[Icy]

Mixed feelings, in one hand i'm very happy about Jim getting back at it, excited about the new AI but besides that... a bit disappointed.

The customization part, i won't really miss it, maybe i'm too used to FM lack of customization, but i want to play the real NFL in a football game and the real MLB or NBA in baseball or basketball sims. I have tried to create fictional universes in OOTP, expended tons of time on custom unis, the perfect team names and alignment, etc and end losing interest an not able to feel immersed.

The UI part, it's already discussed every year for a while, and nobody changes it's opinion including Jim. As for it being expensive... well it depends... when i was heavily into modding games for fun, i did the designs for Wolverine studios games like Draft Day Sports Basketball, Draft Day Sports College Basketball, Music Wars and a Puresim version that never saw the light, as well as some screens mockups/ideas for OOTP like the deep chart/lineups one that was finally adopted, i don't think they were that bad for a non professional designer, and my "cost" per game was like a weekend at a hotel with my family, as i did it for fun and to learn more about design tricks, etc when i was into that.

If you are looking at professional UI designers with a big name, then yes, it's expensive, but if you recruit the right student, or specially game modder or fans, you will get it for almost nothing. There are plenty of game mods with same or even better graphics than professionally designed games, heck even some of the FM skins made by fans are way better than the shipped one, and they do it just for fun or personal ego of having their name printed in the game or other fans saying "thanks, you rock!"

I think Jim is too close minded about hiring others or just having anybody else putting it's hand over his projects in general (maybe i'm wrong and just a feeling I have based in his comments after years here or maybe it was because his bad experience at EA some years ago) and not aware of what is going on right now in the games industry, see iphone/android games/apps by indie developers with zero money taking over big companies like EA that is into big problems now in the mobile games biz because they are too big and too rigid in that fast changing world. The one man show approach is no longer an excuse but an advantage in some cases if you play it well.

Besides the AI improvements, one of the things i would have really liked is personalities in coaches/gm's, so every coach would have their preferred system, and every team would feel different, both on and off the field, instead of all them analyzing stats and acting exactly the same "perfect" and robotized way.

The scouts disappearing the coaches draft looks more of a way to make things simpler for MP at the sacrifice of realism and SP experience.

Overall i see this as a base and code cleaning to be able to release better games in the future, and maybe too influenced by some old hardcore players like Ben and others (no offense for name calling i hope, not saying anything bad) that share same vision about FOF and text sims in general than Jim, and that are more into studding how the game engine works at the cost of immersion, that want total stats accuracy without any "distraction" around it, and also about the competitive MP environment than about roleplaying being a coach/gm in SP that other text sim fans prefer (like me, that is why i always come back to FM). That is why i never buy text sims that are supper accurate match replaying machines but that have no career mode. I don't see those as "games".

I love stats accuracy as much as every sports nut, but once that side is covered, I want to feel i'm a coach/gm, and realism in a text sim for me includes also feeling and dealing with part of the stuff that a real coach/gm does, not only the stats part.

Imho the developer that found a nice mix for his resources as he is also an one man show (besides GDS publishing) is HeavyReign with his FBCB and FBB games.

Anyway i was focusing too much on the negatives, and we have not seen anything yet, as i said, i'm happy to see a top game developer back at doing what he does great, hope this will work well for him and we will have new versions every year and even other games like tcy 2 or even a game that integrates both in one for a full football universe.