New Conferences, Bowls, Teams.

[Roger Kaputnik]

I have a couple of questions about the game for those in the know.

First: I want to create a new conference that will be only military schools. This will require re-aligning some existing schools like Army, Navy, and Air Force plus adding new schools like the Coast Guard Academy, the Merchant Marine Academy, Norwich, VMI, the Citadel, etc. That should be very doable, right?

Now the complicated part: I want to tie this new conference into a new bowl. So that the winner of this conference is automatically one of the teams playing in the new bowl (unless they get into a BCS bowl, then #2 goes). I am not sure how the other team would be chosen but I am open on that. I would like to be able to name the conference they come from or set up some criteria for an at large bid. Doable?

[Scott Vibert]

Disclaimer.... this has not been fully tested or verified... but this is theoretically possible... but this has not been tested at this time.

The Bowl Bids and conference alignments are all store in the database, editing it did allow me to start up a Division 1AA type format league... with one caveat, the size of the conferences has to fit into one of the schedule formats that are in the game. (In the case of 1AA the one Independent caused an issue and had to be dropped (sorry Savannah State), however 1AA is very close to 1A's format.

Something more radical would require testing and I don't want to guarentee that this will work. However in theory....

[Roger Kaputnik]

I'll take that as a yes. I just want to add a conference and one bowl. Sounds like it'll work if I get the right number of teams.

[Mike D]

I'll take that as a yes. I just want to add a conference and one bowl. Sounds like it'll work if I get the right number of teams.
Well, I don't think you can add a conference or bowl. From what Scott is saying, you can rearrange schools, but they must fit into the conference structure already in place. Again, I could be wrong, but that's what it looks like Scott said to me.

[Scott Vibert]

What I'm saying is I made a 1AA league and got it to start up. 1AA has one extra conference then 1A. I also reduced the number of bowls.

However this needs further testing. Other then starting it up I haven't done much with that league as we focus on getting the "stock" game ready. So the theory is, that it could work, however, I can't and do not guarentee that it will, nor can I guarentee that I'll get much of a chance to test it further to come up with a definite answer.

[Jimmy Spamer]

Is this using the in-game editor or do we need Microsoft Access or something?

[Roger Kaputnik]

Other then starting it up I haven't done much with that league as we focus on getting the "stock" game ready. So the theory is, that it could work, however, I can't and do not guarentee that it will, nor can I guarentee that I'll get much of a chance to test it further to come up with a definite answer.


Don’t worry, Scott, I’ll do plenty of testing when I get my hands on the game.

By the way, does the number of teams in a conference have to be even or odd? Can I add an odd number of conferences?

[Mike D]

Don’t worry, Scott, I’ll do plenty of testing when I get my hands on the game.

By the way, does the number of teams in a conference have to be even or odd? Can I add an odd number of conferences?
Scott, since I thought I already answered this one, maybe you can answer a question for me that will help explain what I was talking about. Are the number of teams and conferences in the game static?

[jksander]

What I'm saying is I made a 1AA league and got it to start up. 1AA has one extra conference then 1A. I also reduced the number of bowls.

However this needs further testing. Other then starting it up I haven't done much with that league as we focus on getting the "stock" game ready. So the theory is, that it could work, however, I can't and do not guarentee that it will, nor can I guarentee that I'll get much of a chance to test it further to come up with a definite answer.

Scott, is there a chance that two or three of us frequenting the board could be brought onto the beta team during the final week or two to test little things like this? I know this kind of thing was my specialty when working on TDCB, testing for the modders of the world. My application's been filed, but I just assumed the beta was closed ... but if you need specific things tested that you don't have time for, that's where we loyalists can come in :) Call us the "Zeta" team or something ;)

[Scott Vibert]

Scott, since I thought I already answered this one, maybe you can answer a question for me that will help explain what I was talking about. Are the number of teams and conferences in the game static?

As of right now they appear to be flexible (within the built in conference schedule limits). We were trying to allow the software to be as flexible/mod-friendly as possible without expanding the scope of the game beyond what would be pratical for the initial iteration.

I will try to test something more substantially different this weekend.

[Mike D]

As of right now they appear to be flexible (within the built in conference schedule limits). We were trying to allow the software to be as flexible/mod-friendly as possible without expanding the scope of the game beyond what would be pratical for the initial iteration.

I will try to test something more substantially different this weekend.
Let me see if I can go at another approach. Can you have more than 12 conferences in the game? More than 120 teams?

[jksander]

Mike,

They've said the game's not hard coded. That would mean that in theory you could have more than 120 teams and more than 12 conferences. It's not like TDCB, where the conference # and peak school # was hard coded. You had to keep the number of confs, which meant you had a range of school #s that was something like 248 - 320 (peak). TPF is supposed to have no upward peak, but I'm also assuming there's a minimum # of schools, like 12 confs times a minimum conference size like eight teams. But I'd say when the game comes out, make a database copy, and start f---ing around with the numbers. You'll soon know what you can or cannot do.

[Scott Vibert]

Let me see if I can go at another approach. Can you have more than 12 conferences in the game? More than 120 teams?

Sorry for the confusion, I thought I was clear that the design is intended to be this flexible. The answer is yes.

I just ran a 15 conference 148 team league, simmed one whole season no crashes and even added a Bowl Game, which was played (between champions of two of the newly added conferences). (I also added a 7th autobid conference to the GDCS)

When I said it hasn't been fully tested what I meant is that I haven't gone through each and every thing for each team (meaning I haven't gone to every screen every week yet) to ensure that there is nothing hidden that would crop up. The big stuff like being able to create the league and sim the season does appear to work at present.

Again, this is the plan, but the testing/development time has been spent focusing on the default league to ensure that the game is working properly.

[jksander]

Perfectly understandable. But I still think that either right before release or maybe in the weeks after release, add a few people to the beta team whose job it is to hunt down pesky things or to test untested things. That way we can avoid what happened to TDCB ... remember the lack of multiplayer testing? The game was released, a dozen patches came out fixing the major crashes and issues, but the multiplayer hell was never dealt with. Thus the longest multiplayer EVER was two seasons, and that one was buggy as hell throughout. Just some food for thought.

[Roger Kaputnik]

Scott, since I thought I already answered this one...

I’m not sure why you thought you had already answered the question, Mike as your “answer” conflicted with what had been implied before and what Scott’s reply before yours said. This is why I asked for replies from “people in the know.” ;)

[Chappy]

...within the built in conference schedule limits...

Scott, can you elaborate on this a little bit? Do different size conferences all have the same 'fixed' conference schedules, or are there a couple of options for each size?

[Scott Vibert]

What I mean is the game has conference schedules for certain configurations of conferences, so that you must set up your conference to be of one of those configurations. As far as the specifics about the schedules I would need to check in with Arlie. (I'd like to try and find the time to put together a guide of what is in the game and customizable in the database as far as league setups, but right now time is really tight between teaching, coaching, and testing :) )

[Chappy]

Thanks, Scott. Hopefully my dream of re-working the NCAA into 10 12-team conferences will become a reality.