OT: CM for basketball
 

A friend of mine sent me this link for a game called World Basketball Manager. It looks pretty interesting.

http://www.worldbasketballmanager.com/index.php

Demo is pretty big at 60 megs. I will give it a whirl in the next couple of days.

Here is a brief premise:

World Basketball Manager (WBM) is a basketball strategy game. It uses the same gameplay principles as most soccer management games do. Entering the game, the player creates his manager profile and he is hired as the general manager of a basketball club and his task is to improve the team’s performance by analyzing the facts and making the right decisions. He controls the various club departments funding (medical, training facilities, youth academy), transfers, contracts, training and of course when the match day comes, he will have to select the team lineup, create the most appropriate strategy and find the way to victory by countering the opposing manager’s plans.
As the season progresses, the manager will receive feedback from press, fans, players and administration. Also score that ranks him among the world's managers. And later on, job offers - even national teams!

There is no drafting in the NBA part of the game... no deal.

Nice catch, HF. It looks somewhat similiar to an older game that was developed by Volax Interactive. I'm d'ling the demo right now.

Does it have 3-pointers, though? :p

Make sure you get the patch for the manual. It's Greek to me.. literally!

Ok my literal first impressions.

The interface is graphical but very fundamental. Everything is basically a link to a dropdown menu. When you get news it prompts an action right beneath it. You can filter out whatever news you don't want.

I took over St. Petersburg in Russia (because at the moment I am a little chilly)

Sim speed is day by day and it's a little slow.

Height for players is in centimeters and I couldn't change it in the options. I don't know if that is in the full game or not.

Wow playing the game itself is actually pretty cool.

It's done in real time with a little clock and text pbp. You can change offense and defense on the fly. Also you can set what you want each player to do offensively (like what shots to take and whether he is a go-to guy). Defense you can play full-court press, man to man, 3-2 and 2-3. At timeouts you can "boost team morale".

It looks like a diamond-vision with the score, players and fouls accumulated and below it are all the stuff for the teams.

Anyways, it has turned out to be pretty interesting.

The first thing that I'm noticing is that there are real US players playing on the correct teams overseas which is cool to see.

Rick Rickert is playing over in Slovenia. Khalid El-Amin is on his team in Turkey. Dusty Rychart (ex-Gopher) is indeed in Australia.

Nice.

I was a little shocked when I saw that site last week because earlier this year I did a search for "World Basketball Manager" and didn't get any hits from Google. Guess what I decided to call the basketball sim I'm writing? Yep, World Basketball Manager :(

Looks interesting, but like Easy Mac said, no drafting in NBA...no deal

Are you serious? How could they make a game without drafting........

Do tell us more.

dola-

I'm dl the demo right now just to see what it's like:)

I'll let you guys know if I like it or not

Because the game is focused around International basketball where academies and youth squads are the norm, much like in soccer.

Link doesnt work for me...

I'd give you a link, but the thread I had about it on another board "disappeared" from the SI boards after the database wacko. I'll post about it when I get back from x-mas dinner

Wait, if this is the "demo" that we can download, is there actually a full version?

I can't reach the website :(

Their website seems to be up-and-running again. And it appears that the game has only been released in Greece.

You should be able to now, I can.

Here is a post to their forums about buying online and the availability of the product overseas:

http://www.worldbasketballmanager.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=20

Basically, the game is currently only released in Greece, and due to negotations with an international distributor, they are currently unable to sell it online.

Kinda renders that moot then.

Interesting, but moot.

Well I messed around with it for a little longer.

It is very much like CM in the feedback department.

The thing I would like to call attention to (even though we can't buy it or anything) is the actual game engine and presentation of the game itself if you choose to coach it. It is really pretty darn innovative to me anyways.

This is a pretty good first effort from a company I had never heard of in my opinion.

If something like that was in an NBA or college sim, I think people around here would be more impressed.

HFP - did you catch the post that indicated it might be available for purchase as soon as 12/31?

Ah cool thanks!

My biggest complaint with the game really is the sim speed of day-by-day. It is really really slow. I think part of it is that it saves each day at a time. I am not sure if I could deal with that full-time.

By the way, I am not saying this is the greatest game of all time, but I do think it's an interesting concept and it is done pretty well.

Donwload underway

I know, a little late :(

Go here

You have to be a member to view it(sorry). Basically it'll be a basketball sim similar to CM and FOF. It'll have career play and 3 leagues at the start. After I work out the league creation rules I'll fix the editor(yeah, it'll have an editor) so that you can add your own leagues. If there's any questions you can ask here or email me about it

Screenies look great Gambit, how are you progressing with it? Looks like just the kind of thing I'm after.

I tried WBM. It's interface is real clumsy, and if it's got box scores, I'll be damned if I can find them.

I stopped working on coding it a about a month ago to focus on working out the sim engine, but this past month has been a little strange. I'm hoping to get back to my 'paper engine' soon. My main priority is finding a job; I need my to start paying off my student loans :(

Eek, not fun I can imagine.

Sorta makes me glad I didn't go to uni (...until I look for jobs and see university credentials required for 99% of positions...).

Uni was fun. Scratch that; the campus was fun, some of the classes were a pain :D