I stumbled upon Hoops Dynasty the other day, because of the lack of video games that are based on college football and basketball. I will confess that I was very surprised to of found something so amazing on the internet.
Hoops Dynasty is one of many options from What If Sports. They have Football, Professional, Baseball, and a few others. They have seasons in each setup specifically for each and are always updating. I looked at reviews, other blog sites and a bunch of different things before signing up. Which is one of my reservations about the game, you have to pay to use it even to test. But again I signed up for one season just to see if I liked it or not.
They have a ton of different worlds with various numbers of games played in each. These worlds can host upwards of 1000 human players from DIII to DI level college basketball levels. You always start at DIII which kind of sucks but is probably a good thing so you can get the hang of everything before you get up to the big boys. My Alma Mater is Wyoming, which I know is not the greatest school but this year they almost beat 'The Ohio State" during non-conference. Not saying Wyoming is great, but that is hopefully going to be my future home in what I have found already, in the limited amount of time that I have played, to be a fantastic College Basketball Coaching Simulation.
When you start out you pick a world and a team. I ended up choosing Fisk University, probably not the greatest idea because I picked them due to their high prestige, which I found online and in forums was a good thing to have for recruiting. Fisk was returning only 7 players and 4 of them were Point Guards, which is not a big deal because anyone can play any position, which we all know. Look at the NBA and College Game some guys play multiple positions, so this did not worry me until I looked at the team further. Most of the guys on the team eve if they were in their sophomore year were basically capped out, what this means is that they have potential in certain skill areas, in these areas most of the guys had Red which means that they have a low potential. This does not mean that they will not grow, but to me means that I needed a lot of new talent. I ended up taking away one of the players scholarships opening up 6 total scholarships, which in hindsight might of been a bad idea. On the other hand I had another opening to put in a better player in that position.
So I started recruiting following a forum post and a email from another player. The community is great and all you have to do is post in the forums for any help that you may need. Everyone is great. I started out rocky, going after some players that would never play for me because of my school and they wanted to go to a better place anyway. This was my first mistake, which I recovered.
Every once in awhile during recruiting some athletes will contact you, this is where I found a DI transfer from Florida A&M who was a 7'0" Center in which I had 0 players in that position. When I saw that he was interested I jumped all over him, because even with only having 2 years of eligibility left in this career he would be an instant starter for me and fill a huge void that I was missing. He may not be my best player that I have or even the best player ever, but he will fit into my defensive system, basically he will be my rebounder and force in the middle. I still have not determined what offense and defense that I am going to run, because I took over for a Motion Offense and a Press Defense team and I am unsure if I have the depth or the skill set with the players that I have for either of these sets. I would prefer to play Man Defense, however again not sure if I have the team to defend at certain positions such as the player I recruited at the Center spot who seems like a great all around player, he is lacking in a few areas that I think are crucial to this game. Again he will probably start for me but be subbed out often in order to keep the other team off balance with another transfer player at center that I found as well.
The recruiting portion has gotten me into this game and I look to improve on the record set by the human coach at Fisk last year of 24-7 and a National Tournament 2nd round along with a conference championship. That is a huge change from where I am starting off. It is going to be a rebuild but I hope to do well enough in my conference and out of conference to show that it is more than just the skill set of players but the coaching strategy and how you adapt to certain situations.
From when I started a few days ago I have found this game to be mildly entertaining but definitely complicated, because it is easy to use and quick to get the hang of, however there is so much depth to it that you have to put in the time and effort to be really good. Hopefully I will be able to move up the ranks quickly, however I have no idea where this will lead. Feel free to post comments as I will check back and update on my daily schedule of games and how I am faring throughout the season. Also when the season is over if you like what you have read or are interested in Hoops Dynasty join the world Knight with 2 games per day during the regular season. Great human coaches and lots of help to be had. I would even be happy to have you join me or play exhibition games against anyone who wishes to challenge my teams. Again I am not great yet, but with the help that I have received I feel confident with some patience and good recruiting I could put a great team together.
Hoops Dynasty is one of many options from What If Sports. They have Football, Professional, Baseball, and a few others. They have seasons in each setup specifically for each and are always updating. I looked at reviews, other blog sites and a bunch of different things before signing up. Which is one of my reservations about the game, you have to pay to use it even to test. But again I signed up for one season just to see if I liked it or not.
They have a ton of different worlds with various numbers of games played in each. These worlds can host upwards of 1000 human players from DIII to DI level college basketball levels. You always start at DIII which kind of sucks but is probably a good thing so you can get the hang of everything before you get up to the big boys. My Alma Mater is Wyoming, which I know is not the greatest school but this year they almost beat 'The Ohio State" during non-conference. Not saying Wyoming is great, but that is hopefully going to be my future home in what I have found already, in the limited amount of time that I have played, to be a fantastic College Basketball Coaching Simulation.
When you start out you pick a world and a team. I ended up choosing Fisk University, probably not the greatest idea because I picked them due to their high prestige, which I found online and in forums was a good thing to have for recruiting. Fisk was returning only 7 players and 4 of them were Point Guards, which is not a big deal because anyone can play any position, which we all know. Look at the NBA and College Game some guys play multiple positions, so this did not worry me until I looked at the team further. Most of the guys on the team eve if they were in their sophomore year were basically capped out, what this means is that they have potential in certain skill areas, in these areas most of the guys had Red which means that they have a low potential. This does not mean that they will not grow, but to me means that I needed a lot of new talent. I ended up taking away one of the players scholarships opening up 6 total scholarships, which in hindsight might of been a bad idea. On the other hand I had another opening to put in a better player in that position.
So I started recruiting following a forum post and a email from another player. The community is great and all you have to do is post in the forums for any help that you may need. Everyone is great. I started out rocky, going after some players that would never play for me because of my school and they wanted to go to a better place anyway. This was my first mistake, which I recovered.
Every once in awhile during recruiting some athletes will contact you, this is where I found a DI transfer from Florida A&M who was a 7'0" Center in which I had 0 players in that position. When I saw that he was interested I jumped all over him, because even with only having 2 years of eligibility left in this career he would be an instant starter for me and fill a huge void that I was missing. He may not be my best player that I have or even the best player ever, but he will fit into my defensive system, basically he will be my rebounder and force in the middle. I still have not determined what offense and defense that I am going to run, because I took over for a Motion Offense and a Press Defense team and I am unsure if I have the depth or the skill set with the players that I have for either of these sets. I would prefer to play Man Defense, however again not sure if I have the team to defend at certain positions such as the player I recruited at the Center spot who seems like a great all around player, he is lacking in a few areas that I think are crucial to this game. Again he will probably start for me but be subbed out often in order to keep the other team off balance with another transfer player at center that I found as well.
The recruiting portion has gotten me into this game and I look to improve on the record set by the human coach at Fisk last year of 24-7 and a National Tournament 2nd round along with a conference championship. That is a huge change from where I am starting off. It is going to be a rebuild but I hope to do well enough in my conference and out of conference to show that it is more than just the skill set of players but the coaching strategy and how you adapt to certain situations.
From when I started a few days ago I have found this game to be mildly entertaining but definitely complicated, because it is easy to use and quick to get the hang of, however there is so much depth to it that you have to put in the time and effort to be really good. Hopefully I will be able to move up the ranks quickly, however I have no idea where this will lead. Feel free to post comments as I will check back and update on my daily schedule of games and how I am faring throughout the season. Also when the season is over if you like what you have read or are interested in Hoops Dynasty join the world Knight with 2 games per day during the regular season. Great human coaches and lots of help to be had. I would even be happy to have you join me or play exhibition games against anyone who wishes to challenge my teams. Again I am not great yet, but with the help that I have received I feel confident with some patience and good recruiting I could put a great team together.
