TPF Release Date Pushed Back (And New TPF Features Announced)

[Ben E Lou]

...and believe it or not, this is not related to Jim's announcement.

Hi everyone. we wanted to take a break from the beta testing and give you an update on the game. Testing is going very well, and we are now at the point where we can officially announce the features that will be in the game. See below for details.

First of all, we want to offer a big "thank you" to everyone involved with Total Pro Football, from the beta testers who are working around the clock to make this THE ultimate pro football simulation, to you, the .400 community for your interest in the game, and for your comments and suggestions. We have no doubt that TPF is going to be a ground-breaking simulation, and one that is going to keep football and sports management fans entertained for a long, long time.

Speaking of "your comments and suggestions," they have been a little *too* good! The game's scope has dramatically increased from the original design document, and we have implemented 15-20 significant features that were based directly on feedback from both the beta team and the .400 community.

As a result, however, we have made the difficult decision of moving the release date of Total Pro Football to later this quarter. We could have made the October 31 with the game that was promised earlier in the year, but rather than cut and/or water-down some of the new features, we have decided to ADD as many as we possibly could into this version of the game. Most of these features have already been added to the game, and we will now spend the remaining beta testing those features.

Of course, we would have loved to get the game out in October and have the company start earning revenues from the game (!), but we've learned that releasing a quality, feature-rich product which will blow the socks off of gamers is much more important than meeting an arbitrary release date.

So, here is a list of some of the new features that we have added to game. This is not a "complete" list, as we do want to save some surprises for later . But here is a taste of some of the new additions for Total Pro Football:

Annual Budget

Each season, you have to allocate funds between college, pro and advance scouting, building upgrades, training, marketing and advertising, and of course, salaries and bonuses. How much you have to spend depends on what kind of owner you are working for.

Storing Career stats for retired players

TPF will store career stats for retired players that qualify a minimum standard for seasons and game played.

Team and League Records

The top 10 for each record will be stored for each team and the league as a whole.

Performance incentives and roster bonuses

Be creative with your contract negotiations with including performance incentives and roster bonuses in addition to salaries and signing bonuses. We have included both LTBE and non-LTBE incentives and voidables.

Restricted Free Agents

Place tender offers on your RFAs. If they get signed away, you get compensatory draft picks or the chance to match the offer.

HTML Reports from Every Screen

Send virtually any game screen to HTML. Every HTML page also includes a print button for easy printing. More than 20 different reports, from rosters and ratings to mock drafts and game previews.

Complete Preseason

Carry over 70 players on your roster during the preseason, and make the tough decisions on roster spots as opening day approaches.

Comprehensive City Database

Over 200 U.S. and international cities profiled for monthly weather data, city prestige, quality of living and fan support level. Moving your franchise from one city to another will have significant consequences on your fan support, your ability to attract free agents.

Unique Team & Player Morale Modeling

Lesser teams with high morale will often overachieve while talented squads with malcontents will struggle. Almost everything you do in the game, from promising players' roles to how strenuous your practice schedules are will impact your team's morale (and their performance on the field). Player morale is also displayed visually in the player's photo.

General Manager Job Offers

Take a chance and interview with our franchises for a different position. But be careful - you might not get the job, and your current team might be willing to welcome you back with open arms!

Built-In, Integrated Support for Online Leagues

Easily create and manage an online league for you and your friends to participate in. Everything you need for multiplayer leagues is built directly into the game.

Franchise Relocation

Tired of Kansas City? Ready for the challenge of Los Angeles? Weigh the financial pros and cons of moving your team to another city.

Comprehensive Weather System

Historical data from the National Weather Service powers gameday temperatures, humidity, wind speed and precipitation forecasts for all the cities in the game. Better rethink that passing attack if high winds are in the forecast!

League Size Customization

The ability to use multiple customized league sizes for both single player and multiplayer games.

Expansive Play Database

Build your playbooks from a database of over unique 500 offensive and defensive plays.

College Player Statistics

Don't take the media's word for it on who the best prospects are - check out the stats for yourself! Each month during the season, college player's statistics are updated and you can see who's stock is rising or falling.

Fantasy Draft

Start the league with a full fantasy draft for both single and multiplayer leagues.

In summary, these additions include things like RFA tenders, the ability to match an RFA offer, a complex incentive process in contracts including both LTBE and non-LTBE incentives and voidables, a much more indepth PBP process and many more plays than we had planned on, a fantasy draft to start the single player game and multiplayer game, allowing the gamer the option of either starting in week 1 of the season or the start of the offseason, a post-draft grading process by the .400 Sports Network that scores each team on how they did, storing career numbers for retired players that qualify, storing the top 10 for each player record for both teams and the league as a whole (not just the top guy), complex owner profiles that restrict spending and/or decisions, a .400 mock draft, and the addition of "Sid" the draft guru who gives comments on every pick made in the draft. We also have a few others that we are saving for release.

Thanks again for all of the feedback that you guys have given us on this game. We couldn't have done it without this community and look forward to releasing an outstanding football game!


Arlie Rahn, Joe Stallings & the entire .400 Software Studios team

[GoldenEagle]

I think this takes pressure off everyone.

[VPI97]

Those features weren't in the original TPF design?

Egads, that would have been a horrible game.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by VPI97
Those features weren't in the original TPF design?

Egads, that would have been a horrible game.

Some were. Some weren't.

[TLK]

To me this is a very High Fidelity type situation.....

I think I'll stick with old reliable......

[Joe Stallings]

Egads, that would have been a horrible game.

Some of the features here were already in the game, but we have decided to enhance them to a level higher than we had planned based on user feedback.

It's hard for Arlie and myself to think up every great football feature on our own in design. So, we put a lot of stock into what you guys said on our forums over the past few months and tried to get as many as the good ideas in the game as possible.

Joe

[Honolulu_Blue]

I like the new features, particularly the RFA portion, definitely something that is lacking from all other football sims out there. The budget looks good too. I am still on board.

[Ksyrup]

Joe:

By chance, does this announcement have anything to do with a petition to the World Time Management Council to officially increase the number of hours in a day? I think that might be beneficial to all!

[JAG]

Pretty nice list. I especially liked:

Annual Budget

Each season, you have to allocate funds between college, pro and advance scouting, building upgrades, training, marketing and advertising, and of course, salaries and bonuses. How much you have to spend depends on what kind of owner you are working for.

JAG

[Subby]

Originally posted by Joe Stallings
Yea, 70-man preseason rosters, tender offers for RFA, likely-to-be-earned incentive bonuses, player and team morale modelling, draft scouting reports and media analysis of every pick in the draft, player photos for every fictional player, weekly practice schedules...those are in every football game I've ever played.

You just described Donkey Kong Football for the Atari 2600.

[Ksyrup]

Originally posted by JAG
Pretty nice list. I especially liked:

Annual Budget

Each season, you have to allocate funds between college, pro and advance scouting, building upgrades, training, marketing and advertising, and of course, salaries and bonuses. How much you have to spend depends on what kind of owner you are working for.

JAG

Isn't that similar to what PureSim does? Maybe a little bit of influence from the new guy?

[cthomer5000]

Shifting release date = never a good sign (for anything)

[spleen1015]

Originally posted by cthomer5000
Shifting release date = never a good sign (for anything)

Have you ever played a game made by Blizzard?

[Daimyo]

Originally posted by Subby
You just described Donkey Kong Football for the Atari 2600.

That series didn't really do anything for me until players started thanking Jesus after big wins in Donkey Kong Football 1986.

[mckerney]

Originally posted by spleen1015
Have you ever played a game made by Blizzard?

Remember Diakatana?

[cthomer5000]

Originally posted by spleen1015
Have you ever played a game made by Blizzard?

No, but I've played many other games, listened to many other albums, and seen many movies that were results of pushed-back release dates. 90% of the time, it signals overall trouble.

Remember, .400 was initially considering releasing this game at this time last year, and changed their minds in the summer of 2002. To me, if they thought they could pound out this game then, to not have it ready for the release date they then set in 2003 is worth noting.

I want this game to be the greatest thing ever, but flags are going up for me. These things are only reinforcing my "wait and see" approach.

[vulcan]

Originally posted by cthomer5000
Shifting release date = never a good sign (for anything)

While I agree with this statement, you have to admit that .400SS is willing and *are* listening to the community. These features (added or not) are awesome. The two that get me are these;

"Storing Career stats for retired players

TPF will store career stats for retired players that qualify a minimum standard for seasons and game played.

Team and League Records

The top 10 for each record will be stored for each team and the league as a whole."

Retired player stats! I love that.

[cthomer5000]

Please don't mistake me as knocking the game or .400 Studios in any way. I was on their boards in force when brainstorming sessions were going on for the creation of the game, and submitting about a billion ideas.

I want this game to be great, I'm just seeing signs that perhaps we should temper our incredible enthusiasm for the release.

And there is no disputing .400's response to the community of players. They really listen, and act quickly upon player input.

[vulcan]

I hear ya cthomer5000. I'm with you about the fact that we should temper our enthusiasm for the release because even with all these great (and I mean great) features, the sim engine needs to be strong.

[Mel Kiper's Hair]

Let me get this straight:

The plan for TPF was to allow you to buy new buildings to give your team bonuses in certain attributes...

.. but it wouldn't store league records, retired player stats, or show you college stats?

Do these guys know anything about football?

[FBPro]

Originally posted by cthomer5000
Shifting release date = never a good sign (for anything)

I would disagree, rather have a complete project than a rushed, incomplete one. It's more like shifting the release date isn't the best but lots of things are worse.

[Ksyrup]

Oh, hell. Mel's Hair is back.

[cuervo72]

Originally posted by Ksyrup
Oh, hell. Mel's Hair is back.

I frequently see Mel's Hair hanging around, it just doesn't post much.

[Joe Stallings]

Originally posted by Mel Kiper's Hair
Let me get this straight:

The plan for TPF was to allow you to buy new buildings to give your team bonuses in certain attributes...

.. but it wouldn't store league records, retired player stats, or show you college stats?

Do these guys know anything about football?

The original plan was to only show the top leader for each stat for teams, have limited retired stats (ie, Hall of Fame and All-Star calibur players) and have only the final stats for college players.

Based on feedback, we changed to do a top 10 for all team and league records (instead of just the top guy), store retired stats for most players that play in the game and do a college stat update every month during the season.

So, these feature were already in the game, we just wanted to enhance them based on user feedback.

[Dutch]

Jim makes football games.

400 Studios makes all kinds of sports games.

Guess who I believe makes the better football games? And I truly believe that TPF will be like TDCB, it's beauty and the beast at 400 studios. They are basically like the prom queen of sports sims....pretty, but not much quality under the hood.

But I am not against being pleasantly surprised!

[Ksyrup]

Will we be able to change the "Sid" graphic to Mel Kiper's Hair?

[VPI97]

Originally posted by Joe Stallings
Reasonable explanation

My apologies for the initial comment I made way back at the top of the thread, but like other have assumed, I thought that listing those features under a description of "new" meants that none of those things were in the original plans for TPF. Maybe you should consider re-wording your announcement. I read it as these things being slapped in at the last moment due to beta testing response....not as features that were enhanced.

[Samdari]

Originally posted by mckerney

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by spleen1015
Have you ever played a game made by Blizzard?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Remember Diakatana?

Daikatana was created by Ion Storm, a disaster of a studio. Blizzard has never put out anything but a game of the year quality game, with Warcraft III and Diablo II, both huge sellers, considered their 'worst' games. They are famous for both the unparalleled quality of their games, and for being among the worst in the industry at making the original release date.

[mckerney]

Originally posted by Samdari
Daikatana was created by Ion Storm, a disaster of a studio. Blizzard has never put out anything but a game of the year quality game, with Warcraft III and Diablo II, both huge sellers, considered their 'worst' games. They are famous for both the unparalleled quality of their games, and for being among the worst in the industry at making the original release date.

Yes, Ion Storm and Blizzard are probably at the two extreme ends of the spectrum, and I'd say that .400 is probably somewhere in the middle of what happens with delayed games, and I'd say that delays usually haven't been a good thing.

[Samdari]

Originally posted by mckerney
Yes, Ion Storm and Blizzard are probably at the two extreme ends of the spectrum, and I'd say that .400 is probably somewhere in the middle of what happens with delayed games, and I'd say that delays usually haven't been a good thing.

Ooh, sorry, I read your post as saying Daikatana was a bad blizzard game. You were posting it as an example of a bad delayed game. My mistake.

I would propose the theory that you cannot really make a quality judgement based on a delay. I would guestimate that 80% of games do not make the first announced release date.

[mckerney]

Originally posted by Samdari
Ooh, sorry, I read your post as saying Daikatana was a bad blizzard game. You were posting it as an example of a bad delayed game. My mistake.

I would propose the theory that you cannot really make a quality judgement based on a delay. I would guestimate that 80% of games do not make the first announced release date.

Sorry, I was intending to provide a counter example though in looking at my post I can see how you could read it that was and probably should have written more.

[GrantDawg]

Guys, I'm on the beta team, and the delay is a good thing. The game is great, but so deep it needs extra time of testing. This will assure a much higher quality product going out the door, with much greater depth. Arlie and Joe have done a fantastic job on this game. They have been working 18+ hour days on this project, and the amount of detail shows. It has so much that can draw you into the gameplay. This is the most immersive football game I have seen.

Don't take this delay as a bad sign, because I can assure you it is far from. This game is going to be the best first effort ever in this industry.

[rexallllsc]

Originally posted by GrantDawg
Guys, I'm on the beta team, and the delay is a good thing. The game is great, but so deep it needs extra time of testing. This will assure a much higher quality product going out the door, with much greater depth. Arlie and Joe have done a fantastic job on this game. They have been working 18+ hour days on this project, and the amount of detail shows. It has so much that can draw you into the gameplay. This is the most immersive football game I have seen.

Don't take this delay as a bad sign, because I can assure you it is far from. This game is going to be the best first effort ever in this industry.

[FrogMan]

Originally posted by GrantDawg
Guys, I'm on the beta team, and the delay is a good thing. The game is great, but so deep it needs extra time of testing. This will assure a much higher quality product going out the door, with much greater depth. Arlie and Joe have done a fantastic job on this game. They have been working 18+ hour days on this project, and the amount of detail shows. It has so much that can draw you into the gameplay. This is the most immersive football game I have seen.

Don't take this delay as a bad sign, because I can assure you it is far from. This game is going to be the best first effort ever in this industry.

This is some great news, very positive indeed. Thanks GD!

FM

[markprior22]

Originally posted by Dutch
Jim makes football games.

400 Studios makes all kinds of sports games.

Guess who I believe makes the better football games? And I truly believe that TPF will be like TDCB, it's beauty and the beast at 400 studios. They are basically like the prom queen of sports sims....pretty, but not much quality under the hood.

But I am not against being pleasantly surprised!

I am also on the TPF beta team and am more excited about TPF than any other game I can remember. I don't have a problem with people being loyal to one company or another (I will probably buy FOF also because I'm a sports text sim addict) but it does kind of irk me that comments such as this are made about things that are not even available yet.

I do know what you are saying but I think you will be surprised when you see that you can get a very nice looking product that also plays well. I have no doubt that the sim engine will be excellent when the game is released.

I think you'll like this pretty girl who also happens to be smart.

[johnnyshaka]

Originally posted by markprior22
I think you'll like this pretty girl who also happens to be smart.

Why...so she won't fall for my lame ass lines???

Forget that...I'll stick with the pretty...pretty dumb girls!!!!

[vulcan]

GrantDog & markprior22, I respect that you guys are on the Beta team. I would like to ask you a question about the stats in the game (assuming that you are able to answer this). How deep is the statistcal tracking? Here is what Joe has said;


The original plan was to only show the top leader for each stat for teams, have limited retired stats (ie, Hall of Fame and All-Star calibur players) and have only the final stats for college players.

Based on feedback, we changed to do a top 10 for all team and league records (instead of just the top guy), store retired stats for most players that play in the game and do a college stat update every month during the season.

So, these feature were already in the game, we just wanted to enhance them based on user feedback."

My questions;

1)- Will we have access to see all the stats from every team during the season.

2)-The stats that we see, are they limited to just seeing the "top 10" or does the "top 10" just apply for team/league records. I mean, during season play, are all the stats accessable form every player and team?

3)- How deep is the statistcal tracking?

Thanks

[GrantDawg]

Originally posted by vulcan
GrantDog & markprior22, I respect that you guys are on the Beta team. I would like to ask you a question about the stats in the game (assuming that you are able to answer this). How deep is the statistcal tracking? Here is what Joe has said;


The original plan was to only show the top leader for each stat for teams, have limited retired stats (ie, Hall of Fame and All-Star calibur players) and have only the final stats for college players.

Based on feedback, we changed to do a top 10 for all team and league records (instead of just the top guy), store retired stats for most players that play in the game and do a college stat update every month during the season.

So, these feature were already in the game, we just wanted to enhance them based on user feedback."

My questions;

1)- Will we have access to see all the stats from every team during the season.

2)-The stats that we see, are they limited to just seeing the "top 10" or does the "top 10" just apply for team/league records. I mean, during season play, are all the stats accessable form every player and team?

3)- How deep is the statistcal tracking?

Thanks

In truth, I don't know how much direct information we can give. We are under NDA's. We have been given permission to reveal we are on the beta team, and our general impressions. There are a couple of beta’s that are actually employed by .400 that can give a more comprehensive answer to questions.

But given what has already been revealed, yes you can see the stats for everyone during the season. The stat keeping is deep (I’m not going into too much detail there).

[Ksyrup]

Can you show us by using your hands how deep it is? Is it this deep, or t h i s deep?

[GrantDawg]

Originally posted by Ksyrup
Can you show us by using your hands how deep it is? Is it this deep, or t h i s deep?

It's as deep as my love for you, big guy.

[Ksyrup]

Originally posted by GrantDawg
It's as deep as my love for you, big guy.

(That's not a at how much you love me, cause I already know that, but for how deep the stats are).

[mckerney]

Originally posted by GrantDawg
It's as deep as my love for you, big guy.

So the game's all a big sham?

[Dutch]

but it does kind of irk me that comments such as this are made about things that are not even available yet.

I buy games for the enjoyment factor. I would be glad to buy both games, and I probably will buy both not long after release, but I suspect I will dedicate most of my playing time to FOF2004 over TPF. Based on historical data.

Again, I'm all in favor of being pleasantly surprised.

[cooleyvol]

Dutch,
I'm confident in saying that you will be pleasantly surprised.

The stat tracking deeper than I'm used to seeing in OOTP. (Granted, the only text sim I play is OOTP)

You do see stats for every player during the season if you want to and after testing the new offseason, I am even more confident that this game will be a hit straight out of the box.

The draft makes you feel like you're watching it on ESPN.

I've never played FOF, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I can't believe all the stats/information that's at your fingertips while playing this game.

All the luck in the world to Jim and FOF2004, but you guys are depriving yourselves if you don't try TPF as well.

PS: Hi Subby!

[vulcan]

Thank Cooleyvol.

[Karim]

GrantDawg's and markprior22's reassurance is nice to see. TPF has the potential to be great, no doubt.

[crushem]

This sounds really promising.

[SFL Cat]

I wouldn't blame anyone for taking a "wait-and-see" approach on any game that has its release date pushed back. But I think the news from some of the BTs is VERY encouraging.

[crushem]

I have been on their site and from what I have heard....I guess the developers (joe & Arlie) are going to have a chat but there is not date yet given.

[daedalus]

I understand the sentiment about delay being bad. But given Arles' past games and the amount of work he's put the work into making the game good, it may not necessarily be a bad thing. Also, Joe and Arles know that, after the last release, they are on thin ice, which may be an even bigger explanation for the delay.

I'd rather them be willing to bite the bullet and be honest than just haphazardly release a poor game. And I wish the team much luck.