Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
I like options too, and to be honest I would probably use all these lists because I'm that kind of guy, but at the same time I talk to too many people in my day job who are just plain perplexed because our website gives one type of its users so many options that the end result is a confusing mess. It doesn't matter whether or not you provide it as an option. You will make the game more confusing to new users if you have 4 different kinds of lists for players who can't suit up today.
This goes double for people who want to get into OOTP after giving, say, WWSM or EHM or FOF a whirl. These are people who eventually will, no doubt, be tweaking their game all to heck because that's how they get their enjoyment out of a product like this, but at the same time they need the ability to crawl before they can walk, so to speak. If you don't follow baseball as avidly as you do or I do for that matter, you might not have any idea what the difference between the Disabled List and the Suspended list is, or why the Bereavement List even exists. The difference between the 15 day and the 60 day DL might be the edge of what you could handle the first couple times around. Yes, you could read the (now 300+ page) manual, and again some of us like to have big long manuals we can read for pleasure in the bathtub, but a lot of people just want to play baseball.
My other issue here is that when Markus puts stuff into the game a couple weeks before it comes out (and from what it sounds like, the game is close to being released), it tends to not be playtested terribly well. How could it possibly be playtested as well as a feature that was added back in January? Even if the beta team concentrates on the feature, extra things are going to come up as a result of long term sims, of people playing out games instead of quick-simming them, of people accidentally using the lists for purposes other than what they're supposed to be used for, and so on. I think that something like this deserves the attention that the fanbase, the beta team, and the developers. This does not strike me as a quick little add-on that will work great right out of the box, particularly when you take into account the fact that opposing AI is going to need to understand these lists as well.
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well historically we've usually needed a couple of patches to right the ship and have the game be stable enough to play seriously (at least without destroying all the effort one has put it to set up a league). at least with these additions (fights, drugs and subsequent suspensions) we can turn them off if something isnt working right. but its a little disappointing that the issue of what to actually do with these suspended players is just being addressed now. i dunno, maybe it will be easy to add some sort of suspended/restricted list but something tells me not, at least with our experience with how the AI has handled the roster moves in the past. its a pretty sensitive area and the logic has to be spot on.
in terms of the options though, i think at some point you have to concede that the game is sophisticated and does require some understanding of the game outside balls and strikes (to simplify quite a bit). these days the gaming crowd is probably able to handle, and enjoy, something more sophisticated than simple replay games, or arcade style simulations. just as many fans, casual or serious, demand and understand more dynamic and complex content (look at the espn/mlb sites) so it goes for this game.
you cant please everyone and people that want to jump in quickly are bound to be disappointed, not get into the game and not buy it. ive had this happen a few times w/friends ive introduced OOTP to. some have given up pretty quick, others have stuck to it. the great thing is that is a competitive market for the niche that it is. there are simpler games, arcade game, hell you can go play in the strat tournaments if you want to
im just thrilled that theres a game like this to cater to whatever whim i have.