Multi Universes issues

[Bonegavel]

What's up with not being able to support multiple sets of nicknames and cities for an individual game?

I've just joined my first MP league and am using the batch file workaround that seems ripe for a mistake.

I'm not comparing BBCF and FOFC as far as games, but BBCF's implementation is bit more what I'm used to. Each universe is contained in it's own directory and when you load a saved game each can have different settings that don't require batch file copying.

[nilodor]

I agree, I would have liked to see the data like colour choices, nicknames, logos be specific to each universe. It's a big deterent against playing a NFL like league and then playing a very fictional league.

[BradS]

yeah agree, wish it had the ease of BB.

[Eaglesfan27]

Definitely agree. I'm avoiding the batch route by keeping my leagues on seperate computers, but this would be one of my top things that I would like to see fixed for the next version.

[JeeberD]

Batch files have worked perfectly fine for me for the past three years. What's the big issue with them?

[Subby]

Batch files have worked perfectly fine for me for the past three years. What's the big issue with them?
I think they are a pain if you have a setup like many folks - FOF on your home computer or your laptop, then the game at work. Then you have to recreate everything if you get a new computer. Plus it looks a bit overwhelming to someone who is new to MP. Not necessarily a barrier to entry, but certainly not encouraging.

Yes, the batch file approach is a great work around, but I really think the game would be better served from a MP perspective if you could have as many leagues running as you wanted, without having to go outside the game to get each league to boot up.

[Bonegavel]

Batch files have worked perfectly fine for me for the past three years. What's the big issue with them?

Don't you think this should all be handled from within the game?

It's like every time you want to drive somewhere different you have to change the tires on your car.

With all the improvements, I was hoping MP would have been brought up-to-speed. I'm sure Jim has his reasons, but it still an odd choice to me.

[JeeberD]

It would be nice if it were handled in-game, very true. But the changing tires analogy is way off. It takes about five minutes to set up a batch file, and after that all you have to do is click the file's link. Set it once per league and you're set to go...

[Bonegavel]

It would be nice if it were handled in-game, very true. But the changing tires analogy is way off. It takes about five minutes to set up a batch file, and after that all you have to do is click the file's link. Set it once per league and you're set to go...

Well, it's like having to change your tires everywhere you go and you have a Nascar pit crew on hand. :D

[Ben E Lou]

I'll take a WAG at this one.

FOF2K7 was built on FOF2K4.
FOF2K4 was built on FOF4.
FOF4 was built on TCY.

My guess is that since the file/city/nickname structure has been there since TCY was written , the architecture wasn't set up for multiple league configurations. If I'm right, that gets in the way of this being an "easy" thing to do for Jim. I'm betting that the amount of time it would have required to add this feature wasn't deemed enough of a value-add when compared to the development time it would have taken away from other features.

[JeeberD]

Didn't Jim say he built 2k7 from scratch? Or did he just say it was the biggest overhaul up to date?

[Subby]

This (along with in-game ftp for owners and league administrators) would actually be a huge add of something that on its face probably doesn't seem like a huge deal. The more streamlined MP administration and participation can become, the better...

[Ben E Lou]

Didn't Jim say he built 2k7 from scratch? Or did he just say it was the biggest overhaul up to date?Biggest overhaul to date. Clearly it wasn't built from scratch.

[Bonegavel]

But it seems that so few things touch the Nicknames and City files and same for the team logos.

Seems logical to have a structure like this:

d - directory


d FOF2K7
d -->Universe
d ---->NFL00001 [8 char league name]
d ------>bin [nicknames, cities, etc]
d ------>images [logos, etc]
d ------>import
d ------>export
d ------>stats
d ------>html


Nice neat little pocket universes. Would make it simple to pack and go: zip up the directory at the 8 char league name level and the whole universe is easily shared. In the engine, these locations can be defined once so it can be easily altered external to the app and not have to change it in more than one place in the code.

I can understand that Jim may not have wanted to spend time that wasn't related to changes that weren't more than "tidying up," but a boy can dream.

[gstelmack]

There are fewer things that get in the way this time around. For example, the old file that lists all the box scores / log files is no longer around, and you don't need to worry about name conflicts between box scores and log files.

But, given the new setup, if my league id is "MULTTEST", I'd like to see "MULTTEST.fcy", "MULTTEST.fni", etc. You don't even need different directories, just do one per game instead of one default that ships and one customized one in the universe directory.

[cuervo72]

I bet Jim never imagined one would want to be in more than one MP league, or to have separate universes. And SD is probably right with his reasoning.

But, it would have been a very nice add...but we've pointed that out before.