On numeric games and sentence descriptions

[QuikSand]

On numeric games and sentence descriptions…

I am generally pretty indifferent in the various methods of information presentation used in text sims – some games are number-heavy, some prefer to use letter grades, some use graphs or pictures, some others use one-word descriptions, and many use some combination of the above – and all are basically fine with me. My real focus is generally on the accuracy and precision of the data presented to me – if that’s either too good or too bad (as the situation merits), then I’ll have a problem.

I have been playing a text sim recently, which has used a specific device that I’ve seen before – I suspect that we all have. It’s the idea of taking some essentially quantitative information, and presenting it to you in a sort of sentence.


The example at hand is in Bowl Bound College Football, a game I’m giving a little spin (perhaps unwisely, as it seems to still need a good deal of work before it’s ready for prime time). Regardless, here’s a perfect instance of what I am seeing. I am recruiting incoming freshmen players, and each week, I receive a report from my scouting service – nominally letting me know where I stand with each recruit. Here it is in its entirety:


From: Investigators, Inc.

Subject: Week 10 Recruit Recommendations

Targeted Recruits

OG Ike Lester: 0 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Lester. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon..

DE Kwazi Drummond: 0 other teams interested.
This is a tough call. You are on the outside looking in with Drummond, as some other teams are ahead of you. Still, we recommend keeping up an effort at landing him.

DE Andy Porter: 4 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Porter. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon..

DE Mac Wunsch: 2 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Wunsch. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon..

DT Adrian Michaels: 6 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Michaels. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon..

DT Jerome Mitchell: 6 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Mitchell. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon..

ILB Elvin Whelan: 0 other teams interested.
This is a tough call. You are on the outside looking in with Whelan, as some other teams are ahead of you. Still, we recommend keeping up an effort at landing him.

ILB Jay Jones: 0 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Jones. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon..

OLB Justin Snow: 0 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Snow. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon..

OLB Dan Sanders: 0 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Sanders. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon..

FS Bill Barr: 5 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Barr. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon..

SS Cody Dilfer: 5 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Dilfer. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon..

Other Recruits

QB Jamie Brown: 5 other teams interested.
It may be time to cut bait on this guy. Brown has gotten more interest lately and it might be time to move on. Still, you have an outside shot. At this point, a scholarship offer might be wasted on him. Still, you may sneak in if other teams get better options.

QB Matt Porter: 2 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Porter. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon.. We recommend using a scholarship on this player.

RB Ron Luzar: 2 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Luzar. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon.. We recommend using a scholarship on this player.

WR Ricky Green: 3 other teams interested.
It may be time to cut bait on this guy. Green has gotten more interest lately and it might be time to move on. Still, you have an outside shot. At this point, a scholarship offer might be wasted on him. Still, you may sneak in if other teams get better options.

TE Milt Harrison: 4 other teams interested.
It may be time to cut bait on this guy. Harrison has gotten more interest lately and it might be time to move on. Still, you have an outside shot. At this point, a scholarship offer might be wasted on him. Still, you may sneak in if other teams get better options.

DT Jamie Doss: 4 other teams interested.
It may be time to cut bait on this guy. Doss has gotten more interest lately and it might be time to move on. Still, you have an outside shot. At this point, a scholarship offer might be wasted on him. Still, you may sneak in if other teams get better options.

ILB Al Dennard: 4 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Dennard. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon.. We recommend using a scholarship on this player.

OLB Bill Diedrick: 4 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Diedrick. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon.. We recommend using a scholarship on this player.

CB Pepper Davis: 4 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Davis. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon.. We recommend using a scholarship on this player.

FS Brett Badanjek: 4 other teams interested.
It may be time to cut bait on this guy. Badanjek has gotten more interest lately and it might be time to move on. Still, you have an outside shot. At this point, a scholarship offer might be wasted on him. Still, you may sneak in if other teams get better options.

FS Howard Capshaw: 5 other teams interested.
This is a tough call. You are on the outside looking in with Capshaw, as some other teams are ahead of you. Still, we recommend keeping up an effort at landing him. If have an open scholarship, you may want to use it on him if there are no better options.

SS Jan Hunter: 10 other teams interested.
It may be time to cut bait on this guy. Hunter has gotten more interest lately and it might be time to move on. Still, you have an outside shot. At this point, a scholarship offer might be wasted on him. Still, you may sneak in if other teams get better options.

SS Joe Lang: 5 other teams interested.
You look to have a strong shot at landing Lang. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon.. We recommend using a scholarship on this player.

SS Phil Holmes: 2 other teams interested.
This is a tough call. You are on the outside looking in with Holmes, as some other teams are ahead of you. Still, we recommend keeping up an effort at landing him. If have an open scholarship, you may want to use it on him if there are no better options.

That is roughly 6,000 characters on 90 lines of text, including over 1,100 words. It takes up nearly two full pages of text in my document reader, and that means I have to scroll up and down to read through it.

And how much information is this novella conveying? Really?

The answer: 78 things, in total. 26 players, plus the number of other schools that are interested in them (though as an aside this data is highly unreliable, that presumably could be fixed at some point), and some obviously contrived sentence that is very transparently putting them into one of only a handful of categories.

I could have gained precisely the same information by seeing a table like this:


Player Teams Forecast
OG Ike Lester 0 Very likely
DE Kwazi Drummond 0 Uncertain
DE Andy Porter 4 Very likely
…and so forth


Indeed, that would give me exactly the same information as the original table, in something like a fifth of the space. And with that kind of efficiency, it could easily be appended to include more useful information – maybe the other teams who have offered a scholarship, or the player’s overall ratings, or whatever. (This isn’t meant to be a BBCF rant, my point is not to get into what I’d do differently)


My point is – somewhere in the development process, someone decides that it’s better to select one from a menu of six or eight complete sentences rather than give us one of six or eight simple descriptions or numbers. My use of “very likely” and the like above is purely arbitrary – it could be a percentage, it could be a word or two, it could be a number, whatever. But if there are only a handful of options, there is simply no valid reason at all to add these silly sentences.

I suppose that a person who has not yet bought the game might see them on a screenshot and say to himself “wow, it’s like your scouts actually write you a report, cool.” Presumably, that screenshot would be engineered such that a variety of the different sentences are seen, without much repetition.

But repetition is the name of this game, and we have seen it all before. I am into my second season with this game – barely a toe in the pool, and by now I already fume at the notion that I have to read, over and over, the sentence “You look to have a strong shot at landing _____. So, keep after him and, with a little luck, you may have a new player soon.. We recommend using a scholarship on this player.” It adds no value to the game, but it does cause me to have to scroll up and down all over this silly page to find the information I want, when all that information (and a lot more) could have been displayed much more efficiently with a one word description, or a number, or whatever. Even if it looks “cool” in a pre-release screenshot, it’s just a bait and switch. There is nobody who plays this game or any other who, after any amount of time with the game, still thinks of these things as being “cool.”



Another path, if you’d choose it, dear developers, would be to actually add something of substance to the text. Instead of having your game pick from a menu of six or ten different stock sentences, make it a rich enough function so that it actually becomes subtle. It could, conceivably, add something to the game. It could, conceivably, make me actually want to read the scouting report to learn something, rather than just perform a perfunctory translation to turn the stock sentences into their obvious corresponding numbers. I can imagine a game where something like this became an interesting and immersive part of the experience.

(I am told by some that Sick As A Parrot makes an honorable run at doing this, trying to make the game more qualitative than quantitative, and more descriptive than numeric. I never made it deep enough into the game to form a true opinion on the subject, and my clumsy attempts to inquire on the matter with the SAAP forum members led to far more anguish than answers, as I had been warned they would. I have few doubts that the developer of said game will offer thoughts on the general matter.)

But that’s not my main goal here. I don’t necessarily aspire to see text sims move in the direction of being verbal-based, with paragraphs substituted for data. I’m happy with the basic archetype we have – just give the the information I want, format it prettily if you must, but do it efficiently.



In short – a clumsy attempt at using narrative to replace ratings will come off as just that, clumsy. For anyone who has played Out Of The Park Baseball, you know that phrases like “Put eight guys like John Doe on your team…” become a punchline far more than a selling point. It doesn’t add anything to the game – at best, it becomes information that we have to sort through and “interpret” into what we need (something simple) and at worst it’s completely misleading. The text sim genre is better served by a straightforward approach.

[st.cronin]

THANK YOU

[Coffee Warlord]

Whelp, I have nothing to add here except...."absofuckinlutely agree".

[KWhit]

Yep. I agree 100%.

[RPI-Fan]

With 8 more posters like QuikSand, a lot of text sims might actually receive some useful insight.

[Daimyo]

I'm glad I held off.... that would annoy me to the point of shelving the game for good.

more words != more depth

[Dutch]

That is a bit redundant. I purchased BBCF last night and noticed the same thing about the post-game wrap-up you get in e-mail.

Post-Game Offensive Scouting Report for the North Texas game.

FILM REPORT ON PASSING GAME
======================
Craig Murphy - 39 Attempts, 21 Completions, 0 great passes, 0 bad passes.

FILM REPORT ON RUSHING ATTACK
======================
RB Craig Alt - 35 rushes, 0 created runs, 1 missed holes, 0 fumbles.
RB James Byrd - 7 rushes, 0 created runs, 0 missed holes, 0 fumbles.
RB John Thompson - 4 rushes, 0 created runs, 0 missed holes, 0 fumbles.
FB Luis Mullady - 3 rushes, 0 created runs, 0 missed holes, 1 fumbles.
WR Chris Wagner - 1 rushes, 0 created runs, 0 missed holes, 0 fumbles.
QB Craig Murphy - 1 rushes, 0 created runs, 0 missed holes, 0 fumbles.

FILM REPORT ON RECEIVING CORPS
======================
WR Brad Meilinger - Targeted 8 time(s), 5 reception(s), 11 yards after catch, 2 great catch(es), 0 drop(s), 0 bad route(s).
WR Chris Wagner - Targeted 16 time(s), 4 reception(s), 16 yards after catch, 0 great catch(es), 3 drop(s), 0 bad route(s).
WR Matt Stafford - Targeted 5 time(s), 4 reception(s), 12 yards after catch, 0 great catch(es), 0 drop(s), 0 bad route(s).
TE Craig Muhammad - Targeted 3 time(s), 2 reception(s), 10 yards after catch, 0 great catch(es), 0 drop(s), 0 bad route(s).
FB Luis Mullady - Targeted 2 time(s), 2 reception(s), 13 yards after catch, 0 great catch(es), 0 drop(s), 0 bad route(s).
RB Craig Alt - Targeted 4 time(s), 3 reception(s), 10 yards after catch, 0 great catch(es), 0 drop(s), 0 bad route(s).
RB John Thompson - Targeted 1 time(s), 1 reception(s), 2 yards after catch, 0 great catch(es), 0 drop(s), 0 bad route(s).

FILM REPORT ON OFFENSIVE LINE PLAY
======================
OG Fran Hood - 1 key run block(s), 1 pancake block(s), 0 sack(s), 0 false start(s), 0 missed block(s), 0 holding call(s).
OT Eugene Harris - 0 key run block(s), 2 pancake block(s), 0 sack(s), 0 false start(s), 1 missed block(s), 0 holding call(s).
TE Craig Muhammad - 2 key run block(s), 0 pancake block(s), 0 sack(s), 0 false start(s), 0 missed block(s), 0 holding call(s).
C Harold Glass - 0 key run block(s), 1 pancake block(s), 0 sack(s), 0 false start(s), 0 missed block(s), 0 holding call(s).
OG Curtis Gain - 0 key run block(s), 0 pancake block(s), 0 sack(s), 0 false start(s), 4 missed block(s), 0 holding call(s).
OT Julian Pearson - 0 key run block(s), 0 pancake block(s), 0 sack(s), 0 false start(s), 1 missed block(s), 0 holding call(s).

That's good information (especially the OL info, thank you!!!) and I want that information, but I guess....gasp....I prefer the boring old spreadsheet look.

[RPI-Fan]

That is a bit redundant. I purchased BBCF last night and noticed the same thing about the post-game wrap-up you get in e-mail.



That's good information (especially the OL info, thank you!!!) and I want that information, but I guess....gasp....I prefer the boring old spreadsheet look.
I think this point is accentuated by the fact that (es) and (s) is used in parantheses.

[Bee]

This is why if I were a game designer, I would bug the crap out of Quiksand to beta test. :)

[Arles]

I think this is a very good point. As developers, we tend to get feedback about increasing the "immersion" factor of a game and not "giving away the farm". So, instead of saying player X has a potential at Touch passes of 86.57, we choose to use phrases to help make it seem more like a game and less like a set of numbers.

All that said, for something like the scouting report and interest emails (where you are dealing with mostly numbers or few options), it certainly makes some sense to abandon this idea of text and go with more of a targeted response. I will try and work this in for update 1.1.

[Kodos]

I noticed this problem from browsing SkyDog's dynasty. At first glance, the text descriptions were cool, but then the repetition rapidly changed them into being annoying.

[KWhit]

I noticed it the most in the post-game wrap-up emails like Dutch posted.

[DaddyTorgo]

oh good lord Arles. That would be amazing. And it might be nice to be able to see the e-mails say once, or to have a series of two e-mails, with one being the "wordy" one and the second being a "summary graph" type thing. that way people who want it one way can get it that way and those that want it the other can see it. cuz sometimes it's nice to actually read the words. but all the time is slightly cumbersome yes.

[DaddyTorgo]

I noticed it the most in the post-game wrap-up emails like Dutch posted.
dola

don't ELIMINATE the post-game wrapups. i love them. very informative and very useful. and i don't know how they could be changed to be much better, unless it was spreadsheet...

[Marc Vaughan]

I think the main thing is to use text where its going to feel only limitedly repiticious - for instance on FM we use text widely in the game but where something would get repeated a heck of a lot on the same screen we often 'adopt' a convention which translates that text into something more easily viewable ...

For instance when you scout a player you'll get a text based string back about the player (which isn't as varied or detailed as I'd like it to be yet, but thats another story entirely ;) ) ... however if you view a scouts list of players he's found you'll find that string has been translated into a 'star grading system' - simply because its easier and quicker for people to comprehend and understand in that context.

I DO think that its important to present things using real-world text where they would be irl however as this helps people feel the game world is real and take it seriously.

For instance in FM when you get a news item indicating that a board is rumoured to be looking for a replacement for you there's a certain nervousness about the next match (as least there is for me ;) ) ... more than there would be if I simply got a news message to indicate that the boards confidence level had dropped by 250 points to 4310 out of 10,000.

With regards to the scout recommendations at the start of this thread I'd remodel it as a news item if it was in one of my games and combine the information somewhat.

Eg.

From: Investigators, Inc.

Subject: Week 10 Recruit Recommendations
Body:

The scouting service has completed its preliminary investigations by the into the likelihood of being able to sign the players you are interested in.

They have indicated that Ike Lester is a long term fan of the team and will definitely be available whereas they indicate there is no point pursuing Phil Holmes and would be better investing time in landing another recruit.

A full breakdown of their report is attached to this email (cue button taking you to the report which Quiksand requested).

This combines the real-world approach by giving you a covering email with some basic info to draw you into the game-world while also giving you a condensed and easy to understand stat screen to get info from. Presenting it in that manner and as a 'spread sheet report' from the agency for me makes it seem more realistic also (yeah I know its probably just me ... I'll get my coat :D).

[kcchief19]

I had been hesitant to mention this because I think there were issues of bigger concern to worry about, plus I knew that this kind of information was/is craved by a vocal portion of the text-sim audience ... but I had the same feeling about the BBCF e-mails. There is very beneficial information in there, but the format makes it worthless for me to use.

As a sidebar to this, Quik mentioned something that I've noticed others mention in regards to BBCF -- the concept of copy "e-mail" messages from a text sim into an outside editor for viewing. That is just the most bizarre thing I've ever heard. I don't really want to have to copy information and post it into notepad so that I can use it. I too would prefer the "boring old spreadsheet" approach that gives me the info I need without adding an extra and somewhat antiquated step.

Taking this question to the next level:

* For people who agree with Quik, is there any type of sentence description that would appeal to you?

* For those who love the description approach, why do you love it?

Since I'm in the first category, I agree with Quik that a common failing in text sims is the providing of too little or too much information. In a case like the example of BBCF recruiting, if there are 4-6 phrases that are repeated over and over, I somewhat feel like there is too little information provided for the effort that goes into the compiling and absorption of the information. Conversely, I don't think using 30 different phrases would be an improvement, since that would mean you'd have 30 different levels of measurement to track and translate into a numeric form in your mind, or simply that multiple phrases might mean the same thing.

You get that a lot in OOTP. I generally find sentence descriptions to be superfluous and cosmetic. If they are going to be implemented, I suppose OOTP has achieved a certain "balance" by providing the information separate from the numeric ratings, so it's an added feature rather than an integral feature.

I've seen plenty of people advocate for these descriptions believing they add "immersion" value to the game. I suppose I can see that to a certain degree, so maybe it's simply a matter of personal taste.

[Bee]

Marc's idea is great and if you can vary the email with say 8-10 different formats, you start to get rid of the feeling of the same old thing everytime (since you'll only receive one a week instead of 20-30 as it is now).

[Coffee Warlord]

* For people who agree with Quik, is there any type of sentence description that would appeal to you?

I find the text descriptions in FM do not suffer from the same repetition and tedium as most games, to be honest, and I think I've figured out why.

Most (not all, there a few messages in the game I find fairly pointless) sections of the game I can think of that includes text based information instead of numeric is not integral to your information gathering/sorting experience. It is more along the lines of fluff, and isn't regular information. It comes to you sporadically, emphasizing people/events instead of merely "being there".

I think that right there is the key. Don't bombard me with the same message over and over. Use immersive sentence/paragraphs to highlight key events as they come up, use simple lists/numerics for daily/weekly chores. Inevitably, those sentences are going to get real old for things that come up all the time. For a less common occurance, a good descriptive line adds to the game. For an everyday occurance, it simply gets in the way.

[KWhit]

dola

don't ELIMINATE the post-game wrapups. i love them. very informative and very useful. and i don't know how they could be changed to be much better, unless it was spreadsheet...
I agree. I find the information useful, I just wish it was in a table or spreadsheet format.

[Marc Vaughan]

Marc's idea is great and if you can vary the email with say 8-10 different formats, you start to get rid of the feeling of the same old thing everytime (since you'll only receive one a week instead of 20-30 as it is now).

I'd suggest a tad more than 8-10 different formats if possible - to give you an example from FM we've over 2,000 different board confidence strings in the game (many more if you consider the permuations available with strings being concatenated) and that still feels fairly repetative (which is why its rarely shoved in a users face) because its a small subset which are commonly seen.

Where possible I'd suggest having say 8-10 'base' strings and then a further 'x' sub-strings which are concatenated onto those strings (the base string being an 'opening paragraph' so to speak, the sub-strings being the part of the text which contains specific details).

I'd also suggest taking the approach of using this news item to bring to peoples attention minor 'cool' features or information which they'd otherwise miss in a stats list - eg. in the example news I gave earlier, the fact that one of the players is a long-term fan of the team and thats why he wants to join etc.

That sort of thing imho makes the game more real and also has the added bonus of explaining why something is happening to the user (FM still has a LONG way to go on this side of things imho ... but we're slowly heading in the right direction).

Oh one final thing there have been areas in FM in the past where we have specifically avoided a huge amount of variety in the strings, these tend to be areas where people want a clear cut 'yes/no' answer - for instance in scouting we have in the past kept the strings somewhat dour because people want to know the answer to just one question from the scout 'should I sign him?' .... hence giving lots of flowery text will just obscure the message you're trying to get across.

(that being said we're probably going to revamp scouting next year and redo this side of things totally ;) )

[Maple Leafs]

I'm actually a big fan of descriptions vs. straight numbers. Obviously in the case Quik cites, sure, it's overkill because of the repetitive info being passed along. But in general, if it's a one-off I prefer a description. I even read the OOTP player descriptions and news items (even though they're so poorly written that they almost scream "the well-meaning german guy doesn't think he need to hire a writer!")

Count me in the group who feels that immersion is hurt when sims get too into the numbers. The fact that FOF's scouting card for a RB, for example, seems to have several numberic ratings that mean similar things is confusing to me at times. I like the OOTP approach -- numeric ratings (that I can configure to give me more or less information) as well as a quick description that gives me a feel for the player.

[JonInMiddleGA]

What QS said.

[QuikSand]

With regards to the scout recommendations at the start of this thread I'd remodel it as a news item if it was in one of my games and combine the information somewhat.

Eg.

From: Investigators, Inc.

Subject: Week 10 Recruit Recommendations
Body:

The scouting service has completed its preliminary investigations by the into the likelihood of being able to sign the players you are interested in.

They have indicated that Ike Lester is a long term fan of the team and will definitely be available whereas they indicate there is no point pursuing Phil Holmes and would be better investing time in landing another recruit.

A full breakdown of their report is attached to this email (cue button taking you to the report which Quiksand requested).

This combines the real-world approach by giving you a covering email with some basic info to draw you into the game-world while also giving you a condensed and easy to understand stat screen to get info from. Presenting it in that manner and as a 'spread sheet report' from the agency for me makes it seem more realistic also (yeah I know its probably just me ... I'll get my coat.

This, to me, is the best of all worlds -- something that seems human enough, like the "highlights" comment described here, followed by the raw information I'd need to have.

Nice discussion here, though. Glad to see you pop in Arlie, and if you can make some good from this, all the better.

[Icy]

I'm in betwen, i love text descriptions... but of course not if they get repetitive. The perfect example for me is OOTP, at first i was amazed at the scout reports, with lots of text.... until i realized it was always the same so it got boring fast. I'm playing in an OOTP online league without ratings, only stats, where a good and variated scouting report would help a lot the immersion factor.

In the case of BBCF emails, i don't mind the one about recruiting, in fact i like to receive is as text, of course i would preffer more variation to it. The one that displays tons of info but is hard to read is the post game one, i would preffer it this way along with Marc V suggestions:

- First a brief text descriptions with the leys of the game, like player XX was the best player in the offense, etc etc.

- Then a table with the sacks, tackles etc etc instead of the non formated text that is not only hard to read but also hard to compare the players stats as are not aligned in columns for a first sight comparation.

Another way to have the best of two worlds is to have the text emails and then a link into them to the spreadsheet with the numeric stats.

[Buccaneer]

Couple of thoughts:

How does one translates real life intangibles when viewing or interviewing a player to a numeric game? Why should we be presented only with numbers when that is not realistic, or at least making it formulaic? I agree that it is a balancing act - the descriptions have to be analytical, not superflous or random.

I'm still stuck on this related post

Its not random. It depends on how well the coach is doing and also does the coach play in a style that the player likes. Read the recruit notes closely there are clues as to which pitch may work best.
I would very much prefer reading accurately described recruit notes for clues than seeing a breakdown like: Match Offensive Style "B", Match Defensive Style "C", Location Preference "A", Academic Preference "D", etc. That's kinda stupid because no one gives you a report card or a spreadsheet or a cheat sheet in how to approach a recruit.

[Mac Howard]

Don't get me started :)

[Ajaxab]

Interesting discussion here. The question for me is how to balance the benefits of communicative efficiency (via numbers) with the benefits of more narrative-oriented communication (via text). The developer also has to balance the problem of excessive abstraction (via numbers) against the problem of unwieldy verbiage (via text).

I really like the game, but it seems that the FOF world can be too abstract because of its reliance on numbers. Ultimately, I don't care who my qb is, where he's from, what round he was drafted in, etc. as long as he's a 85/87. For gameplay purposes, the numbers are all that matter. As a consequence, the gameworld can appear rather lifeless and bland at times where the only interest comes in the statistical anomalies popping up here and there. IMO, there needs to be more of a narrative feel in FOF to lend the game a more lifelike feel and truly make me care about my players. As it stands, they are only a set of numbers working together. On the other hand, numbers allow for the compression of time enabling users to make quick decisions and move the gameworld along. It's easy to play 10 seasons of FOF in a few hours if one wants to.

On the other extreme, a game like Saap (admittedly I've only tried the demo), with its excessive focus on text makes for an unwieldy gaming experience. Too much text can create logjams of information to wade through that slow down the experience. Although potentially allowing for more of a narrative feel to the game, the inefficiency of having to use words with every game interaction makes playing it somewhat of an arduous task (although arduous might be too strong a word to use). It might be more realistic--even if we are moving toward a more quantitative, instrumentally-oriented society--but the sheer amount of text slows down time in the gameworld. Getting through a given day can take a good deal of time if one doesn't internalize text as quickly as numbers. On the flip side, the narrative nature of a game like Saap potentially moves us to care about our players in a way that doesn't seem possible with FOF. The reliance on text has the potential to generate some emotional connection to our players that moves a long way from considering them as 85/87s.

It would be easy to point to the FM series as the gold standard in this regard, but even with FM, I find that there are times where I wish I was given more narrative and times where I wish the game was more quantitative to move time along. With that said, FM is the only game where I've felt some emotional connection to my players. It's still a bit too emotionally easy to let go of that aging club servant for a younger player with better numerical ratings though. ;)

[Marc Vaughan]

It would be easy to point to the FM series as the gold standard in this regard, but even with FM, I find that there are times where I wish I was given more narrative and times where I wish the game was more quantitative to move time along. With that said, FM is the only game where I've felt some emotional connection to my players. It's still a bit too emotionally easy to let go of that aging club servant for a younger player with better numerical ratings though.
I'm working on making you lot feel guilty - eventually the player you free transferred in the game will send you a real-life birthday card with dried tears on it and a message saying he doesn't hold anything against you despite the fact that he's now living on the breadline ;)

Seriously though there's still a long way to go with improving FM in all regards, I'm pretty happy with the direction we're heading in - but there's still a huge amount of stuff which I want to do .....

[Passacaglia]

I'm working on making you lot feel guilty - eventually the player you free transferred in the game will send you a real-life birthday card with dried tears on it and a message saying he doesn't hold anything against you despite the fact that he's now living on the breadline ;)

Seriously though there's still a long way to go with improving FM in all regards, I'm pretty happy with the direction we're heading in - but there's still a huge amount of stuff which I want to do .....

Yeah, but when I get 30 or 40 of those messages all at once on my birthday, it'll eventually just make me giggle. :p

[Marc Vaughan]

Yeah, but when I get 30 or 40 of those messages all at once on my birthday, it'll eventually just make me giggle.
Bah - you're just heartless the lot of you ;)

[Coffee Warlord]

Bah - you're just heartless the lot of you ;)

Now now. I felt a pang of regret when I free transferred the player who was the heart of Notts County the season before, who issued the rabble rousing cry for the team to bring it in the final match of the season.

....regret that noone wanted to pay for him, that is. :)

[Senator]

Quik speaks the truth.

[Mac Howard]

Much of what is said above is ok as far as it goes but it's tinkering at the edges. If you really want to recreate the involvement of the real-world sport then you need to duplicate far more closely the information environment for players' skills. This means:

1) a match that is the primary source of information
2) training features that are a close second
3) supporting subjective, textual information from coaches, fans, press etc

What you have at the moment is a very poor 1), a non-existent 2) and a 3) which doesn't support but dominates the entire informational environment with virtually objective source of extremely detailed, unrealistic data.

It doesn't really matter whether this last source is numeric or text. It's a totally unrealistic entity that turns the game on its head, destroys the relationship between performance and skills (a circular relationship not a linear cause-effect) and reduces what should be the primary interest - the match - to a secondary consideration. In some games the match is almost an afterthought.

What QS is suggesting is an improvement but it still gives far too much emphasis to what should be a secondary part of the game and ignores the fact that the primary purpose is woefully neglected.

[astrosfan64]

On numeric games and sentence descriptions…

I am generally pretty indifferent in the various methods of information presentation used in text sims – some games are number-heavy, some prefer to use letter grades, some use graphs or pictures, some others use one-word descriptions, and many use some combination of the above – and all are basically fine with me. My real focus is generally on the accuracy and precision of the data presented to me – if that’s either too good or too bad (as the situation merits), then I’ll have a problem.

I have been playing a text sim recently, which has used a specific device that I’ve seen before – I suspect that we all have. It’s the idea of taking some essentially quantitative information, and presenting it to you in a sort of sentence.

In short – a clumsy attempt at using narrative to replace ratings will come off as just that, clumsy. For anyone who has played Out Of The Park Baseball, you know that phrases like “Put eight guys like John Doe on your team…” become a punchline far more than a selling point. It doesn’t add anything to the game – at best, it becomes information that we have to sort through and “interpret” into what we need (something simple) and at worst it’s completely misleading. The text sim genre is better served by a straightforward approach.

Disagree, I want text sims to evolve more and not be simple spreadsheets. While, I agree that the information could be presented better then it is in BBCF. I still like the approach. To me it is more immersive.

For example, the scouting approach of EHM hockey is fantastic. It shows you raw numbers and it gives you a brief description of the player. It will even compare him to a player on your roster. A mix of the two approaches is best for me.

[astrosfan64]

I think this is a very good point. As developers, we tend to get feedback about increasing the "immersion" factor of a game and not "giving away the farm". So, instead of saying player X has a potential at Touch passes of 86.57, we choose to use phrases to help make it seem more like a game and less like a set of numbers.

All that said, for something like the scouting report and interest emails (where you are dealing with mostly numbers or few options), it certainly makes some sense to abandon this idea of text and go with more of a targeted response. I will try and work this in for update 1.1.

My personal opinion here, but for a die hard text sim/spread sheet person Quicksand is correct. But, if the goal is to grow the genre away from just that type of person then you need to continue in the direction you are going. For example, my friends who are not normally into this style of game enjoy the fact that it plays more like real life and less like a spreadsheet.

[astrosfan64]

I think the main thing is to use text where its going to feel only limitedly repiticious - for instance on FM we use text widely in the game but where something would get repeated a heck of a lot on the same screen we often 'adopt' a convention which translates that text into something more easily viewable ...

For instance when you scout a player you'll get a text based string back about the player (which isn't as varied or detailed as I'd like it to be yet, but thats another story entirely ;) ) ... however if you view a scouts list of players he's found you'll find that string has been translated into a 'star grading system' - simply because its easier and quicker for people to comprehend and understand in that context.

I DO think that its important to present things using real-world text where they would be irl however as this helps people feel the game world is real and take it seriously.

For instance in FM when you get a news item indicating that a board is rumoured to be looking for a replacement for you there's a certain nervousness about the next match (as least there is for me ;) ) ... more than there would be if I simply got a news message to indicate that the boards confidence level had dropped by 250 points to 4310 out of 10,000.

With regards to the scout recommendations at the start of this thread I'd remodel it as a news item if it was in one of my games and combine the information somewhat.

Eg.

From: Investigators, Inc.

Subject: Week 10 Recruit Recommendations
Body:

The scouting service has completed its preliminary investigations by the into the likelihood of being able to sign the players you are interested in.

They have indicated that Ike Lester is a long term fan of the team and will definitely be available whereas they indicate there is no point pursuing Phil Holmes and would be better investing time in landing another recruit.

A full breakdown of their report is attached to this email (cue button taking you to the report which Quiksand requested).

This combines the real-world approach by giving you a covering email with some basic info to draw you into the game-world while also giving you a condensed and easy to understand stat screen to get info from. Presenting it in that manner and as a 'spread sheet report' from the agency for me makes it seem more realistic also (yeah I know its probably just me ... I'll get my coat :D).

The game that brought me into the text sim market was an eary version of CM. The reason I've bought every version since then is the fact that SI Games continues to try and improve the interaction between the users and the fictional universe. Whether it is the media stories, player info screen, coach comments or fantastic play by play phrases, I get drawn in more and more each year. The 2d engine is another thing that doesn't fit in a total text world, but GREATLY increased my faith in the actual simmulation engine.

The only problem with SI Games, is they are the standard by which I judge every other text simmulation. Even though I'm a bigger American football fan, I'll still probably log more hours with Football Manager, then I will with BBCF or FOF. I'll play them all, but I get into Football Manager the most.

I really dig how EHM is progressing, but it still lacks features of its big brother Football Manager, so I have problems getting into the game, because the above features like coaches comments etc... are missing.

[lighthousekeeper]

Sometimes, reading news articles like this one:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AoIYabVzDvl9KYoNxW4.ZTQ5nYcB?slug=ap-halloffame&prov=ap&type=lgns

reminds me of this thread.

All I want to see is a gad-dummit table listing the HOF voting, and instead I'm forced to extract this information scattered across many paragraphs.