of CDs, so a second printing could possibly include any fixes added since the original printing. But again, that'll be more up to Matrix I assume.

He just seems to be that kind of person. There are a few of these in every company, the kind that you send an email to, asking a valid question. Thing is, there were other persons to which the question was addressed and somebody else answered the question before he got to read his emails and he sends an almost identical (and very often not identical at all but almost opposite) without consulting anybody else, or even reading if he had an answer from somebody else in his inbox...

I have a hard time dealing with this kind of people...

FM

It just seems like bad business to not present a united front.

what SD is asking is "why not fire an email to Erik and ask him the question?" or not say anything at all instead of feeding the "controversy" that they are not speaking at all...

FM

which is how Daivd has kinda presented himself for a little while now, to my eyes at least.

FM

I thought the same thing when I read it. Daivd shot out a timely response to the part of the question he could answer, and deferred to Matrix on the part that he couldn't.

But as already said, that looks like they don't communicate. If I'm asked something by a client and I only know part of the answer, I find out the whole answer and then respond. I don't respond with part of an answer and tell them so and so will answer the rest of question.

I understand that he didn't know the whole answer, but by responding the way it did it looks unprofessional (which is par for the course).

He was simply pointing out that Matrix does the disks and has control over what precisely goes on them. They have a publisher / developer relationship, and he's just letting people know that the publisher handles this bit.

To me, it's a non-issue and only becomes an issue if you're digging for more dirt. Or if you will, there are about 10 truckloads of fill sitting out there and you guys are adding another teaspoonful on top of it. Without those other 10 truckloads, you wouldn't even notice that teaspoon sitting there.

According to the Matrix site, it is now actually available.

It's definitely a minor issue, but it's still not the optimum way to communicate with your customers and considering his track record to this point if I were him I'd be trying to do things as professionally as possible. It already looks like there's a lack of communication between DW and Matrix. Adding (even a little) to that image is just stupid IMO.

Poor MF.

For the curious: I was reading A.J. Toynbee today, and found him claim the Greek word 'hubris' meant 'self-centeredness.'

Awesome news, I enjoyed your programming dynasty, hope you'll fire it back up soon.

Sad to see that the game is SO bad that people actually can't have fun making fun of it... but I can understand since there's no way in hell I would spend $40 on such a messed up game. This is the one area I felt where a thorough bashing would have been in order, if they actually released this game in such a bad state.

I guess all the funny was just used up the last 2 weeks.

I think now that people actually purchased the game, I feel bad for the ones who may have stumbled across this sports game thinking it may have been the same quality of Puresim Baseball. I don't necessarily feel bad for the fan boys, since they are still looking for a positive spin on why they spent $40 for a broken game, but you can even see the problems are wearing them down as well.

And to some extent, I agree with SkyDog and FrogMan that there seems to be some tension between Erik and David. Although SkyDog shown one post that looks fairly harmless, there is a number of other posts that give a similar tone, before and after the game was released.

*sweeps the floor and turns the light out*

At least it beat the werewolf threads in terms of post count.

Ok....wait before you turn the lights out. There is one poster that is off the wall. You have to read his posts, because they make absolutely no sense and he is confusing the hell out of the support staff at Matrix. He is known as GWsFBAStartOct292006, so that should already give you an indication, but this thread had me in tears for some strange reason.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1080020

good find Ant, :D

please somebody explain me this post:

RE: uninstall The Maximum FootBall Game the second time... - 3/8/2006 1:42:35 PM

GWsFBAStartOct292006 Matrix Trooper Posts: 36 Joined: 3/6/2006 Status: online

quote: ORIGINAL: Magnum357 Oh... ok. I didn't know that. When he says "Companies" I thought he was some sort of small buisness owner trying to play the game. I guess "Companies" are his word of saying "leagues". No, you guiys are all off a little, but very important differences. The FootBall Association (try to put in everything in real FootBall, I view as positive). Later on in The G.W.'sF.B.A.'s Development be played in a safe Internet environment. For years playing in Kendall & Coral Gables, Miami, Fl. - Florida City, Miami, Fl. Multiplayer Centers. After the first-two-years, visit the west coast and other states, to play in other states' multiplayer centers to play, each year's The G.W.'sF.B.A.'s 1-99 PreSeason Tournament Games, not the game's 5-preSeason Games. Only ONE-version of The FootBall Association spread-out through all states, with those states' teams/programs/franchises. As even as possible amount of teams/programs/franchises in each (I have already created the teams/programs/franchises). Rejected already by some CFB Programs for licensing, I am thinking of just not purchasing licensing right off the bat, and later when they come around purchase the all licensing of Teams/Programs/Franchises. Have exteremly close teams/programs/franchises to the real versions. Main part (never affected by the other parts) FootBall Gaming, Other Parts (in Order of Importance): Education/Exposure, Personal Development of Communities and their citzens/Bringing Generations/Families Together, Develop Young FootBall Players and Coaches. Thus, higher interns/employees who are in Education, real FootBall (expect if doing wrong-ei CFB Programs and players, especially Florida International University - I have inside knowledge). < Message edited by GWsFBAStartOct292006 -- 3/8/2006 3:43:53 PM >

My favorite part, of course, is "< Message edited by GWsFBAStartOct292006 -- 3/8/2006 3:43:53 PM > "

Thanks for editing that to make it clearer, GWsFBAStartOct292006.

That is the post that had me crying. I kept imagining the support staff looking at one another wondering how to respond to this professionally.

Soooo...he's trying to create some sort of MP football business using someone elses program? And he expects to be able to purchase NCAA licenses?

Yeah, that's gonna happen.

Well, he looks like a smooth talker so you never know...

I actually think it was the other way around. He first made a very sensible post, very clear, then realized "Damn, people will understand what I'm talking about", only then went and rearranged verbs around to screw with our heads...

:D

FM

yeah, especially if he talks in red all the time like that... :)

FM

You were turning out the lights when you noticed a dishevled guy sitting in a dark corner by himself, mumbling to no one in particular about his "companies." You decided to investigate . . .

More confusing messages in these threads as well:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1078953
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1081916


Where do these people come from?

LOL....nice.

Loren?!?!?! :eek:

TALK TO MAN IN CORNER

the start of that second thread:

Mr. Winter,.. I am very sorry, Mr. Winter. - 3/8/2006 2:50:34 PM

GWsFBAStartOct292006 Matrix Trooper Posts: 37 Joined: 3/6/2006 Status: online

Mr. Winter in all due respect, why treat the customers in that way, by partly titling a forum suggestions? If you or another employee was not going to read that forum? Let me be blunt, if you are going to do the above and what is implied by your posted thread there that you are not going stretch your game to do what the customers want, then you become no better than teasing to become something better than what is out there. I understand that given this is the first-version that there probably a ton of bugs and you need to make sure they are fixed; however, there are bugs and then there are bugs in completing the direction of the game and some improvements are doable. I could list them here but I will list them under The Maximum FootBall's 'Maximum Football FAQ and Feature List' thread. I am going to leave this post up to remind me to be more careful and do not make the same mistake. Like an idoit! Focus! I am very sorry, Mr. Winter. < Message edited by GWsFBAStartOct292006 -- 3/8/2006 3:32:24 PM >

and no, I have not boosted the font size, it was posted that way over there...

:D

FM

Too perfect... :D

Edit: Dammit, beaten by the Frog...

And some people thought this thread was dead.
Pish tosh I say.

If it was on my Commodore 64, I belive I could only type a verb and a noun, so I would type:

TALK LUNATIC

:D

and I'm dang honored to have been able to do so :p

FM

that guy is really hilarious... more from that second thread:

RE: Mr. Winter, - 3/8/2006 3:29:46 PM

GWsFBAStartOct292006 Matrix Trooper Posts: 37 Joined: 3/6/2006 Status: online

quote: ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins GWsFBA, I'm not sure I understand your complaint. David posted that he does in fact read the suggestions forum. However, our first priority is fixing issues with the game before we move on to add any new features. Regards, - Erik BLANK! Thanks for correcting me, totally misread it. Always have a lot going on right now (Radio, my company and this message boards) Than I have no problem, except is this really Mr. Winter? Is it since he is not a Matrix employee (Maybe) that he does not have an official avatar to separate himself?

HAHAHAH! "Always have a lot going on right now" :D

FM

And then we have this thread from him... :D

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1081063

Evidently he has a lot of radio listening to do.