Possible to Modify Commentary?

[Benneyb]

Hi all, new to the site after getting TBCB after off and on activity with the board game over 20(!) years.

Is it possible to modify the commentary at all? I agree with those having some issues with the comments and the animation being a bit inconsistent. My problem is too many "devastating punch" types of comments.

[Cap]

Originally Posted by Benneyb

Hi all, new to the site after getting TBCB after off and on activity with the board game over 20(!) years.

Is it possible to modify the commentary at all? I agree with those having some issues with the comments and the animation being a bit inconsistent. My problem is too many "devastating punch" types of comments.

Not yet anyway.

[Rondo_GE]

Originally Posted by Benneyb

Hi all, new to the site after getting TBCB after off and on activity with the board game over 20(!) years.

Is it possible to modify the commentary at all? I agree with those having some issues with the comments and the animation being a bit inconsistent. My problem is too many "devastating punch" types of comments.

I vote for this myself.

I have another thread going that suggests this as well.

Actually I was able to bring up some of the comments in excel but I dared not change them.

One of the things I wanted to do was try to get some recorded radio transcripts, write em out, study em, and see what could be transported into the game.

Anyway let's hope for the best.

[wildhawke11]

Benny most important welcome to the Forum its great to see people interested enough to try to improve the game. I am all for that.

Each round consists of about 30 lines or so.
That means in a 15 round fight which runs the full course.
Were talking at least 450 lines of text commentary.

To have a large and non repeated commentary in differing fights would i think take millions of different lines or expressions. Plus how many ways even if the programmer was to give us that can a jab be described.

No matter how the commentary is changed its bound to be a little repetitive in the long run. I have to admit there are a few lines which really do bug me such as. Both fighters predicted a win coming into this fight.

Also please take into account we have fighters from differing decades.
So the commentary has to pretty much be suitable for all the fighters.
We cant have John L Sullivan or Rocky Marciano or the like performing an Ali like shuffle in the fight.

What i might suggest is in another thread we post a few lines that we would like to see and also the ones we really hate taken away, that could probably be implemented i would think. I really cant see Andreas and Co having a few special lines for an individual fighter though.

So many have said they want to see the commentary improved ok guys here is your chance. As i said start another thread with lines you would like implemented into the program, then we can feed it to Jim Tom and Andreas.

In other words ( put your money where your mouth is )

Please dont be offended by my last line i am joking of course,
Danny

[Rondo_GE]

Originally Posted by wildhawke11

Each round consists of about 30 lines or so.
That means in a 15 round fight which runs the full course.
Were talking at least 450 lines of text commentary.

To have a large and non repeated commentary in differing fights would i think take millions of different lines or expressions. Plus how many ways even if the programmer was to give us that can a jab be described.

No matter how the commentary is changed its bound to be a little repetitive in the long run. I have to admit there are a few lines which really do bug me such as. Both fighters predicted a win coming into this fight.

Also please take into account we have fighters from differing decades.
So the commentary has to pretty much be suitable for all the fighters.
We cant have John L Sullivan or Rocky Marciano or the like performing an Ali like shuffle in the fight.

What i might suggest is in another thread we post a few lines that we would like to see and also the ones we really hate taken away, that could probably be implemented i would think. I really cant see Andreas and Co having a few special lines for an individual fighter though.

So many have said they want to see the commentary improved ok guys here is your chance. As i said start another thread with lines you would like implemented into the program, then we can feed it to Jim Tom and Andreas.

In other words ( put your money where your mouth is )

Please dont be offended by my last line i am joking of course,
Danny

Actually signature "moves" and behavior would have to be coded into the individual boxers profile as text (by the user) and accessed as a variable seeded when you loaded the boxers. That would of course prevent Sullivan from doing an "Ali shuffle" since nothing would be there. At the appropriate time (when both fighters are doing fairly neutral stuff) or perhaps called up by situation, the program could print the variable instead of the canned text or both.

Breaking out the standard fight commentary text into a more accessible txt file (or whatever) would allow the user to put in his own style of text where he wants. I could definitely see a few players coming up with popular files and swapping them. (for example after listening an old Joe Luis fight the radio guy used the phrase "whoop dee doo"...kinda archaic and dated but some people might want to make up a 1940's style file to swap with friends etc.) Is it doable? Ummm...I know much C++ and Visual Basic programmers who can tell me yeah or nay to that. Dunno what this game is written in really.

But sure if that's what they want us to do...start a thread...then I guess that's what will happen.

[erickdamac]

Yeah one thing I do hate is to see George Foreman doing the Ali Shuffel!

[Gunsmoke]

According to a post in the OOTP forum, Andreas is helping Markus implement an XML based customisable commentary module for OOTP. Hopefully this will be able to be ported to a future version of TB. So this sort of thing may not be such a far fetched idea.

[Rondo_GE]

Originally Posted by erickdamac

Yeah one thing I do hate is to see George Foreman doing the Ali Shuffel!

doubt george had any sig moves

[Cap]

Originally Posted by Rondo_GE

doubt george had any sig moves

How about the Frankenstein Shuffle?

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Rondo_GE

Ummm...I know much C++ and Visual Basic programmers who can tell me yeah or nay to that. Dunno what this game is written in really.

I'm pretty sure TBCB is written in C++. Yes, what you described is doable, but I don't know what the code looks like so I can't say how easy it would be to modify the code to allow that.

[Andreas Raht]

OOTP, ITP, TB and TQ are all written in C++. The commentary database is actually an MS Access database which is being imported by TB. The new OOTP commentary database is an XML file, generated automatically based on an mySQL database, which can be edited using an PHP/HTML frontend

It obviously doesn't really matter which programming language has been used. The problem is only to have enough commentaries...

[LeeSkye]

Andreas

If we started commentary threads for

Jabs
Hooks
Uppercuts

etc

would it help if we started adding comments that you/someone could cut and paste into the database?

[javier_83]

i am going to learn C++ in school

[LeeSkye]

i am going to learn C++ in school

Andreas....he is after your job!

Hit him with a left...he can't take your title w/o a fight.

[Andreas Raht]

Well, if he starts right now....probably he'll be dangerous in 10 years. I'll be prepared

[Andreas Raht]

Originally Posted by LeeSkye

Andreas

If we started commentary threads for

Jabs
Hooks
Uppercuts

etc

would it help if we started adding comments that you/someone could cut and paste into the database?

Yes, probably. Let's try it.

[chaleyit]

If things go as they always have Andreas, in ten years C++ will go the route of the languages I used to program in such as COBOL and RPG. There will be newer and more effecient languages and you C++ folks will be dinosaurs like me :-)

I would be happy to just have a generic text such as, <fighter's name> lands a jab, or an uppercut. I can use my imagination for the rest. No amount of programming can equal what goes on in my imagination. The text could reflect the amount of points the punch carries by saying something like:

"he lands a jab" or "he lands a solid jab"
"He lands a right cross" or "He lands a vicious right cross"

I would go for the option of having a detailed or a basic commentary. I would chose the basic and fill in the blanks with my own imagination. You see in my mind it goes like this

"Good evening everyone, this is Howard Cosell along with Jack Johnson who is here to help ABC bring you this exclusive coverage of the Ali - Louis fight. So tell us Jack how do you see things playing out here tonight"

"Well Howard, Ali is going to have to use his hand speed and illusive footwork to avoid Louis' power. While Louis is going to have to be patient and try and cut the ring off on Ali and work his body and take away his speed"

And during the fight in my head it plays out

"ohhhh Louis caught Ali with a nice right to the head, Ali sticks his tongue out at Louis and shakes his head as if to say that didn't hurt"

then Johnson cuts in

"Ali is going to have to stop clowining and concentrate on winning this fight"

"I agree with you champ, oh my! nice hand speed by Ali as he planted himself and peppered Louis with several head shots starting with that famous lead right."

"Indeed Howard, Ali is hoping to frustrate Louis by hitting him and then making himself scarce when Joe tries to counter."

"There it is just as you said champ, Joe threw a right and Ali with that amazing agility just dodged it ......."

I even do the prefight fighter bio's and post fight interview in my head. Okay I don't have a life but that is besides the point :-)

I don't think programming that for every fighter's traits and varying announcers is very practical. The file would be several gigabytes.

I agree that there are too many "devastating punch" lines. I once read a print out of an Ali - Louis fight to my dad and he said "With all the devastating punches that have landed someone should have been down"

That is my two cents.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by chaleyit

If things go as they always have Andreas, in ten years C++ will go the route of the languages I used to program in such as COBOL and RPG. There will be newer and more effecient languages and you C++ folks will be dinosaurs like me :-)

I remember back in the day when people were saying the JAVA was going to replace C++. That was around 10 years ago....

[Andreas Raht]

Thanks, chaleyit - actually I can imagine that C# and VB.NET will replace C++... But well, I don't care. Today most programmers know VB and/or C and don't fear a switch to C# or VB.NET that much, because the concepts are the same (OOP). But I would miss the pointers!

Well, back to the topic: I would love to see commentary like those in your post. The problem wouldn't be the size of the commentary file, but to find someone who creates them LOL. There are still not enough generic commentaries - how could we think about starting to add fighter specific commentary.

But I promise that the commentary will be better in TB2.

[Cap]

Andreas, will you be using any of the comments we suggested?

Cap