Thank you to Mr. Max Sellers!  

Max and I talked about writing a volleyball simulator.  But it took a while.  When Covid hit, Max got to work and created the TMVL we use today.

Back in the day I think we were even looking at a "high school simulation" but eventually when he got around to it, the concept was for college since he was about to start that.  Plus he now had some high school Java classes to lean on.

So a big shout out and thanks to Max for writing TMVL!

He posted a recent note about updating the simulator a bit eventually.  There are some things that need tweaking from his perspective (attacking percentages are a little high-ish for example).  More to come as all that pans out.  But I would say its more of a tweaking than an overhaul.  Thanks again Mad Max!

Shout out to my parents going to 80% of my games this year for volleyball which included:

Icy conditions, thousands of miles on Big Al's precious rogue, and cursing in front of my school's president.

Recently at a function celebrating the all-conference players in our college our president called out my mother for being "the biggest supporter/cheerleader I've ever seen". She created signs and tried to psych other team's players.

My dad also deserves a shout out with all of the photos that he takes for our team which my teammates loved.

Also, my girlfriend also deserves a shout out for making so many of my games even though she had a crazy busy schedule.

Thank you to everyone for being welcoming and patient with my questions.  Hopefully soon all that advice will sink in and my team will actually start winning more often than not. 

Shootout to my opponents who are brave enough to face us knowing a good hiding is in the offing

I have three shoot-outs.

The first is obviously to Max. Way back I think it was Alan Parr who created United. From this somebody(s) created a game that Al tinkered with and became Olmec. I play in three of these games. Then Al went back to United.

But TMVL was created from scratch - the basic game engine is all Max's (I believe) the chances of aces or kills or blocks are what Max worked out. And it's such a balanced game that it still makes me think what to do for the best. 

Second is to Al. All we see is down to him (as in Olmec and United) and it's getting better all the time.

Third is all you lot. TMVL is great but better with all the participation and ideas. You lot make TMVL fun to play.

Thank you Max, Matt, and Steve for your kind comments!  

I've got a lot of thank you's to add and am trying to do this in somewhat chronological order (based on my rough memory).

This week I want to give a Shout Out to Twisters Coach Mr. Mike Cabral (aka C-Ball).

Back in season 1, Mike wrote, what I like to call, the "Where's My Stuff?" Forum post found here: https://www.olmec.org/tmvl/forum_topic.php?topic_id=6

That idea was essentially a suggestion to incorporate sets/matches played into experience for younger players like Freshman and Sophomores.

This concept became the eXperience Points (XPs) feature you see today.  I love the strategic aspect of this.  Without it we might have just loaded up on more CPs for each team, but even then its hard to CP a Freshman OH (for example) 15 times when there's only 12 sessions (used to be 10-11).

XPs allow that to work well for a Freshman OH (the most CP intensive season/position in the game).  This also allows each coach to determine how to plan their player building.  CP all of a skill (because you want to get those skills in effect) or keep a slot open for XPs.

Mike explains the need very well in his proposal at the link above.  

While we're talking about C-Ball, here's one more...

Our original rules allowed for up to +2 for FIT.  By fully utilizing that rule, Mike focused on getting his players to +2 on FIT and the Twisters became a dominant force.  At the same time (because we're in season 2), it started to dawn on Max and I that maybe +2 FIT was too much, both for its power in matches and that teams might focus on building FIT, but not player skills.  

Mike was gracious when I told him essentially, "we're changing that rule for season 3".   😎

Not everyone would be.  So I appreciate Mike for that.  Thank you C-Ball!  

Love the XP dimension part of the game. Great job Mike!

Begrudingly, I'll give that to MikeC. He's always gracious. Now MikeH on the otherhand... oof. LOL

I see Steve has mentioned the game `United´ in his post. I´ve only discovered this game last week. It looks like and old fashion and historical game, which I like instead of all the modern pay to win with nice graphics games. Does anyone still plays United?

@Pierre:

Does anyone still plays United?

At least in Germany there are still several active "German style" leagues. If you're interested and fluently enough in German (like most Dutch) I can send you some links.

Pierre - presume you've checked out the MSWL links at the top of the page?

@ Eduard, thanks for your answer. My German is just not good enough to fully understand, so playing a game in German is not a good idea I think.

@ Roger, thanks but If I understand it correclty MSWL United is an Olmec game and not a United game. 

Hi Pierre, most definitely a United game - and a really good one at that - well U1 anyway, I've never played in U2 but I think it's pretty much the same

Hi Roger, ok didn't know that, so I'm not sure if there are some differences between United/Olmec afther all. 

I've never played the old United but since I started playing Olmec United there are been a couple of changes I recall 

Youth Director added to BRB

Max 3 extra points to Gk and Sw through GPP, hardness etc.

Steve - back in the day I played in a lot of United games. From memory none of them had the same rule set and even Hopscotch (Alan Parr's zine) would change rules from time to time to deal with issues as they arose.  I think what makes a game 'United' is the basic structure of shots being determined by the same basic formula of FW-DF, etc, and then number of shots being tested against an (optional) SW and then GK to determine how many goals have been scored.

Thanks for the shout out, Al!  I am amazed all the time by all the great minds on here and the ideas (and detail) they put forth, so I am humbled by the recogntion. 

RECRUITING

In Season 1 of TMVL we did recruiting a little like United.   This is where we randomly build players each session using certain parameters and people try to sign them (bid on them) using Recruiting Points (RPs).  There weren't 3 steps.  It was just sign them in one session (no step 1 or step 2).

There was a lot of work to get this game started in Summer 2020 and a "fully formed" recruiting approach was not a requirement yet.

John had the idea of publishing the available players for a full season.  Logically this makes sense as you know who should be available in real life (such as you know who the high school seniors are).

Rob started developing more detailed ideas on this thread:

https://www.olmec.org/tmvl/forum_topic.php?topic_id=4

Rob and I then chatted a little further and I asked him to integrate some ideas based on what I (as a parent) found with Max's real life college recruiting.

He came up with some additional great ideas in a version 2.0 on that forum thread.

I then started coding for that.  John added some more ideas so we could essentially have some "walk-ons" on the back end (lower star players) to round out the rosters.  

John also suggested we have: "3½ or 4½ star players with some bumps in secondary skills".

So that idea led to "specialty players" where some players  are extremely skilled at one position (like a setter with Max +1 SET).

In Season 5 as we added 16 teams John also helped me with a PHP script to build the players each season and order them within a given session.

So today....

I want to give a big Shout Out to Rob and John for all their ideas and efforts to help build our recruiting system!

I think it is a genius system and very hard to master (unless your name is James Tucker) which makes it a challenge each season.

Aw gee shucks, thanks Al!!

There are some United type games still out there. I´ve been playing in one called Kickabout for the last 30 plus years! The person who runs it is trying to get some new players right now. It is an interesting football management game that is very hard to master. The downside is that it is quite expensive, although their are often incentives and discounts for new players. I get to play a team for free by writing one of the newsletters for a league I am not playing in. However I am beginning to consider dropping it at the end of this season as I get much more enjoyment from playing here in MSWL. The person who runs it can be a bit tetchy aswell. Let´s say he is not as friendly as Al is in answering queries! If you want to take a look go here http://www.kickaboutonline.co.uk/

No worries - glad I was able to help!

I've currently got three games I'm working on myself - one is stalled, one is brand new and the other is out on Steam - so I'm happy I could you help create another sports sim :)

John - are you talking about games that you're developing? What are they? I'm sure there's a bunch of us that would love to support one of our own!

Thanks Al, for another great season!

Rob - Yes!

The game that's out is Australian Football Coach 2023 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2238710/Australian_Football_Coach_2023/

If you don't like Aussie rules but want to give it a go let me know and I'll get you a code sorted.

I'm also working on a basketball game and a retro style football manager. Both are in very simple stages right now but the basketball one should be good if I don't lose interest - I've just sorted the modeling for when the owners of teams pass away, but haven't worked on anything actual basketball related yet!

John if you ever get the basketball one going let me know. Huge basketball fan. Especially enjoy gm style games 

Yes I'd be interested in giving it a bash John, can't say I know the inticacies of the game at all but undertand the basic game

I'm also VERY interested in the  football game - are you talking real football the one played with the egg shaped ball?

Actual association football. Want a game like the ones I played as a kid, FM is too much for me