What new text-based football game do you think we'll see first?

[Izulde]

Meh. In my opinion, they should stick to improving Baseball Mogul. Given how grognardy OOTP has become, I think a real niche potential has opened up if they concentrate more on the BM product and forgetting about the Football Mogul series, which seems to be universally derided.

[Comey]

I thought different developers worked on the Mogul stuff, like that Season Ticket series was OOTP and then someone else made the awful football version.

Am I wrong about that? Does Clay make Football Mogul too? I really couldn't see how, considering BM was a lot of fun, once upon a time (1999).*




*I have heard it is fun now, but for me, it was just the gateway into the text sim world. OOTP and PureSim are my baseball games of choice now.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Arlie Rahn, at the Grey Dog Site Early This Morning

I haven't released anything new outside of the fact the game is still in development and moving along.

.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Tim Plum, from the Wolverine Studios team, at their site this morning

Gary posted in the DDSPB forum under 2008 version question that he will have an update on all things Wolverine in a few days.
I can tell you quite a bit is going on behind the scenes.

.

[Dutch]

And what about Solecismic? How can we be sure he's not just sitting around drinking scotch and doing NYT crossword puzzles all day?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Direct-link to the OS article

Based on comments by Clay at Sports Mogul, it appears that Football Mogul will be released at some point this week. Based on past history, there's not much reason to believe that said release will be particularly playable.

I have my hands on a beta preview of the game, and I must admit that I have to retract this statement. It may or may not be what one is looking for in a football game, but it is definitely playable. I should have a full preview up at OS before the weekend is over. First impression is that this version might be a fit for people looking for a completely different career football game from FOF. You're either a Head Coach (design your playbooks down to the detail of what type of pass route every receiver runs, and who is the primary receiver, and call every play) or a GM (very minimal control over what you do on offense and defense if you sim..."run more" or "pass more" on offense and 4-3 vs. 3-4 on defense...that's it). There's an *extremely* wide gap between the two ways of playing, though, so if you're looking for a SP game with moderate game planning control, this probably isn't going to be the game for you. A full preview will be up

[Comey]

Do you mean playable from a "this game will load and, technically, you can get from one step to the next without the game killing your computer", or do you mean playable from a "I'm Ben and I think I will play this game"?

The context of your "definitely playable" is most important here.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Dutch

And what about Solecismic? How can we be sure he's not just sitting around drinking scotch and doing NYT crossword puzzles all day?

Have we ever been able to know that until after the fact?

In all seriousness, lack of information about what's coming next from Solecismic shouldn't come as any surprise or be any real cause for concern at this point. Based on what we've seen in the past, would it be all that shocking if Jim announced and released FOF7 or TCY2 ten minutes from now,even??? I say that because the announce-to-release cycles have grown shorter and shorter from FOF4 to FOF5 to FOF6. FOF6 was announced one day, and released the next. It certainly wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for FOF7 or TCY2 to have no pre-release announcement at all. I have no idea if that's Jim's intention for the next game, just pointing out that "no news from Ann Arbor" doesn't necessarily mean "no game from Solecismic."

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Comey

Do you mean playable from a "this game will load and, technically, you can get from one step to the next without the game killing your computer", or do you mean playable from a "I'm Ben and I think I will play this game"?

The context of your "definitely playable" is most important here.

Something in between. The best statement I can make at this point is this: I've played the game for 2-3 hours now, made it through two seasons, and haven't seen any bizarre stats (Remember the crazy ones posted here from the last version we talked about? I'll try to find them....), have had zero crashes, and haven't discovered any major bugs.

Now, as you well know, the problem with text sims is that any very early review isn't likely to be all that helpful to gamers, especially when you factor early patches into the mix. (That's why I've heavily resisted the practice of reviewing text sims the first week that they're out.) And even early patches and public playing don't always uncover some pretty major stuff. The best example I can think of is FOF2K7. It was released and being played both SP and MP for six months and NO ONE noticed that it was *never* using our nickel and dime game plan settings, beyond the auto-usage in 4-WR and 5-WR formations. Was this a huge, game-changing, showstopping-once-you-realized-it bug? Yes. Did anyone know about it? Nope.

This week's "unplayable mess" can always be next week's "solid game." My intention with this preview (and every preview I do at OS) will be to go through the feature list and explain how things work in the game, and not even really try to get into how well they work. For example, if I'm going to create a short pass play in Football Mogul, I can choose from 22 formations, 4 pass types (standard, rollout, bootleg, screen), 5 primary receivers, and each receiver has 42 different routes he can run; that's over 18,000 permutations just of short passes. I can tell you in the preview what formations are usable, and how easy and intuitive the interface for creating plays is ((it's very good...Clay usually gets high marks for interface), but there's no way I can spend the time to find out if the potential obvious issues are there:

• Does this wide level of control allow for the creation of "unstoppable" plays?
• Do the players actually do what they plays say that they're doing?
• Is the primary receiver more often than not the one who is usually targeted?
• Do the ratings of the QB get used properly in determining whether to throw to the #1 receiver, or use one of the checkdown options.

I could go on and on...and that's just one portion of the game. For the simmers, I really don't have time to play out five seasons and try things out like focusing on building mega run-blockers on the o-line to see if a RB will rush for 2,500 yards and 6.5 ypc if I sell out to that strat. At this point (as with *any* text sim) it's fully possible that there are massive imbalances just waiting to be found and exploited, or horrid AI just waiting to screw up computer-run teams, or piss-poor player development algorithms just waiting to screw up stats 15 seasons from now. But on the surface, it has passed what's always my first sniff test: "Is it even worth my time to spend a couple of hours finding out if this thing is any good?"

[Mr. Olympia]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Let me rephrase: the last version I played around with ('07) was SP only. I don't see anything in the feature sets from '08 or '09 to indicate that it was added.

I count at least 2 multiplayer Fottball Mogul leagues forming in this thread alone.

09 Release Date - Sports Mogul Forums

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Mr. Olympia

I count at least 2 multiplayer Fottball Mogul leagues forming in this thread alone.

09 Release Date - Sports Mogul Forums

I've gone through every option in the game, and unless I'm overlooking something, there's no way to export roster changes or free agent bids, for example. Sure, it's possible to set up an out-of-game free agent system, and send a list of what cuts and signings you want to make, and how you want your depth chart set up to a commish. Technically, you could run a MP league with it, but from the looks of things, every single stage of the game would have to be run manually by the commish. I guess the better way of saying it is that multiplayer isn't supported by Football Mogul. I just posted a question in that thread you mentioned making sure I'm not really, really, really missing something.

I also just found a comment from one of the leagues that makes me think my assessment is correct:

http://www.forummagic.com/fml/forums...hp?showtopic=3

Originally Posted by The Commish Of A Football Mogul League

Welcome to Football Moguls (aka Football Mogul League). This is a football simulation that uses Football Mogul 2008, currently it is not required for you to play as a General Manager (GM).

So yeah, if the game isn't required to play MP, that's a pretty strong indicator that MP isn't supported by the game itself.

[Ben E Lou]

Operation Sports - Football Mogul 2009 Preview - PC

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Thank you for the hard work on the preview.

Based on the feature set of football mogul, am I right in assuming it won't go past 100 years?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by LastWhiteSoxFanStanding

Thank you for the hard work on the preview.

Based on the feature set of football mogul, am I right in assuming it won't go past 100 years?

It certainly looks that way. I didn't sim it 100 years to test that, because it actually sims fairly slowly, at least compared to Baseball Mogul and FOF. The good news is that it's football, so there aren't many games. It took around 20 seconds to sim a week on my machine, and right at 9 minutes per season in a multi-season sim. The 50-season sim that I referenced was run overnight. 100 seasons would take 11+ hours.

[Mr. Olympia]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Sure, it's possible to set up an out-of-game free agent system, and send a list of what cuts and signings you want to make, and how you want your depth chart set up to a commish. Technically, you could run a MP league with it,

How? Can you control more than 1 team under single player?

Those forums over there are very barren.



Looks like there is a new update on Bowl Bound Pro Football comming this week.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Mr. Olympia

How? Can you control more than 1 team under single player?

Yes. You can control all 32 teams in SP. So yeah, technically you could run a MP league with it, but the most obvious problem is that the league would be completely dependent on a commish willing to do everything for as many teams as are in the league.

[Mr. Olympia]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Yes. You can control all 32 teams in SP.

Cool. Forget the 32 team online multi player game, but this means that me and the other 2 guys at work will be able to play a 3 team / player universe.

[Taur]

And, we have a winner. Football Mogul 2009 is now available.

Football Mogul 2009

[Cringer]

Winner is a bit of a strong word to use isn't it?

[duckman]

Nobody wins.

[Galaril]

Any user reviews on this? How especially is the draft?

[TazFTW]

Arles posted an update yesterday.

Grey Dog Software - View Single Post - BBPF developer diary

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by TazFTW

Arles posted an update yesterday.

Grey Dog Software - View Single Post - BBPF developer diary

Sounds like a game on pace to be ready next year.

[Taur]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Any user reviews on this? How especially is the draft?

Shouldn't be long now the Demo is out.

[QuikSand]

For some reason, I bought FM09 today. In early play (admittedly without exploring the play-creation and playbook-building stuff at all yet) this is an awful lot like the original Football Mogul to me.

[QuikSand]

I sense a bit of vicious circle with the latest FM. Without getting into the play-design stuff, this is really just the same old crappy FM, with pretty much all the same warts from the version of, oh I don't know, 2000?

So... does it make any sense to invest the time into the new "feature" to create some kind of custom gameplan, etc... only to be forced to run it in a league and environment that is fraught with stupid crap? I don't think so. So, my sense is that this ends up being just another round of the same old Football Mogul... it's like text sim for dummies.

[wade moore]

How do you really feel Quik?

[Ben E Lou]

I get the impression that Football Mogul isn't designed with the QuikSand types in mind at all. From what I'm seeing, it pretty much hits the intended target this year. But what I want in a football sim isn't anywhere near that target.

[fantastic flying froggies]

So the target is obviously not the FOFC crowd, but well, then, what exactly is the intended target? Do you know Ben?

[cartman]

Originally Posted by fantastic flying froggies

So the target is obviously not the FOFC crowd, but well, then, what exactly is the intended target? Do you know Ben?

I think it the target is more along the lines of the SportsDigs crowd.

[boberot]

Maybe going for the vacuum created by Maximum Football?

[Ben E Lou]

An update on Draft Day Sports: Pro Football was posted today. The game will not be released in 2008, it appears.

Wolverine Studios - View Single Post - Update on all Wolverine Studios games

DDS: Pro Football: The biggest reason we don't give release dates and sometimes not even general time frames is that we don't want to dissapoint customers. I know many have hoped for this game to be out soon but it will not be released this football season. If we hustled and crammed we could throw it out there probably towards the end of the season but to me, that's not a good plan. This game is too important to just "finish" it - we want it done right and there's just no reason to rush. I know that this game is immediately going to be compared to and held to the standards of a game like FOF even though it will only be a first version for us. That bar is just too high to just throw something out there.

A big hinderance on the football front (other than starting from the ground up on a new game) has been my ability to move to a new programming language. It was time to move away from VB6 as it is no longer supported by Microsoft and I am learning .NET because I felt it would be the easiest transition. I found that while some things were basically the same some of the biggest functionality I had relied on in the past was thrown out the window for some reason. I'm continuing to learn the language and making better progress now but there are still things I'm learning as well. The biggest thing I found helpful was eventually to start bringing over my DDSPB code to .NET, seeing how it works there and then converting that to code for DDSPF. I guess because I taught myself to program that I have my own style that I work with and I need to see the visual output of the code to know I'm going in the right direction which is why seeing some of the DDSPB code work in .NET made it easier to see how it would work for DDSPF. In the end I'll be happy with the move to .NET and I'm sorry that I couldn't learn it quicker but like I said, I want the football game to be a truly special game so we're going to take the time to do it right. We do have screens and things like that we could release and maybe we will in a little bit but for right now just know that the game a) is being worked on b) will not be released for this football season and c) we are very much looking at the suggestions and comments and finding ways to work some of those into the game plan for the game.

[BishopMVP]

Any word from VPI on EBM? I don't read the IHOF forums, so I don't know if he's been posting over there.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Any word from VPI on EBM? I don't read the IHOF forums, so I don't know if he's been posting over there.

Still on hiatus, I believe. This is the only football game I am interested in and will wait patiently.

[VPI97]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Still on hiatus, I believe. This is the only football game I am interested in and will wait patiently.

Thanks for the kind words. The product has changed since we talked about it many months ago, though. Instead of a SP desktop application, I've spent the last six months working on a web-based MP game that pretty much combines the presentation of the IHOF site with the functionality that comes from the typical desktop football game.

Why the change? Because coding AI for finances kicked my ass harder than that of a sim engine. I'm happy where the sim engine is now, but the financial decision making AI was something I could never get myself to be satisfied with, regardless of how much I put into it. By starting off with an MP game, at least I could get the sim engine out there and work on any tweaks/fixes/bugs that may come about from public use.

My hopes right now are that the game will be in beta-testing by the end of the year (8-12 guys from FOFC or whatnot), I'll then spend some time working on fixing the issues they encounter, and when I'm happy with how things look, I'll make it public.

[RedKingGold]

Originally Posted by VPI97

Thanks for the kind words. The product has changed since we talked about it many months ago, though. Instead of a SP desktop application, I've spent the last six months working on a web-based MP game that pretty much combines the presentation of the IHOF site with the functionality that comes from the typical desktop football game.

Why the change? Because coding AI for finances kicked my ass harder than that of a sim engine. I'm happy where the sim engine is now, but the financial decision making AI was something I could never get myself to be satisfied with, regardless of how much I put into it. By starting off with an MP game, at least I could get the sim engine out there and work on any tweaks/fixes/bugs that may come about from public use.

My hopes right now are that the game will be in beta-testing by the end of the year (8-12 guys from FOFC or whatnot), I'll then spend some time working on fixing the issues they encounter, and when I'm happy with how things look, I'll make it public.

Great news. Also, I think that web-based MP is the future of the text-sim biz. Nice decision there.

[lordscarlet]

Finally. I have been saying this for years.

[wade moore]

Good to hear things are moving along VPI, very interested to see how it turns out. I think Web-based is the business of the future, but I also think it is a challenge to do it right and make a "good game".

[Buccaneer]

Thanks Todd, that is very interesting and exciting news.

[lordscarlet]

Are you looking to Deeproute and Goal Line Blitz for any guidance/inspiration/warning?

[Northwood_DK]

That is excellent news Todd.

[Ben E Lou]

Yes, good news for the genre as a whole. It sounds like early 2009 will be an interesting time for football text sims.

[fantastic flying froggies]

Excellent news, Todd, you may possibly want to post a blurb on your site about it. I visit it regularly, eagerly waiting from some news and could very well have missed this if I hadn't read this thread.

Also good news from Wolverine. I really like the "we don't want to release a rushed ame out there because we know it will be compared to FOF" approach, it is very reassuring.

[Capital]

Thanks Gary for the update...I couldn't agree more with that decision. Arguably, the best part, he let his customer base know...

[Raiders Army]

I get the feeling we will not see DDSPF or BBPF in 2009. It's unfortunate that no real football sim was released this year. This may sound harsh, but without competition there's no incentive for Jim to produce a new version of FOF.

At least we can always depend on a new Madden and NCAA Football every year.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Raiders Army

I get the feeling we will not see DDSPF or BBPF in 2009. It's unfortunate that no real football sim was released this year. This may sound harsh, but without competition there's no incentive for Jim to produce a new version of FOF.

At least we can always depend on a new Madden and NCAA Football every year.

I put the over/under for a Solecismic new-release at about 6 months.

[JimboJ]

Yeah this update doesn't sound very encouraging...

any chance of a bone? - Wolverine Studios