Bowl Bound College Football Demo is out!

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I think what Ct is getting at isn't having a general idea, but specifics. If I'm looking for, say, a run-stopping DE in FOF, I can very rapidly scroll through (using keyboard shortcuts, not just the mouse--faster) the list of DE's until I see that long run-stopping bar. It is even more helpful when looking for, say, a WR who is good at route running AND catching. Rather than reading both numbers, I can go through the list rapidly until I see the bars I'm looking for. It isn't something that could be added at this point, I don't think, but is definitely worth other text sim developers looking at for future games.

exactly. here's an example: I'm looking for a QB for a short and medium passing game, before taking a detalied look, there are very obvious visual cues for me:



Now my point was really that i have a new-found respect for FOF/TCY. Without actually examining a player, I immediately have a quick impression by seeing the "footprint" of how their skills are laid out. I'm sure consciously or subconsciously we all have certain sills we're looking for from certain players. So a lot of guys jump out as immediately looking right or looking wrong. It's easy to know when a guy warrants a closer look.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by Arles

I'll check this out. But, the logic is that (just in real life) many of the 3 and 4 star guys wait to see where the studs go. IE, if I am a 4-star RB and really want to go to michigan, but see they have a 5-star on their list ahead of me. I would probably wait and see where the 5-star guy goes before committing. If he goes to another school, perhaps I choose Michigan. If he goes to Michigan, I probably look elsewhere. So, I think having that order overall makes sense. however, I do agree that too many guys seem to commit after just a week or two. I will look into this.

That would be excellent Arles. I appreciate the logic behind it, would just be nice to see some of the top guys take a few more visits and the process stringed out a little before they commit.

[albionmoonlight]

Is there a way to set a "base" gameplan for all situations and then just be able to tweak it for special situations (red zone, leading by >14, etc.)? I tried to set a gameplan where everything was set to "no preference," but the game seemed to ignore that.

There is a lot of gameplan to micromanage--which I like. But I would also like to be able to play all situations off of a base gameplan, rather than have to go into each specific option to build each one from scratch.

[theclassic]

I think the bars are realistic. First the bars are just an indication of what your scout thinks a player is rated, not actual ratings. Second I'm sure scouts put their personal ratings into tables and etc., so they can have an easy glance over of their information, or so that the front office can get the same glance over.

With that said though, I like going by actual game statistics to rate players, then to focus just on the bars. Which is often done in Front Office games.

[GrantDawg]

I always hated the bars, and personally like what Arles has done for the most part. I would love to have filtered searches and such (ala FM).

[MizzouRah]

That's why I loved FPS Football so much, you have ratings AND you get to see them perform on the field. That series is still ahead of football games today.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

That's why I loved FPS Football so much, you have ratings AND you get to see them perform on the field. That series is still ahead of football games today.

Agreed.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Is there a way to set a "base" gameplan for all situations and then just be able to tweak it for special situations (red zone, leading by >14, etc.)? I tried to set a gameplan where everything was set to "no preference," but the game seemed to ignore that.

There is a lot of gameplan to micromanage--which I like. But I would also like to be able to play all situations off of a base gameplan, rather than have to go into each specific option to build each one from scratch.

I second this. It would take away some of the micromanaging of gameplans when time is not abundant for some of us. This would be ahuge help.

[Arles]

The gameplan issue of ignoring the no preference will be fixed. I'm working on that now.

[Ben E Lou]

For the most part, I like the AI suggestions for starters, in terms of current vs. future. For example, the AI is suggesting that I start my 63/84 Sophomore at SS over my 66/66 Senior, but my 67/67 Sr. OLB is suggested over my 54/73 red-shirt freshman.

[Ben E Lou]

Oh yeah, and count me in as someone who wants some sort of "lock" button...and also as someone who'd like to see the AI suggestions change according to philosophy. The #4 QB on my depth chart is clearly the one best suited to run the option attack. I have to manually put him at #1.

[Vince]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

exactly. here's an example: I'm looking for a QB for a short and medium passing game, before taking a detalied look, there are very obvious visual cues for me:



Now my point was really that i have a new-found respect for FOF/TCY. Without actually examining a player, I immediately have a quick impression by seeing the "footprint" of how their skills are laid out. I'm sure consciously or subconsciously we all have certain sills we're looking for from certain players. So a lot of guys jump out as immediately looking right or looking wrong. It's easy to know when a guy warrants a closer look.

Is that Curtis Corbett on the right?

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Oh yeah, and count me in as someone who wants some sort of "lock" button...and also as someone who'd like to see the AI suggestions change according to philosophy. The #4 QB on my depth chart is clearly the one best suited to run the option attack. I have to manually put him at #1.

Furtther, there needs to be an injury indicator on that page. If there is an easy wat to tell if the player is injured, I haven't seen it.

[jonesz]

One issue that is kind of getting at me right now is the lack of plays to choose from. More plays would definitely be beneficial as I get bored calling the same plays all of the time. It seems that, at the very least, every play should have a right and left option. Anyone know if more plays will be introduced as part of the final game?

[Anthony]

maybe in a future version Arlie can make it so that the better your Coach or OC is the more defensive plays you get. perhaps a rookie HC or OC should start out with a basic set of plays, and only after they've been around for a bit will you get more plays to choose from.

[MizzouRah]

I haven't played the demo yet, but I assume you can let your coach call the plays and let the pbp roll by, ala FOF and TCY?

[VPI97]

Is it just my system or does it take forever to sim a week?

[Joe]

Originally Posted by VPI97

Is it just my system or does it take forever to sim a week?

I think it sims in real time

[CraigSca]

It takes a long time to sim this stuff - why? because of the Access database. Ah, the good ol' days of FOF and TCY. I HATE the fact that all these newer text sims take so long to sim a week/game/etc.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I haven't played the demo yet, but I assume you can let your coach call the plays and let the pbp roll by, ala FOF and TCY?

I don't believe you can, ala EHM and FM.

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by VPI97

Is it just my system or does it take forever to sim a week?

Yeah, i mentioned it earlier but the sim time is pretty annoying. I'm running on a blazing system and it probably takes 2 minutes to sim a week.

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by Vince

Is that Curtis Corbett on the right?

Yep. And I almost forget who is on the left. Either Brad Keil or Vinnie Simmons I think.

[Vince]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

Yep. And I almost forget who is on the left. Either Brad Keil or Vinnie Simmons I think.

Good times

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

Yeah, i mentioned it earlier but the sim time is pretty annoying. I'm running on a blazing system and it probably takes 2 minutes to sim a week.

On my new system, with the most recent build...

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[Anthony]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

On my new system, with the most recent build...

hmmm, that is rather long for a 15, 16 game season. still shorter than simming FM, but 30 minutes per season is a tad longish.

[CraigSca]

Notice also that, as the seasons "roll" by, it gets progressively longer to sim a season.

[cthomer5000]

so are seasons going to take longer and longer to sim as well? they were moving past the high 30s into the 40s in that list there.

[gstelmack]

Actually it went from 52 minutes to 46 minutes between the next-to-last and the last sim up there.

[Ben E Lou]

My guess is that the extra time is primarily in the stats saving/rollover times. It hasn't been that bothersome to me, but then again, I usually have the laptop on the desk also. I surf, respond to e-mail, etc. while it is simming a week. I'm fairly certain it would be annoying if I didn't have another machine right here.

...but then again, FBPro would take like 25 minutes to sim one week.

[spleen1015]

Ben, is that just simming, no interaction?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Ben, is that just simming, no interaction?

I don't have the mental energy to interact from midnight to 4:30am.

[Toddiec]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I haven't played the demo yet, but I assume you can let your coach call the plays and let the pbp roll by, ala FOF and TCY?

Yeah, you can let the coaches call the plays and let the text roll by. You can also call the plays and there is a "Suggest" button or something like that where the coaches will suggest the play they want to call.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I don't have the mental energy to interact from midnight to 4:30am.

wait, so you have the same version we do, the only difference being you can sim multiple seasons and we can only sim one, right?

[lighthousekeeper]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

It takes a long time to sim this stuff - why? because of the Access database. Ah, the good ol' days of FOF and TCY. I HATE the fact that all these newer text sims take so long to sim a week/game/etc.

Reminds me of this thread:

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=41731

So far the game is great. I just feel that using Access as the db engine is short-sighted for creating a sim game that will likely hold tons of MB of information and is aiming to be best-of-breed in the industry.

[CraigSca]

Personally, I've strived to keep the majority of data in RAM and then only use a database (preferably your own) for odd events (e.g. like a change in roster and therefore a change in statistics tracking) because I think the ability to quick sim is paramount in any game I'd like to play (YMMV).

Then again, I've never written anything that's seen the light of day, so take it for what it's worth.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Toddiec

Yeah, you can let the coaches call the plays and let the text roll by. You can also call the plays and there is a "Suggest" button or something like that where the coaches will suggest the play they want to call.

Great, I might have to install this puppy... well, right after I install COD 2.

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

Reminds me of this thread:

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=41731

So far the game is great. I just feel that using Access as the db engine is short-sighted for creating a sim game that will likely hold tons of MB of information and is aiming to be best-of-breed in the industry.

I think people like the ability to be able to use Access becauase it's open, and therefore they can do anything with the game they like. However, beyond changing helmets and team names (and the possibility to create your own seasons), I'm not sure there's a true benefit to using it. All of this can be done without Access and the inherent slowness of a monster database.

When I was programming Franchise Baseball I cut sim times by 80% by doing it in RAM, rather than writing to a database each and every atbat. When you have up to five classes of baseball all playing games, it was quite nice to reduce sim times from 1 min 25 secs per day to 15 seconds. Sure, I lost the fact that I couldn't keep track of how many homeruns Joe Schmo hit off of Joe Blow in the month of September, but it was worth it to me.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Hell Atlantic

wait, so you have the same version we do, the only difference being you can sim multiple seasons and we can only sim one, right?

Basically, yes, although I think there were a few options disabled in the demo that are enabled in the beta. My understanding is that he took the most recent beta build and stripped off multi-season stuff to make the demo. I don't know if Arlie plans to update the demo as often as he updates the beta builds, but due to the holidays, the beta build and the demo are still essentially the same for now.

[Anthony]

i wonder how long it takes for a Commish to upload/sim a game week in a MP league. i wonder if it takes longer or if there's no noticeable lag between solo and MP modes.

[st.cronin]

I think the speed is ok at this point. I don't know what it will be like after 10-20 years of gameplay, but right now it's about as fast as EHM - which is plenty fast enough for a college football game.

The beta demo is better than I expected.

[Icy]

We in the beta team asked about sim times from the first versions and Arlie has improved it with each new beta version so maybe it can be improved a bit more. Anyway that 40 minutes per season (30 in my pc) are from preseason week 1 to the end of the season, recruiting, staff movement etc that i doubt any of us is going to autosim as we want to play in that stages. the only time we really need to wait not doing anything is betwen weekly sims, that take around 2 minutes, it' snot that we are going to sit for 40 minutes watching the screen processing a whole full season.

As some of you pointed, the problem is access and maybe also VB, of course a game written in C++ with it's own databases would be way faster, but also VB is way easier to use to program a good looking windows game, just think on the sims we know in C++ and in VB and compare interfaces. You can have an awesome interface in C++ too like FM, but it takes way more time and knowledge.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

I think people like the ability to be able to use Access becauase it's open, and therefore they can do anything with the game they like. However, beyond changing helmets and team names (and the possibility to create your own seasons), I'm not sure there's a true benefit to using it. All of this can be done without Access and the inherent slowness of a monster database.

When I was programming Franchise Baseball I cut sim times by 80% by doing it in RAM, rather than writing to a database each and every atbat. When you have up to five classes of baseball all playing games, it was quite nice to reduce sim times from 1 min 25 secs per day to 15 seconds. Sure, I lost the fact that I couldn't keep track of how many homeruns Joe Schmo hit off of Joe Blow in the month of September, but it was worth it to me.

How long did it take to load all of that stuff into RAM then in turn write it to disk?

What's wrong with holding everything from the sim in RAM, then writing it to disk when the simming is over? Would it be faster to write it all at once rather than incrementally?

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

How long did it take to load all of that stuff into RAM then in turn write it to disk?

What's wrong with holding everything from the sim in RAM, then writing it to disk when the simming is over? Would it be faster to write it all at once rather than incrementally?

What I'm saying is, have all the data in RAM (yeah, there's a longer load up time and save time) rather than making every write incrementally to disk. I think people can tolerate longer loads and saves moreso than having the sim time and actual "play" time slow down.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

For the most part, I like the AI suggestions for starters, in terms of current vs. future. For example, the AI is suggesting that I start my 63/84 Sophomore at SS over my 66/66 Senior, but my 67/67 Sr. OLB is suggested over my 54/73 red-shirt freshman.

i don't have the same problem with this that you do really SD. I think this is reflective of the idea that you can't just bench your upperclassmen when you get some stud underclassmen, or nobody is going to want to come to your school for fear of being benched. So you play your 67/67 senior one more year while the freshman redshirts, and then you play the freshman.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

i don't have the same problem with this that you do really SD. I think this is reflective of the idea that you can't just bench your upperclassmen when you get some stud underclassmen, or nobody is going to want to come to your school for fear of being benched. So you play your 67/67 senior one more year while the freshman redshirts, and then you play the freshman.

But the freshman has already red-shirted. My point, though, was that I thought that was the *right* decision. In other words, if a younger guy is only a little worse current, with a brighter future, then start him. (Yeah, it might not be fully realistic, but it certainly makes the AI teams' players develop better, therefore increasing game difficulty.)

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

But the freshman has already red-shirted. My point, though, was that I thought that was the *right* decision. In other words, if a younger guy is only a little worse current, with a brighter future, then start him. (Yeah, it might not be fully realistic, but it certainly makes the AI teams' players develop better, therefore increasing game difficulty.)

it makes the teams develop better in the short-term yes, but in the long term it would harm their recruiting.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by jonesz

One issue that is kind of getting at me right now is the lack of plays to choose from. More plays would definitely be beneficial as I get bored calling the same plays all of the time. It seems that, at the very least, every play should have a right and left option. Anyone know if more plays will be introduced as part of the final game?

I couldn't agree more with this. It sucks the number of formation/play type combinations that only have one play available. I think one of the prominent run based formations only has one inside HB run, and passing is often even worse.

More plays are probably too much to hope for in the full release (put it this way I wouldn't necessarily want to see the release delayed for this) but it would certainly be nice to see in a patch.

[kingfc22]

Ouch, just finished the season #2 in both polls and #3 in the GDS and I don't even get invited to a GDS bowl game.

[dervack]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Great, I might have to install this puppy... well, right after I install COD 2.

Well, no slight against Arlie, but yeah, instal COD2 ASAP. It's fucking awesome.

[kingfc22]

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but it would be nice to see awards listed on the player's card.