Your Chance To Participate In A New Football Phenomenon (Sandbox Simulations)

[Rain Man]

I apologize if the mods think this is soliciting, and I guess it is, but at the same time it's beta testing a new product developed by long-time planeteers, and it's free.

cdcox and I have been developing a new football game for the thoughtful fan, where players build franchises and compete against each other. A description is below.

If you're interested, we're offering the game for free in Year 1 to Chiefsplanet members, with the goal of both giving the system a dry run and also hooking you like Phillip Morris. You can go to www.sandboxsimulations.com to sign up, and use the access code 6Lanier3.

Here's the overview:

Build and manage a full 53-player roster over multiple seasons, as an offseason activity to give you year-round football

Select your personnel to match your offensive and defensive scheme. Every position matters – even your blocking tight end.

Realistic and accurate simulations of league games based on head-to-head matchups against other teams in your league.


This is essentially a new concept in fantasy football that attempts to simulate as closely as possible the management of a real NFL franchise over a multi-year period. Unlike regular fantasy football, every position on the offense and defense contributes to your success or failure. On special teams, the punter, kicker, and kick returners matter.

In Sandbox Football you will build a team – an entire 53-man football team – via an initial draft, and will maintain it year after year in annual rookie drafts, trading periods, and free agency. You compete against teams in your league. In the first year of the game, before the start of the NFL season, you will build your roster by drafting veterans and rookies through separate drafts, and through trades with other teams in the league. Your roster is frozen at the beginning of the NFL season. During the real regular NFL season, you can focus on your traditional fantasy games and perhaps keep on eye on your Sandbox roster as our statistical models build the data on player performances. At the end of the regular NFL season, the Sandbox season begins. There will be 16 games in the season. In real time, the season will run about 8 weeks (2 alternate reality games per week).

Game outcomes will be simulated based on the performance of individual players during the just-completed NFL regular season. The simulations, developed by a PhD statistical expert, estimate how individual players will perform in the context of your alternate reality team competing head-to-head against other teams in the league and with the specific team that you have built. The simulations will consider the offensive and defensive schemes that you select. So you can build your roster to support a power running game or a high-flying passing attack. You can run a 3-4 or 4-3 base defense. You can run nickel formations or four-wide receiver sets. You can rotate your DL to keep them fresh.

The game is more about building a team than playing video games. So this isn't Madden, but you will have the ability to tweak your game plan to take the best advantage of your roster and the weaknesses of your opponent. Injuries are a factor in the game. If a player is unavailable during weeks 3 through 6 in the NFL, he is also unavailable during the same weeks in the alternate reality season. So roster depth matters. The game simulations are based on the most advanced statistics and the latest research regarding what matters in winning an NFL game. But, the outcomes of the games have a random component, just like real NFL games.

The calendar for the alternate reality league year will look something like this:
• Jan to Mid March: Alternate Reality regular season and playoffs.
• Mid-March to the beginning of NFL season: Roster building through trades, veteran draft (first year), free agent drafts (2nd year and beyond), and rookie draft.
• Beginning of NFL season to end of regular NFL season: Alternate reality league is dormant, but the NFL players are generating their performance stats for the up-coming AR league.
• Rinse and repeat.

Copyright Sandbox Simulations, all rights reserved.

We're still finalizing the cost structure, but this won't be an expensive game to play at all. It might range from a few bucks a year to $50 per year, depending on a few factors.

Year 1 will require a couple of days of drafting with rather high intensity, but we've got it set up where you can put your draft list together and do customized and automated drafting if you like.

So...go! Now! Time to get ready for the draft!

[rageeumr]

Originally Posted by DMAC

Still has to refresh to move up or down. This will take a while...

Ya I have the same problem with FF. Downloaded chrome just to try it, and same deal. I have a crappy ISP here at work, but I was having the same problem at home where I typically have ~12 Mbps.

I basically gave up on setting up an exhaustive draft board and I'm going to roll the dice that I can be around for a lot of my picks.

[AndChiefs]

I would suggest changing the players listings to be by position rather than one long list. For instance, if I really want a QB in round three it should be simple for me to look and see what QB's are still available so I can determine which ones to target.

With a huge, long list I'm practically guaranteed to miss an attractive drafting target and end up with a lesser team.

[rageeumr]

Originally Posted by AndChiefs

I would suggest changing the players listings to be by position rather than one long list. For instance, if I really want a QB in round three it should be simple for me to look and see what QB's are still available so I can determine which ones to target.

With a huge, long list I'm practically guaranteed to miss an attractive drafting target and end up with a lesser team.

Ya, but it's just so hard to know what I will want. If there's an insane run on QB's, you could be stuck with Tyler Palko if you wait until the 3rd round.

[noa]

If possible to add this functionality, I think it would be very helpful if we could put a number next to the players on our draft board to represent their priority, rather than having to click the up or down arrows many times.
Posted via Mobile Device

[AndChiefs]

Originally Posted by rageeumr

Ya, but it's just so hard to know what I will want. If there's an insane run on QB's, you could be stuck with Tyler Palko if you wait until the 3rd round.

Then set up a draft board for that round with several different positions. I.E. If Cassel gets drafted here than I want Steve Breaston. If Breaston gets drafted than I want Ricky Stanzi. (Yes I realize that no one in their right mind would draft in this kind of order just using Chiefs for examples).

In the current listing you may not realize that Breaston was still available because you didn't go looking specifically for his name. Therefore, you end up with Stanzi instead of your top choice which would've been Breaston. (Assuming Cassel was drafted in the round of course).

[Iowanian]

First thoughts.

It's a little clunky to set your draft board, specifically, I don't like that it resets the order of the names list after every move. Also, in a perfect world, there would be some stats from the previous year, position rankings last year?

The other consideration.....is this a single year roster? Are we building a dynasty team? IS there a salary cap or any considerations like that?

[Pestilence]

Anyone in any of the other leagues who wants to move up and take my team? I gotta back out. I'm not going to have the time for this.

[Fat Elvis]

I have my first three rounds ready to go.

[Fat Elvis]

Originally Posted by DMAC

Still has to refresh to move up or down. This will take a while...

It takes a long while.

[Fat Elvis]

The user interface was created by Domo.

[cdcox]

I'm trying to do my real job today, so I won't be on much until evening. However a quick mid-day update.

1. To find all of the QBs, type "qb" in the search box above the player lists. The search function is good and fast because the page doesn't have to reload. This will at least make it easy to find players.

2. Yeah, the draft board sucks. In development mode I was running with a test database of about 10 or 15 players on my localhost and it ran great. Not so much with 1800 players and going through a shared host and networks. It is going to need some kind of rework, but it will probably take a few days, maybe longer.

3. Email notification is close to being done. I should have that working tonight. So that will help with manually drafting during working hours.

4. I'm considering not advancing who is on the clock between midnight and 6:00 AM Central time. You could still draft, but your time slot would not expire during those hours. Honestly, after the first 5 rounds or so, I don't think it will matter that much if you miss a couple of slots. I'm a little worried about getting that coded correctly on short notice and it will significantly slow down the draft. I'm really on the fence on this one. What do you think?

5. If we need to extend the draft by a week or two into the beginning of the season, it probably wouldn't be the end of the world.

Thanks for your patience and honest feedback. We really want to make this work.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by tooge

I'm probably a retard, but I'm trying to set up my board, and all I get are the guys whos name starts with the letter A as options. How do I scroll down?

Should be a scroll bar on the edge of the list.

Also, do more searching and less scrolling.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

The other consideration.....is this a single year roster? Are we building a dynasty team? IS there a salary cap or any considerations like that?

Dynasty team. No salary cap in version 1, maybe later.

[rageeumr]

Originally Posted by cdcox

4. I'm considering not advancing who is on the clock between midnight and 6:00 AM Central time. You could still draft, but your time slot would not expire during those hours. Honestly, after the first 5 rounds or so, I don't think it will matter that much if you miss a couple of slots. I'm a little worried about getting that coded correctly on short notice and it will significantly slow down the draft. I'm really on the fence on this one. What do you think?

I'm in favor of this.

One more thing - it appears that the default penalty for missing your pick is that you get skipped. Is there any way to change this to reverting to your draft board? I can see a lot of issues with people forgetting to check the autopick box, especially overnight.

[tooge]

Sorry, this is too slow for me right now. Good luck guys! I love the idea though. If anyone wants my team (Flint Knappers), PM me and you can take it over. It is league 1