Are you ready for some football?!?!?

Overview
This post is a general overview, a preview of some of the issues that will be discussed in more detail in the future. Hopefully this overview will help to eliminate some of the “foreshadowing” issues that some have complained about in previous threads.

Madden is a game for kids. Our theoretical FPS: IKFB is a serious real-time 3D football simulation for serious football fans with an arcade game component for the kids (which also serves as the basis of the console version). The PC version of the game is intended more for adult football fans, who aren’t necessarily gamers, and the somewhat stripped-down more action-oriented console “for the kid’s” version will benefit from this heritage. Gamers might also appreciate the PC version as a hardcore football game. Certainly at least some of the old INN/FPS: FB97 Online crowd would make a re-appearance when they heard of the return of FPS: FB Online with Indra and Kavik Kang reviving the game. I’m pretty sure they’d be there to manage the early test leagues and form the foundation of an online community from day 1. This will be a game that should be advertised as much, if not more, to serious adult football fans than in the game magazines. Ads for the PC version of FPS: IKFB might be more appropriate in Sports Illustrated than in PC Gamer. In fact we wouldn’t even call the PC version of FPS: IKFB a game, we’d always refer to it as “a simulation of NFL football”. We want to set FPS: IKFB apart from Madden by making it known as “the thinking man’s football game”. The game will be reminiscent of the original FPS: FB series, in fact much of the foundation of the original will remain largely unchanged. FPS: IKFB would more change how the game is presented than the game itself, although there are many subtle improvements to the game itself.

There are two basic ways to actually play this game in online leagues. In my opinion FPS: FB is the best “Coach Mode” football game ever made and that is the focus of this theoretically revived version. In Coach Mode players either call the plays, or not even that and simply watch or simulate the games. The player can also play with a gamepad just like other action-oriented sports games and, of course, this updated version will feature 3D on-field action (the hardest part of both producing and designing a sports game, of course). Among gamers the PC version will probably be most popular as a Coach Mode football game while the console version will be specifically tailored as a much more simple game controlled with a gamepad and focused more on action (but still heavily centered on online leagues). Like the original FPS: FB players will have a tool for designing their own plays, although this tool will be a little more restrictive than the original. Gameplans and coach profiles would also work similar to the original (but with several new profiles), and it will even have a similar but updated 64 play play-call interface. As in FPS: FB, we’ll also limit the player rating categories to a number that can be displayed on a single line of one screen along with the player’s name and age (this is so critically important, it really is). There will most likely be 9 player rating categories, the same 8 as in the original series (although some of them will work slightly differently) and a 9th “positional rating”. We’ll also slightly enhance FPS: FB’s simple potential system.

Multiplayer league play, in several different forms, is the primary focus of the PC version. The PC version is a serious football simulation for serious football fans, so FPS: IKFB will have several different forms of online leagues. Coach Mode will support online leagues such as the ones that had emerged around the original series. This “Full Participation” method of play requires a great deal of time and involvement from the player (not as much time as the original due to a more streamlined and efficient design for online leagues, but still a lot of time). It will include improvements over FPS: FB97 in this area such as supporting the Snake Draft, allowing the easy integration of modded draft and free agent rosters, and supporting all functions needed for online league play through the game itself. Coach Mode is the successor to the original INN/FPS: FB97 Online and is an updated and enhanced version of that game based on all of the things (that we can remember, anyway…) that community had always wished for. As with everything else in this overview, these issues will be described in more detail in future posts.

A second form of online league play will merely require the player to send a gameplan to the league commissioner once per week. Each week a Full Team Fantasy Mode (essentially PBEM, but done through the game itself) player will have their game to watch if they choose to (and any of the others that week they have an interest in), a game to prepare for, and a week to make deals with the other players. Other than making deals with other players through an in-game trade interface/e-mail a Full Team Fantasy player’s participation is conducted entirely offline at their own convenience, they just have to send a gameplan once per week. The Commissioner takes care of the rest. If they don’t send the gameplan then that week’s game will be played with the gameplan from the previous week, which probably won’t be ideal for a different opponent. This method of online play is designed for one of FPS: IKFBs primary audiences, serious football fans who are not necessarily gamers. All aspects of the Full Team Fantasy leagues are tailored to this non-gamer audience… “a full blown 53-player fantasy football team”.

A draft, or full league re-draft, is conducted through the game itself. Live draft sessions are possible, but there will also be a draft profile that will allow (among other things) a list of specific draftees in an order of precedence for each pick. Most players will update their profile for each pick, but the profile supports the next four draft picks. The same draft system is used by all types of leagues. Players can conduct either a normal (NFL-like) draft or what FPS: FB players called a Snake Draft. In a Snake Draft the draft order reverses each round, meaning that the last player to pick in a round is the first to pick in the next (the second to last picks after that player, and so on). This was the preferred method of conducting a full league re-draft among the online community of the original FPS: FB. A live full league re-draft is a very time consuming, but is also the most rewarding, way of playing the game. Although it isn’t a requirement, in Full Team Fantasy leagues beginning with a full league re-draft is kind of the whole point.

The actual in-game team, individual, season, etc, statistics will be displayed (and sortable) much as they were in the original FPS: FB, only through a more modern interface. There is an additional aspect to the statistical aspects of the game in FPS: IKFB, however, because this is a serious football simulation for serious football fans. We would make a deal with somebody to feed our game weekly updated real-world statistics from the NFL. (We would also link to the web browser within the game to view the web site we are getting the weekly statistics from.) This will be an option for display within all of the game’s existing statistical displays. You can just switch between the game and the real world in viewing statistics and other similar information. FPS: IKFB will also include elements meant to support fans of traditional fantasy football and the real world statistics are a part of supporting that in addition to being in the game for convenience.

Most importantly, FPS: IKFB will retain the sim method of the original FPS: FB. In FPS: FB when you sim a game you aren’t doing anything different than had you actually watched the game. The sim time of FPS: IKFB will be considerably slower than Madden’s “fake sim” but will produce real, actual, meaningful results. There is no difference between simming and watching games in FPS: IKFB, when you sim you are essentially just not displaying the graphics and allowing the processor to simply do the math as fast as it can. There will not be a “fast sim” option in FPS: IKFB. You actually can’t tune a football game without real sims, which is the main reason why an IKNFL for Madden has never been a possibility (if it were possible Indra and I would have done it years ago, the sim method and a few other issues make such a thing impossible with Madden). FPS: IKFB will, like the original series, have real sims and a be a true simulation of football. More importantly this, and a few other elements present in FPS: FB that are not present in Madden, provide a means of actually making football work. As far as realism and statistical production are concerned Madden is actually incapable of competing with FPS: FB. There isn’t even a race to be run. It simply can’t be done in Madden because Madden does not provide the means to do so. Madden is literally incapable of competing with FPS: FB in this area because it “cheats” with fast sims. Madden doesn’t come anywhere close to actually working, in real sims of 15-minute games the results would be ridiculous. FPS: IKFB would actually work. It would be an actual simulation of NFL football. Our (I certainly can’t do football without Indra the football guru) ability to do exactly this has already been demonstrated.

FPS: IKFB would seem very similar to Madden to a casual observer, that just happened to see a game unfolding on the screen, who doesn’t play either game. In reality they are almost opposites. Madden is an arcade game for kids while FPS: IKFB would be a serious simulation of NFL football intended for adult football fans that aren’t necessarily even gamers. In FPS: IKFB we will try to make the game itself a potential one-stop location to get all of the information about real-life football that a typical fan might desire. We’ll also include support for fans of fantasy football, and have our own fantasy football leagues, within the game itself. From the perspective of some fantasy football fans FPS: IKFB might be the ultimate means of conducting their leagues. A tool for record keeping and league management tied to a sophisticated simulation of NFL football that, because it is also actually a full blown computer game, goes far beyond the wildest software dreams of fantasy football players everywhere. A major goal would be to make the game itself the only place an owner of the software needs to go for anything they want to know about the current real-life NFL season and the support for fans of fantasy football is only a part of that.

Football fans have gone far too long without having a football game. The kids have a football game, but the serious football fans don’t get to have one. This is largely because game companies don’t think that they would sell enough serious football games to be worth making one with any type of decent budget. That’s because they look at a serious football game the wrong way. It’s not a primitive spreadsheet game. A serious football game is actually not all that much different from Madden, it just works a lot better (you could actually say works at all). It isn’t a boring text/spreadsheet game with X’s and O’s sliding around a primitive 2D screen, it is the same exact 3D broadcast presentation as Madden… done correctly as a simulation. As such it can also, at the same time, be the football game for the kids as well. There can even be a console version tailor made for the kids. FPS: IKFB would be both games. A serious simulation of NFL football for serious football fans and armchair coaches AND a fun arcade football game for kids that just plain works better than Madden. Problem solved… now the serious football fans can have their football game.

Say what? How are you bringing it back? Are you planning on recreating the game or what?

I'm confuzzled.

Now that Wavinator is back and posting more concisely than I remember, we should show him who has stolen the crown of Most Verbose Poster.

I'm also confuzzled. Are you asking for feedback or want to discuss things in the forum, or are you just posting purely for the sake of attracting eyeballs?

Yay! Pirate_Lord is back!

/me puts on flame retardant suit, and shoves a bowl of popcorn kernels near this thread.

[grin]

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Madden NFL 98 GameSpot Score 8.8 great Although it doesn't have flashy 3D graphics, Madden 98 is still the most realistic and complete football game on the market.

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Front Page Sports: Football Pro '98 GameSpot Score 6.4 fair Given how long Sierra's been refining this series, you'd expect the '98 edition to be the best ever.

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Are you ready for some football?!?!?

Meh

Posting in Epic Thread.

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This is football, almost everybody (in America, anyway) knows football. Surely, there should be much to discuss about a football game.

What? Don't include us in this. :P

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Original post by Benjamin Heath Quote: This is football, almost everybody (in America, anyway) knows football. Surely, there should be much to discuss about a football game. What? Don't include us in this. :P

All I know about Amercian Football comes from playing game demos with my brother a decade ago.

• You get to choose from a bewildering array of formations. We have no idea what these are for.
  
• Our teams line up. One guy has the ball, and when you press buttons he yells out random colours and numbers "Blue Twenty-Two! Red Six-Teen!"
  
• Eventually he says "Hut!". Not knowing the controls or the game, he usually has to say "hut!" about ten times before he does anything with the ball.
  
• Players move around madly for about two seconds of utter chaos.
  
• Words flash on the screeen to the effect of "Three Yard Loss".
  
• Repeat until the demo finishes

Is that about accurate?

Let me preface this by saying that I really dislike sports games in general, so I'm not just a fanboy automatically coming to the defense of Madden.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Madden. It doesn't pretend to be a football simulation. It's "arcade football" if you will. FPS:FB seems to be more for people who like football simulations. They're different games aimed at different audiences. Even if you revived the IP and improved the "action" side of FPS:FB, I really don't think you'd take away much market share from Madden, which has been refining that exact gameplay for over a decade. And I'm not sure how much of a market there still is (or was?) for football simulation. However, fantasy football is extremely popular. But that's not quite as complex as what you're talking about. And neither is it a "computer game", which have their own stigmas in the general population.

I said this another one of your threads, but you seem to think that simulation games are somehow superior to games that instead decide to leave out a lot of the complexity and realism and go for a faster action-based approach (as evidenced by your statement that Madden is "incapable" of competing with FPS:FB (which is patently false anyway since it has competed in the past and won)). However just because someone is a serious football fan doesn't mean they want to actually play an entire football simulation on a computer. That's something that may appeal to you and a small online community, but not to the masses. You can't compare the two styles of gameplay, because each appeals to a different type of person and one will never automatically be better.

@Zoid: That's basically my understanding, sure. I'm as confused as you are. [oh]

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Original post by Trapper Zoid You get to choose from a bewildering array of formations. We have no idea what these are for. Our teams line up. One guy has the ball, and when you press buttons he yells out random colours and numbers "Blue Twenty-Two! Red Six-Teen!" Eventually he says "Hut!". Not knowing the controls or the game, he usually has to say "hut!" about ten times before he does anything with the ball. Players move around madly for about two seconds of utter chaos. Words flash on the screeen to the effect of "Three Yard Loss". Repeat until the demo finishes

Meh?

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Original post by Benjamin Heath @Zoid: That's basically my understanding, sure. I'm as confused as you are. [oh]

You forgot that they wear stupid looking suits of armour, apparently for optimal chest-thrusting.

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Original post by Hodgman Quote: Original post by Benjamin Heath @Zoid: That's basically my understanding, sure. I'm as confused as you are. [oh] You forgot that they wear stupid looking suits of armour.

Back in those days the hundred-odd pixels used to represent a person always looked a bit stupid.

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Original post by zer0wolf Say what? How are you bringing it back? Are you planning on recreating the game or what? I'm confuzzled.

Yeah me too. PL, are you planning to work with Sierra or revive the brand yourself? If this is more than a fun discussion of a game which won't be built, are you allowed to discuss private IP here, and can't you run into problems if the game ended up using suggestions made here?

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Original post by Zipster I don't think there's anything wrong with Madden. It doesn't pretend to be a football simulation. It's "arcade football" if you will. FPS:FB seems to be more for people who like football simulations. They're different games aimed at different audiences.

Exactly, you won't be "beating Madden", you'll just be adding another game to the market for people that want a more simulation-type game.

Plus, Madden has the rights to use the NFL stuff, ie all the Teams. That's a huge factor.

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Original post by Hodgman Quote: Madden NFL 98 GameSpot Score 8.8 great Although it doesn't have flashy 3D graphics, Madden 98 is still the most realistic and complete football game on the market. Quote: Front Page Sports: Football Pro '98 GameSpot Score 6.4 fair Given how long Sierra's been refining this series, you'd expect the '98 edition to be the best ever.

Well, they were reviewing the stock games and FPS: FB on its own was something less than with the “stat patch” applied. I doubt you could find anyone who would seriously compare Madden to FPS: FB running IKNFL in terms of realism and accuracy. Madden’s ratings today actually owe their heritage to IKNFL. The ’98 version is also where things started to go downhill for FPS: FB, ’97 is actually the best version.

Madden has never been “realistic”, it can only be described as a complete mess. My intent is not to trash Madden, it is to discuss a much better football game… one that actually works. But I would think that anyone who calls themselves a “game designer” would have no trouble at all understanding the relevance of a sports simulation that actually works correctly. All games are simulations. Don’t mistake my use of that phrase to mean an overly complex hardcore game. It would be that, but it would also be a simple arcade action game. It would be whichever game the player wanted it too be. But it actually works, you see, and that really does make a big difference.

This actually isn’t theoretical, there is an audience out there who have played a football game with something close this level of detail and accuracy. This has been done before and was pretty darn popular the first time around.