Sebastian's Update Thread

[JeffR]

Mercifully short update: Today went mostly as expected, a few new issues came up that pushed the (hopefully) final build back a few hours, but nothing that threw us seriously off-track. Version 1.6.0 is in the hands of the testers now, and I've got my own test game going to verify all of yesterday's fixes are working. Assuming nothing goes seriously wrong it should be ready to go tomorrow (Thursday), exact time subject to the logistics of getting the Mac version completed and everything set up for downloading. But there's always the chance that something might force us into opening the code up again, or that the haunted development Mac decides to torment Sebastian some more, so we'll see what the testing brings us.

[JeffR]

Alright, I have to spend a little while doing last-minute tests of basic functionality and the installer right now to make sure nothing critical got broken during the final fixes today, and then the next message you see from me after this one should be the patch announcement unless something has gone seriously wrong in those areas. Unfortunately, though, the Mac version is going to be delayed until tomorrow; Sebastian's been wrestling with it all day but he's going to need a few more hours than the Windows one is going to take, so it won't be out tonight.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Today is iOOTP 2014 release day (in fact, it is already available in most stores around the world), so it is back to FHM again (thats not completely true, I was back early last week when I submitted the App to Apple).

Part 2 of the big update (a.k.a. the match engine update) was already under construction when I had my iOOTP break, so I took the last few days to get back into it. Beside the match engine update we added basic Online League functionality to the game (to a point that I think it is save to say that it will be part of the update), that includes adding more then one GM to the game, password protection for GM's and Commish, a "force trade" option (Commish), draft lists, editable Waive Wire and IR length (reflect sim-length), im-/export of team files and csv export (which might be of use for other things as well).

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Most likely a bit boring the update but here you go: had to do the first iOOTP patch this week. Beside that I continued to work on the match engine (took a bit longer then expected to get back in the groove again ) and finish up the csv output Malte started earlier. HTML output seems to be the biggest question mark at this point regarding Online League Support.

Malte is working on bug fixes from the Project Tool.

[JeffR]

Just to elaborate on what Malte's been working on: aside from a number of small fixes and UI changes, we're testing fixes to the financial issues (mainly the available funds calculation) now - the main issues seem to be with the system that holds money in reserve when negotiations are ongoing.

[JeffR]

Update on the upcoming patch:

Originally, we were going to do a quick interim patch primarily to fix the most serious issues, primarily with the game's financial systems. But then we wound up in a holding pattern for a little while as the situation with Steam resolved itself (as I said in another post, we had unofficial word that it'd be happening, but it wound up being a little later than initially indicated). Malte and Sebastian have used some of that time, though, to deal with various outstanding issues, mostly smaller-but-annoying stuff, that wouldn't have made it in otherwise. To be completely clear: this is not the big match engine patch that will be the final one for this version of the game; just a maintenance patch to deal with a number of miscellaneous issues and enable the game for Steam.

Here's the unofficial list of fixes for the upcoming patch (unofficial, since some of them still need testing):

Team reserved budget amount should now be reset properly once an offer is no longer open, causing available free agent funds to decline to near 0 eventually
Next/Prev player scrolling should now go in the correct order.
Issue with with teams releasing a large number of players at once fixed.
Context Menu (same one as in roster screens - stats, ratings, etc.) added to search screen.
Team history player stats are now sortable.
League history player register is now sortable.
Year selection and stats added to draft Log Screen (still working on completing the data for previous seasons, so pre-2013/14 data may be incomplete.
Player ability update for human-owned players fixed (previous fix left some exceptions still not updating.)
If a prospect is not currently signable, popup with window will appear sating when he will be.
Welcome news messaage: the second-best prospect is named as best prospect if the best prospect is also the best player.
Players moved to the reserve list via waivers should no longer be released.
In highlights section of match display, third period events no longer have the shootout ("PS") designation instead of "3."
Names of awards that were added in previous patch can now be edited.
Draft picks should no longer appear blank and uneditable after editing league rules in commissioner mode.
AI should no longer attempt to waive/trade list players they just traded for.
After being traded, players should get their first preference jersey number (if available) rather than reversing that number as their first choice.
"Play until next game" should now work correctly after completing that day's game - i.e., it will advance to the next game day.
Choosing Auto-Play to Specific Date on December 31 should now default to the next year, rather than the current one.
Sorting for PP and SH assists should now work correctly.
Sellouts column in team attendance should now sort correctly.
Waivers fixed in historic mode so players can be assigned to reserve list via them, and don't need to be re-cleared to be assigned a second time that season.
New European and Canadian players generated in fictional mode should no longer get US birthplaces.
In historical mode, the AI should no longer automatically release players for the user if the team is above the 50-man limit at the start of the game.
Announcements about the CHL Import draft should no longer be received in triplicate.
Some retired goalies should no longer appears as skaters in the historical stats.
No longer possible for human major junior teams to sign players under the league age limit by looking at their open offers.
Several text errors in news items about/mentioning the WHL draft fixed.
Salary demands for NHL personnel hires should no longer be unreasonably low.
When user takes over a team via commissioner mode, the replaced staff member(s) should have their contracts deleted properly.
Resigning from your team should now generate a news item.
Waiver claims should now be reported correctly in the news.
Some free agent staff should no longer appear with "player" as their job.
"Ask Assistant" option in edit lines should now scratch injured players from the lineup properly.
Player demands and "player too young" warnings should no longer fail to appear on some offer contract screens.
When editing CHL Import Draft in commisioner mode, picks from the previous team should no longer fail to be replaced after choosing a new team.
Ranking number for team PP goals in Team Home Screen should no longer show a negative value.
Teams in historical mode should now hire/fire coaches properly.
Staff contract history in historical mode should now display salaries properly.
Draft screen should no longer appear empty after clicking and viewing a player, then returning to it.
Unsigned draftees should no longer have their signing deadlines occasionally appear with nonsensical dates 2700 years from now.
Fictional staff members generated for historical mode should now be primarily Canadian and American, instead of having a large number of Europeans.
Board confidence updates should now correctly describe the team's recent playoff results.
Players who retire after July 1 should no longer temporarily vanish from the historical database between their retirement and the next July 1.
3-Star selection should no longer occasionally appear blank, and the criteria for them has been rewritten to be a little closer to the traditional 3-star "rules."
Clicking and Viewing a player and then returning to the previous screen should no longer reset the user-chosen sorting on that screen.
Players who have just been bought out will no longer be willing to immediately re-sign.
Team names in player histories should now appear in the correct order for that season.
Scouting should no longer default mainly to a single area when the user gives control to the AI.
AI in some leagues should no longer double/triple-shift some players while leaving other healthy players on the bench.

There won't be any data updates in this patch, as we're in mid-stream with some major changes to the team and league structures in several countries. It would be too risky to build a new live database with that data now, so we're going to use the version from the last patch that we know is stable. That'll delay various data-dependent fixes until the next patch, but there aren't any that have a serious impact on the game.

We're aiming for a release early next week. We'd have preferred to do it sooner, but Valve hit us with the Steam news at an awkward time, with other OOTP staff that we need to coordinate with either on, or about to go on, vacation. But we should have everything in place by that time.

[JeffR]

Monday morning update: things were looking pretty good over the weekend; most of the fixes in the previous list were either confirmed, or, in a couple of cases, fixed on the second try. Unfortunately, long-term testing turned up more issues with open contract offers not getting cleared correctly and lowering (or in some cases raising) the team's available free agent funds. There are two separate causes that Sebastian's found so far; one of them tended to partially offset the effects of the other, so that meant the problem didn't really become apparent until about 15 years into the game. After that, though, it gets pretty ugly, since the loss of free agent money league-wide makes it difficult for superstar-level players to get signed anywhere, so they tend to sit out indefinitely after becoming free agents. We're testing fixes for the two problem areas right now; hopefully, they'll correct the whole problem, but if we're still getting mystery amounts tied up as "open offers", we'll have to dig further for another source. So, no immediate news on a patch release until we've got that situation clarified, which shouldn't take too long; I'll update further tonight unless we have news before then.

In better news, the game seems pretty solid on Steam so far - I've been swapping back and forth between versions while I test, using the same savegames, with no apparent problems. Not sure of the exact day it'll be available yet, but when it is, everyone who's purchased already will get a Steam key; we'll use the same automatic retrieval system that we did for OOTP (enter your order/serial number, and you get a key.)

[JeffR]

Not great news tonight. Sebastian and Malte fixed several problems with the open offers code today, but I'm looking at a save of the newest build from a couple of years in and, while it's better, there's still clearly something going wrong: the dollars being tied up when no contract offer exists are still there, albeit not as frequent. I'm waiting for Sebastian to come online and we'll decide where to go from here, but it'll probably take another day of testing and fixing to get this right.

[JeffR]

Now that that patch is out and we're up and running on Steam, a few details on what we're doing at the moment, and what to expect in FHM 2014's final patch:

Match engine replacement: I described this in much more detail here, and there's not much that's changed since that description, other than some minor changes to play-by-play that, if they make it in, will make the PBP a little more situational and descriptive.

Multiplayer: As you can see in 1.6.19, we've started implementing pieces of this already, and there are also less-visible parts of it completed. Multiplayer in FHM 2014 is going to be fairly rudimentary; expect something similar to what existed in OOTP5 or 6. It'll be functional, but it won't have all the nice bells and whistles like generating nice HTML pages for you. We'll try to make as much data exportable as .csv files as possible, though, so it can be manipulated into whatever kind of format you want for your league website.

Roster management/player movement: This is the area that will be a bit of a wildcard, as it depends on how quickly the other two things progress. I know what I want to do, but some of it (particularly an overhaul of farm/parent interactions) may be too ambitious right now and will have to wait until next year's game. But even if that doesn't make it in, I want to review some of the AI roster management systems (including trading) that don't seem to be operating quite as intended at the moment. Finally, I've been upgrading the way the roster movement works in nonplayable leagues, and have added new junior and lower-level leagues that should make player development in a number of the smaller playable leagues a little more robust. That part is mostly finished, and we'll be starting testing on it in the next day or two.

Minor bugfixing: We'll also be looking at any outstanding bugs that still need to be addressed, and possibly some more minor tweaks like the extra draft information we added in 1.6.19.

The database will also be getting the usual revisions; we skipped the update in 1.6.19 to keep the patch stable, so there'll be quite a few changes built up since the last time there was a new one released. I've been working through the NHL teams, reviewing all their currently-contracted players and prospects to get their ratings in line with their 2013-14 performance.

While we're doing all of this, we'll also be getting some work done on FHM 2015; mainly preparatory stuff to speed things up with this summer's tasks. Sebastian and Daniela met a couple of weeks ago to get the baseline design of the new UI settled (it'll be very similar to OOTP15's) and she's started working on some elements of it. I've been alternating my regular database work with expanding the historical database backwards to 1910; I'm in the mid-30's at the moment and will be adding the team and league data for the NHA, PCHL, and WCHL this week so I can go further back. I'm hoping to have all of it ready to go by the time the guys begin implementing the coding side of pre-1947 play and the new leagues.

Our annual meeting is in Hamburg in three weeks; at that point we'll go over the final details of what will be included in FHM 2015, and will make a more detailed announcement on that topic shortly afterwards.

[JeffR]

Sorry for the lack of updates earlier in the week, I lost a day after a late flight back from Germany and have been busy trying to get the last version of this year's database finalized so we can convert it for the new season and our researchers can begin their 2015 work. As well as implementing some things we discussed while we were all together for the meeting.

The Patch: Work is still ongoing. The match engine changes are taking longer than expected; Sebastian is continuing to work on them. Multiplayer also needs some additional work to make certain features fit into the existing framework of the game. NHL expansion in the modern game, which I mentioned we were looking into last week, is done. It'll be fairly limited for the moment, though: a one-time (optional, you can choose not to have it) expansion at the start of the 2015-16 season. Quebec and Seattle will be the default teams, but the names and cities can be changed. If it occurs, the NHL will switch to using a new 32-team schedule; we came up with a workaround for the inadequate schedules the autoscheduler was producing. It's a tentative first step at getting more flexible league structures in the main game, and we'll hopefully be able to improve on it in the future. But for now, if you want to take over an expansion team, you'll be able to. And I think we'll be switching the (unexpanded) NHL schedule to the non-Olympic version (along with changing back to the regular trading deadline) so there won't be that big gap every year.

FHM 2015: Some of the work is already underway, and we've essentially settled on the feature list for now, although we still need to finalize the exact scope of a couple of things before we announce it all (it's a case of knowing we're going to do a major feature, but a component of said feature looking very problematic even at this stage, so we either need to figure out how to do it or cut it.) And as I said earlier, we'll be converting the database in the next few days and the research team will get into full swing again. As part of that, I'll be recruiting for new researchers soon, there are a few gaps in the team that need to be filled for next year.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

People ask, why the last patch for version 2014 takes so long and why I started to work on FHM 2015 already. Both questions can be answered together:

Right now, I do all the coding on FHM alone. We only have Daniela (graphics) for a limited time, so I have to start on the graphical changes now and do it side by side with the last patch for FHM 2014. Thats not ideal but there is no other way to handle it.

So to be clear: the last patch is coming.

For FHM 2015, here are a few infos I can share so far:

1. The name will be FHM 2015.

2. I already saw release dates mentioned. We have an idea when we want to release it but it is in no way official at this point. I will never ever again rush something out, so only if I post a date here, it becomes official.

3. No open beta, no pre-orders.

For new features: again, only if I post something here, it will become official. We will not post an official feature list until much closer to release date to avoid bad surprises.

What I can say is, that we continue our way to make the core game better and more enjoyable. We monitor the forum very closely for feedback and are in a very detailed dialog with our beta/researcher team.

One first thing I can talk about is the changes to the GUI, which is one of our major priority:

The "Look" (Look = graphics) off FHM 2015 will be very close to OOTP 15 (flat design). The Interface itself (most notable the navigation) will move away from OOTP a bit and should reduce the needed clicks to reach certain screens noticeable. The Upper Area will be expanded and almost all navigation moved to it. Gone are the Menus on top (Team, League, ...) so changing teams/leagues becomes much easier. Once I finished my work on the Upper Area I will post a screenshot to show it (is better then trying to describe it).

[Sebastian Palkowski]

This week I continued to switch between GUI work for 2015 and Match Engine work for 2014.

It looks like the technical changes to the navigation for 2015 are almost at a point where I can make a test build and let Jeff, Malte and one researcher give first feedback. I hope to get that done on Monday. That gives me the rest off the week to "finish" the Match Engine and have a test build for Jeff later next week.

In addition a few more bug PT's showed up the last few days. I will make sure to have them covered as well (for 2014 of course).

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Malte finished the necessary changes to the online league mode. We will start to test it next week. The mode brings back memories for me, reminds me off my OOTP online league (and the reason why I'm here today, the league was the reason I met Markus/Andreas). The initial version will give dedicated Commishes the needed tools to setup online leagues, we will help them to get it more comfortable over time.

For the Match Engine changes I'm on the finish line, should be not to long before intensive testing can start.

The changes to the upper area navigation in 2015 made a big step this weel, we are almost able to hand our testers a version to give first feedback on it. They had some pretty cool ideas already and I'm really looking forward to the initial feedback.

I will now take off the next 2 days (+ the weekend) and travel to Vienna. Thats my only vacation this year so please have your fingers crossed for good weather.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Personal Update:

For quit some time now I have to deal with some personal stuff that took me completely by surprise and literally knocked me out. I know that overall my life is good and a lot of people suffer much more but that does not change the fact, that at the moment I feel very, very bad. As always, over time it will get better and better but at the moment I just try to survive.

I know that most people don't care and just want updates and new versions but as everyone else I'm not a machine and there is more important stuff in life then a game. In the past, whenever something bad happened to me, I always learned from it, moved on and turned my life into something better. I can't see this at the moment but (again) I will get back on my feed and fight back.

I want to end my personal stuff here, just you know what is going on with me.

On a brighter note I want to clarify that work on 2015 (of course much slower then we would wish) is progressing in the background. The completely overhaul of the GUI is almost done and the streamlined Fictional Mode (a.k.a. it is now smaller but stable, working and fun) is well underway.

Sorry I don't have better news but believe me, I would give a lot if that stuff would have never happened to me.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

I want to say a quick thank you to the many people who wrote me very nice PM's/Emails in the past few days, once I'm back on track I will answer them all.

I'm still pretty shaken up but start to be at least able to discuss things with Malte and make sure he is able to work on 2015. He is a tremendous help at the moment and I can't thank him enough for that!

A little 2015 update, so you know where we are at the moment:

- The changes to the navigation and overall GUI are almost done. Daniela is on vacation at the moment so when she is back later next week we will discuss the final open things with here. The GUI/Navigation changes are a big part of the 2015 version, as we took all the feedback from here and our researchers and (hopefully) came up with a system that improves this area of the game a lot.

- Team/League/Player History: let's be honest, it is such a important part of a text-sim game and we did not honor this enough. It was added to the game under great time pressure and it looks/feels exactly like that. So we removed it completely and build it from scratch (thats what Malte is doing right now). This time we make sure it is better looking and much better to navigate (we may even use logical ways to connect single pages this time ). In addition we make sure that it is easily possible to make additions to it over time.

- Fictional Mode: in it's current form the mode does more harm to the game then bringing fun to it. So I worked out a concept that will, at least in my opinion, make this mode enjoyable and stable by making it much more streamlined. I know a few people will hate the changes (and we make sure you guys know exactly what is possible and what not so you can make a decision based on that if you want to buy it or not).
When starting a fictional game you will go through a wizard and build your main league (think NHL) and choose from some selected rules we think make sense. If you don't want more, thats it, you play just with that one league. New player will be generated for the draft. If you want, you can add a farm-team league (think AHL) and play with two leagues. If you want a bit more you can add a major-junior league (think CHL) as well. In that case new player will be generated for this level and then later drafted in the major league.
With such a working base we can later add new features as the feedback comes in but first and foremost the mode has to work stable and make fun to play. The mode is already technical ready, we just need modified functions to generate player and decide on the rules that are changeable.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Time is running fast when working 24/7 and I know that this thread is not used enough. Brad tries to post as much as possible here (which basically is his job as PR and Marketing guru ) but I understand that sometimes it is good from the HQ personally. So here we go:

Work on the (last) FHM 2014 patch and FHM 2015 kicked into the highest gear and continues to be worked on by everyone as much as possible. I saw the "I check for the update every day" thread (no time to read through it, I see that Brad has it covered), so please let me phrase it again:

We learned from the past and will not at any point make any release dates public nor will we release patches (or a new version) that we are not happy with. The same for new features: as long as we are not 100% sure to have them done in a patch/new version we will not talk public about them.

With that said, we work hard on FHM 2015 and when we (and the researcher) are happy with the game, we will release it. No rush, no open beta, no pre-order.

The same with the (last) 2014 patch: since we promised it (something we will not do in the future anymore), we will release it before 2015 is released (since the changes will be in 2015 as well it is not work we do twice). Again, the date will be when it is done, tested and we are happy with it.

With all that said I want to repeat what Brad already wrote: we (OOTP Developments) have a new Blog and we will use it on a regular basis for FHM. Our first entry will be this week, it will be the first of many Road to Release articles and talk about the new GUI + the massive changes to navigation.

We really look forward to your feedback on it (it contains screenshots).

[Sebastian Palkowski]

As mentioned earlier we re-designed the lines edit screen quit a bit. Hope you like it.

Note: please ignore the font, it is not the one we will use in the final version (it is broken at the moment, e.g. the G looks like a C ). The screen is still a work in progress but you should get the idea.

By the way: there is another big new feature hidden on the screenshot above, can you spot it?