The Draft Link!

Thanks to JWallace for putting this together. Simply Outstanding.

Click the link at bottom of post to google docs. It will load an excel file that everyone can make entries on and others will see it update live!

Each player has a number next to him. You TYPE that number into the slot next to your pick and it automatically updates in just 5-10 seconds for everyone to see!

If you pick a player already selected, it will tell you in red!

There are short instructions at top of the googledoc excel sheet that are self explanatory.

No one is to pick until I give the green light via text Wed 11am EARLIEST. At that point, Burrinthepaint will pick whenever ready, then DrMcnoob, then Dubb etc...

Everyone should be ready with their top 5 choices when they are 5 picks away!!! One of those guys gets selected, which happens all the time, simply replace your top 5 member with a new one.

We will go easy tomorrow unless you guys start pushing the pace which I encourage. Thursday you guys should have a good flow of things and we will pick it up. Friday and Saturday we will try to knock out as many rounds as possible before the live draft Sunday which will PICK UP WHERE WE LEFT OFF, hopefully round 10 or 11 will begin Sunday's live draft

Here's the link

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtZPLyoSgAZ8dE5KbGF5ZzBlT1V6MHpSdGZyN0czeGc

Look very promising!

A tip for those who might be unfamiliar with things like this.. when you click into the all players tab you can save yourself time by doing a search with "Ctrl + F" then you can find your players by last name and hit enter to keep going down the list for duplicate common names like Smith, Johnson, etc.

A huge kudos to Wallace for setting this up. Looks awesome.

Wallace - we havent met - but already love yha!

I have fought EA to have fantasy draft brought back since we found out from that video game conference that there would be no fantasy draft - At first we lobied EA to bring the game back - we had 2 threads with 700+ replies and over 10 000 views protesting EA decision to leave out Fantasy Draft before the idiot MODS locked the threads never to be seen again in the deep archives of madden forum...

In addition we started a protest idea - TO BRING BACK FANTASY DRAFT on GAME CHANGERS IDEA SITE - these ideas are voted on by anyone who plays EA games - our idea quickly became the #1 madden idea - and within 3 weeks had surpassed the #1 FIFA idea for top spot - it now has almost 3 TIMES MANY VOTES AS ANY OTHER MADDEN IDEA - (and thats despite 100's of forum trolls voting against it)...

btw - if u havent voted for this - make sure you do - here is the link:

http://www.easports.com/gamechangers/ideas

After dozens of hours of lobbying to have FD brought back for M13 - it became clear it wasnt going to happen - We then ramped up our WORKAROUND PLANS to have our own fantays drafts - despites EA's poor decisions - The General and i have had numerous discussions on this - I havelitterally spent every bit of gaming time - trying to perfect a FD workaround and implement into my FD league (whuich has been a success for 4 years running...) _ we had some decent ideas - BUT THEY WERE HUGELY LABOUR INTENSIVE - this cuts through the crap - and gives us a LEGITMATE WAY TO NOT ONLY RUN OUR FANTASY DRAFT - but to do so in a way where its easy for members - (the main stumbling block weas that guys couldnt see WHO WAS AVAILABLE TO DRAFT - they would have to see who WAS DRAFTED THEN USE DEDUCTION REASONING TO DETERMINE WHO WAS AVAILABLE (which is easy to do at firsty but after a couple hundered picks it becomes and a nightmare - CLEARLY U HAVE SOLVE THIS KEY PROBLEM...

GREAT JOB ON THIS - GENERAL HON SAID THERE WAS SOMETHING COMING - and he said it was great - he underestimated by saying it was GREAT - its absolutely out of this world!

the huggest ty for helping us with this - its a fantastic help!

Now that i gave you your praise - I have a few questions so that everythings is clear...

- Hon says your not to post your picks until your within 5 places of being up - is that the maximum number of picks that your system can hold its in Drafting Que? If you can have more - whats the max (obviously more the better - because if a player is going to be away for day - he can leave an inventory of picks and know he will get the player he wants...)

- Can everyone see the picks your pick id number you populate into your player selection area? (its a small concern but some guys like to keep their picks private - if this functionality is not available - its all good but i know many will be wondering...)

- I am of the understanding that this system holds more then 1 pic in its DRAFTING QUE - how are these different player ID numbers seprated?- do u divide the pick by a comma? Is a space all that is needed?

- After a player is drafted - does he disappear from the Players List? - this would make it much easier for guys to draft because guys can see EXACTLY who is available at each position...

- This question is more for General_Hon - have you got the word out about this drafting system? It can be hard to reach players on short notice - but if u let people know ahead of time - they are accomodating... My main concern is that the guys at the top of the drafting order have all the info they need - so we can get this started as planned - hell if guys are on the ball with this - i could see the entire draft being done onthis system!


I am sure i will have more and more questions as we go... And i appologize for sounding like a news reporter - but i know these are questions that all members will want answered to - so if u can answer them in this forum, it wll stop you from having to repeat yourself...

I posted to make sure you have your top 5 choices when you are 5 players away so people do a better job of being prepared.

You simply pick when it is your turn, just have 5 guys ready so by the time you do pick you aren't scrambling if someone selected your guy. I don't know anything about a draft que

Picking players - when you input the ID number, it populates the player's name automatically.

When you go to the All Player section, yes it shows who has been drafted already.

As for letting players know, I didn't test this system until last night after football practice so I let people know through PSN late and will text at 11am to wait for west coasters to wake up.

JWallace's instructions are very clear on the sheet and you will see after the very first pick (I will walk him through it).

General_Hon wrote:I posted to make sure you have your top 5 choices when you are 5 players away so people do a better job of being prepared.

You simply pick when it is your turn, just have 5 guys ready so by the time you do pick you aren't scrambling if someone selected your guy. I don't know anything about a draft que

ohhhh ok - so there is now draft que part of this - meaning you can only input 1 player at a tme - and when you do so - it will tell you if that player as been taken or not...

A draft que would have really put this system over the top - but no doubt the way it stands is a huge advantage!

JWALLACE thats really kool. Thanks for Google Docs, and glad u were there to think of using such a SIMPLE tool.

Love how I can access it through my phone. Should make the draft run smooth as long as the automatic updating doesnt lag too much.

This looks like a pretty user friendly system and I think it'll be the next best alternative to having a legit fantasy draft feature. Thanks a lot Jwallace!

are we gonna use this for the "real" draft on sunday also?

ripfmee2pjh wrote:are we gonna use this for the "real" draft on sunday also?

Absolutely. Chat will be used for announcements and organization etc...

Glad it worked out guys, thanks for the kudos. Had to school myself in some INDEX, MATCH and VLOOKUP functions in Excel but once I straightened that out I just imported into Google docs. One of the best things about Google docs is the ease with which you can allow multiple users to fill out information in a single place, so it's perfect for what we're doing. Still sucks that we have to do this instead of EA giving us the feature in the game, but whatever. There's always Madden 14, lol.