Ping: Multiplayer Commishes & Other Concerned Peeps

Cap Ologist · 12-18-2004, 11:42 PM

A couple of months ago, I released a basic utility that generated the .csv files for the draft generator. I'm working on a couple of updates for it and had an idea for a new feature that might go over well for multiplayer leagues.

Basically, you will have the option to create html sheets for an 11 week "college football" season with player statistics in the five statistical categories. Your league could use this for increased immersion as well as a little advance scouting. The program will also create the .csv file that can be used to make an importable draft file.

I'm just wondering if there is any interest in a feature like this before I spend a lot of time working on it. Right now, I'm also finished with a couple of needed updates/tweaks, so I'm hopeful I could have a finished project in a couple of days.

Looking forward to the feedback, thanks.

FBPro · 12-19-2004, 12:02 AM

That would be VERY sweet.

Cringer · 12-19-2004, 12:42 AM

So it will generate a fictional college season for these draft files? Sounds cool, though the Imperial League is going to keep using TCY for draft files I think. Now if you ever want to make an HTML generator for that, I am lovin' ya.

Cap Ologist · 12-19-2004, 12:44 AM

It will simulate a college football season in that it will provide the commissioner (or other user) 11 html pages (1 per week) of the stats for the players who are going to be in the upcoming draft created by the csv file it produces. As far as an html generator for TCY, well I'm not sure if I'm going to have time, but you never know. I'll keep it in mind.

Cringer · 12-19-2004, 12:54 AM

How much detail are you going to put into these pages? Is it random player stats? They connected to their teams and scores of games? Sorry if I have a bunch of questions, just interested because if I could get close enough to the info I get from TCY in creating a whole "universe", but without so much work in copying info from the game and putting it into html pages, I could save myself a whole bunc of time every week and still be happy....

Cringer · 12-19-2004, 12:56 AM

dola, I assume their stats would better reflect their FOF ratings too and that would be great. Even though the TCY-FOF translation of stats/ratings is much better it is not perfect.

Cap Ologist · 12-19-2004, 01:11 AM

You won't see the scores of the games. I'm basically only interested in player statistics. The statistics will hopefully have some randomness to them while also being based on the ratings that will be used to create the draft file. I want them to provide a little extra immersion to the game.

When I released this earlier, there was a problem with how the FOF Draft Generator handled third party csv files. One of the things that was listed as fixed in the first free release was supposed to fix these. So, I'm very hopeful that it will work better this time around.

My goal is to provide the same information you would get from TCY without having to run a season. Hopefully in a minute or two, you will have 11 html sheets that will automatically be coded for the domain of the site you wish to host them on plus the csv file to generate the draft file.

Keep asking the questions, they help me explain what I want to do better!

Cringer · 12-19-2004, 01:21 AM

Well, I know I would like to see it atleast. I like having the game scores, standings, bowls, and awards that all come with using TCY, but like I said it's a decent amount of work. Not huge, but a lot more then what you are talking about thats for sure.

Passacaglia · 12-19-2004, 09:36 AM

How does the X-Factor play into this? From the csv files I've created, one problem I have is that players look different every time I import the draft. How would the stats be generated?

This kind of thing would be PERFECT for the FCFL, since it will be important to have as much info as possible during the season before.

Flasch186 · 12-19-2004, 09:52 AM

i dont think that the USFL would use this att his time. The tCY html export utility makes things a touch easier eventhough the outputs are rudimentary they get the job done. I like the fact that the standards are the same each year using TCY. A switch would change the entire dynamic and I would only want to make that change ONCE in our history if necessary. I think it is a spectacular idea though.

Cap Ologist · 12-19-2004, 02:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

How does the X-Factor play into this? From the csv files I've created, one problem I have is that players look different every time I import the draft. How would the stats be generated?

This kind of thing would be PERFECT for the FCFL, since it will be important to have as much info as possible during the season before.

Each player is assigned a base rating randomly distributed according to the percentages of different levels found in the help file. This rating is used to generate the player skills as well as stats. So, the stats should be reflective of the ratings.

I'm sure there will have to be some tweaking to the formulas, but I'm hopeful that the x-factor won't make that much of a difference. We'll see how things go.

Cap Ologist · 12-20-2004, 10:14 AM

Cuckoo · 12-20-2004, 10:14 AM

I don't necessarily have any questions at this point, but this certainly sounds intriguing. I'll be watching the progress for sure.

Passacaglia · 12-20-2004, 02:00 PM

Cap, I think this sounds perfect for the FCFL, and I'd really like to use it. Do you think you can give me a sample, so we can see what the players look like?

Cap Ologist · 12-20-2004, 02:50 PM

As soon as I get it finished, I'll send you a sample.

Passacaglia · 12-20-2004, 03:24 PM

Thanks! If you want, I can send you my .xls file, although I haven't done much with it, and maybe we can help each other out.

Maybe it would be a better idea if I created the players, and you generate the stats with them. I only say that because our league will probably want a file that looks very different from others.

Cap Ologist · 12-20-2004, 05:09 PM

Each file will be different. The names and positions are generated randomly. I think there is something like 25 million different combinations of names, so it would be very unlikely for you to have a draft file that matches someone else's.

Passacaglia · 12-20-2004, 05:25 PM

I guess I meant that I would want the makeup of the file to be different -- since we're a college football league, we will probably want more players, and better quality, so that we can compensate for players only playing four years.

Franklinnoble · 12-20-2004, 05:34 PM

I think what you want is more players that are more completely developed... perhaps?

Cap Ologist · 12-20-2004, 05:41 PM

There is a limit to how many players can be in a draft file. Off hand, I want to say it's like 1000. When I finish the coding, it should be simple enough to make a couple of tweaks specifically for your league that should result in more developed players than in an average draft file.

Passacaglia · 12-20-2004, 09:26 PM

Is there a limit of 1000 people in a draft file, or is it just that the generator only generates 1000 players? Couldn't I run the generator twice, then copy everything into one csv file, to get 2000? Maybe I'll try that tomorrow.

Cap Ologist · 12-20-2004, 11:19 PM

I think it's a limit on FOF2k4's side for draft sizes. From the draft file generator help page:

When importing the data, the game can handle up to 1,000 draft-eligible players in a draft file. If you have less than the minimum number of players at any position, the game will create mediocre players to fill the void at the beginning of a career.

Passacaglia · 12-24-2004, 04:26 PM

Okay, I still haven't bothered to try to get more than 1000 players. But I've got an FDT file that has players of higher quality than the draft generator provides.

You have any updates on this, Cap?

Cap Ologist · 12-27-2004, 12:57 PM

I'm still working on it. I've been doing the family/holidays stuff so I haven't been able to finish it. Right now, it's about 75-80% finished.

Franklinnoble · 01-14-2005, 01:33 PM

Bump.

How's this coming along, Cap?

Cap Ologist · 01-14-2005, 01:47 PM

I'm hoping to have it finished over the weekend. I just haven't had the time to finish it. I've gotten rid of most of the bugs that I've found. I need to do a little tweaking on the html generation, but by far the hard part should be over.

My wife has to go to her school tomorrow morning for inservice, so I'm hoping that I can finish it tomorrow morning. I'm also going to try to work on it some tonight.

Cap Ologist · 01-16-2005, 09:58 PM

Update:

The CSV generation is completed. The draft files look pretty good in the few tests that I've run. In my first release, I had a major problem with generating good draft classes. I think I've figured out a good system that provides a pretty decent draft class.

The html part is taking a little longer than I expected. I haven't had as much time as I thought I would have to work on it this weekend. Our weekends been pretty busy, and I haven't been able to devote as much time as I thought I would be able to. I'm hopeful to finish it either tonight or tomorrow, but barring unforeseen problems it will definitely be finished by Tuesday.

FBPro · 01-16-2005, 10:13 PM

Awesome.....really looking forward to this one. Thanks for all the work.

Franklinnoble · 01-16-2005, 10:16 PM

Sweet... I'm looking forward to playing with this new version.

Cap Ologist · 01-18-2005, 03:43 PM

Ok, the actual program itself is finished. I am still tweaking the html pages so they will look decent. It has been awhile since I've done anything with html so that has been the cause of the delays. I'll try to post a finished draft file tonight for your perusal and then hopefully finish the html export feature tonight or tomorrow morning.

Also, there was a thread a little bit ago about consolidating all the utilities into one page. Did anything ever come from that?

Franklinnoble · 01-21-2005, 02:12 PM

Any update, Cap?

Cap Ologist · 02-17-2005, 09:57 PM

I'm still working on this, I just haven't had as much time as I'd like to sit down with it. Right now, some of my great ideas and improvements are really proving to be more difficult than I thought. I was getting really warped stats for sacks and then realized that the Solecismic draft generator multiplies them by 10 for some strange reason. All of the other stats can be imported straight on. I keep getting guys with .1 sacks on the season so I'm not sure just what the heck is going on here. I'm still working on this, I haven't given up hope yet.

Franklinnoble · 02-24-2005, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

I'm still working on this, I just haven't had as much time as I'd like to sit down with it. Right now, some of my great ideas and improvements are really proving to be more difficult than I thought. I was getting really warped stats for sacks and then realized that the Solecismic draft generator multiplies them by 10 for some strange reason. All of the other stats can be imported straight on. I keep getting guys with .1 sacks on the season so I'm not sure just what the heck is going on here. I'm still working on this, I haven't given up hope yet.

College stats don't do much for me anyway...

I've noticed that every time I use the old generator, I get players with the same name from year to year. Not a big deal to shuffle them around a bit, but I'm hoping the new version of your utility doesn't do this.

Cap Ologist · 02-24-2005, 04:54 PM

I don't think the new one should do this. At least I haven't noticed it in the few tests that I've run.

Franklinnoble · 02-24-2005, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

I don't think the new one should do this. At least I haven't noticed it in the few tests that I've run.

Sweet.

12-19-2004, 12:02 AM	#2
FBPro College Starter Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: SE	That would be VERY sweet. __________________ GM RayCo Raiders-est. 2004-2012 Charter member of the IHOF-RayCo GM GM Tennessee Titans PFL 2011-2014 GM Tennessee Titans FOWL 2020-2025

12-19-2004, 09:52 AM	#10
Flasch186 Coordinator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Jacksonville, FL	i dont think that the USFL would use this att his time. The tCY html export utility makes things a touch easier eventhough the outputs are rudimentary they get the job done. I like the fact that the standards are the same each year using TCY. A switch would change the entire dynamic and I would only want to make that change ONCE in our history if necessary. I think it is a spectacular idea though. __________________ Jacksonville-florida-homes-for-sale Putting a New Spin on Real Estate! ----------------------------------------------------------- Commissioner of the USFL USFL

12-20-2004, 10:14 AM	#12
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	bump

12-20-2004, 10:14 AM	#13
Cuckoo College Starter Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Edmond, OK	I don't necessarily have any questions at this point, but this certainly sounds intriguing. I'll be watching the progress for sure. __________________ Commissioner - North American Football League Dallas Cowboys GM

01-16-2005, 10:13 PM	#28
FBPro College Starter Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: SE	Awesome.....really looking forward to this one. Thanks for all the work. __________________ GM RayCo Raiders-est. 2004-2012 Charter member of the IHOF-RayCo GM GM Tennessee Titans PFL 2011-2014 GM Tennessee Titans FOWL 2020-2025

12-19-2004, 12:42 AM	#3
Cringer Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Edinburg,TX	So it will generate a fictional college season for these draft files? Sounds cool, though the Imperial League is going to keep using TCY for draft files I think. Now if you ever want to make an HTML generator for that, I am lovin' ya.

12-19-2004, 12:44 AM	#4
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	It will simulate a college football season in that it will provide the commissioner (or other user) 11 html pages (1 per week) of the stats for the players who are going to be in the upcoming draft created by the csv file it produces. As far as an html generator for TCY, well I'm not sure if I'm going to have time, but you never know. I'll keep it in mind.

12-19-2004, 12:54 AM	#5
Cringer Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Edinburg,TX	How much detail are you going to put into these pages? Is it random player stats? They connected to their teams and scores of games? Sorry if I have a bunch of questions, just interested because if I could get close enough to the info I get from TCY in creating a whole "universe", but without so much work in copying info from the game and putting it into html pages, I could save myself a whole bunc of time every week and still be happy....

12-19-2004, 12:56 AM	#6
Cringer Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Edinburg,TX	dola, I assume their stats would better reflect their FOF ratings too and that would be great. Even though the TCY-FOF translation of stats/ratings is much better it is not perfect.

12-19-2004, 01:11 AM	#7
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	You won't see the scores of the games. I'm basically only interested in player statistics. The statistics will hopefully have some randomness to them while also being based on the ratings that will be used to create the draft file. I want them to provide a little extra immersion to the game. When I released this earlier, there was a problem with how the FOF Draft Generator handled third party csv files. One of the things that was listed as fixed in the first free release was supposed to fix these. So, I'm very hopeful that it will work better this time around. My goal is to provide the same information you would get from TCY without having to run a season. Hopefully in a minute or two, you will have 11 html sheets that will automatically be coded for the domain of the site you wish to host them on plus the csv file to generate the draft file. Keep asking the questions, they help me explain what I want to do better!

12-19-2004, 01:21 AM	#8
Cringer Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Edinburg,TX	Well, I know I would like to see it atleast. I like having the game scores, standings, bowls, and awards that all come with using TCY, but like I said it's a decent amount of work. Not huge, but a lot more then what you are talking about thats for sure.

12-19-2004, 09:36 AM	#9
Passacaglia Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Big Ten Country	How does the X-Factor play into this? From the csv files I've created, one problem I have is that players look different every time I import the draft. How would the stats be generated? This kind of thing would be PERFECT for the FCFL, since it will be important to have as much info as possible during the season before.

12-20-2004, 02:00 PM	#14
Passacaglia Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Big Ten Country	Cap, I think this sounds perfect for the FCFL, and I'd really like to use it. Do you think you can give me a sample, so we can see what the players look like?

12-20-2004, 02:50 PM	#15
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	As soon as I get it finished, I'll send you a sample.

12-20-2004, 03:24 PM	#16
Passacaglia Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Big Ten Country	Thanks! If you want, I can send you my .xls file, although I haven't done much with it, and maybe we can help each other out. Maybe it would be a better idea if I created the players, and you generate the stats with them. I only say that because our league will probably want a file that looks very different from others.

12-20-2004, 05:09 PM	#17
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	Each file will be different. The names and positions are generated randomly. I think there is something like 25 million different combinations of names, so it would be very unlikely for you to have a draft file that matches someone else's.

12-20-2004, 05:25 PM	#18
Passacaglia Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Big Ten Country	I guess I meant that I would want the makeup of the file to be different -- since we're a college football league, we will probably want more players, and better quality, so that we can compensate for players only playing four years.

12-20-2004, 05:34 PM	#19
Franklinnoble Banned Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Placerville, CA	I think what you want is more players that are more completely developed... perhaps?

12-20-2004, 05:41 PM	#20
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	There is a limit to how many players can be in a draft file. Off hand, I want to say it's like 1000. When I finish the coding, it should be simple enough to make a couple of tweaks specifically for your league that should result in more developed players than in an average draft file.

12-20-2004, 09:26 PM	#21
Passacaglia Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Big Ten Country	Is there a limit of 1000 people in a draft file, or is it just that the generator only generates 1000 players? Couldn't I run the generator twice, then copy everything into one csv file, to get 2000? Maybe I'll try that tomorrow.

12-20-2004, 11:19 PM	#22
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	I think it's a limit on FOF2k4's side for draft sizes. From the draft file generator help page: When importing the data, the game can handle up to 1,000 draft-eligible players in a draft file. If you have less than the minimum number of players at any position, the game will create mediocre players to fill the void at the beginning of a career.

12-24-2004, 04:26 PM	#23
Passacaglia Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Big Ten Country	Okay, I still haven't bothered to try to get more than 1000 players. But I've got an FDT file that has players of higher quality than the draft generator provides. You have any updates on this, Cap?

12-27-2004, 12:57 PM	#24
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	I'm still working on it. I've been doing the family/holidays stuff so I haven't been able to finish it. Right now, it's about 75-80% finished.

01-14-2005, 01:33 PM	#25
Franklinnoble Banned Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Placerville, CA	Bump. How's this coming along, Cap?

01-14-2005, 01:47 PM	#26
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	I'm hoping to have it finished over the weekend. I just haven't had the time to finish it. I've gotten rid of most of the bugs that I've found. I need to do a little tweaking on the html generation, but by far the hard part should be over. My wife has to go to her school tomorrow morning for inservice, so I'm hoping that I can finish it tomorrow morning. I'm also going to try to work on it some tonight.

01-16-2005, 09:58 PM	#27
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	Update: The CSV generation is completed. The draft files look pretty good in the few tests that I've run. In my first release, I had a major problem with generating good draft classes. I think I've figured out a good system that provides a pretty decent draft class. The html part is taking a little longer than I expected. I haven't had as much time as I thought I would have to work on it this weekend. Our weekends been pretty busy, and I haven't been able to devote as much time as I thought I would be able to. I'm hopeful to finish it either tonight or tomorrow, but barring unforeseen problems it will definitely be finished by Tuesday.

01-16-2005, 10:16 PM	#29
Franklinnoble Banned Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Placerville, CA	Sweet... I'm looking forward to playing with this new version.

01-18-2005, 03:43 PM	#30
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	Ok, the actual program itself is finished. I am still tweaking the html pages so they will look decent. It has been awhile since I've done anything with html so that has been the cause of the delays. I'll try to post a finished draft file tonight for your perusal and then hopefully finish the html export feature tonight or tomorrow morning. Also, there was a thread a little bit ago about consolidating all the utilities into one page. Did anything ever come from that?

01-21-2005, 02:12 PM	#31
Franklinnoble Banned Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Placerville, CA	Any update, Cap?

02-17-2005, 09:57 PM	#32
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	I'm still working on this, I just haven't had as much time as I'd like to sit down with it. Right now, some of my great ideas and improvements are really proving to be more difficult than I thought. I was getting really warped stats for sacks and then realized that the Solecismic draft generator multiplies them by 10 for some strange reason. All of the other stats can be imported straight on. I keep getting guys with .1 sacks on the season so I'm not sure just what the heck is going on here. I'm still working on this, I haven't given up hope yet.

02-24-2005, 04:54 PM	#34
Cap Ologist College Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Flower Mound, TX	I don't think the new one should do this. At least I haven't noticed it in the few tests that I've run.

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