Release

[simmer]

I was hoping if someone can tell me if were close to a release. As you know the season is upon us, a month away for both NCAA and NFL.

[David Winter]

Hi Simmer.
 
I'm not prepared to provide an official date at this time. If I provide a date (or even an estimate) and for whatever reasons that date gets missed, well, we have seen what happens. So this time I'm playing it safe. I know this is not the answer you and others are looking for but I hope you understand.
 
That said, the Matrix staff, the private testers, and I have been working very hard over since the release of R2 and I am confident the game has made great strides. The new play designer, improved defensive AI, a new scheduling system and schedule editor are just a few of the large number of changes and improvements. I'm currently working on a some improvements to the drafting system as well as a large number of other general game improvements. Manuals are being rewritten and packaging updated. With a single developer and small publishing staff, you can imagine that these things can take some time.
 
So while I do not wish to provide a date yet, please be assured that nobody is sitting on their laurels. Thanks for your continued support.
 
David

[CFL_FAN_7]

are you considering H2H online play and a financial system for R4?
 

[elmerlee]

Since the "posting-lead" is held by the Graphics Forum it occurs to me that it might be best to just turn
this "game?" into a paint program. They are not that difficult to construct if kept simple.

Then again - most football games are used to draw things.

I put my Barbie Dolls away just long enough to post this.

[Tbird]

Quit being a spoiled pansy 
It'll be out when it's ready [:)]

[CFL_FAN_7]

Mr Winter are you considering h2h online play and a financial system for release 4????

[dreamtheatervt]

Let's see release 3 before we start worrying about release 4.

[CFL_FAN_7]

i have to know because it will effect my decision on wether to buy this game and I don't want to be ripped off.

[redwolf1]

The vast majority voted for the sim engine option first. [:)]

CFL_Fan, you are best holding off and staying away until you know for sure that the game has the features you deem as neccessary before you buy it.

[CFL_FAN_7]

Thats what i'm thinking, but I want to know ASAP. I dunno if i should buy this or madden

[dreamtheatervt]

To quote another thread,
 

ORIGINAL:  redwolf1
Just an update on the current vote counts:
 

H2H was in third place, and that was before DW explained what upgrading the graphics engine would do, after which some people changed their vote from H2H to the new engine.
 
Asking the same questions every 5 days is really annoying, because H2H will not suddenly happen.  I would like to see lots of things added to the game, but you have to be PATIENT.  Things don't happen overnight, yet you seem to expect that the world stop what they are doing and cater to you.  Let's look at your best-case hypothetical situation: DW announces today he is going to start work on H2H.  It will still take time for him to code it, and for people to beta-test the software, recode the bugs, retest, repeat...

[Marauders]

I do find it ironic that I, as well as others, stated that a fast sim engine would not be well received when the change was made from the slow sim, but that advice was generally ignored.  While accurate was more important than fast to community members, fast was the goal of the "new" sim system.

Even from the days of the old Maximum-Football boards, GM/Financial additions were listed as a major feature that the community would want.  It was hard enough to get through the debate about career mode without trying to push for GM/Financial features.

If the old sim system was still in place and tweaked, the financial system or full schedule system could have been the next major addition to the game.

This does show that the player community does often know what the community actually wants.

[dreamtheatervt]

I figured improved sim was to get more realistic stats while simming faster.

The point of my thread was that H2H wasn't going to happen overnight.

[David Winter]

ORIGINAL: Marauders

I do find it ironic that I, as well as others, stated that a fast sim engine would not be well received when the change was made from the slow sim, but that advice was generally ignored.  While accurate was more important than fast to community members, fast was the goal of the "new" sim system.

Even from the days of the old Maximum-Football boards, GM/Financial additions were listed as a major feature that the community would want.  It was hard enough to get through the debate about career mode without trying to push for GM/Financial features.

If the old sim system was still in place and tweaked, the financial system or full schedule system could have been the next major addition to the game.

This does show that the player community does often know what the community actually wants.

You also failed to mention in this post that the 'original simulation' took as long to play out as a full 3D game. Making the whole point of a quick sim game to flesh out the remainder games in a week or schedule, completely mute. Had the original 'quick sim' been 3 or 4 minutes, okay, people could probably have lived with that. But using the original system, games were taking 30 minutes or more depending on length of quarters.

You never saw the original system. The testers that did see it, and I agreed with them fully, concluded it had no point in being there. For the amount of time it took to run the game, you could set up a CPU-CPU game and just let that play out. A played out 3D game would only last about 3 or 4 minutes longer. This was one of the reasons why it was dropped. It just simply did not perform the function for which it was supposed to perform. And frankly there were far more important areas of the game I needed to spend my time on, like the on field game play.

So I dropped it in favour of a system that actually served a purpose. The ability to quickly (in a couple of minutes per game depending on quarter length) play out games to flesh out the results of a schedule week or season.

Now that the game that people play on the field is tightening up, I can afford to spend some time looking at other quick simulation methods.

For good or bad, some features just get cut.

[Marauders]

David, I do recall that the old sim system did take a long while to finish a game.  That is why it needed to be tweaked.
 
The main question I have to ask about the short sim system is "what's the point of it"?  If the stats do not match the main game, it doesn't do much good for leagues to sim some games and play out others.  If a league is going to go all sim, why not just purchase a text based game that specializes in number shuffling and cross referenced data tables in place of play results?
 
Now, if a shorter sim can match the regular game sim, then it has a real use for many game players.

[David Winter]

Todd I'm not getting into this again. I cut the feature because it did not perform the job it was supposed to perform. And the time spent was better served elsewhere. You never saw the feature to know what it did or did not do so you can not simply say it needed tweaking.

[Magnum357]

I really don't ever use the SIM feature in the game.  Instead, I always let the computer play out the games in full, that way the 3D engine is actually calculating things and my Playbooks and Profiles have an effect on the game.  Ya, it takes longer, but I think the Quick SIM feature is just limited to canned Stats.  Am I right on that David?  Do Playbooks and Profiles have any effect on Quick Sim games?
 
As for the the Head 2 Head and other Features that people want in the game, I very glad that David is working on PDS 2.0 because that means he is reworking some of the 3D game engine code.  I have had trouble making good plays with PDS 1.0 (might be partially due to my low end system) but I think some of the problems is that PDS 1.0 has some limitations/Flaws.  Hopefully, David can make the PDS 2.0 work much better then the previous PDS for play design.

[David Winter]

Playbooks and coaching profiles are taken into account for the current quick sim system. The same play selection procedure that is used in the 3D game is used in the quick sim game.

[CFL_FAN_7]

DW,
 
 Is there any possibility of getting H2H online play or a financial system in any releas like R4 or if there is an R5????
 
this is part of my buying decision and i'd like an answer from you because it's your game.

[Deltadog]

ORIGINAL: David Winter


But using the original system, games were taking 30 minutes or more depending on length of quarters.

The problem is that to allow the computer to play a game out takes more input from the user than just set the game to run. I could live with allowing the game to play out if you did not have to be at the computer to start the game at the end of each quarter. If the game were to be simmed it should not be necessary for the user to be at the computer to keep it going. IE I would be happy just to allow the cpu to run the game out, even if it took the same amount of time if only I could start the game running all the games I do not wish to watch and not stop until the week ends. I could then allow it to proceed while I am doin something else of perhaps maybe even in the background.