Beyond the Sideline Football go beyond SOM FB and DKS FB!
 

You already offer a different and more complete baseball simulation game than PC SOM BB and DKS BB that makes it a must for we strategy and we replay simulation sports addicts to have in our collection and from the looks of this Forum you have a lot of interested followers for your new football game you are planning. If you want to put yourself out there where none of the others are doing or intending to do is to expand in the area of visual graphics for the actual action of the game itself! OOTP BB 15 seems to be heading in that direction finally and I look forward to seeing the graphic improvements for 15 and later 16. Please have more than just little boxes with player numbers moving about, or more than just a football symbol moving about the field during a play. The more the graphics the better to keep one interested and not bored and not to have us to just be an "Evelyn Wood speed-reader graduate" to enjoy and play this game.

One of the first PC football games that I first bought and played on my first PC (Commodore 64...yes I'm that old!) by Avalon Hill's called Super Bowl Sunday. As simple as its graphics were for those times of early PCs they integrated little video clips along with the action results of the plays that out did any other game on the market at that time...but it worked and it gave you the feel of an actual football game and it was stat based too! The first Madden FB came out after that eventually. Stat-based PC game companies have spent a lot of their time and design on improving on the realistic results for recreating/simulating the results of the game and making it work for playing on the INTERNET and creating an "AI" for all to challenge and I believe it has been achieved! Now we can start improving on the graphics of these games that we so need to complete the visual re-creation of these great games.

Console gaming achieves visual graphics but they are designed for those who can out do the other opponent via how fast they can operate a multi-buttoned joystick with less emphasis on recreating the true aspects of the strategy of the games and season etc. The console gaming companies stopped making their games for the PC. One of the main issues was because it was a money issue for them. The PC market was smaller but also more demanding in the area of team stats, realism and simulation but also a headache for the company to deal with the variety of PC machines used by the consumer. They could make more money and faster by just putting out yearly games with more graphics with more "end zone TD dances" with very little improvements from the previous year's game which often had problems that needed patches that never came!

I believe OOTP can stay true to its system and take more steps into an area where there is a void and a need for a company to go there and that's into the area of improving on more in-game graphics. We are not asking for "end zone TD dances" we just want better player icon movements and for for all the players on the field at one time, showing blocks, runs, throws and catches etc. and of course sound files to go along with it!:drool: We know it can be done and can be playable. You will find there is a bigger interest for that kind of stuff in a strat-based sports simulation PC game than you think. Reading text describing action all the time gets a bit tedious if that's all we get while watching the game unfold!

I remember Super Bowl Sunday 1983 Raiders Marcus Allen off-tackle....works everytime!!! haha

Based on my experiences with OOTP Baseball I'm super excited and really looking forward to adding BTS to my collection so it can be another option for football. It appears they will dedicate themselves to improving their games so maybe visual graphics will improve as time goes on. Right now the videos I've seen are circles, with a trace of personality, that move about on the field.:-) A work in progress, but I applaud the effort of creating a football sim.

Glad you mentioned both companies in a post. Agreed. Visual graphics are lacking for both games, but Strat-O-Matic football is highly entertaining and strategic. The little boxes that move around look silly, but it works for me. As a former C&D baseball gamer I do love the card image option on all the SOM games. However, SOM hasn't put in the research hours to be able to release all the NFL seasons I would like to play. Because of this, I recently stumbled across Dave Koch Sports when wanting to build my own personal "fantasy leagues" dating back to the 1920s. Tidy 6 and 8 team leagues instead of straight replay league that would be hard to conduct (much like 1871-1875 NA baseball) with just a bunch of players from random teams who may have played a few games with sketchy statistics available. Dave has clearly done his best to create rosters/ratings for all seasons and that includes the 1920-1932 period where the NFL didn't exactly care about tracking statistics so who really knows what happened other than lots of single wing and quick kicks on 3rd down.

On the second thought, why not? The same is in FM (you know, celebrations).

You want a dance from a dot? Sure ;)

And it's a good thing it did, because Plunkett and Wilson were INT machines.

I have a modest proposal that, if possible, would greatly improve graphics in the football game. There was a company called 'Maximum Football' that had a great graphics package, but they were hard-pressed to put a game around it, and it never really went anywhere.

If BTS could purchase the rights to Maximum Football's graphics package, they could put a game around it and have the best of both worlds. Sort of what OOTP did in acquiring the face graphics for their baseball game.

Here's an example of what the Maximum Football graphics looked like...

I doubt Matrix Games would be selling, but it's worth a shot.

Nice idea, but it's unrealistic for a few reasons I'm afraid.

I'm already hard pressed for time as it is, I guess making it 3D, even if the engine was purchased would add on another year at least.

3D Engine with real players/teams: Quickly getting into the territory where an official licence is needed.

Sorry about that!

I think it's definitely worth a shot. If their game is no longer making any money for them, this would be a way to turn a profit and gather some recognition for an excellent graphics achievement - and possibly put BTS far ahead of schedule, and with an improved product.

A stable, playable, enjoyable game should be first and foremost for version 1.0.

Maybe in a few years, once gameplay is solid, then add graphics. Incremental additions, like OOTP so we keep coming back year after year will make this a successful venture.

Totally to the guy above. As much as I'm looking forward to a good football sim (and as much as I AM ANGERED BY THIS MAN BLOWING UP MY BALLOON I WANTED TO BE THE OOTP FOOTBALL MAN WAAAAAH), for version 1.0 I am looking for something stable which does a (fairly limited) set of things that its creator set out to make it do. OOTP has come a long way since version 1; we should not expect BTS to be at OOTP15 levels immediately upon release.

In my opinion, the old graphics of Football Pro 98 would be even more than I'm expecting. Maybe that as an eventual goal.

But I have NO problem with limited graphics to start out with. Stats and strategy, playcalling, general manager mode are the most important things to get right before tackling (pun intended!) better graphics.

I absolutely agree. I want a solid text-based management sim, not arcade football.

Yes !http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/05/3a3ehy8a.jpg

I don't believe that the two of you understand what you are seeing. The graphics that I displayed are from a football management text-based game, and have nothing, and I repeat, nothing to do with arcade football.

Just because a game is a football simulation, doesn't preclude it from having a reasonable graphics package in addition to the text-based simulation. The two can exist very harmoniously together. The two elements are not, repeat not, mutually exclusive.

I agree with you that the graphics package is not necessarily the highest priority, but at some point it would by wise to include it. I believe that a football simulation (not arcade) with good graphics will sell better than a football simulation (not arcade) with minimal graphics. Stardock is in business to make money. Including a decent graphics package at some point should improve sales to the mass market and make them more money, without sacrificing any of the text-based simulation.

Again, graphics & football simulation (not arcade) are not mutually exclusive. Good-looking games sell better than text-only games. There is no law that football simulations (not arcade) cannot have decent graphics as well.

A decent graphics package doesn't have to be in the very first release, but the sooner it is included, the sooner the profit margin will increase.

People expected FHM to be as good as OOTP14 upon release no matter what the developers said.

Disagree with this as the Football Manager series do not have good graphics at all and sell very well worldwide. They do have a very basic 3D match engine but it is nothing spectacular. For me it's about playability and not graphics. If I want graphics then I will play a console.

And as mentioned the more specific the graphics are about their teams, the more likely a license from the NFL becomes necessary.

So, are you saying that OOTP was wrong in having real teams in their game?