Last month we released My Football Sim 2.0, which brought with it a total re-design of the website, and today we are proud to announce the release of My Football Sim 2.1, which brings with it a total re-write of the Matrix (codebase) and the ability to provide you with regularly-scheduled monthly releases and frequent updates throughout the month.
New Matrix
We started writing this game back in 2001 - almost a decade ago - and while our abilities as programmers have improved drastically over the years, we have rarely been able to improve the quality of the Matrix due to time-constraints and/or personal obligations. As a result, each year the Matrix became more and more of a jumbled mess of spaghetti code and increasingly difficult to maintain.
In order for the game to improve, it had to be re-written to bring it up-to-date with the latest coding standards and best-practices, which is exactly what we've been doing for the last couple of months.
No more spaghetti code. No more ugly hacks. No more jumbled mess.
This might not sound very exciting from a gamer's perspective, but what this means is that we're now able to add new features to the game a lot faster than we were before this release. And more importantly, we're now able to add the features you've been asking for.
New Features
While there haven't been any new features added to the game wth this release, a lot of things behind the scenes have changed. In addition to the total re-write of the Matrix, here's a bullet-point list of some of the things that have changed along the way:
- Improved Player Generator
- We've greatly improved the random player generator to produce more realistic player attributes.
- Trophies
- Some of the trophies were "broken", but they have all been "fixed"
- In addition to fixing the broken trophies, we've also added some new ones for going undefeated through various stages of a league. The new "Shield" series of trophies can be viewed on the Trophies screen.
- Stats
- We've given the stats a lot of love over the past couple of months, and as a result, a lot of bugs have been squashed along the way. There are too many squashed bugs to mention here, but you'll dfinitely see a difference on the in-league stats screens.
- Schedules
- We've tweaked the scheduling system so that there aren't any 1st- or 2nd-week byes.
- Blog
- One of the primary goals of the 2.x series of My Football Sim is to improve the communication between MFS staff and the rest of the community. The forums serve as a modest communication channel, but we thought it was about time we brought things a bit more "in-house", so we've added a blog to the website.
- Code of Conduct
- Following along with the previous point, we've also introduced a Code of Conduct for the entire MFS community in an effort to make everyone feel more welcome.
- Leagues
- Server-generated leagues now require a minimum of 32 human coaches before they start.
- User-created leagues now require a minimum of 16 human coaches befre they start.
Beta Month
We've been testing the new Matrix for months now, but there are probably going to be some bugs that we didn't catch during testing, so we've decided to make this month "Beta Month".
Exact details of what Beta Month is will be posted in another blog in the next day or two, but what it basically means is that there will be another full reset at the end of the month after all the bugs have been squashed. After the full reset at the end of the month, we don't plan on doing another full reset unless absolutely necessary or if a large majority of community requests one.
The Future
So where do we go from here?
Well, we've already started work on version 2.2, which we're planning to release on Monday, February 1st. We aren't going to give away any details just yet, but we will say that there are definitely going to be some new features that you've been asking for in the forums.
SEE YOU IN THE LEAGUES!!!
