BTS: Frequently Asked Questions
 

Hello everyone!

As the developer for BTS I'd be delighted to answer any questions you have about the game.

To start off with, here is a brief FAQ which hopefully answers the most common questions:


Beyond the Sideline Football FAQ:

Q: When will it be released?
A: When it is fully tested and ready. We expect the game to hit Beta about a year from now and we are currently aiming for a release sometime in 2015.

Q: Will it feature real teams and players?
A: Yes! Just like OOTP and FHM, BTS will have real teams and players, along with real career stats. In fact, every player who has stepped foot onto a pro-American Football training camp during the past decade will be in the game, with their full history included (stats, transactions, injuries, and contract details).

Q: Football players get dinged up a lot, with a sore hand here or a bruised ankle there. How will you represent that in the game?
A: We will use what we call a Health Scan: It will be a full body image of a player with colors that will indicate which areas are fully healthy, worn down, and injured.

Q: Will it feature functional leagues?
A: Yes, but the amount of customization will not be the same as in OOTP. BTS will be primarily designed to 100% mirror the real life league and rules. Realism is the primary goal for BTS.

Q: Will historical leagues be supported?
A: Not in the first version, but we hope to add them in a future version.

Q: How about college teams?
A: College teams will be part of the game database (this is where the players for the upcoming draft will start out), but they cannot be controlled yet. However, we expect they will be playable in a future version.

Q: How does the game relate to OOTP?
A: BTS shares the OOTP code base, so the interface will look similar and certain features will be carried over, like FaceGen, online league support, HTML output, and so forth.

Q: Online leagues? How will those work?
A: The same way they do in OOTP: GMs set up their teams' depth charts and strategy settings and then export their files to the commissioner, who consolidates all of them into his copy of the game and simulates the action. Then he exports the results and everyone imports that file into their games. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Q: How about FaceGen?
A: That will also operate the same way it does in OOTP, except players will likely wear helmets without face guards, rather than baseball caps. However, they will age over time, like they do in OOTP.

Q: Will BTS have play-calling?
A: Yes. Users will be able to play out games and will be able to call all their teams' plays, but they can also leave play-calling to their coaching staff.

Q: If play-calling is turned over to the coaching staff, will there be strategy settings like in OOTP?
A: Yes. We have not yet determined how detailed they will be.

Q: Will I be able to design my own plays?
A: No. That is something that we hope to add to a future version of the game.

Q: Will teams have their own playbooks?
A: No. All teams will operate from the same playbook, but their play-calling will be based on their roster strengths as well as what their coaches prefer. For example, teams that are pass-heavy in real life will do the same thing in the game because they will have highly rated QBs as well as coaches who prefer aerial assaults. (And just like in real life, when a new coach takes over, the team's approach will likely change.)

Q: How many stats will BTS track?
A: We expect to have about 50 stats in the game, possibly more. We will track everything you see in real life.

Q: What sort of game engine is it, purely statistical?
A: No, it is a 2D/3D engine (which has been in development for years) with a 2D representation.

Q: A Brit doing a football game? That's almost as bad as a German doing a baseball game.
A: Francis is an avid football fan who has followed the sport for decades. In fact, he previously programmed a football simulation engine for his college degree. He also has worked at Sports Interactive on their hugely popular Football Manager soccer game, so he has years of experience working on professional products. He understands the sport and knows what a good management game needs.

Q: Okay, this game sounds awesome. Take my money now!
A: Wow, we really appreciate your enthusiasm, but we're not taking pre-orders yet. Keep an eye on this forum (there's an option to subscribe to it) and sign up for our newsletter. Both places will feature all the details when the pre-orders start.

Follow BTS on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BTSFootball

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Thanks everyone. I look forward to hearing from you and answering your questions.

Francis

Other Pro Leagues?
 

Will we be able to create a fictional CFL with CFL rules(one point rouge,three downs,etc.)?




Will historical pro leagues from the past(other than the NFL) be available in the future?


Will there be a schedule editor/generator?


Will teams be able to move from league to league?


Can players from past NFL seasons be used in fictional leagues or will that be modern players only?

You can create your own leagues. However they can't have different rules yet. Due to the way the engine is (which is entirely different to the OOTP engine), it's not as simple just to change the rules in the game engine (unfortunately).

If by in the future you mean in a future version of BTS, then yes that is the eventual plan.
Maybe even non-NFL leagues, but the priority would be to get historical NFL first. :)

Yes the generator creates automatically schedules the league, and the plan is currently to have schedule importing like OOTP.

Not sure yet. There will be expansion teams etc.

Fictional leagues will be entirely fictional. However there will the in-game editor like OOTP so you can create players if you want.

Can separate leagues play exhibition games (or regular season games) against each other(plus a championship game)?


What will be the max number of teams in a fictional league?

Championship Game yes, divisional games no.

This is subject to change, but about 36-40. The season length needs to be limited as the off-season plays such an important in BTS we can't be having the season still be going on at the same time.

Thanks for the fast response.


What about minor leagues(NFL and/or fictional)?

Does that mean that spring leagues won't be available?

You can setup any fictional leagues you want.

So you could create minor leagues or even the CFL etc, but all of the game rules etc will just be the same as the real life NFL rules.

I think for the first version where we don't want to promise more than we can deliver that is a good compromise :)

Correct, nearly the whole of the spring will be draft focused.
If we allowed games in Spring then we'd have to move the draft somewhere else, which then has a knock on effect of moving everything else, and very quickly things are very complicated :)

Can there be leagues with an odd number of teams?

Yes.

Question about the player editor-you can move any NFL player from team to team but they(NFL players) won't be available for fictional league play(all players must be fictional )?

Will rosters be automatically filled(or it will be an available option like OOTP) with fictional players should the team be below the player limit(att. FHM)?

Can neutral site games be scheduled(example St Louis Rams vs Chi Bears at Milwaukee)?

If you create a new fictional league the players will be fictional, yes.

In theory, you can turn the NFL game into a fictional one by simply editing the team names & cities, league structure & schedule. Then you have your fictional league with real players.

That's what I do with FHM. I remove most of the players off a team and turn it into an expansion team and keep a team or too intact just too see how they would do against possible weaker teams.


I moved an 1972-73 NHL team to the WHA and vice-a-versa.

Another schedule question-Will you be able to schedule certain fictional leagues for Saturday so it won't interfere with playing NFL games on Sunday or will there be an option to play leagues separately on a given day?


For instance with OOTP(in real time) ,once you start the day's play ,all leagues start playing according to the game's start time.


Will there be an option to play each league's games one at a time so all of the above wouldn't matter?

At the moment the days of the games all follow the real day system. (Pre-Season, Thursday-Monday, Regular TNF,Sunday,MNF, Playoffs Sat-Sun).

I might look at making this somewhat customizable if I get time.

Will we be able to edit whatever BTS will have like OOTP has the World default.XML to add our own fictional cities & nations? And if so would I be able to start in 2003 with 10 total teams and expand every few seasons until I get to 32 teams? Or will I have to start with 32 teams?

Great news! Really excited for this. I do have a question regarding feeder leagues.

You mentioned the inclusion of College Division 1-A teams, are we able to customize the college league structure and the teams?

Would we be able to add additional feeder leagues to the College Division 1-A teams (ex. High School/JUCO)? Is this something that you would consider adding in the future?

You can edit the countries/towns etc.
I think you'll be able to do the second one but I'll have to look into it at some point.