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Main - General MFN Discussion

Re: Subcribe & Support

By billstein
2/07/2025 12:53 am
Mcbolt55 wrote:
Hoping by the sounds of the latest update, that we are getting back to real nuts and bolts in the actual game engine. Good to see actual progress taking place, now hopefully the laundry list of unrealistic strategy hacks can be addressed.


I didn't get this from the Feb update. What lead you to believe he was talking about the game engine?

I don't mean to call you out or anything. This is the one issue that has me considering leaving the game if there's not at least a promise, within the next few months, to fix the engine .

Re: Subcribe & Support

By martinwarnett
2/07/2025 9:49 am
The problem is, he's a one man band, frustrating as things are people forget that. The game isn't at the stage where he can make a living from it solely. Work has to take priority, a harsh economic reality.

I fully agree the game engine needs work, the issue was that a lot of the back end data was so tightly bound into the old UI as to cause issues. The new UI decouples that, making the separation between front end / back end much cleaner - which is then easier to update and `push forward. Simplified, in the old UI, backend would generate HTML containing the back end data in a number of areas. New UI has the front end pages rendered, with calls to back end. Having a clean delineation between the two provides other benefits, scaling et al.


Which real developers would look to buy the game? Also need to be careful what you wish for - an EA would have a draft system where for a simple microtransaction you can jump up the draft order... or gain +10 boosts to speed...
Last edited at 2/07/2025 9:53 am

Re: Subcribe & Support

By Cjfred68
2/07/2025 8:56 pm
I get all the above but we use to have a bleeding beta version in MFN-1 which is gone and we got a new version every 2 years while changes were "hot fixed " in MFN-1 weekly.

It's a 1 man show so I have no issue being an unpaid beta tester but JDB chose to goto a subscription model and that means we pay for a product with no active updates and a version in its 4th year.

You cant have it both ways, it went from being patient and it's free to be patient, pay a subscription and lose your ownership base.

I went from 2 full leagues, created and admined for 35+ seasons always full to 1 league full and the other has 9 owners through zero fault of my own because many owners play the free version.

It's my opinion he should have kept the game free until the new UI was finished then went to the subscription model once he started working on the sim engine. He lost a ton of owners and a bunch of great leagues because of his decision.

I'm paying $180 a year for what exactly and it's harder and harder to justify it since I'm not a fan of the new UI at all!

Re: Subcribe & Support

By TheWitchHunter
2/07/2025 9:29 pm
martinwarnett wrote:
The subscription model has it's place.

I suspect many on the free subscription level wouldn't necessarily be averse to donating as and when over a sub.

Would be nice to have that option.


It would and yeah, I would.
Weirdly still gonna hold my ground for a sub with no ads and permission to personalize player names. I'd pay for no ads, player and team personalization for just a bit more than the former.

SUb-question: with subscriptions that do allow owner customization can the admin still block customization? If so, call it another disagreement i'd have. If I'm paying for customization, i don't want that access restricted by an admin.

Be a great time to update the censor so we don't get (oh i want to give a genital example) but we'll just say Groiny McGroiny-parts type stuff, and also allow the admin to not allow user derived names considered offensive (and thus change them by prerogative).

It must be FRiday. Thank Goodness.

Re: Subcribe & Support

By TheWitchHunter
2/07/2025 9:33 pm
Cjfred68 wrote:
I'm paying $180 a year for a game that hasn't a significant change to the broken game engine in 4 years.

I'm paying for a new UI that may help JDB in the new but to me it's a step backwards.

I dread the day we are forced to switch UIs because I may seriously think about leaving a game I love because it's gotten worse....IMO!!!

We need the game engine to change and fast or there simply won't be enough owners to have any full leagues and that's very frustrating.

Money clearly won't fix the problem only time and effort will and we have been as patient as possible without much to show for it. I wish he would sell it to a real developer who would put in the work while he gets paid for his efforts but that is all out of anyone's hands


You have a choice. Money spent does not mean demands met. This ain't the White House ;)

Edit: My personal conversations with JDB - although few these days - show me nothing more than every reason to stick around. I'd pay a sub if there was a subscription i wanted... I'd be happy to slap a donation down in the interim.
We have seen more progress in the last 6 months here in MFN than we have seen in several years - at least for this guy that has 7 yrs in.
I'm quite happy about that.
Ever engine update has been met with more issues. It would be shortsighted to believe that as the UI is being updated, that JDB is not making things easier for engine updates within that finished UI.
First things first.

When the time comes to move on to the engine, the UI will be better able to support changes to it.
Line upon line. Precept upon precept.
As I always close my messages to JDB - "You got this."
I encourage each of us to have patience and to have the trust to know he's got this.
From little faith comes great works and all that happy bull sheet.
:)

Last edited at 2/07/2025 9:45 pm

Re: Subcribe & Support

By billstein
2/08/2025 1:07 am
All said... I just want the game engine (weight/speed exploit) to be recognized as a major issue, and a time frame as to when it will be addressed.

As I said on the first page of this thread, I've spent about $150 on credits over the years because I love the game... but...

I can't pay for a game that has an obvious fault that allows for non-football tactics to beat solid football tactics... especially when the game once had a better model.

This flaw means that new players coming in, no matter how well they know football, have NO CHANCE to win until they read the "right" forum message, that teaches them how to use the exploit.

Re: Subcribe & Support

By Cjfred68
2/08/2025 3:42 pm
Getting a lecture about patience and supporting JDB from someone who famously had a thread titled "UPDATE THE ENGINE OR I QUIT" and doesn't pay for a subscription is awesome!!!!

Re: Subcribe & Support

By Mcbolt55
2/08/2025 5:13 pm
Classic bipolar behavior, but picking on it certainly doesn’t help the situation. MFN is in enough trouble without big spenders yelling at freeloaders, or RO purists attacking those that dive deeper into the strategy and exploits. There simply isn’t enough community left to divide it into civil wars. I certainly have my doubts regarding the future of this game, but it’s not like jdb is ever going to scrap his upgrade plans and backtrack, never mind bending over backwards for every random minor whim that gets thrown into the suggestion box. We need to unite over the BIG issues, and if nothing good comes from that then it truly is lost.

Re: Subcribe & Support

By setherick
2/10/2025 9:30 am
From my understanding, the big issues can't be fixed until the UI is finished anyway because the code stack has to remade from the spaghetti it currently is. Without a clear client-server separation, you can't really redo the server that controls the game engine.

Re: Subcribe & Support

By martinwarnett
2/12/2025 5:24 am
Which I've mentioned repeatedly.

User generally don't for obvious reasons get why things need to be refactored under the hood, that's often one step back to take two forward.

Not yet a fan of the new UI, but suspect when it's the only one it'll grow on me but the separation of client/server code should make it easier for bug fixes / improvements to occur.