7.1 Multiplayer Compatibility With 7.0b Primer.
 

I've done some testing on this (thanks to PackerFanatic for the help), and I'm pretty sure now that here's how it works.

1. If the commish is on 7.1, then the league is simmed as a 7.1 league. If the commish is on 7.0b, then the league is simmed as a 7.0b league. In terms of which engine is used, it does not matter what the participants are on.

2. If you are a participant and the commish is using 7.1, then you MUST upgrade to 7.1 in order to import the league files. You will receive error messages otherwise.

3. If you are a participant and the commish is using 7.0b, you can be on either 7.0b OR 7.1 and successfully import the league files and send in exports.

4. If you are a participant and are on 7.1 while your league commish is on 7.0b, you will see different salary cap numbers than you actually have, due to the veteran minimum being different in 7.0b vs. 7.1.

5. (NOTE: This one is untested as of now, but based on past experience, this one is VERY likely to be true, especially given that we know that the veteran minimum has changed.) If you are a participant and are on 7.1 while your league commish is on 7.0b, the contract requests that you see will be incorrect. There will be times that you see a player requesting a contract, you submit the requested offer, and he rejects it. That's because the offer is processed on the commish machine, which is on a different version.

That's a lot of hard work there. Thanks for doing the tests, Ben, and explaining the behaviors.

Hey Ben

Ive upgraded but when I try to import the GM's exports into the game the game is crashing. then when I try again it says that there are no files available on the server. Any ideas?

Someone probably exported with 7.0b. I had that happen at WOOF. I just imported them one by one to identify the ones that weren't working.

Looks like 7.1a is a fix for this.

I hope the same rules in this thread don't apply for 7.1 vs 7.1a.

I don't think Flasch's issue was covered in the OP, or did I misunderstand? I thought it would be OK for 7.0b users to export while the commissioner is on 7.1. I appear to have imported files from 7.0b without issues.

Flasch's issue should be fixed in the patch. And no, it wasn't covered in the OP. It sounds like it was an unrelated bug. I am imported 7.0b and 7.1 files successfully.

I've gone back through the cases in the first post. I'm pretty sure all of them still apply. The key here that hasn't changed is this: if the commish is on 7.1, owners are going to need to be on 7.1 in order to import the league files. They can *export* successfully from 7.0b, but that will only work one time. Once the league advances one stage, they will have to go to 7.1 in order to get the latest files.

Thanks for the clarification, guys.

I guess I ran into Flasch's issue after all. Maybe there was a difference between importing locally and importing from servers, or I got an extra file between last night's test run and this morning's sim. In any case, I had to update to 7.1a to sim.

I was actually wondering about any 7.1 vs 7.1a conflicts (commish being on 7.1a, owners being on just 7.1) -- THAT should not be a real issue, right? I'm advising my GMs to udpate regardless, though. Because why not.

Yeah, 7.1a fixed the crash. He didn't go into detail on the fix list about what caused it. We were experiencing it at WOOF also, and 7.1a solved it.

FWIW, I don't think it matters now what version the owners are on in terms of importing. But given that they *must* upgrade in order to grab 7.1/7.1a files, there's no reason for them not to at this point.