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Le Grande Orange · 12-06-2002, 04:59 PM

And here's the third and final chapter of my OOTP suggestion book.

WORLD WAR DRAFT OPTION

This is not my own idea, but instead was suggested by Henry. I thought it a very good idea, so I decided to add it to my book. It would add a lot to both historical and fictional leagues, as players can experiment with the kinds of challenges that teams must've faced during the real war years.

What this option would do when enabled for a season would be to have a certain number of players be drafted into military service to fight in the war. Additionally, a certain number of players may voluntarily enlist in the military before their draft came up. As a result, these drafted and volunteering players would not be present in the league. They would be away for as long as the war continued, which in game terms, would be until this draft option was turned off. Turning off the option before the beginning of a season means the war is over, and all surviving players who had been away serving in the military would return to their original teams.

I'd suggest having several levels of draft be available, from low to medium to high. As the level goes up, a greater percentage of the league's players enter military service, and the percentage of volunteers rises as well (in other words, as the level increases, it reflects the increasing level of war effort the nation is conducting). The exact manner in which the players are selected can probably be guided by the actual draft policies and procedures used in the U.S. during World War II. There should also be a small chance than any given player serving might be either killed in action or wounded seriously enough to end their baseball careers.

This war draft system need not be overly complicated, but mainly just give the feeling of what it must have been like during the war years. This option would add alot of interesting twists to an OOTP league, and I'd love to see something like make its way in OOTP's next version.

ADDITIONAL ERA SETTINGS

I would love to see the Era settings in OOTP cover more areas. These are the areas I'd like to see included:

19th Century Baseball: It would be great to see this often overlooked era of baseball get more direct support. Matching the stats from this time in OOTP currently can be rather difficult, so having an era setting in OOTP to help this out would be a nice addition.

Roster Sizes: Have the roster size limit adjust automatically to reflect the size in use for the selected era. This is particularly important for the pre-1900 baseball years. Ideally, for historical leagues, this era setting should adjust each league's roster size individually (since at different times the AL and NL have had different limits). For fictional leagues, the limit would be same for both leagues in a two league file for the selected era.

Attendance: The average attendance for the league as a whole should be different for different eras, and this should be reflected in the era settings. In the real baseball world, average attendances for a season have gradually increased over the years and decades, and adjusting the typical attendances for each era would result in seeing more appropriate attendance values when playing earlier eras.

Salaries: It would be great if the values for salaries and contracts could be more reflective of those from earlier eras. This need not involve a complicated inflation adjustment scheme, or major changes to the financial models. Of course, if the financials are getting a large overhaul, then incorporating the ability to have salary values more like those of earlier eras would be a great addition. However, it is still possible to have salaries that look era appropriate without making major changes. In this case I'd suggest using a simple division reduction method. For example, if a typical high end modern salary is around $10 million per season, and the high end salary in the 1960s is around $100,000, then when it comes to displaying the values onscreen the game would divide the modern salary figure by 100 to arrive at the earlier era's value. Internally, the game handles all the financial data as it would normally, but when it comes to displaying that data onscreen it uses the adjustment divider to make the financial values look closer to their era counterparts.

GAMES PLAYED AS DH AND PH

Something that can be difficult to find out in OOTP is just how many games a player played as a Designated Hitter and how many games the player came in as a Pinch Hitter. It's easy to see how many games a player played as a shortstop or left fielder, as one just looks at the fielding statistics and the number of games played at that position is listed there. But unfortunately there's no way to easily find out the number of games played as a DH or PH.

I'd really like to be able to see the number of games played by a player not only at the standard fielding positions but also in other roles. So, in OOTP5 perhaps DH and PH could be tracked as "positions" and thus will show up with the number of games played at them. This would allow us to see the all the roles in which the player was being used by the team. If not that, then perhaps some sort of "Games Played by Position/Role" sorting function which would list all the fielding positions along with DH and PH (and maybe Pinch Runner too), which then shows the number of games played at position/role each by each player.

I miss having this complete usage picture of a player, and would like to see it get addressed in OOTP5.

ATTENDANCE FACTORS

I'd like to see more factors influencing the attendance at games in OOTP. In addition to market size, fan loyalty, promotional days, and ticket prices, factors which should influence the attendance at games are: the day the game takes place, the time the game takes place, whether the game is a single game or doubleheader, the opponent, the performance of the home team, and the weather.

Of these additional factors, which day the games takes place on and when the game starts are important, particularly in the earlier years of baseball. The reason night games became popular with teams was precisely because many more fans could make it to the game as opposed to a weekday game, and it would be great to see this reflected in OOTP's game attendances, particularly when playing the earlier years in baseball.

In the days before night baseball, an attendance of 6,000 was considered quite good for a weekday game, since most fans had to work and could not make the game. This is why teams depended so much on weekend and holiday games, as these would draw far more fans to the ballpark. Doubleheaders were used to draw additonal fans, above and beyond what a single game would typically draw. Twilight games were largely a wartime innovation, as the game would start at 5:30 p.m. or so, and gave enough just time for fans to make the game after finishing work and thus would draw better than the usual daytime game. Weeknight games, often drawing 3 or 4 times the number of fans of a typical day game, naturally became inreasingly popular with teams.

In ranking which day and time typically draws the most fans to the ballpark, from highest to lowest it would look something like this:

1st - Saturday, Sunday, and holiday doubleheader
2nd - Saturday, Sunday, and holiday single game
3rd - Monday to Friday twilight-night doubleheader
4th - Monday to Friday night game
5th - Monday to Friday twilight game
6th - Monday to Friday day doubleheader
7th - Monday to Friday day game

It may seem hard to understand how a doubleheader was valuable to a team, given that it usually meant giving fans two games for the price of one. But it worked like this: teams only had so many weekend and holiday dates available to play on, and these choice dates had to be equally distributed amongst all the teams. As a result, teams had far more weekday home dates than weekend dates. Let's say a normal Sunday game draws around 30,000 fans and a weekday game around 5,000 fans. A Sunday and Monday game would then result in a total of 35,000 paying customers for the two games. But if a Sunday doubleheader draws around 40,000 fans, that means a total of 40,000 paying customers for two games. That's 5,000 more paying customers for the team than if it had scheduled a Sunday and Monday game. And that's why doubleheaders were popular with teams.

So, it'd be great if OOTP5 could also use the above aforementioned items in determining a game's attendance in addition to the factors it already uses, especially in the earlier baseball eras.

DUAL ALL-STAR GAMES

A small request, but given that four MLB seasons actually had this, it would be a nice little addition to have the ability to schedule two All-Star Games in a season if desired. It allows a bit more fidelity in recreating some of baseball's past seasons, plus the option of having two All-Star breaks means a little more flexibility in how a player sets up their season and schedule.

Well, that's about all I can think of to put into this book right now. If I think of anything new, I'll add it as a new chapter.

12-06-2002, 04:59 PM	#3
Le Grande Orange Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Up There Posts: 15,642	And here's the third and final chapter of my OOTP suggestion book. WORLD WAR DRAFT OPTION This is not my own idea, but instead was suggested by Henry. I thought it a very good idea, so I decided to add it to my book. It would add a lot to both historical and fictional leagues, as players can experiment with the kinds of challenges that teams must've faced during the real war years. What this option would do when enabled for a season would be to have a certain number of players be drafted into military service to fight in the war. Additionally, a certain number of players may voluntarily enlist in the military before their draft came up. As a result, these drafted and volunteering players would not be present in the league. They would be away for as long as the war continued, which in game terms, would be until this draft option was turned off. Turning off the option before the beginning of a season means the war is over, and all surviving players who had been away serving in the military would return to their original teams. I'd suggest having several levels of draft be available, from low to medium to high. As the level goes up, a greater percentage of the league's players enter military service, and the percentage of volunteers rises as well (in other words, as the level increases, it reflects the increasing level of war effort the nation is conducting). The exact manner in which the players are selected can probably be guided by the actual draft policies and procedures used in the U.S. during World War II. There should also be a small chance than any given player serving might be either killed in action or wounded seriously enough to end their baseball careers. This war draft system need not be overly complicated, but mainly just give the feeling of what it must have been like during the war years. This option would add alot of interesting twists to an OOTP league, and I'd love to see something like make its way in OOTP's next version. ADDITIONAL ERA SETTINGS I would love to see the Era settings in OOTP cover more areas. These are the areas I'd like to see included: 19th Century Baseball: It would be great to see this often overlooked era of baseball get more direct support. Matching the stats from this time in OOTP currently can be rather difficult, so having an era setting in OOTP to help this out would be a nice addition. Roster Sizes: Have the roster size limit adjust automatically to reflect the size in use for the selected era. This is particularly important for the pre-1900 baseball years. Ideally, for historical leagues, this era setting should adjust each league's roster size individually (since at different times the AL and NL have had different limits). For fictional leagues, the limit would be same for both leagues in a two league file for the selected era. Attendance: The average attendance for the league as a whole should be different for different eras, and this should be reflected in the era settings. In the real baseball world, average attendances for a season have gradually increased over the years and decades, and adjusting the typical attendances for each era would result in seeing more appropriate attendance values when playing earlier eras. Salaries: It would be great if the values for salaries and contracts could be more reflective of those from earlier eras. This need not involve a complicated inflation adjustment scheme, or major changes to the financial models. Of course, if the financials are getting a large overhaul, then incorporating the ability to have salary values more like those of earlier eras would be a great addition. However, it is still possible to have salaries that look era appropriate without making major changes. In this case I'd suggest using a simple division reduction method. For example, if a typical high end modern salary is around $10 million per season, and the high end salary in the 1960s is around $100,000, then when it comes to displaying the values onscreen the game would divide the modern salary figure by 100 to arrive at the earlier era's value. Internally, the game handles all the financial data as it would normally, but when it comes to displaying that data onscreen it uses the adjustment divider to make the financial values look closer to their era counterparts. GAMES PLAYED AS DH AND PH Something that can be difficult to find out in OOTP is just how many games a player played as a Designated Hitter and how many games the player came in as a Pinch Hitter. It's easy to see how many games a player played as a shortstop or left fielder, as one just looks at the fielding statistics and the number of games played at that position is listed there. But unfortunately there's no way to easily find out the number of games played as a DH or PH. I'd really like to be able to see the number of games played by a player not only at the standard fielding positions but also in other roles. So, in OOTP5 perhaps DH and PH could be tracked as "positions" and thus will show up with the number of games played at them. This would allow us to see the all the roles in which the player was being used by the team. If not that, then perhaps some sort of "Games Played by Position/Role" sorting function which would list all the fielding positions along with DH and PH (and maybe Pinch Runner too), which then shows the number of games played at position/role each by each player. I miss having this complete usage picture of a player, and would like to see it get addressed in OOTP5. ATTENDANCE FACTORS I'd like to see more factors influencing the attendance at games in OOTP. In addition to market size, fan loyalty, promotional days, and ticket prices, factors which should influence the attendance at games are: the day the game takes place, the time the game takes place, whether the game is a single game or doubleheader, the opponent, the performance of the home team, and the weather. Of these additional factors, which day the games takes place on and when the game starts are important, particularly in the earlier years of baseball. The reason night games became popular with teams was precisely because many more fans could make it to the game as opposed to a weekday game, and it would be great to see this reflected in OOTP's game attendances, particularly when playing the earlier years in baseball. In the days before night baseball, an attendance of 6,000 was considered quite good for a weekday game, since most fans had to work and could not make the game. This is why teams depended so much on weekend and holiday games, as these would draw far more fans to the ballpark. Doubleheaders were used to draw additonal fans, above and beyond what a single game would typically draw. Twilight games were largely a wartime innovation, as the game would start at 5:30 p.m. or so, and gave enough just time for fans to make the game after finishing work and thus would draw better than the usual daytime game. Weeknight games, often drawing 3 or 4 times the number of fans of a typical day game, naturally became inreasingly popular with teams. In ranking which day and time typically draws the most fans to the ballpark, from highest to lowest it would look something like this: 1st - Saturday, Sunday, and holiday doubleheader 2nd - Saturday, Sunday, and holiday single game 3rd - Monday to Friday twilight-night doubleheader 4th - Monday to Friday night game 5th - Monday to Friday twilight game 6th - Monday to Friday day doubleheader 7th - Monday to Friday day game It may seem hard to understand how a doubleheader was valuable to a team, given that it usually meant giving fans two games for the price of one. But it worked like this: teams only had so many weekend and holiday dates available to play on, and these choice dates had to be equally distributed amongst all the teams. As a result, teams had far more weekday home dates than weekend dates. Let's say a normal Sunday game draws around 30,000 fans and a weekday game around 5,000 fans. A Sunday and Monday game would then result in a total of 35,000 paying customers for the two games. But if a Sunday doubleheader draws around 40,000 fans, that means a total of 40,000 paying customers for two games. That's 5,000 more paying customers for the team than if it had scheduled a Sunday and Monday game. And that's why doubleheaders were popular with teams. So, it'd be great if OOTP5 could also use the above aforementioned items in determining a game's attendance in addition to the factors it already uses, especially in the earlier baseball eras. DUAL ALL-STAR GAMES A small request, but given that four MLB seasons actually had this, it would be a nice little addition to have the ability to schedule two All-Star Games in a season if desired. It allows a bit more fidelity in recreating some of baseball's past seasons, plus the option of having two All-Star breaks means a little more flexibility in how a player sets up their season and schedule. Well, that's about all I can think of to put into this book right now. If I think of anything new, I'll add it as a new chapter.