Early Comments

[CatKnight]

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

[Clay Dreslough]

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.

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.

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

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.

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...

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

[daves]

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

[CatKnight]

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

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

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.

[CatKnight]

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.

[SEH]

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.

[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

[Clay Dreslough]

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

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.

Where can I find more plays for the play books?

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).

[Clay Dreslough]

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

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.

[siryogi1120]

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

mark

[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.

[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).

[HeraldSports]

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 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

[Subversion56]

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

[Arctic Blast]

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

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.