TCY Question: Jim?

[MizzouRah]

Can we start playing and saving draft classes? or do you need to patch the game for it to be able to have FOF 2004 draft classes?

I know you are doing something with TCY to make it compatible with FOF 2004, but I wanted to know if you're making a converter for saved draft classes or should we wait to start our TCY careers until you have a patch ready?

I don't want to get into a TCY career and have to start over because a restart was required to have compatible FOF 2004 graduates after a patch.


Thanks,


Todd

[FBPro]

I believe he said that he first needed to patch TCY for the draft classes to work, but hinted that a patch for it shouldn't be too far off. Someone correct me if I'm off here.

[MizzouRah]

No, you're right. I just didn't know if 'patch' meant to patch the draft classes or the game itself?

Anyhow, I'll just wait and see what Jim has in store for TCY.

I was disappointed in the conversion from TCY to FOF4, so I hope it's better this time around.


Todd

[FBPro]

I took it to mean TCY itself, but not 100% certain. I would agree with the conversion, maybe something was learned in the process.

[MizzouRah]

Hopefully all the smoke will clear somewhat next week and the whole package will come into focus.

With QS and some others (secretly) on the beta team, I would think most obvious bugs will be squashed!


Todd

[Ben E Lou]

Im fairly certain you have to wait for the update to export draft classes. On option (which I do anyway) is to do a savegame at the end of every season. That way, you can just "end season" and export the draft classes whenever you want. I've used my Kentucky TCY career in two different FOF versions, and I'll be able to use it in this one as well.

[3ric]

As I understood it, you can use old TCY drafts if you can convert them to the new format, which could be done by copying the data to an Excel sheet, and then adding some extra columns (which ones aren't known yet) with new data. After saving the sheet to a comma separated text file (*.csv), you should be able to enter it into FOF2004.

But if you just want to generate new draft files, then you should wait for the TCY patch (v1.3 I suppose).

[MizzouRah]

Good idea Skydog, although if 3ric's right, I'll think I can wait until the TCY update, which hopefully will come out next week sometime? :)

By the time I'm done with my first season (note to self to edit the college season to 2003 to start), FOF 2004 should be in full swing and any bugs should be known (this IS FOFC!).

Thanks,

Todd

[MizzouRah]

I would still like to hear from Jim concerning TCY and FOF 2004.

Can I start playing a dynasty or does the patch have to be installed and your season re-started to coincide with FOF 2004?

If you can play and save at season's end like Skydog, that's fine, I just want some clarification... if possible.


Thanks,

Todd

[Ben E Lou]

Todd:

I am virtually certain you can save at season's end. I can't imagine that he'd patch TCY in such a way as to change the entire TCY data structure. It would be much simpler to patch it so that the export matches the FOF2K4 data structure.

[Bee]

I agree with SD, I don't see why he'd patch it where the end of season saves wouldn't work. It just wouldn't make sense to me.

[sabotai]

Anyone else get the felling of deja vu when they read the first few posts of this thread. I could have sworn I read this thread before (like a year ago)...

[MizzouRah]

Ok, I'll go with your assumptions. I was thinking he would just make it so when you hit export, it would add some data to the players for the export.

Just wanted to be sure before I really get into TCY again.

Are you guys confident will see a better conversion from TCY to FOF this time around?


Todd

[Solecismic]

Yes, if you save right before the end of the season, you'll be able to start right in post-minor-patch and export.

There have been no changes since the adjustment to FOF4 that balanced the incoming players properly.

Here's the 1971 spreadsheet from the draft project, modified a little.

The changes you'll notice are....

1) Names must be written out instead of indexed (they were written out in the spreadsheet originally)

2) Heights are now in inches, not 100 x ft + in.

3) There are five fields at the end used for college statistics.

I've left the college stats blank. I converted all the colleges to their indexes. I didn't do that with home towns.

I randomly converted linebackers to inside and outside linebackers. Probably too many to inside linebackers, judging from the test I ran with the file.

I also fixed a couple of player entries with numbers below 375 for ratings. The draft generator will reject those.

I set all the injury propensity ratings to zero. I can imagine there were a lot of extra injuries when these files were used.

To use this spreadsheet with the generator, you would remove the header line and the column that contains the hown towns (I left those in because I didn't convert them). You would save this in .csv form, which the draft generator can open and convert to .faf form.

[3ric]

Very nice, Jim! Thanks a bunch!

[FBPro]

Thanks Jim.

[MizzouRah]

Thanks for the reply.

There have been no changes since the adjustment to FOF4 that balanced the incoming players properly.

Arrggghhh... ;)


Does anyone have problems with TCY -> FOF4 draftee's? Meaning it seems more random, than say the best passing QB for 4 years is drafted below medicore QB's? Excellent RB's are drafted after one's with lower yards.

If the draft is going to show stats from college, shouldn't teams take that into consideration when drafting players?

Basically Jim, are you happy with how college players are being converted into FOF 2004?


Thanks for your time,

Todd

[Buccaneer]

Great job on the new format, Jim!

[Bee]

Originally posted by MizzouRah
Thanks for the reply.



Arrggghhh... ;)


Does anyone have problems with TCY -> FOF4 draftee's? Meaning it seems more random, than say the best passing QB for 4 years is drafted below medicore QB's? Excellent RB's are drafted after one's with lower yards.

If the draft is going to show stats from college, shouldn't teams take that into consideration when drafting players?

Basically Jim, are you happy with how college players are being converted into FOF 2004?


Thanks for your time,

Todd

Since the last FOF4 patch I don't think the transition is bad at all. Some college stars don't translate well, but that's like RL. The bigger problem I had (before the last patch) was the number of backups that ended up as draft studs. That seems to be have dramatically reduced in the last patch.

[MizzouRah]

Originally posted by Bee
Since the last FOF4 patch I don't think the transition is bad at all. Some college stars don't translate well, but that's like RL. The bigger problem I had (before the last patch) was the number of backups that ended up as draft studs. That seems to be have dramatically reduced in the last patch.

Forgot about that one as well. I haven't tried since the latest patch, but encouraging news nonetheless.


Thanks,

Todd