My answers.

This is probably true.

Might be a good idea to let people try it for free, then they gotta pay to play.

My answers above.

Thanks for the input, everyone. I realize that you all have the advantage of seeing the product, so your views are a little skewed in that respect, but it's helpful.

Our initial thought was a price of around $15, but seeing cdcox's great game engine, I've been lobbying to go up to the $18 or $19 range. I've also enjoyed having multiple teams, so we would do a significant discount for a second or third team, and I think that would keep player interest higher, too, since the odds are that one of the teams will be doing well at any given time.

Per dj's comment, I think our biggest challenge is going to be people dropping out if their team is weak. In midseason, cdcox will have bots to run the teams, and our current thought is to have some tiered pricing. If a new player looks at the site, they can start a new team from scratch for a relatively high dollar amount (e.g., $30 the first year, than $18 or $19 thereafter), or they can adopt an existing team. Existing strong teams would go for the $18 or $19 base every year, and a .500 team might be more like $9 the first year and then ramp up, and a weak team might be free the first year, ramp up to $9 the second year, and then full price after that. I'm working from memory right now, but that's the general system we're pondering.

I think the outcome of that would be two good things: new people would take over weak teams and bring enthusiasm to them, and then as they rebuild the weak teams they then might get interested and want to build a new team from scratch, hence more revenue for us.

We're working on the free agent system, but I think it's going to be pretty nifty. We're toying with a concept that is simple but effective, and will produce turnover of key players, but with some owner control over the timing. We'll unveil that once we get through the season and start on the offseason work.

Anything over $10 will kill your product on release IMO. People don't like to pay that much for online game outside of wow - which just became free up to a certain level. I would structure it as very inexpensive to get in, like $7.99 for the first season and $4.99 per yer after that. Enough to not have abandoned teams from free loaders and cheap enough to attract casual action. I would also offer drastic incentives on players taking over abandoned teams, like $1.99 for first year, then $4.99 per year after. This keeps orphan teams to a min as its cheap to get in the door that way.

Remember, people who like this product will easily go up to two or three teams and you an still get your Discretionary $20 per season out of them. But it has to be priced attractively to get them in the door the first time.

Do you kick a FG or go for it in the following situations:

to go = 5, time = 10 min KICK 99/1
to go = 3, time = 10 min KICK 80/20
to go = 10, time = 5 min KICK 95/5
to go = 5, time = 5 min KICK 70/30
to go = 3, time = 5 min KICK 65/35
to go = 15, time = 3 min KICK 60/40
to go = 10, time = 3 min KICK 55/45
to go = 5, time = 3 min KICK 50/50

whatifsports.com has tremendous simulations similar to this. That should be your benchmark.

I'm trying to flesh out the idea, but what about different tiers for leagues? It would give the game a greater goal(trying to maintain your dynasty in a "higher league").
Teams that have been abandoned could stay in the lowest league, where the entry fee and salary cap are lower.
My general idea has a tiered salary cap to separate the league levels.
A buy in of $9.99 gets you 100 million Sandbux and a team name. Make more Sandbux available for more money.
Use the Sandbux to retain and sign veterans in a bidding type system.
You want Megatron and he's a free agent? Either cut players until you can afford to bid the moon for him, or recharge your bux for $4.99 and get an extra 20 million to spend, as long as it doesn't go above your league's cap limit.
There is a market out there that will throw $50-100 down per year to be in a 250 million salary cap league with 12 probowl rosters.
It's going to take some more thinking, but that's the basic idea.

On another note, I'm trying to get an idea for the amount of time that will eventually be involved. Having one team in league 2 has made it difficult to gauge the pace of the game and season in general. The site says sims happen from Jan-Mid March. That's more than one game a week.
I'm hooked, but don't know how much of that is from feeling cool about being a beta tester. Free agency and team trades are one of the big points I'm wondering about. Will there be a moratorium on movement until the next season is declared open? What's to keep someone who is dumping their team from parting it out after the season, or before the next season? Off season trades will need to be monitored pretty closely, especially if you can manage more than one team.

I think a tremendous amount of people will get frustrated If they are at a competitive disadvantage because they can't financially keep up with some idle wall street banker. I know of games structured this way and they use free to get in then $$$$ to be competitive as a route to making money. Personally, I would prefer an annual one-time fee.

If we have Daniel Snyder type leagues, they will be completely separate from the mainstream leagues that will be a single fee per year.

I hear ya, and I would be one that managed it as tightly as I could. However, as an NFL owner, if you can't buy your way out of trouble with US Dollars in America, what good are they?

I think I have figured out how to do injuries for the playoffs.

The short version is that players placed on injured reserve during the regular season are out. Players who played in week 16 are in. Players who missed week 16 without being placed on IR have a chance of coming back in the playoffs.

I thought about whether to introduce new injuries randomly during the playoffs. I'm leaning against it, since it could have a huge effect and would represent a clear departure from the history of the actual NFL, if for example, Tom Brady received a severe injury during the first round of the playoffs. Does anyone really want random injuries to pop up during the playoffs?

The details of how I will accurately :D estimate the odds that a player can comeback from a week 16 injury are a little mathy. I think I'll keep that a Sandbox Corporate secret. I'll vet it with Rain Man, but I'm pretty happy with this idea.

We're on standby for the sims. I need to edit the database and the control panel to the host seems to be down. :#

:thumb: