US Soccer Manager beta is now out again. The game features the MLS, but now you can play in the Premiership. A-League and D3 Pro Leagues are in the game but you need the password (only for beta testers). Other password-accessible features include multiple seasons and save/load. The game was built around a side-project match engine that I built and the match engine is the number one part of the game. The future of the game will include more leagues, more statistics, and the game will live up to its name and the USA will be the 'primary' league instead of England. Most importantly, though, it is under the tactical scrutiny of a soccer coach. Pre-game and halftime team talks will be based around real pre-game and halftime team talks from several different coaches who I have talked to. Download it at http://www.geocities.com/stattonet (I have bought a domain name though, just too busy programming...)
The file worked ok for me, I'm going to email you some feedback in the next day or so. In case anyones passing - I'd definitely recommend giving it a go, its a cool little game and has come along leaps and bounds in the short time I've been following its progress
I really have no idea why the zip file is corrupted, it works fine for anybody so far. What unzipper are you using/what error messages did you encounter?
Well there's a bug section on the forum but no-one seems to be using it, here is fine though most have been documented...
A)You need to get it to run in a window. Expecting people with 19" monitors to change their resolution to 800x600 is loopy. B)When you run it at 1280x1024 it dissapears whilst the games are running C)The Rapids got DOMINATED in every single game, no matter how I changed my tactics. Im talking like 6-0 to A league teams D)The tactics interface isn't very customizeable. Unless I missed the area where I could place my strikers. It reminds me of a hockey simulator, there is one floating around the net. That one ran WAY too slow. I wish that CM ran as fast as your game because it just FLIES on my computer whereas CM runs like ************ and I have a FAST computer. (Athlon 1.3ghz with 768 megs of RAM)
Sorry for lack of response, my computer with XP/AOL didn't let me log in so I had to wait until Monday A)You need to get it to run in a window. Expecting people with 19" monitors to change their resolution to 800x600 is loopy. - I've got a new 1024x768 feature, first thing I added, don't ask why I didn't add it before, it took a long time. B)When you run it at 1280x1024 it dissapears whilst the games are running It let you start at 1280x1024? It should not have... C)The Rapids got DOMINATED in every single game, no matter how I changed my tactics. Im talking like 6-0 to A league teams Did you set a formation? I'm not saying pulled it down , did you click OK and get Right Outside Defender, etc? D)The tactics interface isn't very customizeable. Unless I missed the area where I could place my strikers. I don't understand what you are talking about with the strikers, but define customizeable, statistics-wise? anyways you just gave me a great idea, so thanks, where you can pull up players stats on the teamselect screen...
What I mean by being able to customize formation is that there isn't a screen where you can place your players where you want them. IE what if I wanted to run a 6-2-2. I mean that would be a bad formation, but it could happen, I didn't see a place for that. I mean I know the goal here isn't to copy CM byte for byte but there are some things that I think should be second nature. (IE the ability to adapt to any tactic you want) Also, the game runs INSANELY fast on the fastest setting. It takes about 4 seconds per half for me. Is there a setting where I can see what is happening albeit really fast? It looks good. Unlike the other homebrew manager sims I have seen it runs fast which is good. It didnt start at 1280x1024, I started at 800x600 and then switched. You've GOT to get it to run windowed
>What I mean by being able to customize formation is that there isn't a screen where you can place your players where you want them. IE what if I wanted to run a 6-2-2. I mean that would be a bad formation, but it could happen, I didn't see a place for that. I mean I know the goal here isn't to copy CM byte for byte but there are some things that I think should be second nature. (IE the ability to adapt to any tactic you want) Yes there is. The 'team select' screen allows you to customize your formations, just by pulling down on the position of the player... it's a pull-down box and you can make a 6-2-2 if you want. You will also be able to save three of these formations and then change to them on the fly in game. > Also, the game runs INSANELY fast on the fastest setting. It takes about 4 seconds per half for me. Is there a setting where I can see what is happening albeit really fast? Working on that, you can make it one second/minute but that is too slow for people and the code often 'misses' and becomes longer than that... >It looks good. Unlike the other homebrew manager sims I have seen it runs fast which is good. Thanks, more leagues have been added which makes it slower but you can turn any/all of them off to make it faster. > It didnt start at 1280x1024, I started at 800x600 and then switched. You've GOT to get it to run windowed No wonder it screwed up, I'll add support for your resolution (just for you, so you better play the game...)
I will gladly play the game, and help with whatever you need (If you need scouting help, I dont know how many helpers you already have) pro gratis of course.
Naah, I was just kidding (I'll still do the 1280x1024 though) but anyone who plays the game is fine by me! I need something to make the game unique, though, to make it different from just another soccer manager game. The US won't do that, and the Mexican League won't do that... Sorry for the delayed response, I really don't know why I can't login on my computer~!
Have you thought about the ability to EASILY transfer one team to another league? on CM I have OFTEN wondered how my teams I have put together would play if I them in a better league (IE my top flight portuguese team in the EPL) etc. That would be definitely unique.
The way the system works is each team has a variable determining what conference they are in, so I can keep all of the teams in alphabetical order. There is nothing along the lines of that in the game, and why is there any reason for it to be? It's not very realistic. A better option would to include this in the team editor, which won't be out with the game but will be out shortly afterwards... so get your Mexican (closest to Portugal probably in the game) team very good and then switch them into the Premier League using the editor. Actually, for a list of improvements from the demo version hit up http://pub5.ezboard.com/bussoccermanager, try the General section, lots of improvements so far but mostly minor. I'm editing the website section to include team websites too... each writer for each team gives a write-up of the most recent game for their website, and comments about the manager/transfer info will appear there too. Player profiles with individual write-ups. I like that idea...