I am by no means an expert but my reading of a few posts - especially made by RomynPG, seem to indicate there may be an issue with getting the data necessary to run the normal FPL side games this year.

Is that the case (or perhaps it is too early to tell)?

Many of the more complex games and here I guess I am including, but not limited to FISO 5AS, The FPL cup and Reds excellent divisional game would become difficult / impossible to run.

Sounds like RomynPG will not have the time to dedicate to re-working the process. I hasten to add that this is by no means a dig or a criticism - it's only by his hard work that we have been blessed with the games for so long up to now. I imagine the process is time consuming and we all have other demands on our time.

I wonder if someone with a bit of knowledge in the area could sum it up for the laymen and women amongst us and whether a solution is possible.

ta.

5AS should be fine as everyone is in the separate mini leagues and downloading the league details is still possible via web query in excel.
The problem I encountered is downloading player stats and the side games are not reliant on that.

I don't know how the game Reds ran worked as I don't remember a league on the FPL site.

From my point of view the side-games I have provided data for should still be possible but, I and stress, I can't guarantee it.

The changes to the way Player data is presented by FPL makes things like CTC more difficult but not impossible. I've never used Player data in any of the games I've supported and if D+ (and others) wish to spend some time changing their data collection methods then that is up to them. For my part I've collected Player data for years but never really used it so I probably won't bother amending my code.

The other side-games (I'm involved with) fit into 2 main categories.

1. GW total type games:
These are the majority and rely on downloading and parsing the league pages. As this data is displayed it can be grabbed - but the layout is now different and it will take time to amend code to get these to functon in the same way. These routines are automated so it's not cut/paste but webQueries and VBA. On the up side is that all these games just feed off a common source so once the routines are changed for one the system will work for all. This would be set I'd try and do.

2. Full Player Stats games:
There's only 2 I've done that use data that is deeper than GW totals - ones that use all 15 players in a squad and have rules based on things like assists, goals, postion etc. Neither of these games, the Decathon or the Global Challenge ran last year so it's no great lose - although it is to me because they were my games and I'd have quite liked to bring them back. The data for those is at another level and requires both Fixture and Squads to be downloaded. I suspect I can't do those.

I'll look at stuff over the next couple of days but I'm fairly sure I'll need a wingman or two - especially in respect of the H2H as that needs organising from the entrants point of view...

later...

Thanks Romyn

A most useful summary.

The FPL Global Challenge was easily the most insane side game ever - for anyone who has not had the priviledge it effectivelly interacted with Google earth to translate FPL points into an animated yacht race across the world - with the ships mapped into Google Earth. How do you even come up with that

Siding on good (albeit slightly time consuming maybe) news re the normal games.

Good luck, Romyn!

I guess that if it isn't popular we'll have to go back to more simple games.
Fantasy Peppinho League, anyone?

FPL have said that printable player lists will be available soon although my question was about downloading player data.

Even if the downloading side is ok what about the timescale? Might be a bit more of a thinned out FISO 5AS this year...

5AS will be fine as does not rely on player data. It relies on team and league data and downloading league data is still OK.

I agree with Romyn and Surprised that the league pages required for FISO 5AS should be okay so there is no reason why things can't be kicked off straight away, just requires a FISO 5AS 2011/12 Recruitment/General thread to be started by either Krispy or Romyn, if they have the time.

I get that but from memory it takes a while to sort things out for the newer teams. There'll also be plenty of teams where one or more members are away or aren't playing so that might cause issues.

I realised I had misunderstood your post just after I posted so sorry about that.

My fault too- I think I was talking at cross purposes re this a couple of days ago when you were talking about downloadability re player lists and I was talking about downloading re data for the sidegames.

I think we were ALL worried about the data side (in fact I had somewhat of a panic attack about it as this is now why I play FF!) but once that was sorted (well, bar the extra work) my thoughts turned to the issue that I mentioned on the "why hasn't it started" thread, i.e. timescales.

I may be as thick as a whale omelette but isn't the player data all available from "view source" in the transfer page? In exactly the format it used to be.

The data format has changed since last year but it doesn't matter as full player lists are now available and the list can be imported into excel with web query.