Alright boyz here we go again! (TPF download/first impressions thread)

[Ragone]

Whats up with only one week of coach contract offering?

[lynchjm24]

Welcome to the RTE Olympics.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by yabanci
Some people might be interested in this: I thought I'd try the "presim" option to get some history. I started in 1985 and used "sim multiple seasons" to do 14 years. It took exactly 1 hour and 4 minutes. Not bad. Haven't checked the results yet. AMD Athlon XP o/c'd to 3.0 ghz with 512k ram.

There's an easy way to check sim speed without bothering to time it yourself. Go into your \saves\[LeagueName]\Stats folder. It outputs stats at the end of each regular season, so just look at the timestamp. On my machine (P4,2.4GHz,512Meg), it is outputting season stats at 9-to-11 minute intervals. So, at an average of 10 minutes per season, a 30-year history could be generated in about 5 hours on my machine. Or (my recommendation for those who want to start with history) you could start it simming before leaving for work, and come home to 50+ years of league history.

[yabanci]

I decided to start out with a fantasy draft. I liked the way it was done. Had fun drafting initial start up team. Selected players at every position and a few backups at key positions and I was ready to go. Just had to sim to end of draft and let the scouts fill up the roster. Click............"Run-time error '91' Object variable or With block variable not set" Doh!!! shame on me.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by yabanci
I decided to start out with a fantasy draft. I liked the way it was done. Had fun drafting initial start up team. Selected players at every position and a few backups at key positions and I was ready to go. Just had to sim to end of draft and let the scouts fill up the roster. Click............"Run-time error '91' Object variable or With block variable not set" Doh!!! shame on me.

Ouch.

[yabanci]

Originally posted by SkyDog
There's an easy way to check sim speed without bothering to time it yourself. Go into your \saves\[LeagueName]\Stats folder. It outputs stats at the end of each regular season, so just look at the timestamp. On my machine (P4,2.4GHz,512Meg), it is outputting season stats at 9-to-11 minute intervals. So, at an average of 10 minutes per season, a 30-year history could be generated in about 5 hours on my machine. Or (my recommendation for those who want to start with history) you could start it simming before leaving for work, and come home to 50+ years of league history.

Okay, I checked and I was averaging 4-5 minutes. I later started up a career on my notebook (PIII 800mhz 256mb) and got 14-15 minutes for a couple of seasons of history, and after that it played very nicely on the slow computer. I was pleasantly surprised.

[Angie]

Anxiety - Wanted to address your question about the owners and agents. For the agents, we used 11 because we wanted you to be able to get to know agents and their tendencies - their reputations - and didn't want to include so many that it would be overwhelming.

As for the owners, they do have a broad category, ie "Man In the Box", "The Miser", etc, but there is also a series of underlying variables that uniquely define each owner - items such as the importance of making a profit vs the importance of winning, etc. This makes each of them very different, though they may share a general category.

[sachmo71]

Originally posted by sachmo71
Has anyone tried to play the game on a system with less than the minimum hardware reqs? (PII 500)

Hoping more people see this...

[Richards]

Here are my second impressions. Played about 4 hours last night and this morning. I am one of the VERY SLOW players, so I'm not even thru to the beginning of the season.

Let me preface, I like the game overall, and it has a lot of potential.

The Mel Kiper style draft coverage is fun, and the draft in itself is a fun experience. The presentation of the game is very nice. The players have enought information and character to feel "real." The game is very immersive, and again, lots of potential.

Now, that being said there is starting to be a growing list of annoyances that give me the impression the game, or at least the final release is very rushed or not tested enough, or both.

To name a few:

*navigating player lists/draft pools/rosters is very cumbersome. The scroll wheel doesn't work, which I can live with, HOWEVER, you can't hold down the mouse button on the arrow on the scroll bar to scroll the list up and down. The only choice is to click the arrows one player at a time, or use the coarse adjustment of moving the slider box up and down.

more on the player lists:
*They don't "remember" their last configuration, i.e. if you sort by position, go to a player card, and go back, it is back to the default sort.

*One way sorting only, at least on most menus. When you click to sort, you get descending sort only. Click again, principle of least surprise says you get ascending sort, but nothing.

*my tpf email inbox must have an aggresive spam filter , because 90% of the time, free-agents I have made offers to appear on the transaction list, but no emails whatsoever. I get the general impression thrughout the game of being "in the dark."

*Same thing with hiring coaches, only one week to hire coaches. I made two offers, one for a def, one for off. Week goes by. The off guy emails me, accepting. Def guy dissapears to another team. No email. No chance to hire someone else. AND, there's like a max slider value to offer the coach a salary, or like $700,000, so slid all the way up, he still did not sign. Hmm, coach lottery anyone??


*And this one is a potential "show-stopper" for me, as I quit playing after running into this one. Free agency signing period: To free up cap room, I let some of my vets go play somewhere else. After the draft, I decided to hire a bunch of no-hopers to fill my slim roster spots. Fine, plenty of talent around. starting the first week of rookie free agent signing (wk 12?) I offer about 10-12 guys contracts. Time goes by. Almost all of them have only ONE offer, from me. One guy signs during week 16 or something. Free agency period ends. No signings. No emails. FINE, I'll sign them during training camp. WELL TOO BAD RICHARDS, all the undrafted free agents that had offers on the table a week ago have decided to go back to washing cars or packing meat, because they are nowhere to be found. Maybe some of them signed on other teams, I wouldn't know, I didn't get an email. EVEN WORSE, the free agent market now consists 99%-ly of the vet FA's that didn't sign, and the positional distribution is rediculous, plenty of QB's and WR's, but some positions, like OT have 3 players, many have NO players. [I posted this problem at 400 forum also]

[EDIT: Not to beat a dead horse, but] *No fake field goals/punts (what?? it's a football sim right?)

*maybe you can do it, but I don't see any easy way to change a players position, and I'm not talking about editing the player data, I mean in the game, like in FOF.
[/EDIT]

Oh well, I guess I'll go into training camp with 54 players. Better yet, I'm going back to FOF for the time being.

Don't get me wrong, I don't regret buying the game YET, and I belive they'll fix it. Some people have reported crashes, and I got one related to a known issue, but periodic crashes are OK with me, it's these other annoyances that make the game appear unfinished and rushed.

These issues aren't subtle, they came out and beat me accross the face after less than 4 hours of play.

I may play on in my Free Agentless world a little bit, but I'll probably just wait for the patch(es).

Maybe Jim just spoiled me.

Crashes, and game balance issues are acceptable to me for a first generation game like this, but this other stuff, I don't know.


Richards

P.S. I'm not trying to slam the beta testers like Skydog or the development team. They have a nice creation here, and I make no assumptions about their development or testing process, as I'm sure they worked very hard...I'm just stating my viewpoint at this early point.

[Richards]

Originally posted by sachmo71
Hoping more people see this...

I think I saw something at .400 forum that someone played with 64mb ram on a modest processor and had no problems.

[spleen1015]

Take a look at this for screens.

http://www.400softwarestudios.com/tpf/Help/default.htm

[sachmo71]

Thanks Richards, I saw that post, and have put the call out to him to see if he'll share his processor specs with me.

On an unrelated note, I think most of the bugs I've seen posted are pretty easy to fix. Having said that, I'll be watching from the sidelines for a while.

[Richards]

Originally posted by sachmo71
[ I think most of the bugs I've seen posted are pretty easy to fix. Having said that, I'll be watching from the sidelines for a while. [/b]

I agree. It will be a fun game when they patch it. It's mostly small tweaks needed.

I think they should have tested it longer, but I'm probably the minority if you count some of the fanboys over at .400 screaming about their Xmas being runied without the game, I guess I understand the pressure.

[VPI97]

Well, I'm strongly leaning towards returning it. I played about 3-4 hours and was never able to play Week 1. Two crashes + hard to use interface + memory hog + disappearing FA's + vague messages ("Something is wrong with the CB's on your roster") + zero LB's in the FA pool = I'm not willing to spend much more time on this when there are actual playable games on my PC that I could be enjoying.

[ScottVib]

For those "disappearing" players did they not show up in the Player Database if you did a search for them? The AI is VERY aggressive signing FA's at the start of camp and its entirely possible that the guys you were pursuing got signed by the AI... this happened to me a bit during testing, but sure enough they had all gotten signed by the AI. Which meant I had to wait until the cuts during camp to get a crack at them.

[MizzouRah]

I'll be watching from the sidelines for a while.

I'm with you!



Todd

[VPI97]

Originally posted by ScottVib
For those "disappearing" players did they not show up in the Player Database if you did a search for them? The AI is VERY aggressive signing FA's at the start of camp and its entirely possible that the guys you were pursuing got signed by the AI... this happened to me a bit during testing, but sure enough they had all gotten signed by the AI. Which meant I had to wait until the cuts during camp to get a crack at them.

In my case, the disappearing FA's were there one week, not in the FA pool the next, and back in the pool the third week. In all three weeks they appeared on the PDA as having offers from me, but they didn't appear in the FA list.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally posted by Angie
Anxiety - Wanted to address your question about the owners and agents. For the agents, we used 11 because we wanted you to be able to get to know agents and their tendencies - their reputations - and didn't want to include so many that it would be overwhelming.

As for the owners, they do have a broad category, ie "Man In the Box", "The Miser", etc, but there is also a series of underlying variables that uniquely define each owner - items such as the importance of making a profit vs the importance of winning, etc. This makes each of them very different, though they may share a general category.

For me it is not. Every owner with a broad category has the exact same set of ratings - no variation at all. For example, (And I am making these ratings up as I am at the office, not at home), every owner ratred the Realist has average spending, very high patience, etc. Every one a carbon cutter of the other.

-Anxiety

[Angie]

Ah, I see. The specific ratings are not shown.

I know from having worked on the owners that 'Very Important' or 'Average' etc. actually represents a range, so even though the ratings appear to be the same for like 'The Miser,' there actually different ranges for each variable, on a 1-100 scale. Does that make sense? I'm having a hard time explaining this I think.

[sabotai]

To help Angie out...

What she's saying is that "Average" (and I'm makign these numbers up) could mean a range from 40-60. One owner rated average might have 41 while another would have 57.

[jshipman2]

I can't even get into the game. I keep getting this error message: Run-time error: '429' - ActiveX component can't create object.

[FBPro]

Do you have Direct X 9 or higher installed?

[jshipman2]

Yes, 9.0b

[Angie]

Thanks Sabotai!

[Richards]

Originally posted by ScottVib
For those "disappearing" players did they not show up in the Player Database if you did a search for them? The AI is VERY aggressive signing FA's at the start of camp and its entirely possible that the guys you were pursuing got signed by the AI... this happened to me a bit during testing, but sure enough they had all gotten signed by the AI. Which meant I had to wait until the cuts during camp to get a crack at them.

Yes, this is what I thought at first, that they went somewhere else, however unlikely, as they were complete scrubs.

I searched and they were not on any teams (I stopped searching after 3). This is not the issue, really, as any free agent rookie would do. They all dissapeared.

There are NO rookie free agents in the FA pool.

They ARE in the player database, however, accessed under the tools menu, listed under incoming draftees.

I cannot get them in the FA menu by narrowing my search parameters or fudging this way.

The problem seems to be two-fold.

A. Rookie free agents bidded on after the draft, with one offer, go eight weeks and don't sign.

B. In my game, the first week of "season" i.e. Offseason pulldown is greyed-out for the first time, the FA pool has 0 players of 0 years experience.

Maybe I'll sim ahead to see if they come back. However, this doesn't help me fill out my roster for this weeks preseason game.

The "macro" problem here is that, starting the week after the draft, I was not able to sign a bunch of rookie free agents to fill out my roster, and now I am stuck short as positions in the preseason.

[Deattribution]

Originally posted by jshipman2
I can't even get into the game. I keep getting this error message: Run-time error: '429' - ActiveX component can't create object.

http://www.400softwarestudios.com/in...howtopic=45677

same problem you have, some suggestions from Arlie, doesn't look like it's fixable at the moment though.

[Deattribution]

From my understanding there is no substitutions during the game as it's being played?


Have I just mis-understood this or is this correct?


If this is the case though, wouldn't my starters get all the playing time unless they get injured?

[Sun Tzu]

After reading through all of the posts regarding TPF I have decided to wait until a patch is released to buy it. It certainly *seems* like there are several bugs that could interefere with the normal season routine. It sounds like a great game, and I am looking forward to getting it after the first patch, but definetely not before.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Deattribution
From my understanding there is no substitutions during the game as it's being played?


Have I just mis-understood this or is this correct?


If this is the case though, wouldn't my starters get all the playing time unless they get injured?

No user substitutions. They auto-sub when they are tired.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally posted by Sun Tzu
After reading through all of the posts regarding TPF I have decided to wait until a patch is released to buy it. It certainly *seems* like there are several bugs that could interefere with the normal season routine. It sounds like a great game, and I am looking forward to getting it after the first patch, but definetely not before.

Yeah, who wants to pay $35 to be a beta tester.

In all fairness, any new game is going to have its share of bugs and shortcomings upon release - I'm really not trying to cap on .400 here - I just have enough on my plate right now so that it's not hard for me to hold on to the money until the product is a little more polished.

[Deattribution]

Originally posted by SkyDog
No user substitutions. They auto-sub when they are tired.

Ah okay, thanks.


A little odd but I don't typically play the games in sports sims so shouldn't affect me.


I'm on the same boat as Sun Tzu, waiting for a patch - possibly two before I purchase.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Deattribution
A little odd but I don't typically play the games in sports sims so shouldn't affect me.

Same here. I'm sure some will complain about this (and I wouldn't be shocked if it is added in a future patch), but it definitely won't make a difference to me.

[ScottVib]

Originally posted by Deattribution
http://www.400softwarestudios.com/in...howtopic=45677

same problem you have, some suggestions from Arlie, doesn't look like it's fixable at the moment though.

It is a system specific issue. The first stuff to check is the MDAC and Jet settings as at least with TDCB those were the source of the error.

[Sloan]

How do I find out what the minimum salary for a particular year is? I can't offer a contract to a FA because the game says I'm not offering the minimum, even if I use the amounts that are in the boxes by default.

[ScottVib]

Arlie posted it in the forums...

Minimum salaries:
0 EXP - 225,000
1 EXP - 300,000
2 EXP - 375, 000
3 EXP - 450, 000
4-6 EXP - 525,000
7-10 EXP - 650,000
10+ EXP - 750,000

[Sloan]

thanks for the info.

Shouldn't it default to something that is legal?

[ScottVib]

Originally posted by Richards
I searched and they were not on any teams (I stopped searching after 3). This is not the issue, really, as any free agent rookie would do. They all dissapeared.

There are NO rookie free agents in the FA pool.

They ARE in the player database, however, accessed under the tools menu, listed under incoming draftees.

I'm a little unclear, when you searched did you use the Player Database under the GM Office? (Also accessible via Ctrl+B) Did they show up here?

[Arles]

Originally posted by VPI97
In my case, the disappearing FA's were there one week, not in the FA pool the next, and back in the pool the third week. In all three weeks they appeared on the PDA as having offers from me, but they didn't appear in the FA list.

OK, a couple things. The way that game works is that you sign UFAs from week 5 to week 9. Then, at week 10, you go to the draft (no FA signing). After the draft, you got to week 11 where you have up to 30 bids to make on undrafted FAs. Their top concern is playing time, with their next concern being signing bonus (max of 30K for any bid). There is also no regular FA signing in this week.

Then, in week 12, the normal FAs will reappear for the rest of the FA process. Most guys will not sign with one offer until week 16 or so. I will look at changing this but didn't want the user to be able to swoop in and sign a nice value FA before the AI teams made their way to him (they go for the top players first).

If you guys do hit any issues, post them on the tech support board and I will fixed them ASAP. If possible try to send me a save game if it can be reproduced there.

Finally, to the fake FG and fake punts, I stated in a chat two months ago they wouldn't be in the release. When doing a first version game, you don't want to take on too much or you will never get completed. And, given their rare occurances in football, I didn't think it was worth the time to punt in fakes off the bat.

Thanks,

Arlie

[Schmidty]

I really want to buy this game, so I have one question:

Is anyone out there playing it without any problems right now?

[Sloan]

Originally posted by Schmidty
I really want to buy this game, so I have one question:

Is anyone out there playing it without any problems right now?

I can get the game to crash by scrolling really fast in the career leaders screen, but other than that, everything has been fine for me.

I think this game is going to be fun, but I'm having a really hard time getting used to the interface and getting the info that I need.

[sabotai]

The interface is really starting ti kill me. It takes much longer than it should to do different things.

Like managing the roster for active/inactive rosters. This takes way too long. First I go to the Roster to see how many players I have at each position. (I would do this in the Active/Inactive Management screen, but you can't sort by position on that screen). I see I have 5 OLBs. I want to make one inactive. So I look through the 5 and I find the no-talent roster filler I want to through on the inactive list.

In FOF, you just click a button on the player screen and you're off to the next guy to put on the inactive roster. But here, you have to then go into the Active/Inactive screen, refind the player you want to put on the Inactive Roster and then drag him over.

Then you go back to the roster screen and realize you forgot to click the save button, so now you have to go back into the Active/Inactive management screen, find the guy again and drag him over again.

Two things would make this SO MUCH easier.

1) Have the players sorted by position, not number. Does anyone really look at their roster with is sorted by number? Sorting by position si the first thing I do when I load up any roster screen.

2) Have changes saved by default. It's an unneeded extra click and if you forget to do it, it becomes an annoyance. I see that you wanted to be able to offer a "reset" to the previous config, but I think in this case, it becomes more of an annoyance than anything else.

[The_herd]

Originally posted by Schmidty
I really want to buy this game, so I have one question:

Is anyone out there playing it without any problems right now?

The only problem I've run into was the RTE 91 I posted earlier, but there is a simple work around for that. Other than that, no problems here.

[The_herd]

Originally posted by sabotai


Two things would make this SO MUCH easier.

1) Have the players sorted by position, not number. Does anyone really look at their roster with is sorted by number? Sorting by position si the first thing I do when I load up any roster screen.

2) Have changes saved by default. It's an unneeded extra click and if you forget to do it, it becomes an annoyance. I see that you wanted to be able to offer a "reset" to the previous config, but I think in this case, it becomes more of an annoyance than anything else.

These are the only major problems I have with the interface. The first one is a poor design choice, the 2nd is probably for the reason you stated above. However, both of these suggestions should be considered by Arlie, because they would both be improvements on the interface.

[Die Hand die Verletzt]

Originally posted by Arles
OK, a couple things. The way that game works is that you sign UFAs from week 5 to week 9. Then, at week 10, you go to the draft (no FA signing). After the draft, you got to week 11 where you have up to 30 bids to make on undrafted FAs. Their top concern is playing time, with their next concern being signing bonus (max of 30K for any bid). There is also no regular FA signing in this week.

Then, in week 12, the normal FAs will reappear for the rest of the FA process. Most guys will not sign with one offer until week 16 or so. I will look at changing this but didn't want the user to be able to swoop in and sign a nice value FA before the AI teams made their way to him (they go for the top players first).

If you guys do hit any issues, post them on the tech support board and I will fixed them ASAP. If possible try to send me a save game if it can be reproduced there.

Finally, to the fake FG and fake punts, I stated in a chat two months ago they wouldn't be in the release. When doing a first version game, you don't want to take on too much or you will never get completed. And, given their rare occurances in football, I didn't think it was worth the time to punt in fakes off the bat.

Thanks,

Arlie

Arlie, thanks for the post. You've got the makings of a fine football game here and I hope Ic an help you guys spot some bugs and stuff.

I totally understand about the fake punts and fake field goals, it would be nice to have down the road, but there are other issues that are way more important than this one.

I was wondering if you guys have looked into adding wheel mouse support? That would be very handy in scrolling through rosters, FA's, etc.

[sabotai]

Nit-Picking here: On the View Coaching Staff screen, why is there a scroll bar?

[VPI97]

Originally posted by sabotai
The interface is really starting to kill me. It takes much longer than it should to do different things.

That's my #1 issue with the game right now. Bugs are bugs and some are going to be out there in an initial release, but this interface is like torture. It took me 10 times longer to do basic roster management in TPF than it does in FOF...and since my style of play is to micromanage, that resulted in 3-4 hours of game time before I even got to Week 1 of the regular season (where the game crashed, of course).

[Tasan]

Okay I haven't bought the game yet, but I installed it at first thinking there was a Trial period already. Well, being that there isn't one, I decided to go ahead and look at some of the .dat files, as I think Arlie mentioned you could do in access. Wow. config.dat has a ton of stuff you could modify, and most of it is headed really well to know what you are messing with. For any modders/tinkerers, I strongly suggest digging around in there and seeing if you find something to tinker with.

[Sidhe]

I'm getting a complete shutdown crash (is there an acronym for this? You know, when the computer just shuts off?) that is not related to my processor overheating. I've had that with MTW:VI (a very graphics intensive game) and you could feel the heat coming off the keys palpably before the crash. That doesn't happen here.

Sometime between pick 9 & pick 20, bang. Straight to black.

Is it possible that a player who gets picked in this range can cause the crash?

[Godzilla Blitz]

If anyone's there yet, I'd be very interested to hear comments about the AI with respect to roster management, trading, and drafting.

[Richards]

Originally posted by ScottVib
I'm a little unclear, when you searched did you use the Player Database under the GM Office? (Also accessible via Ctrl+B) Did they show up here?

Nope, not in player database or FA list. Only under the database listed under the "tools" menu. And there, they were not listed in the FA pool, but rather in the "incoming draft" list (not sure the exact name, I'm at work. )

I simmed ahead to see if the players would come back, but I got the dreaded "91" error during the game. I was pausing several time, and switching back and forth between other apps. Not sure if that had anything to do with it.

Under Win XP 512ram sp1a if that matters.