Football Game Like Hattrick

[MacroGuru]

Well, I know their is a College Football one in the works, however, does anyone know of a Football one like Hattrick.

If not, I will be looking into a proper business plan on that one as well, see if I can find a viable solution to work for the web.

[Nyarlahotep]

Simgalaxy is testing a football game that is much like their basketball game (nothing special). Here's the link if you want to try to get an invite in (if you can't, let me know and you can have a look at my team):

Simgalaxy Football (http://football.simgalaxy.com)

[Poli]

I've thought about the opportunities of such a game, and I'm just not sure it would have quite the appeal. Getting new players would be kind of hard to work. Could you have a "youth squad"? Not quite like a soccer team "could". Unlike baseball, hockey, and soccer (I believe, showing my lack of knowledge in soccer), football doesn't have a minor league system. That's probably the greatest obstacle to overcome here. Teams don't traditionally try out new players during the year, injuries most likely the exception. Could you possibly hold a draft among hundreds of teams? Doubtful. Recruiting might be a bit "hokie" amongst that many teams as well. I've thought a lot about this, and I just couldn't see it getting together as well as HT.

[3ric]

www.managerzone.com was rumored to be working on a football version of their soccer and hockey game.

As for the football minor league system, what says that you have to do it just as in real life? For the game's purposes, you could extend the 7-man practice squad indefinitely (as long as your budget allows) and inviting free agents that wasn't drafted. Of course, you couldn't really implement a draft, but that could be replaced with an automatic allocation of a number of players to you. That's similar to how NFL Europe does it.

[damnMikeBrown]

Well, you could make an the youth squad investment into a scouting department investment. You'd do one youth pull in the off-season (the draft), and get your 7-12 new players, representing your draft picks & rookie FA's.

Anyway, better the scouting is, the better the draft picks are. Maybe make a list of different positions OL, WR, RB, QB, TE, DL, LB, DB that you assign to each draft spot. The chance of good quality degrading with each round.

[Poli]

Man, you guys have some good ideas, and I can say I have thought along both of those lines. But if you do something like that with the practice squad, you're likely to see top teams horde talent. If you wait till the end of a "season" you're likely to have a bunch of "owners" lose interest during the season and during whatever type of playoffs (without thinking much at all on how that would work) would be involved. Even if you played 2 games a week, the season and playoffs would likely take a long time.

I'd love to see it work, which is why I've thought so much about it. I just have a hard time seeing it work well. One of the very nice things about HT is the influx of "talent" (and I know a lot of you out there could argue that)...a fresh face each week.

[condors]

well i think it should work you assign your 7 draft picks and bring in unrestriced free agents

1st-qb
2nd-de
3rd-rb
4th-olb
5th-s
6th-cb
7th-ot

then have a bunch of free agents fill out the roster

free agency and salary cap = great equalizer

i personally think an nfl model would be great to play doesn't matter if you have been playing for years we share all the revenue

gameplaning should be the key to winning (players who put in more time with their time should be rewarded)

[Poli]

A free agent market sounds great when you're talking 32 teams. But if you're talking, say 100 teams, it'll get a little ugly. Ever play in an online league...like FbPro98? Even with 32 owners, sometimes free agency can get ugly. Imagine if you have to outbid 100 teams. Not to mention that someone will create a program to identify the "valuable" free agents. As soon as that happens, you'll see all the decent players gobbled up in the first week or two...again, barring injuries. The last online league I played in went exactly like that. Lots of players signed early on, very few if any in the later weeks.

Salary cap may be a great equalizer, but possibly not as effective when there are so many teams. It's kind of hard to say with so many possible teams.

As far as game planning, you're looking at getting away from some of the HT simplicity. There's not a whole lot of "game planning" on the surface (although it could be argued with the different sets of 3-5-2 and such...yes I know...but on the surface, it's a very simple game), and that's what originally attracted me to the game. One of the reasons I joined TCFA was the simplicity involved. As many of us know, football can be a very complicated sport when we let it. If the game includes game planning, it would become inherently more complicated.

A beautiful part about HT is I don't have to know the game plans of a soccer match. I don't know much about soccer, honestly.

[FrogMan]

Originally posted by ardent enthusiast
A free agent market sounds great when you're talking 32 teams. But if you're talking, say 100 teams, it'll get a little ugly. Ever play in an online league...like FbPro98? Even with 32 owners, sometimes free agency can get ugly. Imagine if you have to outbid 100 teams. Not to mention that someone will create a program to identify the "valuable" free agents. As soon as that happens, you'll see all the decent players gobbled up in the first week or two...again, barring injuries. The last online league I played in went exactly like that. Lots of players signed early on, very few if any in the later weeks.


But isn't the transfer market in HT a sort of free agent market where you bid against thousands and thousands of other teams? II think it is and despite the fact you have to be online at the deadline, it works pretty well...

FM

[MacroGuru]

Basically my idea boils down to this.

Take FbPro, and transfer it to the web, in a sense, that's what I want to do. I want the game to have the following.

1) Multiple Leagues, of course
2) Each League has 32 teams (if you think in terms of hattrick, it would be series)
3) Free Agency would be a world wide market, allowing for other squads to pick up additional talent.
4) Draft would be a series thing, happening at the start of the new season.
5) Custom Plays and Gameplans. (This would probably be one of the most in depth features of the game)

Basically, this would be a completely flash based aspect allowing for you to create your own plays, recording the information for each play as the algorithm needed to produce the results.

Gameplan would be all situational, allowing you to adjust percentages based upon situations. It would even allow you to select certain plays to run, instead of a base run, pass, run right etc, like football pro. This would reward the scouting of your opponent.

Scouting team, like proposed, would be an investment and as they grow, you would start to notice better drafts, and free agency acquisition. Scouts would basically work like this.

You would view a prospect (FA/Rookie), and your scouts would give your report on them. What ever level the scout team there is a chance that their report for stats can be that many levels off of a player. So essentially, your team tells you one thing, after purchase or draft, he is a bust, just like the NFL. As they grow in ability over the seasons, they will become closer in targeting the players.

You would have the following staff

Assistants, Trainers, Marketing, Sports Psych, Grounds Crew.

Marketing would assist for all revenue aspects of the game.
Grounds Crew keeps your field in shape, injuries tend to happen more on unkept, or poor fields. Fans tend to not show up to ugly and ill kept stadiums.


These are just some, the ideas have been running in my head, however, the one aspect I think I need to make this game work, was just finished and released, and that is Flash Pro, as it has the ability to work with C#.

Of course I would be usign the M$ .NET platform for this on my servers, as most of the game would be using COM objects for the development. It's the main reason Hattrick is set up with ASP, as they reference several COM objects that store the bulk of the sim code.

[FrogMan]

Wow Dennis, plenty of good ideas. I'd be more than willing to lend what little extra time I have to help out in testing such a project. Very, very promising for a football freak like me... Good luck!!!

FM

[MacroGuru]

Thanks,

I have been thinking it through, problem is, I have financed, and paid for everything in regards to ISM, which has put a little dent in the pocketbook, and has made for an upset wife. After that is released, I might be able to convince I private investor I know, to fund an online version of this. If that is the case, you would see the football game ramp up pretty quickly.

[Nyarlahotep]

*crosses fingers*

It would be nice to finally have a decent online football game to suck up my time.

[Desnudo]

That sure would be a time suck. I think managing a roster of 11 starters + substitutes is about the best I can manage. I have enough trouble dealing with my roster in Madden 2004 in Franchise mode.

[Nyarlahotep]

Ack!! Don't bring up Madden roster management.

[MacroGuru]

Well, I know .400 Studios is releasing their Football game at the end of October, and graphically it is looking pretty killer so far. Since I haven't been able to play with the game, I don't know what to think. Word is, that it is the FbPro killer.

However, I want it all on a web based interface like hattrick, hence my goal.

I am hoping I can get Flash to interface with the C# COM objects through an .asp backend, that way, the game could actually be visually appealing as well.

As far as Madden goes.........blech

[Desnudo]

Originally posted by indoorsoccersim

However, I want it all on a web based interface like hattrick, hence my goal.

I am hoping I can get Flash to interface with the C# COM objects through an .asp backend, that way, the game could actually be visually appealing as well.

As far as Madden goes.........blech


If you do manage to get the whatjamajigit through the thingamijiggy, I'd definitely give it a shot, despite my earlier comment. I love these kinds of games.