Alright Boyzzzz Here We Go!: DDS Basketball Edition

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

This scares me. I tried out the last game that Gary released and while it was impressive, the fact that bad contracts are untradable completely bugged me - you can't deal one bad player for another even if it makes sense for both parties. If that's still an issue, this game goes back on the "no thanks" list.

Yeah, that annoyed me a bit as well. If I'm trading you a 3 year shit contract for a 4 year one, you should be pulling the trigger. Like that Vince Carter or Shaq deal....you could never do something like that in TPB, but it's not uncommon to see lesser trades happen IRL. I'm sure you couldn't do the AI deal either.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by stevew

Yeah, that annoyed me a bit as well. If I'm trading you a 3 year shit contract for a 4 year one, you should be pulling the trigger. Like that Vince Carter or Shaq deal....you could never do something like that in TPB, but it's not uncommon to see lesser trades happen IRL. I'm sure you couldn't do the AI deal either.

Yep. In the NBA, there are four types of teams.

1) Title contender. Team already built, a few tweaks here and there each off season and give it another go. (Dallas, SA, Phoenix, etc.)

2) Trying to get to title contender status. Will do anything within reason to get there. Nuggets, Cavs, Bulls, Hornets and a ton of others. Anybody up and coming falls here.

3) Idiots. Those are the teams who don't have a realistic title shot anytime soon, but continue making the 8th seed year after year with a veteran laden team. The Kings are the best example of this now. They aren't good enough to even sniff the title, they have a ton of vets making big money (Bibby, Artest, Thomas, Miller, Raheem all have 4 years + on their deals). So they will be in limbo land until they realize it's time to rebuild. They should be shipping their assets to the #2 group now for young players and picks, and getting in the Oden/Durant sweepstakes this year or the OJ ones next year. Instead they'll get the 15 best player in the draft who will likely not end up being a star that can push them over the edge.

4) The guys in full rebuilding mode. Who cares if we win 18 games? Lets just play hard, play a ton of youngsters and save our cap room for a big score later.

In the world of the sim, you should have about 6 teams thinking this could be the year they win it all, 12 thinking "if we make one trade," 6 morons and 6 rebuilders. The 6 rebuilders should be looking for expiring deals and dealing any available asset within reason off for them.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by TroyF

Yep. In the NBA, there are four types of teams.

1) Title contender. Team already built, a few tweaks here and there each off season and give it another go. (Dallas, SA, Phoenix, etc.)

2) Trying to get to title contender status. Will do anything within reason to get there. Nuggets, Cavs, Bulls, Hornets and a ton of others. Anybody up and coming falls here.

3) Idiots. Those are the teams who don't have a realistic title shot anytime soon, but continue making the 8th seed year after year with a veteran laden team. The Kings are the best example of this now. They aren't good enough to even sniff the title, they have a ton of vets making big money (Bibby, Artest, Thomas, Miller, Raheem all have 4 years + on their deals). So they will be in limbo land until they realize it's time to rebuild. They should be shipping their assets to the #2 group now for young players and picks, and getting in the Oden/Durant sweepstakes this year or the OJ ones next year. Instead they'll get the 15 best player in the draft who will likely not end up being a star that can push them over the edge.

4) The guys in full rebuilding mode. Who cares if we win 18 games? Lets just play hard, play a ton of youngsters and save our cap room for a big score later.

In the world of the sim, you should have about 6 teams thinking this could be the year they win it all, 12 thinking "if we make one trade," 6 morons and 6 rebuilders. The 6 rebuilders should be looking for expiring deals and dealing any available asset within reason off for them.

This was the type of thing I was going for with the GM ratings and personality stuff in this version. I really wanted to make some major leaps in this version from TPB 2005 and there are areas that simply need the kinks worked out a bit whereas the leap from the first TPB to TPB 05 wasn't nearly as large.

The game has been out less than a week and we've had two beta patches up and Im continuing work on the next one - right now we're putting up a new beta patch every two-three days in order to give constant updates not only to fix the bugs and crashes but to improve other areas of the game and the trade and draft stuff are getting attention now.

I just ask that you keep providing me feedback and to remain patient with the game. The crashes and things like that I make no excuse for - I dropped the ball on that with how I ran the testing process and despite the fact that I'm hustling to get patches out to fix those they should never have happened in the first place - but the tweaks I think its fair to ask for a little bit of time to work out with you guys before you decide to shelve/ignore the game. I tried something new with the trading to take it to a new level - perhaps it missed the mark initially but I think that with some feedback and tweaks that it will be better than it ever was. Thank you to those who provided feedback in the areas of the draft and trades and hopefully the next beta patch (probably out sometime tomorrow late night or early Wed) will have marked improvements in those areas or at least enough improvements to keep you interested and prove that I'm willing to continue to work on improving every area of the game based on customer feedback.

[JPhillips]

Gary: I'll pick it back up with the next patch. I've been very impressed with how you and your company have handled things so far.

[TroyF]

Despite some of the problems, the game is pretty fun. I'm still playing it and will keep doing so.

[Gary Gorski]

Thanks guys - btw I think I found the problem with the mid level exception so that should be killed in the next beta patch hopefully and like I said, there should be some trade and draft improvements as well

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by John Galt

Ok. Here are some of the trades:

Rockets trade C Yao Ming for Hawks SG Joe Johnson, C John Edwards (06/26/06)

For discussion sake and to help me improve the trading module - why is this a bad trade? (Now before anyone blows up their keyboard I admit that if I'm Houston I don't make this trade either)

What I am getting at by asking this question is what should the AI see here - ignore John Edwards and basically why not Yao for Joe Johnson? Here are the real life stats this year

Player G MPG FG FGP FT FTP 3PT 3PTP RPG APG SPG TPG BPG PPG
Johnson, Joe G ATL 42 40.6 406 48.4 171 77.0 94 39.7 4.07 4.17 1.10 3.12 0.17 25.64
Ming, Yao C HOU 27 34.6 252 52.2 195 86.7 0 0 .0 9.44 2.07 0.37 3.81 2.22 25.89

Johnson is a reliable three point shooter and scores about the same amount of points and is a year younger than Yao. Obviously their stats are not comparable in other areas since one is a guard and the other a center but what makes this deal bad for you? Is it because their names are Yao and Joe Johnson and not two made up names you never heard of?

It's cliche but I'll say it anyways, the game doesn't know names. What needs to be tweaked is the x-factor that makes you say no way if you're Houston. Is it simply because Yao is a center and a quality center is hard to come by? Is it because he's Yao and you simply feel there's still more upside to him where there is not with Johnson (although I dont know if Yao has much more upside than 26/10/2.2)? Because you already have T-Mac and nobody good at center now (and again is it because that is center and not nobody you can play at small forward or something)? Are blocks more valuable than steals even though they don't necessarily result in possession for your team? Because you didn't know Joe Johnson scores 25.6 PPG?

Personally if its me I don't make this trade because IMO a good center is much tougher to find than a good guard and if that is the consensus opinion then that's the tweak needed. But maybe its something I'm overlooking so your input is valuable.

[Eaglesfan27]

Your last paragraph summarizes why this is a terrible trade. A guard that can put up stats like Johnson is much more likely to be found than a C who can do all of the things Yao can do. I think that there has to be some sort of modifier for a guy's position and how easily he can be replaced. Also, I think height and weight are a significant factor in your engine (or at least that is my impression from playing TPB 05) so that is another factor working against that trade.

[TroyF]

You don't see dominant big men traded for dominant little men. At least not very often. Yao is the top center in basketball now. JJ is a great G amongst a lot of other great G.

I can see reasons Houston would do the trade, especially if they decided they wanted to switch styles and go to a more upbeat system. But I think the take is to low. Proven young big men are a monster commodity in the NBA.

I haven't paid attention to Joe's ratings in the game. The numbers we are taking are from real life. Is Joe putting up those numbers in the game? If he is, it makes the discussion relevant. If he's closer to 18 and 5 in the game, the trade is a heck of a lot worse.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

Your last paragraph summarizes why this is a terrible trade. A guard that can put up stats like Johnson is much more likely to be found than a C who can do all of the things Yao can do. I think that there has to be some sort of modifier for a guy's position and how easily he can be replaced. Also, I think height and weight are a significant factor in your engine (or at least that is my impression from playing TPB 05) so that is another factor working against that trade.

This is only true if the number of high-quality guards is significantly higher in the game, as it is in the NBA. If this is the case, then the game should reflect that. If this is not the case (just as many high quality centers as guards) then I would hope the game is tweaked to mirror the current reality of the NBA.

[John Galt]

The big reason that trade is bad is because the Rockets have McGrady. Acquiring many of the same player (McGrady, Wells, and Johnson) along with other players on the wing (Battier) just doesn't make sense in terms of team construction. You end up looking like the Knicks.

The fact that Yao went on to win MVP in his first season with my Hawks and is regularly a 1st or 2nd team all NBA player in the seasons I have run is icing on the cake. Johnson never has appeared on the top of those lists during my simulated seasons. That's pretty significant in my mind in terms of assessing value (be it from C scarcity or otherwise).

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

This was the type of thing I was going for with the GM ratings and personality stuff in this version. I really wanted to make some major leaps in this version from TPB 2005 and there are areas that simply need the kinks worked out a bit whereas the leap from the first TPB to TPB 05 wasn't nearly as large.

The game has been out less than a week and we've had two beta patches up and Im continuing work on the next one - right now we're putting up a new beta patch every two-three days in order to give constant updates not only to fix the bugs and crashes but to improve other areas of the game and the trade and draft stuff are getting attention now.

I just ask that you keep providing me feedback and to remain patient with the game. The crashes and things like that I make no excuse for - I dropped the ball on that with how I ran the testing process and despite the fact that I'm hustling to get patches out to fix those they should never have happened in the first place - but the tweaks I think its fair to ask for a little bit of time to work out with you guys before you decide to shelve/ignore the game. I tried something new with the trading to take it to a new level - perhaps it missed the mark initially but I think that with some feedback and tweaks that it will be better than it ever was. Thank you to those who provided feedback in the areas of the draft and trades and hopefully the next beta patch (probably out sometime tomorrow late night or early Wed) will have marked improvements in those areas or at least enough improvements to keep you interested and prove that I'm willing to continue to work on improving every area of the game based on customer feedback.

Thanks Gary for all the hard work on getting this stuff waorked out. Like others have siad it is still a fun game and just needs a little more fine tuning.Maybe you could have public beta with the next game college DDS:COLLEGE basketball next time or anyone who buys DDS:PB by a certain date is invited to be part of the beta?

[Brian Swartz]

I've posted this at the WS forums as well, but we are going to re-evaluate a number of things including testing for future games at an appropriate time(meaning sometime after we get DDSPB patched).

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I've posted this at the WS forums as well, but we are going to re-evaluate a number of things including testing for future games at an appropriate time(meaning sometime after we get DDSPB patched).

Hey, you've got my offer to test your stuff.

[Emiliano]

Patch 1.1 is out!

[Gary Gorski]

Beta patch version 1.1.1 available

http://www.wolverinestudios.com/down...Patch1_1_1.EXE

Again, as before this is a BETA patch - the items on the list will be confirmed as fixed by the staff and beta testers but we've chosen to make it available to the public as well. You have the choice of downloading it or waiting for an official patch to be released.

Beta Patch Version 1.1.1
-----------------------
- fixed RTE 13 at the end of the dleague draft
- fixed RTE 91 during a sim related to dleague teams not hiring enough coaches
- fixed RTE 9 going to the playoffs
- fixed RTE 91 after league awards
- fixed bug causing two days to sim instead of one if attempting to sim from some screen other than your office
- fixed problem with "s_" imported database files
- fixed bug not displaying trade emails
- fixed problem with losing the mid level exception after offering it once
- fixed problem where AI team makes subs but then reverts them when you go to sub/strategy page
- fixed news story error
- fixed bug causing free agents to be untradeable for longer than 90 days after start of season
- added current pick number to trade screen for draft picks prior to and during the draft
- made changes to initial roster file (default.dat)
- attempted to improve future rookie class level of talent
- attempted to improve trade AI in regards to draft picks, willingness to take on bad contracts if trading worse contracts and player valuation

[JPhillips]

Gary,

Thanks. I got a new RTE this morning. When I accidentally hit previous stage on the first stage of play development I got a RTE.

[Tim Tellean]

jphillips- rte number?

[JPhillips]

I think it was 13, but I didn't pay attention. I'll see if I can replicate it and get back to you.

btw- In cruising the MF forum I saw where you said you'd buy MF. Did you really?

[JPhillips]

Well this is new. Playing the first season with thirty two teams the entire league played 92 games in the season.

[Tim Tellean]

Yes I did buy it. Played it for maybe 15 minutes, not my thing. Has promise but needs loads of work. And yes the 32 team league plays 92 games.

[Bee]

Well, I downloaded the demo to this last night. So far it's been pretty fun. I'm not a big basketball fan, but playing a fictional league has been enjoyable and the draft is handled better than any other game out there IMO. I'd like to see more feedback/interaction during free agency, trades and contract negotiations but I think the game has a ton of potential once all the bugs are worked out. I'll probably buy the game this weekend assuming it continues to hold my interest over the next two days.

[Bee]

dola

I think I read over at the Wolverine Studios forums that a patch was coming in the next day or two.

[JPhillips]

Is the problem with summer league rosters not filling out going to be fixed? I can't get past year three summer league because Dallas doesn't have enough players on their summer league team to fill out the sub matrix.

[Gary Gorski]

Yes, I finally managed to track down the issue with the summer leagues. Its preventing players who played in a previous summer league from playing again so the upcoming beta patch should clear up that issue as well as a few other bugs and tweaks.

[Fidatelo]

I went ahead and bought the game earlier this week, and I'm liking it so far. The draft really is cool, although I'm too impatient to wait through it, but that's my own problem

One thing I noticed in my first (and only season) was that a lot of guy's seemed to go down with long-term injuries. I think there were about 10-12 guys out with 200+ day injuries at the all-star break. I'm not a massive NBA guy, so maybe that's normal, but my gut tells me it seems real high.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

One thing I noticed in my first (and only season) was that a lot of guy's seemed to go down with long-term injuries. I think there were about 10-12 guys out with 200+ day injuries at the all-star break. I'm not a massive NBA guy, so maybe that's normal, but my gut tells me it seems real high.

10-12 might be a little high, but there are probably 7 or 8 guys out there who are going to be sitting out most of the season, so I don't see it as a major issue.

Off the top of my head: Tony Allen, Kenyon Martin, Jason Richardson... hmm, I know I'm forgetting some. Maybe there aren't as many as I assumed.

[Sublime 2]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

10-12 might be a little high, but there are probably 7 or 8 guys out there who are going to be sitting out most of the season, so I don't see it as a major issue.

Off the top of my head: Tony Allen, Kenyon Martin, Jason Richardson... hmm, I know I'm forgetting some. Maybe there aren't as many as I assumed.

Just off the top of my head to add to yours: Theo Ratliff, Nenad Kristic, Richard Jefferson (I think he's out for a while?)...so i think 8-10 guys is certainly plausible.

[Groundhog]

Also, Bobby Simmons. So, that's 7 without any research.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

10-12 might be a little high, but there are probably 7 or 8 guys out there who are going to be sitting out most of the season, so I don't see it as a major issue.

Off the top of my head: Tony Allen, Kenyon Martin, Jason Richardson... hmm, I know I'm forgetting some. Maybe there aren't as many as I assumed.

Originally Posted by Sublime 2

Just off the top of my head to add to yours: Theo Ratliff, Nenad Kristic, Richard Jefferson (I think he's out for a while?)...so i think 8-10 guys is certainly plausible.

Chris Mihm comes to mind.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Tim Tellean

Yes I did buy it. Played it for maybe 15 minutes, not my thing. Has promise but needs loads of work. And yes the 32 team league plays 92 games.

That's pretty much my take. I like it, but...so far it's basically been unplayable or at least, pretty close to that. I'm playing WWSM again.

[Marmel]

So what is the verdict on this game now? I've been reading a few dynasties that use this game and it sounds pretty cool. I've cut way back on my game purchases lately...not that 28 bucks is a whole lot, but I feel I've been burnt by a lot of bad text-sims over the past year or two.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Marmel

So what is the verdict on this game now? I've been reading a few dynasties that use this game and it sounds pretty cool. I've cut way back on my game purchases lately...not that 28 bucks is a whole lot, but I feel I've been burnt by a lot of bad text-sims over the past year or two.

I really enjoy this annually during the b-ball season. It always seems alittle more polished than the basketball games Gary makes. It could be just me or the fact that there are alot of things going on in the college game like recruiting.............In anycase I would highly recommend either or both of DDS basketball games.