First impressions and issues with running a MP league

[sjshaw]

A few of us FOBLers ran a MP league last night for a few weeks. I don't see a current thread in which to post this, so I'll just start a new thread and maybe others can add to this.

My first impressions are:

1. The process is confusing at first, especially when you're trying to be commish and an owner. What files can be deleted... where do they go... etc.

2. After a while, though, things get easier. It is possible to trash a file accidentally and f*ck things up royally, though. I had to restore a few files from the trash in order to open our league as commish after closing the game and cleaning out some files.

3. Who sets options such as "Scout resets game plans, etc.?" Does the commish set them for the whole league, or does each owner set it for himself? Can this be changed at any time?

4. One very irritating thing: owners do not get emails re: injuries, playing time, etc. The only email each week is the one that details what to do that week before exporting. The injury and playing time emails are a big thing to have, IMHO, even though most of that info is available from the roster screen.

[sjshaw]

Dola:

1. How can a MP league start with a fully fictional, mature player file? There doesn't seem to be a way to start a OPU, run it for 20 years, then export it or otherwise use it as the starting point for a new MP league. Hand-editing a spreadsheet for 2000 players ain't gonna cut it.

2. Our MP league wants to run a full draft, not a pref draft. How can the owners keep up with the draft in-game? In FOBL, as the draft progresses, each owner can follow exactly what the commish is doing by drafting the players in his own file. (And discarding that file afterwards... it's only a shell to help follow the draft.)

There seems to be no way to do that here, because if one uses full X-factor, then every owner may have a draft pool with the right names, but incorrect attrributes. Make sense?

[sjshaw]

Double Dola:

1. This is a tiny issue, but I believe the radio buttons in the "Team Control Panel" of the "Commissioner Functions" should be checkboxes instead of radio buttons. It confused me for a few seconds.

[Ben E Lou]

bump...don't want this missed...

[sjshaw]

Also, see my idea for a badly needed mod for MP leagues in this thread: http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16653

[Simms]

Bump...

[DukeRulesMAB]

2. Our MP league wants to run a full draft, not a pref draft. How can the owners keep up with the draft in-game? In FOBL, as the draft progresses, each owner can follow exactly what the commish is doing by drafting the players in his own file. (And discarding that file afterwards... it's only a shell to help follow the draft.)

I want to re-emphasize this point, because as the game currently stands, it is essentially impossible for a MP league (unless done with all owners standing in front of the same computer, I suppose) to do a full draft.

Once the commissioner starts the league, the draft begins, and it cannot be exited. This means that the other players in the league have no opportunity to see the player file in its exact form (even without X-factor, there are variations each time most league files are loaded).

[PineTar]

Originally posted by DukeRulesMAB
I want to re-emphasize this point, because as the game currently stands, it is essentially impossible for a MP league (unless done with all owners standing in front of the same computer, I suppose) to do a full draft.

Once the commissioner starts the league, the draft begins, and it cannot be exited. This means that the other players in the league have no opportunity to see the player file in its exact form (even without X-factor, there are variations each time most league files are loaded).

This is absolutely essential for those of us that desire a fun multi-player experience.

[petrochile]

From other posts dealing with MP I think it is critical to have some type of password protection for teams. With the advent of many leagues being started, the integrity of the league must be maintained so there will not be cheating. I think the ability to see players through different scouts might just be too tempting for some of the good people playing this game. I think without any protection, some might become suspicious of others, especially when a league of random people is formed, and this may well kill the spirit of MP and the community that such leagues create.

[sjshaw]

We simmed through an entire season and offseason last night, and I have many things to report. I will write it up as soon as I can.

[sjshaw]

Last night I and a few FOBLers decided to take what we had learned (as detailed above) and start over. We wanted to emulate the structure of our future FOF league (FOFL). This encompasses a fake universe of players, dispersed by a full initial draft. We want to have a live draft on Yahoo! or AIM.

The first issue was that of custom cities and teams. Everybody except Daimyo had the default cities/teams. Daimyo had customized his. While I chose CAR, Duke chose CHC, and Simms chose TB, Daimyo had to choose one of his custom teams. What if the team IDs overlap? What if I don't want custom cities, but my league does? So, how in the world can a new custom league (full of changed cities) be emulated on everyone's version of the game? Does this mean that every owner wil have to have the same global cities/teams? When we play in the FOFL, do all our solo games have to use the same FOFL teams? This needs to be addressed. In fact, after we started, it reset all Daimyo's franchises back to their right cities, but kept his custom nicknames.

Next, we took a player file generated by Daimyo's script to start our league. I sent the .fdt file to the testers and I started the "official" MP league using that .fdt. The idea was: each tester could create a throw-away game with that .fdt file and see the same draft pool I did, so they could tell me who to pick. Otherwise, how can league owners see the initial pool of players? We wanted to run a "live" draft for the first 2 rounds and then autodraft the rest.

We quickly ran into problems. First, even with X-factor turned off, there were major variations in the players. In my file (the real league file), there was a total choad QB who was a 7/23. In everybody else's files, he was never less than a total stud (we're talking Brock Sheriff here). So, we absolutely need a way for the commissioner to start a league using a full draft and save, exit, and export the league BEFORE starting the draft.

Even with this change, it is going to be a major pain in the ass to have a live draft. How can owners follow the action? In the 5th round, how will people keep track of who has been chosen? One solution is to save, exit and export after each round, which keeps the number of players you have to remember as "picked" to a maximum of 31, but is a pain. OOTP enables owners to follow a live draft by picking each player for each team in his individual copy of the game, so in the 7th round, players who have been taken are shown as such.

Basically, the lesson here is that unless Jim patches so that we can exit the draft and export, we can't do a full draft.

So, I just ran a preference draft and exported a ZIP file to my server for everyone to download. Once people opened up the league, we found another problem. The preference draft is, um, unimpressive. Duke's team's first *8* draft picks were offensive linemen. Daimyo had QB preference maxed out and nothing else close and his QBs sucked. This needs work.

Then, we found another thing. You better BACK UP. I accidentally overwrote a file in my leagues folder and the league was gone. Poof. While it's obvious that the *.fmk file is the key, I would like an in-game option to back up a league to a separate file/destination. If the commish's hard drive ever crashes, a lot of time and work can go down the drain.

We started over and simmed through the exhibition season. We decided to test FA signing. Each of us made an offer on a FA. Daimyo offered what he wanted (230K), I offered 10K more, Duke offered 500K and Simms offered 750K. He ended up signing with me for 240K. We looked and found that his hometown was closest to me, so maybe that was his deciding factor. We did this again with another FA who was closest to Daimyo, and the guy signed with Duke for more money than Daimyo was offering, but the same amount Simms offered. It was interesting to note that the player's agent had 6 players with Duke and only 2 with Simms.

One irritation is that there is no way to correct an offer. I wanted to change my $240K offer to $260K, but couldn't do it.

Another bad thing is that "conditional releases," that is, releases contingent upon signing a FA, occur immediately and not AFTER the week is simmed. This sucks because Simms suddenly found himself with not enough QBs and couldn't change his depth charts. The release should have waited until after the sim, shouldn't it? Otherwise it isn't really conditional.

Next, we tested which global settings (the commish or the individual team's) with regard to "Scouts set depth chart/game plan," etc. Simms and Duke changed their settings and I didn't. It turns out that the commish's settings are the ones that count. Good to know.

I simmed through the entire season so we could test the offseason MP implementation. One confusing thing is: should I export before or after pressing the "end season" button? Or both?

During the staff hiring phase, we experienced something really cool. I bid on Duke's Defensive Coordinator to become my Head Coach. Duke offered him more money, but only to remain as DC. The guy accepted my offer. Poaching other people's coaches/scouts/coordinators will be fun. We imported/exported after each stage, which is a bit tedious, but fine.

Daimyo tried to make an offer on a scout but got the message that his owner was limiting him to $900k for scouts. This brings up an interesting issue. The participants in a MP league are not "owners," but "general managers" subject to the whims of fake owners. Do all these fake owners have the same "personality?" Will some MP players get hamstrung by the hands of fate when the teams are assigned? Will MP players accept that a lot of things will be out of their control? I would like to see Jim provide some answers and/or ways to address this.

Then came Free Agency. Aside from the tedium of exporting/importing through 20 rounds, everything went as expected, although there was one player to whom everyone made an offer, but the only offer that showed up in the player card was mine. Time constraints limited us from exploring this further, but some of you might want to check and see about this.

The amateur draft proceeds like the initial draft should. You can exit and export after each round, so it is a bit easier to keep up with "offline."

That's about it, but I will be happy to elucidate on issues and/or answer any questions.

[sjshaw]

Cross-posted to http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16678