How do you PLAY TBCB?

[DiMaggio5CF]

I downloaded the demo, but the only thing that I can find to do is set up six-fight cards and watch the matches happen.

In OOTP, you can make trades and sign free agents to make changes to teams.

But what can you do in TBCB other than just set matchups and watch them fight?

Another thing that I've noticed is that I can set any date I want for the fight card to take place. It's not really realistic to have a fighter go on back-to-back days. Is there anyway I can run something similar to a season in the game?

It's fun to watch, but is there anything to actually DO in TB?

This is a legitimate question, not a way to belittle the game. It looks pretty cool and I kind of want to buy it, but only if there's a way to actually PLAY it.

[Bam Bam]

put your firefighter jacket on!!!

[DiMaggio5CF]

Why?

[Bam Bam]

as most will tell you, its not a management game in the traditional sense. There is no money bouncin around, and no contracts to sign. Its an open ended boxing simulation. Not a career boxing sim, an infight sim.

They are working on management mode as we speak.

[Bam Bam]

Originally Posted by DiMaggio5CF

Why?

j/king...guys can get passionate about this game, saying there's nothing to do could spark a flame here and there...



Edit: the demo version is ok, but you're not getting the full experience, some features are locked(like creating fighters)

[CONN CHRIS]

Originally Posted by Bam Bam

as most will tell you, its not a management game in the traditional sense. There is no money bouncin around, and no contracts to sign. Its an open ended boxing simulation. Not a career boxing sim, an infight sim.

They are working on management mode as we speak.

That does sum it up in a nut shell. Most of us create our own open ended boxing universe where we play match maker or use a system of some sort to determine match-ups. The game comes with 3,600 or so rated fighters from history. Folks here have created and posted a good 5 to 6,000 more. The things you will "do" relate more to running that universe as opposed to signing and managing a particular fighter or a stable of fighters. You will determine sanctioning bodies, establish rules for those bodies, determine how you want fighters to progress from an aging perpsective (hands on), et cetera.

If you are interested, check out the "Inside the Ropes" forum to get more of an idea of how people are playing this You could also go to cornerwork.com to see what is available there that might give you more information. I know it isn't for everyone, but I for one love it. This is an improved, computerized version of an old board game called Title Bout that the Trunzo brothers created in 1979 and originaly sold through Avalon Hill.

After you have poked around a little, there are plenty of interesting folks to answer questions here.

By the way, you won't get flamed here just by asking questions and expressing what you don't like. However, act like an ass and you'll be treated like one. Bam Bam's comment is true if someone comes in here and leads off with extreame confrontational comments (happened just last week). That sort of stuff realy isn't needed. You asked a good question and should get some good answers. You can take it or leave it, but I hope we'll make a convert out of you in the end. It's great fun!

[mh2365]

Yeah the guy that got flamed was an ass ... your question is sound. TBCB takes alot of imagination the guy that posted last week had none. My best suggestion is find Cube's thread in against the ropes. It'll lead you to his website. I know I have a few of my own rules but I use his rules almost to a T.

I would guess alot of us owe our universes to Cube.

[DiMaggio5CF]

Thanks for the responses!

I'll check out the areas you guys mentioned.

[Scoman]

Originally Posted by mh2365

Yeah the guy that got flamed was an ass ... your question is sound. TBCB takes alot of imagination the guy that posted last week had none. My best suggestion is find Cube's thread in against the ropes. It'll lead you to his website. I know I have a few of my own rules but I use his rules almost to a T.

I would guess alot of us owe our universes to Cube.

Bitting my tongue so hard, its bleeding.

[mh2365]

Originally Posted by Scoman

Bitting my tongue so hard, its bleeding.

Well let's see, you played the game for a year then claimed you were owed something you weren't. You claimed you were promised something you weren't. You acted like you wanted something for free, then claimed you didn't.

Maybe you should of bit your tongue last week before saying something stupid and making yourself look like an ass. Oh yeah and by all means quote me, like I'm the only one who called you on it.

Bottom line is the game was one of the most bug free text sim games ever released (it did have bugs but it was playable on the first release, even OOTP it takes a couple of patches before I'm comfortable starting a career). It was exactley the game that was promised. It was said early on that RP would not be a part of this version and you would have to pay for it later down the road. Anyone who knows anything about Title Bout knows you have to have an imagination to play it. You knew all these things going in and you bought it anyways. If you didn't know these things going in then you didn't read any posts before buying and that is your own fault.

Instead of continuing to be an ass maybe you should either A) admit you were asking for something free and that you were wrong or B) just go away. or C) keep posting like an ass and we'll all laugh at you.

[Fallschirmjager]

I would suggest waiting for the RPG game.
Supposidly they are working in it.

I do see your point. The game is alot of fun but gets boring after a while because there is no context to the fights unless you spend time and create some.
Your fighters fight in a vaccum.

I wish they would skip TBCB 2 and just focus on the rpg game and make in a management universe like itp/ootp

[CONN CHRIS]

Originally Posted by Fallschirmjager

I would suggest waiting for the RPG game.
Supposidly they are working in it.

I do see your point. The game is alot of fun but gets boring after a while because there is no context to the fights unless you spend time and create some.
Your fighters fight in a vaccum.

I wish they would skip TBCB 2 and just focus on the rpg game and make in a management universe like itp/ootp

^^^ See that Scoman, opinions can be expressed without being an ass.


Fallschirmjager:

I hope the role playing game comes out first as well. I have no interest in it, but there are two distinct groups of players that can never be satisfied by one game. I am afraid that if TBCB 2 comes first, we will lose one of those groups for good.

[Fallschirmjager]

Originally Posted by CONN CHRIS

^^^ See that Scoman, opinions can be expressed without being an ass.


Fallschirmjager:

I hope the role playing game comes out first as well. I have no interest in it, but there are two distinct groups of players that can never be satisfied by one game. I am afraid that if TBCB 2 comes first, we will lose one of those groups for good.

Well here is my idea.

If it was up to me
Last I heard, the TBCB 2 was going to be like $15.
I would probably buy this and dick around with it a few times like I do with version 1.0
The rpg is going to be like 35$

I would roll them into one and charge like $40 for those of us who have version 1.0 and $50 for everyone else.
I would include the option in the rpg version to take two fighters and simply set up fights.
For the rest I would use an ootp/itp style universe to play out fights in and actualy have some context from fight to fight.

I understand what you are saying. I am the sort of person however who needs a universe to truly want to keep playing the game.

[PyroFalkon]

Speaking as someone who has seen one (1) boxing show on TV ever and no PPVs, I feel that I bring an odd perspective to how TBCB is. And as the newest freelancer reviewer on IGN.com (cheap plug!), I'm also extremely objective. I've never explictly said on these boards what I think of it before, but now I'm inspired.

Title Bout Championship Boxing is, in a couple words, extremely weird.

Aside from true RPGs (Morrowind, Final Fantasy, Ultima, et al), I haven't seen games that really are directly proportional to your own imagination and work. That is, the more involved you get with your own universe, the longer the game will last, and the more fun you'll probably have.

Ignore the fact that TBCB 2 and TBCB RPG are around the corner for now. Falls mentioned that your fighters fight in a vacuum, and that's mostly true, but it depends on what precisely you choose your universe to be. My universe is strictly made up of guys and rules that I created. There's no Ali, no Tyson, no Foreman, no anybody who actually existed. I also only use roughly 45 guys at the moment, and because of that, I form a sort of odd fandom to some of them. My favorite is Jan Reichart, who is fighting his way up the ranks of the HW division. He's 12-0 with 12 KOs, and I'm excited to see how far he gets before (or if) he loses. Plus, I'm using the betting system in the game to make a fortune off his fights. (In fact, in the little dilusional world that is my brain, he better not make me lose a bet or he's going to lose more than a bout. Mwa ha ha ha ha!)

Ahem. Anyway, if you're like most of the board people and want to see the real guys go after each other, that's cool and you may enjoy it. For me personally, I get absolutely no enjoyment from real or "dream" matches because there are very few on the list of 3000+ that I know. Like the only name of a non-HW boxer I can think of is Oscar de la Hoya; how much could I get into a CW or MW or whatever bout when I don't know who I'm looking at? And to be honest, I simply don't care enough about boxing to actually research anything. I simply love TBCB because it's fun and slightly unpredictable.

As far as actually "playing" in the traditional sense, there's absolutely no harm in passing up TBCB for EA Sports Fight Night 2004. The closest you can get is to be the cornermen for a particular boxer or boxers. As it's been said, this game is certainly not for everyone. However, if you end up seeing how deep things can get when you're busy with arranging matches and seeing feuds and rookies and so on develop in your fictional universe (basically putting you in the simultaneous roles of promoter, commisioner, and God), you may get plenty of enjoyment out of it.

Heck, if I didn't love this game, there'd be one less user-made utility for it.

[CONN CHRIS]

Originally Posted by Fallschirmjager

Well here is my idea.


I understand what you are saying. I am the sort of person however who needs a universe to truly want to keep playing the game.

You are not the only person who has said this, I am starting to think that this may be two ships passing in the night because I may not realy understand what you mean and vise-versa.

What do you mean by "universe"?

I played Puresim baseball for a few years, so I might understand the OOTP stuff in that context. Baseball is my first love and I truely enjoyed playing that game. However, TBCB has taken over for me. I do not have the universe and context that I had in Puresim only in the sense that I do not directly manage any particular fighter (team), I manage the whole thing with TBCB. It is open ended and with roughly 7,000 boxers rated by the developers and the users already, I can't envision running out of rope anytime soon. I progress rather slowly through my boxing universe and have run the years from 1900 - 1902 to-date; just started 1903 over the weekend. Mine is not an accurate historical replay, but that can be done and some here do that.

Anyway, I am just curious if you mean that you want to directly manage/own a fighter or a stable of fighters... or, am I missing the point and you mean something else entirely?

CONN

[Fallschirmjager]

Originally Posted by PyroFalkon

Speaking as someone who has seen one (1) boxing show on TV ever and no PPVs, I feel that I bring an odd perspective to how TBCB is. And as the newest freelancer reviewer on IGN.com (cheap plug!), I'm also extremely objective. I've never explictly said on these boards what I think of it before, but now I'm inspired.

Title Bout Championship Boxing is, in a couple words, extremely weird.

Aside from true RPGs (Morrowind, Final Fantasy, Ultima, et al), I haven't seen games that really are directly proportional to your own imagination and work. That is, the more involved you get with your own universe, the longer the game will last, and the more fun you'll probably have.

Ignore the fact that TBCB 2 and TBCB RPG are around the corner for now. Falls mentioned that your fighters fight in a vacuum, and that's mostly true, but it depends on what precisely you choose your universe to be. My universe is strictly made up of guys and rules that I created. There's no Ali, no Tyson, no Foreman, no anybody who actually existed. I also only use roughly 45 guys at the moment, and because of that, I form a sort of odd fandom to some of them. My favorite is Jan Reichart, who is fighting his way up the ranks of the HW division. He's 12-0 with 12 KOs, and I'm excited to see how far he gets before (or if) he loses. Plus, I'm using the betting system in the game to make a fortune off his fights. (In fact, in the little dilusional world that is my brain, he better not make me lose a bet or he's going to lose more than a bout. Mwa ha ha ha ha!)

Ahem. Anyway, if you're like most of the board people and want to see the real guys go after each other, that's cool and you may enjoy it. For me personally, I get absolutely no enjoyment from real or "dream" matches because there are very few on the list of 3000+ that I know. Like the only name of a non-HW boxer I can think of is Oscar de la Hoya; how much could I get into a CW or MW or whatever bout when I don't know who I'm looking at? And to be honest, I simply don't care enough about boxing to actually research anything. I simply love TBCB because it's fun and slightly unpredictable.

As far as actually "playing" in the traditional sense, there's absolutely no harm in passing up TBCB for EA Sports Fight Night 2004. The closest you can get is to be the cornermen for a particular boxer or boxers. As it's been said, this game is certainly not for everyone. However, if you end up seeing how deep things can get when you're busy with arranging matches and seeing feuds and rookies and so on develop in your fictional universe (basically putting you in the simultaneous roles of promoter, commisioner, and God), you may get plenty of enjoyment out of it.

Heck, if I didn't love this game, there'd be one less user-made utility for it.

Good post.
Id like to think I know alot about boxing since I starting liking it and reading about it long before baseball.
I like the dream fights and what not but after a while they just get old.
I am too spoiled on OOTP and ITP

[Fallschirmjager]

Originally Posted by CONN CHRIS

You are not the only person who has said this, I am starting to think that this may be two ships passing in the night because I may not realy understand what you mean and vise-versa.

What do you mean by "universe"?

I played Puresim baseball for a few years, so I might understand the OOTP stuff in that context. Baseball is my first love and I truely enjoyed playing that game. However, TBCB has taken over for me. I do not have the universe and context that I had in Puresim only in the sense that I do not directly manage any particular fighter (team), I manage the whole thing with TBCB. It is open ended and with roughly 7,000 boxers rated by the developers and the users already, I can't envision running out of rope anytime soon. I progress rather slowly through my boxing universe and have run the years from 1900 - 1902 to-date; just started 1903 over the weekend. Mine is not an accurate historical replay, but that can be done and some here do that.

Anyway, I am just curious if you mean that you want to directly manage/own a fighter or a stable of fighters... or, am I missing the point and you mean something else entirely?

CONN

Two ways to play as I do in OOTP.
I can be a 'god like' figure and just watch things play out. Or I can manage a certain team and play out that teams games.

In TBCB I could run the godlike mode and see fighters move up and down the ranks, retire, new fighters come about and get title shots.
Or I could play as a single fighter and watch my carrer play out or I could be a manager like Tex Ricard or Don King and manage a stable of fighters.

I can do this now of course..but it takes a hell of alot of work and I have to do alot of the functions myself. Title shots are given because I think they should be. Fighters retire because I say so. I have to manage the time. I have to schedule hundreds of fights a year.
It just takes sooooo much time and effort.
I like things being out of my control sometimes and having a game engine manage alot of things.

I hope this is a coherent post. Im tired and not thinking right.

[CONN CHRIS]

Originally Posted by Fallschirmjager

It just takes sooooo much time and effort.

I think this may be the crux of the problem, the game needs to find a way to accomodate people who want to dig in and micro manage everything as well as those that want retirements, title fights, et cetera decided by the game engine. That's probably a difficult line to find, if they swing too far in favor of the game engine taking over without the ability to toggle it all off, some of the current players would be put out. However, without more capability in this area, folks like you, our little friend Scoman and many others won't be happy. I hope the developers can find the right line and I am glad I'm not them

[erickdamac]

Yes the game make you work too much!!! Period! This game was really a upgrade of 2001, nothing changed, stuff was just added to it. TBCB II is not around the corner, in October Jim said it should be here at the end of November (if he was doing it) But it prolly wont be here to may, So I don't even Concern myself with what Jim or adreas do, Im more concern about real boxing, and fight night round 2,(You can move up in wieght baby!!!) The only good thing about this game for me is, Playing a fight im about to watch, (live) Sometimes I play my uni, but it only last about 20mins before the work starts to overshadow play.

I once did love this game, but soon, your mind start to say, god why must we do this? they should have made the game capable of doing this! Little things like fighters weight and height (which play a major part in A fight/ or how a fighter fight or a fighter Persona) Are not there, and I wouldn't mind it if we had to add every fighter weight Ourself, I just wish it was apart of the game and had a effect, Like seeing James toney come in at 245, and it having a effect on his fight, Again this should be in th Rp version, but thats Saturn and we are earth.

Again Its a good game, but I just can't get up for it no more, But the good thing is other guys like Leesky, Lee, Mh, Kenya, and Ian have great uni's going and it is fun to read, But after waiting for TBCB for almost 7months, and now being forced to wait for another version of it, instead of the thing We really want (the roleplay version) It makes you say, Hey what other thing is out there! Im not buying TBCB II because its just there to be there, no purpose at all, they should be working on TB Role Play.

I stood up for this game long enough, these new guys are starting to make sense.

but hell this is just me, what do I know?

im so tired been up all night fixing this damn computer for work! good news it is working because im on the net posting this post with it lmao.

[Tiger Fan]

I think it entirely comes down to personal preference. I find it funny when I see the OOTP comparisons here because I personally play OOTP the exact same way as I do TBCB. I am a sports history junkie and I find nothing better than being in god-mode with both of these games and just let things play out. With some very simple house rules my amount of 'work' needed to run my universe is greatly reduced. I only manually schedule bouts for the top 10 fighters in each weight class and I have a simple formula for aging and retirement.

I knew very little about boxing history when I bought this game but playing it has made me thirst for more knowledge on the era I am replaying. To me there was nothing more exciting than watching unbeaten heavyweight champ Joe Louis nearly get knocked out by Tami Mauriello in a title fight even though at the time I had no idea who Mauriello was.

I think the key is like Conn Chris and Pyrofalken mentioned. Find a style that works for you whether it be historical, fictional or just tournaments with the greats of all time. Howver you have to give yourself time to get immersed in your universe and yes you do need a little imagination to come up with something you will enjoy.

I know when I tried the demo of TBCB I did not like it at all. I had the same complaints as many of you - there was no career mode and I had no idea who most of these guys were. However, I decided to give it a second chance and bought the game to use in my 1940's allsports replay. I am glad I did because I find myself anticipating big fights in my universe as much as I anticipate starting a new season with OOTP.