Not only that, but the losing team also had a better rushing and passing average and they could only muster 10+ minutes for time of possession.

Let me edit that. The winning team could only muster 10 minutes for time of possession. Very confusing.

Now that we're at the mid-way point of the season, it might be time for a special mid-season award. We'll call it "Most Impressive Statistic" or "Things that Make you go Hmmm" or, for simplicity's sake, "Pick your favorite statistical oddity of the first half of the season."

The candidates:

Chas Pitorak, QB, Houston
Chas is a shining star on an average Houston team. So far this season, he's thrown for 1794 yards on 133-219 passing. Through eight games, he has 17 TDs and only 6 interceptions. The statistical oddity: his long pass of the season is 28 yards, but his long touchdown pass of the season...an astounding 111 yards!

Sub-nominees to be mentioned in the same breath as Pitorak are his two receivers Earnest Allshouse and Gerald Ross. Allshouse is Pitorak's favorite target, catching 67 balls for 927 yards and 11 TDs. Ross has 37 catches for 541 yards and 4 TDs. Allshouse was on the receiving end of Pitorak's 28 yard pass, and Ross isn't far behind with a long of 25 yards. They've both had longer TD catches though--Allshouse took it to the house from 73 yards out, while Ross scored on a 64 yarder. They must have cut the guy who caught the 111 yard bomb.

Brett Barbarito, P, Philadelphia
Brett has one of the most dependable legs in the game. Unfortunately, Philadelphia has to call on Brett far too often. Through eight games, Brett has punted the ball 53 times for 2438 yards, an impressive average of 46 yards per kick. The problem here is that opposing teams have returned all 53 of his punts for a total of 1507 yards, making Brett's net punting average a measley 15.8 yards a punt.

Filiberto Boll, RB, Chicago
Filiberto is a work horse for Chicago. He's carried the ball 248 times at the midway point of the season. He's gained 821 yards. If you're doing the math at home (and you pretty much have to, because the game doesn't do it for you), that means he's averaging 31 carries a game and 3.3 yards a carry. Filiberto has found the end zone 7 times this season, the longest being a 9 yard run, which is strange because his longest run of the season is 6 yards.

Andres Soboleski, K, Unemployed
Feeling sorry after firing Andres, we'll nominate him for this award. He gets in here for only hitting 20 of 28 extra point attempts through eight games. No one is keeping their job making extra points at just better than a 2/3 clip (unless maybe you play for one of those Chesapeake teams).

You can't be serious! No ypc stat for running backs? I really shouldn't be surprised by this stuff anymore.

Oh man, this is more painful than laughable. And since you have the latest patches, I don't see the next patch doing wonders for a number of these horrid stats. I guess the PDS is way more important than having unimportant statistics and realism.

Uh.....wow!

There is a stat in the game called LTD. This is supposed to stand for longest touchdown according to David. But check out this graphic and check out the sack yardage as well. Wow!



I didn't realize that you longest touchdown could be over 100 yards. This is quite amazing to see.

261 Yds TD... now we know why teams have the ball for 50+ minutes... But i guess it's pretty normal when you lose 3284 yds in 50 sacks --> avg. 60+ yds for sack. On 4th and goal from the parking lot you deserve a 200+ yds TD...

Week 9

Exciting times in week 9. We host the Milwaukee Warriors.

Summary:


We escape with a 21-20 win. The new kicker comes through hitting all three extra points to get the win. Can you imagine if Soboleski was still back there?

In other news around the league, Chas Pitorak evidently threw a 135 yard touchdown pass this week. It's no 260+ yarder that Fouts threw up there, but impressive, nonetheless. Miami also held the ball for better than 59 minutes in their win against New York.

Week 10

We take on Dallas, who is 5-4.

Summary:


Yep, Comet fans...that adds up to a 21-14 Dallas win. We lose our first game of the season. I'm thinking we should protest the game because it looks like we only played 15 minutes.

Week 11

We need to get back on the winning track. What better way to do that than by playing Cleveland again. We ripped them a new one in Week 2, I think by the score of 52-3.

This time we visit their house. The summary:


We cruise to a 28-6 win. Better than 600 yards of offense, but the penalties take us down to only 545 "net" yards.

At 10-1, we're back on the winning track and looking good with a 3 game lead in the division.

Week 12

We play Tampa in Week 12.

The summary:


This was a struggle. We scored 10 points in what looked like the last five minutes of the game to escape with a 17-14 win. Absolutely HUGE win, when you consider we only had the ball for 22 seconds. And, we managed to get off 60 plays during that time.

Pitorak update: Our man is on fire and his LTD is now 160 yards! Watch out Dan Fouts! Chas has got to watch out though, because Denver QB Arnzen is on his heels with a 150 yarder of his own.

60 plays in 22 seconds. 15 minutes for a game. This thread is hilarious.

I thought some of you might be interested to see this heartfelt message included in the game credits (which run every time you exit the game) (I have not edited the quote below):

LOL....how in the BLANK did that happen. Does the game randomly customize minutes for each game. That is just crazy.

At least you managed 291 yards of offense in under 4 minutes. Your team is simply amazing.

No one is going to touch Dan Fouts. You seem to forget that they calculate the distance it is thrown up in the air as well. That explains why you see these long LTDs. Fouts has a canon for an arm and throw a ball 150+ yards vertically.

Oh, by the way, here is that thread that talks about the LTD stat. Apparently David doesn't believe it is a stat bug since he addressed it in a patch that has yet to be released. Huh?

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1203258

This just gets more atrocious by the minute.

It's not "another". It's an known existing problem with the current public release.

How long has this, um, "game",.........no, I'll say "software", been out? I mean, isn't there some sort of legal action a purchasing customer could take? To me (and I do not own the game, but......), buying this piece of software in it's current state seems like buying a car and taking it home, only to find out that not only do none of the advertised options work, but they do things they aren't supposed to do. Like you hit the wiper switch and the headlights come on, or you turn on the radio and the windows go down.

It is making for fun reading, though.

Too much gold. Kudos to hi_fly_show for a strong first post.

I also don't know what to be more amazed at: the ever-emerging statistical oddities of Maximum Football or the knowledge that someone actually went to the trouble of making real-life rosters for the game. Somebody needs to get a life for Christmas.

Careful...

not to side track the good discussion about aberrant stats and hot dog trucks and the like... but this nugget from the M-F boards seemed worth repeating here -- I think it cuts right to the heart of the matter. Uh, I think. I can't exactly understand it.


Cheers!

talk about a spore!

BLANK!

So, do we think this is from Daivd not being able to get the value of a new record for longest touchdown to replace the old one, so instead simply adds the distance of the new longest touchdown to the stat (which would be expected as simple bad programming that the game seems full), or is this just some random weird shit that has nothing to do with what goes on on the field (which now that I think about it isn't that far off of a possability with the bad programming that the game is full of).

Even funnier in that graphic is an Atlanta QB named Barkowski being sacked zero times with over 400 attempts.

It could very well be a case of adding the newest LTD to this category. But how in the BLANKING BLANK do you explain the sack totals. That one just boggles my mind.

Eric Hipple was a very, very, VERY, bad scrambler

I disagree. Hipple would have to be a pretty good scrambler to evade defenders while running an average of 75.38553195529 backwards each time he was sacked. Decision making while scrambling is nother matter though.

I do find it very amusing that the yards lost on sacks is specific to .469787597656 given the games problems with rounding in calculating field position/first downs.

In the understandable scramble to get the box art just right, some things had to be put on the back burner. With builds being made multiple times a day, breaking first down markers, not recognizing an indoor stadium, and having a game which allows players to break all time records with every single game, it's really no wonder that the "little" things like stats would be completely screwed.

What's funnier is that the barbie fans who bought the game are blissfully unaware of any problems, because after spending all that time making uniforms, no one gets around to playing a game. When they do, obvious and ridiculous problems surface to which David cheerfully acknowledges as though he knew all along. If it were a decent game these things would be forgivable, but at it's heart it's a terrible game. Sadly, most of Matrix's games are released in identical states with identical assinine problems which get fixed any time up to a year and a half after release. The difference though, is that some of their games are worth the hassle.

It's a shame, the premise of a new FBPro was good, but an amateur with a Canadian log on his shoulder who tried to slip a CFL sim in disguise on the market was nowhere near up to task. What staggers me is that this man claims to be a professional software developer.

Maybe he'll have better luck with Maximum Lacrosse. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

This thread--this entire experience and everything that surrounds it--gets my Most Amazing Thread of All-Time Award.

I give it 261 points out of 100.

Every time I check this thread there is something GOLDEN.

Fouts with a 261 LTD. LMAO!!!!

I like Fouts with 3200+ sack yards and 2900 yards passing. Also interceptions aren't included on the basic passing stats page, but longest pass and longest touchdown are. And with just a quick glance it seems fairly obvious that at least four of the eight stat columns (longest, LTD, sack, sack yardage) are messed up. That's some pretty impressive work.

Basabe's stats are notable as well. He's averaging almost 30 yards per completion, and yet is losing almost 78 yards per sack.

Amazing stuff in here.

And the ultimate irony here is that this work comes from someone who denigrated spreadsheet games with the infamous "big deal, been there done that" remark.

Was it certain that this stat page came from the end of a 16-game season? For all we know, could this be after 8 games or something like that?

This is the most fantastic thread ever.

I laughed so hard I cried when I read the bit about touchdowns from the parking lot from hi_fly_show

Is there any chance to relate sack yards and safeties? I imagine we should see some impressive numbers... Scores should look more like basketball games, even if considering the avg per sack it looks like the OLs can do their job in their midfield - maybe after those 25 min drive fatigue is a factor when you finally reach the red zone.

BTW, is there any chance to see punting avg? 'Cause I am so curious to see if playing in the dome makes any difference - You know, the roof shouldn't allow 200 yards punt as I can envision in an open stadium.

Okay, okay... so the sack yardage is a problem. But what he lacks in accuracy, he CLEARLY is making up in precision. Taking it out to 27 decimal places is unprecedented detail, for all you stat buffs out there. Never mind that the number itself is obviously meaningless... but it's SO PRECISE! Maximum Decimals!

I almost want to buy this game just so I can take part in the mess.

Almost.

Let's see what Daivd makes of this:

#5 is that those stats aren't sortable. The alphabetical order look is the only one you get. LLLLOOOOOVVVVVVVEEEEEEEE IT.

He's gotta be running for the beer tent.

So does this mean we can now officially label the MF fanboy uniform makers 'Debergs'? But of course I could just be screaming semantics with this.

Here's Daivd's reply to the Spore article:


Is reality starting to set in for him, or is this another Napoleonic type of quote about his programming prowess?

I was wondering when the "I'm just a lone developer and you should just be happy you get to buy my game" schtick would come out.

Actually, I'm pretty sure his meaning is "Look at the awesome game I coded in just 2.5 years when a major company can't put out a stupid easy game in over 350 man years, HA!"

ROFL!!!! LLLLLOOOOVVVEE IT!

So I was sitting here in my office, getting some water, thinking "LLLLOOOOVVVEE IT" and that got me thinking...all that excitement he had about this game, and it was probably such a letdown for him. And that just made me sad. Like, really sad. All that enthusiasm just killed. It's like wasted energy, or something.

I normally would agree totally with you, but I think his attitude doomed him with respect to this thread and the general attitude of this board towards the game.

The crazy thing about all this is that had he not made that one revealing, arrogant remark about text-sims, had he been more accepting of his own game's shortfalls, and had he been more humble overall I think people here would have put in a ton of time to help him and almost everyone here would have been rooting for his success.

Posters here are right in his market, and to publicly put down a game (heck, he put down the whole genre!) that many here feel a loyalty too was incredibly short-sighted, even if it did reflect his honest feelings.

This game's history is due just as much to his people skills as it is due to the quality of the game.

I think this is the most elaborate joke ever played on someone. This guy Daivd (Maybe a jilted former FOFC'er?) programs (on purpose) the worst game since E.T., Hires people to play it (other banned members?) and post what would seem to be the most left-field messages they can make up on his message board, then comes and advertises it to this board, knowing that in the end, he will have at least a starring role in the largest thread any board has ever seen, let alone this one.

In effect, he has completed the ultimate posters' dream, and become a legend the likes of which he may never have been as simply a board member here at FOFC.

People he has never met will be talking about him for years, even if he dies tomorrow.

He's #1...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=daivd+winters

This is freaking awesome. Bravo. Bravo.

I have no reipe about this game guys, seriously. No reipe at all.