I should also note, that I just found a draft preferences screen. It seems that before each draft, I can actually choose which positions I will pick in each round. So, I can buck the league's trend, but I'm tied to the settings I put down for the draft.

Hmm...

Now don't all of you making fun of the draft feel silly?

It must be your computer. If your computer isn't up to par, you throw more interceptions and can't see box scores.

This is awesome! None of the features of the game actually work. At all. I thought the game would be bad, if not laughable, but finding out that inactive players are starting games not even at their natural positions is intensely hilarious. Depth charts are apparently just suggestions to the "AI". More like AUICG (Artificial UIC Generator).

After 4 years of designing a game which depends on frame rate to improve completion percentage, and a stat based sim which can't keep inactive players from jumping onto the field, and a feature set where the paper doll uniform creation seems to be the most used feature, then I imagine network programming must seem like the work of a fucking Einstein.

I could never have believed that the dynasty report makes the game seem worse than I imagined it, I just wouldn't have thought that possible.

I think the greatest quote in that thread is:


I'll be laughing about that for a while.

Wow. Very versatile inactive player.

Two missed extra points?

You've got to assume this has something to do with bad logic. My guess: You're up 14-3, then score your 3rd touchdown to make it 20-3. Naturally, a 19-point lead is better than an 18-point lead (this way, 6 field goals can't tie up the game). So they go for two, and miss. Then, at 26-3, they go for two again (this way, 8 more field goals for Oakland can only tie the game). They miss again, and the score remains 26-3. Either way, it takes Oakland 7 field goals to come back and win.

Or maybe they figure it out based on rouges.

....or fps.

Yep. My main man Andreas missed two PATs.

Must have been his low ratings...

Oh god, this is side splittingly funny. I didn't realize that digamma was actually running a dynasty.

Actually...

Please stop causing problems.

That's the beauty of the phrase. It is so customizable! :D

Ah, i get it

please stop cause problem

See, now YOUR getting it...

:D

Problem causing stop please.

I RLY GT IT!

Plz stp cng prb

Game two is in the books.

I'll try to get the report up tonight. I'm also going to try to "play" a game tonight instead of just simming them.

That's probably not be a good idea. Your computer might not be fast enough and it could screw up the stats.

Week 2 in the USMFL

The slate of games:

Miami at Philadelphia
Denver at Boston
Chicago at Oakland
Houston at Cleveland
Tampa at San Francisco
Pittsburgh at Milwaukee
Dallas at Washington
New York at Los Angeles

Like pretty much everyone else, New York looks to be pretty good. Inactive quarterback Mike Figgs led them in week one with a 14-24 for 165 yard effort. He was one of the few players in the league to throw and interception, though, so maybe there's a chink in his armour.

I decide to start Nickenberry at quarterback this game, and make the changes on the depth chart to start him at QB and Wyatt at HB.

We jump out to a 21-10 lead at the half and hold on for a 28-17 win.

Nickenberry must have gotten tired or injured because he doesn't play as much as Derrer. Nickenberry is 9-14 for 65 yards and one touchdown. Derrer (I think, because remember, my computer isn't powerful enough to save box scores) is 17-25 for 211 yards and 3 TDs.

Dumesnil also finds a way to get himself back in the game getting 10 carries for 28 yards. Wyatt only carries the ball once.

Nevertheless, we're 2-0. The bad news is that Denver and San Francisco won also, so we all sit atop the division together.

Scores from the rest of the week:

Miami 17
Philadelphia 7

Denver 16
Boston 6

Chicago 7
Oakland 0

Houston 21
Cleveland 31

Tampa 24
San Francisco 28

Pittsburgh 6
Milwaukee 28

Dallas 21
Washington 7

On to week 3 and a stiff test vs. the 2-0 Cleveland Spartans.

Week 3

The Schedule:

Washington at Boston
Dallas at Pittsburgh
Cleveland at Los Angeles
Milwaukee at Houston
Miami at Philadelphia
New York at Oakland
Chicago at San Francisco
Tampa at Denver

So, I decide to fully play out the game this week. I'm not going to coach the Comets (we'll save that for a future game), but just watch the game as it plays out.

We play Cleveland, who is 2-0, and looks to have a strong offense behind quarterback Walter Byron, who has thrown for 600 yards in the young season. Scott Holtrop has rushed for just over 200 yards. Somewhat strangely, Byron threw for 351 of his yards in their 10-6 win in week and just 240 or so in the week 2 win in which Cleveland put up 31 points.

Cleveland kicks off, and we're able to quickly stop them, 3 and out. We move the ball down the field on the ground and punch it in to take a 7-0 lead. After an interception (our first of the season!), we move the ball back down the field, partially with the help of a ten yard illegal contact penalty assessed at the end of a completed pass. Our offense stalls inside the 20 however, and we settle for a field goal, which by my calculation is 32 yards. Our stat keeper seems to have been busy at the beer tent and marks Soboleski down for a 55 yarder.

Cleveland answers with a nice drive and has first and goal at the one. At the risk of spoiling the rest of the summary, I think the next three plays were easily the defining plays of the game. On first down, Cleveland runs the ball to Holtrop, who looks like he's in. Unfortunately for Cleveland, he's not given the touchdown, and due to a new rule in play this year, the ball is marked back at the one yard line.

I had to check the rule book and Rule 7.14 reads something like this: "In the event a runner is tackled at a spot that would place the ball in between whole yard lines, the ball shall be placed on the yard line closest to the offensive team's own goal."

On second down, Byron rolls out for Cleveland and completes a pass to his tight end who has run his route four yards beyond the end of the end zone. Third and goal, we catch another break as Cleveland's wide out is about three yards out of bounds as he tries to haul in the reception. Cleveland settles for a field goal, which our stat keeper jots down as a 66 yarder, and the PA announcer calls a "risky" attempt.

We punt the ball back to Cleveland, holding on to our 10-3 lead. They can't do anything on offense, and we force them to punt back to us. Zittell breaks it for a 65 yard punt return.

We force a couple of more interceptions and are able to mount a drive at the end of the half. Our clock management is a bit questionable as we're down to 11 seconds left and faced with a third and one from the six, with the clock moving. Cleveland is actually nice enough to call a time out for us (though I think we had one available). We run a sweep and put it in for the score with eight seconds left. We're able to run a couple of more seconds off the clock on the extra point, and then end the half on the kick off. We head into the locker room up 24-3.

At halftime, we have 91 yards rushing to go along with 45 yards passing. Nickenberry is 6-11, with one TD and one INT. Cleveland has 12 rushing yards and 123 passing yards. Byron is 5-12 with 3 picks. In "Net Yards" we have 136 and Cleveland has 125. It seems they have the 10 yards from the illegal contact penalty (they were on defense) subtracted from their yardage total.

The second half opens with another kick off to Cleveland. Fortunately for all the Comet fans in the house, we stop them quickly. Unfortunately, we give the ball right back to them when Nickenberry throws his second pick of the game. Fortunately, Byron throws his fourth pick of the game to give us the ball back. Unfortunately, Nickenberry throws his third pick of the game and Cleveland has the ball again. This little game of ping pong finally ends as Cleveland completes a pass on 3rd and 17. Sensibly, the Cleveland receiver senses the teleportation powers of my team and runs out of bounds two yards shy of the first down despite having yards and yards of green grass in front of him.

We quickly move down the field and score and the rout is officially on. We add four second half touchdowns and cruise to a 52-3 win.

The final stats look a bit like this (we're able to track them because we played the game, Yay!):

Los Angeles: 213 rushing yards, 169 passing yards
Nickenberry 16-27, 4 TD, 5 INT
Zittell 7 catches for 109

Wyatt 17 carries, 111 yards
Dumesnil 11 carries, 73 yards

Cleveland: 16 rushing yards, 206 passing yards, (21 penalty yards) 205 net yards.
Byron 10-27, 0 TD, 9 INT

Vaeth had 4 INTs for the Comets, followed closely by Wayfield with 3.

We're flying high and off to a 3-0 start!

Elsewhere around the league:

Washington 7
Boston 10

Dallas 31
Pittsburgh 3

Houston 24
Milwaukee 31 OT

Miami 21
Philadelphia 6

New York 24
Oakland 9

Chicago 10
San Francisco 21

Tampa 17
Denver 28

One note--I check our team stats after the game, and find that on his 3 sacks, Nickenberry evidently lost 207.382232 yards. So happy we were able to overcome that.

We're 3-0 tied atop the division with Denver and San Francisco.

My sides hurt from too much laughter.

This is the best dynasty in the history of FOFC.

I think I am going to cry. This is really bad and I am actually feeling sorry for the fact that you are going through this painful experience. Regardless of that, you have to complete the season. I want to know how playoffs work.

I'm guessing they don't ;)

Ok, then I want to see how broken it is. :D

my sides hurt from reading this. issues such as 3 sacks for -207 yards are just too comedic to be the result of an actual AI engine.

Anyone else thinking that Daivid Winters is actually Ashton Kutcher and we're all being PUNK'd??

Aaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha.

I wondered if anyone would notice that! They played the whole overtime period.

As I said earlier in this thread, Digamma's team does not play Denver this season. So it will be interesting if they are both tied at the end of the regular season how the game determines the division winner......

I'm pretty sure it's already been discussed earlier in the thread that the game doesn't actually determine playoffs...it's left up to the user to pick teams for the playoffs.

So what house rules are you going to play with next season to try and make this game a real challenge?

Ooh! Ooh! I found another easter egg!


It's just wrong on so many levels... it's great!

I love it. He had more INTs than incompletions.

This line is still killing me. Oh man. I haven't even seen this reported on the Matrix boards.

Is there really a PA announcer or were you just editorialzing? That smacks me as truly amazing if he adds little details like PA announcing to a game, but somehow botches a simple thing like registering a simple 18 yard kick as a risky 66 yard attempt.

He probably looked SO GOOD (in my best Teen Girl Squad voice) in the custom uni that they didn't have the heart to post the bug.

Math must be customizable.

I think I figured out the math behind the 66 yard field goal from the 1 yard line.

50 yardline - 1 yard = 49 yard line. 49+17 = 66 yard field goal.

You see...it's all very reasonable when you look at it from the right angle. :D

Sad thing is, that explanation makes perfect sense given the state of the game.

By PA announcer, I meant the play description given with the result of each play. It's a text box, much like a play summary in FOF or BBCF. The game did, indeed, call it a risky attempt.

Now that's good stuff.

We want week 4!
We want week 4!

Thank you, digamma. And thank you Maximum Pratfall. I'm weeping with mirth.

I went to the matrix boards and posted a little look at the flaws of the game for someone who is trying to compare it to madden. Daivd himself answered my post. Occasional UIC abounds!

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1148382

I'm evizaer.

This was funny by Daivd Winters himself.

Sigh.

I wanted to give you week 4 this morning in a game I actually coached. Unfortunately the game froze in the fourth quarter when I tried to sub in for a guy on defense who was fatigued.

We were leading San Francisco 27-20 when the game froze. That may be an important consideration later when play-off teams are selected.

Nevertheless, some observations from the partially played game.

The game is at Yerba Buena Park and there's a beautiful city skyline and trees in the background. Problem: you guessed it, the weather. It's 68 with no wind, because we're playing in a dome. (I think there's a link to a similar screen shot earlier in the thread.) The beer tent is still there though!

The field goal yardage bug continues, as Soboleski gets credit for kicks of 55, 55 and a risky 64 yarder, even though the longest of the 3 was 31.

We catch a break at the end of the first half when San Francisco is driving. They decline a "Rough Play" penalty that would have tacked ten yards onto the end of a completed pass. Then with 32 seconds left, they let the play clock run down to 10 seconds and call an inside run. They fumbled, so it didn't matter that they had called their one time out of the half.

Yep, that's right. Teams appear to get a single time out. Well, I should say that cpu teams appear to get a single time out a half. I can't for the life of me figure out how to call a time out in the game. Shouldn't something like that be readily apparent?

I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but when players go in motion or move before the play on defense, they often run into other players. SF hit a big pass play because my corner had gotten held up on the play by my linebacker.

I think I'm going to have to quick sim the rest of the games in the regular season. Then we can have some fun with the play-offs.

Double elimination perhaps? With ties settled by longest field goal attempt?

There is action on this point on the MF forums today, four months after release. Apparently, you can call a time out by pressing the third mouse button when the teams line up for the huddle. Again, completely intuitive. The one time out fiasco hasn't been solved yet.

Against my better judgment, I weighed in after DW's latest reply.

Your brave to promise that you will finish your first season in the MF forum. :)

Dola,

Digamma I thought you did a great job documenting the points and experiences you ran into. I think the Daivd response is going to be legendary in order to slide away from all your valid input.

Your points were valid and well-stated. His evasions shall be classic, no doubt.

Wait....did I read in there because he doesn't hold licensing to CFL, NFL, or AFL and he can't "infringe" upon them....He isn't able to create a league specific simulation?

He's only saying that he can't infringe upon a particular AFL patent.

Maybe we're all being biast against the game.

You're opinions have been noted.

I assume he is having fun with this line:

He's also a comedian. I am sure that Puresim has surpassed him in sales due to the fact that they have a better price point and super support. Shaun already had a fricking demo and patch a less than a month after release. So I am not quite sure where he is getting this "fine first release" malarky from.

Oh, I was having fun with another line:

Damn and it was from the same post. I gotta be quicker than that. There's too much hilarity for me to catch.

wow, that Desmond/SkyDog 1-2 punch was something out of this world... This dude simply keeps on delivering the great quotes, wow...

FM

Stop causing problems.

Dola - that whole DW/aran thread on the MF board is just mind-boggling. Everything that we find incorrect about the game is a figment of our imagination - Daivd has never seen such nonsense. Whomever did the Iraqi Information Minister PS about 65 pages ago hit the nail on the head.

thank god this is back!

I think you picked the right word to describe the thread - mindboggling.

When I sit down and think about this logically. What does this game ACTUALLY give me that Madden does not?

As far as I can tell, the ONLY difference is rule sets and custom plays.

What does Madden have over it?

Graphics
Gameplay
NFL License
Realistic Stats (boy is THAT scary)
Established on-line community
A true draft
Hell, a true career mode

I mean seriously.. everything that M-F does except for modifiable rule sets and custom plays Madden does AT LEAST 10x better. The people who argue that this is some drastically different better sim are just, quite simply, INSANE.

Seriously.. even if this game was done WELL, I don't know that I see where I would want it over Madden unless I was into Arena/CFL/Whatever.

Madden is 100 times the game that Maxi Football is and Madden sucks.

Fixed it for you.

Nope. Madden for the PC allows Custom Uni's.

Now, if you want to say that maybe M-F let's you modify more (like textures etc), that may be true.. but Madden allows custom uni's including importing helmet images, field images, etc.

Nope. Can't simulate Arena Football. Daivd can't infringe upon an AFL patent. He can steal the fuck out of a Georgia Tech logo, though!

That's a bulldog, right?

Just for reference, the aforementioned AFL patent is US patent 4,911,443. He respects US patent 4,911,443, but that damned Georgia Tech Bulldog made its way into official screenshots.

gg daivd

Is there a joke here I am forgetting? It is hard to remember 92 pages of jokes.

Yes. I'm not sure if I'm getting this exactly right, but at least one official screenshot showed a Georgia Tech logo at midfield. When called on it, one of Daivd's explanations was that he didn't know that it was Georgia Tech's logo. He thought GT's logo was a bulldog.

LOL, I had completely forgotten about that. I remember the screenshot, but ... man. I don't think Daivd could be trusted with matching my SOCKS. Honestly, I wouldn't hire him for any job that you could think of.

When are these guys going to be finished? They need to give Daivd some competition.

hxxp://www.divisionrivals.com

I know they've been in development almost as long as M-F. I found a thread dating back to 2003.
http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=13252

His current tactic seems to be to ignore me.

We may need to enable the forum to allow you to search just in this thread.

But Madden doesn't allow for clown feet.

That's probably a good decision on his part.

Ah. I remember the GT logo in the screenshots, but I forgot about Daivd's response. I pity the future board members who join and don't get pointed to this thread. There will be years of in-jokes coming from here and they won't know anything about it.

I was just glancing over at the MF boards and saw someone post a screenshot of the standings for his league. There was a column labeled "P". It took me a second to figure out that there are points being assigned (2 for a win and 1 for a tie). Is that a CFL thing?

yes, yes it is...
http://www.cfl.ca/index.php?module=s...006&user_pre=N

FM

Thanks FM. Must be a carry over from hockey or something.

Actually, I think I might have asked this same question somewhere else in this thread now that I think about it. :D

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/up...6B5F5C4A5A.jpg

What kind of standings display is that? You can change everything for entirely no reason. Ever screenshot i see of this game further entrenches my feelings of confusion over just about every design decision DW has made.

It was probably somewhere around the post #1200-1500 range for the thread, so you are forgiven.

Don't be so harsh. The league only had 6 tied games over 10 weeks of play. I mean before the patch, the games just kept looping on certain games.. So at least there are completed games. ;)

Heh, point taken. I'm more talking about the way the interface is designed, though.

YES! more stats to laugh at: http://ca.geocities.com/football_can...pped/Logs.html

Game logs. Lots of FUN FUN boxscores to satiate your thirst for terrible stat generation.

*hurries off and begins to read logs*

Regardless of what happens to this game/this thread in the future, we'll always have the Beer Tent.

The best part about the site is the fact the season ends with "the Finials". Outstanding.

Yeah. After reading two boxscores my eyes started bleeding and my firstborn child died, so I had to stop.

I can't wait to sim Week 4 and post the logs.

Just when I think I'm going to give up on this game, DW has to go and do this.

Go for it. I'm on the edge of my e-seat.

And now, some deep thoughts by GW'sFBAStartOct292006
 

I found this gem on Answerbag.com a while back when I checking to see if this guy was real. Well he is and this gem still has me laughing




Man, I just wish he was still floating around on those message boards.

So, I found one more twist on the "no interceptions for yardage" comment, which I believe Daivd continues to deny. I just opened one random boxscore, the Week 1 TOR v. MON game from the link above.


So, uh... this JOSEPH guy, uh, what exactly happened there? And why are we getting a little bit of play-by-play right in the midst of the boxscore (which, once again, shows zero yards return on every single pick)?

Maximum Farkakte!

Oh dear. I can just imagine the leading experts responses to his "questions".

The very first boxscore I opened has a kicker attempting 11 FGs in one game. He made 10 of them. Not bad.

Of course nowhere in the box score or game log does it tell the score, so I don't know who won.

And who the hell writes a game log like this:


This is totally incomprehensible gibberish.

Yeah... That's entirely hideous. I don't even know what plays in the game those were and/or why they were picked to be displayed over the other hundred odd plays that were supposedly executed.