NEW DRAFT ROOM

[sandckaye]

I am waiting on new draft room to do some more DC's...When can we expect it?

Stan

[Tom Kessenich]

Greg is in Chicago the next two days and will meet with the IT people tomorrow so look for an update from him soon.

[Lunatic]

Is this the same "new" draft room that was going to be here last year?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Is this the same "new" draft room that was going to be here last year?

No problem with the skepticism. I'd say the same thing. Yes it is, but we'll definitely have it this year. We have to get off Flash technology NOW and we will. I'll provide an update after tomorrow.

[Baseball Furies]

Meanwhile, somewhere at the offices of STATS in Chicago...





It's really that ridiculous at this point...

[COZ]

Draft room is fine. Never been an issue to me. Ever. I don't understand the clamoring for a new Draft Room. In fact the draft board is a great feature, if that changes even one bit I will be upset and borderline pissy. I am actually nervous about the unveiling of a new draft room. I don't deal with change well. Pictures of players is more bells & whistles and not a necessity in my opinion.

Ya know, they have improved the Waivers system significantly, which to me is a great system now, live scoring has improved, though not perfect, we are able to now set line-ups at game time starts when people whined about that, we have video screens instead of stickers at live drafts because that was such a huge inconvenience (sarcasm). I mean let's not keep piling on the IT. It is what it is, a functional system if not a solid system that I have grown to like. I've grown tired of the constant whining about the IT without acknowledging the significant upgrades and improvements that have been made recently. I have never had an issue during a draft, it has always been seamless. The only issue to me is the live scoring inconsistency at times, and, as Greg has acknowledged, over promising the time frames for launching of certain improvements. Those are my only issues at this point, IT speaking, I mean.

COZ

[Baseball Furies]

Draft room is fine. Never been an issue to me. Ever. I don't understand the clamoring for a new Draft Room. In fact the draft board is a great feature, if that changes even one bit I will be upset and borderline pissy. I am actually nervous about the unveiling of a new draft room. I don't deal with change well. Pictures of players is more bells & whistles and not a necessity in my opinion.

Ya know, they have improved the Waivers system significantly, which to me is a great system now, live scoring has improved, though not perfect, we are able to now set line-ups at game time starts when people whined about that, we have video screens instead of stickers at live drafts because that was such a huge inconvenience (sarcasm). I mean let's not keep piling on the IT. It is what it is, a functional system if not a solid system that I have grown to like. I've grown tired of the constant whining about the IT without acknowledging the significant upgrades and improvements that have been made recently. I have never had an issue during a draft, it has always been seamless. The only issue to me is the live scoring inconsistency at times, and, as Greg has acknowledged, over promising the time frames for launching of certain improvements. Those are my only issues at this point, IT speaking, I mean.

COZ

News of this post just hit the IT research and development room at STATS



That's all I have to say...and yes, COZ, things could always be worse, but don't tempt them. They may just take you up on it.

[Yah Mule]

The draft room is serviceable, but it has bugs that create problems that tend to ripple. For one example, you're in a Draft Champion league and your pick is approaching, but you have to leave. Like a conscientious and considerate team owner, you set auto-one and go about your business. If you happen to check in later on a mobile device, the draft room slyly takes you off auto-one. Then you get back to the computer later that day and find you've been on the clock for six hours and are the main topic of conversation in the chat room. I've seen this happen to lots of people and every time it does, it affects 14 other people.

[Greg Ambrosius]

No problem guys. Again, the new online draft room is more about getting off outdated Flash technology and making it all HTML than adding pictures, etc. That allows more people to do more things on more devices. That's the first step. It has less to do about pictures and more about the interface we're developing this on. A draft room is a draft room; the functions remain the same. We're not promising anything that you haven't seen already on other fantasy sites, but getting off Flash is what has been needed here.

Yes, I will discuss with IT today about why 1 Round Auto turns off when you log on with another device. We need to fix that. It has happened to several owners. I'll ask about that today.

The online draft board we have now will be replaced by the live draft board we use in all of the cities once we are done. Hope that helps.

As Coz said, through the years we have made some nice improvements to the game, but they haven't been enough or fast enough for everyone. We totally understand. But we're getting closer and this next step with the online draft room will help us along the way. After the launch, we can add things like Auto Picks for more than 1 Round, etc. Thanks all.

[Gekko]

I think people are mentioning the pictures because you mention them in your updates. For me pictures are a zero, totally unneeded given some of the basic things that need to be corrected...

Auto one shuts off as soon as you access draft room from phone

Full player names need to be shown, NOT how it is now showing just their first initial

Draft board needs to contain correct position eligibility

I also hate it when I'm drafting, sort the available players by a certain category, say sb, and then as soon as someone selects a player, the list of available players suddenly goes back to the unsorted list. Very aggravating

[Yah Mule]

I think the pictures are a nice touch. Just a pity we didn't have this technology when Andy Etchebarren and Ron Karkovice were playing.

[DOUGHBOYS]

In chat, will we be able to use dashes and percentage signs?

[Yah Mule]

In chat, will we be able to use dashes and percentage signs?

"I should be back in 23 hours"

[Glenneration X]

In chat, will we be able to use dashes and percentage signs?

Yes, Doughy's suggestions are not critical to functionality, but in regards to an annoyance that would seem very easy to fix, and questions why it hasn't been fixed already.

Another item that again isn't critical but annoying is the inability to access past chat if you leave the draft room. In Flash it disappears. In HTML, it refreshes so quickly that you're unable to read more than 2 or 3 lines without being brought back to the top again. For me, and I'd have to believe many others, chat is one of the fun aspects to our slow drafts. They should be easily accessible.

Speaking of refreshing, that is my one problem with the draft board itself. Once the draft is over, please cease the refresh mode. When checking out round 50, it gets annoying (there's that word again) to constantly be brought back to the top again for no reason.

[Gekko]

All good points. I wonder how many of them will be "fixed" with the new draft room?

[Greg Ambrosius]

I think people are mentioning the pictures because you mention them in your updates. For me pictures are a zero, totally unneeded given some of the basic things that need to be corrected...

Auto one shuts off as soon as you access draft room from phone

Full player names need to be shown, NOT how it is now showing just their first initial

Draft board needs to contain correct position eligibility

I also hate it when I'm drafting, sort the available players by a certain category, say sb, and then as soon as someone selects a player, the list of available players suddenly goes back to the unsorted list. Very aggravating

It's 2015 and pictures in an online draft room are needed. Besides, it helps to see the face when you're drafting one of the two Jon Browns of the Arizona Cardinals. Head shots are part of the new improvements.

I've talked to IT about Auto 1 shutting off on phones this morning. We are looking into that.

Full player names are showing along with all positions they qualify at. And they are the correct positions.

We are looking at that as well. Another owner noted that last night. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Greg Ambrosius]

In chat, will we be able to use dashes and percentage signs?

Yes, Doughy's suggestions are not critical to functionality, but in regards to an annoyance that would seem very easy to fix, and questions why it hasn't been fixed already.

Another item that again isn't critical but annoying is the inability to access past chat if you leave the draft room. In Flash it disappears. In HTML, it refreshes so quickly that you're unable to read more than 2 or 3 lines without being brought back to the top again. For me, and I'd have to believe many others, chat is one of the fun aspects to our slow drafts. They should be easily accessible.

Speaking of refreshing, that is my one problem with the draft board itself. Once the draft is over, please cease the refresh mode. When checking out round 50, it gets annoying (there's that word again) to constantly be brought back to the top again for no reason.

I didn't realize you couldn't use dashes and percentages in the current Chat. The HTML Chat is bad, I'll admit.

The new Chat will be its own window if you'd like and you can put it anywhere you want. I think you'll have access to scroll down to the whole chat; I'm not positive but it looks that way. This should be much better, but let me know.

Automatic refreshing should be solved with the new draft board. If not, let me know, but it should be eliminated.

[Deadheadz]

Yes, I will discuss with IT today about why 1 Round Auto turns off when you log on with another device. We need to fix that. It has happened to several owners. I'll ask about that today.

Would it be as simple as adding a Confirm Yes/No for everytime you go on or off auto? Or would that extra step piss off too many people? We've seen that before with FAAB.

Speaking of FAAB, after the new FAAB was launched there were several people who asked if they could use the old FAAB page still and a link was added for them. My question: will there be an option for those who prefer the Flash draft room to the new draft room? Or is part of the reason for ditching Flash the supposed security issues that have arisen elsewhere?


Thanks Greg

.

[Deadheadz]

Another item that again isn't critical but annoying is the inability to access past chat if you leave the draft room. In Flash it disappears. In HTML, it refreshes so quickly that you're unable to read more than 2 or 3 lines without being brought back to the top again. For me, and I'd have to believe many others, chat is one of the fun aspects to our slow drafts. They should be easily accessible.

tip: from the HTML draft room just right-click (PC) and choose View Source. This will bring up the code for the page in your text editor and includes the chat log for the entire draft. If you're able to switch the league from the top of the page web page to leagues from previous seasons, you can even get the chat logs from those old drafts. The only downside is wading through the code to find it.

[DOUGHBOYS]

In chat, will we be able to use dashes and percentage signs in the new draft room?

[Gekko]

Thanks Greg!

[Greg Ambrosius]

Yes, I will discuss with IT today about why 1 Round Auto turns off when you log on with another device. We need to fix that. It has happened to several owners. I'll ask about that today.

Would it be as simple as adding a Confirm Yes/No for everytime you go on or off auto? Or would that extra step piss off too many people? We've seen that before with FAAB.

Speaking of FAAB, after the new FAAB was launched there were several people who asked if they could use the old FAAB page still and a link was added for them. My question: will there be an option for those who prefer the Flash draft room to the new draft room? Or is part of the reason for ditching Flash the supposed security issues that have arisen elsewhere?


Thanks Greg

.

No, we won't continue to support the Flash draft room or keep that as an option.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Thanks Greg!

Good meetings today with IT:

Online draft room is ready for one last round of testing. Will be ready before heavy online drafting season.

Live Scoring WILL be faster. We've identified an issue with the way this was being sent to NFBC.

Can we make it easier to look for an available free agent among all your NFBC teams more quickly, thus making FAAB a little less strenuous for all of you? We might have a solution. Trust me, making FAAB easier is something we are always looking at and we take all your suggestions in this matter seriously.

Can we create a page that has Live Scoring for all your NFBC teams? One stop shop for all your NFBC teams each night? Possible and would make watching your teams' progress each night a lot more fun.

All are doable.

[Yah Mule]

Can we create a page that has Live Scoring for all your NFBC teams? One stop shop for all your NFBC teams each night? Possible and would make watching your teams' progress each night a lot more fun.

That would be great and way cheaper than this little set-up I've had my eye on.

[Baseball Furies]

In chat, will we be able to use dashes and percentage signs?

What?! You want fucking miracles?!