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widmerj1 · 07-19-2006, 11:24 AM

I have had this game since the release date and I have become frustrated with my inability to decide what to do with this game.

Here is how I started and why I am frustrated.

I started with the real structure provided and selected the Yankees as the team I would GM. A went through the amatuer draft (250 rounds) where I picked some of the players myself (5-8 rounds worth) and most were picked by the computer.

Once I explored my situation I came up with the following problems. Any suggestions on how to improve my experience with the game are welcome.

1. The computer drafted mainly guys in their early 20's for my major league roster. I ended up with one of the lowest payrolls, a "non-exisistent" market size and a really poor team. The poor team is OK as that is a challenge but many of the guys on my ML roster are more suited for A or AA at best. The guys that were assigned to the minor leagues are primarily guys that have little chance of ever making it. While that is realistic - very few ever make it - what am I doing with a 37 year-old guy in Single A whose ceiling is that he will stink in Single A?

2. The inclusion of winter leagues that use unique players - not players trying to hone their skills from existing teams in the off season - is ridiculous. One of those teams offered me a trade within a couple of days. For this problem I realize that I can play without those leagues but thought their inclusion in the wrong format was ill-advised.

3. The stadiums provided with the game had no correlation to real life. I know that users have worked hard on making this better including the minor league stadiums as well but going through the process of assigning the stadiums and pictures and all that is a burden.

4. You seem to have to create a league first and then make modifications or use another user's quick start (thank goodness for the devoted people out there willing to put in all that time). My problem with this is that I really did not like to allocation of names that came with the game and I found a better version created by a user and then tweaked it so that we'd get a few Italian names in the American name creation process. Way too many hispanic names of American decent and way too many guys like Joey Martin hailing from Mazatlan, Mexico. Come on, how many Mexican guys do you know are named Joey Martin? However, I think the only way to utilize a new name file is to create a new game. You should be able to set everything up the way you like it, save it as a quick-start and then be able to restart or modify that quick-start as you see fit. I currently see the quick-start as just a means of starting the same configuration again - unmodified. So if I wanted to eliminate the Japanese league I basically have to start a new game and rename all of the teams and do all of the stadium modifications, etc, etc. Am I right with this?

5. The financial system having New York with a non-existent market just does not make sense. I thought the "world" file would help determine the market size. I know that it does in terms of randomizing cities and picking appropriate cities for different level leagues. However, I can't see how the NY is 'non-existent' should have ever gotten past the developers. This market size may have been related to the composition of my roster or may have contributed to the type of guys picked by the computer. Not sure whether the chicken or the egg came first.

6. The whole scounting system needs to be re-done. The bland numerical reports that the scouts come back with make this feature boring and tedious. I think you should be able to decide your level of scouting activity at a cost against your budget and then give general guidelines where you want you scouts to focus their attention and off they go. You would then get periodic reports from the director of scouting giving you a list of 16-19 year-olds from Venezuela that are worthy of signing contracts. You would then make offers and other computer teams would as well and you'd sign your non-draft minor leaguers in that way. You'd also get a pre-draft analysis for the amatuer draft and based on those recommendations you'd be armed for the amatuer draft. The ability of your scouts and the financial committment you make to scouting would both contribute to the organization's ability to draft future stars.

7. It seems like there are way too many players in their early 20's who are the best starting pitchers created by the game.

The bottom line is that I think the openess of the structure that allows users to create their own universe with purely fictional teams and players and with logos and pictures the like is great but I also think there should have been a cohesion in game setup that would allow players to use real market sizes, to easily assign a logo, stadium info and stadium pictures to teams.

I think the developers have a really great framework that underlies this game but that in their zeal to allow for customization, they went too far and were correctly betting on the community-at-large doing most of the dirty work (setting up correct financials, stadiums, team names and logos, etc.) that should have been provided with the game. I realize that licensing issues are a problem but I know that I'd have paid at least $15 more for a product that would allow me to be playing 10 minutes after install rather than spending weeks setting it up and then not really enjoying the experience anyway. It really bugs me that I went through so much work and then still got a team in NY with a poor financial setup and I don't really want to start everything over with someone else's quick-start.

I really want to like this game but I am not sure what to do with the game. I feel like there are so many steps involved to get it the way I want it that starting over is just too much of a time commitment.

Does anyone have a step-by-step list of the things they do to get started with proper leagues, teams, logos, stadiums, financials, good player name creation, etc.?

Thanks for listening.

07-19-2006, 11:24 AM	#8
widmerj1 Bat Boy Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 7	I have had this game since the release date and I have become frustrated with my inability to decide what to do with this game. Here is how I started and why I am frustrated. I started with the real structure provided and selected the Yankees as the team I would GM. A went through the amatuer draft (250 rounds) where I picked some of the players myself (5-8 rounds worth) and most were picked by the computer. Once I explored my situation I came up with the following problems. Any suggestions on how to improve my experience with the game are welcome. 1. The computer drafted mainly guys in their early 20's for my major league roster. I ended up with one of the lowest payrolls, a "non-exisistent" market size and a really poor team. The poor team is OK as that is a challenge but many of the guys on my ML roster are more suited for A or AA at best. The guys that were assigned to the minor leagues are primarily guys that have little chance of ever making it. While that is realistic - very few ever make it - what am I doing with a 37 year-old guy in Single A whose ceiling is that he will stink in Single A? 2. The inclusion of winter leagues that use unique players - not players trying to hone their skills from existing teams in the off season - is ridiculous. One of those teams offered me a trade within a couple of days. For this problem I realize that I can play without those leagues but thought their inclusion in the wrong format was ill-advised. 3. The stadiums provided with the game had no correlation to real life. I know that users have worked hard on making this better including the minor league stadiums as well but going through the process of assigning the stadiums and pictures and all that is a burden. 4. You seem to have to create a league first and then make modifications or use another user's quick start (thank goodness for the devoted people out there willing to put in all that time). My problem with this is that I really did not like to allocation of names that came with the game and I found a better version created by a user and then tweaked it so that we'd get a few Italian names in the American name creation process. Way too many hispanic names of American decent and way too many guys like Joey Martin hailing from Mazatlan, Mexico. Come on, how many Mexican guys do you know are named Joey Martin? However, I think the only way to utilize a new name file is to create a new game. You should be able to set everything up the way you like it, save it as a quick-start and then be able to restart or modify that quick-start as you see fit. I currently see the quick-start as just a means of starting the same configuration again - unmodified. So if I wanted to eliminate the Japanese league I basically have to start a new game and rename all of the teams and do all of the stadium modifications, etc, etc. Am I right with this? 5. The financial system having New York with a non-existent market just does not make sense. I thought the "world" file would help determine the market size. I know that it does in terms of randomizing cities and picking appropriate cities for different level leagues. However, I can't see how the NY is 'non-existent' should have ever gotten past the developers. This market size may have been related to the composition of my roster or may have contributed to the type of guys picked by the computer. Not sure whether the chicken or the egg came first. 6. The whole scounting system needs to be re-done. The bland numerical reports that the scouts come back with make this feature boring and tedious. I think you should be able to decide your level of scouting activity at a cost against your budget and then give general guidelines where you want you scouts to focus their attention and off they go. You would then get periodic reports from the director of scouting giving you a list of 16-19 year-olds from Venezuela that are worthy of signing contracts. You would then make offers and other computer teams would as well and you'd sign your non-draft minor leaguers in that way. You'd also get a pre-draft analysis for the amatuer draft and based on those recommendations you'd be armed for the amatuer draft. The ability of your scouts and the financial committment you make to scouting would both contribute to the organization's ability to draft future stars. 7. It seems like there are way too many players in their early 20's who are the best starting pitchers created by the game. The bottom line is that I think the openess of the structure that allows users to create their own universe with purely fictional teams and players and with logos and pictures the like is great but I also think there should have been a cohesion in game setup that would allow players to use real market sizes, to easily assign a logo, stadium info and stadium pictures to teams. I think the developers have a really great framework that underlies this game but that in their zeal to allow for customization, they went too far and were correctly betting on the community-at-large doing most of the dirty work (setting up correct financials, stadiums, team names and logos, etc.) that should have been provided with the game. I realize that licensing issues are a problem but I know that I'd have paid at least $15 more for a product that would allow me to be playing 10 minutes after install rather than spending weeks setting it up and then not really enjoying the experience anyway. It really bugs me that I went through so much work and then still got a team in NY with a poor financial setup and I don't really want to start everything over with someone else's quick-start. I really want to like this game but I am not sure what to do with the game. I feel like there are so many steps involved to get it the way I want it that starting over is just too much of a time commitment. Does anyone have a step-by-step list of the things they do to get started with proper leagues, teams, logos, stadiums, financials, good player name creation, etc.? Thanks for listening.