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Hey team,

Just wanted to let you know that I love the new layout. I have the disadvantage of having been here since September so am relearning how to get to all the places I want to go to. Good news is I bear only the most superficial resemblance and characteristics of a semi-retarded chimpanzee and so should be up to speed in no time.

This is a small detail but one thing I really miss on the selection sheets for when you are choosing movies is knowing the 'actual' studio that produced and will be doing the releases theatrically. I liked knowing if a film was being done by the Yari Film Group, Universal, or Bob's Big House O'film. A minor detail but one that I would think is of very serious reconsideration. Yes, I can do my own research (and will be!), but it was nice having the information handy -- thereby reducing my research routine by a couple of hours. Information is power and there are serious advantages to be had -- like knowing what films the Weinstein's are producing so that I don't choose them. I'm hopeful you'll consider bringing this back eventually! Feel free to tell me I'm lazy and to do my own work,*lol* I probably deserve it!

Anyway, you guys know I'm in your corner and backing you all the way. Keep up the great work!

I just had a question about the new leagues. Because the start and end dates are so rigid I was wondering if there would be new leagues that open each month and run for three months. The reason I say this is because there are quite a few movies that are released in July (Harry Potter, The Simpsons, Transformers, Chuck and Larry, etc.) that are going to be severely limited on their full potential. As a movie buff I would like to see the ability to run a league that overlaps with the current one, if even by a month, Say July to September, so that these movies can be picked up and used to their capability.
That being said, I really like the new layout and the new format. I think that the ability to OWN a movie a thereby talk trash is only a minor component to this game, and I think that the ability to share some movies while working within the salary cap to build the best overall slate more than compensates for that. It seems to me that the new format provides a level playing field upon which one can even more proudly brag. What is the fun in saying, ha ha I got the first pick and so I won! I know that there are some leagues out there that countered that tendency in other ways, but I think that the new format can allow them to focus more of their energy on picking the best mix of movies, and less on trying to make the game fair.
There are a few minor things that I would like to agree with others about. The ability to email everyone in a league, especially a private league is sorely missed. Also the ability to change the number of studios in a league, at least up to the beginning date of the league would be nice. I would also like the ability to adjust the salary cap in at least the private leagues. But otherwise, I think that the new format is great. Keep up the good work!

D

OK, let's try to get caught up on a few recent comments. First, thanks to everyone for contributing, and hope you're enjoying the new site and games.

helfy91782: You gotta love the auction-style fantasy game. It's definitely fun, but as you said, pretty complicated and time-consuming. Of the three main formats of fantasy games -- auction, draft and salary cap -- we felt the salary cap was the most accessible while also having plenty of strategy and research involved. Different kinds of strategy than a draft style, in some areas, but similar in most ways and even better in others -- For example, you can still work to identify the eight movies that you think will help you out, with none of the frustration that comes when several of those movies end up on someone's else's slate.

Shryke42: RE the league size, you have the option to set your own leagues' limits at eight, or what you consider to be the ideal number. Having larger groups is just an option for those who want to take advantage of it. RE prizing, moviebabe said it best above:

moviebabe wrote:

we'll get there...we're pretty small and running on a shoestring right now, but we think that would be super cool as well!

RE league settings, we're definitely looking at some of these ideas for down the road. It would be fun to be able to customize some of your league's parameters like you suggest.

A_Roode: Thanks a lot for your kind comments, and you bet, it may take a little while to get used to how the furniture has been rearranged, but we think it's a better layout for the long run, and definitely makes it easier for us to grow and add things later, which we certainly will be doing.

I see your point about the real-life studio. As you can see, we're short on space on the actual add/drop page, but we should be able to find room for it on the movie popups and/or the movie pages. We'll definitely look into it soon.

dpilot4226: Also thanks for your comments, and glad you like the new site design. We're with you on the season schedules. There will indeed be new three-month seasons starting the first weekend of every month, so the next season will run from June 1-Sept 5. Every three-month season will have some movies that will open either shortly before the season starts or just before it ends, and that's factored into the prices for the movies.

Also hear you on the league communication and settings. We'll be rolling out the ability to increase the size of your leagues very shortly, and emailing studio owners is on the list too, for a little farther off. We're also looking into the idea of making the budget number customizable, as noted above.

Jake
Fantasy Moguls

As someone who plays a lot of fantasy in all its forms, a salary cap league is the least competitive. I understand the powers behind FM for doing it, as it allows for the whole universe to pick whatever. But Salary leagues are always universal. Which means that individual fantasy leagues normally don't play this style. This is what newspapers did for years, and it was you against the world. It enabled the masses to join in the fun and gave the newspapers a possible circulation expansion.

With the more I look at the new setup the more I see that all the charm of the game is getting thrown out with the dishwater. Even though you're trying to even the playing field during the summer, I think this change is knee jerk. Now instead of what originally was going to be a summer session till Sept, we'll be finishing on July 30. That pretty much screws anyone who picks the Potter, Chuck & Larry, Simpsons, Hairspray, and to some extent Transformer movies. They in no way will get the projected box office.

But now I read that you'll start new tri monthly games each month. That is obviously good business churn, but it does nothing for those of us who are trying to make this a competitve and somewhat lengthy competition. So under that type of gaming system I see no need for individual leagues. Just have the entire Fantasy Mogul membership play against each other every 3 months.

You took away several great aspects of this game from those of us who liked playing. No commish controls to set up the league that fits our play, no chat room for the league to gather, etc.....If you're going to have the ability for private leagues, let the private leagues have more controls for them..........please!!!

Sorry for the rant, but at the moment I don't think you built a better mousetrap. I could be proven wrong, but considering what we had to what we don't have now and the limited controls you have given us, I'm not optimistic. The over under is a great addition to the site and is played universally with the entire membership as a single competition. Honestly you should have done the same with the salary cap game!!

Okay, so I've now given .04!!
Jim

I second Cheever's point that the salary cap model is less competitive than the draft model. Who is going to be all ramped up about beating the guy with Pirates 3 when everyone has Pirates 3?

Okay, people who are playing a short 3 month season don't have a chance to beat the guy with Pirates 3 under the draft model. I understand that. So you changed the entire system, to accomodate players who are playing this short season and people who pop onto the site and want an easy, non-time consuming game. I understand that too.

But you do have some players who are interested in longer and more involved game play. I am wondering why you didn't leave any options for them, but the 3 month salary cap game. I've been here since Novemeber and I don't recall anyone clamoring for something to replace the draft on the message boards. Now that some of us are balking at the change and requesting that something be done to restore some drafting capability, we are only being told to do our best to try enjoying the new game.

Jake indicated that FM is working on improvements and additions to the game as it is, including league communications and displaying more movie data in pop-up screens. But nothing was proffered to remedy the dissatisfaction some of us have towards losing the draft. Has FM really jettisoned the old game so as to make it completely irretrievable? There was so much positive support for FM as it was before the change. Why would FM burn the bridge back to that?

Sorry, if I sound like an ingrate. I've really enjoyed paying fantasy films with FM. You've provided that service for free, so I really have no right to complain. But those of us who were happy with the previous model have started to speak up, and you don't seem to have anything to say other than "Just give the new game a try. It's better, trust us."

You're a small operation, so change is slow. That's understandable. If suggestions for addressing this concern are too work intensive for your staff or your servers, such as removing the budget limit for studios in a private league or keeping the old pages around for us to play on, then what choice do we have? But if these things are possible, I hope you will take them into serious consideration.

Of course, if you've got a better plan then we are all ears. The reason I am posting this is because, so far, we've heard no plan concerning those payers who prefer the more competitive draft model.

Perhaps we are the minority. In which case, you may consider us the Angel-A to your Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

Thanks again for all the great game play so far!

All I'll add about the salary cap feature is that in my current leagues we've reached a mutual agreement with each other, namely, that if everyone in the league picks, say, 'Spiderman 3', then we all agree to eliminate 'Spiderman 3' as an available choice and play with an alternate film(s) instead. We're trying to give the cap format a chance but we are also tailoring the cap to how it will best serve us.

A-Roode: That's seems to make perfect sense to me because if everyone has the same movie on their slate then it really doesn't matter how well (or how badly) it does. It simply becomes a common denominator. The way you are talking about it is as if you all have Spidey on your slates but because they cancel each other out you all still have $100 to buy other movies. An interesting side question? How many people are playing on your league and how often do you think this situation will occur? I mean there must be some people who believe in Pirates/Shrek/Spidey over the others, right?

~D

Prospero:

We are listening. And we do have a list of things that we'd still like to do with this game, and features that may come back as options which were on the previous game.

This game and site is a completely different set of code, which gives us a flexible foundation to build out more games over time, and makes it easier to add various modular options. But what that also means is that it's not as simple as waving a magic wand and adding a draft option back alongside the salary cap game.

There are a lot of reasons that the salary cap style game makes sense as the base game; we've talked about those in various places but I respect that fact that not everyone here agrees with us.

We're not blowing smoke when we say that we appreciate the feedback and will look at adding some of the features you miss as options on future game play. We will. But it's going to take us some time, and we still have some work to do here before we can start on that list. We have some brand new, never done before features to add to the gaming experience that will help make this kind of game even more fun and we want to make sure we get a chance to make those things happen too.

Please trust me when I tell you that the last thing we want to do is make the game less fun for anyone, and especially those of you who have supported us all along.

We'll keep responding to various questions/suggestions here, but I'd also welcome email directly to me at brenda@fantasymoguls.com and I'd be more than happy to respond to folks that way as well.

Brenda/moviebabe

oh, and on the salary game game play part of the conversation above...

keep in mind that what that really does is mean that you have to have a strategy for those mid level movies and which of those you think will overachieve...the Little Miss Sunshines and Borats etc and avoiding the Grindhouse-like misses. So the strategy is to not count yourself out by picking the wrong horse on the blockbuster level, and being smart enough to find the mid level picks which will give your studio the edge.

As an avid fantasy sports gamer I can say that having tried out both auction style and draft style competitions the drafts always provide for much more excitement.

Making it an auction just as a method to level the playing field seems a bit extreme. I'm sure there are other reasons that I'm unaware of and I'm quite disappointed I can't draft a slate anymore.

As a private league participant my friends and I enjoy all the friendly competition one has when two movies are going head to head. Now it's entirely possible to have 2 identical slates.

Also the fact that you don't have a choice to make the league extend into August seems odd. While August is traditionally a month filled with sub-par movies, it really takes the knees out of a lot of the July releases that won't realize their full potential. I know for a fact I won't take The Simpsons Movie anymore with only a week to accumulate points, even I think it will perform very well overall.

I understand this is a free service so I really have no right to complain but I'm quite bummed out that you pretty much forced this new method onto us without any option of continuing the previous one. That's just my two cents since you said you're open to feedback. Despite everything I'm still going to play this new season but with far less enthusiasm and interest.

Dpilot4226: It seemed like the only reasonable move for us to make. We have eight studios in our current league although I may add a few more. The example of 'Spiderman 3' is a good one because it may well happen in our league. I believe I'm the only one looking to be a bit contrary -- I might go with 'POTC3.' I think that this unanimity though is probably more distinctive to a summer blockbuster campaign and this one in particular with two -- maybe three -- sure bets.

This isn't just necessarily about the blockbusters. What if everyone were to choose a smaller film that looks like solid gold for PTA and iMDb (we play Ultimate and not Box Office)? By eliminating clear cut choices we're going to be creating a lot more drama for ourselves (the good kind!). The battles might be won with Blockbusters, but you win the war by using solid smaller films.

Another thought: I know they all want to choose 'Spiderman 3' and have made it part of their strategy. If I think that I'm stronger at finding those smaller films than they are, maybe I would pick 'Spiderman 3' just to see the film get thrown out, know what I mean? I think as long as you have an active commish to police things, then the new format can be advantageous rather than dterimental.

In my opinion, the new game system is terrible and takes away almost all of the fun. The best part about Fantasy Moguls before was everybody having different movies. I just can't stand the whole experience now that everybody can have the exact same slate. Anybody can pick the best movies, so therefore everybody wins. I really, really, really want you to add the draft option back in. I understand that some people may like the salary cap better, but the draft was a lot more fun in my opinion.

Thanks for your note, corndog. Duly noted.

See my post above--we understand that there are folks who prefer that system and will keep in on our list for future developmet.

I know there's been a lot of complaints, but I just want to pulically state how much I love the new system. Corndog above me hates the new system as you don't own a film in the same way you used to. While I can understand that, I always got pissed off when I was in a draft and came last in the first round, thus losing out on 300, Blades, Norbit, or other prime choices. I feel the new system is much fairer, and yes, while everyone is going to nab Spidey/Harry Potter 5/Pirates 3 because they know how well they're going to go, the point of the new game is to pick the ones you feel will do better than expected. I much prefer the new system, though I think the old draft system should be brought back for the old-school fans.

Check out my article on Fantasy moguls: http://www.screenhead.com/reviews/put-you%e2%80%99re-money-where-your-mouth-is-with-fantasy-moguls/

I second my fellow countryman's (numbersix_99) 2 sentiments;

Love the new system but think it would be best if the option to choose the old draft method were still available to those who wished to.

Also, nice article numbersix_99. Muchos kudos for spreading the word!

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