Looking at the "Tackles" stats, it looks like there haven't been very many sacks in the league?

But when they happen, they're big time sacks!

Greetings to the members of the FOFC message board. This is the same firebirds as that of the Matrix Games Maximum Football message board. I am that same somebody who made the comparison in the development of Spore to Maximum Football (MFB henceforth).

Which prompted response #4684 of this thread?

Please let me give a little bit of back ground about me. I consider myself to be somewhat knowledgeable about the game of football. I have played youth league, high school, sanctioned high school summer passing leagues, played a few seasons in parks and recreation sponsored city leagues, coached the game at the junior high school level for seven years and was a state sanctioned high school official for one year. I know that providing this information is begging for trouble but I’ll take the heat from those who decide to send it my way.

I don’t consider myself to be a “fan boy” of MFB yet it captured my interest long before it made its way to Matrix Games. I am not that much of the computer gaming type but I do own a modest handful of games that capture my interest. I prefer games that are decided by strategy and execution rather than those that are basically determined by those who know the controller best and have the fastest fingers. Yet I also enjoy a bit of eye candy so to speak. By description MFB had the features that I was looking for in my first PC football game. I haven’t purchased the game but when it gets all the wrinkles ironed out I will probably buy it, but still will be careful.

Back to my development comparison, it appears that very few people were able to understand the point that I was trying to make. I’m sure many consider that I was comparing apples to oranges but I thought there were enough similarities between the two games, even though they are entirely different and come from opposite ends of the development spectrum, to at least make a “delicious to granny smith” comparison.

IMHO, David Winter’s first mistake was making the development of MFB public far too soon. One can only surmise the reason for this. I figure that he was trying to tap the pulse of football gamers in hope of getting an idea of the features gamers would want in a game that would fill an empty niche. Again IMHO, his second mistake was succumbing to the pressure by the regulars at the ffice:smarttags" />Valley message boards to release the game regardless of its state of development. Once again IMHO, his third mistake was not exercising the best practice of PR protocol in communicating with posters on the MFB message board. Combine, IMHO, David Winter’s errors with the culture of the communities addressing the development of his game and it has put a less than a stellar spotlight on the developer, his game and the distributor. I consider, taking all things into account, this to be a perfect example of the snowball affect. Once it got started it couldn’t be stopped and only gets bigger until it comes to the end. Some are seeing the end being a monster crash into a tree destroying all and others are seeing clear sailing, though a long trip, where once the snowball reaches the bottom of the hill it has hit nothing and has gradually decreased in size showing the fully functioning game as it was envisioned.

Please understand that I have come here with every intention of not being aggressive, defensive, troll like, accusatorial or any other negative connotation that one could apply. I’m not defending MFB nor am I throwing down any type of gauntlet to anyone who has strong feelings one way or the other regarding MFB. As a matter of fact one thing I would like to ensure is there have been a handful of FOFC’ers who have visited the MFB boards who have provided vital assistance to those who have had PC problems regarding the game, provided constructive criticism, asked some very important questions and spurred some progressive conversation. Please excuse me for not naming names; I do so for fear that I would inevitably forget someone which would do more harm than good. I’m sure you all will understand. Thank you for your time and I gladly welcome questions and any clarification on my viewpoint(s) that I can provide.

Could I get a summary of that? It seems like there's something worthwhile there, but I can't find it.

Umm...wow, another MFBer at FOFC. I can see this is response to my post, so I will try to elaborate as well.

Never insinuated that you knew nothing about football. I just thought it was ridiculous to compare Spore to Maximum Football considering the developers have two completely different track records.

I think you will find that many people on this board was looking for a game like this if it was actually completed. That is why many of us had tried out NFL Head Coach.

This is why I disagreed with your comparison:
1. Will Wright and David Winter both have entirely different track records. David didn't do too well with his last game and ditched it.
2. Sure, Spore has been in development for some time, but how can you compare something that is being built from scatch to a game that is just modifying an existing 3D engine.
3. Even if 1 person were to program one part of the evolutionary process, that game is still way more complex than MaxFB and way more customizable.
4. You said it yourself as well, there were a lot of mistakes made even before the game was released to the public. I don't see those same mistakes being made by Will.

Okay, we are pretty much in agreement here. Many mistakes.

Sorry, but this disclaimer made me laugh. Anyways welcome and its good to know you didn't plunk down $50 because you are waiting to see what becomes of this as well.

Antmeister, thank you for the welcome and I'm glad my disclaimer gave you a chuckle. I was just trying to make it perfectly clear that I do not have a predetermined agenda. I realize that Spore wasn't the best example to use for my comparison but it was the best fitting current high profile project I could find. IMHO, the majority of the counterpoints you bring up actually help to make my point, with the exception being that my understanding is the Spore engine isn't completely written from scratch - I readily admit I could be wrong there. Mr. Wright is a highly respected developer who has been in the business for many years with a proven track record. His current project is substantially backed/supported by a huge distributor with a large crew at his disposal plus a bucket load of green. Mr. Winter's history and current situation is the exact opposite in just about every aspect as you have noted. The point I was trying to make, primarily to a handful of the most vocal at the MFB regarding the development time and patch issue, is that all things considered if Mr. Wright has a release date postponement why is it unacceptable for Mr. Winter to have a release date postponement? I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything, that is why I titled my thread at MFB as I did. At this point on this particular issue I'd just be happy to hear that my point is understood, not necessarily agreed with but at least understood.


And I'll look into NFL Head Coach, thanks for the tip.

edit: removal of mysterious motocon insert

Well if you wondering why some had given his grief on the release date postponement, the things I pointed out are the reason why. Look at Division Rivals. They are still in development after all these years as well. However the difference is that they aren't releasing details saying that it is close to completion. They aren't stringing people along with the belief that the game will be ready in the coming months.

I know you probably don't want to go through this whole thread, but there are posts he had written that said it may be available in late 2004, then there were promises in 2005. In other words, he made everyone believe he was almost completed and that it just needed a little tweaking. I mean he even postponed it for a whole year to add career play. And what he added was his vision of career play. Not the career play that had been established in mostly all other sports games.

I'm not sure how closely you followed the game, but he had even had his game displayed at a CFL stadium in 2003 or 2004 (I can't remember which year now).

So in other words, people found it unacceptable because he pretended the game was near completion. I shutter to think what the state of the game would have been if he released it 2 years ago looking at the state of the game today.

Dola....

I forgot to mention that if you want to look into NFL Head Coach, you may want to look at this thread first. It had some mixed reviews by some of the people here.
http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=48148

When you're one of the most successful game developers around and have multiple success stories I think a lot of people will give you the benefit of the doubt if you have a project that's delayed...especially when early previews, screenshots and videos have been pretty impressive. When you're an unknown developer who's only other attempt was a total failure, you don't get the same benefit of the doubt...especially when screenshots and pre-release videos have obvious mistakes and humorous errors.

Welcome to the FOFC forums, firebirds .. if your tastes eventually turn more to text sports simulation games, I suspect you might find a lot here in this community to enjoy. Despite the sense of humor that might not always be everyone's cup of tea -- there's really quite a lot here worth gleaning. Hope you stick around.

Antmeister, just as I hit submit reply a couple of my brain cells suggested exactly what Bee offered and I can't disagree with that. But being a noob I feel that I'm far from using the "Dola . . ." privilege. Yes I agree that his comments did string us along regarding how close he was to completion and subsequent release. Believe it or not I have followed the development of MFB quite closely, as I believe I mentioned previously long before it went to Matrix Games, and actually have read this entire thread from post 1, page 1, so I'm very aware of the references you speak of. The thing I found so humorous to me was that so many people were demanding release and some even mentioned that having been a faithful follower for so long that Mr. Winter actually owed them. Proof positive to me that he made a premature public announcement. Anyway, I suppose there is no further point discussing this particular aspect of MFB. Today it is what it is and I'll wait to see what the latest patch enables it to be. And thanks for the link to the NFL Head Coach thread, I'll definately check it out.

Quiksand, thank you for the welcome it is greatly appreciated. I really would like to get some sort of PC football game. I haven't made up my mind what to get so I'm very open to any and all suggestions. I've been lurking here as a quest for quite a long time and the reason I finally decided to register and speak up is I see that there is more to FOFC than the MFB thread and the feelings of those here toward that game. Yes, I agree that the sense of humor here is unique but I find it very enjoyable. Someday when my schedule permits I would like to get into a WW game. I've read thru many and it sure looks like it would be fun.

edit: spelling error, there is no c in quiksand

The wife is going to be out for a while tonight, so I might be able to launch into the play-offs. Bumping to see if anyone has any suggestions for set-up or selection of teams.

World Cup style, with a round robin for each division, with the two highest point totals in the 3rd quarter of each game moving on to the knockout round.

Customization at its finest!

:D

West vs East
North vs South

plus one wildcard

So first round is Wild Card - worst division winner plays against wildcard
2nd round is Conference
3rd round is Maximum Bowl

1st round - Wildcard
Denver vs. New York
Dallas vs. Miami (I know they all have 11-5 records, but I am basing my best record due to which team is higher in alphabetical order. So Chicago has the best due to my customized reasoning. :D)

2nd round - Conference
Los Angeles vs. [Denver or New York]
Chicago vs. [Dallas or Miami]

3rd round - Maximum Bowl
TBD

Just draw names out of a hat. That would be right in line with the game overall, wouldn't it?

I think that is probably right. I was also considering a ladder type set up.

Random team vs. worst division champ.
Winner vs. second worst division champ.
Winner vs. second best division champ.
Winner vs. your Los Angeles Comets.

But maybe that's stacking the deck too much in our favor.

Playoffs have to be based on something inconsequential to the records. Maybe base it on extra point percentage or highest last digit in points scored or sack yardage closest to 10000.

You're completely missing the point of the game if playoff seeding is based on number of wins.

I'd like to go on record as suggesting that with regard to spelling errors, "Quiksand" would seem to qualify:

Correct spelling

Incorrect spelling

I found this little gem over in the MaxFB forums:


The stock reply of "what do you mean by CFL rules" hasn't appeared yet. I'm shocked, but I guess I shouldn't be anymore, that even a basic CFL rule isn't implemented correctly.

Well believe it or not, most of the people who have purchased the game are NFL fans. So I am assuming a majority of them are not even aware of the rule.

It has been interesting to see what Brockleigh has been reporting, because he is barely getting any responses to the majority of the issues he is finding. And there is even a thread over there in which David didn't respond to someone's problem for at least a week. Not even some sort of response saying that he is still working on it. Here's that thread:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1204090

I don't know if he ever got a response privately, but he sure did answer a number of other threads during that time period and seem to ignore this one. I know that he can't be available 24/7, but it is jacked up to answer the other threads and never continually ignore his plea for help.

I heart Antmeister. He said "jacked up."

I went to GenCon this past weekend to get my geek on and I visited the Matrix Games booth. They had a shiny new copy of Maximum Football sitting there (well...behind the other 25 games they had) and I was very tempted. But sadly, when I asked one of the booth guys for a demo, the computer crashed. :D

edit: And yes, that's a completely true story (minus the tempted part).

How'd I miss that booth?

I missed it my first trip through the Dealer's Hall too, but when I went back the next day to try out D&D Tactics on the PSP I stumbled across it.

Yeah. It's very overwhelming, the Dealer's Hall. Actually, now that you mention it, I sort of vaguely remember the booth, but I don't think I was in the right frame of mind to put one and one together and realize that it was that Matrix Games.

And here I thought this thread would get to 100 pages. Oh so close.

I blame myself...it was the GenCon talk. :(

Just change the number of posts per page. Remember, you can customize it!

Yeah, but you can't do one post per page like on the Canadian internet.

This thread needs more jbmagic.

I had never even heard of GenCon until I've read a lot of people mentioning it this year (why is it suddenly discussed so often now?). For some reason, until I just looked it up on Wikipedia, I thought GenCon was some kind of porn convention.

GenitalCon, maybe? :confused:

Dola

I feel compelled to mention that I am wearing a CFL t-shirt right now. I believe I posted a picture of the back of the shirt somewhere in this thread. Daivd would be proud.

Which CFL shirt Pumpy? I need a refresher.

nah, we're just a couple more screenshots from getting to 100. Do not lose faith in Daivd the Great...

FM

one along the lines of the "our balls are bigger" that they had out at one point, iirc.

FM

there ya go!

:D

FM

Perfect! Thanks! :D

My photoshop skills are growing rusty. I must have fresh hilarity to work with!

Okay, now that Madden 07 on the PC has been out fer a week, would those of you who have both please advise me, as I can only purchase one: Maximum Football, or Madden 2007.

Can I customize sack yards lost in Madden?

Overwhelming?

Have they expanded it since their first year in Indy then?

Because after years of going to it in Milwaukee, when they switched it to Indy, I went the first year and the Dealer's Hall was TINY compared to the one in Milwaukee.

That's when I quit going to GenCon... It felt too far scaled back from Milwaukee and I wasn't happy about the rapid increase in prices for me to get there (since I just went home every day when it was in Milwaukee)

I don't think you can throw from the Aisle J in the parking lot in Madden (also known as the -467.82772529992882 yard line in Maximum Football).

I can confirm that Matrix was at GenCon, their 2nd straight year. we spent some time talking about David and Maximum Football... I won't go into what was said, but let's just say they're as suprised by any success it has as much as we are :)

Just took a look over at the forums for MaxFB to see if the onset of NFL and NCAA football seasons had spurred any interest. All I saw/heard were the virtual crickets chirping.

Cartman you forgot to look in the graphics related forum. Those uniform designers are still going strong. :) Or as strong as a pretty much dead forum can get.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=179

Maximum Couture!

I have to say that I think I made a mistake by purchasing Madden 07 (360 version) over Maixmum Football

Oh no! GWsFBAStartOct292006 is back with a vengence and some of those posts have me rolling. But damn, that is a lot of posts:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=154

Well, it is just about a month to go until he reveals all...