USA sport text sims made my loved FM boring for me!

[Icy]

First at all i'm sorry for this long post, but i needed to rant in public, now i feel better, this is the power of FOFC

After years loving CM I never thought my mind could change as much, but i must admit it did.

My first text sims experiences come from Fooball Manager (the real fist one)when i was 9 years old, played it on my Spectrum computer on a black and white TV. Some years later i discovered CM Italia (it was 1994 or so) and felt in love, playing it hours and hours. Then i played all the versions (pirated ones i must admit as there werent available in Spain on that years until 97-98 that was the first one i bought). This love had it's climax on CM01-02. After that i was loosing part of my love with CM, but it was still my only text sim.

Then 2 years ago i started to research about other text sims on the net, and found FOFC. Here i started to learn about all the text sims available and bought or played for trial mostly of them. This grew also my love ad knowledge about USA sports like football, hockey, basketball and baseball.

At first, i found all text sims so simple compared to CM, specially because no player personalities and interactions with you as GM. All players looked like only stats for me. First time i saw FOF i thought, what a joke of game, just an excell spredsheat with some numbers on it...but of course my mind changed. I purchased TCY and FOF2k4 and i loved them to death. Then bought FBB, all the 400ss games (TPB, TPF), played the free EHM version (and joined my first online league with it), bought OOTP, ITP, etc etc.

Now after two years, i bought again the new FM and....i can't get into it!
Damn i feel bad as i read what i just wrote but i must admit it and i think this are the main reasons:

- The sport: i have been a soccer fan since i was born as 99% of Spanish. But i must admit that latelly i'm more interested by football, basketball or baseball. Soccer is starting to be boring for me after 29 years loving it.
I love the draft on USA sports as it's a great way to balance teams. In soccer all is about the club with more money to sign the best players. If you see a new young good player, in a few years he will sit on the bench of Real Madrid or Barcelona wasting his career (See M.Owen this year).

- College sports sims: At first i didn't like them as i hated to find good players, develop them and see them leave, but now i love the concept and the challenege to have competitive teams for years.

- CM player ratings: The amount of ratings on CM are growing with each new version, without a clear explanation of how they convert on player perfomances, so at the end i feel (even being wrong) that some of them are just cosmetics. Also with as many ratings for each player, it's harder to tell the differences betwen average players.

- Training: It's becoming more and more complicated, at first i loved the idea, but after seing it, i don't like it a lot. Again we are lost about what to do to improve players as we don't know what affects what and on which amount.

I could give more examples but i'm already writting too much so i go directly to the main issue and conclussion:

- Game speed!! I'm not talking about processing time as i have a fast computer. In FM it take ages to advance to create dynasties, if you enjoy coaching each game or if you can play 8 hours per day it's ok, but if you enjoy searching for young players, developing them and coaching them to be your top stars, it take weeks and weks of real time playing. I can advance some years of FOF2k4 in a week while i need a month to advance one CM year. I played yesterday like 8 hours of FM and only managed to play the preseason so i can't get inmersed into the dynasty at this speed. Im an adult now (29 years), own my own online bussines and i'm just married so i can't play 12 hours per day now as when i was at school or university (don't ask why i didn't finish my university studies playing this amount of hours).
I noticed this same problem on the sigames EHM compared to the olf freeware EHM.

I won't give up as easily, will keep trying FM, but right now I hate to admit it, but FM is not my favourite game anymore, FOF, TCY and now TPB2k5 are the games that take my time (also thinking on buying FBCB). I can play a ful season in less than a week, i can develop the young guys from the drafts, i can write a long story managing any team through years, i can play them online with other guys, etc etc. If only any of this games could add player personalities i wouldn't miss anything from CM.

[Marc Vaughan]

'tis fair enough - if you have more of a fondness for other sports I can see why those games grab you more than FM.

With the speed thing incidentally, if you have a hyper-threaded processor ensure its enabled as FM supports HT/multi-processor systems fully which speeds up the game a lot.

Hope this helps,

Marc
PS. Markus & SI are working on OOTP:FE (working title) which will hopefully be your perfect game

[Icy]

Thanks Marc, i'l try the HT trick today.
You're right that my main problem could be that i'm tired of football (ours )
Of course i don't mean that FM is boring, and this new version is the best so far. I wish i had 12 hours per day to play it and i'm sure i would love it as i did before, but having less time, i find other sport sims faster to build a dynasty and get inmersed with. And yes, i'll follow OOTP:FM development

[Cringer]

don't feel too bad Icy, it's just part of our imperialistic plan to conquer the world. First invade Iraq, second make people reject soccer games, then soccer in general....

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

PS. Markus & SI are working on OOTP:FE

Out of the Park: ?Final Edition?

[Marc Vaughan]

"Franchise Edition" - was the working title for NHL EHM and its got sort of slapped onto OOTP for no particular reason ...

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Cringer

don't feel too bad Icy, it's just part of our imperialistic plan to conquer the world. First invade Iraq, second make people reject soccer games, then soccer in general....

Heh Soccer is Englands latest attempt to invade America, having lost the last war with you lot we decided to infiltrate via. culture ... soon you'll all be obsessed with Soccer and ready for our next stage .... Fish and Chips (ala Fish and French Fries, I actually found an 'English' restaurant in Boston around 10 years which served Fish and Chips/Crisps ).

[The_herd]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Heh Soccer is Englands latest attempt to invade America, having lost the last war with you lot we decided to infiltrate via. culture ...

This plan is going as well as the war went.

[TroyF]

The one part I'll agree with is the season thing. FOF has that "One more season tonight. . ." feel where CM has the "one more game" type feel. I can play 10 seasons of FOF in the time it takes me to play 1/2 a season in CM. As much as I love CM, sometimes I want to just rip through 20 seasons in a night and that's just not possible with CM.

Still, CM (I know, it's now FM, but I don't have that version yet) is the king of the text based sim.

[Zippo]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

"Franchise Edition" - was the working title for NHL EHM and its got sort of slapped onto OOTP for no particular reason ...

why don't you just call it OOTP7?

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Heh Soccer is Englands latest attempt to invade America, having lost the last war with you lot we decided to infiltrate via. culture ... soon you'll all be obsessed with Soccer and ready for our next stage .... Fish and Chips (ala Fish and French Fries, I actually found an 'English' restaurant in Boston around 10 years which served Fish and Chips/Crisps ).

In which phase will you introduce kidney pies?

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Zippo

why don't you just call it OOTP7?

I like to call it OOTP:SI

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by The_herd

This plan is going as well as the war went.

Ahhhh but thats what we want you to think ... its a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel

PS. If it fails we've always got the English stiff upper lip to fall back on

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

.... Fish and Chips (ala Fish and French Fries, I actually found an 'English' restaurant in Boston around 10 years which served Fish and Chips/Crisps ).

http://www.arthurtreachers.com/about-at.htm

[korme]

ouch, the first reply is by the FOUNDER of the freakin game.

[GoldenEagle]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

With the speed thing incidentally, if you have a hyper-threaded processor ensure its enabled as FM supports HT/multi-processor systems fully which speeds up the game a lot.

Rushes out to buy a hyper thread processor.

[finkenst]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

http://www.arthurtreachers.com/about-at.htm

i remember AT from when they had stores in Dayton, Ohio, here the TCBY on North Main is now (For Butter's reference)