Software Vault: The Games Collection 1/software vault.zip/software vault/CDR13/FPSFPR.ZIP/FBPRONEW.TXT

Text File | 1993-08-16 | 36KB | 693 lines

Front Page Sports:  Football Pro changes
and new features (straight from the horse's
mouth).

This document list SOME of the changes and new features that
have been put into Front Page Sports Football Pro (heretofore
called "Pro".  Anytime I refer to the orginal version of Front Page
Sports Football I will simply call it "Football").  It also answers
some of the more recent questions that I have seen on the
BBS's.  Please understand that I would love to answer everyone's
questions on a one to one basis, but then I wouldn't have any
time to work on the game!  I would also like to thank the beta
testers for their time and input, and trying to answer questions
on the boards since I haven't been able to.  These guys are
unpaid volunteers, and have done a great job.  <What's that,
Jerry?  Yes, I said unpaid...You mean I didn't mention that
before?...Uh...um...>
--Patrick Cook, Dynamix--

A couple of the most pertinent facts first:

1.  Ship date:  As I write this, the game is in final testing.  It
should appear in the stores during the first week of September
unless something really unforeseen happens...

2.  Hardware requirements:  IBM compatible with a 386 and 25
Mhz or better.  At LEAST two megs of RAM and Expanded
Memory Manager.  MS-DOS 5.0 or above. A hard disk with at
least 12 Megs of empty space.  VGA graphics.  A 3.5" high
density drive.  STRONGLY RECOMMENDED:  Lots of RAM (the
more you have set up for Expanded Memory the better).  At least
one joystick.  A sound card that is 100% Soundblaster
compatible and has a DAC chip on it.  Mouse for menu stuff.

There was some misinformation on one of the boards earlier.
You need to have at least 576K or low memory free, which is
590,000 bytes.  One of the messages said you needed 590K,
which is not correct.  However, the more low memory you have
available the better off you will be.

NOTE TO 386SX users:  The game has tremendous amounts of
new AI and colors on the field, which requires even more
processing time from the CPU.  The game will actually run on a
386SX with full functionality, but in our opinion it is too slow to be
playable, and we do not want to mislead people.  We are using
386 specific commands in assembly language in many areas of
the game, which is why it will not run on a 286.

FEATURES:
Now some of the new features, and then I will answer a few of the
most common questions at the end of the document:

Football Pro has literally hundreds of improvements, additions,
and changes to it.  We went through thousands of letters from
BBS's and mail, comments at trade shows and magazine reviews
to get feedback.  While we obviously could not put in
EVERYTHING that people wanted (sorry, fully animated half-time
shows featuring Michael Jackson singing with CD-ROM quality
sound and a full pyrotechnics display had to be cut due to disk
space...<g>) we have put in all of the most common things
people requested, as well as a lot of other things.

Following is a list of some of the highlights, and a brief
description:

1.  NFL players and stats
We have most of the actual players names, numbers, and all the
stats in the game for the 1992 season and will have our best
guess for the opening day rosters for the 1993 season  (since we
are shipping BEFORE the final rosters are announced) so you
can go back and look up your favorite players' stats from last
year and then see how they do in the game this year.

2.  Fast sim option and definable league set-ups
When you create a league you can now define the "ground rules"
for the league.  Quarter length, injuries, fumbles, penalties, 40
second clock, and fast sim or regular sim.  The fast sim looks at
the players' ratings and stats, then calculates scores based on a
complex formula.  It does not accumulate highlights or stats for
each game, since it isn't actually playing every play (like the
regular sim), but it only takes about 20 seconds to do an entire
week of games in a 28 team league with the fast sim.  You can
make the choice now, speed or realistic stats and highlights,
whichever you prefer!.

3.  Full printing capabilities
Nearly all of the screens in the shell are now printable.  Also,
printing support in the play editor has been added.  You can print
out individual plays with all the logic for each position, or total
game plans, or entire coaching profiles (these take about 36
pages for a whole profile, see below), etc.  Supports Epson 9-pin,
24-pin and 100% compatibles, and Laserjet printers.

4.  Coaching profiles
You can now edit the logic for calling plays in over 2500
situations based on down, yards to go, point differential, field
position (you can define your own field goal range), time
remaining in half, whether you want to stop the clock or not,
substitution logic for what percentage of energy you want a
player to go in and out at, etc.  This is one of my favorite new
features, since this is where the real "guts" of the football smarts
in the game comes from.

Now, when you play in a BBS league, you not only can send your
plays and game plans, you can send your coaching profiles.
This total package will REALLY give your opponent a good
representation of what YOU would call if you were there.  You
can pick not only a "general play type" in each situation, but you
can even put in a SPECIFIC play you want called in a very
specific situation.  There is even a RUNTIME play where the QB
kneels down to run out the clock, and a STOPCLOK play where
he spikes the ball into the ground to stop the clock without using
a timeout.

During a game, based on your coaching profile, you will even get
a "suggested play" to call in every situation, which is highlighted
on the playcalling screen.

To make it easier on everyone, there are 24 stock coaching
profiles in the game already, so you can simply modify them as
you like and save them off instead of having to fill in all 2520
situations.  Per half.  Why, that's what we used the beta testers
for!  <g>.

5.  Depth charts and substitution
Rosters allow you to specify depth charts for each position.  You
can specify when you want your #1 running back in (4th and goal
situations, for example) and when you want a different back in
(kickoff returns, perhaps).  You can also sub in and out based on
your depth chart now (when your #1 back is tired, your #2 back
takes his place, and so on).  This gives the user more control
over his roster.

In Basic mode, you don't control your substitutions (other than
how you have defined them in your coaching profile).  In
Standard Mode, you can substitute players for a play at a time,
and in Advanced mode, you can actually adjust your depth chart
on the fly during the game, which gives you total control over
subs (i.e., once you put TE2 in for RB1, he will stay in for him
until you change him).

6.  Hot and cold streaks
During the game, some players will go on hot streaks that will
boost their ratings, or cold streaks that will hamper their
performance.  These are shown in the substitution window.

7.  New animations
All of the animations have been improved and now include socks
and stripes on the players.  Also, there are additional animations
such as leaping catches, flipping tackles, diving over the top, etc.
Running some of these over and over in the VCR is awesome!
Especially the hits on kick returns...

8.  Uniform color selection
You can now define the helmet color, light pants, light jersey,
dark pants, and dark jersey for your team by using slider bars to
get the exact colors you want from the palette.  This gives you
several hundred thousand possible uniform colors.  (Adding in
extra colors to the uniforms is one of the things that takes more
graphics processing time, which is why the speed requirement
went up, by the way.)  So now, if you don't like the colors that the
teams come with, it is really easy to change them.

9.  Hurry up/no huddle option and AI
After a play, you can do a quick huddle.  Computer now has
much better AI for offense and defense to run the hurry up drill,
and will even try to get out of bounds to try to stop the clock
when it needs to, or run towards the middle of the field to keep
the clock running if need be.  Clock management is vastly
improved as well.  The computer will run as much time off the
clock as possible before hiking the ball if it is late in the game
and way ahead.

The long waits on the playcalling screen are eliminated too.
When you have called your play and the computer has called his,
the clock will tick down rapidly instead of in real time like in
Football.

10.  All-Pro games
At any point in a league, you can play an exhibition game with
the best players in the league.  The computer looks at depth
charts and stats to decide which players make it in this game.
These games don't count, and any injuries in these games don't
affect the player in the league.  Like the real Pro Bowl, the
players that go are the ones that are voted to go by their peers,
not like the All Star game with the ballot box stuffing <g>.

11.  Multiple saved games
You can save league and exhibition games, and multiple games
out of the same league now, then restart them later.  So, if you
have several people playing in one league on one machine, you
don't have to finish YOUR game before another user can start
their game.

12.  Improved trading and free agent signing
Vastly improved AI for the computer picking good players based
on their key ratings.  And a much smoother interface for making
trades, including player-by-player ratings comparisons.  When
you propose a trade, you will get a list of all of the teams
interested in your player and who they are willing to trade for
him.  The computer is also a lot smarter about who it will trade
based on the ratings and depth chart.

13.  On-field AI improved for computer for offense and
defense
Hundreds of improvements here ranging from the offensive
linemen picking up the blitz to better open field running to better
pursuit logic for the defense to everything in between.  The
players do a lot more "thinking" (which is why, again, a faster
machine is better to play on).  Some of my favorite plays are
runs up the middle ("4 yards and a cloud of dust...")  If you were
beating the game by big point spreads on Football, I don't think
you will find the same thing happening on Pro...be ready for a
pretty good challenge!

One of the neatest things to watch is a computer controlled team
that is behind in score putting a 2 minute drive together.  The
players make very obvious attempts to go towards the sidelines
and get out of bounds to save timeouts, and so on.  Really neat
stuff...

14.  Additions to the play editor, including "flip" and "key on
hot player"
You can "flip" a play for its mirror image in the play editor and
key on the hot player to help shut down the offense.  Also
improved interfaces for loading and saving plays, assigning
player logic, etc.  A lot smoother interface with less dialog boxes,
etc.  There are also over 1,000 stock plays now.  That's right,
ONE THOUSAND.  A lot of improvements in the interface for
changing logic on plays, etc., makes it a lot easier to use the
play editor.

15.  New sound effects, music, intro, transition screens,
championship screen
The sound effects are improved quite a bit, and the sound drivers
have been updated.  The new intro is pretty cool too (and no
cliche'd exploding helmets, I promise!).  And the intro to games
and the championship now show the coaches names, team
records, etc., so you can show off your name when you play an
away game on someone else's machine in the BBS leagues.
Also, there IS crowd noise and it DOES have an effect on the
visiting team.  Also, when you run a big play, it gets louder (if you
are the home team).  There is even an obnoxious fan with an air-
horn...

16.  More stats available (individual stats for exhibition
games)
You can also decide how you want to look at stats based on
several qualifiers, including only stats by a certain position, only
the guys who have qualified at the league minimums, only the
guys who "make sense" for a stat (i.e., you wouldn't want to look
at LB's for pass receptions, for example, but you could if you
wanted to), etc.  Tackle stats are in there on more of the screens
now, as well as several others.  We actually had to go to several
different stat services to get all of the stats we use in the game,
since no single service HAD everything we wanted!

17.  Zoomable blimp views for both vertical and horizontal
views
This is really cool.  You can watch the game from either vertical
or horizontal, and zoom in and out of the field.  You can also
toggle the player numbers on and off (so all of the numbers are
on at once--something else that takes more processor time) so
you can see who is out on the field on every play.  This is
espeically useful in the overhead view so you can really check
out your plays as a coach and see who is missing blocks, etc.

18.  Can turn numbers on for all players on the field at the
same time
Not just in overhead, but in any of the views.

19.  Can save in the middle of a regular simulation
If you don't want to play a whole game, you can save it and sim
the rest of it, OR, you can sim part way through the game, then
save it and PLAY the rest of it!

20.  Convert old leagues, plays, and game plans to new
formats.
If you have a lot of plays, or leagues from Football, there is an
UPGRADE utility that will come with the game that converts
those files to the Pro format so you can keep using those
leagues, or plays.  Game plans are now 64 play for offense and
64 for defense, as well as several new special teams plays (the
squib kick is pretty neat...), so you can convert your 32 play
games plans into Pro format, and still have room for 32 more
plays!

21.  New rules
We put MOST of the rule changes for 1993 in for this version
(some of them weren't announced until pretty late, so they didn'
make it in).  For example, the 40 second clock, the "loosened"
intentional grounding rule, the clock running after the play goes
out of bounds in certain times of the game, clock continues to
run when a player gets out of bounds or on kickoff returns or on
declined penalties UNLESS it is in hurry up time, etc., etc.

22.  Full team control in a league
On the Leage Data screen, there is a button called "Manage
Teams" that allows you to turn ALL of the teams in the league to
human controlled, or computer owned, or computer manager, or
change their playcalling and action mode, etc. all at once.  That
would let you actually change all the teams to human and then let
YOU do the same trades that are happening in your favorite
professional league (such as the No Fun League).

23.  BBS user option
This is a "power user" option requested by a lot of the "play by
mail" users and BBS players.  There are now command line
options that lets one player as the "commissioner" run a league
and send out the league files to all of the players at the SAME
TIME.  They can then play their games individually.  When the
commissioner gets all of the game.out's back, he can "compile"
them into an updated league all at once.  This is a major
improvement since the owner of the the team in the second
game doesn't have to wait to get the info from the owner of the
team in the first game, etc.  We have played several 10 team
leagues through an entire season here in 10 days (a game a
day) instead of the weeks and weeks it would take before, mostly
spent waiting for your turn to play.

24.  Joystick calibration and mouse reading improved
We corrected several problems with different brands of hardware
using software solutions that should make the joysticks and mice
more reliable.  Also, there is mouse support everywhere except in
the actual arcade game (for example, on the coin toss in the
VCR controls, etc.)

25.  League, plays, and player control and editing
We have given the user much more control over a lot of the
options.  For example, you can edit the players in any league
(career or single season), use plays that any team has created
for any other team, decide who you want to sub in for special
teams plays, copy any team from any league into any kind of a
new league, define your league ground rules (see above), buy or
sell a team in the middle of the season, etc.  Also, now, ANY play
created by ANY team ANYWHERE can be USED by another
other team.  On Football, you would have to copy each play over
and rename it (ugh!).  Now it is much more simple to trade plays
around and create new leagues and teams with their playbooks
intact.  You still can not DELETE a play created by another
team, but that makes a lot more sense (how would you like to be
a league with your friend who accidentally went in and wiped out
your playbook? <G>  It happened here early in development for
Football, which is why you can't do it!  I had some great plays,
too...).

26.  New Manual
A lot of the things people asked to see in the manual are now in
there, along with all of the other changes, etc.  For example, it list
the key ratings for each position, how some of the ratings are
used, more extensive trouble shooting, an eight page index (!),
etc.

27.  On field controls
The cursors have been changed to make it easier to tell who is
who and whether they are computer or human controlled.  You
can also control any player you want to on defense, including
linemen.

28.  Playcalling screen and game plan screens
In Advanced mode, you can access all 64 plays on one screen.
There is also full mouse control on this screen, and you can
quickly flip through the play groups by holding your B button
down and moving up and down through the rows.  Also, the TIME
OUT button was moved all the way over away from the Ready-
Break button (yeah, I accidentally called a time out one time too
many too!), and you can double click on a play to pick it instead
of having to hit Ready-Break.

Also, the number of time outs appears in FRONT of the words
"time outs" so you don't get it confused with the downs anymore.
And a bunch of other small things.  The play names show up in
specific colors for offense and defense, and the play types are
visible above the play diagrams, and lots of other things to make
it smoother.  On the Game Plan editing screen, you can even
look at the plays by just the diagrams, or the play names, etc.
And you can print out your game plans as well (this is really cool
for playing advanced mode against a friend so he can't see what
you are calling).

And there is now a box that tells you something like "Buffalo is in
punt formation" or "Buffalo has called a regular play" on fourth
down when you are playing against the computer so when you
are on defense you will have a better idea about how to call your
plays.

29.  Retirements
The rules and AI for retiring players has been modified quite a
bit.  Keep in mind that the average career of a player according
to the NFLPA is only 3.32 years.  However, the program now
looks at the depth chart position, the stats, any injuries, whether
a team has done well or poorly in the past year, etc. to determine
who will retire.  You will see a lot more LB7's and TE5 retiring
than your QB1 and WR1's.

30.  Many, many other things
We took literally thousands of BBS messages, letters, etc. to find
out what users wanted to have from Football.  Many of these
things have been implemented for Pro.  And, of course, we had
our own list of things we wanted to add and a lot of those are in
there as well.  All in all, it is a very different game, but it won't
take you long to learn how to play it since most of the interface is
the same.

QUESTIONS:
1.  Will the games take forever to simulate like they did in
FPS:FB?
A:  Well, geez, I wouldn't say it took FOREVER...:-)  Keep in
mind that unlike a lot of other games, we are not simply rolling up
random numbers within a given range from a table during a
simulation.  The games are actually being played, with every
player movment, all the plays being called, all the stats being
added up, etc., etc. happening.  You just don't see the graphics.
This keeps the integrity of the statistics intact for the league
because all of the stats come from the same place:  actual
games!  Also note in every single second over game play, the
computer has to make over 3,000 decisions, then update player
movement, etc. etc.  On slower machines this may take a while.

In Pro, there is a "fast sim" option when you start your league
that will resolve games (described above) much more quickly.

2.  Will there be a feature to just upgrade from current FPS?
Meaning keeping the same teams/leagues going and getting
enhancements that come w/ this game.
A:  Yes, there is a separate utility that will come with the game
called UPGRADE.  This will take all the files in the directory you
specify for plays and leagues and update them.  Since game
plans in Pro are now 64 plays, you will need to load your plan up
in Pro then save it out to convert it.  That process will also
convert any plays in your plan that have not yet been converted
to the new format.

3.  What exactly are the enhancements over the old to have a
current user upgrade?
A.  Please see the above note.  ALL of the EXACT
enhancements are simply too numerous to list.

4.  I thought that I saw something about modem to modem play?
I know that on prodigy, Marcus Harris said that someone in
development had advised him that there was no modem play?
A.  Currently, there is no modem play.  2400 baud, which is what
the vast majority of people have access to right now, is not fast
enough to update all of the information on each screen.  And for
just a "coaching only" game, there are simply too many
deterministic problems to keep track of (that's the idea that if you
start off with the exact same seed in the random number
generator and all the program states are the same on both
machines both machines SHOULD play the game..It is a LOT
harder to do when it sounds, especially when you are changing
variables hundreds of thousands of times a game--one variable
gets off and now you don't have the same game on both
mahcines).

When 9600 or higher becomes commonplace, this will be
feasible.  We actually had some early attempts at modem play
SORT of working, but with the new AI and colors and other
speed hits, it simply became unplayable.  This is a very complex
game, and it just overwhelms a 2400 baud modem.  If you are
interested in modem play, you can get into a BBS league and
play that way.  Or, if you are interested in real head to head
modem play, Tom Landry Football has that feature, and NFL Pro
League is a good choice as well.

5.  Also, MH had advised that the AI was to be improved. Is this
still the case? Are you still able to use AAFTCs Plans on here, or
do you need to use the new ones that they come out with? What
about Shaun Sullivan's editor?
A.  The AI is VASTLY improved.  With the coaching profiles, if
you see the computer do something YOU don't think is a smart
call as the coach, you can simply go in and change it!  The beta
testers spent a lot of hours working on these profiles, and they all
had different coaching styles, so you may see one team call a
time out somewhere that another team does not.

As far as the AAFTC Plans, you should be able to update them
with the UPDATE utility.  I'm sure Marcus and other people will
have new plans and profiles on the boards within a short time of
the release of Pro, and you'll REALLY be able to have a coaching
duel.

And regarding Shaun Sullivan's editor, I'm not entirely sure about
everything that it did, but most of the options are now in Pro.
However, the league and file formats have changed so his editor
won't work DIRECTLY on Pro, but you can always use it on
Football and then update your leagues.

6.  Is trading ability more realistic? I'd offer good players that no
teams would try to obtain. Also, can you trade players for draft
choices? Will computers do better job of offering their players to
human owned/managed teams?
A.  Trading is improved.  See the note above, please.

7.  Do you still have the limitation where roster spots are
reserved for a specific position? Also, can I have a DB return
punts/kicks instead of just WR/RB?
A.  If you mean the 34 assigned slots, yes.  But those are the
rules of our favorite professional league, not some arbitrary
number we just picked out.  The assigned slots are there to
assure that you actually have enough players in certain positions
to be able to play a game.  It would cause havoc in the game if
you brought a team in with nothing by DB's on it.

As far as picking who you want to return kicks, etc., yes, on the
special teams plays you now have much greater control over who
is in the play.  You may take the stock special teams plays and
put your players into it, then save it off as YOUR special play.

8.. What will be the upgrade price for registered users? I've seen
in some magazines that the regular price will be approx. $70.00
A.  Due to some contractual obligations with the NFLPA there will
not be an upgrade offer for registered users.  Sorry.  But I have
already seen Prot advertised in some places for $42.00, so it is
pretty reasonably priced for what I think is the best PC football
sim ever done!

9.  I really enjoyed being able to use the '92 teams (with AOL's
download), and was wondering when one might expect to see an
upload with '93 teams?
A.  We'll make our best guess at who will be on the teams based
on the data the NFLPA has given us (and the players that our
contract with the NFLPA will allow us to use) early next week
when we do the final disk.  However, the final NFL rosters won't
be known until the Tuesday before the first week of the season,
and by then, the game will be on the shelves (I hope!).
Undoubtedly, some die hard fan (SportsFan, or Rich Heimlich, or
Marcus, or the Sports Connection BBS, etc.) will update the
leagues pretty quickly since 95% of the rosters will be accurate
and it won't take much changing for the names.  We are going
through a couple of jars of aspirin trying to combat the
headaches from following the roster moves in the off season this
year!  Free agency...Arrrghhh!!

Which brings up the point of the ratings:  We have assigned
ratings to the players based on their performance during the
1992 season.  For example, Marino and Young will have very high
ST, IN, and DI ratings compared to, say, Marinovich or Trudeau.
But no doubt there will be as many arguments about how the
ratings should be set up as there are people who buy the game!
So, you can adjust the ratings however you see fit!  If you don't
agree that Marino, (who had the highest number of attempts and
yards last year) should be one of the highest rated QB's, feel free
to adjust him.  I would love to see some good debate on the
relative ratings of the players on the boards.  We are just giving
you a good starting point that is pretty close to what the stats
turned out, but you can take it from there if you want to!

10.  Will I be able to beat Washington with Phoenix like I can
now?
A:  Attention:  Please call Joe Bugel immediately, he needs your
help!  Seriously, this brings up a good point about the design
philosophy we were trying to achieve with Football, and with Pro.
We are NOT trying to simulate the NFL!!!  We are trying to
simulate the action, the strategy, the injuries, the condition, the
situations, etc. that HAPPEN in the NFL, so you can play in your
OWN NFL-like world.  If you want the NFL, the best thing to do is
sit in front of the tube on Sunday afternoon like I do! <g>.

Really, with so many different things that you can do, expecting
the game to be an NFL simulator is unrealistic.  Unless you have
the coaching profiles EXACTLY the same as the real coach
would, unless you know who will get what kind of injuries and
when, exactly what the free agents will be like and who they will
be, what the weather conditions will be like, etc., etc., for every
game and in every possible game situation...   And if you can
figure THAT out, then you can forget Joe Bugel, because I'm
sure there are some people in Las Vegas that would like to talk to
you as well! ($$$$$)

With the NFLPA players in there, and if you can do a good
coaching profile, then you should have a fairly accurate model of
what would happen in the NFL, but that was never the REAL
intent.  I would love to see people trading coaching profiles and
game plans around the the BBS's as well to see who can best
imitate Mike Holmgren, Marty Schottenheimer, and Chuck Knox
(okay, my bias is showing <G>.  Go Packers!  Go Chiefs!  Go
Rams!)  In fact Sierra/Dynamix may be sponsoring some
contests for the best profiles and plays and plans in regional
playoffs later this year.

11.  As for the game itself, I am really looking forward to it.
Improvements to what is already the greatest sports game on the
market have me drooling.
A.  I have found, especially in dealing with the programmers on
this project, that chewing on Saltine Crackers will help the
drooling problem.  However, you will then have the problem of
crumbs in the keyboard to deal with...<BG>.  Seriously, there
are a LOT of new things in the game, and it IS a lot better.  I
think you will be pleased.

12.  Will there be a Macintosh version? presently I have Tom
Landry's strategy football which is excellent. Drawback : It is not
licensed by NFL so names of players are different. Any
suggestions on another good macintosh football game?
A.  Sorry, no plans for Macintosh or Amiga, although I've heard
rumors about some other platforms <g>.  Geez, I don't know too
much about Mac football games, really.  I used to have XOR's
NFL Challenge on the Mac, and that was pretty good (even on
the IBM, a few years ago) but I'm afraid I am not too current on
what is available on the Mac.  I know Tom Landry Deluxe is
coming out soon, and if they did a Mac version of the first one, it
is likely they will do a Mac version of Deluxe.

13.  You have said that players, especially defense, react better
to plays--would this have to do with new logic options in the play
editor, or is it solely due to improved AI?  If there are new logic
assignments, can you say what they are?  Lead blocking on
offense, maybe?
A:  There is a new assignment for defense called Key on Hot
Player that looks at which guy has been burning you the last
several plays and then keys on him.  But mostly the AI has been
improved.  The key on and line up on man works a lot better
(CB's cover WR's based on Speed, LB's usually cover TE's and
RB's, etc.) and a lot of other things.  As far as lead blocking
goes, there is a technique you can use that works pretty well on
Pro that wasn't in Football, and it is due partly to new AI and the
way the Block Nearest was implemented:

A blocker with "Block Nearest" as his logic will now look several
yards to either side of his Move To to check for any defender
coming in, and will abandon his Move To logic to block that guy
IF his last logic is a "block nearest".  So, if you want a pulling
guard to get all the way out to the edge of the line before he
blocks, give him a tiny little move to in his path, then a block
nearest as his last command.  But if you want him to pick up any
defenders on the way, just give him a straight line out there and
then a block nearest at the end.  Remember, this is new for Pro.

Downfield blocking is smarter as well.  Once you catch a pass,
your other receivers will actually do a better job of picking off the
defenders.

14.  Will the NFL schedule creation routines create rotating
schedules as per NFL, and will they take into account the
previous year's finish?
A.  Yes and no.  The schedules are not actually generated on the
fly at the end of each season, they are actually built from
schedule templates.  So there isn't really any account as to
where you finished (sorry, the NFL scheduling algorithm
confuses even the NFL, much less us!).  But the schedule for Pro
DOES now change the interconference division you play from
year to year, so the schedules are different.

15.  I think I can guess the answer to this question as no, but I'll
ask anyway.  Will the new version support the Gravis Ultrasound
Card?
A.  Yes and no.  Yes, as a Soundblaster compatible (which
actually treats it as an AdLib--i.e., no DAC chip).  But in GUS
native mode?  Sorry, it does not.  The GUS is, frankly, a pig for
CPU time.  It sounds fantastic as long as you aren't doing too
much other stuff at once, but with so much processor time
needed for things besides sound in Football and for Pro, it would
simply grind things to a halt.  So, it is treated as an AdLib card.

Football and Pro, however, only have digitized sounds in them.
Even on the AdLib and PC speaker, we are playing digitized
sounds.  But since the AdLib and GUS (and the PC) do not have
a DAC chip, we have to use the CPU to play the sounds.  And it
takes about 80% of the CPU time to process the interrupt, etc.,
so the action slows down.  The optimal sound card for Pro is one
with a DAC chip on it.  Future Dynamix games, however, DO
have plans to do better support for the GUS (including FPS:
Baseball).

16.  Does the game still have the option of career and single
season league?
A:  Yes, it does.  And you can now copy any team from any
league into any other format of a league.  So, you can take the
teams out of a single season NFLPA92 league, for example, and
build a league with your favorite 8 teams into a career league, or
take career teams and copy them into single season leagues,
etc.

17.  I've heard rumors that Dynamix has tentative plans on
releasing a CD-ROM version of FPSF Pro sometime next year...
A:  We do?  Geez, my boss never tells me anything anymore
<sigh>.


Thanks for keeping the BBS's full of your feedback.  Although
there are simply too many BBS's and letters for us to answer and
keep track of, we DO try to read as much feedback as possible,
and I do carefully read and consider ever letter and suggestion
that I get here at Dynamix.

We will be on America On Line on August 21rst at 10:00 ET in
the Grandstand for an on-line conference, and then also on
Compuserve on September 2nd at 9:00 ET.  Check those
services for the exact times and places.  I would be happy to
answer any more questions you have then.