Grey Dog announces Bowl Bound College Football

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

I've still got a copy of Bowl Bound. I can't remember if my copy used the Sports Illustrated branding or not (Avalon Hill had a deal with SI for a while, kind of like how ESPN licenses their branding for video games).

It was a fun little game, but at the time I had it in the late '70's/early '80's, the roster of teams in the game were already kind of stale (they were mainly '60's era teams).

I have that old puppy too. The epic Notre Dame vs. Michigan State battles from - I think - 1966 were what dominate my memory of the game.

Breakaway!

Anyway, sounds cool Arlie. Good luck with it.

[JeffNights]

So, you can edit school names and players?
and MP?

who needs TCY2??

[Danny]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

Arles
will be simple, like can you enter a player stats and it will produce the ratings for you?

Football doesnt work like that. I assume you are referring to how OOTP handles it. Baseball is a game of statistics, a hitter and pitcher have a lot more control over their stats then do a receiver, runningback, cornerback, etc... In football you simply cant identify a player's ability by their stats.

[Arles]

I don't want to get too much in the specifics right now, but I hope the editing process will be fairly easy for the gamer. We will be coming out with a FAQ down the road and deal more with specific features then.

[Balldog]

Originally Posted by Arles

I don't want to get too much in the specifics right now, but I hope the editing process will be fairly easy for the gamer. We will be coming out with a FAQ down the road and deal more with specific features then.

Cool, cuz once my baseball season is over I would love to start working on some rosters, logos, etc.

[Galaril]

wow 53 posts in less than an hour.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Arles

I don't want to get too much in the specifics right now, but I hope the editing process will be fairly easy for the gamer. We will be coming out with a FAQ down the road and deal more with specific features then.

I think that is a very smart business decision.

Good luck with the project. I'll eagerly await reviews from trusted members here after release.

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by Galaril

wow 53 posts in less than an hour.

I was expecting the thread to grow faster than that, actually...

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

I was expecting the thread to grow faster than that, actually...

No one else posts as fast as you do though, Jeeber.

[Ben E Lou]

Heh. I just read jbmagic's post to me in this thread. I wasn't picking on him, just picking on Arlie/Grey Dog for the typo.

[condors]

looking forward to it

[cody8200]

I'm super excited about this game. I have always wanted a game like TCY with the easy on the eyes look of TPF. I think this is it.

[I. J. Reilly]

Originally Posted by Arles

Yeah, the game will also have over 350 college plays that you can add into your own playbook that will follow you from team to team. But playcalling will be a big part of BB.

Play calling, thank the heavens above!!!!! These next months waiting for this game will seem endless.
Finally, my Beavers are going to kick some ass!
(I know, the mental imagery is a little disturbing)

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

So it's twins, then, I take it?

I think, "Yes" is the answer.


Todd

[Honolulu Blue]

Congrats Arlie & company. I hope it's a great success for you.

Sounds promising. Don't expect me to be an early adopter though. I'm sure there will be a hundred trillion zillion posts on the game within three days of its release. If it's a good game and worth my time & money, those will tell me.

One question - what's the limit on multiplayer teams in one league? 117?

[Arles]

We haven't set a limit yet on MP league size. I think the testing phase will show us more on where that needs to be set (if at all).

[Franklinnoble]

Man, I hate being ignored.

[jbmagic]

Arles

can you sub players in and out when playing games out on the play by play screen?

will each college coach have a offense and defense style they will run there program?

[Arles]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Man, I hate being ignored.

There will be all kind of reports for recruits (ratings and stats) in BB, but I have no idea on how Jim does his imports.

[Arles]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

Arles

can you sub players in and out when playing games out on the play by play screen?

will each college coach have a offense and defense style they will run there program?

Not sure how item 1 will work at this point, but the answer to question 2 is yes.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Man, I hate being ignored.

Dude, your question is retarded. Or are you just waiting for Arlie to waste his time in coming up with a one-liner followed by the sticking tongue out smiley?

[albionmoonlight]

Will I be able to filibuster head coach appointments if I disagree with them?

Seriously, I wish Grey Dog the very best of luck with this and look forward to seeing the finished product.

[dubb93]

Can you please go out of your way to make sure the micro-managing isn't as out of control as TCY. It almost ruins that game, I would love a college game without any, or with much less micro player managing.

[Anthony]

i for one do not want to manage what players do with their time. who am i to tell someone how much time to spend with their g/f? so yeah, the less micromanaging the better.

[cody8200]

Originally Posted by Hell Atlantic

i for one do not want to manage what players do with their time. who am i to tell someone how much time to spend with their g/f? so yeah, the less micromanaging the better.

Agreed but I would like academics to be partly my responsibility.

[Ajaxab]

I'll also support the micromanagement point made above. If there's one thing I just couldn't get past with TCY, it was allocating the hours for players every single season. Even with the utility that optimized the process, it was still a pain to bother with.

[TazFTW]

I didn't find the micromanaging in TCY to be that much of a burden. For the first season, when you had to adjust all the players? Yes, it was a little tiring but after that I just would set it for the incoming freshman (maybe adjust study hall to keep some returnees eligible).


Is there going to be a national letter of intent day or is it like TCY when players can commit whenever?

[I. J. Reilly]

I would love to see the ability to control substitutions during the game. Getting young players on the field is such a huge part of developing talent in college that I think it has to be reflected in any true simulation.
And in recruiting, the chance for early playing time should be a main selling point, along with prestige, location, etc.

[Arles]

All great ideas. Feel free to post them on the suggestions forum at the GreyDog site.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by TazFTW

I didn't find the micromanaging in TCY to be that much of a burden. For the first season, when you had to adjust all the players? Yes, it was a little tiring but after that I just would set it for the incoming freshman (maybe adjust study hall to keep some returnees eligible).

I disagree completely. The time adjusting (and the importance of how good your school is academically) is what has kept me from being able to enjoy TCY.

I don't want to know which players have girlfriends or how long their study hall is. I have no idea if a division 1 coach deals with that kind of thing, but I don't want to. That's just not fun to me.

[KWhit]

Something that I would like to see extra attention paid to is the difficulty for small schools (or schools from weak conferences) to compete with the big boys for national titles. After 2-3 years playing one of EA's NCAA games, TCU or Marshall or Louisville is playing for the national championship.

That really bothers me.

[Cap Ologist]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Arlie... seriously... why can't this happen???

I'm guessing that there will be a professional football simulation in the future from GDS.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by KWhit

Something that I would like to see extra attention paid to is the difficulty for small schools (or schools from weak conferences) to compete with the big boys for national titles. After 2-3 years playing one of EA's NCAA games, TCU or Marshall or Louisville is playing for the national championship.

That really bothers me.

The same thing often happens in tcy.

[G-Man]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

Dont get too excited just yet.

Remember Total Pro Football By Arlie

Looks Promising. But i am going to make sure before i purchase it.

Yep this has tempered my excitement as well. Though I am glad that we will have another College Football Game to play. I certainly hope that we can make rosters for this unlike TCY!

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by KWhit

Something that I would like to see extra attention paid to is the difficulty for small schools (or schools from weak conferences) to compete with the big boys for national titles. After 2-3 years playing one of EA's NCAA games, TCU or Marshall or Louisville is playing for the national championship.

That really bothers me.

My experience with EA games is that starting in the second season it is almost impossible to keep TCU out of the national championship game. My last Dynasty on NCAA Football TCU appeared in 8-14 national championship games and lost all but one[lost most of them bad]. A couple of them was to my Mississippi State team. One game that stands out was against my Mississippi State team where they lost 73-3. They also had some 50+ point loses to Oklahoma. Not sure how someone would program it where that doesn't happen, would have to a HEAVY bias toward the major conferences and strength of schedule, b/c in real life undefeated teams like that still would have a hard time getting in a BCS bowl. Prehaps they could take talent level into consideration for undefeated schools in weak conferences to see if they really should be playing in a major bowl game?

[Comey]

I still really enjoy Total Pro Football, and still run an online league with it.

[GoldenEagle]

Arlie -

What are the future plans of GD? I like see different products and I understand them from a business viewpoint. . But let’s be honest - no first generation game is going to knock everyone off their feet. Are you going to alternate between TPF and the college product? I guess I am just curious and I am sure you really do not know yet. But look at successful text simulation companies like SI Games and Solecismic. They have stuck with one product and developed it from the ground up. The first versions were not spectacular but they added features each year to make it an outstanding product. I am probably just babbling, but I am curious.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

Dude, your question is retarded. Or are you just waiting for Arlie to waste his time in coming up with a one-liner followed by the sticking tongue out smiley?

Dude, fuck off.

Jim's game can turn a properly formatted *.csv file into a game import. I see no reason why it would be terribly difficult to program Bowl Bound College Football to export a draft file in a compatible format. It's a serious question, and I'm asking it now while the game is still in development.

I like TCY, but I'd love to give this game a shot, and I'd love to be able to import players from it into FOF. If that's retarded, then change my handle to "Corky" and sign me up.

[JeeberD]

Why would he want to export files to the competition? Especially when GD almost certainly will have their own pro football game in the works at some point...

[Airhog]

I can hear the market share that Jim had slipping away. It will be interesting to see if jim is forced to put out a college game this year!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Why would he want to export files to the competition? Especially when GD almost certainly will have their own pro football game in the works at some point...

ding ding ding.

i don't even know why this much time has been wasted on this bad idea. i hate having to humor imbeciles.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Why would he want to export files to the competition? Especially when GD almost certainly will have their own pro football game in the works at some point...

Why not? That would make an outstanding feature, and I really doubt it would cost them business - if anything, they would get more customers from the established FOF fanbase. It's a simple thing to do.

This is not unprecedented. MS Word can open WordPerfect files, and vice-versa. Shutting out the competition is stupid. Embracing it makes sense.

Is there some animosity between GD and Solecismic that I don't know about? Because Jim has always welcomed competition in this genre, and I doubt he'd object to this new game making .csv exports available to FOF customers.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Airhog

I can hear the market share that Jim had slipping away. It will be interesting to see if jim is forced to put out a college game this year!

i don't know if what Jim had could qualify as a market share when he had the only college football game in the market. he had the monopoly, he wasn't sharing anything with another game company in that genre. jim makes great games but he does have a tendency to stick to "his vision" (almost feels as if we had to twist his arm to get MP put into the latest FOF, fortunately it solid), so who's to say someone else's vision of college football is any less viable?

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Dude, fuck off.

Jim's game can turn a properly formatted *.csv file into a game import. I see no reason why it would be terribly difficult to program Bowl Bound College Football to export a draft file in a compatible format. It's a serious question, and I'm asking it now while the game is still in development.

I like TCY, but I'd love to give this game a shot, and I'd love to be able to import players from it into FOF. If that's retarded, then change my handle to "Corky" and sign me up.

Sorry, but it was a really dumb question. Why would Jim or Arle make their games compatible? So Jim can lose TCY sales? So Arle's company can never design a Pro Football game? Just because they are friends on a message board and a random user wants compatibility they are supposed to cut into each others finances?

Why don't X-Box games work on my playstation? Why doesn't Ford make Camero parts?

[LionsFan10]

What's that you said? I will be beta testing? Cool.

[HomerJSimpson]

College game with play calling? I'm there. I just hope there is a lot less micromanaging, and the recruiting is done better than TCY.

[maximus]

Great to hear Arlie. Congrats on the baby and the new game.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by panerd

Sorry, but it was a really dumb question. Why would Jim or Arle make their games compatible? So Jim can lose TCY sales? So Arle's company can never design a Pro Football game? Just because they are friends on a message board and a random user wants compatibility they are supposed to cut into each others finances?

Why don't X-Box games work on my playstation? Why doesn't Ford make Camero parts?

Why should Sony make a VCR that works with VHS tapes?

Think about it.

Why did Apple make a Windows iTunes client?

Cross platform compatibility is NOT a bad thing, and in this case, it'd be so easy to do, it's almost stupid not to.

But, whatever. All you fucktards think I'm a moron for suggesting it. Fine.

[Easy Mac]

I think to be accurate it would be as follows:

Sony making their Betamax compatible with VHS tapes.
Apple making their DRM compatible with Windows portables.

Doing one would inhibit their ability to make inroads into another area.

[GoldenEagle]

I think PureSim allows to import OOTP leagues, so Franklin is not too far off base here.