Alright Boyz, Here we Go! The DDS: College Basketball First Impressions Thread

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Meh. Just hit a run time error when I went to visit the conference preview. And no saving either.

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Meh. And now I go to do a new game and it crashes on the create the coach part

That is why I'm holding off on purchasing. I usually like Gary's games once they are cleaned up, but it seems like there usually are quite a few CTD's at release and that sometimes turns me off to a game that I would enjoy once it is stable.

[Brian Swartz]

The first one has a hotfix up, it appears that for some people the resource file for that magazine isn't installing properly for some reason.

http://www.wolverinestudios.com/foru...ead.php?t=4347

Please post details of the other at the WS forums in Tech Support -- this is the first I've heard of any problems with coach creation.

[MrBug708]

I think it might have had to do with the crash. I opened the game back up and tried to start a new game and it crashed on the coaches creation aspect. I restarted the game and didnt have a problem with creating a coach.

I'll look into the hotfix

[DaddyTorgo]

can't wait to get my hands on that demo...wonder if gary's in-thread to say something bout that...

[Gary Gorski]

Yeah, the crash on the conference preview page was because I somehow missed it in the main installer. The people who had the beta copies had it which is why it was not reported by any of them. I plan on putting a the 1.01 build up tomorrow or Monday but if anyone needs that file in the meantime just email Bryan, Tim and myself (or anyone with the game) and you just need the file emailed to you to place in the graphics/resource folder.

The create coach problem is a new one but sounds like it worked itself out - nonetheless we'll try to recreate it.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

can't wait to get my hands on that demo...wonder if gary's in-thread to say something bout that...

Believe me - I want to get it out too and will be working late into the night on it. Spent some time today doing all the stuff I neglected in working to get the game out for Christmas (getting the tree, buying gifts for my wife, spending time with my family). My goal is have the demo out by Christmas day and sooner if possible.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Believe me - I want to get it out too and will be working late into the night on it. Spent some time today doing all the stuff I neglected in working to get the game out for Christmas (getting the tree, buying gifts for my wife, spending time with my family). My goal is have the demo out by Christmas day and sooner if possible.

lol...don't mind me or the others gary. Enjoy your holiday and your family please.

[Gary Gorski]

Version 1.01 can be downloaded in our DDS:CB tech support forum. You should install this if you were in the open beta, bought 1.0 at release or shortly thereafter or are looking to upgrade from the demo to the full version.

First a note on the update process. As I mentioned before my goal is going to be to get updates out as they're coded in and as quickly as possible. Therefore any 1.0x update should be considered a beta patch/update. Any fixes and tweaks have only been confirmed by a quick test on my end. Here is the list of items 1.01 covers

Crashes
---------
RTE 9 - search results that return thousands of entries
RTE 3265 - trying to export data from the commissioner office
RTE 3078 - generating player pages from the HTML in the commissioner office
RTE 3018 - being unemployed
RTE 9 - calling play in game
RTE 53 - looking at conf preview

Bug Fixes
-----------
-stats for recruited players should show up in future years of the conf/season preview
- can now change your non conference rival in the Team Info screen
- can now move players into the sub matrix from all Roster screen views
- transfer preview magazine no longer shows placeholder info in first season

Tweaks
---------
- Adjusted PF/C heights
- Altered logic for teams moving conferences to find ones with multiple teams from their region
- Players should lose EN in game much more realistically now

New Feature
--------------
Coach Notes - Near the top of the screen where the Coach Lineage icon is you will see a pencil icon. If you click this you will be presented with a popup notepad that you can type whatever notes you want on and as long as you save your game your notes will be saved as well.


edit: P.S. The demo is available too - its in the DDS:CB General Discussion forum

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Version 1.01 can be downloaded in our DDS:CB tech support forum. You should install this if you were in the open beta, bought 1.0 at release or shortly thereafter or are looking to upgrade from the demo to the full version.

First a note on the update process. As I mentioned before my goal is going to be to get updates out as they're coded in and as quickly as possible. Therefore any 1.0x update should be considered a beta patch/update. Any fixes and tweaks have only been confirmed by a quick test on my end. Here is the list of items 1.01 covers

Crashes
---------
RTE 9 - search results that return thousands of entries
RTE 3265 - trying to export data from the commissioner office
RTE 3078 - generating player pages from the HTML in the commissioner office
RTE 3018 - being unemployed
RTE 9 - calling play in game
RTE 53 - looking at conf preview

Bug Fixes
-----------
-stats for recruited players should show up in future years of the conf/season preview
- can now change your non conference rival in the Team Info screen
- can now move players into the sub matrix from all Roster screen views
- transfer preview magazine no longer shows placeholder info in first season

Tweaks
---------
- Adjusted PF/C heights
- Altered logic for teams moving conferences to find ones with multiple teams from their region
- Players should lose EN in game much more realistically now

New Feature
--------------
Coach Notes - Near the top of the screen where the Coach Lineage icon is you will see a pencil icon. If you click this you will be presented with a popup notepad that you can type whatever notes you want on and as long as you save your game your notes will be saved as well.


edit: P.S. The demo is available too - its in the DDS:CB General Discussion forum

would you go enjoy the holidays please sir??

[Gary Gorski]

hey, just trying to give you guys something to do today and tomorrow

[MizzouRah]

This game will be my first purchase come the 26th.

[MrBug708]

Thanks for all the work Gary. I just need to remind myself to save it more often then not.

One thing that might help the interface would be when you click the red x on the phone call screen, that it ends the call automatically

[path12]

I went ahead and just bought both the college & pro package. Won't have time to get into it for a day or so, but made sure and got the latest logo packages etc so I'll be ready to start.

[st.cronin]

How many college basketball text sims are there, anyway? I know about this one, and FBCB, and I remember trying another demo for a college bball text sim about a year ago. This seems like the most flooded sub-genre of the market.

[John Galt]

I've been playing the demo and have a few issues.

First, how do I change my team's offensive and defensive strategy if I don't play out the games? I've changed my assignments to emphasize Princeton offense and a 2-3 Zone defense. However, I can't seem to make my team play those sets. I must be missing something, but I couldn't find it in the manual. Edit: I found this one although it is not in the most obvious place. I am afraid to change, though, since my team is 4-0.

Second, as with Gary's Pro game, the music at the beginning annoys me to no end. I turn it off every time I start, but it is really a major annoyance to me (since I always have volume on). Is there still no way to have it default with the sound off?

Third, there are some oddities translated from the Pro game. The big one here is the coaching emphasis on Veterans vs. Youth. Does this mean underclassmen vs. upperclassmen in terms of playing time?

Fourth, I've been really focusing on 1 recruit (I only have 1 scholarship open coaching Dartmouth). He has listed Dartmouth as his top choice for a while, but sends me emails after my visits that he really doesn't want to play for me. He also doesn't want to talk to me on the phone. I'm not sure what to make of this. The game crashed during the season before he committed, so I'm not sure how it will turn out.

Fifth, I'm not sure I like the new telephone system. I know it is the new "thing" with the game, but it kind of undoes all the elimination of clicks in recruiting. Recruiting, absent telephone calls, requires a lot less clicking than the last version. However, with the telephone calls, I would say there is 2x to 4x as much clicking as in the prior version. I would love if the telephone system were optional and all of the preference information was gathered over time.

The game, like all of Gary's games, has some growing pains but also has a lot of potential. I'm still on the fence about buying it, but it provides a nice distraction on X-mas Eve.

[John Galt]

I went ahead and bought the game. It seems like it will be fun. Unfortunately, after playing out the rest of the season, I can't find the "View Awards" button. It isn't in the email and I just can't find it anywhere else. Does anyone know where it is?

[st.cronin]

First impressions of the demo:

I have had a couple of rtes. I got one when I clicked on the telephone after hanging up with somebody and before the program had reset, and another happened when clicking on a recruit's name.

I like the recruiting, and I like the phone calls. I imagine it might get tedious for some players, but I can also see that you can make it an easy process, and it seems like its well-designed for somebody like me. The game engine looks fine, too, although I haven't looked closely at all.

One question: In the email announcing that recruiting is starting, it says that you can access a recruiting calendar somewhere, but I couldn't find it. How do you see that?

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

First impressions of the demo:

I have had a couple of rtes. I got one when I clicked on the telephone after hanging up with somebody and before the program had reset, and another happened when clicking on a recruit's name.

I like the recruiting, and I like the phone calls. I imagine it might get tedious for some players, but I can also see that you can make it an easy process, and it seems like its well-designed for somebody like me. The game engine looks fine, too, although I haven't looked closely at all.

One question: In the email announcing that recruiting is starting, it says that you can access a recruiting calendar somewhere, but I couldn't find it. How do you see that?

I know one way at least: if you're on the recruiting stage, right next to the colored text stating what "stage" of recruiting it is there's a lil box. Click that and a lil calendar-window pops up.

dunno of any other way

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by rjolley

For the FBCB fans out there, is this the game to take it's place? I liked TCB, but always found myself going back to FBCB. It was just a better game for me.

Jury is still out, in my mind.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by John Galt

I went ahead and bought the game. It seems like it will be fun. Unfortunately, after playing out the rest of the season, I can't find the "View Awards" button. It isn't in the email and I just can't find it anywhere else. Does anyone know where it is?

Should be at the top right next to where the sim button is. You cant view the awards til after the tournament is over. It's a button that shows up once you get to that stage.

I cannot find the coaching lineage myself

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Should be at the top right next to where the sim button is. You cant view the awards til after the tournament is over. It's a button that shows up once you get to that stage.

I cannot find the coaching lineage myself

Thanks for the help, but I still can't find it. Top right of which screen? I'm not sure where the "sim button" is. I've definitely finished the tourney and can't advance another day.

I have no idea where the lineage stuff is. Sorry.

[st.cronin]

One other complaint: When I view available assistant coaches, there doesn't seem to be any way to sort them, either by something like reputation, or name, or whatever. And the scroll buttons on the individual coach pages don't seem to do anything.

[Zippo]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Should be at the top right next to where the sim button is. You cant view the awards til after the tournament is over. It's a button that shows up once you get to that stage.

I cannot find the coaching lineage myself

lineage button is the "person" icon at the top of the screen by the drop down box that has your name in it.

[MrBug708]

Got it; Thanks

[st.cronin]

Run Time Error 380 when I click on a recruit's name, I think its the second time I've got that.

[st.cronin]

Also some of the telephone dialogues, the text is too long to fit in the box, and appears its just cut off in mid-sentence.

To sum up: The demo has a number of issues. I admire the vision, but this demo needs to be patched, because I can't get into kind of a game flow as it is.

[Brian Swartz]

@ John Galt:

Second: That's correct.

Third: Yes, that's exactly what it means: playing younger or older players.

Fourth: More details on the exact situation would be useful, but it sounds to like you're the best choice among those pursuing him, but he has designs on a better school and will go there if they come calling, and probably has not been impressed with you/your school during the visits.

Fifth: You are probably over-using it. There's no need to call a ton of recruits every week, and you do get preference info over time from your assistants if the player is on your call list. For this and other related questions we have a recruiting guide up here: http://www.wolverinestudios.com/foru...ead.php?t=4257

@ st.cronin: if you have a save where this can repeated, we'd like to see your files as this has not been reported by anybody else. If so see this thread for reference: http://www.wolverinestudios.com/foru...ead.php?t=4250

[Carman Bulldog]

Yeah, the calling of the recruits isn't mandatory to gather info. You can pretty much ignore the feature until the end of August/start of September when you have your guys pinpointed that you are going to go visit. You will then want to call them to fill in any blanks that your assistant hasn't gathered to that point.

What I like to use the phone option for is getting my foot in the door with higher rated recruits that would normally ignore me. Calling them up and requesting "five minutes of their time" can sometimes eventually lead to your school landing some recruits who normally wouldn't give you a second look.

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by John Galt

Thanks for the help, but I still can't find it. Top right of which screen? I'm not sure where the "sim button" is. I've definitely finished the tourney and can't advance another day.

I have no idea where the lineage stuff is. Sorry.

I found the "Team Awards" button when I started a new league. It is right where I expected it to be. However, I still can't get it to work in the game I was continuing from the Demo. I wonder if there is a bug that prevents Demo-games from working right in the full version. Has anyone been able to continue a game they started with the Demo? I'd really like to continue that game, but I just can't get to the Team Awards screen in order to continue.

[Bee]

The game freezes up on me every once in while when I switch to a different application. Anyone else seeing that?

[Galaril]

I am rather surprised that people are having lock,and crashing problems since for one of Gary's game's early released builds it has been very stable for me. I think that often this comes down to people running various exotic apps in the background.

[Bee]

Well can't speak for others, but I don't have anything "exotic" running in the background. I don't use any unusual programs. My system is probably as vanilla as you're going to get.

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by Bee

Well can't speak for others, but I don't have anything "exotic" running in the background. I don't use any unusual programs. My system is probably as vanilla as you're going to get.

I've been having all sorts of freezes and crashes, but I just assumed everyone was having them so I haven't focused on reporting them. And like Bee, I'm not running anything "exotic" in the background unless you consider Firefox to be exotic. I haven't had Bee's switchover scenario problem. Most often my crashes and freezes occur when I select an option in the game. I am running Vista Home Premium on this computer and using Icy's mod pack. The thing that I have observed about my CTD's is that once the game crashes, I can't reload it (it just locks up when I start the game). I have to reboot to be able to play the game again.

[nfg22]

John,
The awards button oes not always pop up at the end of the season. You should notice it is on April 5th but it should be April 4th. Sometimes it sims to the 5th and the only way to get the awards button back is to reload and resim.

Overall this game has a ton of potential but I find that I cant get through a whole season without a crash. On top of this I usually have to reboot to get the game to work. It makes this game frustrating. I dont know if vista makes it crash more, but I do have vista. FOF2007 and FM2008 never crash though...so I dont know. Basically if the crashes get fixed, this game becomes awesome.

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by nfg22

John,
The awards button oes not always pop up at the end of the season. You should notice it is on April 5th but it should be April 4th. Sometimes it sims to the 5th and the only way to get the awards button back is to reload and resim.

Thanks. That's a pretty annoying bug. In this case I saved my game on April 5 with no "View Awards" button so I can't go back. Oh well.

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by John Galt

Thanks. That's a pretty annoying bug. In this case I saved my game on April 5 with no "View Awards" button so I can't go back. Oh well.

It happened again. I was in season 3 of a new league and the game simmed all the way to April 5 and now I can't get to the next season. I guess I'll have to play the whole season again.

[Brian Swartz]

The awards button oes not always pop up at the end of the season. You should notice it is on April 5th but it should be April 4th. Sometimes it sims to the 5th and the only way to get the awards button back is to reload and resim.

For those of you getting this, we need as much detail as possible as this has not yet been reported on the WS forums(including during the entire open beta process). What sim options did you have selected, etc., the more info the better. If you send your game files in to Gary(via the instructions in the link I posted earlier in this thread), he should be able to fix those files for you if you have an assocation you want to save.

@nfg22: We would need a lot more info on what crashes you are getting, but there is some strangeness that is affecting a minority of Vista users. We've been unable to nail it down so far since other than Vista there doesn't appear to be anything common between the people who are getting it, and many Vista users are having no issues at all.

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

For those of you getting this, we need as much detail as possible as this has not yet been reported on the WS forums(including during the entire open beta process). What sim options did you have selected, etc., the more info the better. If you send your game files in to Gary(via the instructions in the link I posted earlier in this thread), he should be able to fix those files for you if you have an assocation you want to save.

@nfg22: We would need a lot more info on what crashes you are getting, but there is some strangeness that is affecting a minority of Vista users. We've been unable to nail it down so far since other than Vista there doesn't appear to be anything common between the people who are getting it, and many Vista users are having no issues at all.

Since I was paying attention the last time it happened, I can tell you how I got there. My team lost in the first round of the NCAA tourney, so I simmed "entire season." The game stopped simming on April 5. I received the Awards email, but the View Awards button wasn't highlighted.

I reloaded my game right after my team lost (because of my prior experience, I knew to save then), repeated the process, and the game functioned properly that time.

I'll see if I can send Gary my old league file which is saved without being able to press the "View Awards" button (if my email can send out files that big).


Edit: FWIW, I just had a freeze while simulating on Jan. 14. The game just freezes and won't respond and I had to force Windows to shut it down. With the freeze, I could restart the game without rebooting (which again makes it clear to me that I really need an option to turn off that loud music on the intro).

[SirFozzie]

Gary: I used the beta on my old machine. I forgot to unlicense it before the computer got blown away. Do we get a 2nd free license, or am I going to have to battle Elicense on this?

[Tim Tellean]

Send an email to me [email protected] and I can reset your license.

[SirFozzie]

Done, Tim. Thanks.

[John Galt]

I just had a CTD (and I'm pretty sure I have had this message before). I pressed my coach's office button and I got a run time error. This is the text:

Run-time Error '372':

Failed to load control 'vbalGrid' from 'vbalSGrid6.ocx.' Your version of vbalSGrid6.ocx may be outdated. Make sure you are using the version of the control that was provided with your application.

It's so annoying that you can't cut and paste those error messages.

On another note, I notice that the New Email button doesn't light up with any consistent pattern. I regularly have new email and it doesn't light up. Then I have to go to my office to access my email.

[Brian Swartz]

That's the one that seems to hit random Vista users. We're still looking for a solution. The cut-and-paste thing is a VB issue.

The New Email lighting up also appears to be related to Vista in some way.

[John Galt]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

The cut-and-paste thing is a VB issue.

I didn't think that was your doing - it's just generally annoying with various games when you report errors. Thanks for the help! Hopefully these Vista issues get sorted out.

[astrosfan64]

The game sounds pretty buggy.

John:

Were you getting RTE's in the demo or just the full game? I'm running vista 64 bit. I guess I'll try it out tonight.

[Brian Swartz]

The demo and the full game are both the same version(1.01), so there shouldn't be a difference.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Judging from the initial impressions of this game, it appears that I've got one more good reason never to bother upgrading to the cesspool otherwise known as Vista.

[markprior22]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

That's the one that seems to hit random Vista users. We're still looking for a solution. The cut-and-paste thing is a VB issue.

The New Email lighting up also appears to be related to Vista in some way.

I run XP Home and haven't had any crashes with 1.01. I play out each game though so I'm only 10 games into the first season.

One thing I wanted to mention is that I have the email issue also (with XP). Every now and then it lights up...usually it doesn't.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Judging from the initial impressions of this game, it appears that I've got one more good reason never to bother upgrading to the cesspool otherwise known as Vista.

At least not for a LONG time.

[astrosfan64]

If you have good hardware and alot of ram, Vista is better then XP IMO. It is very stable and I haven't had to reboot my system in months.

If a game locks up, you can end the process/task and you don't have to reboot. New software runs fine and I've only had a few problems with older titles.

I actually highly recommend it and since Direct X 10 games are coming, in the long run it will be well worth it.