PC Online 1996 October/PCO_10.ISO/filesbbs/fbball.arj/INSTR.DOC

Text File | 1996-09-10 | 11.5 KB | 213 lines

                        Franchise Basketball v1.xx
                            by Scott K. Snella

                            User Documentation

This file may be made available for download to players and prospective
players of Franchise Basketball v1.xx.  It is an instruction manual, and
may help players use the game.

WHAT IS FRANCHISE BASKETBALL (FBB)?

Franchise Basketball is a basketball league simulator, but it does not stop
there.  It takes the mere playing of a basketball season one step further.
In Franchise Basketball (FBB), you, as the player, act as coach, owner, and
general manager of your team.  You will draft players, train those players,
set ticket prices, upgrade your stadium, concessions, publicity and more.
All of this allows you to compete for the ultimate goal, the FBB champion-
ship.  Let's get to the particulars...

THE GAME

There are basically two elements to the game.  First is your team.  The
players you draft initially are your team, and in the registered version,
you may release, sign, and trade players to add or subtract from that
initial lineup.  In addition you can train players to be better in a given
skill, but this costs money.  Where do you get it?  Well, that leads to the
second element of the game.

Okay, you have a bunch of good players, so what?!?  Well, as we have seen more
and more in recent years, a sports team is a business.  Franchise Basketball is
no different.  You must control your front office and keep revenue flowing
in order to buy additional items, sign new players, and train existing ones.
These two aspects of the game intertwine, the exact mixture for
success is up to you.  Should I train my players with this money or buy a
hot dog stand?!?

One warning, Franchise Basketball is not an action game, it is a competitive
game.  You do not logon each day and play a game, and then logoff.  You call
to manage your teams affairs, and check to see what your team did the night
before.  Once again, you do not PLAY basketball, you manage the team.

THE PLAYERS

The player aspect is fairly simple.  It does require some knowledge of
basketball, but if you read this document and the on-line help you should
get enough to get by.  First there are five positions that you must have
players playing ( Point Guard (PG), Shooting Guard (SG), Power Forward (PF),
Small Forward (SF), and Center (C) ).  You must have at least one player at
each of these positions to successfully complete the draft segment of the
game!  If you do not, the draft will restart and warn you that the team is
short.  Of course you will not be able to draft all of your players in the
first round, or even the first two, but it is a good idea to fill all
starting spots as soon as possible.

In addition to the five positions we have already mentioned (PG, SG, PF, SF,
and C ) there are two other classifications, Guard (G) and Forward (F).
Players with these position designations may play either of the two positions
which they are named for.  For example, an F player may play the PF position
or the SF position, and they may also switch during the course of the game.
So, that makes these types of players more versatile than the other five.

The game will consider the G and F position players when determining if you
have enough position players in your lineup.  Furthermore, due to the
possibilities of injury, fatigue and foul trouble, you most likely want
backups for everyone.  Although the game does not REQUIRE you to carry
reserves for everyone, their abilities will be greatly decreased if they
don't get a rest during the game.

Franchise Basketball keeps track of the actual game statistics as well, so
that you can see how your players are shaping up, what they need work on,
or if they are hopeless.  You can view a players stats by going to the edit
player menu, and choosing "V" for view player.  You can also take a look at
your opponents players by selecting the view opponents team option from the
main menu, and again choosing "V" to view individual players.

Besides their statistics for the last game, and the season totals, each
player has their vitals, height, weight and age along with their college,
and their attributes.  Players attributes are what really counts in the game.
The higher the number, the more favorable the rating.  A player with a foul
rating of 18 rarely fouls other players, and even less often, fouls out of
the game.  The same applies for all of the other ratings, a Shooting Skill
of 4 is not very good, and that player will miss many shots.

In the registered version of Franchise Basketball, there is a sysop configured
option called the Perpetual Season (or reset).  What this does is allow the
teams to play through a season, determine a champion, and complete the
season.  Then, those same owners keep their teams and proceed to the next
"year" or "years".  The players get one year older, and either go up, down,
or stay the same in skill depending on their age and current skill level.  This
adds a new dimension in strategy, since younger, inexperienced players
do have a benefit (they'll get better).

It is possible, as we mentioned earlier, to increase a players attributes.
This is called training.  When you train a player, the coaching staff takes
that player aside and concentrates on certain aspects of their game.  Of
course, this costs money, but from then on the player is improved.  You can
train players from the Edit Player Menu, with a "T" option for train.
Players can only train to a level of 17, beyond that is considered natural
talent, and if you don't have it, you never will.

Finally, from the Edit Players Menu, you can do a host of other things, most
of which involve roster manipulation.  An "L" will recalculate the starting
lineup.  The game starts from the top of the roster and takes the first
five players which fill the criteria to start, and adds them to the starting
lineup.  Choosing "B" allows you to bench a player that is currently
starting, and replace them with a non-starter.  This must be a legal sub.
You cannot bench a G and replace them with an F.  Last, you may switch
players roster slots.  This for example allows you to take the 15th player
and make them the 8th player in the lineup.  This is important because the
computer takes substitutes in ORDER of roster slot, so you want your best
players high in the roster.  So the roster numbers are basically the order
in which the players will be used as subs (taking their positions into
consideration of course).

THE MONEY

We've seen the players, how to manipulate your roster, and train them.
Trading and Free Agents will come later, but now we talk about money.
Outside of training players and purchasing Free Agent contracts, all money
is used within the Front Office Menu.  Here you have two designations of
money.  One, cash and two, bank.  Cash is what you have in your hot little
hand and can spend.  Bank money cannot be spent, you must first withdraw it.
Therefore, you may try to buy something and be told you do not have enough
money...because it's in the bank.

By default, all proceeds from playing a game go into the cash account, but
the bank account pays nightly interest on your money.  Therefore, it is
beneficial to call each day to put money in the bank.

There are three basic sources of income, Ticket sales, Merchandising, and
Concession Sales.  Promotion and Publicity effect these three things,
generating more income.  Ticket Sales only apply to home games.  You can't
sell tickets when you're on the road.  You may set the ticket price from
the Front Office Menu, however, if your team is not famous and there are
no promotions, the fans are not going to pay high prices for tickets.  You
must play with the ticket prices to achieve a happy medium ticket fare, that
attracts fans, but also makes money.

Also, when you're at home, people have to eat.  This is where you earn your
concession money (if you have a stand).  The greater the level of stand, the
more money you make from it.

When you are on the road, fans from other cities get to see your team, so
merchandise sales rise.  Of course this depends on how many people come to
the game, so your opponent controls how much money you make, in a way.

There is another stat in the Front office that we haven't touched on, and
that is fame.  Fame is the degree of public awareness of your team.  The
more famous, the better ticket sales, merchandising, and more!  You can
increase fame by advertising.  You can schedule everything from Windshield
fliers to a mini-series on your life to boost awareness of your team.
The more famous your team, the more fans will come to games, and the
more you may charge for tickets.

Don't be discouraged if you don't sell out your stadium.  The number of
fans that come to a game depends on a number of things, including your fame,
your opponents fame, the number of wins each team has, and any promotions
you have going on at the time.  After a few wins and some fliers on
windshields, you'll be all set.

Promotions are events that you schedule to draw crowds for one game.  Giving
away things is often used to encourage fans to come to games, and you, too
can do this here.  The better the promotion, the more people you'll get to
come.

Finally, you can upgrade your stadium, and move your team across town to
bigger quarters.  This costs big money, but it increases the capacity of
spectators that you can have.  It's not too difficult to grow out of a 250
seat court...

SIGNING FREE AGENTS

From time to time, players will have disputes with their team, in this league
and in others.  As players part with their former teams over various issues,
you can pick them up from the free agent pool.  Some are good, some bad, but
all have a price.  All you have to do is pay their signing bonus, and they
join your team from the free agent list.  Of course this is in the
registered version only.  If you don't have it, ask your sysop to register
for all the additional features :)

Remember, that to sign a player, you must first release a player to open a
roster slot.

TRADING PLAYERS

Again, this is only in the registered version, but if you have a gap on your
team, and someone else has something to offer, you can arrange a trade.  One
condition, though, before you offer a player, or finalize a deal, you MUST
remove the player being traded from the starting lineup.  This insures that
your team always has enough players to play a game.  Now included in
version 1.20 is the option to trade for multiple players at a time.  For
instance, you can offer a trade involving two lesser players for one
superstar, trades can be up to 3 for 1, or 1 for 3.

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

The FBB Gazette Sports Page recaps all of yesterday's action, and today's
games.  For the latest scores and highlights, turn there.  If you are
running an officially registered version, you can also access the league
leaders menu, where you can check to see if your players are leading the
league in any of the vital statistics.

After you win or lose, it's always a good idea to give a quote to the press.
What better place to do that than the Press Conference?   Here you may
speak your peace, in a one line quote to be seen by all, with your name and
team right next to it, too!  So don't get too nasty!

The Email has been added to version 1.20.  This allows players to talk over
trades before their proposal, and basically just communicate privately.

Let the games begin...
Scott Snella