Wolverine Studios Releases DDS: College Basketball 2

[Izulde]

Wolverine Studios is proud to announce the release of Draft Day Sports: College Basketball 2! You can purchase DDS:CB2 from our webstore for $34.95 and then after your purchase go to the DDS:CB2 homepage and download the files. All those who participated in FirstAccess should also download and install the full version of the game. One word of caution - if you have modded files please move them out of your directory first before the install since the install will overwrite everything.

Here's what's been added this year to the best college basketball game on the market....

New - Totally redone GUI allowing for full screen play and a host of data widgets to let you follow all the details of your association
New! - Assistant Coach Mode allows you to start off your coaching career as an assistant coach, performing tasks to help your team win while building up your reputation while you work toward your goal of becoming a head coach
New! - A brand new fictional league setting allows you to setup your collegiate game world in a system of promotion and relegation. The conference lines are completely redrawn creating superconferences and your goal is to work your way to the top conference and bring home the national championship.
New - "GameView" mode gives you another way to watch and coach your games
New - The DII challenge allows you to take one of five fictional schools who are trying to qualify for DI status. Can you recruit enough talent and win enough games against the big boys to belong as a DI member?
New! - Four additional teams added to the main post season tournament to field the tournament with four play in games plus an all new 16 team third postseason tournament added as well
New! - Progressive injury healing, lockable rotations, new game modifiers, assistant coach career tracking and much, much more!

If you want to learn more about each of those new features visit our page http://www.wolverinestudios.com/ddscb2p2.html to do so.

[MizzouRah]

Awesome.. forgot I bought this awhile back during beta. Can't wait to get into college bball fever!

[kingfc22]

Cool. Can't wait to see what people have to say.

[dawgfan]

Yep, curious to hear reviews. Hard for me to imagine I'd like this better than FBCB2, but competition is good.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Yep, curious to hear reviews. Hard for me to imagine I'd like this better than FBCB2, but competition is good.

Seriously? FBCB likeFOF was a great game back in 2003.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Seriously? FBCB likeFOF was a great game back in 2003.

I've liked them both... FBCB is great when I want to plow through a few seasons quickly while DDSCB (I haven't played the newest yet) was more of a slower paced sim for me.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Seriously? FBCB likeFOF was a great game back in 2003.

Old doesn't automatically equal bad. And I don't know if you've played the latest patches of FBCB2, but it's awesome.

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Seriously? FBCB likeFOF was a great game back in 2003.

Have you played the newest? I really feel it has almost the perfect blend of depth and simplicity....

[Young Drachma]

The D2 mode intrigues me slightly, but not enough to spend $35 for the game. FBCB2 gets the job done for me no question. This game does have a slicker interface, but the first time I hit a RTE would be enough to keep me out.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

The D2 mode intrigues me slightly, but not enough to spend $35 for the game. FBCB2 gets the job done for me no question. This game does have a slicker interface, but the first time I hit a RTE would be enough to keep me out.

To be fair, you get RTE's from time to time in FBCB2 also, though Brian is very quick at releasing updates to address those issues.

Brian's fantastic customer service is one of the reasons I'm a huge FBCB fan.

[sovereignstar v2]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Seriously? FBCB likeFOF was a great game back in 2003.

Some people like runtime errors. Other people play FOF and FBCB.

[cubboyroy1826]

I will definitely give the demo a whirl and see how things look from there. I am going to pickup a new college basketball game this year for sure just not sure which one.

[Scoobz0202]

Has anybody downloaded the demo? I tried installing it to give it a spin and the layout is all out of whack for me. Check boxes do not line up at all.. that kind of thing. So out of whack it's unplayable for me. Is it just me?

System Specs:

Windows 7 64 bit
i5 2500K
8 gb ram
radeon hd 6950 2gb

24 inch monitor at 1920x1080

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

Has anybody downloaded the demo? I tried installing it to give it a spin and the layout is all out of whack for me. Check boxes do not line up at all.. that kind of thing. So out of whack it's unplayable for me. Is it just me?

System Specs:

Windows 7 64 bit
i5 2500K
8 gb ram
radeon hd 6950 2gb

24 inch monitor at 1920x1080

Is your DPI set to "normal"? That usually seems to be the cause of this.

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Is your DPI set to "normal"? That usually seems to be the cause of this.

Not able to check right now, but I'm sure that's it. My DPI is not the default. Thanks.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

Some people like runtime errors. Other people play FOF and FBCB.

Look through the DDSPB2 thread here - very stable as has been DDSCB2 all through the public testing period. The forums were open to the public from day one to follow the progress of the game. DDSPB2 was the first game I did in .NET and now DDSCB2 has followed and it has increased the stability.

I can't say there won't be a RTE but obviously if there are things wrong I'll patch them up in short order and like I said anything that has been brought up over the beta period was fixed.

As for the comment I don't really see the point. If you don't like me or my games that's fine but why bother to comment? There's few enough people left who play these games - why try to drive them away?

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Look through the DDSPB2 thread here - very stable as has been DDSCB2 all through the public testing period. The forums were open to the public from day one to follow the progress of the game. DDSPB2 was the first game I did in .NET and now DDSCB2 has followed and it has increased the stability.

I can't say there won't be a RTE but obviously if there are things wrong I'll patch them up in short order and like I said anything that has been brought up over the beta period was fixed.

As for the comment I don't really see the point. If you don't like me or my games that's fine but why bother to comment? There's few enough people left who play these games - why try to drive them away?

Sov's forgetting that he's not supposed to be a douche anymore is all I suspect.

[Mota]

Hey Gary, congrats on the release! I bought the game a long time ago but have been waiting for the official release to get into it, look forward to taking my Gators to glory!

[mauchow]

Originally Posted by Mota

Hey Gary, congrats on the release! I bought the game a long time ago but have been waiting for the official release to get into it, look forward to taking my Gators to glory!

Ditto..

Gonna bring the lappy to work and play at work over the next few weeks. I'll probably start up a dynasty, too.

[Passacaglia]

New! - Assistant Coach Mode allows you to start off your coaching career as an assistant coach, performing tasks to help your team win while building up your reputation while you work toward your goal of becoming a head coach
New! - A brand new fictional league setting allows you to setup your collegiate game world in a system of promotion and relegation. The conference lines are completely redrawn creating superconferences and your goal is to work your way to the top conference and bring home the national championship.
New - The DII challenge allows you to take one of five fictional schools who are trying to qualify for DI status. Can you recruit enough talent and win enough games against the big boys to belong as a DI member?

These all sound awesome.

[Balldog]

I messed around with the demo this evening and for the most part I don't see a whole lot different than the original other than it was more stable and the features listed.

I find that recruiting is just cumbersome and redundant. The recruits respond with the exact same messages as the usual. Also when calling recruits the they still hang up too quickly and you are not able to see the feedback just like the original.

I also had a NBA locker room with Akron, every week players were getting into physical altercations with each other. Then when I'd try to have a conversation with a player and ask them to stop fighting they would all tell me to basically f-ck off. I think this area needs some fine tuning.

This game has a lot of positives too, I think it just boils down to what are you looking for. FBCB to me is simple yet immersive while DDSCB2 is more complex and immersive. DDSCB does a better job of presenting the world to you while FBCB makes you work for it but you can get into the games in a matter of minutes.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

Some people like runtime errors. Other people play FOF and FBCB.

This IS NOT a thread about FBCB vs DDSCB, keep these comments to yourself please.

Sheesh.. Gary comes on here to announce his new release and we get comments like these.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Thanks for the announcement, Gary! I'll load the new update tonight and get started on a dynasty!

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by Balldog

I messed around with the demo this evening and for the most part I don't see a whole lot different than the original other than it was more stable and the features listed.

A totally redone GUI, three brand new ways to play the game (asst. coach, promotion/relegation, DII challenge), new additions ("GameView" mode, third post season tourney) and improvements made to most of the other facets of the game isn't "a whole lot different"?

I find that recruiting is just cumbersome and redundant. The recruits respond with the exact same messages as the usual. Also when calling recruits the they still hang up too quickly and you are not able to see the feedback just like the original.

I disagree that its cumbersome and redundant - it's deep with some recruiting features other games don't have. You can find out if players fit your team's style, you have potential influence of parents, you have to dig to find what is important to the recruit...its so much more than "Player X has rating Y in scoring so recruit him".

Now as for the same message or a recruit hanging up too quickly...obviously you weren't part of the beta and that wasn't brought up but that's something that can be fixed/changed and doesn't really seem like a reason to dismiss the game.

I also had a NBA locker room with Akron, every week players were getting into physical altercations with each other. Then when I'd try to have a conversation with a player and ask them to stop fighting they would all tell me to basically f-ck off. I think this area needs some fine tuning.

Well just because it happened to you doesn't mean its either not possible or needs fine tuning. It's actually meant to have that as a possibility. I realize it sucks as the coach but if you are the coach and that is your team then you need to do what you need to do...even if that means giving a good player the boot because he's ruining the team and to me that is realistic.

This game has a lot of positives too, I think it just boils down to what are you looking for. FBCB to me is simple yet immersive while DDSCB2 is more complex and immersive. DDSCB does a better job of presenting the world to you while FBCB makes you work for it but you can get into the games in a matter of minutes.

I appreciate the acknowledgement that there are positives to the game and I agree the games are very different. I'm glad that you point out the complexity and immersiveness of DDSCB2 - its definitely meant to have more to the game world as I try to take my games more down the path of FM. The games are meant to be more than put the players with the best ratings out there and generate some numbers.

[sovereignstar v2]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

This IS NOT a thread about FBCB vs DDSCB, keep these comments to yourself please.

Sheesh.. Gary comes on here to announce his new release and we get comments like these.

Go play some more Football Mogul. Nice touch in quoting me and not Galaril douche.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

Go play some more Football Mogul. Nice touch in quoting me and not Galaril douche.

v2 sucks.. maybe you can make a v3?

[Balldog]

What is "GameView" mode? I went to watch a game and it didn't appear to be any different than the original but maybe I am missing something.

[jbergey22]

Awesome. Congrats on the release.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by Balldog

What is "GameView" mode? I went to watch a game and it didn't appear to be any different than the original but maybe I am missing something.

Its a different presentation of the game. Same coaching options etc but a different way to view the information.

[Balldog]

I just started another game, this time with NC Central just to see if I got the same kind of mischief.

Week 1:
Mike Brown had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though.

Week 2:
Michael Tebbs had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though.

Kyle Roland had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though.

Tarrell Hallbauer spent too much time talking junk and picking petty fights rather than playing ball. Hopefully this isn't an ongoing occurance.

Week 3:
Mike Yarbrough had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though.

Michael Tebbs spent too much time talking junk and picking petty fights rather than playing ball. Hopefully this isn't an ongoing occurance.

Earl Floyd had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though.

Tarrell Hallbauer spent too much time talking junk and picking petty fights rather than playing ball. Hopefully this isn't an ongoing occurance.

Week 4:
Mike Yarbrough had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though.

Michael Tebbs had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though.

Kyle Roland had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though.

Earl Floyd spent too much time talking junk and picking petty fights rather than playing ball. Hopefully this isn't an ongoing occurance.

Tarrell Hallbauer was just a complete nuisance this week. He had more players want to punch him in the face than good plays. You might want to have a talk with him because he might be a chemistry killer.

Week 5:
Tyrone Gordon had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though.

Mike Yarbrough spent too much time talking junk and picking petty fights rather than playing ball. Hopefully this isn't an ongoing occurance.

Michael Tebbs had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though.

Kyle Roland was a primary source of problem this week. It seems like anytime there was too much trash talking going on he was right there in the middle of it. Better keep an eye on him and make sure it doesn't develop further.

Earl Floyd spent too much time talking junk and picking petty fights rather than playing ball. Hopefully this isn't an ongoing occurance.

Tarrell Hallbauer spent too much time talking junk and picking petty fights rather than playing ball. Hopefully this isn't an ongoing occurance.

Mike Brown was a primary source of problem this week. It seems like anytime there was too much trash talking going on he was right there in the middle of it. Better keep an eye on him and make sure it doesn't develop further.



That is six players getting into conflicts before the season even starts, maybe I am just having bad luck. I like the idea of the feature but its a little over the top to me.

This isn't women's basketball

[Balldog]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Its a different presentation of the game. Same coaching options etc but a different way to view the information.

I saw this last night, I like the new GameView quite a bit. A very nice addition.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by Balldog

That is six players getting into conflicts before the season even starts, maybe I am just having bad luck. I like the idea of the feature but its a little over the top to me.

This isn't women's basketball

When you get the weekly incident report its meant to be a recap of an entire week so when it says "Mike Brown had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though." there's two things happening.

First is the game is trying to give you a clue that Mike Brown either has a potentially disruptive personality or that Mike Brown's personality clashes with another player on your team.

Second is that its trying to represent that over the course of a week of practice of competitive, college age kids that the player had some kind of incident and by incident I don't mean he punched another kid out - it could be he gave a hard foul in practice, did a little pushing when a play got too heated, called one of his teammates a bitch...any number of little things like that.

In looking at it from your feedback I think what I need to do is perhaps make the explanations more detailed in the game. I can see where you read the same thing a dozen times and think "whoa this is way over the top" when its really just an over simplification on my part of what I was trying to represent.

The intent of the whole thing is to a) give your players some personality rather than just being numbers and b) to give you some clues as to who's personalities are clashing and why that may be. If you see one guy who seems to get in trouble all the time then its probably a fairly safe bet he's just got a cancerous personality but if its two guys who only seem to fight with each other you know its some type of personal conflict there.

Do me this favor at least - let me try and make the area a bit more specific and release an update (which will be workable with the demo) before you decide one way or the other on the game. I appreciate the feedback and as always if there's something I can do to improve the game I'm always willing to listen.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

When you get the weekly incident report its meant to be a recap of an entire week so when it says "Mike Brown had one or two minor conflicts this week. Nothing to be overly concerned about though." there's two things happening.

First is the game is trying to give you a clue that Mike Brown either has a potentially disruptive personality or that Mike Brown's personality clashes with another player on your team.

Second is that its trying to represent that over the course of a week of practice of competitive, college age kids that the player had some kind of incident and by incident I don't mean he punched another kid out - it could be he gave a hard foul in practice, did a little pushing when a play got too heated, called one of his teammates a bitch...any number of little things like that.

In looking at it from your feedback I think what I need to do is perhaps make the explanations more detailed in the game. I can see where you read the same thing a dozen times and think "whoa this is way over the top" when its really just an over simplification on my part of what I was trying to represent.

The intent of the whole thing is to a) give your players some personality rather than just being numbers and b) to give you some clues as to who's personalities are clashing and why that may be. If you see one guy who seems to get in trouble all the time then its probably a fairly safe bet he's just got a cancerous personality but if its two guys who only seem to fight with each other you know its some type of personal conflict there.

Do me this favor at least - let me try and make the area a bit more specific and release an update (which will be workable with the demo) before you decide one way or the other on the game. I appreciate the feedback and as always if there's something I can do to improve the game I'm always willing to listen.

Ohhh...total misunderstanding on my part on past versions of the game too on this. More detail on this would be good...yeah. I always overreact in DDSPB2 and what-not to these type of things too.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Ohhh...total misunderstanding on my part on past versions of the game too on this. More detail on this would be good...yeah. I always overreact in DDSPB2 and what-not to these type of things too.

+1

[DaddyTorgo]

I <3 Gary Gorski's responsiveness to customers BTW.

[markprior22]

I downloaded and looked at the demo last night and was pretty impressed. Kinda strapped for cash right now but I imagine I'll buy this game at some point.

[MizzouRah]

Gary, I posted a few questions over at your forums under technical support.

One of them was, I'm noticing the redraw of the screen fairly slow when clicking on different parts of the game, anyone else noticing that?

[Gary Gorski]

Posted answers to your questions - will definitely check out anything based on your responses and feedback

[jbergey22]

I will probably buy this very soon.

I was just wondering if you had updated the game engine at all. I mean the stats were always fine in your games but the results didnt always seem "realistic."

Too many 30+ point games and very few 10- point games.

Also, in DDCB1 the scores were too high when watching or coaching the games. They seemed ok on the sim engine though so Im not sure if its two different engines or why that would be.

[Gary Gorski]

On the subject of the "weekly incidents" - do you all like a format like this better?

Chris Moore and Larry Sykes kept taking cheap shots at each other during a scrimmage

Shamar Tatum and Jaron Kennard slacked off at practice because they were too busy messing around with each other

Jaron Kennard and Chris Wright slacked off at practice because they were too busy messing around with each other

Chris Moore took a hard foul from Tim Smith and got up and shoved him back

Chris Moore and Shamar Tatum spent all practice trying to one up each other

Kareem Harper shoved Chris Wright after a play and went to retaliate but the team broke it up

Chris Moore and Chris Wright slacked off at practice because they were too busy messing around with each other

Its just something I put together and needs to have more added to it so that there are more options but is this a) more appealing to read and follow and b) give you a better idea of who seems to be involved in each problem so you can attack the issue better?

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

On the subject of the "weekly incidents" - do you all like a format like this better?



Its just something I put together and needs to have more added to it so that there are more options but is this a) more appealing to read and follow and b) give you a better idea of who seems to be involved in each problem so you can attack the issue better?

IMO this would be a better feature if it only gave us emails on important stuff or when we needed to do something about the problem.

When you are trying to fast sim through a season and you get these emails every week it becomes really annoying.

I cant remember right now. Is their an option to have the assistant coach deal with team chemistry issues? That might be a solution for fast simmers.

But to answer your question. Yes I like that much better.

[Gary Gorski]

Just to follow up that post this is a reason I really like this feature so much. Chris Moore seems to be involved in a number of problems - well sure enough his personality rating is barely even on the bar graph...BUT he's a 7-1 304 lb Freshman center. Do I take the chance of trying to "fix" his personality (or possibly make it worse) or do I boot the kid for the sake of the rest of the team. Can you boot a 7-1 300 lb freshman center???

I think decisions like this add a whole extra dimension to the game.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Just to follow up that post this is a reason I really like this feature so much. Chris Moore seems to be involved in a number of problems - well sure enough his personality rating is barely even on the bar graph...BUT he's a 7-1 304 lb Freshman center. Do I take the chance of trying to "fix" his personality (or possibly make it worse) or do I boot the kid for the sake of the rest of the team. Can you boot a 7-1 300 lb freshman center???

I think decisions like this add a whole extra dimension to the game.

In a college game you dont really boot kids unless they do some really bad things. I mean you could always bench the kid or suspend him but they'd have to be huge assholes to get kicked off the team. I tend to think in the college game chemistry problems arent as big of an issue as in the professional game.

You may get your freshman asshole every once in awhile but I dont think this is extremely common in college. Most of these kids are just trying to adapt and not trying to create enemies this early in life.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

In a college game you dont really boot kids unless they do some really bad things. I mean you could always bench the kid or suspend him but they have to be huge assholes to get kicked off the team. I tend to think in the college game chemistry problems arent as big of an issue as in the professional game.

You may get your freshman asshole every once in awhile but I dont think this is extremely common in college. Most of these kids are just trying to adapt and not trying to create enemies this early in life.

But as I said - this isn't necessarily that the kid is a complete asshole that nobody could ever stand the sight of...but I coach high school basketball and even there I always have something "chemistry" related. Maybe the kid is just a spoiled brat or he dated one of the other kids sisters or two of them liked the same girl or whatever...there's chemistry involved in college basketball for sure and I think more of in a way that personalities clash because they're kids adjusting to becoming adults and dealing with just problems of being kids as opposed to the pro level where chemistry seems to be more about being familiar with your teammates and reacting in a put off manner to those around you that haven't matured and figured out how to act like a professional/adult.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

But as I said - this isn't necessarily that the kid is a complete asshole that nobody could ever stand the sight of...but I coach high school basketball and even there I always have something "chemistry" related. Maybe the kid is just a spoiled brat or he dated one of the other kids sisters or two of them liked the same girl or whatever...there's chemistry involved in college basketball for sure and I think more of in a way that personalities clash because they're kids adjusting to becoming adults and dealing with just problems of being kids as opposed to the pro level where chemistry seems to be more about being familiar with your teammates and reacting in a put off manner to those around you that haven't matured and figured out how to act like a professional/adult.

I like the feature Gary however Im not sure if we are given enough options on how to deal with it/fix it. Sure if you are NC or Duke just kick the kid of the team as you have plenty of other options however if you are coaching Ball St you surely arent going to want to boot your only 3 star player off the team. The only fix that I know of is to kick the kid off the team. A lot of times winning will cure chemistry issues or perhaps the kids father decided to have a talk with him and he will no longer be an issue. I just dont like that kicking a kid off the team or dealing with it are really the only two solutions.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Posted answers to your questions - will definitely check out anything based on your responses and feedback

Thank you Gary.. I like the new text format for player issues very much.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

I like the feature Gary however Im not sure if we are given enough options on how to deal with it/fix it. Sure if you are NC or Duke just kick the kid of the team as you have plenty of other options however if you are coaching Ball St you surely arent going to want to boot your only 3 star player off the team. The only fix that I know of is to kick the kid off the team. A lot of times winning will cure chemistry issues or perhaps the kids father decided to have a talk with him and he will no longer be an issue. I just dont like that kicking a kid off the team or dealing with it are really the only two solutions.

Kicking him off isn't the only way to deal with it - your best bet is using the phone feature to call him. You can ask him to change his attitude or you can even suspend him to give him a chance to cool off a bit and see if his attitude changes.

One other option too is to talk to the other people involved in the incidents too - if you have a team of really high personality guys and just the one disruptive guy he's going to do a lot less damage than if he's got other guys around who are problem players too.

Booting the player is really a last resort in dealing with the problem. It may be worth it even to keep him and his bad attitude and disruptive behavior if you're still winning.

[MizzouRah]

I love the fact I can start out as a 3rd assistance coach at Mizzou. Only thing the HC lets me do is run practices.

I passed up some low tier schools HC jobs so I can start at the bottom with Mizzou. ONE DAY I WILL COACH THERE!

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I love the fact I can start out as a 3rd assistance coach at Mizzou. Only thing the HC lets me do is run practices.

I passed up some low tier schools HC jobs so I can start at the bottom with Mizzou. ONE DAY I WILL COACH THERE!

I did the same. My job is to recruit.

[Mike D]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Awesome.. forgot I bought this awhile back during beta. Can't wait to get into college bball fever!

Same here. I'll give it a whirl tonight.