The Road to v1.0

Hey Everyone, Commissioner here and welcome to our first post on the brand new dev blog. I’m the developer behind Front Office Hoops, and I’ll be using this space for longer updates that don’t fit in the changelog: roadmaps, news, behind-the-scenes looks, sneak peeks, and (eventually) the v1.0 launch announcement.

First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you for playing and providing feedback. FOH went into open beta a couple of weeks ago, and since then real players have been founding leagues, making trades, and sending feedback. So instead of a dry status report, I wanted to try to do something a bit more fun and walk you through what’s coming with our v1.0 launch. I do want to note that nearly everything has been long in development and I’m just doing extensive testing currently to make sure the sim is still behaving the way we expect it to and cleaning the rough edges.

What v1.0 means: For me, 1.0 is when the game feels complete enough to be judged as a full GM sim. That includes things such as full offline support, multiple league support, smarter CPU front offices, a deeper coaching carousel, and overall a league that feels alive around you even if you’re the only human. Although I don’t have an exact date for official launch, I am happy to say that v1.0 will be launched in August. More details to follow.

What it doesn’t mean: Things won’t be 100%. Some UI views may not be perfected, and there will still be bugs. Testing can only get so far, and I expect them to come. I am hoping that there will not be that many though :) Found a bug or have a question/comment/feedback? That’s what r/FrontOfficeHoops is for.

Sneak peek: the v1.0 roadmap

Your leagues, plural

The single-league limit is gone. Run multiple leagues side by side, hop between them from the sidebar, and delete one without touching the others.

My personal favorite feature in the whole release though: seeded leagues. Share any seed you want (like crimson-fadeaway-77) with a friend and you’ll both get the exact same league generated. Same players, same faces, same schedule. First one to a ring wins.

Same seed, same league — down to every player and face.

A trade market that thinks like a front office

Trading got more attention than any other system in this release. Draft picks are now priced the way real front offices price them, protections and all. Counter offers got rebuilt, so asking for a star gets you a package you’d actually consider instead of four bench guys, and the CPU tells you why when it says no. Most deals land in deadline week now, just like the real NBA. And the one I’m most excited for you all to experience: CPU teams will call YOU with offers. There’s more here than fits in a teaser (offseason trading is open now too), so the trade market will get its own deep-dive post.

True story from one of the test leagues: a 50-win Memphis went all-in at the deadline, sending out an All-Star shooting guard plus a first-round pick for the rim-protecting center they’d been hunting all year. First round, they faced off against a 37-win Sacramento team that barely made the field, and lost in five. Sacramento rode the upset all the way to the conference semis. Nobody scripted any of that. I just found it in the box scores.

Ask them what it would take — they’ll tell you, and they mean it.

Basketball that rewards how you build

This one you can’t screenshot, but it might be the most important change in the update: the five players on the floor finally interact. Spacing, rim protection, playmaking, rebounding. When we tested it with two teams of identical total talent, one built well and one built badly, the well-built roster took the season series 61-21. The other 29 front offices got smarter about money at the same time too. They spend like real teams now, fight to keep their own stars, and care about contract length, not just dollars.

Contract extensions have arrived

Contract extensions are one of the most requested features in every GM sim community I’ve lurked in, and they made it into 1.0. Offer your promising sophomore new years before his market explodes, or lowball him one too many times and watch him stop taking your calls. CPU teams play the same game, so the contender you’re chasing might lock up its core before you ever get a chance to bid.

Every eligible player tells you where he stands.

The Wire

The old news feed has been retired, and honestly, good riddance. Its replacement is The Wire, a league newspaper with beat writers who grade your trades the morning after and put out a special front page on deadline day. And no more “Team X beat Team Y” spam. Games only make the news when they actually are news. The Wire is big enough to deserve its own post, so consider this the teaser.

Deadline day gets the front page it deserves.

Coaching that actually matters

Coaching grew from a hiring screen into a full ecosystem: profile pages with season-by-season career histories, headshots, a coaching market you can actually sort and study, and coaches who want things now. A winning head coach isn’t leaving to join your rebuild. Best of all, the hire genuinely swings seasons, because coaching styles amplify what your lineups already do well.

Coaches get the full player-page treatment now.

Eighty candidates, and every one of them has opinions.

Room to grow: the development pipeline

Right up there with extensions on the most-requested list: a development league. Draft a project, send him down, and let him earn his way back to your rotation instead of rotting at the end of the bench.

Send him down, let him cook.

The little big things

A few more things making the trip to 1.0, rapid fire:

• End-game strategy is in the sim now. Intentional fouls, running out the clock, desperation threes at the buzzer.
• Full offline support. Once the game loads you can play with no connection at all. Airplane mode is now a valid way to play FOH.
• A proper mobile polish pass, because this game should feel great on your phone.
• The 30 franchises are getting real identities: new logos, a few new team names, proper colors. That one is getting its own post soon and I genuinely can’t wait to show you.
• Save durability. Every update runs through dozens of automated engine checks, plus a browser test that boots the game, plays it, and loads real old beta saves through every migration before anything ships. Your save surviving updates is something we test, not something we hope for.
• And more simming. So much more simming. Everything above gets tuned against a calibration fleet before it ships. We’re past 3,000 full test seasons and 4.5 million simulated games, and both numbers are still climbing.

And all that on top of what’s already in the game

Everything above is the new stuff. The beta you can play today already has the full GM loop:

• A complete season sim: 82 games, playoffs, and a box score for every game in the league
• The draft, with lottery night, scouted draft classes, and prospects who don’t always turn out the way the scouts promised
• Free agency on a real salary cap, with Bird rights, cap holds, and CPU teams that fight for their guys
• Trades with players, picks, and pick protections that actually convey (or don’t)
• Player development, aging, and retirement
• Awards races, All-Star weekend, and injuries that test your depth
• Player faces in two styles, classic cartoons or press photos, your call per league
• A full team hub and a lineups control room where you set the rotation your way

Try it

The beta is live, free, and runs right in your browser with no signup: frontofficehoops.com. If something breaks, or something makes you smile, post it in r/FrontOfficeHoops. I read everything. And if you start a seeded league race with a friend, I want to hear who won.