Thursday, July 26, 2007

To see today

Games to see today from 20:00 charazay time

Scorpions-Peoples Republic of Koseze
http://www.charazay.com/index.php?act=match&id=3432941

Swagger-Virtus Bologna
http://www.charazay.com/index.php?act=match&id=3432953

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Charazay can drink beer and drive

We aproach with great speed the 10th season. At this point the first generation of superstars will be 25, an age considered by many as "old". This is when Charazay reaches its maturity, it's like the 18th birthday for a person, from this point on, you can enjoy the interesting but also dangerous things in life.

From now on, all teams will have to balance skill and age, effectiveness and potential. Some teams started in advance doing that, like Dunk_erz and Novi Sad Ravens in Romania, and because of this they will dominate the internal and external fight for the next 2-3 seasons.

The challenge for every team is bigger than ever, of course it's easy to demolish everything and start with a new crop from 0, like Najpet did (they sold what was at that time the best team in charazay and started with only 15 year old players, the price being relegation untill div 3). But who will manage to keep enough impact players and also deal some potential in the depth of the squad will be the most succesfull managers in charazay. Another aspect is the fact that charazay will not be dominated by 10 teams at top level, but with every year, there will be 10 more..so next year 20, the one next after this 30 and so on.

Fun starts also for new users, you can get now heavy veterans with a decent amount of money. This can help new teams face even the most feared opponents. If we take into equation the fatigue factor, the combination is almost perfect. Blacksheeps can be beaten by any team higher than 2nd div in belgium, if they catch the Begium champions at the right time.

I get excited with what's going to happen even as i write these lines, drinking is fun, driving is too.. but who will manage to do them both and not mix them in a deadly way. That's the fun of having a mature game.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Guess Who IV

Age: 22 Height: 221 Weight: 113

Defence: 6 Free Throws: 10
Two Point: 12 Three Point: 10
Dribbling: 6 Passing: 6
Speed: 4 Footwork: 12
Rebounds: 21 Experience: 17

This is a hard one..

Friday, July 20, 2007

Futurology and betting

Anyone can predict the future in charazay, and mostly when it comes to international action. After 3 rounds, the WC still has its favourites unbeaten, Italy, Israel, Belgium, Poland, Spain, Lithuania, Canada, Romania they all have their matches. Still the interesting thing is that Germany is also unbeaten, maybe they are the spark that will lighten this World Cup and surprise everyone.

The IC started with round 0 also, and probably for the next 2 rounds few favourites will be defeteated.

If you think you're good with betting, please join me in this contest.
Anyone who reads this blog can play. You just have to say who will win the IC, and who will get in the top4, and also who will win the WC and who will get in the top4.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Short brake

I am leaving today for Nowy Sacz, city in Poland. And probably untill I install my new internet connection and get used with the new location it will take a while. Gonna get back with fresh articles and news.

Take care,

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

A bugless life

Every good thing becomes a bad one in gets too much. It's not the case now with Charazay, and especially it's not the case with being a stable bugless game. But you have to think about it, when the peacefull, cool atmosphere becomes... dull and boring.

I wish i had a volatile discussion with sniper or someone from the crew, i wished there was a bug which made me to say: "Oh my God, what are they doing, got to go on the forums and start a revolution". I wished training was tweaked, so i can check every day and eventually acuse the crew for my players being not trained. I wished some more dirty transfers were made, some more problems with the engine had apperead.. well.. some more hot news or events, being bugless sucks.

Thumbs up for danut and the new guy on the forums, they made think abit about the LH - average players per team indicator. I will have another post about that soon, but in the end... any time, any time now.. server crash maybe? (joke)

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Nobody wants me

Hypothesis no.1:
Most of the users are gone in vacation, and they are checking charazay jsut to stay tunned to the scores and eventually any big changes. With the latest news it seems not nothing big will happen untill the end of the season, and people are safe to get away for a couple of weeks from their daily rutines, including computer and charazay.

Hypothesis no.2:
Prices are settling somewhere preatty high, as people are not open to get fewer money then what they spent a little time ago. They want now to get back as much as they can , but on the other side they are scheptical if aquiring new manpower. The problem is that everyone thinks the same, and they want to win big cash and spend money only on special occasions (bot players maybe).

Which one is it? Anyways.. it is a fact that the first 2 pages from the TL (sorted by skill index) have no bidds (except for a 65M trade in Croatia). Will the TL become more active as we aproach the end of the season?

Friday, July 6, 2007

Guess who 3

Klumi got it again, it was Joost Meurisse.

The next player is one that hasn't been around on TM lately. Good luck.

Age: 2X
Height: 211 Weight: 111
Defence: 14 Free Throws: 8
Two Point: 7 Three Point:
7 Dribbling: 6 Passing: 3
Speed: 8 Footwork: 7
Rebounds: 19 Experience: 14

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

It took 3 years

.. to get this announcement.

http://www.charazayonline.com/

I look in the past and i remember the troubleing times Charazay had to go through. Almost 3 years ago, the game was in its begining days, and a sudden bug mixed the 2p, 3p and ft stats. A wave of complaints struck the entire community as the backups were not functional. That was the first time when the game looked that it will colapse. In the end after 3 days of intense working the bug was corrected (more or less) and everyone was happy.

After this hackers and cheater hit charazay. One of them in particular created chaos on the market puting huge bids on crapy players. Also i remember that at this point i've met bruincoach, who had Nicholas Henderson put by a hacker on the transfer list. Bruincoach who was at that point a simple user was close to quiting the game. Thanks to the_crow and vangos, (both of them not playing anymore, probably the old users remember them) cheaters were caught and mobic designed another security system. Since then hacker atacks haven't been a problem anymore.

Vangos also came with the idea of changing a skill, stamina to footwork. From my point of view it was a veru corageous action, as the game had alreadya couple of seasons, and everyone rpedicted a huge rebelion in the charazay community. The predictions were right, lots of people have quit charzay beacuse of this change, most of them were caught unprepared. In the end after 5 more season i believe it was a great move, as the gameplay works really well with footwork.

Still, the worst days for charazay were at the door. The first server crash, happened somewhere in september 2004, but the big one was in 2005, and practicly paralised charazay for almost one month. Everyone signed R.I.P. on the game. And sincerly i thought it too. I want to thank barthjizz beacuse his activity in that period on the forums motivated alot of users to help at the reconstruction of the community, and stept by step everything was backl on track.

The era of buging started. With most of the ifrastructure in place, the engine started to be upgraded into what is today. I remeber working with rokas almost a month 4 hours per day. Tunning, making tests, retunning... at a point i was dreaming in codelines and how can we implemement better the rebounding. We realesed 4 seasons ago the first version of the current engine. But the big numer of bugs and problems was a big drowback, people tagging the game as being completly random. An entire season developers focused only on improving the engine. A particular black moment was the begining of the 5th season when first round of games were played with a huge bug, only scoring happened from the FT line. For a couple of months users were demanding rematches after every single loss.

Things improved, bruincoach , brotherke and hawk (haven't seen him around for some time) ma de atremendous job with the helpdesk and the communication plan. The site moved to another design , alot of aspects changed also, but with each day the game beacame better and more stable. Charazay has a grea story, and a great community, i could talk for hours about individuals that i consider them my friends. If you are an oldie probably you know what i'm talking about, if you're a new member i advise you to seek the forums it's a great place to meet great persons.

In the end i want to thank rokas, the_crow, vangos, hawk, klumitalax, mobic, dforlan, Air-Cip,Gasol, trybanskmania, mutilator, GM_Sass, blade, barthjizz, bruincoach, zoo and sniper, ananas and many more.. they all contributed alot at what charazay is today.

Guess who updated

The first contest was won by under_net and klumitalax, who...hmm.. were to the only ones that answered and they did it precisely.

The player was Romanian NT member Bogdan Lacatus.

Because that first question was kind of easy, i bring you another one:

Age: 22 Fatigue:
Height: 220 Weight: 121

Defence: 16 Free Throws: 6
Two Point: 4 Three Point: 7
Dribbling: 7 Passing: 5
Speed: 7 Footwork: 12
Rebounds: 17 Experience: 16

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Guess who

From today, a new TAG will be available : guess who. I will post the skills of a known player in charazay, and you will have to guess who that player is.

Team owners and NT coaches that have this player under their management should not reply.

Curently i have no prize to give but soon that will available too.
We start with:

Age: 24
Height: 217 Weight: 119
Defence: 12 Free Throws: 9
Two Point: 10 Three Point: 7
Dribbling: 8 Passing: 6
Speed: 9 Footwork: 13
Rebounds: 14 Experience: 18

In 24 hours i will give the correct answer and also name the winner. Please you the leave comment button to psot a response.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Jerry who?

The World Cup has started, the 36 teams started strong, some insisted to play their best line destroying practicly some of the 2nd class teams.

You can find all the results here:
http://www.charazay.com/index.php?act=worldcup

When UK plays, Jerry is the man. Of course there is allstar Eric May. But the hype Jerry generated is beyond reach for the talented guard. Tonight things should have been easy. Treacy dominates the paint, May, Lee, Arbuckle, Burton assisting from the perimeter. The Uruguat are known for their heavy D, but the talent in the UK side was still too much for them..at least on papper.

Things started with UK's possetion, and Treacy missed his first. After young Ballesta puts the first 2 points after a fake on Jerry, the match seems to go on the right track when:

09:30 : Eric May tries a long jumper, but Rafael Rambla blocks the shot with authority
09:30 : The rebound is corralled in by Jerry Treacy
09:27 : Jerry Treacy can't find the rim on a difficult shot attempt
09:27 : Jerry Treacy bulls his way inside for the rebound
09:23 : Jerry Treacy receives the ball at the left angle and banks in a soft shot off the glass (2 - 2)
09:23 : The crowd goes wild after that great play


But after 3 minutes of intense basketball, Uruguay started to put point after point on the table. Superhero Tracy had a rough time in both offence and defence with Juan Carlos Ballesta. After 5 minutes the score was 4-12, Veteran Jason Currie playing with lack of determination and loosing the direct matchup against Pablo Gomez. Also Eric May seemed to have a rough time adapting to the 3 guards tactic UK had in mind for tonight. In the end Currie was fouled out, but Burton, his replacement didn't manage to improve UK's game. First half ends with an incredible 8-20 for Uruguay.

UK started with a fresh line-up ready to start climbing up. Ballesta was unfortuantly still hot. His 10 points made the score 14 - 32, and UK seemed helpless. With Brandon Rogers fired up and Owen Lee with an eagle eye in defence UK made it 22-38 untill halftime.

22 points, probably one of the weakest first halp in UK's history in Charazay.

The 3rd quarter starts, and after a shot clock violation from the Uruguay and a quick 3pointer from Sommers, UK fans started to cheer again for their favourites. Brandon Rogers even made it 29-38, and the downfall of Jerry Tracy seemed to be his tickett to becoming a star. At this moment with Ballesta resting for the final quarter, a new star emerged for the Uruaguay, 23 year old Francisco Aragorn (Curently playing for Yup, in the tough Div A, belgium). 10 points in the 3rd quarter and he managed to keep UK at 14 points behind, entering the final part of the game.

Evryone was looking at Jerry, it was time for him to do his magic. He did it before. Burton has the possesion and gives the ball to Jerry, the crowd feels that this can be the start of the come back, jerry spins inside and score with a lay-up.. and ... a free throw... no, the referee calls traveling.. what a clutch decision. Jerry stays with the referee explaining his actions, and at the other bucket:

09:32 : Alejandro Alamo avoids the trap and delivers a nice pass to the open man
09:27 : Rafael Rambla makes a pass to the open man
09:22 : Juan Carlos Ballesta loses his defender and drains the wide-open jump shot (46 - 62)


There 9 minutes to go, but the game already ended, Burton, Maya r epushing but Ballesta and Gomez are holding their defences up. UK scores, Uruguay does it too... the 20 point difference is unbrakable. 61-81 the final score, and Pablo Gomez is overwhelmed with joy as Uruguay beat one of the big names in this WC.

Playing Eric May as a SF, using a tired Jason Currie, left Jerry Treacy alone, and this time he didn't manage to get the entire team on the winning side.

Congrats to the Uruguay side, a great game, and a great effort. New star are rising, and you'd better memorise their names, becuase you don't want to miss them when they are listed on the market.

Lucky 10

It took some time but finally, communication in charazay reached an average level, and if i remember well it's for the second consecutive season, when future changes are announced with quite some time in advance.

I will make a short summary of the planned changes and also extract some feedback in the end.

1. Change for the skill prequisition in offence for SF and PF
Impact: High
Effect: All teams
Short term influence: Lack of 2.00 players with high dribling and speed is a known fact. Expect their prices to boost in the near future. Also lots of forwards will change their training group in the next weeks.
Long term influence: Some SFs with above 10 footwork will find it difficult to keep pace with faster and better skilled players. Also i predict that more Centers will become two-position players, as PF position will be more flexible and big men will be able to get good performaces as PFs.

2. Shooting importance changed
Impact: High
Effect: All teams
Short term influence: Some footwork/ drribling boosted players will switch to 2p shooting. On the market some users will hunt the so called "shooting-pumped" bot players, hoping they will not be forced to train shooting in the future.
Long term influence: Dough i metioned the rise in demand for shooting-pumped player at short term influence, it is most proabable that this will happen only after Julien carre will have a 35% fg percentage (strong facts to brake the shooting-pumped myth are needed). Sincerly i think shooting was neglected by 95% of the charzay users, now i hope we will have another variable in the tactical field, stay tunned to what new tactics will be discovered using new shooting combo-s.

3. End match momentum and clutch scenarios
Impact: Below average
Effect: All teams
Short term influence: Well, a wave of aplause and goodwill. Most of users will enjoy this feature, and overall atitude towards charzay and charazay management will increase.
Long term influence: I predict more problems to come, since creating scenarios is tricky. It is probable that they will not work as some of uss imagine and again some debates will arise. CAn't say much about this adition as i don't have enough knowledge.

4. Team chemistry influence
Impact: Average
Effect: All teams
Short term influence: The 10% that were scarred to put on the TL a palyer beacuse.. "OMG maybe my team chesmistry will drop" will become just 7%.
Long term influence: I would like to say here that overall the number of transactions will rise, but i don't think this change will bring that. Surely transitions from generation to generation will have a lower impact.

5. Scrimmages
Impact: Below Average
Effect: Supporter teams (not sure about this)
Short term influence: Some more CBMoney will be spent.
Long term influence: New tactics will be easier to implement. Player potential to play different positions will dramaticly change the way tactic creation is seen, now a very big number of friendly teste being needed.

6. Supporter feature (player face)
Impact: Low
Effect: Supporter Teams
Short term influence: Some more CBMoney will be spent. (not necessarly bought)
Long term influence: People will get easly emotionally involved with their franchise palyers (that didn't sound too good).

Important NOTE: All comments are my opinions it is very probable that some are not precise. If i get new info i will keep updating this post.