Beyond the Sideline Football: American Football Career Game (OOTP)

[Nefaro]

FB Pro 98 was running.. well, like a pro.  Until I was auto-simming a week.  Then it crashed.

"No big deal", I figure.  I'll just reload from the last Save.  Until I see that my Save Game was gone after trying to reload.  WTH?  Does this thing use some kind of anti-cheat save system where it deletes your save every time you Load the game?  My league career is gone!  *Poof* 

EDIT:  Evidentally I had to go into the Game Type>League menu first and then select "Load".  Found it!

As for the gameplay, I would definitely like to see the in-game display used in any newer Football Career Sims.  Even such 2D stuff.  The play outcomes are pretty realistic and seeing them in action, even despite these old 2D graphics, is great.  This one moves rather slow in between play outcomes, though.  It takes a little time for the play to end and the outcome to be displayed and you have to wait.  I think part of the problem is that it's loading some crap from the disk - perhaps the voice audio explaining the play results - so you tend to twiddle  your thumbs a bit.  And then the play clock seconds count down faster than it should.  Just some side effects of playing an old game meant to be used on 75Mhz processors I suppose.  ;)

I'm gonna turn on WinXP compatibility for it (wasn't using any before) but I dunno if it'll stop any future crash.  I'll probably just have to restart the program regularly.  I had been playing that session for awhile.

[Grim.Reaper]

FB Pro 98 was running.. well, like a pro.  Until I was auto-simming a week.  Then it crashed.

"No big deal", I figure.  I'll just reload from the last Save.  Until I see that my Save Game was gone after trying to reload.  WTH?  Does this thing use some kind of anti-cheat save system where it deletes your save every time you Load the game?  My league career is gone!  *Poof* 

EDIT:  Evidentally I had to go into the Game Type>League menu first and then select "Load".  Found it!

As for the gameplay, I would definitely like to see the in-game display used in any newer Football Career Sims.  Even such 2D stuff.  The play outcomes are pretty realistic and seeing them in action, even despite these old 2D graphics, is great.  This one moves rather slow in between play outcomes, though.  It takes a little time for the play to end and the outcome to be displayed and you have to wait.  I think part of the problem is that it's loading some crap from the disk - perhaps the voice audio explaining the play results - so you tend to twiddle  your thumbs a bit.  And then the play clock seconds count down faster than it should.  Just some side effects of playing an old game meant to be used on 75Mhz processors I suppose.  ;)

I'm gonna turn on WinXP compatibility for it (wasn't using any before) but I dunno if it'll stop any future crash.  I'll probably just have to restart the program regularly.  I had been playing that session for awhile.

I read somewhere that you needed to run the game in admin mode, plus set the file to win98 compatibility...maybe that will help your situation.

[Nefaro]

I read somewhere that you needed to run the game in admin mode, plus set the file to win98 compatibility...maybe that will help your situation.

I turned on XP compatibility.  Dunno if it helps but I played a good long time like that without issue.

It's pretty cool for such an old game but it also doesn't have all the bells & whistles.  There isn't much to roster management - you just pick players and keep them indefinitely as far as I can tell.  No cap management or anything like that.  It's fun to call plays in the game and see decent representations of it happening but it's a bit thin in the General Manager area.  Another annoying thing is that the in-game text is so large it often overruns the available window space so game stats & such get cut off easily.  If they would've continued the series in this likeness, I too think it would be pretty amazing by now. 

[Grim.Reaper]

I read somewhere that you needed to run the game in admin mode, plus set the file to win98 compatibility...maybe that will help your situation.

I turned on XP compatibility.  Dunno if it helps but I played a good long time like that without issue.

It's pretty cool for such an old game but it also doesn't have all the bells & whistles.  There isn't much to roster management - you just pick players and keep them indefinitely as far as I can tell.  No cap management or anything like that.  It's fun to call plays in the game and see decent representations of it happening but it's a bit thin in the General Manager area.  Another annoying thing is that the in-game text is so large it often overruns the available window space so game stats & such get cut off easily.  If they would've continued the series in this likeness, I too think it would be pretty amazing by now.

One other small tip I found...if you don't want to play the game with the CD in the drive, add the following line to the Setup.ini file.

[Overall]
CDNeeded=No

[Nefaro]

One other small tip I found...if you don't want to play the game with the CD in the drive, add the following line to the Setup.ini file.

[Overall]
CDNeeded=No

Nice!

I hate leaving disk in drives - especially on the notebook PC.   

But does it still load some stuff from the disk?  Like the announcer voice?

[Grim.Reaper]

One other small tip I found...if you don't want to play the game with the CD in the drive, add the following line to the Setup.ini file.

[Overall]
CDNeeded=No

Nice!

I hate leaving disk in drives - especially on the notebook PC.   

But does it still load some stuff from the disk?  Like the announcer voice?

Not sure....I would assume everything would be off hard drive at that point.

[KyzBP]

I read somewhere that you needed to run the game in admin mode, plus set the file to win98 compatibility...maybe that will help your situation.

I turned on XP compatibility.  Dunno if it helps but I played a good long time like that without issue.

It's pretty cool for such an old game but it also doesn't have all the bells & whistles.  There isn't much to roster management - you just pick players and keep them indefinitely as far as I can tell.  No cap management or anything like that.  It's fun to call plays in the game and see decent representations of it happening but it's a bit thin in the General Manager area.  Another annoying thing is that the in-game text is so large it often overruns the available window space so game stats & such get cut off easily.  If they would've continued the series in this likeness, I too think it would be pretty amazing by now.

I believe there is a roster cap and you have to draft players every season so you'll still have to make cuts. 

[reapagan]

There are a couple of guys who did utilities for 98, salary cap and such, they charged for them in the day but I don't know about now. Sundby and Gelat I think. Makes it deeper. Like I said though the more that you play the more personality that the players seem to assume, strange but true. And  I came up with the ultimate blitz play, worked great , a thing of genius. I lost it and can't recreate it.

[Nefaro]

I read somewhere that you needed to run the game in admin mode, plus set the file to win98 compatibility...maybe that will help your situation.

I turned on XP compatibility.  Dunno if it helps but I played a good long time like that without issue.

It's pretty cool for such an old game but it also doesn't have all the bells & whistles.  There isn't much to roster management - you just pick players and keep them indefinitely as far as I can tell.  No cap management or anything like that.  It's fun to call plays in the game and see decent representations of it happening but it's a bit thin in the General Manager area.  Another annoying thing is that the in-game text is so large it often overruns the available window space so game stats & such get cut off easily.  If they would've continued the series in this likeness, I too think it would be pretty amazing by now.

I believe there is a roster cap and you have to draft players every season so you'll still have to make cuts.

Well, yes, there are limits on the number of players.  Actually the interface isn't very good for managing the roster but that's how stuff was back in the day.  ;)

I was speaking of the monetary side of things in regards to cap.  Not a big deal as I can delve into FOF7 for that.  Calling plays in that one sucks, though.  I sim all the games in FOF, whereas it's often tempting to coach each game with this oldie.  The transitions are pretty slow, however, so it takes a lot of time to do so. 

That is probably the most prohibitive thing about FBPro 98 for me - the downtime between plays ending and calling the next one.  Also the screen animations when changing to different sections of the team management part.  Lotsa waiting for stuff to fly about and actually show up after I press a menu button.  I didn't see any Option for bypassing these window animations.. is there perhaps an INI fix or some such?  Speeding up or bypassing what used to be fluff would be wonderful.   ;D

[Nefaro]

One other small tip I found...if you don't want to play the game with the CD in the drive, add the following line to the Setup.ini file.

[Overall]
CDNeeded=No

This worked for the menus but it ended up asking for a disk when I started to play a game and when trying to use the Game Plan and Play Editor.

[Nefaro]

Question:

Which Sim Speed setting do you guys typically use in FBPro 98?  I've been using Normal speed but simming a week worth of games takes some time.  Does using the Quick Sim setting throw off the statistical outcomes noticeably?  Or is it fine for running career leagues? 

My concern is that the stats may not be good representations of the players' abilities in Quick Sim mode.  Some sports sims tend to warn against using the faster such mode for reasons like this.

[Grim.Reaper]

One other small tip I found...if you don't want to play the game with the CD in the drive, add the following line to the Setup.ini file.

[Overall]
CDNeeded=No

This worked for the menus but it ended up asking for a disk when I started to play a game and when trying to use the Game Plan and Play Editor.

sounds like it must keep some files on the disk then...would have thought a complete install would have prevented that....

[Nefaro]

One other small tip I found...if you don't want to play the game with the CD in the drive, add the following line to the Setup.ini file.

[Overall]
CDNeeded=No

This worked for the menus but it ended up asking for a disk when I started to play a game and when trying to use the Game Plan and Play Editor.

sounds like it must keep some files on the disk then...would have thought a complete install would have prevented that....

If it's not compressed, you may be able to copy all the files from the disk and paste them into your install folder (NOT overwriting any co pies) and get it to work.

I recall that being the case with some old games that still had audio files and such that it would read from the disk.  If you copied them to the install folder, some of those would check there first but they didn't include them on a 'Full Install'.  For HDD space saving at the time, obviously.

I've not bothered trying.  If it gets to be annoying enough, or I end up having to use it on a trip, I'll just make a virtual CD.

[Grim.Reaper]

Unfortunate news concerning the developer.....suffered a medical issue...and of course the game as it should be is put on hold....hopefully everything goes well for him and his family.

From OOTP messageboard:

We know there have been questions about the current state of Beyond the Sideline Football's development, given Francis's lack of involvement on the forums in recent weeks.

Unfortunately, Francis has suffered a severe stroke several weeks ago that has left him unable to work on the game for now. We've been communicating with his family, and agreed that any announcement should wait until his recovery path was a little clearer. He is now in the very early weeks of his recovery, and BTS development is temporarily on hold while we discuss our future plans.

We ask that everyone respect Francis's privacy and not inquire about his situation. We also cannot answer any questions about when BTS v1 will be released, nor any other details about the development plans. Please be patient until we are ready to make another announcement. We understand that all of you are very excited about the game, and so are we, but Francis's health comes first. Thank you.

Francis does monitor the forums, though. He currently cannot respond, but he will see and read your posts.

[Nefaro]

Shit.

:-[