Season 4 Suggestion Box

redlinederby Wednesday, 12/1/2010
Site manager

We're just about halfway through Season 3 in the League, so it's time to start thinking about Season 4. I don't think I'll have a charity race between season this time. Frankly, I just need a break and it's getting cold here in Ohio. Unfortunately my race track is in our patio room and when it's cold outside, it's cold in there.

So I haven't picked a start date for Season 4 yet, BUT if there are any updates to make for the next season, I need to start planning them out.

What are your suggestions for Season 4?

What more do you want to see?
What should go away?
Any ideas for new features?

I don't have any major updates in my head at this point, just minor bug fixes and clean-up stuff. If there isn't anything major to work on for the main site, I might start to dig into a Facebook port more seriously. The Facebook hook-ups for sharing achievements works great but it's a one-way street and it should really go both ways.

Please post your feedback, good and bad, and we'll take it from there. Thanks!


Discussion

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redlinederby 12/18/10
Site manager

While thinking ahead about the last few races, I decided one thing I will try to add before next season is the ability to create tournaments with AND or OR restrictions when stacking them. Right now restrictions are AND-based, so if Ford and Non-FTE are checked, only cars that meet both criteria are valid for submission. I hope to add OR-based to the mix, so in that same example, you could only pick cars that are either Ford or Non-FTE.

Actually, that's a bad example because that wouldn't get us anything...but I'm thinking in terms of races that can be American and International but NOT Fantasy models. So American OR International, but not Fantasy.

I think such a feature would let me create some more interesting tournaments by guiding picks a bit more.
But we'll see...

I'm also going to see what it would take to let players view bracket results of other players. Right now you can only "light up" your own picks when the results come in. Being able to see the picks of the other players would be interesting and probably lead to some more discussion. I think this is a bit more complicated to add to the system, but I think it's worth it.


Anyone else think of anything they'd like to see?

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iowastockcars 12/21/10

This isnt a major thing at all, are you able to remove the cars that are past champions when we are picking our cars for the tournaments?

Kids get bummed out when they see those Cadillac V16s

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GrabberGT 1/14/11

I think something needs to be done to get more results for newer cars. There are cars in the Season 3 final that prob should not be there. I'd like to think that just about ANY of the cars from the "Anything Goes" tourny could beat the focus or Pontiac Rageous. Maybe there should be a face off of the final 4 from each race every 4 races. Kind of like Quarter Season Finals. Then for the Season Championship pick the final 4 from each of those Quarter finals.

think something needs to be done to get more results for newer cars. There are cars in the Season 3 final that prob should not be there. I'd like to think that just about ANY of the cars from the "Anything Goes" tourny could beat the focus or Pontiac Rageous

Im not so sure about that. Consider the Ford Focus. Who did he beat?

One of the Batman Cars-
That car has two wins and two losses. Both losses are against cars that won their bracket and are in the final race for the season--Ford Focus and the BMW M Roadster.

Double Shotz-
He has only lost two races as well along with 5 wins. The two losses are against the Focus and against the top Car that people pick every week that hasn't made it in--67 Pontiac Firebird 400.

Also taking into consideration the cars Batman and Double Shotz did beat and then who those cars raced against, they deserve a chance.

If either pulls some upsets in the final race, if people pick them--that may be golden for their final score. That is what makes this soooooo much fun.

Initally, I didn't pick either car because I never had any experience with them. Now I have my eye out for them to pick them up and add them to my racing collection.

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redlinederby 1/15/11
Site manager

Keep in mind the cars racing are the cars people pick. I don't sway any of the cars, I just run them down a track. Whichever car wins, wins. Saying some cars "shouldn't be there" makes no sense because if they win (which they obviously did) then they deserve to be there.

I admit that seeing some cars win and some cars lose is frustrating, especially when playing a game. There are often lots of "upsets" in this game. Hell, I own these cars and seeing some of them win still surprises me...but like Iowa said, that's what makes it fun. Placing all your chips on a car only to see it lose sucks, but live and learn and move on to the next race.

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Goolz11 1/16/11

What about expanding the field to 32?

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redlinederby 1/16/11
Site manager

I looked at a 32-car setup when I expanded the league into bracket picking but decided on two, 16-car tourneys (which is 32 anyway) for a couple reasons. One, programming and designing for 16 cars was nicer than 32, it let me keep the bracket in one page. Secondly, having 2 tourneys lets us all experience a wider range of cars since tournaments are restricted by class.

Rather than having a 32-car tournament of all one class, say international, I can do two types in one shot. Also, early on if I didn't have 32 cars in a class then it wouldn't be able to race.

Given the limited time I have to race, doing two 16-cars is about all I can handle. Two 32-car tourneys is just too much than I can do reliably week after week.

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Goolz11 2/2/11

I think that I'm ready to get it started...

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redlinederby 2/17/11
Site manager

Just wanted to mention that there really aren't any updates for Season 4. There really wasn't enough in my head to warrant a major update outside of a view new pages and minor fixes.

There will be some new achievements added and of course new cars (about 30 of them!) but no major changes otherwise.

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redlinederby 2/24/11
Site manager

So I'm changing my mind. I think all I needed was a little deadline to motivate me It happens.

That being said, here's the updates I plan on making before the start of the season:

One tournament per car per weekend. This serves two purposes. 1) It should promote more car variety in races. 2) It eliminates the chance of the same car winning both races in a weekend, which throws off the season. This frees me up a bit in the class restriction department too since I won't have to worry about duplicate winners.

The Rookie Prediction (name pending). I was trying to think up something new to add to the season that was different from the brackets. I don't really want to mess with the brackets because that's a lot of programming that is working and I don't want to risk messing it all up. So my thought for the Rookie Prediction is that prior to the start of the season, players pick the one new rookie car that they think will end the season with the highest rating. Once the season starts the picks are all locked in per player and once the season ends, every player that picked the right cars gets some bonus points. You don't lose anything if you made the wrong pick, you just don't get anything extra.

So what do think? Good changes, bad changes?

Eventually I'd like to find some sort of feature that adds a concept of the garage back to the game. A stable of cars that players pick and then some how it generates or loses points. Something that has some risk in it for the more "advanced" players. I dunno...I know the bracket picking is fun and cool but I'd like to find a nice way to gracefully add more complex play for those that want to do more. ....but that's all in later seasons...maybe...

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JDC442 3/26/11

Eventually I'd like to find some sort of feature that adds a concept of the garage back to the game. A stable of cars that players pick and then some how it generates or loses points. Something that has some risk in it for the more "advanced" players. I dunno...I know the bracket picking is fun and cool but I'd like to find a nice way to gracefully add more complex play for those that want to do more. ....but that's all in later seasons...maybe...

I like this idea. I had a lot of fun in season 1 keeping a garage.
What about keeping one car from each class (Ferrari, FTE, Muscle, Fantasy etc.) in your garage that you'd have to change every week. Then if that car is picked and wins you get a few extra points. You might even get points if your car is runner up.

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