Early Comments

Strictly off the top of my head. I've done very little so far:


1. Scheduling - Appears to be okay for past seasons - at least I loaded as the '78 Steelers and played my divisional rivals twice each. There IS that annoying bye week, so the season's still 17 weeks long, but it's functional.

2. Rosters - Seem to be okay, though there will be the normal disagreement with player ratings.

3. Transactions Screen - Still not in FM - which is too bad, as it makes it very hard to tell when or if the CPU is trading or gaining free agents, or when someone retires.

4. Watching games - Similarly, it's too bad this hasn't been implemented yet.

5. Sim Speed - Several hundred percent improvement over 09. Whereas before simming a week's worth of games could take a minute or two, now it takes seconds.

6. Options - Several options were added including determining the number of wildcard teams, an option to revert to your team when looking at another and so forth.

7. Inflation - This has been added for past seasons, though there's no way to control it. I wonder if inflation will continue rising for future (post 09) seasons...

8: Super Bowl XLIV: Vikings 38, Patriots 20 :)

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Originally Posted by CatKnight

1. Scheduling - Appears to be okay for past seasons - at least I loaded as the '78 Steelers and played my divisional rivals twice each. There IS that annoying bye week, so the season's still 17 weeks long, but it's functional.

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The new scheduling algorithm for all the seasons from 1978 to 1994 has a bye week. The good news is that the division matchups are spot on, with each team playing their rival home and away. But the bye week is an artifact of using that template.

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2. Rosters - Seem to be okay, though there will be the normal disagreement with player ratings.

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This is the first year that Football Mogul has historical stats so there's a LOT to work with. The bad news is that we don't have the kind of stats you'd like to have to rate players (for example, Sacks weren't counted until 1982). The good news is that we've added the ability to edit a player projections for each season. I'm working on a web page now describing some of these new tools.

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7. Inflation - This has been added for past seasons, though there's no way to control it. I wonder if inflation will continue rising for future (post 09) seasons...

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It does rise after 2009. I'll also be sure to add the ability to edit it.

Does this game allow me to play the 1989 49ers against the 2007 Patriots?

Well, I've played three years so far. So far:

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1978 PIT:  11-5 (1st),    Lost AFC Championship
1979 PIT:  13-3 (1st),    Won Super Bowl
1980 PIT:  15-1 (1st),    Lost Super Bowl

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With a good team like Pittsburgh the first or even second year isn't surprising. The only reason I lost a game at all in 1980 was because I lost my main QB and was left with a 62 rated guy.

The teams are dumping way, way too many people into free agency given no one's in even remote trouble financially. Since FM09 I've always waited until after the college draft to go to FA to give the AI first crack at people, and....I don't know.

After 1978 I could have picked up an 89 QB if I wanted. I made a house rule at that point saying if I had an 80+ starter, I couldn't replace him in FA.... and if I had an 80+ OVR on my second team I had to release him immediately.

After 1979 I could have picked up 90+ OVR players at FB, DE, LB and S - and 80+ players almost everywhere else. Remember this is after the draft, so hopefully the AI's already taken who it wants. I settled for a RB in the 80s to avoid breaking the game.....then had my 15-1 season.

I haven't traded at all with the AI. And naturally the AI isn't offering deals either.

More comments:

Last year I complimented FM09 on having much better control over player improvement vs. BM09 - in other words, 90 OVR players really were the best at their position, 75-80 OVR players could reasonably start and so forth.

So far there appears to be a big escalation in potential ratings over last year. In a game I'm working with in FM09, after 2012 (+5 years) there were 51 players rated 90+. In FM10, after 2016 (from 2008) there were 135.

I started a fresh game starting in 2008 with Draft Talent set at -20. After 2012 there are 52 players rated 90+, so about even with last year.

If you liked last year's relative power level, you may want to play with draft talent. If you thought it was too low, then you may like what FM10 is offering.

The money seems to be screwed up. I'm playing in 1981 and I think the cap is in the billions. Where can I find more plays for the play books? Walter Payton became a free agent after the 1st season and I tried to put him back on the bears thru commish mode but you can't sign guys to any teams but your own. During a game, I don't know what formation the offense is in when picking my D. I'd love to b able to sim the 1st half and play the 2nd but not possible. Joe Klecko is 18 and there are a bunch of 40+ yr old guys who make around $140,000,000 per season. How do I use a timeout during a game? Why can good games be made from baseball but not football? I was really looking forward to this and I know there will be patches but I mite have to submit to FOF. If only we could put the detail of FOF with the flexiblity of mogul then we would have a game worth $30.

And I had the same teams in out of division play 2 years in a row and if your out of division opponents remain the same every year that stinks

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Originally Posted by SEH

The money seems to be screwed up. I'm playing in 1981 and I think the cap is in the billions.

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The NFL didn't adopt a salary cap until 1994. If you want to set one manually, you can do so in the League Editor.

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Where can I find more plays for the play books?

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Football Mogul only includes 8 playbooks (in the 'Playbooks' folder). It would be great to see playbooks that are more appropriate to each team, especially the historical teams, but it's something that the mod-makers will have to do. If add a playbook with the year and name of a team, it will automatically be loaded for that team.

For example: "2009-patriots.opb" is loaded automatically as the offensive playbook for the 2009 Patriots (.opb = offensive playbook; .dpb = defensive playbook).

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Originally Posted by SEH

And I had the same teams in out of division play 2 years in a row and if your out of division opponents remain the same every year that stinks

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It won't be the same every year. In the current 32-team format, your conference games outside your division are against opponents that finished in the same place as your team (for example, the AFC East winner plays the AFC North winner). Back in 1981, the conference games were actually somewhat random, with repeats occurring fairly often.

not satisfied with cowboy roster
no terrence newman or kevin ogletree among others
and why pacman jones?

mark

I have a Beta version of the game, and I'm willing to do a roster set. I'm not saying when it will be done (the answer is : when it's done) or anything, but I'll sit down and start on some of people are interested.

I have to agree with CatKnight on the free agency bit.

I'm currently at the beginning of the 1971 season (Week 3 to be precise) and Roger Staubach, Joe Namath and Sonny Jurgensen populate my free agency pool. Staubach is a 94 OVR and the previous season's Super Bowl winner. Namath is 80 OVR and the previous season's AFC winner. Jurgensen is a bit understandable -- the Redskins have the much better Frank Ryan and a rookie Dan Pastorini.

Then at RB, I have O.J. Simpson (98), Matt Snell (91) and Dave Hampton (80). And numerous other 80-90 rated players sitting in the free agency pool.

Not only is it odd that teams would let go of such big franchise players, it's even odder that no team has picked up any of these players.

And yes, I'd love to see a Transaction screen added.. and perhaps even a QB Comparsion screen (a feature I loved from FOF).

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Originally Posted by Arctic Blast

I have a Beta version of the game, and I'm willing to do a roster set. I'm not saying when it will be done (the answer is : when it's done) or anything, but I'll sit down and start on some of people are interested.

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i would totally be interested in a 2009 roster set, most of the historic years are pretty good but it seems the 2009 roster is in need of a lot of work, both with transactions and with ratings

I completely agree with SirYogi. Cowboys roster is pretty rough. Strange to only have three cornerbacks and not one of them is Newman.

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Originally Posted by HeraldSports

i would totally be interested in a 2009 roster set, most of the historic years are pretty good but it seems the 2009 roster is in need of a lot of work, both with transactions and with ratings

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Okay, I'll start messing around with one this weekend. I've never done any player editing in FM, so I can't really give an estimation of time at this point because I don't know how much fine tuning it's going to take to get ratings set.

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Originally Posted by Clay Dreslough

It won't be the same every year. In the current 32-team format, your conference games outside your division are against opponents that finished in the same place as your team (for example, the AFC East winner plays the AFC North winner). Back in 1981, the conference games were actually somewhat random, with repeats occurring fairly often.

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Both of those are somewhat, but not entirely true. There were repeats, but most of the matchups were based on the standings from the previous season.

From 1978-87:

5-TEAM DIVISIONS IN AFC/NFC
1st: Games vs. 1st- and 4th-place finishers in other two divisions, plus games vs. top 4 finishers in one division in other conference (out-of-conference games rotated every three years)
2nd: Games vs. 2nd- and 3rd-place finishers in other two divisions, plus games vs. top 4 finishers in one division in other conference
3rd: Games vs. 2nd- and 3rd-place finishers in other two divisions, plus games vs. top 4 finishers in one division in other conference
4th: Games vs. 1st- and 4th-place finishers in other two divisions, plus games vs. top 4 finishers in one division in other conference
5th: Two games vs. other fifth-place finisher, one game each vs. entire four-team AFC Central, one game each vs. fifth-place NFC finishers

4-TEAM DIVISIONS IN AFC/NFC

1st: games vs. 1st- and 4th-place finishers in other two divisions, games vs. two fifth-place finishers, plus games vs. top 4 finishers in one division in other conference
2nd: games vs. 2nd- and 3rd-place finishers in other two divisions, games vs. two fifth-place finishers, plus games vs. top 4 finishers in one division in other conference
3rd: 1st: games vs. 2nd- and 3rd-place finishers in other two divisions, games vs. two fifth-place finishers, plus games vs. top 4 finishers in one division in other conference
4th: games vs. 1st- and 4th-place finishers in other two divisions, games vs. two fifth-place finishers, plus games vs. top 4 finishers in one division in other conference

This was tweaked in 1988 to make the schedules tougher for the first-place teams. They went from playing fourth-place teams to one game vs. a second-place team and another vs. a third-place team. Plus, there were some other tweaks to the formula. But for the most part, scheduling was dependent on how you finished the previous season.

Starting in 2002, 14 of the 16 games have been known years in advance. Only two games are dependent on where you finish. The other eight non-division games are four against one division in your conference and four against a division in the other conference. Which division you play rotates from year to year, but even the game sites for 2009 were known in 2002 for these games.

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Originally Posted by Arctic Blast

Okay, I'll start messing around with one this weekend. I've never done any player editing in FM, so I can't really give an estimation of time at this point because I don't know how much fine tuning it's going to take to get ratings set.

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even if you don't tweak ratings, getting the transactions down would probably be the first step people would want

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Originally Posted by HeraldSports

even if you don't tweak ratings, getting the transactions down would probably be the first step people would want

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Well, the ratings NEED tweaking. :D I'll try and get transactions and player creation done this weekend, then pound on ratings next week and get contracts right.

Seems like a major improvement so far but I still have to dive in further over the weekend of course. :cool:

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Originally Posted by RickArnold

I have to agree with CatKnight on the free agency bit.

I'm currently at the beginning of the 1971 season (Week 3 to be precise) and Roger Staubach, Joe Namath and Sonny Jurgensen populate my free agency pool. Staubach is a 94 OVR and the previous season's Super Bowl winner. Namath is 80 OVR and the previous season's AFC winner. Jurgensen is a bit understandable -- the Redskins have the much better Frank Ryan and a rookie Dan Pastorini.

Then at RB, I have O.J. Simpson (98), Matt Snell (91) and Dave Hampton (80). And numerous other 80-90 rated players sitting in the free agency pool.

Not only is it odd that teams would let go of such big franchise players, it's even odder that no team has picked up any of these players.

And yes, I'd love to see a Transaction screen added.. and perhaps even a QB Comparsion screen (a feature I loved from FOF).

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Historical FA pool? :confused: FA didn't really start until the mid 90's in football!

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Originally Posted by daves

Historical FA pool? :confused: FA didn't really start until the mid 90's in football!

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I realize that, but with the walls of Football Mogul 2010, there happens to be a FA pool in 1971 -- sparse as it is -- and it's populated by Pro Bowl caliber players (90+ OVR) that would make immediate impact on teams with starting players that are 60-70 OVR.

I realize it's a money thing, in retrospect, but it seems to break the game a bit if someone like Roger Staubach or O.J. Simpson are sitting out for the beginning of a season.

The only issue so far is that Shawne Merriman is missing from the 2009 Chargers, and the helmets art shifts (probably based on team number) when playing historical seasons. The 1978 Chargers are using the Raiders helmet. Something's wrong with that picture. :) FYI - The 2007/8 mods work with 2010.

Some ratings are a bit iffy, but not too far from what I expect, and I assume the mod community will take care of that in their roster updates.