Maximum Football???

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by TroyF

Either way, after a game gets this many views, someone here has to bite the bullet. We have to see just how good/bad this sucker is. I expect a beer from each and every member who posted in this thread if I ever visit your city.

Way to take one for the team.

I guarantee a beer to ANYONE on this board that actually finds themselves in Placerville, CA.

[Godzilla Blitz]

There's got to be 50+ people in the Maximum Football forum now, but only three or so that have reported that they are downloading/buying the game. I get a feeling that a lot of people are waiting for someone else to go first.

"Get Mikey to eat it! He'll eat ANYTHING! Hey Mikey!"

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

I guarantee a beer to ANYONE on this board that actually finds themselves in Placerville, CA.

I've eaten at the Denny's there off of 50 on my way to Tahoe a few times. Good ole' Hangtown USA. The only place I've been to where the police cars have the hangman's noose on the side.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by TroyF

I expect a beer from each and every member who posted in this thread if I ever visit your city.

deal

[duckman]

Originally Posted by TroyF

I expect a beer from each and every member who posted in this thread if I ever visit your city.

Let me know you're coming around these parts and I'll be happy to.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by cartman

I've eaten at the Denny's there off of 50 on my way to Tahoe a few times. Good ole' Hangtown USA. The only place I've been to where the police cars have the hangman's noose on the side.

We had dinner at that Denny's just two nights ago.

I like the "Hangtown" motto, too... but I think it's been a while since they strung anybody up around these parts.

[mauchow]

What would be the worst is that he runs away from the game after finding out that the game made less than $200.

[st.cronin]

Wht is Daivd Wniters day job? Anybody know?

[Senator]

Originally Posted by mauboy1

What would be the worst is that he runs away from the game after finding out that the game made less than $200.

Yikes, is this possible?

[Antmeister]

Ok....I am eagerly awaiting for someone to post something good or bad and I see nothing. There is only a screenshot of someone's first game and 1 person having problems with the PDS system not working. Other than that, it has been pretty quiet.

With that many people in that forum, I thought at least half of them were buying it at this time. So where is the frickin feedback. And wow, the game is only 100 megabytes. Isn't that odd for a 3D game? Or have I been out of the loop for a while?

[st.cronin]

poster: Eric in case your read this I tried to register my game, but when asked to choose the game from a list, the game wasnt on it.

Erik:
Yes, sorry about that. We are having a minor issue with setting up the keys in the Members' Club for M-F. Our web guy in Australia should be waking up any time now, so I expect to have it storted out in an hour or two. Try again later tonight or tomorrow morning please.

Regards,

- Erik

Maybe this is why there's no feedback yet?

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Antmeister71

Ok....I am eagerly awaiting for someone to post something good or bad and I see nothing. There is only a screenshot of someone's first game and 1 person having problems with the PDS system not working. Other than that, it has been pretty quiet.

With that many people in that forum, I thought at least half of them were buying it at this time. So where is the frickin feedback. And wow, the game is only 100 megabytes. Isn't that odd for a 3D game? Or have I been out of the loop for a while?

I think that was about the size of FBPRO. So that seems about right.

[st.cronin]

I think this might be the first bug report:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1077099

[st.cronin]

and another:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1077136

Opponent 1st and goal from the 3 yd line. They run I stop them and get a facemask penalty. Now it is 1st and goal from the back of the endzone! His offensive line is behind my defensive line and in front of my linebackers! So I stopped him on the next play for a touchdown!

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by TroyF

I expect a beer from each and every member who posted in this thread if I ever visit your city.

If you happen to be in the country, let me know up front and I'll buy you one.

[cartman]

I'm gonna have to place an order directly with the Orville Reddenbacher factory to have enough popcorn available to make it through this.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

If you happen to be in the country, let me know up front and I'll buy you one.

No, Troy, go for a space cake. You can get a Heineken anywhere...

[st.cronin]

Erik's reply:

Wow, that's a new one indeed. Do you by any chance have a save game? Trying to duplicate a facemask penalty while on the 3 yard line may take us a little time, but we'll definitely check into this combination.

If you save and re-load, does it return to normal?

Regards,

- Erik

[Bubba Wheels]

One thing I have learned from this thread, either Cartman owns his own company or he is grossly stealing time from his employer. That is all.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by cartman

No, Troy, go for a space cake. You can get a Heineken anywhere...

Don't you know they brew their beer differently for each country, to addept to the local cultures? Overhere you'll taste real Heineken!

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by Bubba Wheels

One thing I have learned from this thread, either Cartman owns his own company or he is grossly stealing time from his employer. That is all.

And Bubba, I would like to thank yoiu for starting the most important thread in FOFC history. ::Sniffle::

[cartman]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

Don't you know they brew their beer differently for each country, to addept to the local cultures? Overhere you'll taste real Heineken!

Oh, I've been to the brewery in Amsterdam and sampled quite a bit of the local brew. Unfortunately, it was right before going to the Holland Casino which was a couple of blocks away.

[aran]

Erik's response to that facemask penalty bug is really strange. You'd think they'd code debugging tools that would quickly set up almost any on-field scenario...

[st.cronin]

more:

ORIGINAL: Sonny
Sorry, no save game. Have not been able to do anything. I alt-tabbed out and cannot get back to the game.

I have been able to restore when alt-tab out, unless this is something that broke in the release version or only for certain hardware combinations. We'll take a look at that as well.

Regards,

- Erik

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by aran

Erik's response to that facemask penalty bug is really strange. You'd think they'd code debugging tools that would quickly set up almost any on-field scenario...

I was thinking something similiar but I'm not a programmer, and wasn't sure if such a thing were feasible.

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by aran

Erik's response to that facemask penalty bug is really strange. You'd think they'd code debugging tools that would quickly set up almost any on-field scenario...

You would think, but you have to remember that they are only a publisher. Therefore, they are only provided with the debugging tools that the programmer provides for them. I have no idea how the game was presented to them.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Bubba Wheels

One thing I have learned from this thread, either Cartman owns his own company or he is grossly stealing time from his employer. That is all.

I'm the defect regression tester for Winter Valley.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by cartman

I'm the defect regression tester for Winter Valley.

That's Larry Bird-esque.

[aran]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

I was thinking something similiar but I'm not a programmer, and wasn't sure if such a thing were feasible.

It is highly likely that Winters has a tool that can do this. If he didn't code such a tool, it would prove him to be entirely inept as a coder.

Erik said "we" in his message, which implies it means both him and Winters at least...

[aran]

Dola -

Here we go:

Trying to duplicate a facemask penalty while on the 3 yard line may take us a little time, but we'll definitely check into this combination.

[st.cronin]

This post from Daivd is scary:

Okay... sounds like the official 'first post release bug'.

The issues policy is Crashes and lock ups get addressed first and game play issues second. This is a game play issue.

I will look at this over the weekend but I will need to see what other issues present themselves in the next 72 hours or so and build a priority list.

Thanks
I hope you're finding the game fun regardless of this problem.

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by cartman

Here's a video of one of the beta testers for Max Football trying to relax after a hard day of testing...

hxxp://www.youtube.com/p.swf?video_id=Vtq0JI_oBt0&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//static11.youtube.com/vi/Vtq0JI_oBt0/2.jpg

NSFW if you speak German, and it is subtitled

Uhhhhh.....I finally watched this and this has got to me the most disturbing video I have seen. I kept trying to think that it is fake, but I don't think it is. Wow!

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

This post from Daivd is scary:

On the surface that would be pretty normal I would think... see what happens and go from that. Not too alarming. But, you could have a game play issue that could be a showstopper...

[aran]

BIG problem with the sim engine: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1077194

[JonInMiddleGA]

Opponent 1st and goal from the 3 yd line. They run I stop them and get a facemask penalty. Now it is 1st and goal from the back of the endzone! His offensive line is behind my defensive line and in front of my linebackers! So I stopped him on the next play for a touchdown!

That's one of the funniest bug reports I can recall seeing anywhere (imagine the look on the gamer's face when he sees the play lining up in the endzone). It's almost too funny to be true.

If this is real though ... well, I'm thinking that the teleporting players thing is going to be looked back upon as "The Golden Era of Maixmmu Fotoball".

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

That's one of the funniest bug reports I can recall seeing anywhere (imagine the look on the gamer's face when he sees the play lining up in the endzone). It's almost too funny to be true.

If this is real though ... well, I'm thinking that the teleporting players thing is going to be looked back upon as "The Golden Era of Maixmmu Fotoball".

The funny thing about that bug is that he is playing defense and gets called for the face mask penalty. Why does the ball even go backwards to begin with? I thought a facemask penalty was supposed to give the offense a 5 or 15 yeard penalty. If it isn't then....

That's customizability at its finest.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Antmeister71

The funny thing about that bug is that he is playing defense and gets called for the face mask penalty. Why does the ball even go backwards to begin with? I thought a facemask penalty was supposed to give the offense a 5 or 15 yeard penalty. If it isn't then....

That's customizability at its finest.

I don't think it went backwards, it went forward ... almost completely through the endzone as I read it.

-- Team B is on Team A's 3 yard line.
-- Team A stuffs the run by Team B but gets hit with a face mask penalty, moving the ball to Team A's "-2 yard line" (i.e. into the end zone).
-- Team B then runs another play, gets stopped without a penalty, but is awarded a TD because the play (sans foul) terminated in Team A's endzone.

[Poli]

Don't tell me they finally released the game.

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I don't think it went backwards, it went forward ... almost completely through the endzone as I read it.

-- Team B is on Team A's 3 yard line.
-- Team A stuffs the run by Team B but gets hit with a face mask penalty, moving the ball to Team A's "-2 yard line" (i.e. into the end zone).
-- Team B then runs another play, gets stopped without a penalty, but is awarded a TD because the play (sans foul) terminated in Team A's endzone.

Okay I am a little confused.

I thought:

-- Team B is on their own 3 yard line (I thought that is why he said opponent's)
-- Team A stuff the run of Team B. but Team A was the team that was penalized with a facemask penalty (He did say, "I got penalized.")
-- Somehow Team B is in the endzone and Team A gets a TD for terminating in the endzone.

At least that is how I read it.


--EDIT--
Actually after reading what he said, "I stop them and get a facemask penalty". I assumed it was his team.

[ShaefIllini]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I don't think it went backwards, it went forward ... almost completely through the endzone as I read it.

-- Team B is on Team A's 3 yard line.
-- Team A stuffs the run by Team B but gets hit with a face mask penalty, moving the ball to Team A's "-2 yard line" (i.e. into the end zone).
-- Team B then runs another play, gets stopped without a penalty, but is awarded a TD because the play (sans foul) terminated in Team A's endzone.

Now, in Daivd's defense, it is entirely possible that this guy just bit off more customizability than he can chew. I find it hard to fault Daivd when some purchaser sets out to discredit him by turning Daivd's own customizability against him.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by Antmeister71

Okay I am a little confused.

I thought:

-- Team B is on their own 3 yard line (I thought that is why he said opponent's)
-- Team A stuff the run of Team B. but Team A was the team that was penalized with a facemask penalty (He did say, "I got penalized.")
-- Somehow Team B is in the endzone and Team A gets a TD for terminating in the endzone.

I think Jon's got this one right. The poster said "opponent 1st and goal on the 3 yd line". If it's 1st and goal, the opponent is on the poster's 3.

[Bubba Wheels]

Originally Posted by ShaefIllini

Now, in Daivd's defense, it is entirely possible that this guy just bit off more customizability than he can chew. I find it hard to fault Daivd when some purchaser sets out to discredit him by turning Daivd's own customizability against him.

This is just painful. I mean, at the least just say you think the game is going to suck. But this is the weakest attempt at 'humor' I have ever had inflicted upon one of my threads, and if it keeps up I may have to delete entirely. Too many Jon Stewart wanna-be's should be finishing off their blunts, eating pizza and watching him instead of trying to emulate. Please.

[vex]

Originally Posted by Bubba Wheels

This is just painful. I mean, at the least just say you think the game is going to suck. But this is the weakest attempt at 'humor' I have ever had inflicted upon one of my threads, and if it keeps up I may have to delete entirely. Too many Jon Stewart wanna-be's should be finishing off their blunts, eating pizza and watching him instead of trying to emulate. Please.

I thought he was halfway defending Daivd.

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

I think Jon's got this one right. The poster said "opponent 1st and goal on the 3 yd line". If it's 1st and goal, the opponent is on the poster's 3.

Yeah, I should read the line more carefully.

[Bubba Wheels]

Originally Posted by vexroid

I thought he was halfway defending Daivd.

Not in this forum. Too much irony going around, and not enough skilled one's to 'wield' it correctly.

[Kitridge]

Originally Posted by Antmeister71

Ok....I am eagerly awaiting for someone to post something good or bad and I see nothing. There is only a screenshot of someone's first game and 1 person having problems with the PDS system not working. Other than that, it has been pretty quiet.

With that many people in that forum, I thought at least half of them were buying it at this time. So where is the frickin feedback. And wow, the game is only 100 megabytes. Isn't that odd for a 3D game? Or have I been out of the loop for a while?

Hey,

First time poster, long time lurker. Figured I'd register and chime in just to get some impressions into this thread. I don't really know much about football; FOF2004 taught me everything I know. I love text sims and FOF2004 is no different, even if I don't really know the actual sport that well. I can give some basic impressions, but I don't know if I'll be able to handle any in depth football questions that you guys might have.

First Impressions:
The interface is laid out like an EA Sports game in that it feels very hard to get around in the main menus. It's definitely not a spreadsheet game like FOF in the sense that it's not that intuitive sorting and getting stats as easily as in FOF. Columns can be sorted by selecting from a menu which isn't as handy as just clicking on the column you want to sort. From the looks of it, all the important stats are there, they just aren't as easily accessed as they are in FOF

The quick play basically lets you pick two teams, stadium, weather conditions, and you're set. Flip the coin and you're off, playing with a bunch of players who look kinda funny. You can choose plays and the players seem to simply follow the lines on the play diagram that have been laid out for them in the Play Design System. I haven't really played around with it much, but it doesn't feel like the players have that much intelligence behind their movements. A kick return play (there is only 1 in the playbook that came with the game) always ends up with about a 10 yard return every. Single. Time. Not much variation there.

The league setup is very frustrating. It comes with a league preloaded with 4 teams per division and 4 divisions... All the players are fake and all the numbers that the players are rated in appear to be rather similar between players of the same position. Haven't really played around with it much to see how a 95 Pass accuracy differs from my two other QBs that have a 92 and a 89 but all players seem to have rather high ratings considering my third stringer appears he could start.

Speaking of frustrating, the league draft that I did first upon loading the league was over 49 rounds (not sure the exact number cuz I was AFK for most of it) where every team picks tons of players and it takes forever. Kind of weird too, since my team already had a full roster... I set my team on auto and walked away for 25 minutes. I came back to run training camp and didn't really do much except hit the "Run Training Camp" button cuz all I really wanted to do was play a league game. That function took 5 minutes to run. Finally I was able to play a game. I hit the play button from the schedule screen and was told that my roster had too many active players on it. Ok, well yes, of course it would, the auto-draft just put 50 some odd players on my team! I wasn't going to select each individual player, go into their profile and cut them so I put my team on computer control and simmed the first league game for my New York team.

Now simming takes 30-90 seconds as the computer basically plays the game play by play on a box score screen. That was fine. My team won their first league game by 34-10 or so... had over 650 yards total, 480 passing. I changed them back to human control and looked for the button that would sim the rest of the week's games automatically... but it doesn't exist. So I had to sim all 7 other games manually. That doesn't sound like much, but when it takes each game a minute or two to complete, you just spent 5-10 minutes trying to get to your second week. I'm the kinda guy who likes simming 4 or 5 FOF seasons in a night... By this point I'd spent 50 minutes trying to get to play my first league game. I was getting frustrated...

Finally I got to play my first league game. I hit the play button and went to the game. First thing I realized was that my New York team was not under my control. I had set their control to Human but I still had to select the team before the game to control them. (Much the same way you choose your team in madden before the game by moving your controller to the appropriate slot) As a result, I was controlling the home team Cleveland because I had assumed that choosing "Human Control" from the league menu would auto-select my New York team for me. Quit Game, restart, choose New York, play. Finally!

The game played basically the same as quick play. You pick a play without knowing what the other team has on the field or anything like that; basically, you're in the dark as to what play you choose, especially as the defender. At least in Madden and FOF, you see how many RBs or TEs or WRs are on the field so you can kind of pick an informed defense. Not here though! No such information. No big deal anyways cuz as offence I soon noticed that any runs up the middle were quickly stuffed, but a sweep around to the right always got me about 8-12 yards. Also, the same throw play from the shotgun formation to my primary receiver always got me 20-30 yards except for 2 times when the pass was defended or misthrown. Weird thing was, when I tried to change up the formation for fun, the same receiver was always the one receiving the pass resulting in the one receiver having over 200 yards in the first quarter. I couldn't figure out how to involve my other players even when the QB threw to other areas on the field.. it always seemed that the same guys caught the ball.

Defense was frustrating cuz, like I said before, you have no idea what the other team has on the field. Basically, I stuck to my basic 4-3 on downs 1 and 2 and went to the nickel zone for 3rd down and kept the opponent to 3 points in the 1st half. My lack of football knowledge didn't seem to matter which was kind of nice from a selfish ego kind of perspective.

Ok, so there are a few niggles... I do feel that the players basically follow the lines they are given from the PDS system which means that even if a huge hole opens up, my smashmouth runner is going to follow his same route every single time and ignore the huge hole that would give him 50 or 60 yards down the field. I haven't tested this and this may not be the case, but that's my initial impression. The real fun with this game will be, I believe, making plays and seeing how they turn out. The only problem is that to be fair, you'd prolly have to make a counter play for the AI to use so that you don't rip them open every single time... Just speculation on my part... I don't know for sure

The speed of players is weird too. They start off so damned slow and take forever to pick up speed. The best plays to make in the PDS will prolly take advantage of this fact by having a fast receiver outrun his coverage because he gets a better jump. The animations are ok... serviceable but definitely not average. Some of the tackles are ghost tackles where the Dman takes down a blocker and they both go to the ground and the ball carrier who is within 2 or 3 yards also goes down. Frustrating

So, I got bored halfway through my league game. I was winning 17-3 with over 300 yards passing and 80 yards rushing. I spent almost an hour trying to play a stupid league game and it bored the crud outta me. Madden '06 is way more fun and the plays seem more real. Like I stated before, the PDS system is where the real fun will lie, but not knowing anything much about Football, I don't know how much mileage I will get... It really depends on what fixes Winter and Matrix make and how quickly they get around to it. Also, real rosters and playbooks would really add interest for me, but I don't really wanna waste my time making those up. Someone will add those in the future, no doubt, and I'm looking forward to it.

Final Comments:
I've played FOF2004 steadily since I bought it more than a year ago and I've never deleted NHL EHM from my hard drive since it was released 2 years ago. Maximum Football won't be staying around long for me as it currently stands, but if they fix it up nicely over the next 3 years or so, I might give it another shot. $45 Canadian is kind of steep for this product in its current state but there is definite room for improvement if the will of the developers is there. Right now the career mode is just time consuming and not really worth it for me given the lack of depth and complexity in the default game. PDS and editors work well tho from the 5 seconds I looked at them... at least the game's customizable. Don't get me wrong, it has some potential there, and I don't HATE it like some FOF people simply because it's not FOF. I'm just initially disappointed in that it could have been so much more; it's where Madden was 10 years ago with a snappy playmaking system but I kind of knew that before I bought it. Guess I just needed to blow some money on a new game, you know?

Hope that helps a bit.

[ShaefIllini]

Originally Posted by Bubba Wheels

This is just painful. I mean, at the least just say you think the game is going to suck. But this is the weakest attempt at 'humor' I have ever had inflicted upon one of my threads, and if it keeps up I may have to delete entirely. Too many Jon Stewart wanna-be's should be finishing off their blunts, eating pizza and watching him instead of trying to emulate. Please.

Harsh. Though i must admit, unofficial st. patricks day has killed my humor.

[TroyF]

OK, I guess I'll be buying the game strictly for the humor then. 200 yards in one quarter for a WR? Impressive stat engine.

[QuikSand]

Nice post, Kitridge. Thanks.

[Tigercat]

Originally Posted by Bubba Wheels

This is just painful. I mean, at the least just say you think the game is going to suck. But this is the weakest attempt at 'humor' I have ever had inflicted upon one of my threads, and if it keeps up I may have to delete entirely. Too many Jon Stewart wanna-be's should be finishing off their blunts, eating pizza and watching him instead of trying to emulate. Please.

Shouldn't you be playing Maximum Football? Its finally released! How can you allow yourself to miss out?