[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Sweed

But those prominently featured MLB capabilities need to be working not, having the problems we have today.

Well, yes, that's obvious.

Taking programming time away from that effort to add women that a tiny-tiny percentage of users will ever want or use is a problem IMHO.

I certainly have never (And I doubt anyone else has) suggested that programming time be taken away to add these things, they should be extras. That doesn't mean we should dismiss them as "silly". As someone who is studying games design I know a small amount about scheduling / priorities, etc. and it is not an easy thing to do. The very first thing you should do is a priority list, and what I try to do with suggestions like women's leagues et al. is to get that stuff on the list, even if it is right at the bottom.

Variable playoff structures would be a good thing. IMHO they shouldn't be made because you or I ask for them. They should be made because they will enhance the historical MLB capabilities of the game. Now the Diamond Mind player says hey I can buy OOTP for $25-$40 and replay history or I can use DMB and have to pay extra for any seasons I want to play. The result of adding this for historical MLB players will be a trickle down effect for fictional players of OOTP.

Of course, but in my opinion fictional leagues should be very nearly as important as MLB stuff. Pretty much it should be something like 36% MLB, 34% Historical, 30% Fictional. Personally I very rarely play MLB, but I can see that it is clearly the selling point of the game.

I play FM and really like relegation as it adds some excitement to your league.
However taking the time to implement it into OOTP, like women, is kind of a waste as the vast majority will never use it nor buy the game because of it.
Someone said that online leagues could use this as a way to stop teams from tanking to get a high pick. An honest question are there online leagues now that have so many on their waiting lists they will be running a lower league for teams to be relegated to or promoted from? Are there any online European leagues running that need relegation? My guess to both is no.

I'm not a huge fan of relegation for anything other than soccer, specifically English soccer. It's an artifact of the large league system. I think there are some online leagues that would like to use it. I personally never would in fictional leagues, but I still think it should be an option. It isn't high priority though.

If you really want to work for Markus after you graduate my suggestion would be you encourage him to do everything in his power to grow the game now. To use all his energy to get the MLB model, historical and current, to be as good as possible to make the game appeal to the average baseball fan who will want to play in a MLB world. Without those type of sales the team will never have to be expanded.

I agree he should do that, but as I said above, there does need to be some focus on the fictional game without relying on "trickle down", since that only really lets us do things that have been done in real life, which is fine, but I at least like doing things that are a little whacky.

I would love to run my own games company one day, but the next best thing would be working for a small company like OOTPdevelopments.