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General - New TeamTracker website - ideas wanted

Milo - Aug 20, 2006 - 10:26 PM
Post subject: New TeamTracker website - ideas wanted

I'm building an online version of the TeamTracker spreadsheet, and I'm going to expand it for league support too. Ultimately, I'd like to make it possible for commissioners to create leagues on it and customize just about every aspect of the player/team databases. In addition to web access, I plan to support WAP and create some Windows applications to do fancy stuff like imports of player information, etc.

I don't know whether this will be free or commercial, or whether I may just keep it for my own use. Half of my motivation is to learn new technologies, and half is that I want to use it for my own league.

I will probably be looking for a couple of volunteers to test it eventually, but right now I'd mainly like to see what other coaches might want in an online league/team/player tracking system. Basically, everything that's in TeamTracker now, I plan to duplicate, but I'm not sure what else to put in besides that.

I'd love it if people would just throw some ideas out there. What have you seen on other websites/programs that would be useful? What have you not seen but would like to? Just brainstorm and throw any old idea out there.

Milo

Darkson - Aug 21, 2006 - 01:58 AM
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(As posted on TBB) Track stats (team and player) a la the Halfling Scribe.

(Not posted on TBB) Fully customizable in the scoring system used for leagues. I use a points system similar to the one the GW HQ league used a few years ago, and although the Scribe can (and does - thanks Tim!) do it, it was beyond my poor Excel skills to work out how to do it.

Milo - Aug 21, 2006 - 08:22 AM
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I'm not familiar with the Halfling Scribe. What sort of stats does it track?

Darkson - Aug 21, 2006 - 01:07 PM
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http://bbowl.gmxhome.de/scribe/scribe.htm

Teams:
Best Offense (Total and Avg TDs)
Best Defence (Total and Avg TDs conceded)
Best TD Diff
Roughest Team (Total and Avg Cas)
Toughest Team (Total and Avg Cas taken)
Most Experienced team (highest TR)
Most Popular team (highest FF)
Gate Magnets (avg gates)

Players:
Best players (highest SPP)
Most TDs, Comp, Cas, Int, MVP

Also "Hall of Fame", which takes the deatails of any retired/dead plyers, with room for notes.

Milo - Aug 21, 2006 - 01:46 PM
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Darkson, not only will that sort of thing be included, but I'd like to eventually delve into some of the trivia details that a single DB for multiple leagues would allow, such as "Bloodiest Day in BB History" (most kills across all leagues on a date), what days of the week see the most games played, highest gate ever, etc.

Aramil - Aug 21, 2006 - 06:40 PM
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Differently from the Scribe, please, let us have a league divided in Groups!

As an example, my league is formed by 28 teams divided in 4 groups/conference of 7. Every team plays with all the other teams of the group and against one of another group.

With the Scribe I was obliged to have a file per group and to create a match against a "ghost" team in order to have all the datas of each team, but doing so it was impossible to have a full-league TD ranking, Cas ranking, etc etc...

Also having the possibility to export every page (team rosters, rankings, resume of the day...) in an html file and upload it to the website would be sweet! Very Happy

Milo - Aug 22, 2006 - 08:28 AM
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Aramil, you won't have to export it -- it WILL be an HTML page. Everything will be available via the web, only some administrative tools will be separate applications. (Like, for instance, I may have a tournament engine that can load data off the web but run in a disconnected environment for actual entry, then push the data back to the website when you're back on the internet.)

I'm also planning to offer HTML and code samples for people to be able to access the data from their own websites, or they could just link into my site.

aerofool - Aug 22, 2006 - 11:51 AM
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Great Idea! What I want to know is the cost for us to use it?

Aramil - Aug 22, 2006 - 11:55 AM
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Milo wrote:

I'm also planning to offer HTML and code samples for people to be able to access the data from their own websites, or they could just link into my site.

Ok, I like it! If the name of the pages will be static, we would then link the page and we shouldn't have to change the link after every match.

Thumb up! Very Happy

Milo - Aug 22, 2006 - 01:19 PM
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aerofool, you're getting ahead of me. I don't even know that I *will* charge for it.

Aramil, you'll be able to have a relatively static URL for your team, your league, and for each of your players. Eventually, I also want to offer a webservice so that knowledgeable web programmers could pull information down from the site to work with on their end in XML format.

Here's the basic rundown of features I've thought of so far:

Fully customizable leagues
- Each league can have it's own DB of positions and races
- Each league can customize the SPP values associated with PC, TD, INT, CAS, Kills, MVPs and three other SPP categories
- Leagues can be split into subgroups to represent conferences/divisions
- Leagues can select manual team tracking or automatically assign SPPs based on game results input
- League trivia/statistics pages
- ESPN-style "bottom line" for up-to-the-minute league news and trivia
- Password-protected online signup for new coaches/teams
- Limit of active teams for a coach, unlimited retired/inactive teams for historical data
- Printable league reference sheets, to match whatever customized rules the league is set up with

Coaches
- Online signup
- Can manage multiple teams in multiple leagues
- Worldwide unified rating, adjusted for cumulative racial win/loss results (i.e. you get points for being above average compared to all other games played by whatever race you're playing, regardless of whether or not that is above .500 record)

Team Tracking
- Each team will have Team Roster, Game Record, Hall of Shame, Statistical Breakdowns against coaches/races/teams/handicap differences
- SPPs and TR will be calculated automatically based on league settings
- Team purchases/player retirements can all be handled online
- For leagues with automatic team tracking, coaches can roll for and select new skills online
- Team Trivia section will include user-editable details (team colors, mascot, etc.) as well as automatically generated tidbits (Most X in a Game, Team Records, etc.)
- Teams will allow uploadable logos/team photos as well as customizable CSS to change the look and feel of the page
- Each team will have a Blog/SmackTalk section for coaches to post on
- Printable rosters

Player Tracking
- Will allow for player photos to be uploaded
- Allows you to specify gender for players, with positional defaults
- Tracks individual outstanding performances, injury history, favorite receivers (if coaches elect to enter this information)
- Each player gets individual page
- Worldwide Hall of Fame voting?

Game Results
- Records starting TR for each team for statistical purposes
- Allows coaches to specify any number of configurable "Game Events", representing TDs, INTs, PCs, Casualties, Kills, Niggling Injuries acting up, MVP awards, Ejections and other possibilities
- Can be set to several approval possibilities:
password entry (each coach enters a unique password to confirm review and approval of results)
double-approval (one coach submits, other coach must approve or make his own changes, which must then be approved by the submitting coach)
automatic (submitted and instantly approved)
commissioner's approval (must be approved by the commish of the league)
- Upon approval, teams and players will be updated, enabling coaches to select skills, purchase new players, etc.
- Printable game record sheets for noting game events during the match

Website
- Will collate and display statistics worldwide
- Will allow for webmasters to include content from the site into their own web pages
- Will include commissioner tools which may function in a disconnected mode, enabling import/export of teams in XML format, tournament management, etc.
- Will support WAP for mobile phones/handhelds

It's an ambitious task, I think, but I'm looking forward to it. It'll give me a chance to stretch my development muscles and learn some new technologies.

Oh, and eventually, I'll need beta-testers. =)

bampf - Aug 22, 2006 - 02:14 PM
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If you are looking for inspiration/collaboration. I have a league tracking webapp I ve written in mostly ASP/VB driven by a simple Access db. It has sortable league and individual stats:

http://www.bampf.com/store/bloodbowl5

Milo - Aug 22, 2006 - 02:37 PM
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I've seen that one, and it does have a bunch of the stuff I'm planning to put in, but I'm writing this application from the ground up in .NET 2.0 for improved speed, ease of coding and stability. I do like how you list the weekly performance for each player -- what do you do if the player sat out a game, or was hired after the team already played several games?

bampf - Aug 22, 2006 - 07:31 PM
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Yeah, there are a lot of shortcomings and limitations on mine. It was evolutionary code... features added peicemeal along the way (originally it was used for Magic and Warhammer). Didn t have the advantage of a proper spec and foresight. But hopefully it can give some ideas (of what to do or what not to do). Code snippets are available if you d like, though it won t be of great use if you re going .NET.

Milo - Aug 22, 2006 - 08:07 PM
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bampf, my first Blood Bowl league site was built the same way. I'm trying to take a different approach this time. Anything you always wanted to add to your system that you never got around to?

Clan_Skaven - Aug 22, 2006 - 09:01 PM
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When could one expect to see this up & running?

Rod

Milo - Aug 22, 2006 - 09:30 PM
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Clan-Skaven, probably not any time REAL soon. I'm just getting started on it now. Probably a couple weeks before I'll have the bones of it built, enough to let some beta testers check it out.

Doubleskulls - Aug 23, 2006 - 06:05 AM
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If you want the code to the ECBBL website (PHP & SQL) you are more than welcome. I've also got the tournament manager program (java & XML) - if you want to get into complex scoring systems there might be some ideas there you want to borrow. Send me an email or PM if you want any of it

With the tournament management program I've started defining an XSD - it would be nice if we could get people to agree the XSD then interoperability might be achievable. Particually useful if we ever get round to automated uploads to the NAF.

Milo - Aug 23, 2006 - 08:48 AM
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DoubleSkulls,

Definitely it would be worth adhering to an XSD standard if one is set up. Please keep me up-to-date on your progress with that, and I'd be happy to hear how you've got your scoring system set up. I don't know Java, but perhaps we could just discuss it on an abstract level so I could understand what you've got going on and try to replicate it.

bampf - Aug 23, 2006 - 01:02 PM
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There are definitely features I wish I had. I ll take this offline once I think about it and PM you, Milo.

jkarr - Aug 23, 2006 - 01:43 PM
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Or Milo you could make it to the Mafia Massacre and you could talk about it in person.....lol

Milo - Aug 23, 2006 - 02:56 PM
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bampf, just get back to me when you can.

jkarr, I hope I can, but no promises.

bampf - Aug 24, 2006 - 01:15 PM
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We re also not above shameless plugs.

Come to the Massacre! All of you!