I think I've had my fill of sports text sims

[MJ4H]

Here's how I know I've burned out on them: I now find myself playing some of these games for the sole purpose of justifying the money I spent on them.

I sort of hope someone else has had that feeling and can identify with it. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm the only one here, though. I think the double whammy of the Super League contributed a lot to this (before it died, there was also a restart, meaning twice I put a lot of effort into learning my team and planning and scouting and scouring free agent lists only to have it ruined).

This got me to thinking, wait a minute, this isn't supposed to feel like work. Then I go over to a friend's house on New Years Day and after the bowl game is over we play 4 player Gamecube Mario Kart for like 6 hours and I had a ball.

Maybe I'm just a kid and immature, but that is tons more fun to me these days. This process has also been what has led me to want a Wii. The promise of just having fun playing games again. I certainly am not interested in what in my mind doesn't amount to much more than a hardware upgrade to my PS2 console. I hardly play that thing as it is. I find myself wishing I had gotten a Gamecube instead a LOT.

So, what I'm getting at is I think I'm going to just bite the bullet and stop playing (or more accuratey forcing myself to play) text sims for awhile. This may even extend to sports games in general (I certainly can't stand EA Sports games and the more general genre will encompass things like FM which is not strictly a text sim, too).

I am just not having fun.

Anyone else?

[Ksyrup]

I felt this way for the past several years, actually, although I think I was burned out on computer games in general, as the only game I really played on a consistent basis was Civ IV. I didn't even buy either of the baseball sims last year, which is a first for me. However, I've been re-energized by FOF2K7 and have played it more so far than TCY and 2K4 combined. And ironically, I've also just bought my first console since the early 90s. I'm having trouble finding time for them both, but I'm wanting to play both. Perhaps your interest will come back after a period of time.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Anyone else?

Yes & no.

I've been transitioning back toward tabletop gaming for quite a while now, but even there, I often find myself in the position of wrestling with stuff I "have" to do instead of just playing the games.

Now I admit to being downright anal about tracking certain stats & info with games, I did that extensively even as a kid playing far less detailed games so it's no surprise that I do it now too (lots easier with computers, spreadsheets, etc). But a lot of projects get bogged down by feeling more like work than play.

In some ways, or maybe better said as in some cases, I think the amount of interactivity we have today with gaming vs years past contributes to this sort of thing. Case in point is a project I'm wrapping up with SAT. I like sharing the results of those seasons and I enjoy the sidetracks that various comments & questions usually produce when people respond to my posted results ... but at the same time, posting them becomes more of a chore than a joy. It may be self-induced pressure to keep the recaps & writeups to a certain standard, but it's pressure nonetheless. And that does sort of defeat a lot of the purpose for playing the games, which ostensibly is having fun.

[molson]

I'm heading this way. I think programmers have lost their way, and for the most part, more features = more work and tedium. I'd love for someone to release a game like FBCB, and focus all improvements and patches on better AI and immersion, and leave out the bells and whistles that have no effect on the gaming experience beyond giving us 10,000 more things we have to do.

[st.cronin]

I'm heading this way. I think programmers have lost their way, and for the most part, more features = more work and tedium. I'd love for someone to release a game like FBCB, and focus all improvements and patches on better AI and immersion, and leave out the bells and whistles that have no effect on the gaming experience beyond giving us 10,000 more things we have to do.


amen, brother

[Subby]

MTJ4H - I think I read that you have been burned by a few MP experiences, but I can honestly say that the only thing that keeps me playing sports text sims anymore is MP. I try once in a while to fire up a SP career and I just don't have any juice for it.

I hope you find a really good fof MP league one day - it is a whole different world than SP and might make the game more enjoyable for you.

FWIW - table top games are the best for me from a family perspective - more socialization and interaction and even though we are still sitting on our asses, tabletop gaming is immensely more rewarding than video games...

[spleen1015]

I started having this same feeling around the time Oblivion came out on the 360. I've been playing the 360 heavily ever since. I've found all of the different games for that much more enjoyable than playing OOTP, except the one online league I am in. That is the only reason I even open OOTP now. Like Ksyrup, Civ IV is the only game I have played hours on end on the PC.

That may have changed this week though. I have been very good friend with the Gridiron Glory (BBCF) league commish for about 5 years now. I recently took a look at that league and decided to buy BBCF and join the league. I played BBCF for 5 hours Wednesday night and found all of that time very enjoyable. So, I may be switching back to playing more text based sims.

Of course, I as I sit here and write this, I know I have College Hoops 2K7, The Godfather, Gun, Viva Pinta, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and Double Agent that I want to play on the 360 and Lost Planet comes out next week.

Too many games and not enough time.

[Poli]

AE = having a ball with MP

Granted, I have no idea what I'm doing, but heck, I'm not sure I want to. :)

[st.cronin]

That may have changed this week though. I have been very good friend with the Gridiron Glory (BBCF) league commish for about 5 years now. I recently took a look at that league and decided to buy BBCF and join the league. I played BBCF for 5 hours Wednesday night and found all of that time very enjoyable. So, I may be switching back to playing more text based sims.



BBCF is an excellent game, to me it comes very close to the FBCB experience, and is pretty much exactly what I wanted TCY2 to be.

[wade moore]

MTJ4H - I think I read that you have been burned by a few MP experiences, but I can honestly say that the only thing that keeps me playing sports text sims anymore is MP. I try once in a while to fire up a SP career and I just don't have any juice for it.

I hope you find a really good fof MP league one day - it is a whole different world than SP and might make the game more enjoyable for you.

FWIW - table top games are the best for me from a family perspective - more socialization and interaction and even though we are still sitting on our asses, tabletop gaming is immensely more rewarding than video games...

This is me to a T. I've lost all interest in SP in general, but particularly with text sims. I don't think it's a flaw with the programming, I think it just has to do with my interests overall.

And at home, again, my fiance and I have had an increased interest in table top gaming as well.

[Ksyrup]

And at home, again, my fiance and I have had an increased interest in table top gaming as well.

I really hope for your sake that this is code for something else... :)

[bryce]

The key criteria for me on text sims is how much Excel work is required to maintain the game. I love Excel more than most, I will admit, so I'll almost always find an excuse to create at least one spreadsheet, no matter how simple, but even I have my limits - if I'm spending more time in the spreadsheets than the game (out of necessity), something's gotta give. I think this is the #1 reason I just never could get really into TCY. Just thinking about those recruiting spreadsheets gives me the heebie-jeebies.

[wade moore]

I really hope for your sake that this is code for something else... :)

Maybe I'm using the wrong term.. I really just mean board games...

But that too ;)...

[TroyF]

I've went through some lulls in the last couple of years, but there is always a game that snaps me back into it. I go from long periods of text based sims, to almost exclusive console action and back. Poker is in that mix as well. A few months of a ton of poker followed by a few months with just a handful of it. I doubt I'll ever get burnt out on text sims, especially as they continue to improve and newer games come out.

[Buccaneer]

Yes and no. I agree that I believe that most text sim developers have lost their ways (i.e., kitchen-sink design and cramming everything onto the screen as humanly possible - ugh). But there are two games that I can still play in SP (OOTP5 and FBCB) but here's the key - I set time aside during the year to play these. For OOTP5, it's usually April-June and a single 25 year historical career. For FBCB, I play that sometime during the cold months, usually two 10-seasons runs of my current 50+ yr career. The other games, like Civ and Gothic and such, I can pick those up at any given time.

I agree with wade and Subby in that MP is the to way play these kitchen-sink games since they offer a pace to allow time to look at everything. But the downside is that you have to keep thinking about them as they go on and on.

[vtbub]

I find that MP goes faster than my personal likes and now only play FBCB as others don't seem to "capture" what I like about sports between too much work or not feeling like the sport I'm trying to simulate.

I do find myself playing more computer versions of "Table-top" games as I really enjoy the replay aspect. I also like being ableto see how a result is obtained, something done extremely well playing Second and Ten and Pennant Fever Baseball.

[Marc Vaughan]

I'm heading this way. I think programmers have lost their way, and for the most part, more features = more work and tedium. I'd love for someone to release a game like FBCB, and focus all improvements and patches on better AI and immersion, and leave out the bells and whistles that have no effect on the gaming experience beyond giving us 10,000 more things we have to do.
This is one of the reasons why the FM PSP game came into being - I love FM PC .... but missed the 'quick blast' fun aspect of playing early CM's .... hence the nature of the FM PSP game (which has proven fairly popular so far and will hopefully continue to be as it evolves in the future).

[Buccaneer]

This is one of the reasons why the FM PSP game came into being - I love FM PC .... but missed the 'quick blast' fun aspect of playing early CM's .... hence the nature of the FM PSP game (which has proven fairly popular so far and will hopefully continue to be as it evolves in the future).

Can that be ported back to the PC?

[cuervo72]

MTJ4H - I think I read that you have been burned by a few MP experiences, but I can honestly say that the only thing that keeps me playing sports text sims anymore is MP. I try once in a while to fire up a SP career and I just don't have any juice for it.

I hope you find a really good fof MP league one day - it is a whole different world than SP and might make the game more enjoyable for you.

FWIW - table top games are the best for me from a family perspective - more socialization and interaction and even though we are still sitting on our asses, tabletop gaming is immensely more rewarding than video games...

Yep. I played one season of OOTP5, about five game-calendar days of OOTP7, a couple seasons of FOF4, no seasons of FOF2k4, and no seasons of FOF2k7 in single player. I try, but just don't have a strong enough will (same guy who simmed hundreds of games taking 45 minutes each of MicroLeague back in the day). Absolutely TONS of time devoted to MP endeavors though.

Only game recentlythat I did get hooked into was FBCB (well, that's over a year ago now, still need to get back to it) . And I'm not even a basketball fan.

Looking forward to when the kids are old enough to really play table-top games though.

[SuperGrover]

The key criteria for me on text sims is how much Excel work is required to maintain the game. I love Excel more than most, I will admit, so I'll almost always find an excuse to create at least one spreadsheet, no matter how simple, but even I have my limits - if I'm spending more time in the spreadsheets than the game (out of necessity), something's gotta give. I think this is the #1 reason I just never could get really into TCY. Just thinking about those recruiting spreadsheets gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Yep. I used TCY Helper to somewhat streamline the process (along with a couple lines of Java), but now that it no longer works on my new system, the game is simply unplayable. Add that to the spoon-fed vs. experimentation argument (who has time to experiment anyway?) and I find myself simply avoiding games these days. It's quite sad really because I used to enjoy them immensely.

[Brian Swartz]

I think programmers have lost their way, and for the most part, more features = more work and tedium. I'd love for someone to release a game like FBCB, and focus all improvements and patches on better AI and immersion, and leave out the bells and whistles that have no effect on the gaming experience beyond giving us 10,000 more things we have to do.

If anyone can, I'd like to hear this expanded upon: what kind of features are you referring to that are simply work and don't add to the gaming experience? Examples would be particularly useful. Thanks.

[spleen1015]

If anyone can, I'd like to hear this expanded upon: what kind of features are you referring to that are simply work and don't add to the gaming experience? Examples would be particularly useful. Thanks.

OOTP's coach and scout feature prior to 2K6 comes to mind, but thankfully, you can turn it off.

[fantastic flying froggies]

MTJ4H - I think I read that you have been burned by a few MP experiences, but I can honestly say that the only thing that keeps me playing sports text sims anymore is MP. I try once in a while to fire up a SP career and I just don't have any juice for it.

I hope you find a really good fof MP league one day - it is a whole different world than SP and might make the game more enjoyable for you.
...

This is me to a T. I've lost all interest in SP in general, but particularly with text sims. I don't think it's a flaw with the programming, I think it just has to do with my interests overall...

You can add me to that list as well.

I bought Puresim baseball but did not play it, just like the last version of OOTP I bought (6 I believe?), I have not played FOF2004 SP in ages and have barely played FOF2007 SP since it came out.

On the other hand, I am still playing Hattrick, am now in 4 MP FOF leagues (probably one too many, but that's another story) and am having a blast.

The interaction with other owners just takes the game to another level, a level so high that playing SP again afterwards just feels so stale...

[MikeVic]

I rarely play text sims at all now too.

There's so much work to play them now. I miss the times of Baseball Mogul (yes I really do), where I could sim through a few seasons a night. Didn't have to worry about drafting, righties vs lefties, etc... I tried that free OOTP that was made available some time ago, and just didn't have the energy to get started.

As for football games, since I took the time to learn FOF, I will probably still play that in the future... but the initial learning in any new text sim is what stops me from playing new games.

[st.cronin]

If anyone can, I'd like to hear this expanded upon: what kind of features are you referring to that are simply work and don't add to the gaming experience? Examples would be particularly useful. Thanks.

One thing that drives me nuts about games is how physically hard some of them are to play. I DO NOT WANT TO USE MY MOUSE TO PLAY A GAME. NOBODY DOES.

This is actually probably my biggest gripe with BBCF right now.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I do find myself playing more computer versions of "Table-top" games as I really enjoy the replay aspect. I also like being ableto see how a result is obtained, something done extremely well playing Second and Ten and Pennant Fever Baseball.

Just to add on to that thought, I've found that the versions of tabletop sports games that have Excel "helpers" created for them are among the best ones going. Those can really be space savers by eliminating FAC's, charts, and such while retaining the original design & flavor of the game.

[Toddzilla]

I had gotten into the habit of getting each of my favorite games as they were released - FOF, TCY, CIV, OOTP, SOM, etc - and would find myself immersed in a game for a few weeks until the new one came out. The old game gets shelved and I'd dive into the new one. Only occasionally would I go back to an old favorite, and then for only a few days.

Now, maybe I'm older and not so ADD, I buy a game and I play it until I get tired of it, and then I'll consider what to get next. Saves me some money, and I feel left out of the new game hype, but it makes the game that I'm currently involved in more enjoyable knowing that I'll be playing it as long as I want to, not until the next release of something else pops up.

FM 2007 has me by the balls, and I'm sorry Jim, but FOF2K7 is just gonna have wait...

[Brian Swartz]

One thing that drives me nuts about games is how physically hard some of them are to play. I DO NOT WANT TO USE MY MOUSE TO PLAY A GAME. NOBODY DOES.

Would your prefer a game that provided more hot-key support, or am I misunderstanding you and you mean something else entirely?

[st.cronin]

Would your prefer a game that provided more hot-key support, or am I misunderstanding you and you mean something else entirely?

Yes.

I want to be able to close out screens by hitting ENTER. I want to be able to select multiple players using shift and arrow keys and perform a single action on all of them (recruit, scout, etc.), instead of having to use my mouse to click on each one.

I want to use my keyboard, not my mouse.

[Buccaneer]

I rarely play text sims at all now too.

There's so much work to play them now. I miss the times of Baseball Mogul (yes I really do), where I could sim through a few seasons a night. Didn't have to worry about drafting, righties vs lefties, etc... I tried that free OOTP that was made available some time ago, and just didn't have the energy to get started.

As for football games, since I took the time to learn FOF, I will probably still play that in the future... but the initial learning in any new text sim is what stops me from playing new games.

I would have a similar view with a slightly different twist. Since I very much want to focus (or even micromanage) on the GM stuff, I don't even want to see the coach micromanagement stuff - but I expect it to be there under the hood. Playing OOTP5 the way I do I can safely ignore the R/L micromanagement and strategy screens (as well as turn off coaching) because the AI ignore those too. Yet it similuates a historical season very nicely, imo. FBCB takes it one step further in that it only gives you 5-6 settings, allowing you to comfortably play through a season concentrating on the results and recruiting. I still don't know if football (or even soccer) can permit that in a game. I've been trying to figure that one out for years.

[John Galt]

I DO NOT WANT TO USE MY MOUSE TO PLAY A GAME. NOBODY DOES.

Nobody does? I guess I'm nobody. My preference is to able to play a game entirely with a mouse and no keyboard at all (expect for the first time setting up the game). I'm annoyed when I actually have to type anything during a game.

[timmae]

Here's how I know I've burned out on them: I now find myself playing some of these games for the sole purpose of justifying the money I spent on them.

I take another stance entirely... if I spent money on a game that is just outright aweful, or if I have lost interest in the game, I throw it on the junk heap. If the fun isn't there it's not worth the time. That along with some word of mouth hopefully keeps the development bar up a bit higher..

[st.cronin]

Nobody does? I guess I'm nobody. My preference is to able to play a game entirely with a mouse and no keyboard at all (expect for the first time setting up the game). I'm annoyed when I actually have to type anything during a game.

I'm not talking about typing. I'm talking about doing things like using up and down arrow keys on a roster, and hitting return to open a player card. I'm talking about closing a player card by hitting return. I'm talking about FM - for example, using the space bar to advance.

But, if you prefer to use your mouse for those things then I guess I'm wrong.

[John Galt]

I'm not talking about typing. I'm talking about doing things like using up and down arrow keys on a roster, and hitting return to open a player card. I'm talking about closing a player card by hitting return. I'm talking about FM - for example, using the space bar to advance.

But, if you prefer to use your mouse for those things then I guess I'm wrong.

I'm saying I prefer to use the mouse whenever possible. Every time I have to reach for the keyboard, it is annoying. I play on my laptop. I have a trackball in one hand and lounge around on the couch. Typing or using the keyboard is a big pain.

[Bonegavel]

I go through this every so many years. 1997-2000 I played QuakeII/QuakeIII/Counter Strike daily for hours and hours. Then one day I burned out and went back to Civ games. That got old then I went to RTS games.

Now I'm in the smorgasbord mode where I mix it up during the week. But I almost never play single player. It has to be MP. I've done SP fof2k7 but only to get a handle on things for MP.

I hook up once in a while with a friend from work for Battlefield 2/Counter Strike every so often and I'm in a Civ 4 Pitboss game with folks from here.

This forum is a godsend for multiplayer with people you "know" and the fun level is catapulted into the mesosphere. I was in the SuperLeague that failed twice and I still had fun. I can't wait for the new one to start.

I would say if it wasn't for MP, most of my gaming would be limited to board games with the family and poker.

[st.cronin]

I'm saying I prefer to use the mouse whenever possible. Every time I have to reach for the keyboard, it is annoying. I play on my laptop. I have a trackball in one hand and lounge around on the couch. Typing or using the keyboard is a big pain.

My question for developers, then, is it so hard to enable both keyboard and mouse? I have played demos where my decision to NOT BUY was based on the fact that the game would have been too physically difficult for me to play.

[molson]

I still don't know if football (or even soccer) can permit that in a game. I've been trying to figure that one out for years.

I think it can. A football sim done "FBCB style" would completely abolish the hundreds of entries that are necessary for gameplanning, and simply allow us to tell the game what kind of offense/defense we want to run - i.e. include a dozen or more pre-set gameplans. In FOF07, we can either have 1 option (hit "recommend") or 1 billion options (entering numbers).

[theclassic]

I have been playing text sim sports games since 1999. The best have been FOF 2004, TCY, and FBCB. It seems as if console games have progressed more than text sim games. Back in 1999 I don't think the PS2 was even out yet. Other then FBPRO there were no in-depth graphic based games. And FBPRO lacked quite a few features that FOF has at that time. But over the years what graphic games have improved incredibly, while text sim games have been kind of stuck in the same rut. Graphic based games have dramatically improved their graphics, while also adding quite a few other features that use to be only exclusive to text sim games. On the other hand text sim games have been slow to add features and improvements over the same period of time. Is FOF 2 to FOF 2007 that much of a jump to NCAA 99 to NCAA 07?

[SteveMax58]

I have been playing text sim sports games since 1999. The best have been FOF 2004, TCY, and FBCB. It seems as if console games have progressed more than text sim games. Back in 1999 I don't think the PS2 was even out yet. Other then FBPRO there were no in-depth graphic based games. And FBPRO lacked quite a few features that FOF has at that time. But over the years what graphic games have improved incredibly, while text sim games have been kind of stuck in the same rut. Graphic based games have dramatically improved their graphics, while also adding quite a few other features that use to be only exclusive to text sim games. On the other hand text sim games have been slow to add features and improvements over the same period of time. Is FOF 2 to FOF 2007 that much of a jump to NCAA 99 to NCAA 07?

Quoted for truth.

I think the problem with burnout on text sims...namely of the sports genre...is that they have not made that crossover to the graphical representation side as of yet. Clearly most who play them are searching for something outside of the graphics of console games...but I think it's hard to ignore the fact that despite the hard work from some great developers, most text sims do not appear to have addressed the need for game presentation.

The more detail, options & realism you add to a text sim, the more time & dedication it takes to understand & get better at for most players. I think those who feel like it's too much work to play these games any more might just feel as if there is no reward for that "work"...or "where is the payoff?" After all...whether coaching or GM'ing, it is a simulation of real life person's "job"...but perhaps sometimes they miss the point of the "fan" aspect of playing.

The "payoff" for that "work" should be in the form of watching your team playout, realistically, what you have put into them, both personnel-wise & gameplanning. As much as everybody loves the realistic output results, add a minimum of ten fold to that if it is graphical...add 20 fold if it is graphical & models a "broadcast view", or what a fan at home might see of the sport.

[Surtt]

I'm heading this way. I think programmers have lost their way, and for the most part, more features = more work and tedium. I'd love for someone to release a game like FBCB, and focus all improvements and patches on better AI and immersion, and leave out the bells and whistles that have no effect on the gaming experience beyond giving us 10,000 more things we have to do.

Don't blame the programmers, blame the marketing people. In order to get people to buy the new version of the game, you need to have something to show them. It doesn't have to be better, just different.

[Alan T]

I'm saying I prefer to use the mouse whenever possible. Every time I have to reach for the keyboard, it is annoying. I play on my laptop. I have a trackball in one hand and lounge around on the couch. Typing or using the keyboard is a big pain.


I am actually the opposite. The times i get to play games usually is when travelling. I am usually in an airport, or on an airplane, or in a hotel room somewhere. I don't have room for a mouse, hate a trackball and the touchpad mouse starts to hurt my fingers after a while.

I would love for games to be keyboard only for ease of use reasons. When I want to play games with a mouse, I usually am at home at my other computer and tend to not play text sims as much there as I will play other games with my kids or my girlfriend.

[John Galt]

Don't blame the programmers, blame the marketing people. In order to get people to buy the new version of the game, you need to have something to show them. It doesn't have to be better, just different.

"Marketing people" seem like an odd group to blame in the text sim world. If there is one set of games where "marketing people" have little role, it would be with sports text sims.

[John Galt]

I am actually the opposite. The times i get to play games usually is when travelling. I am usually in an airport, or on an airplane, or in a hotel room somewhere. I don't have room for a mouse, hate a trackball and the touchpad mouse starts to hurt my fingers after a while.

I would love for games to be keyboard only for ease of use reasons. When I want to play games with a mouse, I usually am at home at my other computer and tend to not play text sims as much there as I will play other games with my kids or my girlfriend.

I assume a lot of people like the keyboard. I just was responding to st. cronin's odd claim that "nobody" wants to play with a mouse. I for one certainly do. But that's in large part due to the fact that I love the Logitech thumball mouse. Like you, I would never play with a touchpad or regular mouse for any length of time.

[Subby]

Is FOF 2 to FOF 2007 that much of a jump to NCAA 99 to NCAA 07?
This sentence isn't completely clear to me, but I think you are saying that graphics have improved at a more accelerated rate than text sims. I have no way of measuring this, but I would say FOF is about one hundred trillion times better now - from an engine and features standpoint - than FOF2 was...

I think it is easier to see visual improvements in console games - whereas under the hood stuff in text sims is probably more subtle.

[Warhammer]

I've hit the wall as far as computer games go too. The last two to three years I have been boardgaming pretty hard. Everything, all genres, auction, connection, rail games, war games, trading games, dexterity games, etc. Heck, the game I've been wanting since I first played it is arriving today as I get my Crokinole board today!

This is my board.
hxxp://www.hilinski.net/woodgames/crokinole_gallery/Heart_Throb.jpg

Yet, even with board games though there is a limit. I have been playing Euros pretty solid since I got back into gaming, but they are beginning to wear thin. Or at least my opponents are, because we wind up playing the same game time after time because no one wants to lose playing a new game.

The best part about playing games is playing them with someone you care about. Two of the games that have been getting quite a bit of play time on my computer is The Ur-Quan Masters and Generally because I can play both of them with my 5 year old son.

But again, he would rather sit down and play "Hey! That's My Fish!", "Blokus," "Formula De," or "Pitch Car" with me than anything on the computer.

[Subby]

I think the problem with burnout on text sims...namely of the sports genre...is that they have not made that crossover to the graphical representation side as of yet. Clearly most who play them are searching for something outside of the graphics of console games...but I think it's hard to ignore the fact that despite the hard work from some great developers, most text sims do not appear to have addressed the need for game presentation.
Completely agree with this and have for a long time. There's a reason several leagues use Madden graphics for player pics and screenshots - the visual presentation of the game is close to nil out of the box for text sims. And graphical presentation resonates with most people.

[spleen1015]

I don't think I prefer the mouse or the keyboard. For example, when I play Civ IV, I use the numpad to move my units, ending a turn, and exiting the city management screen, but I use the mouse for everything else. I guess it is just habit.

[Oilers9911]

Which games are you talking about? I always prefer computer versions of board games, but haven't spent much time seeing what's out there.


I urge you to check out TMG Basketball. It's a board game (individual player cards) but it has a companion computer program that tracks stats, takes care of the calculations and so on for you. I am really enjoying my 1984-85 NBA replay (only 8 teams) and the stats seem to be pretty bang on.

http://www.tmsportsgames.com/

[JonInMiddleGA]

Which games are you talking about? I always prefer computer versions of board games, but haven't spent much time seeing what's out there.

Oilers9911 already mentioned TMG Basketball, which I don't play personally but I know does have its share of fans.

Others that come to mind off the top of my head right now include ATR Basketball (from the same mind behind FAT/SAT Football), Pairadice Hockey, and I believe there's helpers for at least a couple of the old-line baseball games (i.e. Strat, APBA) although I've never gotten into those myself.

There are also helpers for some of the "quick-play" games, which generate results moreso than pbp, with the ones that come to mind being some of the Downey Games products and the golf & hockey products from Bruce Kish at Decisive Action Sports.

I'm sure a complete list is a lot longer than what I've happened to think of here. These "helpers" are often free, with some distributed only by their creators while others are distributed with the game or by the game developers upon request. Quite a few of these can be found in the download section at http://www.tabletop-sports.com
Others are mentioned in threads at the ever valuable forums at Delphi, including:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/tabletopsports/messages
and
http://forums.delphiforums.com/seasonspast/messages

[RedKingGold]

The girlfriend just bought me an XBox360 for Christmas, and I've been having a pretty fun time with it. I'll admit that it is nice to get away from the "thinking" of a text sim and just play a graphical game like NBA2K7. I just traded Allen Iverson in a three way for Rudy Gay, Randy Foye, a first round pick, and Eddie Jones (expiring hugh contract). Its not realistic at all and something I would complain about in a text sim, but I let it slide because it is a "console" game.

Also, I've found that I just don't play SP that much anymore. But I think that has more to do with the discovery of MP more than anything.

[Ksyrup]

I must be in a small minority for which MP holds no allure. I don't have an ounce of interest in playing against others. I guess the root of my interest in computer/console games is simply as a personal challenge that I share with no one. I have no interest in playing in a league with others, hooking my PS2 up to the internet, or even playing Guitar Hero with another person. Nada.

I play games as an escape from reality - and that reality includes all of you. :)

[Tim Tellean]

I think what we have is the inability to make everyone happy. From keyboard or mouse use to graphics or not and complex or not.
The market has a smattering of all of them and I don't believe its possible to make a game that would make all of us happy even the developers aren't happy when they're done. :)

[GMO]

I think it can. A football sim done "FBCB style" would completely abolish the hundreds of entries that are necessary for gameplanning, and simply allow us to tell the game what kind of offense/defense we want to run - i.e. include a dozen or more pre-set gameplans. In FOF07, we can either have 1 option (hit "recommend") or 1 billion options (entering numbers).

What is FBCB?

[GMO]

What is FBCB?


Fast Break College Basketball

[st.cronin]

Now that's an unusual dola.

[vtbub]

Above the Rim is incredible well done and the excel helper for Stroke Saver Golf is sweet.

[John Galt]

I must be in a small minority for which MP holds no allure. I don't have an ounce of interest in playing against others. I guess the root of my interest in computer/console games is simply as a personal challenge that I share with no one. I have no interest in playing in a league with others, hooking my PS2 up to the internet, or even playing Guitar Hero with another person. Nada.

I play games as an escape from reality - and that reality includes all of you. :)

You are not alone.

[timmae]

Now that's an unusual dola.

Dual personalities maybe?!? GMO and MOG... Maybe 6 (GOM, OMG, OGM, MGO)?? lol

[JonInMiddleGA]

You are not alone.

Quoted for truth.

(Hey, it's not often me & Galt get to quote each other that way, no sense wasting the opportunity)

[Ben E Lou]

I think it can. A football sim done "FBCB style" would completely abolish the hundreds of entries that are necessary for gameplanning, and simply allow us to tell the game what kind of offense/defense we want to run - i.e. include a dozen or more pre-set gameplans. In FOF07, we can either have 1 option (hit "recommend") or 1 billion options (entering numbers).I'm curious about something. As robust and dynamic as the FOF2K7 AI recommendations are, what's the need for preset gameplans? The Recommend AI is doing what appears to be a fantastic job of selecting a detailed gameplan for your team based on your strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of your opponents. For example, in my current career I've seen pass yards per completion for AI teams as low as 7.80, and as high as 14.10. That's a *huge* variance between throwing short and stretching the field. Why would you want to choose between, say, 6 preset offensive packages, when the AI is doing a good job along an infinite scale? I'm trying to see what the attraction of this feature is for the current version. I can understand it for FOF2K4, but I don't quite get it for this one.

[DaddyTorgo]

I'm curious about something. As robust and dynamic as the FOF2K7 AI recommendations are, what's the need for preset gameplans? The Recommend AI is doing what appears to be a fantastic job of selecting a detailed gameplan for your team based on your strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of your opponents. For example, in my current career I've seen pass yards per completion for AI teams as low as 7.80, and as high as 14.10. That's a *huge* variance between throwing short and stretching the field. Why would you want to choose between, say, 6 preset offensive packages, when the AI is doing a good job along an infinite scale? I'm trying to see what the attraction of this feature is for the current version. I can understand it for FOF2K4, but I don't quite get it for this one.

i have to agree. quite often, unless I have a stud I want to overemphasize I end up just acquiring the players and letting the AI control the gameplanning and I don't feel like I'm getting cheated out of anything.

[Ben E Lou]

i have to agree. quite often, unless I have a stud I want to overemphasize I end up just acquiring the players and letting the AI control the gameplanning and I don't feel like I'm getting cheated out of anything.I wasn't trying to make a point, though. Just trying to understand what the attraction is of Jim creating, say, a stock "West Coast Offense" game plan and then selecting and tweaking it, as opposed to letting the AI pick the exact short-passing offense that it thinks would work best for your personnel against your opponent's personnel, and tweaking that.

[Buccaneer]

I'm curious about something. As robust and dynamic as the FOF2K7 AI recommendations are, what's the need for preset gameplans? The Recommend AI is doing what appears to be a fantastic job of selecting a detailed gameplan for your team based on your strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of your opponents. For example, in my current career I've seen pass yards per completion for AI teams as low as 7.80, and as high as 14.10. That's a *huge* variance between throwing short and stretching the field. Why would you want to choose between, say, 6 preset offensive packages, when the AI is doing a good job along an infinite scale? I'm trying to see what the attraction of this feature is for the current version. I can understand it for FOF2K4, but I don't quite get it for this one.

I think molson was mixing metaphors. I wouldn't want to believe that one would take FOF and "simplify" it, for FOF is FOF and it does a great job in the type of game that it is. I am thinking along the line of a completely different FBCB-style football game that would not compete with FOF. Like you said, it doesn't make any sense to have a few preset gameplans when we know it can have an infinite amount. If a new FBCB-style football game would strongly emphasis roster management and the off-season, then it would need to have FOF under the hood. In other words, no gameplanning (preset or otherwise). You, as the gamer, would trust the engine to run each game accurately and believably, just like FBCB does. Knowing that each game is running accurately, then the season would be accurate and finally, you would have an accurate career - which for career-centric gamers like me, that is the goal. But I really don't know what kind of text-based game that would be.

Like I said, I am still not sure if football can fit into something like this since more than any other sport, a single football game is the most meaningful game played.

[Ben E Lou]

In other words, no gameplanning (preset or otherwise). You, as the gamer, would trust the engine to run each game accurately and believably, just like FBCB does. Knowing that each game is running accurately, then the season would be accurate and finally, you would have an accurate career - which for career-centric gamers like me, that is the goal. But I really don't know what kind of text-based game that would be.Huh???? First off, FBCB has gameplanning, pretty detailed gameplanning, as a matter of fact. You just (apparently) use the AI-recommended gameplans, just like I'm wondering about molson using for FOF. When I play FBCB, I have the same game plan I use every game of every season, and I simply recruit players with the skill set to run it, so I never have to tweak it. In a career without strict house rules, I do pretty much the same for FOF: develop an offensive and defensive system, and then continually focus on players in the draft and free agency with the skill sets to perform in my system. If you think a text sim of any sport in the current market, ESPECIALLY football, could sell without any gameplanning options, you're a bigger fool than I ever thought you were.

[JonInMiddleGA]

If you think a text sim of any sport in the current market, ESPECIALLY football, could sell without any gameplanning options, you're a bigger fool than I ever thought you were.

Umm ... SAT.

At least I think it would qualify, as you essentially select one of a handful of generic offensive & defensive options (run, draw, long pass, screen, play-action, etc vs run defense, all purpose, run blitz, prevent, etc) for each play.

[Ben E Lou]

Umm ... SAT.

At least I think it would qualify, as you essentially select one of a handful of generic offensive & defensive options (run, draw, long pass, screen, play-action, etc vs run defense, all purpose, run blitz, prevent, etc) for each play.Ah. I meant a long-term sim. SAT is a coaching sim, correct?

[st.cronin]

TCY works that way, pretty much.

[Buccaneer]

FBCB has:
Pace
Motion
3P shooting
Press
Trap
Double-teaming (front and back)
plus who the keys are.

That's not detailed gameplanning for basketball since half of those can be set to a "default". I have run many tests on this, from very low to very high prestige teams of different makeups and that is one of the weaknesses of the game (as stated by others as well) - some of those settings become irrelevant. You recruit for fundamentals, which the AI does not do very well, and you can make any team a winner without adjusting the "gameplans" much at all.

Besides, I don't what this has to do with football, I was thinking out loud since someone else brought this up, fool.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Ah. I meant a long-term sim. SAT is a coaching sim, correct?

Hmm, I suppose that's as good a description as any.

But it's not a "career mode" game (I'm thinking that what you meant by long-term sim), it's strictly single season (albeit with an assload of seasons available).

Still, I'd be just as happy with those options in a career/campaign mode game as I am with them in SAT.

[Ben E Lou]

I think it can. A football sim done "FBCB style" would completely abolish the hundreds of entries that are necessary for gameplanning, and simply allow us to tell the game what kind of offense/defense we want to run - i.e. include a dozen or more pre-set gameplans. In FOF07, we can either have 1 option (hit "recommend") or 1 billion options (entering numbers).

I am thinking along the line of a completely different FBCB-style football game that would not compete with FOF.

Besides, I don't what this has to do with football, I was thinking out loud since someone else brought this up, fool.

It has everything to do with football, because, uh, football is what was being discussed. Is that you, jb?

[Buccaneer]

What is SAT?

Here are two more hypothetical questions. How would a FOF-like game play on a PSP? Can someone build a winning solely by quick-simming to the trade deadline and then quick-simming to the playoffs? That's how some play baseball, basketball and hockey sims.

[Ben E Lou]

But it's not a "career mode" game (I'm thinking that what you meant by long-term sim), it's strictly single season (albeit with an assload of seasons available).Precisely. And yeah, I didn't take single-season games into account. They definitely can sell (although I'm not sure sell enough to support a family) without gameplanning percentages. I think I forgot about those on the day I put down Strat-O-Matic Computer Baseball and picked up Baseball Mogul. ;)

[JonInMiddleGA]

What is SAT?

Second-and-Ten, the Roogames translation of the First-and-Ten dice-and-chart football game.

It's been getting some love in a few threads here at FOFC of late.

[Buccaneer]

Besides, I don't what this has to do with football, I was thinking out loud since someone else brought this up, fool.


Boy, you missed the point on that one. By "this", I meant the idea of using a college baseketball or a baseball text-sim to model what an alternate football game could look like. In thinking that it could be apples and oranges make me believe that a football game model cannot be designed to play like a baseball or basketball game model.

[Ben E Lou]

Can someone build a winning solely by quick-simming to the trade deadline and then quick-simming to the playoffs? Yes. That's pretty much how I played out the first 15 or so seasons before I started running the team I took over in my FOF2K7 dynasty thread. By the time I was ready to take over a team, I was offered a position to take over any team in the league. I needed to spend a lot of time learning the draft, which I did, but I just was going quickly through the regular seasons.

[Buccaneer]

That's pretty much how I played out the first 15 or so seasons before I started running the team I took over in my FOF2K7 dynasty thread.

Understood, but would you (or anyone) continue to run the team in that manner, focusing on drafting, trading and free agency? What I am getting at is the perception that the game of football forces you more into paying more attention to each game, as oppose to the baseball or basketball game (at least as modeled by OOTP and FFB/FBCB).

[Mustang]

You are not alone.

I like playing against other people that I like.

Unfortunately...... you get stuck with too many assgoblins.

[Ben E Lou]

Boy, you missed the point on that one. By "this", I meant the idea of using a college baseketball or a baseball text-sim to model what an alternate football game could look like. In thinking that it could be apples and oranges make me believe that a football game model cannot be designed to play like a baseball or basketball game model.Actually, at first I was going to respond that they're apples and oranges, because having 30ish players who get substantial playing time is a wee bit different from 7 or 8, and because having players for an entire pro career is different from having them in college, but I gave you credit for being able to realize those things on your own, so I didn't spell it out.

If you're actually having to mull over whether college basketball verus pro football is an apples and oranges comparison, I guess I should have. {shrug}

[Ben E Lou]

Understood, but would you (or anyone) continue to run the team in that manner, focusing on drafting, trading and free agency? What I am getting at is the perception that the game of football forces you more into paying more attention to each game, as oppose to the baseball or basketball game (at least as modeled by OOTP and FFB/FBCB).Almost always, especially in this version. I look at each box score for, oh, 45 seconds in SP, then move to the next game. I don't change up my gameplans manually from week to week, or anything like that, and from what I've read, there are a number of people who play precisely that way.

[Buccaneer]

Then a football sim can't be done FBCB-style as molson said even with its very simplified gameplanning?

[Ben E Lou]

Then a football sim can't be done FBCB-style as molson said even with its very simplified gameplanning?CAN it be done, or would it sell? Two very different questions. Sure, it can be done, but given the existence of a career sim that allows detailed gameplanning and playcalling AND has solid free agency/draft, it's not a smart business decision to make a game that ignores detailed gameplanning.

EDIT: And I would contend that FBCB's gameplanning isn't simplified, for basketball. It certainly isn't "VERY" simplified for basketball.

[JonInMiddleGA]

... but given the existence of a career sim that allows detailed gameplanning and playcalling AND has solid free agency/draft, it's not a smart business decision to make a game that ignores detailed gameplanning.

But doesn't that really take us right back to the basic premise that started this thread 5 pages ago? That sports text sims may be approaching the point that they've gotten to be so grognardish that the fun has been sucked out of them?

If that's indeed the case or if we're at least heading in that direction, then it seems logical that games that stripped things back down to simpler form, including gameplanning options, would be almost inevitable.

[Buccaneer]

But doesn't that really take us right back to the basic premise that started this thread 5 pages ago? That sports text sims may be approaching the point that they've gotten to be so grognardish that the fun has been sucked out of them?

If that's indeed the case or if we're at least heading in that direction, then it seems logical that games that stripped things back down to simpler form, including gameplanning options, would be almost inevitable.

That's what I was trying to get at but I guess couldn't articulate well enough. Haven't we seen that in the wargames genre? I could try to make a parallel there but I'm done trying to make parallels.

[Ben E Lou]

But doesn't that really take us right back to the basic premise that started this thread 5 pages ago? That sports text sims may be approaching the point that they've gotten to be so grognardish that the fun has been sucked out of them?

If that's indeed the case or if we're at least heading in that direction, then it seems logical that games that stripped things back down to simpler form, including gameplanning options, would be almost inevitable.Nah. To me what's more inevitable is that the people too mentally lazy to ever get into the depths of games will be given options to streamline in the current game lines. FOF2K7 took big steps forward in streamlining, for those who are paying attention, and I'd imagine will take further steps forward in subsequent updates. I'm guessing that OOTP will learn from its mistakes and offer options for those who want to move through things quickly as well.

The tendency for new offerings in any sport is going to be to match up in feature sets with what's already out there. Otherwise, their feature list is going to get slammed and ridiculed before the game is even released.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Nah. To me what's more inevitable is that the people too mentally lazy to ever get into the depths of games

Ooh. Arrogant much?

I don't think it's always "mental laziness" as much as "I really just don't give that big a fuck", or going back to the original premise of the thread "I just don't give that big a fuck anymore". There's just a point of diminishing returns, where the additional time investment doesn't provide an adequate return in entertainment/enjoyment.

Football isn't the best example for me, as it simply isn't my favorite sport.
But even with sports I enjoy more, I'm finding that there are limits there to how much is "enough". Finding that balance isn't easy, especially since developers are a moving target with every consumer. Pro wrestling is a great example of that right now, with games that range from outcomes only to virtually move by move (including one that takes ring positioning into account). Which one I want to play can vary with my mood and my available time for a gaming session, but the ones toward the upper end of the middle range of detail seem to be providing the best balance of time investment vs enjoyment.

I ran into the same thing when designing a dice-and-chart PBR game (never completed the beta testing, and now there's a good one on the market already). I could have certainly increased the level of detail by several factors but quickly found that there was a limit to how much was "enough" ... and that was on something I was enjoying the challenge of designing, was really into, never mind taking into account gamers who had a lower interest level & would therefore be less forgiving if things started to drag out.

[WSUCougar]

My two favorite words in this thread thusfar are:

(1) assgoblins
(2) grognardish

Carry on.

[Ben E Lou]

I don't think it's always "mental laziness" as much as "I really just don't give that big a fuck", or going back to the original premise of the thread "I just don't give that big a fuck anymore". There's just a point of diminishing returns, where the additional time investment doesn't provide an adequate return in entertainment/enjoyment. ...which in my opinion is a result of not being willing to invest the mental energy to dive into the depths, but we're all entitled to our own opinions. ;)

[JonInMiddleGA]

...which in my opinion is a result of not being willing to invest the mental energy to dive into the depths, but we're all entitled to our own opinions. ;)

So if you haven't memorized the list of athletic lettermen at GT from 1900-present, are you "mentally lazy" ... or do you simply not care?

[Ben E Lou]

So if you haven't memorized the list of athletic lettermen at GT from 1900-present, are you "mentally lazy" ... or do you simply not care?They still play football at Tech? :D

[Buccaneer]

I will gladly put up my knowledge in a breadth of subjects in comparison to a deeper knowledge in a few subjects and see who comes out more mentally lazier. :)

[JonInMiddleGA]

They still play football at Tech? :D

Tsk. Tsk. There's always the past to live off of.



As a UGAg fan, you know that as well as anybody. :D

[Ben E Lou]

So if you haven't memorized the list of athletic lettermen at GT from 1900-present, are you "mentally lazy" ... or do you simply not care?
Serious answer: you don't care, but that's not all that important. It's apples and oranges again. When presented with a massive mathematical problem in optimization (any resource management sim fits into this description from a broad perspective), I simply can't fathom not even wanting to do all in one's power to "solve" it.

[Buccaneer]

Tsk. Tsk. There's always the past to live off of.



As a UGAg fan, you know that as well as anybody. :D

Ok, now I am out of my depths again when the football smack starts.

[Ben E Lou]

I will gladly put up my knowledge in a breadth of subjects in comparison to a deeper knowledge in a few subjects and see who comes out more mentally lazier. :)Doubtful, just based on the numbers, but that's not the point anyway. Text sims aren't about knowledge. They're about problem-solving. Completely different.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Serious answer: you don't care, but that's not all that important. When presented with a massive mathematical problem in optimization (any resource management sim fits into this description from a broad perspective), I simply can't fathom not even wanting to do all in one's power to "solve" it.

See though, now you're defining "work".
And the primary objective of gaming, ostensibly, is "fun".

I used to "enjoy" my "work" in radio ... but at some point, the cost/benefit ratio became unacceptable. I work just as hard now, but the payoff is better.

[Arles]

I wasn't trying to make a point, though. Just trying to understand what the attraction is of Jim creating, say, a stock "West Coast Offense" game plan and then selecting and tweaking it, as opposed to letting the AI pick the exact short-passing offense that it thinks would work best for your personnel against your opponent's personnel, and tweaking that.
I will try and answer this from a gamer (not developer) perspective. When I play sports sims, I often like to create a "system" and try to fill players to go within that system.

So, let's say I have a good QB, decent all around RB and solid WRs. The "AI" may suggest that I play more of a vertical passing style with deeper pass attempts to maximize some WR skills my team has. However, let's say my defense is pretty shoddy so I instead would prefer more of a ball-control "West Coast" style. Now, the AI is probably 100% accurate in thinking my team's skills are best suited towards more of a deep passing attack. Yet, because of my shortcomings on defense or even the fact that I prefer playing West Coast style (viable alternative) makes a deep passing attack not something I would like to use. This is where I think the option to have different gameplanning options would be of interest.

[Ben E Lou]

See though, now you're defining "work".
And the primary objective of gaming, ostensibly, is "fun".To you. Thus the comment that I simply can't fathom... The problem-solving aspect of text sims (and other resource management games) is extremely fun to me.

[Flasch186]

Doubtful, just based on the numbers, but that's not the point anyway. Text sims aren't about knowledge. They're about problem-solving. Completely different.

not true...

youve lost sight of the big picture than, text sims are Simulations under the umbrella of "games". If one isnt enjoying it than its not a game, its work. I, of course, am on the side of enjoying it very much, especially in MP BUT this reminds me of your exploitation of the preseason in another thread wherein we found that most people play these games for enjoyment, not to "solve" them.

Edit to add: I noticed you talk about the "I" in your last post, which is good because the majority of text sim player's fall into a different category than yourself.

[Buccaneer]

Serious answer: you don't care, but that's not all that important. It's apples and oranges again. When presented with a massive mathematical problem in optimization (any resource management sim fits into this description from a broad perspective), I simply can't fathom not even wanting to do all in one's power to "solve" it.

That's a good answer. But I would counter that playing a game can be simply about having fun and the meaning of "fun" is different from one person to the next. Some see games (or certain games) as an intellectual exercise while other see games as a time-waster to escape real-life (and many other purposes). For example, the fun factor in some of my games is in building of a history - not whether I win or lose or "beat" the game. In other games, it's all about how many bad guys or monsters I can kill. Both are fun, as well as trying to solve the Prince level at Civ4/Warlords.

[Antmeister]

Okay this thread is going everywhere, I think we need to......
http://home.planet.nl/%7Erempf001/231-focus.jpg

The whole point of this thread is that people tend to burn out playing certain types of games and would like to have some mindless fun just once in a while since more and more games feel like work. People have different defintiions of what fun is.

And Skydog, it just appears that you are just trying to defend a game that needs no defending. You can't make everyone like it. I have my own issues with the game, but I still support it just to see what other features get added in the future. If it's your perfect game...fine.

[JonInMiddleGA]

not to "solve" them.

Ooh, I think you hit on something good there at the end .

Since there is an element of chance involved (AFAIK) in pretty much all of the games we're discussing, there really is no "solution" per se.

There's an opportunity to maximize the probability of positive outcomes, but no guarantee, no "solution" that guarantees success.

[Buccaneer]

I've got to learn to type faster. I chalk it up to being mentally lazy.

[Ben E Lou]

I will try and answer this from a gamer (not developer) perspective. When I play sports sims, I often like to create a "system" and try to fill players to go within that system.

So, let's say I have a good QB, decent all around RB and solid WRs. The "AI" may suggest that I play more of a vertical passing style with deeper pass attempts to maximize some WR skills my team has. However, let's say my defense is pretty shoddy so I instead would prefer more of a ball-control "West Coast" style. Now, the AI is probably 100% accurate in thinking my team's skills are best suited towards more of a deep passing attack. Yet, because of my shortcomings on defense or even the fact that I prefer playing West Coast style (viable alternative) makes a deep passing attack not something I would like to use. This is where I think the option to have different gameplanning options would be of interest.Good point. I would think, though, that anyone wanting to get that detailed would be willing to invest the time to do what I did the first day or two I started playing both BBCF and FOF2K7: create a handful of stock gameplans that I could call up for various situations. It took me just a few hours for both games: a fraction of the time I would later spend playing both

[Flasch186]

I love fof2k7 and dont like BBCF.....variables?

[Buccaneer]

Doubtful, just based on the numbers, but that's not the point anyway. Text sims aren't about knowledge. They're about problem-solving. Completely different.

I was talking about real life, but it doesn't matter.

[Ben E Lou]

And Skydog, it just appears that you are just trying to defend a game that needs no defending. You can't make everyone like it. No, that's not at all my intention. I have no desire to make everyone like the games I like. I'd love it if some people hated my favorite games.

[Ben E Lou]

...There's an opportunity to maximize the probability of positive outcomes......and that's exactly what I meant by "solving."

[Schmidty]

I want to use my keyboard, not my mouse.

I am the exact opposite. If I never have to use my keyboard again to play a game, I will be ecstatic. I am a lazy dude and I suck at typing.

[Arles]

Good point. I would think, though, that anyone wanting to get that detailed would be willing to invest the time to do what I did the first day or two I started playing both BBCF and FOF2K7: create a handful of stock gameplans that I could call up for various situations. It took me just a few hours for both games: a fraction of the time I would later spend playing both
You are right, but I think this is also a bit of the problem. We are assuming that the average gamer wants to spend time determining %s on a gameplan to get his preferred style of offense. Instead, I would think it would be very appealing to many gamers to have a "wizard" or method that would take in some simple input and generate a gameplan that would do what they are trying to figure out.

IE, I want to make a West Coast gameplan. One way is to simply play with %s in my gameplan for a night and figure out a good mix to get a somewhat successful short passing attack.

Another way (probably more appealing for casual gamers) would be for the game to allow the user to answer a few questions ("Do you prefer to pass more on first down?... Are you more interested in a short, controlled passing attack or a deep, quick strike offense?..."). Then, Wha-la! an AI created preconfigured gameplan pops up that gets you close to what you were looking for (without the hours of tweaking).

I think these types of options are missing from most text sims (certainly including my own). As developers, we sometimes try to make things more involved and complex to appease the hardcore gamers - which sometimes leaves the casual guys left out in the cold. That could be a reason for many people to start drifting from sports sims when so many other gaming options are now setup for both types of gamers.

[JonInMiddleGA]

...and that's exactly what I meant by "solving."

Okay but that same element, maximizing odds of positive outcomes, can be present in greater numbers in simpler forms with less grognarding.
(ftr, I don't consider that to be a perjorative term. For me, it's just shorthand to indicate gaming that incorporates a markedly above average number of variables)

[Ben E Lou]

Okay but that same element, maximizing odds of positive outcomes, can be present in greater numbers in simpler forms with less grognarding.Hmmmmm...that's an interesting proposition, but one I'm not sure I can get behind. Past experience with every game I've ever played has led me to believe that if the option is there for the human to make detailed choices, and the option is there to streamline the handling of the same item (whether by recommend buttons, stock gameplans, or whatever else), then the person who grognards will always be able to better maximize their chances than the one who relies on AI. It's that old thing we always say with every text sim: the human will always be better than the AI.

[SteveMax58]

....
Another way (probably more appealing for casual gamers) would be for the game to allow the user to answer a few questions ("Do you prefer to pass more on first down?... Are you more interested in a short, controlled passing attack or a deep, quick strike offense?..."). Then, Wha-la! an AI created preconfigured gameplan pops up that gets you close to what you were looking for (without the hours of tweaking)....

Or perhaps attach more of the gameplan "style" or tendencies to your HC or OC/DC...and I suppose an option to tweak from there. In a perfect setup...I'd be stuck with that crappy-ass Mike Martz-style playcaller until I fire him, or turn over the playcalling to the coordinator, etc.

[Buccaneer]

Hmmmmm...that's an interesting proposition, but one I'm not sure I can get behind. Past experience with every game I've ever played has led me to believe that if the option is there for the human to make detailed choices, and the option is there to streamline the handling of the same item (whether by recommend buttons, stock gameplans, or whatever else), then the person who grognards will always be able to better maximize their chances than the one who relies on AI. It's that old thing we always say with every text sim: the human will always be better than the AI.

That goes back to something I was alluding to earlier. Does the game of football (or at least modeled by FOF) forces you to pay a little more attention to the details if you want to do well? Perhaps this is true in any sports games but certain games seem to allow the user to be more casual and still come out winning. I have always believed that football is a more complex game by nature.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Hmmmmm...that's an interesting proposition, but one I'm not sure I can get behind.

Lemme try this another way.

You can drink Pasion Azteca from Ley .925, tequila with a pricetag of $150,000 per bottle.

You can drink Budweiser, give or take, about $5 per six pack.

Drink enough of either & you'll end up drunk. Both share the same benefits, both share the same risks, both lead to the same eventual outcome if partaken in sufficient quantities.

(and before any wisenheimer suggest that one tastes better than the other, just substitute a rare $500k bottle of wine that's gone bad for the uber-tequila & you'll get the same analogy)

[Raiders Army]

My two favorite words in this thread thusfar are:

(1) assgoblins
(2) grognardish

Carry on.

Ditto. I'll have to remember this in FTB.

Also, I'd add that I'm a SP through and through. I tried MP with the HFL, but I didn't really have the time and dedication necessary to play with those guys. To me, it's fun to play with others but it's not fun when I'm spending four hours every week (for example, I don't think I spent more than 5 minutes) trying to figure out how to gameplan every week. Because of that, my team suffered. Now, it's always nice to be competitive but when you lose a lot it's not fun any more (see 2006 Raiders). I'm not denigrating the other guys in the league; on the contrary, they were some great guys. It's just not my cup of tea. I think that's why a lot of people drop out of MP leagues.

[Ben E Lou]

That goes back to something I was alluding to earlier. Does the game of football (or at least modeled by FOF) forces you to pay a little more attention to the details if you want to do well? Perhaps this is true in any sports games but certain games seem to allow the user to be more casual and still come out winning. I have always believed that football is a more complex game by nature.Well, yeah. Think about baseball, for example. In baseball, the main sim is one pitcher versus one batter (with some modifications thrown in there for the stadium and how good the fielder is in the direction the ball is hit). Your fast guys steal. Your good batsmen hit and run. Your power hitters hit for power. There's really not that much "gameplanning" going into it over 162 games. You set some logical individual tendencies for each player to maximize his individual strengths, and that's really about it. Your slow catcher never bunts for a base hit. Your 5'8", 155 pound shortstop isn't called on to swing for the fence. You don't "gameplan" against the other team. In football, you've got 22 players on the field, nearly all of whom have an impact on every single play result. Everything has to be weighed. They can't run the ball well, so maybe you start that guy in the secondary who is great at coverage but lousy at stopping the run. They have a good defensive tackle on one side, so you run to the other side a little more. You make decisions week-in and week-out that impact the outcomes significantly. You have a speedy tailback, so you TOSS THE FREAKING SWEEP FROM TIME TO TIME, CMR, 'CAUSE HE'S FASTER THEN SEC LINEBACKERS, AND EVEN MOST CORNERS, DAMMIT!

So, yeah, the complex nature of it contributes to my earlier contention that it would be a very bad marketing decision today to simply gloss over the gameplan details in a career football sim.

[Ben E Lou]

Lemme try this another way.

You can drink Pasion Azteca from Ley .925, tequila with a pricetag of $150,000 per bottle.

You can drink Budweiser, give or take, about $5 per six pack.

Drink enough of either & you'll end up drunk. Both share the same benefits, both share the same risks, both lead to the same eventual outcome if partaken in sufficient quantities.

(and before any wisenheimer suggest that one tastes better than the other, just substitute a rare $500k bottle of wine that's gone bad for the uber-tequila & you'll get the same analogy)...but I like wine and don't like beer. :p

[MJ4H]

S When presented with a massive mathematical problem in optimization (any resource management sim fits into this description from a broad perspective), I simply can't fathom not even wanting to do all in one's power to "solve" it.

Talk about summing up exactly why I tire of these games in one sentence!

[henry296]

Understood, but would you (or anyone) continue to run the team in that manner, focusing on drafting, trading and free agency? What I am getting at is the perception that the game of football forces you more into paying more attention to each game, as oppose to the baseball or basketball game (at least as modeled by OOTP and FFB/FBCB).

I would say that this exactly how I am playing FOF2k7. I have set the options to have the CPU set my game plans. I do set depth charts, but make very few changes to the recommendations, mostly with backups and small playing time tweaks. I agree with Skydog that it does a more than adequate job of game planning. In fact, I just switched QBs with basically the same team and my passing distance per attempt and completion has gone up significantly and the # of screen passes thrown decreased. When it was first discovered how good the CPU game plans, it increased my interest. I've played this much more than the previous versions and found TCY way to tedious.

I have been very successful with this play style, with the third best record over the my nearly 30years. I'm tied for the third most FOF Bowl appearances with 4 and one victory. This season, I'm 11-2 so another appearance is possible.

To me these games are something to do at night to relax. I hope to play a season in an evening which might 2-3 hours. Over the holidays, I was playing 2 seasons a day, but I was playing most of the day while relaxing at home and watching bowl games. I don't want to have to do detail analysis of player performance, I trust the game makes good recommendations since that is the algorithm used to select lineups and game plans for the CPU.

[Oilers9911]

Nah. To me what's more inevitable is that the people too mentally lazy to ever get into the depths of games will be given options to streamline in the current game lines. FOF2K7 took big steps forward in streamlining, for those who are paying attention,

So wait a minute, if I prefer a simpler game without in-depth game planning I am "mentally lazy"? That's really not what you're saying is it? Please tell me I am misunderstanding you.

[Honolulu Blue]

I find that I, too, have been spending a lot less time with sports career text sims than a few years ago. Part of it is personal - I simply have less time and less patience for all games, and the time that I can spare is available in smaller bunches. And part of it are the games themselves. The big, non-graphical innovations in text sims are about played out, and everyone seems to be tinkering around the edges.

One thing that could bring me back to text sims is for some clever designer to make up his own backstory of where his chosen sport will go. Maybe it'll be right, probably it'll be mostly wrong, but it would be better than playing the same ol' game year after year after year. Jim's TCY took baby steps in this direction (remember in version 1.0 that when the smart schools started to dominate?), but he retreated from it. Too bad; I hope he gets back to some form of the alterna-universe with TCY2.

For now, I've been spending my limited playing time mostly with poker and puzzle games that can be learned & played quickly.

[Karim]

MattJones4Heisman absolutely nailed it on the head. I've been feeling this way for some time but haven't been able to articulate it to myself, let alone to anyone else.

I poured in too many hours into both EHM2006 and WSM2006. I got really busy and could only take a look at the 2007 versions this past holiday season when it hit me: I can only enjoy these games slowly. With all the options for training, scouting, lineups, tactics, what's the point of quick-simming? I downloaded the WSM2007 demo for my old Dell laptop and thought about how cool it might be but also realized it's likely I won't ever get to that point with how much time I'll have to invest. Plus, the download version wasn't available for my MacBook. So I took a look at EHM2007 and bought that. It's sitting on the hard drive and while I did get a couple days worth of enjoyment, it does occasionally tend to feel like too much work. If I let the coach take over and play strictly as a GM, auto-simming until the off-season, it seems like a waste of money.

Something is definitely missing, namely the 'fun' I used to get out of text sims. I attributed to me getting 'old', until I read this thread.

[Dutch]

The biggest challenge I find for FOF2k7 is finding the time to dedicate to "mastering" it.

I can't play it at work and honestly, I'm one of those people who don't want to play games at work--I want to work at work, imagine that. I will take breaks to read a message board from time to time, but I won't commit a lot of time to testing a game there.

So, my only option is at home, in my free time. And that free time involves a wife, and a 12 year old and an 11 year old that demand my attention. I just don't have the time to really focus on learning the game as quickly as some.

That being said, FOF is by far, the most enjoyable PC game I have. When I do get free time, I'd rather try and learn something in FOF than play a mindless video game. But it's frustrating if I spend an hour or two playing FOF and feel like I haven't learned very much.

I would rather spend an hour or two reading a 500-page novel on how FOF works than running a bunch of tests that may or may not provide results and that I may or may not even be conducting properly.

That's why, with FOF2k4, I spent a great deal of my effort reading what Skydog or Quiksand reported (spoon-fed is you must). But regardless, that's how I became proficient at FOF2k4, and playing with that knowledge was a ton more fun than playing without it.

Don't get me wrong, I want to test the game engine, I love finding new tricks and proving that the FOF engine is pretty damned accurate at modelling NFL football. But the purpose of testing, for me, was always for the end result, the journey had nothing to do with it. The journey (read: joy) for me is progressing from season to season and watching players come and go. I wish the testing was not so much. More in depth feedback on what stuff does is key for me, and if that comes from Jim or Skydog or Quiksand, so be it. I know there's some fair info in the help file and elsewhere--it's there, but ultimately I think it should be better. I've only got so much time to play, afterall.

[Icy]

MattJones4Heisman absolutely nailed it on the head. I've been feeling this way for some time but haven't been able to articulate it to myself, let alone to anyone else.

I poured in too many hours into both EHM2006 and WSM2006. I got really busy and could only take a look at the 2007 versions this past holiday season when it hit me: I can only enjoy these games slowly. With all the options for training, scouting, lineups, tactics, what's the point of quick-simming? I downloaded the WSM2007 demo for my old Dell laptop and thought about how cool it might be but also realized it's likely I won't ever get to that point with how much time I'll have to invest. Plus, the download version wasn't available for my MacBook. So I took a look at EHM2007 and bought that. It's sitting on the hard drive and while I did get a couple days worth of enjoyment, it does occasionally tend to feel like too much work. If I let the coach take over and play strictly as a GM, auto-simming until the off-season, it seems like a waste of money.

Something is definitely missing, namely the 'fun' I used to get out of text sims. I attributed to me getting 'old', until I read this thread.

You nailed it for me too, but in my case I don't know if the problems are the text sims or just me getting older and more busy with real life (work, family etc).

I have always loved really deep games, with more options i could ever tweak, and I would expend hours just tweaking that stuff. I loved to tweak each % in FOF, to manage myself all my minor leagues in OOTP, examining every young kid to see when he had to be promoted, expending hours recruiting in TCY, FBCB and TCB, expending hours in the transfer market in FM searching for the perfect player for my team, etc. I was also a really hardcore grognard that could expend hours reading the manual of the latest super mega complex wargame.

But now I have a problem, all the sudden, i'm overwhelmed by all the text sims. I start to play them, and once i start to mess with all the great options I lose the interest and jump to another sim, then repeat, so i end playing 30 minutes of a lot of the text sims (I buy them all always) but not starting a serious dynasty in any of them.

I have tried to set more options as computer controlled in FOF, FM etc but then I feel i'm watching the computer playing games instead of playing them myself. I need to control every small detail to enjoy the games.

Recently i started to try to analyze it and realized what is my problem.
I'm an adult.

When I was younger and before getting married, specially when I was a student and living alone. I started to play FM early in the morning, stopped to have lunch, then back to play, and that way until the night. Nobody disturbed me, nothing took ma attention making me to lose the focus on the game etc. I was full immersed in my fake game world.

Now I have a work to do, and I can consider myself lucky as I work from home and for my own company so I don't have a fixed work schedule, but even when I decide to play instead of working, I still receive phone calls, emails or Instant messenger messages work related that i need to attend. so every X minutes i need to get my brain back to reality, losing the focus on the game so when i go back to it, i have already forgotten what i was doing and need to start it all again.

I have also a wife and of course we need to expend time with each other, we have friends visiting us at home, or family etc so I can't play for more than an hour or two at once, making it really hard to keep the focus on the games.

What does it mean? that if i can't get immersed for like 5 hours in a game, i can't enjoy it, and since being an adult, with a family, work and the usual adult responsibilities that is not possible anymore, it's that simple.

At the end, I'm playing more with my new Xbox360 as I just need to turn it on, launch NBA2k7 and enjoy as a casual gamer not trying to see if the stats are accurate or not or if i need to tweak tons of options. I'm also playing sims more in MP than in SP as for MP games i just need to expend 30 minutes before the exports, then close the game and wait for the next day sim results.

The solution? As I love the text sims genre and I rally want to enjoy them again, I need to learn how to enjoy slow pacing playing, still tweaking and enjoying with the thousands of options but not playing more than 30 or 60 minutes at once even if that means to take months to end a season as I won't have full 5 hours of playing anymore.

[Icy]

Dola:

This is my second problem with games in general, the damn bugs, and even more, knowing that they exists thanks to internet and forums.

In the past, since my Spectrum 48k computer days, i loaded a game, played it and sometimes i saw something weird but i thoght it was maybe just my imagination of just accepted it as how the game was designed. One day, in 1997 (and i remember it prefectly) I was doing a search in Internet about my favourite game just purchased through an importer, FM 97/98. I read about something called "bugs" and found the website by the game developer, a small company named SI games. There they had a "patch" to download with a fix list, i downloaded it and read the fix list, and to my surprise, it corrected a lot of game "bugs" that i haven't ever noticed myself. That day it was a really bad one for me, like when you discover that Santa is not real but your parents. The best game ever had some bugs!! and if i haven't ever noticed them, who can tell me that there aren't others that can ruin my gaming experience? that game is not perfect anymore!!

Right now the bugs are something common as probably have always been, but they are discovered and made public after a few hours of the game being released, killing my gamming experience. For example, there have been a lot of time since i have played an FM game for like 50 seasons but knowing that there was a bug (fixed already) that made buggy created players in the future, I couldn't commit to start a long dynasty, as i knew that it couldn't not last forever because that bug, even knowing that probably I won't ever reach 50 seasons in an FM dynasty as i like to play them slow paced and looking at every detail.

The same applies to any other sim, I buy and download sim X. I start to play it, then i visit the forum and then i see a few bugs posted, umm ok, then i'll wait until are fixed before playing. Then a patch is released, I'm going to start to play, then i read that therea re more bugs, ok, i'll wait for the next patch even if those bugs are not game killers for me, but hey, there are there, who knows if they can affect me? then i wait for the next patch, etc etc and when the game is bugs free, if ever, then i have lost the interest on it as a new game has been relased.

At the end i don't enjoy any game because knowing that there are bugs, i can't enjoy it, while probably i wouldn't have noticed that bugs myself and i could have enjoyed the game not knowing about them.

I need to start to forget about bugs unless are really game killers and to try to enjoy games even knowing that are not perfect, as the perfect game won't ever be released. Now that i'm in some different games beta teams and being a programmer myself, I have seen how hard is to avoid having bugs, to detect them and to fix them without introducing new bugs.

[Ajaxab]

The closer the game comes to simulating the real world, the less fun it will be simply because the best simulations will be those getting nearest to an approximation of real world activity. So for a designer to truly simulate what a football GM does ultimately means asking the user to perform the same kinds of time-consuming detailed thinking many of us don't have time for as we grow older.

IMO, it seems something of a paradox. The more accurate the simulation, the less game-like the experience becomes.

[lynchjm24]

I see it being quite clear.

As text sims evolved, they improved and became more immersive. I know not everyone shares the opinion that for example OOTP4<OOTP5<OOTP6, but in general I think that holds. Feedback for developers was that games should continue to evolve in this manner, adding complexity and more 'moving parts'.

I think moving from OOTP 6.12 to OOTP 6.5 gives a great example. This is when the 'popularity' model was added. Now, in theory this seems like it might be fun. You have to take into account how popular a player is and what that might do to overall fan interest in your franchise. In reality, the features for all intents and purposes doesn't work. Having two different popularity ratings where one effects you as a player joins and one effects you as a player leaves might have made sense from a design standpoint - but the popularity ratings themselves make no sense. You have all sorts of foolishness like:
A. Player is popular nationally, but not locally
B. Player is an absolute stud, has been with team forever, not popular at all
C. Player stinks and is sinking lineup/rotation is very popular (I guess this is the Willie Bloomquist effect)

So now there is another wrinkle in roster management, especially MP. You've added strategy theoretically, but because the popularity levels of players make no sense, it doesn't make any sense in a baseball scenario or make the game more realistic, it's just another random variable to consider.

Now take the leap from OOTP6.5 to OOTP2006. In theory all the new features and depth sounded great. Don't think 3 levels of minors is enough? Try 5. Don't like the idea that you have ghost players in the minors - they are gone! Want to scout Narnia for a zebra that can hit .300? Done and done.

The features sound great and some of them actually work. Try to actually enjoy a session of playing a game? Good luck. I know that some swear by it - but to me they must be either high school or college students who have time for that kind of depth, or they had so convinced themselves that this was the game that they wanted that they refuse to see it for what it is; a chore.

[lynchjm24]

I know that to a crowd like this the Mogul games suck, but developers should consider the fact that they still exist and shitloads of people have them.

Add the engine depth and good features, but please start to consider ease of use and fun factor. When you balance those, then the perfect game will finally be made.

[molson]

lynchjm24 hit the point I was trying to make earlier.

It just seems like realism and AI can't keep up with the ambition of each new title. If I was the king of textsims, I would put an end to all future additional features in gameplanning, player evaluation, etc, until the AI (especially AI team management), and realism have caught up with game planning options.

Obviously, OOTP is more guilty of this than FOF. But in the latter, I would still prefer to see AI team cap management and realistic AI team building be a priority over things like dense gameplanning layers, weight training, draft interviews.

[JPhillips]

Actually I think most people around here that played the latest version of BBM enjoyed it. I played it much more than OOTP2006 and had a blast. There were some problems with financials and minor league development, but it was a lot of fun.

FBM on the other hand is a steaming pile of crap.

[twothree]

The same applies to any other sim, I buy and download sim X. I start to play it, then i visit the forum and then i see a few bugs posted, umm ok, then i'll wait until are fixed before playing. Then a patch is released, I'm going to start to play, then i read that therea re more bugs, ok, i'll wait for the next patch even if those bugs are not game killers for me, but hey, there are there, who knows if they can affect me? then i wait for the next patch, etc etc and when the game is bugs free, if ever, then i have lost the interest on it as a new game has been relased.

That happens to me. I only start playing a long dynasty when the last patch does not contain any reported bugs that are game killers for me. And, just one bug I don't like being reported can stop me from playing a game until a patch has been issued. And, if the last patch ever issued for a game contains a bug I don't like, the game never gets played again. Sad, but true.

In fact, every text sim I purchased last year is not currently being played in single player by me, as I am awaiting patches and that includes FOF 2k7. Though, EHM2007 will probably be the first title that gets a new patch that will get me started on a new dynasty...until a bug that I don't like is reported, that is. Also, some bugs that bother me in single player, usually dealing with the AI, don't bother me in multiplayer, so I am able to still play the game and enjoy it in a multiplayer environment.

In a console game, I have no expectations of a bug free gaming experience, so I can usually just ignore any glitches and keep playing.

[astrosfan64]

Nobody does? I guess I'm nobody. My preference is to able to play a game entirely with a mouse and no keyboard at all (expect for the first time setting up the game). I'm annoyed when I actually have to type anything during a game.

Oh my god. I agree with John.

[Ben E Lou]

The biggest challenge I find for FOF2k7 is finding the time to dedicate to "mastering" it.

I can't play it at work and honestly, I'm one of those people who don't want to play games at work--I want to work at work, imagine that. I will take breaks to read a message board from time to time, but I won't commit a lot of time to testing a game there.

So, my only option is at home, in my free time. And that free time involves a wife, and a 12 year old and an 11 year old that demand my attention. I just don't have the time to really focus on learning the game as quickly as some.

That being said, FOF is by far, the most enjoyable PC game I have. When I do get free time, I'd rather try and learn something in FOF than play a mindless video game. But it's frustrating if I spend an hour or two playing FOF and feel like I haven't learned very much.

I would rather spend an hour or two reading a 500-page novel on how FOF works than running a bunch of tests that may or may not provide results and that I may or may not even be conducting properly.

That's why, with FOF2k4, I spent a great deal of my effort reading what Skydog or Quiksand reported (spoon-fed is you must). But regardless, that's how I became proficient at FOF2k4, and playing with that knowledge was a ton more fun than playing without it.

Don't get me wrong, I want to test the game engine, I love finding new tricks and proving that the FOF engine is pretty damned accurate at modelling NFL football. But the purpose of testing, for me, was always for the end result, the journey had nothing to do with it. The journey (read: joy) for me is progressing from season to season and watching players come and go. I wish the testing was not so much. More in depth feedback on what stuff does is key for me, and if that comes from Jim or Skydog or Quiksand, so be it. I know there's some fair info in the help file and elsewhere--it's there, but ultimately I think it should be better. I've only got so much time to play, afterall.
You make a VERY good point here, Dutch. I feel like I made some quantum leaps forward with regard to my understanding of offensive gameplanning this summer, which I alluded to in this thread (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=51244&highlight=rushing). The testing I did in SP was applied to MP, and had a lot to do with my team's IHOF success this year. Most IHOFers know about the life circumstances that gave me that amount of time this summer, but it's worth pointing out here, as it does resonate with your comments. From mid-June until early August, I was living/working in the Charleston area, while my wife was back in the T-U-C, finishing out her job and waiting for our house to sell. The original plan was that I'd be traveling to Tucker on every weekend to help show the house. Well, the house sold in less than a week, so she ended up coming down here every weekend after that. (She prefers the beach to traffic. ;)) As a result, I had every day from the time I got up until I left for work, and time I got home from work until the time I went to sleep entirely to myself, and then extended time on Saturday mornings before she woke up after her long drive, and on Sunday afternoons after she left to drive back. I didn't really know anyone here yet, and didn't want to start building connections until we were both here, so I spent a LOT of time attempting to master FOF and Civ4. Note the date of the thread I mentioned above: 7/18. It was definitely the cumulative result of a month's worth of more time to invest in gaming than I'd literally ever had in my life. (Remember that I'd been playing FOF for 2 1/2 years at a fairly robust level, too and hadn't ever seen anything near the kind of offensive numbers I learned to generate.)

It's a double-edged sword, though. I don't think anyone wants a game that they can master in a couple of months of normal playing, but some people don't like/want/can't test enough to discover all that could be discovered. For example, I doubt that anyone has a firm handle on the impact of weight on performance at different positions yet, and the impact is likely a subtlety that will take months of playing SP to really fully understand, and probably never could be figured out just by playing MP. That probably plays into it feeling tedious. To steal from your underlined statement, playing with the knowledge of the impact of it would be a lot more fun than playing without it. If I KNOW that setting weight training for certain types of players will improve my team, it's not going to feel as tedious.

[Oilers9911]

You take this game FAR too seriously. Or am I just mentally lazy?

[Buccaneer]

You take this game FAR too seriously. Or am I just mentally lazy?

I think one has to love the real game as much in order to want to take fake game seriously. You never will see SD approach FM in the same manner. (I know that there are many hating soccer but loving FM but that may be an exception.) For me, I would much rather find a quick but comprehensive path to discovering Rifling first while keeping the points lead than trying to figure out weight training optimizations which (as other details of football) has no interest to me. The problem, though, is that after I get Rifling, I hit the Tech Wall on Prince and can't seem to avoid the dropoff without having to be in war all of the time.

[Anthony]

And Skydog, it just appears that you are just trying to defend a game that needs no defending. You can't make everyone like it. I have my own issues with the game, but I still support it just to see what other features get added in the future. If it's your perfect game...fine.

SD is quickly turning into (or has morphed into already) a Solecismic apologist and defender. don't worry SD, Jim will still like you if you make a negative comment or two about one of his products.

it's not a coincidence that one of the biggest knocks on TCY was how much like work some of it felt (at least when it first came out, i haven't played it in eons). even that EA Sports game Head Coach was blasted in reviews cuz it really did resemble life as a head coach, which is apparently not as glamorous as we all thought.

my feelings on text sim gaming is that i, too, am starting to sour on them as a whole. i already posted my feelings about them in another thread, where i stated i don't think they've made as big a jump evolution-wise as console/graphical games have. you really can tell the difference between Madden '94 and Madden '04 (despite the joke that the game hasn't changed much since the 90's). you see the evolution there. in fact, you could argue that some of that evolution has been to the detriment of the series. think about it, we now have a lot of the GM aspects of the NFL in the game - a huge offseason worth of tasks and duties - which sometimes or all the time just don't seem authentic due to the AI; whereas we used to just pop in the disc or cartridge and start playing with players made up of sprites and had a blast. no work involved - just fun.

[Anthony]

Another way (probably more appealing for casual gamers) would be for the game to allow the user to answer a few questions ("Do you prefer to pass more on first down?... Are you more interested in a short, controlled passing attack or a deep, quick strike offense?..."). Then, Wha-la! an AI created preconfigured gameplan pops up that gets you close to what you were looking for (without the hours of tweaking).


this is is right here, arles. this is what i'm looking for. this is what Oblivion does - you have the option to create your character yourself, or you can answer some hypothetical questions and from there the game can determine what character and traits you should have.

obviously you should be able to further tweak the gameplan if you desire, but the skeleton should already be provided to you.

[Anthony]

this is is right here, arles. this is what i'm looking for. this is what Oblivion does - you have the option to create your character yourself, or you can answer some hypothetical questions and from there the game can determine what character and traits you should have.

obviously you should be able to further tweak the gameplan if you desire, but the skeleton should already be provided to you.

and you know what? i don't want to decide what my gameplan should be. i just want to be the damn GM, dammit. i want to click on a coach and see his profile and it'll say "loves smashmouth style of offense" (Herm Edwards/Marty Schottenheimer) or "master of the Cover 2" (Lovie Smith/Tony Dungy) or "employs a long air it out offense" (Mike Martz). if i hire a smashmouth coach then i know what type of players i need to get. the GM doesn't decide what offense/defense the team will run, he hires the coach who employs his own style and the GM goes out and gets the players who fit that style. i shouldn't have to tell my coach what his gameplan is gonna be. if the team doesn't do well how do i know if it was my coaches fault or my fault for setting the 3rd and short running percent to 68% instead of like 54%? i don't want accountability for percentages - X's and O's are the coaches problem. personnel is my problem. and you can say "hit the recommend button" (or the equivalent of the recommend button in any other game) but what is the recommend basing it's #'s off of? i want my recommendations coming from my head coach, that is, i'm not asking the AI to set my gameplan. i want the gameplan to auto-populate once i hire the coach. if after the end of a couple seasons and my team is ranked in the bottom 3rd of rushing yards even though my coach is supposedly a smashmouth expert then that means i need to fire my coach. if my passing game is awful and my coach - prior to being hired to my team - always had a highly ranked passing game then that means it's time for my QB to go.

this isn't a knock on FOF, i'm just most familiar with that game so i use it more as an umbrella that encapsulates other text sim games.

[MizzouRah]

For me, a mixture of text sims and graphical sims keeps both fresh for me. Mix in a good FPS and my rotation is all set.

I've just found out that as I've grown older, my gaming preference goes in spurts. Work will have me coming home tired, so I'll get in a little bit of COD 3 and head to bed - maybe Saturday I'll have nothing to do, so I'll load up FOF 2k7 and play for hours. It was fun being young and playing FPS Football and Baseball for hours with my friends.. just can't do that anymore.

[Ben E Lou]

and you know what? i don't want to decide what my gameplan should be. i just want to be the damn GM, dammit. i want to click on a coach and see his profile and it'll say "loves smashmouth style of offense" (Herm Edwards/Marty Schottenheimer) or "master of the Cover 2" (Lovie Smith/Tony Dungy) or "employs a long air it out offense" (Mike Martz). if i hire a smashmouth coach then i know what type of players i need to get. the GM doesn't decide what offense/defense the team will run, he hires the coach who employs his own style and the GM goes out and gets the players who fit that style. i shouldn't have to tell my coach what his gameplan is gonna be. if the team doesn't do well how do i know if it was my coaches fault or my fault for setting the 3rd and short running percent to 68% instead of like 54%? i don't want accountability for percentages - X's and O's are the coaches problem. personnel is my problem. and you can say "hit the recommend button" (or the equivalent of the recommend button in any other game) but what is the recommend basing it's #'s off of? i want my recommendations coming from my head coach, that is, i'm not asking the AI to set my gameplan. i want the gameplan to auto-populate once i hire the coach. if after the end of a couple seasons and my team is ranked in the bottom 3rd of rushing yards even though my coach is supposedly a smashmouth expert then that means i need to fire my coach. if my passing game is awful and my coach - prior to being hired to my team - always had a highly ranked passing game then that means it's time for my QB to go.Nah. I don't want to be limited by the preferences of my staff. If a coach isn't flexible enough to change when the personnel dictates it, "N.F.L." stands for "not for long." In games where staff members have a preference, it always seems like I've got the personnel in place to run a certain kind of offense or defense, but there are FAR too few decent staff members available to run it. I'm guessing I wouldn't feel it if there were more staff members in the pool, but a situation where the AI can assess what my team is good or bad at, and what my opponent is good or bad at is far preferable to being limited.

[vtbub]

and you know what? i don't want to decide what my gameplan should be. i just want to be the damn GM, dammit. i want to click on a coach and see his profile and it'll say "loves smashmouth style of offense" (Herm Edwards/Marty Schottenheimer) or "master of the Cover 2" (Lovie Smith/Tony Dungy) or "employs a long air it out offense" (Mike Martz). if i hire a smashmouth coach then i know what type of players i need to get. the GM doesn't decide what offense/defense the team will run, he hires the coach who employs his own style and the GM goes out and gets the players who fit that style. i shouldn't have to tell my coach what his gameplan is gonna be. if the team doesn't do well how do i know if it was my coaches fault or my fault for setting the 3rd and short running percent to 68% instead of like 54%? i don't want accountability for percentages - X's and O's are the coaches problem. personnel is my problem. and you can say "hit the recommend button" (or the equivalent of the recommend button in any other game) but what is the recommend basing it's #'s off of? i want my recommendations coming from my head coach, that is, i'm not asking the AI to set my gameplan. i want the gameplan to auto-populate once i hire the coach. if after the end of a couple seasons and my team is ranked in the bottom 3rd of rushing yards even though my coach is supposedly a smashmouth expert then that means i need to fire my coach. if my passing game is awful and my coach - prior to being hired to my team - always had a highly ranked passing game then that means it's time for my QB to go.

this isn't a knock on FOF, i'm just most familiar with that game so i use it more as an umbrella that encapsulates other text sim games.

I completely agree.

I play games to play, or simulate, a sport. If I want to solve puzzle's, I'll do a crossword.

[Ben E Lou]

SD is quickly turning into (or has morphed into already) a Solecismic apologist and defender.Wrong again. It just so happens that among the football text sims, FOF2K4 and FOF2K7 come the closest to what I want in a game. If someone else makes a game closer to what I want than Solecismic Software, I'd switch over to it in a heartbeat. For example, now that BBCF is out with realistic high school talent, and UGA consisting of 60-80% in-state talent, I can't ever get back into TCY's having Central Of Talbatton be a potential powerhouse, and the Dawgs having only 30-40% in-state talent. No other pro football game has come anywhere close to meeting as many of the things I want in a game as the FOF series, but heck, even if a nutjob like mrskippy came to the table with a game that did the things I like in FOF and had the AI as good, the abililty to one-click sim multiple seasons, and easy CSV outputs of data, I wouldn't play SP FOF again.

[Ben E Lou]

So wait a minute, if I prefer a simpler game without in-depth game planning I am "mentally lazy"? That's really not what you're saying is it? Please tell me I am misunderstanding you.

You take this game FAR too seriously. Or am I just mentally lazy?

Dude, you care far too much about my opinion of your gaming habits.

[Anthony]

i would just like Solecismic to focus on putting the front office back in Front Office Football.

[Raiders Army]

After playing a game of NCAA Football 2007 this morning I was thinking about this thread again. It seems to me that Madden and FOF went in totally opposite directions. While Madden has added stuff every year, mostly who cares type of stuff like running the 40 or doing the 225 bench, FOF has added in different ways, like tweaking the AI, gameplanning, and such.

Why does Madden add to the game's playing options instead of working more on realistic gameplay? To get those people who are casual gamers to play. Each iteration of Madden every year has very little actual gameplay enhancements to make it more realistic. In fact, I'd say the past two years for the 360 have been steps backwards...however, I think their "strategy" is to bring in the casual gamers. FOF, on the other hand, is tending to keep its core supporters and I think that the enhancements to the game go in the opposite direction of Madden.

On a totally separate topic, Madden hasn't done gang-tackling (except laughably bad in the PS3 version this year) yet 2k sports did it in their final year of making an NFL game. I just wonder if Jim made a 2D engine, would we be complaining about that as well? I mean, if text-sims went beyond text-sims, would we find more complaints that might overshadow the complaints we have now?

[Marc Vaughan]

Strangely enough accessibility is one of the things we (being SI) have being looking at a lot more in the last year or two, hence the beginnings of improved help and the more accessible game startup (ie. the wizard helping select options for users).

Its a delicate balancing act to try and make things as easy to use as possible for people while NOT dumbling down the gameplay at all (which would make it less appealing long term for most people imho) - but no one ever said this was going to be an easy job and its an enjoyable challenge :D

[Anthony]

After playing a game of NCAA Football 2007 this morning I was thinking about this thread again. It seems to me that Madden and FOF went in totally opposite directions. While Madden has added stuff every year, mostly who cares type of stuff like running the 40 or doing the 225 bench, FOF has added in different ways, like tweaking the AI, gameplanning, and such.

Why does Madden add to the game's playing options instead of working more on realistic gameplay? To get those people who are casual gamers to play. Each iteration of Madden every year has very little actual gameplay enhancements to make it more realistic. In fact, I'd say the past two years for the 360 have been steps backwards...however, I think their "strategy" is to bring in the casual gamers. FOF, on the other hand, is tending to keep its core supporters and I think that the enhancements to the game go in the opposite direction of Madden.

On a totally separate topic, Madden hasn't done gang-tackling (except laughably bad in the PS3 version this year) yet 2k sports did it in their final year of making an NFL game. I just wonder if Jim made a 2D engine, would we be complaining about that as well? I mean, if text-sims went beyond text-sims, would we find more complaints that might overshadow the complaints we have now?

i don't think that's the point. i think the point is (and i mentioned this before in another thread) is that computers have advanced enough that it doesn't have to be an either/or situation (ie, sound game engine at the expense of graphics). MF should have been the next step in text-sim gaming - should have had a solid engine with rudimentary graphics, almost at the level of something akin to a game from the mid-90's. that should have been the spring board, and then later versions could have focused on even tighter sim engines and more and more polished graphics. it missed the mark, but i have a feeling that if that game were to be made open-source freeware we could see a year from now something resembling what the game should have been.

that is the next step. i think we're past the point of having to choose one or the other. but again, i posted all this stuff before so at the risk of being repetitive and turning the topic of this thread off the path i will try to lurk in this thread going forward.

[JW]

I'm having a ball playing TCY again right now. In fact, an upgraded version of TCY would be my dream game, unless Solecismic screwed it up by making it too realistic, i.e., I would never ever be able to turn UL-Monroe into a major power no matter how hard or how long I tried.

But then again I'm an older guy and frankly enjoy games with a more basic, older look to them and just don't like most games that have all the visual appeal. I love the spreadsheet appeal of TCY.

[JonInMiddleGA]

FOF, on the other hand, is tending to keep its core supporters ...

Unless you've got access to information most of the rest of us don't, I'm not sure you can really make that statement.

While FOFC is only a subset of the customers (and a very small subset at that, or at least I believe that's what Jim has stated in the past), my impression is that keeping them is questionable at best right now. I haven't gone through and counted posts by category, but my overall impression is that fewer people here bought than any previous version & that those who did buy include a significant percentage who are playing less than in the past.

[Oilers9911]

Dude, you care far too much about my opinion of your gaming habits.

I'm not the one that called people mentally lazy because they don't dissect every friggin detail of a game like you do.

[Raiders Army]

Unless you've got access to information most of the rest of us don't, I'm not sure you can really make that statement.
True. This is only my impression.

[Raiders Army]

i don't think that's the point. i think the point is (and i mentioned this before in another thread) is that computers have advanced enough that it doesn't have to be an either/or situation (ie, sound game engine at the expense of graphics).
You're right. I agree with you that that should be the point.

[Ben E Lou]

I'm not the one that called people mentally lazy because they don't dissect every friggin detail of a game like you do.I have a right to my opinion, don't I? I found it a bit odd that you seem to care so much what my opinion is.

[Oilers9911]

I have a right to my opinion, don't I? I found it a bit odd that you seem to care so much what my opinion is.

Of course you have a right to your opinion but when you label me as mentally lazy (which you did because I fall into the group you were talking about) you can be sure I am not going to just let that go without comment. I enjoy playing the games, signing players, drafting players and moving on to the next season. Mentally lazy? No. Prefer a simpler gaming experience that doesn't seem like work. Hell yes.

[Cringer]

Yeah, I am pretty much done with these games for a while. I never know when the urge to play them will hit me, but it hasn't happened for a long time.

I have hardly played FOF2007. I look at the game, it looks great, I love it. But I have not made it past my first offseason yet. Part of it was the new job. No time for any games. But now that I am home and have all day, every day, I have not played it. Any game playing has been on the 360, and the computer time has all been converted to work/research for work.

[SteveMax58]

... i think the point is (and i mentioned this before in another thread) is that computers have advanced enough that it doesn't have to be an either/or situation (ie, sound game engine at the expense of graphics)....


I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.

Do you suppose it is a (mis)conception, by text-sim developers, what text-sim players want? Or perhaps a graphics engine is a complete afterthought to most of their game engines?

Or perhaps a by-product of a niche community which doesnt support such a team to develop, implement & test such things even as "seemingly" basic as a sprite-based, canned animation, Microleague Football/Baseball-type game presentation?

Or maybe it's an ego thing...i.e. while some text-sim developers may be quite "capable" of implementing basic 2d graphics...perhaps it's the desire to not have them called "laughable" or "outdated" or judged harshly by the non text-sim diehards who may flock to the product anticipating "text-sim quality realism" in the graphical representation.

Maybe a combination of these and more...hmm.

Edit: to add () around mis above, as this could be either or.

[Kodos]

Lack of free time is the crux of it. With a wife and kid, my only gaming time comes late at night when they are both asleep. And often at that point, I'm too tired to try to dig into a game. For FOF2004, I was able to get by based on strategy tips posted by SkyDog, QuikSand, cthomer, and others. Given stuff they learned, I was able to apply their stuff and then tweak gameplans using ideas that I came up with on my own enough to be competitive in multiplayer. That stream has been a lot drier for 2007 so far. So basically, I don't have the time to learn the new game, and my spoon feeding is lower now.

At the end of the day, I think I fall somewhere between a Madden gamer and an FOF gamer. I spend a lot of time tweaking Madden to get it how I like it. But I don't have the time to figure out the tricks of drafting and all that in FOF. I don't like to run experiments. That is work, not play, and my playtime is very limited. So inevitably, I'll end up at a competitive disadvantage. While I love the challenge of playing against real people, I don't have the time to really dig in like the SkyDogs of the world.

[MJ4H]

I agree its kind of crappy to criticize a group of people publically and then act surprised when they suddenly care about your opinion of them.

[Ben E Lou]

That's the crux of it. With a wife and kid, my only gaming time comes late at night when they are both asleep. And often at that point, I'm too tired to try to dig into a game. For FOF2004, I was able to get by based on strategy tips posted by SkyDog, QuikSand, cthomer, and others. Given stuff they learned, I was able to apply their stuff and then tweak gameplans using ideas that I came up with on my own enough to be competitive in multiplayer. That stream has been a lot drier for 2007 so far. So basically, I don't have the time to learn the new game, and my spoon feeding is lower now.

At the end of the day, I think I fall somewhere between a Madden gamer and an FOF gamer. I spend a lot of time tweaking Madden to get it how I like it. But I don't have the time to figure out the tricks of drafting and all that in FOF. I don't like to run experiments. That is work, not play, and my playtime is very limited. So inevitably, I'll end up at a competitive disadvantage. While I love the challenge of playing against real people, I don't have the time to really dig in like the SkyDogs of the world.

I think this discussion is also starting to circle back to some thoughts expressed in the Testing<----->Spoon Feeding Continuum (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=55677) thread. To sum up some of the thoughts in that thread, the deeper text sims get, the more testing is going to be pretty much required to maximize performance. Even if there are 20 different stock offensive systems, the guy who learns the game and does everything manually is probably going to be able to consistently outperform the AI.

[JW]

That would be a good reason to build in a variety of difficulty levels and more options that can be implemented or not at the player's discretion.

[Buccaneer]

Strangely enough accessibility is one of the things we (being SI) have being looking at a lot more in the last year or two, hence the beginnings of improved help and the more accessible game startup (ie. the wizard helping select options for users).

Its a delicate balancing act to try and make things as easy to use as possible for people while NOT dumbling down the gameplay at all (which would make it less appealing long term for most people imho) - but no one ever said this was going to be an easy job and its an enjoyable challenge :D

With what you are looking at (easy to play without dumbing down), I would love to see SI try their hand at an American Football game. I think it would be a doable challenge since there are a lot of sports fans interested in the GM aspect of the sport while knowing that the game results will be solid.

[Anthony]

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.
Or perhaps a by-product of a niche community which doesnt support such a team to develop, implement & test such things even as "seemingly" basic as a sprite-based, canned animation, Microleague Football/Baseball-type game presentation?


i think this is the cause. these are really one man operations for the most part. that's why i say this comment all the time - instead of making fun of David Winter for MF we should really be impressed that one person was able to do that and not have the game crash (despite all its other probs). yeah, the guy sucks at PR and dealing with the public, but had he sold it for half the price or even better - made it free - it would have taken off. first iteration of MF should have been free and completely moddable, he could have grown a fan-base and with the 2nd edition that's when he could have started charging for it.

anyway, simple graphics - sprites, early 90's calibre - should be where we're at right now at least. it's a lot to ask one person to do, i'm sure. it's nice to hear Solecismic is interested in farming out graphic duties to outside sources or partnering up with others; who knows what's in store for future versions of FOF with that bit of info in mind.

perhaps it's just easy for me to make these comments not knowing what's involved to make even a simple text based sim game. i would love to learn how to program a game, i have a lot of ideas that i would love to see implemented in a game or what i think is a fun sports-based game.

[JonInMiddleGA]

HA, I hear ya, and from a technology standpoint I can't really disagree with you.

But ...

anyway, simple graphics - sprites, early 90's calibre - should be where we're at right now at least.

My question would be "why"?
It's a TEXT sim.

Not a "cheesy graphics sim". Or a "space invaders graphics sim". Text.

And across the genre as a whole, I hope & pray that's what they stick with.
There's still a lot of things that need work in the majority of the genre, instead of wasting time on eye candy that I don't personally need nor give a flying fuck if I ever see.

[Brian Swartz]

Another amateurish .02 from yours truly.

On the graphics front, I think there are a couple things here. One, it's always going to be secondary to the needs of the engine in a text sim, because if you have a baseball sim where the league average is a .500 BA, or a football sim where no-one rushes for more than 600 yards in a season, or a hockey sim where the average score is 9-8, etc ... it will fail miserably because people buy these games expecting a very accurate depiction of the sport. If a developer determines that the best way to go to get that accuracy, and get it within a reasonable load on the processor, is to use an engine that doesn't require the precise modeling of where all players are on the field of the sport on a constant basis(this is usually the case I would THINK), then the engine by itself is not set up to support the kind of graphics being talked about here.

In order to then add said graphics, you have to do one of two things: 1) Compromise the engine(BAD idea, and I think most/all devs know this), or 2) 'Graft' it on. Grafting the graphic display on can be very difficult and almost like writing a second engine to deal with the graphics in some cases, because it must fit the result of the engine or you've got a big, very obvious problem. While I think we all would like it(I'm among those who play FM from time to time while having ZERO interest in soccer because it really helps you get connected to your team), it isn't simply a matter I don't think of 'adding sprites' to the engine and voila! ... a 2D display. Practically speaking, adding this kind of graphic to the game is a lot more involved than that ... and the difficulty/effort involved has to be weighed of course against other possible features. The suggestion threads for pretty much every game in the genre have lots of ideas, but it's usually a relatively small minority(though it appears to be growing IMO) that want this kind of display vs. those that want historical options/modding capabilities/better AI for this, that, or the other thing/"insert feature X here".

Put simply, I think if more people really demanded it, it would come ... it's just not what a lot of text-simmers are asking for, at least not yet.

[Anthony]

HA, I hear ya, and from a technology standpoint I can't really disagree with you.

But ...



My question would be "why"?
It's a TEXT sim.

Not a "cheesy graphics sim". Or a "space invaders graphics sim". Text.

And across the genre as a whole, I hope & pray that's what they stick with.
There's still a lot of things that need work in the majority of the genre, instead of wasting time on eye candy that I don't personally need nor give a flying fuck if I ever see.


but then, couldn't EA have taken the same stance with Madden and said "offseason?? who wants to deal with scouting college players? who wants to go through the hassle of worrying about finances to sign free agents?" (all jokes aside about whether or not the front office portion of Madden is on par with realism) couldn't they have just said "people just want to mash button and juke and throw hail mary's, this is a graphic oriented game".

and again, you quote the oft-used "wasting time on eye candy" line. and i will again counter that with "there doesn't have to be a trade-off". no one is asking for Madden graphics with FOF sim engine (outside of talking about our ideal fantasy game). you mean to tell me technology and computers haven't advanced to the point where you can't have a text sim game like FOF with graphics like MF, or FBCB married with something akin to "NBA Live '94" or even "Bulls vs Lakers" for the Genesis? i'm not subscribing to the either/or theory of text sims anymore. i can do too much with my own PC regarding my video editing hobby - the PC i use for that stuff today is light years beyond what people were using 10 years ago. so it's not a technilogical obstacle anymore, where you could believe someone who said "i'd love to have added a more robust graphical element to this game but there hasn't been much in the way of affordable advances in technology to make it a feasible option". it's a manpower issue, no more and no less.

[SteveMax58]

My question would be "why"?
It's a TEXT sim.
There is nothing wrong with that view, but it's simply much different than mine, as what attracts me to a game like FOF is a realistic simulation of sports...not the desire for text, or a game that doesnt look like a game at work, etc.

I dont speak for the masses, but I'll merely say that for me, I want in order of priority from any sports game:
1) Realistic Stats Engine that does not make me question the integrity of.
2) Solid AI which makes me struggle to compete.
3) Options galore...enough to feel like "work" if I want it, but easily scaled down if/when I dont. This would also include flexible ways to play the game...for modding purposes.
4) A graphical presentation of the sport I'm managing...optional to watch of course for those not interested.

To me it's always been a natural progression as computers have evolved to begin crossing over the graphics barrier for sports text sims...but I'm in the minority.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Hmm ...

and i will again counter that with "there doesn't have to be a trade-off".

I believe you just contradicted yourself a few sentences later.

it's a manpower issue, no more and no less.

If there isn't some trade-off, then how does manpower come into play?
I read that as saying the development teams are too small to manage both elements. If, on the other hand, your intent is to say that there's a talent gap in terms of knowing how to get the engine right & insert the graphic elements, I might be willing to go along with that absent much evidence to the contrary. But that's not how I read what you're saying.

Meanwhile, again I'll agree with you that "technology and computers" have advanced to the point that what you describe is possible.
My point was more on the lines of I don't find it something desirable.

If I was worried about graphics, I'd likely be railing about the graphic companies needing to improve their AI and such, instead of trying to convince text sim developers to reinvent their wheel.

[Anthony]

There is nothing wrong with that view, but it's simply much different than mine, as what attracts me to a game like FOF is a realistic simulation of sports...not the desire for text, or a game that doesnt look like a game at work, etc.

I dont speak for the masses, but I'll merely say that for me, I want in order of priority from any sports game:
1) Realistic Stats Engine that does not make me question the integrity of.
2) Solid AI which makes me struggle to compete.
3) Options galore...enough to feel like "work" if I want it, but easily scaled down if/when I dont. This would also include flexible ways to play the game...for modding purposes.
4) A graphical presentation of the sport I'm managing...optional to watch of course for those not interested.

To me it's always been a natural progression as computers have evolved to begin crossing over the graphics barrier for sports text sims...but I'm in the minority.


you are completely correct. we are in complete agreement in this conversation. we're in the same boat here. who knows - we may not be in the minority. i'm in the camp that, while mildly happy with the current state of text sim gaming, am now shifting to a "what's next?" position.

where we're at technologically we should *at least* be beginning the shift towards the marriage of the current capabilities of text sims and early 90's era calibre graphics.

put it this way - at least with Madden you have two facets of the game. you can play it for it's graphical aspect and dabble in as much of the GM portion as you want. OR you can just be a GM and never mash a button. of course, the GM portion of Madden isn't up snuff with something like FOF, but by and large you could make the case that we're not talking about apples and oranges here, FOF has some shortcomings that one must overlook in favor of the bigger picture. where console gaming is at right now is superior graphics with mostly vanilla front office features. where text sim gaming is at right now is questionably superior GM capabilities and no graphical representation (outside of FM). we're not even talking about being able to control the players - apparently that's a lot to ask for. i'm talking even substandard graphical represenation.

[Anthony]

Hmm ...



I believe you just contradicted yourself a few sentences later.



If there isn't some trade-off, then how does manpower come into play?
I read that as saying the development teams are too small to manage both elements. If, on the other hand, your intent is to say that there's a talent gap in terms of knowing how to get the engine right & insert the graphic elements, I might be willing to go along with that absent much evidence to the contrary. But that's not how I read what you're saying.

Meanwhile, again I'll agree with you that "technology and computers" have advanced to the point that what you describe is possible.
My point was more on the lines of I don't find it something desirable.

If I was worried about graphics, I'd likely be railing about the graphic companies needing to improve their AI and such, instead of trying to convince text sim developers to reinvent their wheel.


no, i'll stand by my stance. my arguement/claim is that this is not a technological obstacle anymore. technologically there is no need for one or the other. we can have superior text sim engines with basic, even outdated graphical representation of what's going on in the field. this is a manpower issue - there aren't enough people working on these projects to make it feasible for text sim games to get to the next level. it's not a matter of "it can't be done". it's more "it can't be done cuz i'm the only guy working on this game and i don't want to invest the massive amount of time needed to accomplish that" (in mostly all cases).

[MizzouRah]

With what you are looking at (easy to play without dumbing down), I would love to see SI try their hand at an American Football game. I think it would be a doable challenge since there are a lot of sports fans interested in the GM aspect of the sport while knowing that the game results will be solid.

Are you kidding?

Nothing against SI, but I don't play FM, EHM was a no buy for me this year and OOTP is just "ok" so far. What would they have to gain by going into American football?

Maybe I'm just a goofball who thinks developers like Arlie and Jim do just fine with American football.

[AlexB]

Are you kidding?

Nothing against SI, but I don't play FM, EHM was a no buy for me this year and OOTP is just "ok" so far. What would they have to gain by going into American football?

Maybe I'm just a goofball who thinks developers like Arlie and Jim do just fine with American football.

SI bring the 'universe' - the size and scope increases, and it becomes a bigger, longer game. Similar to the subject of this thread.

FOF2007 is considerably bigger than FOF2004, the only other version I have played, and for me, it's on the verge of what's enjoyable. That's with me paying little/no attention to the game planning/play calling aspects.

FM2007 is the first one since the split with Eidos that I have felt is enjoyable - there is more immersion through the media than before, but there are still major bugs/irritations that are there for two reasons - the size of the game and the pressure to release a new version every year.

People are clamouring for Jim to get involved with SI, and I have no doubt the end result will be much better looking, and more functional in terms of navigation. The trade off will be that it will take twice as long to play, and there is a high likelihood of 'features' not working properly without the ability to turn these 'features' off.

[st.cronin]

I would love to see SI do an American football game.

[SteveMax58]

...i'm in the camp that, while mildly happy with the current state of text sim gaming, am now shifting to a "what's next?" position.
+1

...put it this way - at least with Madden you have two facets of the game. you can play it for it's graphical aspect and dabble in as much of the GM portion as you want. OR you can just be a GM and never mash a button. of course, the GM portion of Madden isn't up snuff with something like FOF, but by and large you could make the case that we're not talking about apples and oranges here, FOF has some shortcomings that one must overlook in favor of the bigger picture. where console gaming is at right now is superior graphics with mostly vanilla front office features. where text sim gaming is at right now is questionably superior GM capabilities and no graphical representation (outside of FM). we're not even talking about being able to control the players - apparently that's a lot to ask for. i'm talking even substandard graphical represenation.
I was actually one of those people who purchased Madden for years just to play the franchise mode without playing the game out. Occasionally, or during playoff games, I'd watch the game, or call the plays (back when they let you just coach the game, not sure about now) & just get frustrated by the stat output. I came to a point a few years ago where I realized they will never focus enough of their team on the GM/coach aspects & simulation in general, so I havent bought a version since '04, I believe(maybe a used '05, I forget now).

FOF 2k7 is my first FOF game, and I really like it a lot. But as you said, I'm looking for that next generation of text sims to take their engines & apply just some basic representation of the game itself. Unfortunately, with the "one man show" nature of most text sims, it seems as if implementing any sort of graphics (hell, circa 1986 Omniplay Basketball, PING: Ed Ringler, ;) might be more than we may get in the coming versions...and that's assuming we're not the gross minority.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I would love to see SI do an American football game.

Wishing disaster on SI is not very nice.

[lynchjm24]

I would love to see SI do an American football game.

How about they actually make a baseball game that doesn't blow first?

[MizzouRah]

SI bring the 'universe' - the size and scope increases, and it becomes a bigger, longer game. Similar to the subject of this thread.

FOF2007 is considerably bigger than FOF2004, the only other version I have played, and for me, it's on the verge of what's enjoyable. That's with me paying little/no attention to the game planning/play calling aspects.

FM2007 is the first one since the split with Eidos that I have felt is enjoyable - there is more immersion through the media than before, but there are still major bugs/irritations that are there for two reasons - the size of the game and the pressure to release a new version every year.

People are clamouring for Jim to get involved with SI, and I have no doubt the end result will be much better looking, and more functional in terms of navigation. The trade off will be that it will take twice as long to play, and there is a high likelihood of 'features' not working properly without the ability to turn these 'features' off.

That's what scares me. Too much to wade through when all I want is a simple, yet realistic and fun game. OOTP and EHM just has too much for me. I know many would like all that detail and such, it's just not for me as I don't have that kind of free time.

[lynchjm24]

+1


PING: Ed Ringler, ;) might be more than we may get in the coming versions...and that's assuming we're not the gross minority.

PING: Ed Ringer might be a joke. In a lot of ways his hockey game for the C64 was more fun then a lot of games available today.

[st.cronin]

Wishing disaster on SI is not very nice.

Ever the optimist, eh?

:D

[Buccaneer]

Are you kidding?

Nothing against SI, but I don't play FM, EHM was a no buy for me this year and OOTP is just "ok" so far. What would they have to gain by going into American football?

Maybe I'm just a goofball who thinks developers like Arlie and Jim do just fine with American football.

I'm actually in the same boat, having never bought an SI product. OOTP is one of the few text sims I play but they (Markus and then Markus/SI) poured on the kitchen-sink approach since v.6. More does not always mean better. Arlie and Jim do the same thing, one gives you more fancy graphics with a lot of screens while the other gives as much as humanly possible on the screen. FBCB keeps being brought up and if you read the comments about Brian joining GDS, it's about keeping that interface the same and not go towards the kitchen-sink approach. The only reason I commented on Marc's post was that I perceive that he kind of sees the same thing. I won't even comment on adding 2d or 3d graphics.

[Marc Vaughan]

How about they actually make a baseball game that doesn't blow first?

Thank you for your kind and constructive comments - to my knowledge our games are incapable of physical action and therefore unable to blow in the manner you describe ;)

PS> We do our utmost to ensure all our games are as playable as possible - hopefully this years OOTP will suit you more.

[MizzouRah]

I'm actually in the same boat, having never bought an SI product. OOTP is one of the few text sims I play but they (Markus and then Markus/SI) poured on the kitchen-sink approach since v.6. More does not always mean better. Arlie and Jim do the same thing, one gives you more fancy graphics with a lot of screens while the other gives as much as humanly possible on the screen. FBCB keeps being brought up and if you read the comments about Brian joining GDS, it's about keeping that interface the same and not go towards the kitchen-sink approach. The only reason I commented on Marc's post was that I perceive that he kind of sees the same thing. I won't even comment on adding 2d or 3d graphics.

You comment was just a tad confusing since I know you love the FBCB design and interface. SI, imo, has one of the most confusing interfaces in any text sim. I know a great part of that for me is I haven't really been drawn in by any of their titles yet, but I love Brian's and Jim's interface models quite a bit.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Ever the optimist, eh? :D

Just being honest.

I can recall pretty much one successful attempt at a foreign developer correctly handling a sport that's significantly identified with a country other than their own. That's SAT, and even that is a case where the engine was largely translated from someone else's pre-existing work. (I don't count EHM for the purpose of this topic because there seems a reasonable amount of hockey in his region, albeit not the highest level).

The next closest thing I can think of would be TnM, although Oliver Copp almost becomes a special case because of his work within the pro wrestling business outside of his game programming

I simply see no reason to believe an SI attempt at simulating American football would be anything other than a disappointment for everyone involved. I'd say the same thing about an American developer trying to create the definitive cricket sim.

[Buccaneer]

You comment was just a tad confusing since I know you love the FBCB design and interface. SI, imo, has one of the most confusing interfaces in any text sim. I know a great part of that for me is I haven't really been drawn in by any of their titles yet, but I love Brian's and Jim's interface models quite a bit.

I know, both you and Jon picked up the wrong point due to my lack of clarity. I was solely commented on this statement


Its a delicate balancing act to try and make things as easy to use as possible for people while NOT dumbling down the gameplay at all (which would make it less appealing long term for most people imho)


...and not on anything specific SI could do or would do or have done. I agree that while I love for someone to do an American Football game under this philosophy, I may not be SI. It was just that Marc was brave enough to openly talk about it.

[Galaril]

Yes & no.

I've been transitioning back toward tabletop gaming for quite a while now, but even there, I often find myself in the position of wrestling with stuff I "have" to do instead of just playing the games.

Now I admit to being downright anal about tracking certain stats & info with games, I did that extensively even as a kid playing far less detailed games so it's no surprise that I do it now too (lots easier with computers, spreadsheets, etc). But a lot of projects get bogged down by feeling more like work than play.

In some ways, or maybe better said as in some cases, I think the amount of interactivity we have today with gaming vs years past contributes to this sort of thing. Case in point is a project I'm wrapping up with SAT. I like sharing the results of those seasons and I enjoy the sidetracks that various comments & questions usually produce when people respond to my posted results ... but at the same time, posting them becomes more of a chore than a joy. It may be self-induced pressure to keep the recaps & writeups to a certain standard, but it's pressure nonetheless. And that does sort of defeat a lot of the purpose for playing the games, which ostensibly is having fun.

I went and bought the SAT Pro game an dam wondering if this is public dynasty I could read? I tried to search in the dynasty section but couldn't find it.

[Shaun Sullivan]

Very interesting thread. I come from the "I wish I could have my cake and eat it too" camp, but it really does come down to a trade off. Not a trade off for any technical reason, rather it's a resources trade off. When it comes down to it, if I expand the animation options in PureSim 2008, something else will have to get bumped. It's just reality. There likely would have to be some engine changes as well if the approach involved anything more than a post-rendering of the play result.

The real tricky part is if you make the graphics functional enough to approach graphics games in the genre, you will get killed when being compared to said games, at least with the one-man teams many of us work on. Max FB is a great example of that (issues aside). An interesting question would be, would you like to see FOF's game played out with Max FB graphics assuming there were absolutely zero compromises on the stats fidelity? The answer would likely be yes, but then I wonder if FOF would end up getting categorized with other games and get skewered because of the "dated" presentation as opposed to the cachet it gets today for eschewing graphics altogether and focusing on the AI/Engine.

It is for that reason that when I added the animated ball flight to PureSim it was implemented bare-bones (e.g the players don't move). At that point its obvious to the player that the game is not from the graphics ilk, yet even to the hard core text-simmer its a nice addition because they don't have to read as much text. I actually was amazed at the response that feature got when added to the game this year, so there is obviously a germ of truth here.

I totally agree with Hell Atlantic's overall points, but there really is a trade off here.

I am seriously considering a more robust graphics engine this year, so I'll be watching this thread with interest.

Shaun

[SteveMax58]

The real tricky part is if you make the graphics functional enough to approach graphics games in the genre, you will get killed when being compared to said games, at least with the one-man teams many of us work on. Max FB is a great example of that (issues aside). An interesting question would be, would you like to see FOF's game played out with Max FB graphics assuming there were absolutely zero compromises on the stats fidelity? The answer would likely be yes, but then I wonder if FOF would end up getting categorized with other games and get skewered because of the "dated" presentation as opposed to the cachet it gets today for eschewing graphics altogether and focusing on the AI/Engine.
I think Max FB is an ambitious effort, with a bright future...but to me, it never fell into the "sim" department in the first place, IMHO. This is why I think many have been critical of it, as it appears to be an arcade game with many coach options, and some GM capabilities sprinkled on...as oppsed to being a simulation first, then a graphical representation of those results. Thus...it doesnt "fit" into any specific category or niche community, outside of sports in general.

I think there are 2 keys, FWIW, to pulling this off properly for a text sim.
1) You should not be controlling the players directly on the game field. Hopefully that should cut down much of the unwarranted criticisms & ill-concieved buyer notions.
2) Do not try to compete graphically with other games in the sports genre. Perhaps that even means not even playing out in full-screen.

It is for that reason that when I added the animated ball flight to PureSim it was implemented bare-bones (e.g the players don't move). At that point its obvious to the player that the game is not from the graphics ilk, yet even to the hard core text-simmer its a nice addition because they don't have to read as much text. I actually was amazed at the response that feature got when added to the game this year, so there is obviously a germ of truth here.

I totally agree with Hell Atlantic's overall points, but there really is a trade off here.

I am seriously considering a more robust graphics engine this year, so I'll be watching this thread with interest.

Shaun

Absolutely great addition to Puresim.:)

[Shaun Sullivan]

I think Max FB is an ambitious effort, with a bright future...but to me, it never fell into the "sim" department in the first place, IMHO. This is why I think many have been critical of it, as it appears to be an arcade game with many coach options, and some GM capabilities sprinkled on...as oppsed to being a simulation first, then a graphical representation of those results. Thus...it doesnt "fit" into any specific category or niche community, outside of sports in general.


That's a good point.

[JimboJ]

Very interesting thread. I come from the "I wish I could have my cake and eat it too" camp, but it really does come down to a trade off. Not a trade off for any technical reason, rather it's a resources trade off. When it comes down to it, if I expand the animation options in PureSim 2008, something else will have to get bumped. It's just reality. There likely would have to be some engine changes as well if the approach involved anything more than a post-rendering of the play result.

The real tricky part is if you make the graphics functional enough to approach graphics games in the genre, you will get killed when being compared to said games, at least with the one-man teams many of us work on. Max FB is a great example of that (issues aside). An interesting question would be, would you like to see FOF's game played out with Max FB graphics assuming there were absolutely zero compromises on the stats fidelity? The answer would likely be yes, but then I wonder if FOF would end up getting categorized with other games and get skewered because of the "dated" presentation as opposed to the cachet it gets today for eschewing graphics altogether and focusing on the AI/Engine.

It is for that reason that when I added the animated ball flight to PureSim it was implemented bare-bones (e.g the players don't move). At that point its obvious to the player that the game is not from the graphics ilk, yet even to the hard core text-simmer its a nice addition because they don't have to read as much text. I actually was amazed at the response that feature got when added to the game this year, so there is obviously a germ of truth here.

I totally agree with Hell Atlantic's overall points, but there really is a trade off here.

I am seriously considering a more robust graphics engine this year, so I'll be watching this thread with interest.

Shaun

Shaun - I think you made the right decision with the minimalist approach and ball flight graphics. Rather than improve graphics, I would prefer you go the route of adding a realistic radio announcer, ala Ernie Harwell's Broadcast Blast. That was truly a groundbreaking feature for a text sim at that time. Since that is no longer being produced, I think that would really make your game unique in the text game market. And you would avoid the inevitable comparisons with other graphic based games.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I went and bought the SAT Pro game an dam wondering if this is public dynasty I could read? I tried to search in the dynasty section but couldn't find it.

Ah, that's because I've been posting it at the Seasons Past forum at Delphi.
Linkage:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=seasonspast&msg=3885.1

Fair warning, it's one of the more unusual projects I've ever done. Replaying from 1970 to the present with the worst team in the league each season, to see how much (if any) I can improve their fate.

It came about after a much shorter, but very fun, project that tried to remove the playoff stigma from Peyton Manning's career.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=seasonspast&msg=3881.1

You'll find quite a few threads with various dynasty reports at both that forum & at the other busy tabletop sports one on Delphi
http://forums.delphiforums.com/tabletopsports/start

Hope you enjoy.

[Eaglesfan27]

For me, a mixture of text sims and graphical sims keeps both fresh for me. Mix in a good FPS and my rotation is all set.

I've just found out that as I've grown older, my gaming preference goes in spurts. Work will have me coming home tired, so I'll get in a little bit of COD 3 and head to bed - maybe Saturday I'll have nothing to do, so I'll load up FOF 2k7 and play for hours. It was fun being young and playing FPS Football and Baseball for hours with my friends.. just can't do that anymore.


Agree with all of this except for the FPS. However, a wide variety of games right now is keeping everything fresh for me and wishing I had more free time to play them.

[cuervo72]

As the snazzy moving baseball was brought up again, I'll mention yet again that MicroLeague had a moving ball and moving (smurf-like) players in the mid 80's. I'd be ok with the exact same implementation plugged into a career game.

Although...that's one complaint I do have with OOTP. I *loved* how I could take one season disk and pick a team, and take any other season disk and match them against each other. With OOTP, you have your universe (which if you stay inside that universe things are all well and good), but the universes don't mix too well. Even in FOBL, I'd love to be able to take the 2002 Columbus Crocodiles and face them vs the 2018 Seminole Honkies.

Of course, an upgrade path from v5 that isn't v6 and isn't the overblown mess that v7 is would be nice too. Or hey, an upgrade path to PureSim! ;)

[Groundhog]

OK, so I missed the start of this conversation and only quickly browsed the first page, but I completely agree with the initial post.

I think the problem (with me, at least) is that 3D sport games are getting much, much more realistic than they were back when I started gaming. It used to be that I'd play Fastbreak Basketball for a realistic feeling basketball sim, and I'd play NBA Live when I felt like scoring 150 points on nothing but 360 dunks and three pointers (which got boring quite quickly). Then I got an xbox 360 and NBA 2K7, and all of a sudden I'm getting quite realistic results playing the games out myself, and it's more fun too.

3D games will never rival text sims when it comes to massive careers and stat tracking (for awhile, at least), but the immersion is improving as these games get more realistic.

[Anthony]

i whipped this up quickly. here's the gist of what i would like to see in a text sim game when factoring in graphical representation:

1. build in a player generator that utilizes a face-pak generator (if you're familiar with OOTP you'll know of the mods i'm alluding to here) that will tell me what my players look like. now i got a face to go along with the name.

2. for watching a game unfold as i read along with the text, i'd like to see even simple sprite-based action represent the action on the field. use cut scenes to show other action going on in the field. i'll use an example here:

text details the action: my RB takes the handoff and does a killer juke to freeze the LB and scores a long gamewinning touchdown after getting tackled in the endzone by the safety.

now in conjunction with reading that i can see the action on top:

1. taken from an actuall OOTP mod, here we see what the random face generator would create:
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=49009&stc=1&d=1151195633

2. using a template then helmets and jerseys would be added, as well as name/team identifier to make a default player card:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/HellAtlantic/sample1.jpg

3. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/HellAtlantic/sample2.jpg

4. use some stock photos to cut to the other going on elsewhere for added immersion:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/HellAtlantic/sample3.jpg

5. some more cut scene shots:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/HellAtlantic/sample4.jpg

6. revert back to the action on the field, by this point your heart is racing watching this unfold:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/HellAtlantic/sample5.jpg

7. throw in some blinking scoring text like how FM does it and you're good to go:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/HellAtlantic/sample6.jpg

just do this and i'll be content.

[Ben E Lou]

Anthony has always been easy to please, so I've heard. ;)

The addition of facepacks to FOF would be very nice, though. I've enjoyed having those. I'm not a big fan of a bunch of time being put into on-field graphical representations if it takes time away from other things. I just wouldn't use it enough, since I sim virtually all of my games.

[MizzouRah]

I've said this SO many times.

Merge FPS Football's graphical aspec with FOF's engine. Ahhh... I wish it was that simple.

[Eaglesfan27]

I've said this SO many times.

Merge FPS Football's graphical aspec with FOF's engine. Ahhh... I wish it was that simple.


So do I.